Chapter 02

Arabela let out a quiet huff as she plopped down onto her seat. It had taken a little while, but she had finally found an empty compartment. It had definitely surprised her when the train lurched forward. She drummed her lap with her hands, thinking about what she should do. She wondered how long the train ride would be. Ara pondered her options before settling on reading. As she pulled out her book, Ara heard indistinguishable voices outside the compartment she was in. They seemed to be getting closer.

'Probably just passing by' Arabela thought to herself as she opened her book. Her heart skipped a beat when she heard the door slide open. As the door opened, two girls came into view. One was incredibly tall; at least to Arabela she looked really tall but that was probably just her since she was so short. She seemed to be nearly a foot taller than the brunette that was sitting down. The tall girl had seemingly untamable curly hair that barely reached her shoulders, making her look slightly like the mad hatter. Her blonde hair, though, was dark enough so it almost looked brown. She had dark colored eyes that looked like they were brown. They were difficult to distinguish the color because of the rimmed glasses right in front of them. Another thing Ara immediately noticed was that she was slightly pale.

The second was two or three inches shorter than the blonde. Her dark brown hair that was slightly red was pulled up into a ponytail. Her hair seemed to only reach her shoulder blades. She also had glasses that were rimmed black and sea foam green. The darker skinned girl also had braces, and her teeth looked slightly bigger due to her small upper lip. Her eyes were clearly a dark brown.

"Um, h-hi," stuttered the taller girl. Ara realized that she had been staring and looked away, her cheeks growing warm. "Can w-we sit here?" Arabela just let out a small nod.

The girls sat across from her, the shorter one sitting closer to the window. They sat in awkward silence as Arabela attempted to read her book but gave up when she couldn't concentrate. She closed her book loudly, huffing out a puff of air. She stared at the cover of the book for a little while before glancing up at the girls through her bangs and eyelashes.

"So who are you?" She immediately mentally beat herself up. Who are you? Seriously?! Who starts a conversation like that?!

"Um, I'm, uh, Guinevere. Uh, G-Guinevere Ta-Taylor," the tall girl managed to get out. Huh. Taylor, taller. Easy to remember.

"Shelby. Harrison," the girl sitting near the window introduced herself with a light grimace on her face. Ara nodded in acknowledgement before realizing that they were staring at her.

"Oh! Um, I'm Arabela Giovanelli," she let out a weak smile. "So, uh, is this your first year?" Okay, good. Conversation starter.

"Yeah," Guinevere replied while Shelby just nodded. Huh. Guess they don't want to talk. Ara let out a small sigh before opening her book again. What was she reading again? Ara checked the cover. Oh yeah. She was reading about potions. Ara wasn't really good at retaining information so she tried to study as much as she could over the summer. She opened the book again and started reading once again.

She had just finished the the third chapter when she heard a rattling a cart outside. Ara looked up in confusion. What was that? Was it a vendor? What could they be selling? She put a bookmark to hold her place before checking to see what caused the noise. It was an old lady with a cart full of candy. Arabela slumped back into her seat in disappointment. She didn't bring any money, thinking that there was nothing to buy at a school except for maybe some school supplies.

"What is that?" Ara shot up in her seat, momentarily forgetting about her fellow students that were sitting right in front of her.

"Oh, uh, it was some old lady selling some, uh, candy," Ara responded so quietly, the other girls almost couldn't hear her. Almost.

"Oh. Okay," Shelby nodded. Ara started to read chapter three of her book when suddenly, there was a knock on the door. The door was slid open by two red heads. Ara blinked, recognizing them from the station.

"Fred? George?" She found herself asking before she could stop herself. The twins looked at her as on of them closed the door once again and their faces nearly split in half

"Arabela!" They greeted in unison.

"Fancy seeing you again," George grinned at her as Fred turned around to see who else was with me.

"Hey, I know you! You're the other clutz I met on platform," Fred grinned as Guinevere's face turned pink.

"I-I'm Guinevere, actually," she retorted.

"Right," Fred responded as he sat down next to her. George then invited himself to sit right next to Ara. Like, almost on top of her. He put his arm around her which Ara responded by hunching her shoulders in an attempt to make herself smaller.

"Um, can you not?" She questioned quietly as she tries to squirm out of the twin's grip but to no avail. Ara sighed as she accepted her fate, still trying to make herself small enough to disappear. "I kind of just wanted to read," George ignored her.

"We just saw the candy cart pass by, you guys didn't get anything?" Fred asked as he looked around at them. None of them responded. "Seriously?" He asked in disbelief, raising an eye brow. George looked at Ara incredulously.

"Okay then! I guess it's a good thing we got some then, huh?" They grinned at one another. "It doesn't look like we're near Hogwarts yet, so we have some time to eat our sweets," they emptied their pockets for us to see.

"What kind of candies do you guys have, anyway?" Ara spoke without thinking once again.

"Haven't you ever had candy before?" Ara blushed.

"I have but only muggle candy like M&Ms, Skittles, and DumDums. I haven't had your kind of candy. I eat snickers, not-," Ara pauses to pick a candy up and read the lable. "Chocolate frogs. Muggles don't eat these," the red heads gave me a weird look.

"Are you muggle born?" George asked.

"No, but my mom is," Ara replied as she looked through the candy that the twins had supplied. What were Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans? She gave a minuscule shrug and opened it up. Ara popped a jelly bean in her mouth just as the others were shouting protests. She gave them a weird look.

"If you didn't want me eating your candy, you could've just said so," she muttered as she handed the box back. She looked at them when they didn't grab the candy back, being greeted by states. "What?"

"It doesn't taste weird?" The twin on her left asked.

"No, is it supposed to?" Ara chewed into another one.

"Ew," she scrunched up her nose.

"What'd you get?" Fred grinned.

"Licorice,"

The twins frowned once again.

"Seriously?" George got a jelly bean and threw it into his mouth before almost immediately gagged. "What the hell? I got barf," Ara's eyes grew wide.

"What?! What kind of flavor is that?!" She gaped at the others. Fred shrugged. His only response was that it did say every flavor.

"Is that Hogwarts?" Shelby suddenly spoke up. They all glanced out the window, some longer than others, to see a huge, majestic, and old looking castle. The twins got up, gathering their candy.

"Better put on our robes," one twin said to the other. The one being spoken to, who Ara thinks is George, nods in agreement. They look at the girls and bid their farewells.

"Good luck at the sorting," was the last thing they said before leaving the compartment.

"What sorting?" Guinevere questioned. Shelby didn't know, and neither did Ara so they just dropped the subject and put their robes on.

Once she finished gettin ready, Ara took a deep breath and gathered as much courage as she could. Before she could do anything, though, Shelby spoke up.

"Hey, we should hang out. You know, later," Ara smiled sheepishly at her and nodded, soon joined by Guinevere.

"You c-can call m-me Gwen, by the way," Guinevere added.

"Ara, Arabela is a little long," she joined in. "Shall we?" And they got off the train, only to be greeted by a huge, hairy man.