Chapter 3

"I can't believe how long Christie is taking in McGonagall's office," Ron said, leaning over the table towards Harry, with Ginny sitting next to him. "What she doing in there? Having a game of wizard's chess?"

"I don't know," Harry said, shrugging his shoulders. "Doesn't she have to be sorted before the first years arrive?"

Ron, Harry and Ginny were all sitting down; waiting for the last of the students to take their seats, in the Great Hall. While Hermione was running around, shouting orders at scared second years that got in her way. The Great Hall looked exactly like it did before the war, the large dark windows that stood tall in the old chipped stone walls, which looked like nothing had happened at all in the last year, but Harry could feel the echoes of the war through the school.

"Ah, look, there she is." Ginny said, pointing towards the doors of the Great Hall. Christie came almost skipping over towards them, her pale cheeks seemed to gain some colour since seeing her on the train.

She reached the table with an enormous smile on her face, "Guess what house I'm in!" she said, standing with her arms in the air.

"You're in Gryffindor!" the three smiling people in front of her cheered.

"No, I'm in Slytherin, what do you think?" she said sarcastically; she could tell by Ron's confused face he wasn't getting her sarcasm. "Of course I'm in Gryffindor." She sat down next to him, who had his back to the rest of the great hall.

"So why did McGonagall want to see you?" Harry asked her, "Apart from the fact she sorted you."

"She said she wanted to talk about my behaviour and stuff. Nothing much really, but she just went on for ages saying that Hogwarts doesn't accept that kind of behaviour, so it was quite boring after a while." Christies said, then took a sip from her Goblet.

Before they could ask her any other questions, which had been on their minds, Hermione came passing them with a whole bunch of first years following behind her. They hadn't noticed McGonagall enter the Great Hall and take her seat in the middle of the staff table.

Hermione walked up to the sorting hat with her chin and nose pointed high up towards the bewitched sky. Christie, Ron and Harry couldn't help but give a little laugh, but they stopped immediately as Ginny's stare could have pierced holes in their heads.

Then the sorting began, Hufflepuff gained the most students this year, leaving only a few left to the other houses. After the sorting was finished and the cheers of the Ravenclaw table died down, welcoming the last first year to join them, Professor McGonagall got up and made her speech, and with that a giant pile of food appeared on the tables in front of them.

"It's about time, I'm starving." Ron said, picking up everything his hands landed on and shoving them on his plate, then taking a large bite from each piece of food on his plate.

"Slow down, Ronald, you look like an animal." Hermione said with a disapproving look, then turning her attention to Christie. "Aren't you going to eat anything?" she asked.

"No I'm okay" she said, looking at Ron as if he was something from the discovery channel, as he attempted to put half a steak in his mouth at once, "I ate something earlier, thanks."

"You sure." Ron said once he had given up on squeezing the steak in his mouth, he was now trying to use his wand to re-heat the chicken he had left on his plate.

"Ahwoo !" Ron screamed, dropping the plate of chicken he just picked up. "That's boiling!" he said while rubbing his hand, trying to stop himself from crying.

"Can't the most famous red head in the world take tiny little burn." shouted someone from the Slytherin table, no one dared to laugh, ever since the war no one from Slytherin would even look at any of the Golden trio let alone bully them.

"Let me have a look" Hermione demanded, ignoring the patronizing voice coming from behind her. She instead pulled her wand out and cooled the plate in front of her boyfriend. "There you go Ronald; you should really be more careful next time."

Then the same high pitched voice squeaked across the Hall from the Slytherin table, "Aww, do you want your mummy, Weasley." Everyone turned around this time, to see a skinny dark haired first year facing Ron and Hermione.

"Just ignore him." Hermione and Harry said together, as Ron's ears grew redder by the second.

The boy continued, as the hall grew even more silent, "I would have thought she would have had more sense than to go out with some like you, but then again she is a filthy mudblood." Everyone in the hall flinched at the sound of that word.

Ron looked like he was going to explode; he began to rise from his seat. Before he could, Christie took hold of his wrist and pulled him back down, with no effort at all. The loud first year still not getting the hint that nobody cared carried on.

"You see, I come from a pureblood family see, and my father will have someone's head when he friends out I'm sitting 10 feet away from a dirty mud-"

"Shut up!" Christie shouted across the hall not looking up from her empty plate, then she realised she wasn't the only one who spoke.

…..

"Shut up!" Draco shouted though his teeth while facing his plate of food. Then his eyes shot up as he realised he was not the only person to say this.

The Great Hall's silence was broken as the noise of tapping glass came from the staff table. McGonagall was going to make her first speech as headmistress at the school. "First of all I would like to say a big Thank you from me to the brilliant work achieved by Professor Flitwick and Professor Hagrid in restoring the school back to its full glory"

Everyone moved there gazes from the scene before them to the front of the Hall but Draco's eyes locked onto a pair of dark eyes which like him didn't seem to notice the women's voice echo though the Hall.

"I would like say welcome to our new students here at Hogwarts and if there are any problems to see me or your new head of years…"

Draco couldn't seem to want to move his gaze from the eyes which fascinated him so much; they were the darkest colour of brown he had ever seen, they could easily have been black.

…..

"…I would also like to welcome back our previous students and also welcome our extended seventh year class for those whose teaching here at Hogwarts was disrupted by the events of last year…"

She sat there just looking at him for a minute, then the boys eyes glanced over towards her then looked softly into her eyes. She was about to move her gaze, before she lost her trail of thought in the light grey eyes that had stopped her for a moment on the train. They both starred back at each other not listening to their surroundings.

"Christie? Christie?" Her eyes snapped back into focus with Harry's voice, she hadn't noticed everyone was getting up from their seats. "Are you coming?"

"Um…" she couldn't think straight her head was spinning.

"Christie?" Ron said while poking at her arm, but moved his hand from her pale skin quickly. "You're freezing!"

"Let's go, before all the seats are taken in the common room." Ginny said getting up off her seat while holding on to Harry's hand. "Christie are you coming?"

"Uh… yeah" she said then took one last glance behind her, looking for the familiar face of the stranger from the train but, he was gone.