I woke early the next morning and lay in bed , basking in the morning sunlight that flooded through window next to my bed. I had purposely left my four poster curtains open last night so I could lie like this. I'm a complete sun worshipper, but I have to be careful not to burn. Lobster red is not a good colour for gingers.
I stretched slowly and sat up. The other 3 girls were still asleep, and a look at my watch told me that it was too early to start moving yet.
My room mates were all right. One was the blonde Slytherin that I had seen arguing with Louis. Her name was Sophia Gregory and she seemed okay. She was quiet but polite and was now sleeping soundly, breathing softly, her hair strewn over her pillow.
The Hufflepuff was a girl called Jean Thorpe, an intensely silly girl who I had a run in with in 4th year. She had stalked Albus for a while and I lost my temper with her one day. Since then her hair had gone back to it's natural dark brown colour and we managed to keep a civilised veneer on things. Barely.
I liked the Ravenclaw girl, a tall slim girl called Anna Jessop. Her bother Oliver was a friend of Hugo's and while I didn't know her well, I admired her a lot. She was quiet, but had a wicked sense of humour and flew like a bird. She played as a beater and belted with the strength of any lad. She was asleep on her stomach, one leg hanging out of the covers, her light brown hair covering her slim clever face.
Sighing again I realised that it would be at least an hour before the others would wake. I turned onto my side and tilted my head towards the sun, and was asleep again a few seconds later.
3 hours later, I was regretting my nap. I had woken up groggy, and the girls had swiped all the hot water. The result was that my brief foray into the freezing shower did nothing to wake me up properly and I couldn't bare to stay in it long enough to condition my hair, which was now twisted into a damp messy bun at the back of my head, and was probably starting to frizz. By the time I sat at the Gryfindor table I was throughly grumpy and still half asleep. The main topic of conversation was the betting on who was most lightly to be seriously injured first.
My money was on a seriously annoying Ravenclaw called Andrew Brixton who had the ability to wreck a head from 20 paces away. Jean Thorpe however was favourite at 2/1(Albus was running the book), because she was in a room with me and Sophia. Apparently Sophia wasn't know for her patience either.
I sat clutching a bucket of steaming coffee before deciding I needed more information before making any bets. I waited a minute for the caffeine to kick in.
"Who's Andrew in with?" I asked the table
"Me, Malfoy and Tony Griffin" Said Edward Allderton dejectedly. "I swear to god I'll be in a loony bin by the end of the year"
I laughed sympathetically. "Put me down for 5 Gallons please Albus, Malfoy will annihilate him!"
Our laughter was interrupted by Professor Longbottom handing out our timetables.
"6th years you all have Prof. Howard this morning. I trust no one has died yet? I wouldn't like to have to attend a funeral so early in the year. Did you all have good holidays?"
Albus answered for us. "They were great Neville! And no deaths yet, but it won't long I'd say. Would you like to have a bet?"
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that Albus. Running a book is an expellable offence. And that's Professor Longbottom to you during term." The Professor laughed and moved on down the table.
Gillian and I looked over each others time tables. They were very nearly the same, but she was taking Runes and I had chosen Care of Magical Creatures.
"God I don't have any free periods on Mondays! I loved my free period before lunch. Instead I have bloody double bloody potions! Gahhh" Gill exclaimed with disgust
"Double potions on a Monday? Brilliant!" I checked my timetable. "Fantastic I only have three classes on a Monday. Double Howard, double potions, and double Care of Magical Creatures! I love whoever set this timetable" I grinned happily, the coffee was definitely doing it's job properly. I munched on a slice of toast as I examined the rest of the week.
Gill and Albus were looking at me as if I'd suddenly been infested by a swarm of pygmy gnomes
"What?" I asked wincing as a drop of water from my hair trickled down my neck and under my shirt.
Gill shook her head at me in exasperation "Only you would be excited over double potions. I swear there's something wrong with you"
I laughed at her as we gathered our stuff together for our first lesson
Ten minutes later the 44 6th years were seated in classroom at the base of the astronomy tower, waiting on Professor Howard. The bell had rung 5 minutes ago and there was still no sign of her. The classroom was arranged almost like the Divination classroom (which I had ventured into once, in 3rd year, just to annoy mum), with chairs and pouffes of various sizes and styles scattered around the room in small clusters. Gill, Albus and myself had claimed one of the clusters in the middle and we had been joined by Louis who was followed by Malfoy and Sophia.
I was a bit surprised by the latter two's choice of seats but kept quiet. I'd never had much to do with either of them. They were an introverted bunch, our year of Slytherins. There were always rows of course, but no huge rivalries.
Malfoy was the "strong silent type". At first I had thought that he wasn't very bright, and that was the reason for his seemingly broody nature, but he always did well in his classes. The only time I had seen him really animated was during quidditch. He played keeper for Slytherin and played it quite well. He was good looking, with his pale hair brushed back in soft wings over his ears, and grey eyes, and one of the more silly girls in my dorm had been known to swoon over his wide shoulders. Personally he wasn't really my type, I like to have a bit of a laugh with a bloke, but he did well for himself with girls. There was always bits of scandal floating around Hogwarts (stick over 300 teenagers with raging hormones in the same building, what do you expect?) and there had been a few bits about him over the years.
It was noted that he never went out with anyone from his own house. I didn't know what the story was there, probably something to do with being related to most of them. Hell if you went far enough back even we were related.
Sophia was pretty. She was no great beauty, but had the palest blue eyes, with long dark blonde hair. Her features were even, except for her very short upper lip, which couple with her high head carrige gave her a permanent look of disdain. She was smiling now though over something Louis and Malfoy were discussing. Albus had just joined in. I listened for a moment, knowing it was rude to do so, but I figured that if they sat with us they wouldn't mind too much.
Oh no. It was something about the portable lake that Uncle George had just sent Fred. While I am a fairly good actress, trying to lie to McGonagall was nearly impossible. I'd usually start to twitch. I had lost count of the amount of times the Headmistress had pulled me up to her office to ask me to try and control my unruly cousins (and brother). I'd be more successful trying to control a herd of stampeding elephants. I cleared my throat.
As the others looked up questioningly, we were joined by yet another cousin, Molly who was Uncle Percy and Aunt Audrey's eldest daughter. Molly was a very pretty Ravenclaw who had managed to escape all of the Weasley genes and was the image of her mother, with long brown hair and hazel eyes. Lucky her.
She was dragging a chair with her, while glaring daggers at the group she had just left.
"Budge over guys, I hope you don't mind me joining you, but if I had to listen to effing Andrew for another moment, I swear I would have taken great pleasure in shoving my fist into his face" She dropped into the chair, exhausted by her rage, as we laughed sympathetically.
"I wish you had Mol" I said, as I did some quick calculations "Albus would have owed me 200 Gallons!"
Even Malfoy laughed at that.
"Urgh" she replied "Would someone please kick his ass into hell? You're in his dorm aren't you" she asked Malfoy hopefully "Couldn't you slip him something fatal during the night" She raised an eyebrow and looked up at him appealingly. He smiled again
"It would be my very great pleasure, but I promised my mother I'd do my best not to get expelled. I'm sure we can work out something though, even if just to get Rose her 200 Gallons" he replied looking at me and winking. I was a bit startled, but was saved by the entrance of Professor Howard, who was dressed in pale grey robes with a matching muggle skirt suit underneath today. I had to say, the woman had style.
"Good morning, everyone still alive?" She looked around, smiling when no one was announced deceased, and looked like she was trying to stifle a laugh as Molly answered "Unfortunately"
She took a clipboard from her desk and transfigured the desk into an armchair.
"Now then. First I'll go over a couple of rules I didn't mention last night. Most of the same Hogwarts rules apply, but the South Tower is my jurisdiction as I am, for all intensive purposes, your head of house. First I do not mind parties. The object of this program is to promote befriending people outside your house. So a small amount of alcohol is fine with me. Just don't go mental, and not on school night, except for special occasions, for which permission must be granted by me. Also, if you are a smoker, feel free to smoke in the courtyard, you'll probably find me there anyway. Hogsmeades visits can be arranged through me. If you want to go down, just ask me. If you're having any troubles you can come to me. I'm open to any discussions, and I don't judge. It's hard being 16, I remember. I'm also here as career guidance. Don't worry if you don't know what you want to do with your life. You're not really supposed to. I still don't know what I want to do with mine." We laughed and Professor Howard smiled at us once more. "I would also advise you not to ask me anything important first thing in the morning, let me at least have my coffee first, preferably a full breakfast. Two more things then. I'm thinking about forming an amateur quidditch team to take part in the BAT, which is the British Amateur League for any of you who don't know. Anyone interested, please come to me in the next few days. Also anyone interested in learning to drive a car or ride a horse is welcome to ask me about those too. Both are very handy skills let me tell you."
There was a couple of startled mutters at the last bits of information. I wondered if I could fit a second quidditch team into my schedule.
Professor Howard glanced at a silver pocket watch.
"Lovely that's that done. Now this class is simply to help you to fit into each others worlds. Some of you have been brought up as muggles, some as purebloods, and some straddling the two. The last group has the least need for this class, but I promise you will all learn in this room. First thing I want is a show of hands, How many of you have a pureblood parent?" There was a slight hesitation then nearly half the room raised it's hands. Professor Howard did a quick count.
"Thank you. Now if I said "Hail cousin, well met" I could be talking to anyone of 18 people in this room. I'm a pureblood, and therefore everyone with a pureblood parent is probably a 4th cousin or so, on one side or another. Now to me the blood means very little. A predisposition towards certain magical skills is the perhaps the only advantage magically of being pureblood, I'm talking about Animagi, Metamorphmagi, Occlumency and Legilimency etc, but apart from metamorphamagus these can be taught to anyone." She looked pensive for a moment and continued
"Now a little about myself and then a little about you. We have just the right amount of time for everyone to introduce themselves. I know - you know each other all 5 years, but you'll be surprised what you don't know about each other. I shall start. My name is Lysandra Ava Rosier Howard, though I'm generally known as Ava Howard. My mother was an English pureblood, my father an Irish one. I grew up in Ireland and though I went to Hogwarts, I attended a muggle primary school in Ireland. I love reading, horses and quidditch, my favourite subject in school was Potions and when I grow up I want to be a jockey." She smiled mischievously at us "So that's what I want - full name, blood status, where you're from, 3 things you like, favourite subject, and what you think you want to be when you grow up - no matter how silly. Okay?" At our nods, she conjured a small ball of white light, wandlessly and threw it up towards the ceiling. It bobbed there above her head.
"This will pick people at random, when it hovers over your head it's your turn. Okay go!" The little ball spun around the room, and stopped over the head of a Hufflepuff girl, who looked slightly terrified. She stood up and stuttered slightly before beginning.
"I'm Emily Sara Turner, my mother is a muggle born witch and my father's a pureblood. I'm from Devon, and I like... um ... um I like drawing, singing and poetry. My favourite subject is Astronomy and I want to be on the Wizarding Wireless" She turned bright red and sat down in a hurry, missing her chair and landing in the lap of the Slytherin who was sat behind her. She squeaked, and turned even redder. I giggled as quietly as was possible, the look on his face was priceless.
The ball of light spun around the room twice and went to find it's next victim.