I was happy to have Draco, Blaise and Theo with me when I crossed the lake to Hogwarts. This was too good to not have friends to share it with.
It wasn't as frozen as Michael had made it out to be either. Maybe I had caught the place on a good day. It was inconceivable that Michael was wrong.
Michael read like all the time. But he wasn't just a book worm. Oh no, not Michael. He was also on the Quodpot team. He was really athletic and popular at Ilvermorny. He planned to be professional one day.
Michael had been my hero since I was a little girl. He was not my flesh and blood cousin, but I had always called his mother Aunt Karen. She is my mother's closest friend. They went to Ilvermorny together and were house and dorm mates.
The lake was so dark it looked black. Well, that was fair, since it turns out it was called the black lake. I bent over to get a good look but Draco grabbed me around the waist to pull me back.
"Hey" he said, laughing "Are you trying to get sucked to the bottom of the lake? There is a giant squid in there!"
"COOL!" I squealed "Where?!" I looked over the edge again hoping to get a peek. I thought he was literally looking at it at the moment he said that.
Shaking his head he looked at Blaise and Theo "I blame you two she didn't pick up these bad habits from me."
They just laughed. Blaise was holding Isis and she also gave him a look like she thought it was all his fault. "Make your ferret stop judging me Taylor." He complained.
We all laughed at that. Even Isis made little sounds and sort of war danced around him. I had to grab her to keep her from going in to the lake.
The big man who was taking us across seemed scary at first but he was very friendly and I definitely felt safe with him around. He told us his name is Hagrid and he is the grounds keeper. He said hello to a boy named Harry and there was lots of whispering when he did that but I was too busy looking at the boy next to the one he called Harry to notice. He seemed familiar and I asked Draco about it.
"That is Harry Potter, he thinks he is so special because he is famous. Don't bother trying to be nice to him. If you don't come up to scratch with his buddy Weasley he won't have anything to do with you." I noticed how angry he looked at this.
"I meant the other one. That boy? The one with the red hair. Weasley you said? He looks sort of familiar."
"His brothers were the ones who ran past you and knocked you down."
I gasped in understanding "Is he the one who was making fun of you?!" Draco shrugged "He's a creep. You don't need those kinds of friends. You have us."
Blaise and Theo nodded making me feel warm and gooey inside.
Draco smiled at me. Gosh his smile is so pretty. So are his eyes. My tummy did a flippy sort of thing when he smiled at me. I was a little confused by it. But not in a bad way.
I mean I wasn't confused in a bad way, not that my tummy didn't flip in a bad way, except I guess that wasn't too bad either.
When we were taken into the big castle everyone sort of lined up. I stayed with Draco, Blaise and Theo. I was still a little nervous, but not as scared as I was at first. I just didn't want us all to be separated.
First the headmaster got up and welcomed us and told us what places were off limits. I didn't really want to go in to a forest anyway but with how big this place was I was a little nervous I would not remember which corridor on which floor lead to some sort of terrible death.
Then this hat was sat on a chair and it started singing. That was pretty nice.
I looked around for their walls. Before I could ask Draco about it they started sticking the hat on people's heads and it started shouting out their houses! Wow, that was different!
One by one houses started being assigned to people. Draco was right, he got Slytherin, I was happy with how happy he looked. The smirk on Draco's face when he immediately got Slytherin made me laugh. Blaise moved forward to poke me and grin at me and Theo. Theo got in next. I watched him and Draco high five each other. It was nice to share this moment with friends. I couldn't help but smile to see them so happy.
Too bad that Pansy girl also got Slytherin.
When it was my turn I sat down and the hat was placed on my head. After it's singing I wasn't surprised to hear it start talking, but when I kept hoping to get in to Slytherin I was surprised it spoke directly to me "Slytherin, hmmm? You are smart enough for Ravenclaw, courageous enough for Gryffindor. A little too lazy for Hufflepuff." I had to resist sticking my tongue out at the hat. "No, please let me in Slytherin so I can stay with my friends!"
"Very well" it said to me and then suddenly shouted "Slytherin!"
I jumped straight off of the chair and went to hug my new friends. We were all pretty happy to get to stay together. The older students cheered for us and told us not to worry that Slytherin's take care of their own. I was so happy to be considered part of someone's "own".
Then finally Blaise got in. Theo and Draco shook his hand, but I got to hug him!
An older girl named Gemma took care of showing us around and let us know how things went in Slytherin. We could see under the lake in the dungeons and finally I got a peek at that giant squid! It was the best! And there were even merpeople!
In addition to Draco and Theo and Blaise I immediately made friends with a girl named Daphne Greengrass. She was a little quiet, which was OK with me. She wasn't much of a gossiper but she was great at studying. I think I probably talk enough for both of us. She was my dorm mate. There were only the two of us in our room.
It was soooo peaceful in there. At night I could hear the merpeople singing and the fireplace crackling. I set up Isis' little bed next to the fireplace so she could enjoy the heat. The room was beautiful and so comfortable. It was the first thing I owled my parents about.
They were so happy I had made friends. Especially with such an influential family like the Malfoys. I rolled my eyes. Only my mother would think of that first. I showed Draco the letter and we had a good laugh about it shaking our heads at the stupidity of parents.
"I hope you know that isn't what I meant about the wrong sort of wizarding families, Cass." He said.
"Duh, Draco. I know that." I remembered our conversation about families who were taught manners and those who weren't. I stroked Isis in my lap thinking about how she could have really been hurt when I got knocked down. I know now that Fred and George weren't really bad, just rather silly and sometimes thoughtless.
But I did not really know Ron Weasley and he always glared in our direction, so I suppose we were never going to be close friends.
Pansy immediately group up with Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. They liked to think of themselves as, I don't know, Draco's henchmen or something. They gave me the creeps. Draco just laughed when I told him that.
It turned out Michael was only sort of right. There were an awful lot of fireplaces. I never thought we were going to be in any real danger of freezing to death though.
I sent him a letter telling him that. He sent one back reminding me it wasn't winter yet. The pig. I laughed. I sure missed him a lot.
And then of course the very next week the one thing I had known was going to happen absolutely happened. One of the professors, a nervous little man named Professor Quirrel came into the Great Hall screaming that a troll was loose in the castle!
In. The. Castle!
I thought I would be safe if I didn't go in to the woods. Or the third floor corridor on the right hand side.
But now there was a troll in loose inside waiting for a taste of first year flesh. Why was this place trying to kill me?
The prefects were supposed to lead us back to our common rooms. I did not want prefects. I wanted a regiment of trained troll killing aurors!
Or my parents!
Or Michael! I definitely wanted Michael. He would know how to handle a troll for sure.
We would learn the next day that three idiot first years from Gryffindor, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger went after the troll on their own.
Seriously how stupid can you get?
I was determined to have my parents have the whole lot of these incompetent people fired but the first real chance I would have to discuss this with them would be at the welcoming dinner that Draco's parents were hosting. And they were going to get an earful from me!
And I was definitely going to threaten a tantrum. I wasn't sure if I would go through with it at a state function, that was a really big deal, but this was a matter of life and death!
I mean how else besides incompetence does a TROLL get in to a CASTLE?
This isn't like mice in the cupboards. Or even rats. Or even like the one time Michael and I snuck a full grown bobcat in to the house under a spell. We were sure we could keep it spelled long enough to train it.
As it turns out we were wrong. We were definitely not powerful enough to keep a bobcat ensorcelled and we had no idea how to train one anyway!