A/N: It's fun that so many of you Story Alerts my story, it makes me really happy! So do continue! And thanks to FreakyElla, for reading this part of the story over and over again. I don't know how many mails we send to each other trying to improve it.

15 November

Hermione spend the morning in her room reading and writing letters to Ginny, Harry, Ron and her parents. At 11 o'clock she closed her book and decided that she needed some variation. So she decided to go to the common room and read instead. When she opened the door, she froze for a second then continued to walk over to the two persons in the sofas. Blaise and his platinum blond best friend. She didn't really want to sit in the common room when Draco was here, but if she went back to her room, she would feel trapped. So she walked towards the two boys and sat down next to Blaise. She had just folded her legs underneath her and where about to begin read when Draco interrupted her plans with asking "What are you reading?" It was weird that he asked, and it was even weirder that it looked like he was genuinely interested.

"Um, it's called The Hunger Games."

"Okay, would you like to join us instead?" He said, and nodding at the table and the wizard card game they were playing. Why was he so nice to her? Hermione looked over at Blaise, and he too looked surprised over his best friends offer.

"Yes, do join us Hermione." Blaise said after he stopped staring at Malfoy.

"Well, I guess I could play with you. But just so you know, I'm not so good at wizarding games."

After the game rules was explained to her she quickly learned it and did, much to her own surprise, enjoy the game. 50 minutes later, Blaise said that they probably should go down to meet the others and go to the Great Hall for the ceremony.

As they walked towards the Great Hall she wondered how the sorting ceremony would be. Would they do a test, get sorted and then get a mentor? Maybe they had a sorting hat here too?

When they walked into the great hall she noticed that it was very different from Hogwarts Great Hall. The room was for one smaller, which was understandable since it went fewer students here, and instead of four long tables, there were many small tables. Most of the tables were in the size so you could sit 6 or 8 at each table. But there were a few 4 and 2 seat tables.

She followed Blaise into the room but instead of sitting with him, Draco and the other Slytherin students she sat down next to the Gryffindors'. When the room was full, the Headmistress Mrs. Nord stood up and started talking. To make a long speech short she said that they ceremony would take place after the meal and that the Institutes representatives and the Hogwarts students would come up to the podium after lunch were finished.

She turned her head down to her plate and saw that a menu had arrived. She looked at it with a confused look and then remembering how they had ordered food at the Yule bale. When she looked through the food on today's lunch menu, she didn't recognize anything and assumed that it was Scandinavian food. On the menu were meatballs with mashed potatoes, something called 'Sill', which she guessed was a fish and something called 'pyttipanna' with eggs. She decided to take pyttipanna, said it out loud and seconds later a plate stood on before her. Apparently pyttipanna were fried onions, potatoes and meat chopped in small pieces. She concluded that it couldn't taste bad since it was only nice stuff in the dish, and when she tried it she discovered that she was right.

When she had finished most of the other students in the Hall had eaten up and was talking to each other while they waited for the ceremony. A couple of minuteslater Mrs. Nord stood up and asked for the students attention. "Can all students in the exchange program come up on the podium please?" she continued. "Hogwarts students can stand on the left and Aradia students' stands on the left" She said, to make it clearer for the 40 students that were walking towards her.

Hermione felt a little nervous as she stood next to Parvati at the podium ,who seemed nervous too since she was talking in a calming voice to herself.

"To my students, I would like to introduce you all to Mr. Dumbledore, the Head Master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Mrs. Nord began.

Hermione looked at the students at the other side of the podium and her eyes were drawn to a boy that looked a little like Malfoy. The boy had curly blond hair instead of straight and he was slightly shorter. He was also more tanned and amazingly blue eyes. The rumor about Swedes being beautiful was not an exaggeration. He looked like an angel! Before she could think more nice thoughts about the boy Mrs. Nord interrupted her thoughts with her clear voice.

"We have three Houses here, compared to your four at Hogwarts. The Houses are: Fox, Bear and Reindeer. They each represent a few characteristics a student has. The Fox is stubborn and quick-witted. The Bear is protecting and explosive and the Reindeer is thoughtful and persevering. All Houses are equals. Which color the Houses have will you mentor tell you." She said to the Hogwarts students, going through the information rather quickly, eager to continue.

"Normally when we decide which house a scholar is going to be in, every student does a simple test. But since you are only going to be in the House temporary…" She said, speaking once again to Hermione's side of the podium. "… Me and Mr. Dumbledore talked this morning and I asked him to describe each of you and then we decided together which House you would suit best in. Thereafter I paired you with a mentor from the same House that I felt you would thrive with. Let's begin!" She looked down at the parchment in her hands and read:

"Julia Andersson, Bear."Then Dumbledore read: "Parvati Patil". The two girls walked to the middle of the podium as they had been called, greeted each other and started walking down from the podium and out through the hall. They continued to call some Slytherins and Rawenclavs, then she heard Blaise's name. He had been paired up with a guy called Tristan Styglare and had sorted to Reindeer. He gave her a small smile before walkning away with his mentor.

After Blaise, Lavender and a girl called Ofelia Arnaldsdottir, Bear, got paired up. She thought that Gryffindor and Bear valued similar things and assumed that all Gryffindors' would be Bears. Dean got paired up with a cute guy that was called Artur, Bear of course, and then it was Draco's turn. Draco got paired up with the guy, Gabryel Lindgren, she had compared him with earlier. It was no surprise that he had been sorted Fox. Two more names were called up and then she heard Mrs. Nord call Ellinor Atterling, Fox and saw a tall blond girl walking over, she couldn't analyze more about her before she heard Mr. Dumbledore call her own name. She walked forward, greeted the pretty girl and started following her down the stairs and out of the Hall.

She had been sorted Fox instead of Bear? She was the only Gryffindor that was sorted as Fox. But when she thought about it, it made sense. She was, after all, very stubborn and quick-witted..

As she walked behind Ellinor Atterling she watched her closer. She was very tall, Hermione would guess at 1.80 m, had thick, slightly curly golden-blond hair, blue eyes, naturally pink lips and marked cheekbones. She was very good-looking and Hermione guessed that she had a lot of guys admiring her.

"So, where do you want do begin the tour of the castle Miss. Atterling?" Hermione asked politely, just to break the awkward silence.

"Please call me Ellinor, or Ellie if you want. Ellinor can be quite hard to say in English, since it's the Swedish pronunciation of Eleanor." Ellinor said and smiled, "And what I would like to start with showing you would probably be my common room. Then maybe the library and then the lake" Hermione lit up at when Ellinor mentioned the library.

As they walked around the school they talked about themselves Hermione realized that they were quite similar and had found out a lot about Ellinor. She knew that Ellie lived in Sweden, in a suburb to Stockholm - the Swedish capital - when she wasn't at school, had a younger sister called Louise, didn't have a boyfriend (though that part had surprised her) and she loved to read.

"This is maybe going to sound a bit weird…" Hermione started

"Go for it!" Ellinor said clapping her hands curiously. She had that kind of personality that bubbled with energy in a girly way, and seemed to be the kind of girl that shrieked a lot when she got happy or excited

"Why don't you have a boyfriend? I mean, you are very pretty and I bet there are a lot of guys that would want to have you as a girlfriend."

"Oh, that's quite simple," she said matter of factly. "There are a few handsome guys here"… A few Hermione thought? Ellie had definitely been in Sweden too long. All thepupils here were handsome, or at least pretty! "… but the problem is that I am quite tall, and there are only a few guys tall enough for me. Oh, and when you started talking about the subject. Tell me about that handsome blond guy, Drake something that got paired up with Gabryel!" Ellinor said waiving her hand dismissively at the fact that she couldn't remember his name.

To her own surprise, Hermione felt a stung in her chest as she started talking about Malfoy.