Year 1

(Lavender Brown)

Your father stares at his watch as you stare, taking in your surroundings. People are bustling around everywhere, so many children and parents and siblings and owls and frogs and trunks and trolleys, everyone kissing each other goodbye, boarding the train.

"It's almost eleven, Lavender, you should get on the train." Your dad says, looking down at you with a forced smile. You hug him quickly, knowing that he probably has to get to a meeting.

"Bye daddy." You say, feeling a little shaky about going somewhere so crowded all on your own.

He waves once, and then moves back through the platform wall.

You take a deep breath, square your shoulders, and march straight onto the train.

Once inside, you're mesmerized by everything. The older students are playing with some sort of sparks, and it's making fireworks across the halls. A symphony of laughter, chatter, hoots, and ribbits fill the air, along with the choo of the train.

You get to a compartment that doesn't look like it's filled with older kids, and sit down.

Inside are two twin girls, a boy with brown skin, and a boy with sandy hair and light blue-green eyes, unwrapping a pack of licorice loudly.

"Hi!" One of the twins say, and you're happy to find some girls your own age who are nice.

"Hello." You say with confidence, because mum says confidence is everything. "I'm Lavender Brown."

"I'm Parvati, and this is my sister Padma." The twin on the right says, smiling largely at you.

"My names Dean Thomas." The boy says, smiling at you as well. You try to smile back, because he seems like a really nice boy.

The other boy holds his grimy hand out to you, saying "I'm Seamus Finnigan." His accent is strange, you've never heard it before, and you crinkle up your nose at him. You lightly shake his hand.

He looks at the other boy, rolls his eyes, and starts stuffing his face again.

You don't think you particularly like this boy.

Your first view of the castle renders you speechless. You were a little afraid of getting into the boats, you've always had a resistance to water, but your first glance up was amazing enough for the fear to melt away.

It looks beautiful, just like the castle in your imagination. Tall towers, reaching up and scraping the night sky, hundreds of gleaming windows with lights on, making it looking like bunches of fireflies were swarming the place.

You are the princess and this is your castle.

The sorting ceremony begins, and you can feel sparks shooting out of your toes, you're so excited. Your mum was educated by her mum at home, but her father attended Hogwarts and was a Slytherin, though you're not sure you want to go to that house. You stand expectantly, for you know your name will called close to the beginning, starting with "B".

Finally, you hear the woman who is called Professor McGonagall's Scottish lilted voice call out, "Brown, Lavender."

With shaking hands, you wish you weren't so nervous, you climb up on the big stool. The old, brown hair is fitted on your head, situating itself.

"Now, right. Let's see. I sense much pride in this mind, as well as manipulative character traits... you could fit in Slytherin... You've got quite a lot of boldness for a young girl, and quite a lot of bravery... I'd say... GRYFFINDOR!"

You shrink yourself off the stool and move over to the table where students and cheering, wearing crests with lions on them. You sit next to an older girl, who smiles kindly at you and moves down the bench for you to sit, and introduces herself to you as "Katie Bell".

Many other older students smile at you, and you're glad you got sorted into this house.

You hurry up into your dormitory with the girl you sat with on the train (the twin named Parvati). You see your two trunks arranged at the foot of one of the beds, next to a girl named Fay's trunk.

Parvati flops onto the bed next to yours, her trunks must be the dark green ones.

Three other girls come up the stairs cautiously, looking for their things. A girl with long, stick-straight brown hair and blue eyes glided over to the bed next to yours. You watch her sit down on the bed slowly, and look around the room.

"Hi, I'm Fay." She says to you, voice higher than you've ever heard someone speak before.

"I'm Lavender."

"I'm Patricia. But you can just call me Patty." A voice says from across the room. It belongs to a slightly chubby girl with auburn hair, threaded into two braids.

The girl with big bushy brown hair sits down where her trunk had been placed and brushes off her school skirt. "My name's Hermione Granger."

"And I'm Parvati!" Parvati exclaims, making Fay and Patty giggle.

The bed that you'll be sleeping in is different from the one you have at home, with it's sparkly headboard and canopy, like your mum's. It's got deep crimson bed curtains, which is good. You scoot yourself back and push your legs under the covers. You're tired from the stressful and nerve-wracking day, but deep down you're so glad to be around so many girls your own age. Besides Eloise, you don't remember playing with anyone else. You hope you make friends.

You sit with Parvati and Padma in classes, writing your notes in girly script and drawing flowers in the margins. Classes are ok, not too hard. You don't really like potions, Professor Snape is scary. Transfiguration is fun, you suppose, and so is Charms.

When Seamus Finnigan blows up his feather in Charms, you crack up. He looks so genuinely shocked, his hair standing up, face black from ash.

You spend most of the year waiting for him to blow something else up.

You find that you don't really get Quidditch, instead you use the extra time to walk around the grounds and pick flowers, it keeps you from feeling homesick.

The year progresses, and naturally, you and Parvati become best friends. You giggle at everything with her, she teaches you how to press flowers so you can keep them for longer.

You begin to dislike Seamus Finnigan. He's rude and crass and loud and is constantly tugging on your hair, just to annoy you.

Besides making fun of him every time a potion blows up in his face, the two of you mostly avoid each other.

Boys are gross, anyway.

You look for your dad at the station, but all you see is your cook named Mrs. Leach, and Eloise the house elf. You're so disappointed you might cry, but you don't, because Eloise beats herself when you cry.

So you smile at Mrs. Leach, even though she is mean and smells like rotting eggs, and turn to Eloise.

"Come along Miss Lavender, we have a portkey for exactly ten minutes from now!"

(Seamus Finnigan)

"Be good, lad, and good luck." Dad says, patting you on the back and handing you your trunk. Ferguson nods at you, shoving you forward to Maddy. People are moving past your little huddle of Finnigans, staring strangely at everyone crowding around the wall between platform 9 and platform 10.

"See ya' Shay." Maddy says, stepping up and hugging you tightly.

Fina hugs you next, holding on a little too long whispering in your ear, "I'll miss you Shay."

Your mam grabs your hand, and leads you over right in front of the wall. Against your better judgement, you run with her straight into the column, and end up staring at a huge, red train with white smoke, the smell of old wood and sugar and steam in the air. Hoards of people with carts full of luggage, along with broomsticks and different animals fly past you, all congregating around the doors onto the train.

"Now, Shay, I'll not have ya' gettin' inta trouble or messin' about." Mam says, adjusting your collar. You're a little nervous now, you've never been without your mam anywhere. "Listen ta' yer teachers, and try ta' do yer best."

She hugs you tightly, and you think about not letting go. But you can't wait to go to Hogwarts, all the stories your mum's told you about Hogwarts and witches and wizards and potions and magical creatures makes you excited beyond belief. The only other magical person besides her you've been around is Ferguson, and he went to Draíochta, a magical school in southern Ireland.

"Go on." She says, pushing you towards the train lightly. With one more nervous smile, you step onto the train, dragging your trunk with you.

You find yourself an empty compartment, stash your trunk, and sit down. You watch people walk by through the windows, but no one comes to talk to you. Until a boy with dark skin and a shirt with a football in the corner pokes his head in.

"Hi!" You say.

"Uh... hi." the boy says. "Is anyone sitting here?"

"Nah, jus' me." You say.

He sits down. The two of you start talking about trivial things like your names and where you're from. He talks about soccer and you tell him about Quidditch. You're just into telling him all about how Ireland's team has just started recruiting when a pair of twins with long black hair ask if they can sit with you.

"'Course." Dean says, switching benches and sitting next to you. The two girl sit down and start whispering to each other about something, before saying that their names are Parvati and Padma Patil.

Soon after them, a girl wearing all pink and two trunks opens you compartment and sits down next to the girl you think is Padma. She's got long blond hair pulled up in a pink ribbon, and has an air of confidence and snobbishness around her.

"Hi!" one of the twins says.

"Hello." The girl says, voice commanding and brash. "I'm Lavender Brown."

She looks like the dolls Fina plays with, you think. Her nose is stuck in the air as she listens to everyone introduce themselves.

"I'm Seamus Finnigan." You say, holding out your hand. She looks at it as if it's a dead fish and shakes it daintily.

Sharing a look with Dean Thomas, you decide that you don't like this girl very much.

You cling to the bow of the little boat, tipping it, making the two girls that are in it with you protest and tell you to cut it out.

The castle is so big in comparison to you, so full of life and magic. You're dumbstruck at the sheer magnitude of it, sitting atop a large hill.

You turned back excitedly, saying, "Wow!" To anyone that would listen.

You can't help noticing that the Sorting Hat has been on your head for a while, longer some of the other kids that have gone.

"You have a kind heart, though do not demonstrate it often. You care for many. Yet, I sense also a quick temper... that can be telling as well. Is there a house you don't want to go?" The hat asks.

"Slytherin." You think. "Not Slytherin." You remember what your mam told you, about all the wizards in Slytherin house going bad.

"Mmmmm." The sorting hat says. "Yes, you would not benefit from being a Slytherin, I believe. You do not possess the ruthless quality that makes you believe that what you want justifies what you do to get to it. Very strong moral values, I sense. Brave, for such a small child. You long to be strong, to defend... well, then, it seems I have made my decision. Better be... GRYFFINDOR!" The hat roars.

The returning Gryffindors clap and hoot loudly. You jump up off the stool and run over the table of red and gold, where Dean and one of the girls that were in your boat, Hermione Granger, is sitting. The girl called Lavender Brown is sitting there too, and to your surprise she's clapping along with everyone else.

The sorting ends, and you find that the new Gryffindors along with you is Dean, Hermione, Lavender, the boy who lost his toad on the train (you think he's called Neville), a girl named Fay, another girl named Patricia, the boy with the red hair Ron Weasley, and famous Harry Potter!

You talk with everyone during the feast (the food is delicious, as good as Mam's cooking), and the nerves you had earlier that day have completely melted.

"Oh, hello Sir Nicholas." The boy called Percy says, greeting a ghost that was floating by.

"I know you, you're Nearly-Headless Nick!" Ron says, pointing at him with a chicken wing. The ghost looks extremely affronted.

"Nearly Headless? How can you be Nearly Headless?" You yell.

The ghost glares at you momentarily and then shrugs. "Like this." He says, and proceeds to pull off his head from his neck.

"Ah!" The girl Lavender cries and shuts her eyes. You roll your eyes at her, she's exactly like those girls that used to yell at him when he accidentally got dirt on them during recess or shouted too loud or didn't tuck in his shirt at school.

You manage to blow up your feather during Charms, and it catches on fire, only to have Harry put it out with his hat. This, unfortunately, is not a one-time incident, and you begin to get a little bit of a reputation for setting fire to things. You have to beg Dean to be your partner every class.

Even the time Neville melts your cauldron during potions (which is with Professor Snape, the meanest and greasiest teacher at Hogwarts), some are convinced you did it.

Flying classes are great, you think.

You brag about all the time you spent flying around a couple miles from the village, but in reality you went with Maddy, and Harry Potter ends up being about to fly eons better than you.

You like Gryffindor. You cheer on Harry at his first Quidditch game, because he's only a first year and made the house team! They're killing them out there, though, and Slytherin is not playing fair.

"SEND HIM OFF, REF! READ CARD!" Dean shouts.

"It's not football, Dean, you can't send people off in Quidditch." Ron says from next to him. "And what's a red card?"

At that moment, Harry is tearing after the snitch, and you sit at the front of your seat.

When he practically spits the snitch out from his mouth and Gryffindor wins, you shout and yell and pump your fist into the air along with everyone in your house.

You love Quidditch.

The year progresses, and obviously, you and Dean become best friends. You still don't like that girl Lavender, she always crinkles up her nose at you. You pull on her ponytail, like any other eleven year old boy would.

You form a slightly antagonistic relationship, but apart from that, you don't really interact with her.

Girls have cooties, anyway.

"...an' Professor Quirrell, dark arts teacher, the one who stutters 'lot, he was tryin' ta steal the stone... dunno what it does, but 'en Harry fought him!" You tell your mam excitedly when she picks you up at the station.

She smiles down at you fondly, like she doesn't quite believe what you're telling her, but isn't going to question it. "So I take it ya' like Hogwarts?"

You grin.

A/N: This chapter is quite short, just because this is still sort of an introduction. Also, I'm taking slight creative license, because according to the HP Lexicon, there's an unnamed fifth girl that's a Gryffindor in Harry's Year, so I just named her Patty.

Hope you enjoyed, please review!