DISCLAIMER: I unfortunately STILL don't own Harry Potter, or any of these characters. Except for Nessie. Oh yes, and that is a twilight name (Renesmée, not Nessie) but technically i can still call my character Nessie. Yippee! Continue reading before I continue droning on. Sorry.
Harry crossed his fingers and knocked on the door of the dungeon. "Enter," a cold, emotionless voice called.
The Potter twins entered the potions classroom, and the Slytherins sniggered. "Ah, are we pleasured to be joined by the Potters? Stroll into my lesson late, of course." jeered Snape.
"Please, Sir, we had to talk to-"
"I don't care about your pitiful excuses, Mr Potter," said Snape, discarding Harry's comment.
"Professor, we were speaking to Professor McGonagall about urgent business." Nessie interupted.
Snape's thin lips puckered as if he were eating a lemon, going sour. "Very well, sit down," he said, obviously having run out of comebacks, "but if this happens again, you shall find yourselves in detention and Gryffindor 20 points worse off than before."
Nessie smiled at her success in not letting Gryffindor lose any points. She daydreamed through the rest of the Potions Theory lesson and as soon as the class was dismissed, she exited the dungeon as quickly as she could. Suddenly halting, she hurried back to the classroom and found Malfoy loitering around with his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle. "Hey, Malfoy, this is for earlier," she said and punched him thrice in the face. "Don't mess with Gryffindor house. Not while I'm around."
As she made it back to the common room for the evening, she said to herself," I love punching people. Its so relaxing."
Ron ran over to her and pushed her over to the notice board. "Hey, wait a second, I just got in, give me time to breathe! What's up?"
"There are auditions for the Christmas song solo!"
Nessie sighed. "How interesting. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to get cha- " Ron looked at her seriously. "No, I'm not auditioning! Why are you so desperate for me to do it?"
"Because you're amazing! You'll definitely get it!"
"All very well, Mr Listen-creepily-outside-the-showers, but maybe I don't want to get it! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get changed!" she stormed up the stairs and slammed the door.
"Nice going, Ron," said George.
"Yeah, very smooth," teased Fred. "Do you really listen outside the shower rooms?"
George switched the topic. "Did you hear that Harry and Nessie got on the Quidditch team?"
"What?!" Ron suddenly forgot about the auditions. "How? What position are they?"
"McGonagall bent the 'NO FIRST YEARS' thing especially for it. Harry's a Seeker-"
"-And Nessie's a Beater, which means she'll be playing alongside me," said Fred, proudly.
"I'm so happy that a good person is taking my place," said George, happily. "Ever since that Fire Crab attacked me, I haven't been able to play Quidditch."
"George, it completely burnt your arm muscle off! You'll never get it replaced!" cried Ron.
"Well, just as well a good prankster is taking my place as Beater," shrugged George.
Nessie came down the stairs and Ron suddenly exploded. "You're a Beater on the Quidditch team?!"
"Yeah... I don't know how exactly that happened..." Nessie trailed off, embarrassed.
George held out his good arm to Nessie. "It's a relief to know that a fellow prankster is taking my place on the team," he said.
Nessie shook his hand vigorously. "I'll have to live up to the expectations one of the greatest prankster twins I know, and Fred, I'll try not to disappoint you," she said.
The Weasley twins saluted her and walked away.
Ron suddenly started chuckling. "I've just realised why you're the new Beater," he said, "You have anger management problems and you'll just beat everyone up!"
"I DON'T HAVE ANGER MANA-" she suddenly calmed down. "Hmm, I see your point..."
Suddenly she started laughing as well. She tried to stop, but every time she tried, she just snorted and laughed even more. "I've dec- HA HA HA!"
This continued for 2 more minutes before she was lying on the sofa, her stomach sore from laughing. "Ok, I think I've stopped. Ok... I've decided to go for that damn audition because I need to show the Slytherins' that I am made of more than I look."
She wrote her name on the sign-up sheet and the common room erupted in applause and Ron smiled. "I knew you would do it!"
Nessie shone with pride. "Do you want to play exploding snap?"
Ron nodded, and they sat down. In the corner observing them, the Weasley twins and Harry sighed. "It's kind of sad that they don't see that they like each other." said Fred (Or maybe George).
"Yeah," said George (Or maybe Fred).
"Maybe someday we should tell them," said Harry.
The twins looked at each other and shook their heads. "Nah," they said simultaneously, "They'll work it out eventually."
Eventually, all the Gryffindors went to bed and slept soundly, as the snow fell softly and blanketed Hogwarts in a sheet of snow. All slept except Nessie, who lay awake in her bed, nervous. She knew she really did want the audition, but she didn't know why. Was it because she wanted to beat the Slytherins? She wasn't sure. But that wasn't the only thing on her mind. Tomorrow was the Quidditch session and she hadn't got much time to get the Swelling Solution needed to get rid of Parkinson for a bit. She had an uneasy sleep, shivering, and it wasn't just the cold.
Early at dawn, Nessie suddenly woke, panting. She had had a nightmare, of the three-headed dog. She got up and went down to the common room. Sitting down, she thought about the third floor corridor. Why was there a bloodthirsty three-headed dog in the castle? What secrets did the corridor hold? She needed to know. Meanwhile, she had butterflies in her stomach thinking about the auditions. It was in three days time and she had no idea of what to do. She didn't even know why she signed up for it. Somehow she knew that it wasn't just because of the Slytherins. She thought and thought and thought and thought, but nothing came to mind. She went back up to her room, but when she got to boys dorm, she had an urge to go and speak to Harry. She decided against it and went up to bed for the remaining hour before school.
When she went down to breakfast, the Weasley twins came over. "Nessie, we have a new invention!"
Nessie's eye's lit up. "Of pranking intentions?"
The twins shrugged. "Obviously."
"Go on then, show and impress me!"
Fred cleared his throat. "Since it's coming up to Christmas, the season of pranking, we have made mistletoe that you can't escape from."
"Epic!"
"That's not all," continued George. "If you TRY and escape, then something weird happens... Like your ears turn purple... Or your voice goes really high... You get the picture."
"That's amazing! How does it work?"
Fred winked. "We can't tell you that, but we will tell you this-"
"-Because literally all the boys in the school want to hit on you-"
"Seriously?" Nessie asked in disbelief.
The twins nodded. "Because you're famous and pretty," said George.
"So, heed our words," said Fred seriously, "If anyone tries to trap you under one of these, then the spell to get you out of there is 'Escapio.' Ok, got it?"
Nessie nodded. "Thanks. Are you going to sell these? They would make a fortune. Stick a load up in all the common rooms."
The twins nodded. "Will do. We might make a business out of this... Bye Nessie! See you at training tonight!"
Fred and George saluted her and went to sell their merchandise singing, "Tis the season to be pranking, fa la la la la, la la la la...".
For the rest of the day, Nessie could only think of what Fred and George said. When she next saw Harry, it was completely boggling her mind. "Harry," she asked, "Fred and George said that all the boys in the school would try and hit on me. Is that really true?"
Harry though for a bit. "Well... Probably everyone. Except me, because I'm your brother."
Nessie made a face. "Seriously? All of them?"
Harry nodded. "Probably. Because you're famous and pretty. Not to mention clever."
Nessie sighed. "I seriously will punch the next person to say that to me. But you're my brother, so I'll let you say it, because you're not sentimental about it."
"Well, are you ready for our first Qudditch session?"
"You bet," she said, "Shall we get ready?"
Harry nodded and they entered the common room to get changed into their scarlet and gold Quidditch robes.
When it started to get dark, the Gryffindor Quidditch team was huddled on the pitch. Oliver Wood arrived with three broomsticks. He chucked two of them to Harry and Nessie, and the third one, he mounted. "Alright team, we have two new, amazing, famous, first years on our team. Nessie is replacing George Weasley as Beater, and Harry is replacing Charlie Weasley as Seeker."
As Wood explained the rules, Nessie tried all the different clubs. She decided on a thick, heavy mahogany one. Good for whenever I need to beat Malfoy's brains out, she thought. "Potter's, McGonagall got you both a Nimbus Two Thousand, the best brooms on the market. Right, now you're both familiar with the rules and what you have to do, let's have a go! First, because it's dark and we might lose the balls, we'll start with the Beaters, we're just going to have to throw rocks and anything we can find, really. Let's go!"
Fred and Nessie got into position and Wood gave the signal. Nessie lashed at the things flying at her and Fred smacked the rocks away from his face. At the end, they were both panting, and Wood was terribly pleased. "Good, now Chasers, up you get! You need to shoot at me. Beaters, you help Harry practice catching stuff, levitate some rocks, make it as hard as you can. One at a time, Fred," he said sternly, and he flew up to start practising with the Chasers.
"Well, Harry, let's see what you've got," said Fred.
However fast that Nessie or Fred made the stones go with their wands, Harry caught it. "I'm impressed, Harry," said Nessie.
"I'm impressed with both of you."
They turned around and saw Wood flying down. "You're both fantastic! All the first years are usually terrible, but you two are naturals! We're going to do so well! Anyway, training session over, next one is straight after school finishes on Monday. See you!"
As they all got changed in the changing room, they struck up a conversation. "You two are really good for first years," said Angelina Johnson, one of the Chasers.
Alicia Spinnet, the other Chaser, nodded. "Yeah, you're really good. Nessie, I heard you're going for that audition?"
Nessie rolled her eyes. "Who told you?"
Fred's face started turning purple. "Fred, stop telling everyone! It just makes it more embarrassing for when I don't get it!"
"First of all, you will get it, and second, if the gossip spreads, the Slytherins won't be really sure of what they're up against, as it will just be a rumor, and then they'll get nervous."
Nessie smiled. "Ok, anything to annoy the Slytherins," then she realised something, "Holy crap, I haven't had dinner! I'm starving! Anyone else coming?"
Angelina shrugged. "Sure! Let's go guys!"
They all went off to dinner and chatted away about the upcoming match after the Christmas holidays. It was long after they had finished their food when they went up to the common room. As usual, Nessie went to have a shower. She had the whole room to herself, so she started singing in the shower, naturally. She dried her hair and danced out the door, and then stopped. About half the common room was crowded in the shower lobby and they had been listening to Nessie. She saw Ron smiling. "I brought a little audience."
She was furious. "LITTLE? This is half of bloody Gryffindor!"
She stormed out and went up to the dorms to get her book, and sat down on the sofa, glared poisonously at Ron, then read for the rest of the evening. People constantly kept coming up to her, telling her how good she was. She got sick of them and just went up to bed. Harry was talking to Ron, and then saw Nessie go upstairs. He excused himself and ran up the stairs. "Nessie!" he cried.
"What now?" she turned around, and then relaxed. "Oh, it's you."
Harry was just about to say something, but something about Nessie wasn't quite right. She loomed as if she had been crying."What's wrong?" he asked suspiciously.
"I really hate Ron for doing that," she said, "Can't a girl had a shower in peace?!"
"I hear you," sighed Harry, "Romilda Vane, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil always seem to conveniently be there went I go for a shower. Really annoying."
"Yeah. I should never have said I would do that audition. Why did I listen to Ron?"
"Because he's right!"
Nessie rolled her eyes. "You're always taking his side! Why can't you see how I feel about this?"
"Listen to me. I am your brother and before today, I have never heard you sing. What I heard today was really amazing singing. So take this advice: Go for the audition. You'll see that Ron was right."
Nessie stormed stubbornly upstairs and fell asleep straight away, exhausted from arguing with Harry and Ron.