So, I was rereading this and noticed a few mistakes. Nothing big but I felt the need to correct them.

Chapter 2 – Lyra

Nicknames Galore!

September 1, 2009

Upon separating from the boys in the common room, Lyra headed up the stairs to her dormitory. She was not looking forward to sharing a room with a load of girls. After all, while her mum had made sure she could talk boys, clothes, and makeup with the best of them, she was still used to having her own room with Leo right next door.

She opened the door to the first year girls' room to see her trunk at the end of the bed directly opposite the door and the other girls unpacking and chattering excitedly. Never one to miss out on attention, she yelled, "HEY EVERYBODY!"

The other girls all jumped at the loudness of her voice before starting to laugh. The girl whose bed was to the right of Lyra's was the first to respond. "HEY GIRL!" She yelled, before continuing at a normal level. "My name's Emma Laraby. What's yours?"

"I," Lyra began is her most stately voice, "am Lyra Jones and your most ridiculously amazing roommate."

Emma giggled. "Well, how on earth can you know that when you don't know any of us yet?"

"Well, because I'm all-knowing, of course," Lyra responded, sounding mock offended that anyone would suggest otherwise.

Another girl spoke up, saying, "I don't know about most amazing but you've already won most ridiculous and amusing!"

"Thank you. Thank you very much! And you are?"

"Joanne. But I go by Jojo," she replied before continuing around the room. "And this is Anna. And Emma has already introduced herself. And over there is Emily and Janet."

"I am immensely honored to meet all of you." Lyra continued in a melodramatic voice saying, "but alas, I already have three best mates and as such will probably not be seeing you much outside of this room and classes."

"Oh yes," Janet replied. "We know about your three best mates. They're the boys you were talking to before the sorting and sitting with at the feast, correct?" Lyra nodded. "Well, as our roommate, I think it is your duty to introduce us to them in the morning, as they are the three best looking boys out of the first years."

"EEEEWWWW! One of those is my brother you know!"

"Exactly." Anna responded. "Then we don't have to worry about you calling dibs on him. Would it make you feel better if we let you call dibs on one of the other two?"

"I don't want to call dibs on any of them! They're my best mates! Not boyfriend material at all." Lyra finished matter-of-factly.

"Oh, I wasn't thinking boyfriend. I just want to get a good snog out of the black haired one," Emily said dreamily, not realizing the affect her words had had on Lyra.

"THAT'S MY BROTHER! AND IF ANY OF YOU MESS WITH HIM, I'LL TEAR YOU APART LIMB FROM LIMB!"

Emma spoke up, trying to keep the peace. "Oi, calm down Lyra. You tell us to keep our hands off your brother and we'll do it. We don't need any cat fights between roommates. Right girls?" The other girls nodded eagerly, having been scared by Lyra's outburst.

"Good," Emma said. "Now how about we all go to bed before someone else sets off the ticking time bomb," nodding at Lyra with a look on her face that said she was just messing with her.

Lyra laughed at that and smiled, saying, "Y'know, I'm not always a ticking time bomb. Just most of the time."

September 2, 2009

Lyra woke up the next morning to yelling. Pausing to listen, she realized it was Leo calling up the stairs for her. Always a bear in the mornings, she groaned and rolled out of bed before stomping over to the door, yanking it open and yelling down the stairs, "WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU WANT LEO?"

"BREAKFAST." He called up the stairs. "And we're not leaving without you so hurry up!"

"FINE!" Lyra replied before slamming the door and turning around to see all the other girls glaring at her.

"This better not become a regular occurrence." Anna said bluntly. "Or you're going to be sleeping on a sofa in the common room."

Lyra sighed. "I'll talk to him," she said, before dragging herself back to her trunk to get dressed for the day.

A short while later, she trudged down the stairs to find the boys waiting impatiently for her. Well, Leo wasn't, but that's because Leo was used to her taking forever in the mornings. O'Malley on the other hand...

"Finally! What took you so long?" he said, exasperated.

"This kind of perfection takes time, O'Malley. I do not suddenly look this amazing just getting out of bed," she teases. "Oh, and my roommates now want to kill you lot for waking them all up with your yelling, so you better find a quieter way to wake me up in the mornings."

"How do you expect me to do that?" Leo asked. "I've been trying for eleven years and still haven't found an easy way to get you up in the mornings."

"You have to wake her up that way every day?" Teddy asked. "And I thought Vic was bad."

"Who's Vic?" O'Malley asked.

"My godfather's niece. She's next oldest in the family after me. She's near impossible to get up in the morning."

"Wait, you mean Victoire?" Lyra asked, starting to think.

"Yeah, her nickname's Vic."

"Nicknames! You all need nicknames!"

"Oh no." Leo said. Lyra knew he'd been hoping she would drop the nickname thing once they got to school. Oh, was he sadly mistaken.

"What's so bad about nicknames, Leo?" O'Malley asked.

"You haven't heard the sorts of nicknames that she comes up with," Leo answered with a grim tone.

"What's yours?"

Lyra had been waiting for someone to ask that, fully prepared to make the most out of embarrassing Leo. "StaaaarrrrBeaaaaarrr!" she yelled enthusiastically, drawing out each syllable.

"StarBear?" O'Malley choked out between his laughter.

"Just you wait. She's going to come up with something just as horrible for you."

At that, Lyra started muttering, "Canice O'Malley. Canice O'Malley. Hmmm." Well, she thought, Canice really does sound like Candice. And Candice sounds like candy and candy is sweet... "I've got it! You, Canice O'Malley are now SweetValley!"

"What? No way are you calling me that!"

Leo walked over to O'Malley and clapped on the back comfortingly, "I apologize for my sister, mate. But you're stuck with it. She doesn't change her mind. Ever. Unless it's to come up with an even worse nickname."

"Thanks for the sympathy," O'Malley said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Lyra was glad to see Leo talking to O'Malley. She knew he was slower to make friends than she and didn't want him to be left out because of how quiet he could be. But now that the ice was broken between them... "Your turn Teddy!"

His laughter stopped abruptly with a look of fear on his face.

"TeddyBear is too obvious, so..."

Leo, trying to save Teddy from her, said "Lyra, you do know that if we don't hurry, you won't get breakfast, right?"

"FOOD!"

Leo shook his head at her, but she ignored him. "Come on Leo. Show the way."

O'Malley spoke up again, "How is he supposed to know the way to the Great Hall any better than us?"

"Because, my dear SweetValley, he pays attention and remembers everything."

"Well then, let's go. I'm hungry."

The quartet made their way downstairs, and after one mix-up where a staircase had moved, they made it safely to the Great Hall.

"BearyPoo!" Lyra yelled at the bottom of the grand staircase.

"What?" Teddy said.

"Your new nickname."

"Please no."

"Oh yes."

"Remind me again why I'm friends with you."

Lyra stuck her tongue out at him before walking into the Great Hall with her nose in the air. He would learn that you do not argue with her.

They followed her inside and sat around her, grabbing food from the serving platters. Lyra had already started scarfing down food, though she somehow managed to do so without getting a drop of food anywhere besides her mouth and her plate.

As she ate, the boys talked about this and that, with the conversation often circling back to Quidditch as SweetValley O'Malley had never seen it played before.

Near the end of the meal, Lyra remembered the conversation with her roommates from the night before. Never one to wait for people's attention, she yelled, "Hey!"

"What?" The boys said as one, turning to look at her.

"I thought you might want some warning before class."

"Warning about what?" Leo asked, wary of what prank she might be planning to pull.

"I'm not talking about a prank, Leo. Thank you very much. I'm talking about my roommates." The boys looked bewildered so she continued. "They think that you three are the best looking boys in our year, and there's at least one who I wouldn't put it past to slip you a love potion from Weasley Wizarding Wheezes."

"Oh, we don't need to worry about WWW love potions. Uncle George gave me several bottles of antidote before I left. He seemed to think I might have trouble with people slipping me some of his love potions," Teddy said.

"Really?" O'Malley asked.

"Yeah. He said as soon as people found out what I could do, the girls would be all over me. And since he's responsible for making the WWW love potions so effective, it was his job to save me."

Lyra was now intensely curious. "What do you mean, 'what you can do'?"

Teddy looked around before whispering, "I'm a metamorphmagus."

Lyra and Leo's eyes widened while O'Malley just looked confused. "What's a meta-whatchamacallit?"

Lyra answered in a hushed voice, "A metamorphmagus can change their appearance at will. They're really rare. You have to be born one."

"Wow."

Teddy looked embarrassed at their awe. "Yeah, my mum was one. She passed it on to me. But McGonagall's a friend of the family and she said she wants me to keep it quiet here at school. Especially to begin with." He sighed heavily. "I miss my hair. This brown is the color of my dad's hair in the pictures I've seen. But I like mine better."

"What color is your hair normally?" Leo asked.

"Here, I'll show you. But just with my eyebrows so other people don't see." His face screwed up in a look of concentration, and then his eyebrows were suddenly a bright turquoise.

Lyra yelped with surprise.

Teddy shushed her, looking around before changing his eyebrows back. "McGonagall said to pick a calmer color for the first term of school. And since my mum kept her hair bubblegum pink most of the time, I picked my dad's hair color."

"That's so wicked," Lyra whisper-yelled excitedly. "All the things you could get away with by doing them while you look like someone else!"

"No way, Lyra. McGonagall would know it was me and then I'd not only have detention, I'd also have Aunt Ginny ready to kill me. She's right scary when she's mad. I'm not doing anything to get on her bad side."

"Awww," Lyra lamented.

"Change the subject. Professor Longbottom's headed this way with our schedules," said Leo, ever the attentive one.

When Professor Longbottom reached them, Lyra was surprised to see him turn to Teddy and say, "How are you doing, Teddy? Ginny said to remind you to write her soon."

"Hi Uncle Neville! I already sent her a quick letter last night telling her about the sorting and my new friends." He glanced over at said friends to see them gaping at him with their mouths hanging open. Smiling in understanding, he simply told them, "friend of the family."

"Everyone is a friend of the family for you," Lyra accused.

Professor Longbottom laughed at that. "Well, it certainly is a big family. But in my case, I was a roommate of Harry and Ron when we all went to here. But, here are your schedules. I'll be seeing you lot first thing in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Oh, and Teddy?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry to say that if you forget and call me Uncle Neville in class, I will be forced to give you detention. I do not want to have to write Ginny and tell her you got a detention on your first day."

"Yes Professor Longbottom," Teddy said dutifully.

Professor Longbottom clapped him on the shoulder before continuing on down the table.