Welcome again! Enjoy the next chapter.

There was something different about this morning. You see, it smelt like cinnamon, but it wasn't supposed to smell like cinnamon, even my sleep addled brain knew that I wasn't home, where mum would drink her cinnamon tea early in the morning, and kept some warm for when it was time for me to get up. Yet, it did smell like cinnamon.

It also felt like I was wrapped in a heated blanket, like those I used when I was sick in the winter in years past, but I'm not sick, and I'm not home, so why would I have one of those? Would they even work in the castle?

I opened my eyes, and it all explained itself, she was still here then, clutching me tightly in her sleep, and it was her hair tickling my nose with the smell. Should I wake her up? I don't think the students are supposed to sleep in other beds than their own…

It wasn't long before she woke up, but long enough that I felt slightly anxious about waking her up or not, my bladder wasn't exactly huge, and I really really had to pee.

She looked up, and her cheeks coloured once she figured out what had happened, an embarrassed sounding "Sorry," left her lips, "I shouldn't have fallen asleep on you."

"It's… fine," I mumbled looking at her, which apparently made her more embarrassed, and nodded; "Susan…"

"Yes?"

"I need to pee," and my words had immediate effect, as she had yet to let go of me in any way, her leg thrown over mine and arm tightly around me uncoiled themselves and I was free to get up and go about my business quickly after, her face showed even more embarrassment but apparently, she was happy about the whole thing, strange girl.

Sliding the curtain open revealed that the rest of the girls had either left already, or were still asleep, the old but pretty watch that mum had given me marking the time as half past six, and our first lesson wouldn't be hold until eight, so I guessed they were still asleep. Bathroom business was quick, and so I returned to the dorm to get myself changed and maybe lay down with my eyes closed for a bit longer. A glance through the half opened curtain as I rummaged through the armoire proved that she was still in my bed.

"Susan?" I asked, trying not to stare at her as I did, sharply returning my gaze to the armoire and selecting a robe between the twelve Mum had ordered.

"Yes, Jen?" was her reply, and a glance revealed a sheepish smile thrown my way with her eyes focused solely on me.

"Why are you still in my bed?" and another glance, her cheeks coloured again, rather matching her hair in fact but still she smiled instead of the slight awkwardness I felt.

"I liked it better than mine, is all;" was her reply, as she made herself even more comfortable, curling into a little ball under my covers and releasing a pleased sounding hum.

"You should get out of it before the others wake up, you know," and I had everything I needed to change in hand by now, so I slipped back between the curtains and began the process of taking off my sleepwear and replacing it with my uniform.

"Why? I slept with Hannah all the time before school, it shouldn't be a problem," she sat up, and continued looking at me, never mind the fact that I was half naked by this point.

"Normally, people don't share a bed unless they're married." I deadpanned, and that got her moving, apparently it was enough of a shock that she planted her head into my pillow, trying to hide her obvious embarrassment, and I continued; "Also, staring at me won't get you changed either." And she groaned, and I giggled, and soon enough she was off to get herself sorted out.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad around here.

The walk to the Great Hall felt rather short, even if it was our actual first day here the castle didn't feel so huge anymore, and we quickly got the hang of the moving staircases after the odd scare here and there. The tables weren't quite as full as you'd expect, with the early hour we took our leave from the dorm we managed to reach our destination before the apex of the morning rush. This of course, left us plenty of choice as to where to sit, and so we did, in a place towards the middle of it, after the sight of bacon called my attention urgently.

Again, ham was good.

It was with sore disappointment that I noticed pretty much every drink on the table was made of pumpkin. Pumpkin. Who the hell – pardon my French – drinks pumpkin juice like this?

A kid down the table apparently followed my train of thought, the choice between water and pumpkin juice seemed as awful to him as I, and he seemed to be performing an impressive charm in order to change this; "Eye of rabbit, harp string hum, turn this water into rum!"

Of course, this didn't seem to work at all. Maybe he's just doing it wrong? I don't know if it's even possible. Maybe if I try?

I pulled out my wand, careful to keep it out of sight, maybe it'd make it easier, it did make making myself invisible easier as I had tried in the bathroom earlier, and then I thought that if I can make myself vanish, I can change this into apple juice. And so, stare, stare, stare…

Nothing, welp, can't get all of them right.

Susan of course noticed my predicament, as she seemed quite intent on keeping her eyes on me at all times; this was quite new and rather strange to me, but I guessed it was normal for normal people. I did stare at others myself before, after all.

"My auntie said that if I wanted something different, I could ask the elves;" and then she pointed towards the goblet in front of me, "I'm guessing you don't like pumpkin?"

A shake of my head, and a munch on a piece of bacon – I couldn't ignore it forever if my life depended on it – was all the answer she got, but it seemed satisfactory, and she whispered a name, something seemingly like Tipsy, and a small creature with long ears, dressed with what seemed like a tea towel toga, appeared right behind us with a slight, almost inaudible pop, "Missy is needing Tipsy?" it asked in a squeaky voice, with a strange accent, eyes planted firmly on Susan.

"Hello, can you bring us some orange juice please? You like oranges, right Jen?" I nodded, and she nodded towards the elf which beamed and snapped its little fingers – maybe it was a she? – and a pitcher filled with orange juice was sat in the table right in front of us; "Thank you," she said, and the elf bowed and disappeared again. Wonder if I could do that…

Something to try later, for right now, my stomach had other plans. A sandwich built like a chimera with everything that seemed delicious I could find, a bit of soup, and I was set for a really good morning today!

It was definitely not a good morning. You see, I made sure to get up as soon as I woke up exactly to avoid this, but it seemed I wasn't successful, at all. The problem is that, I'm lost, and the worst part of it, is that Susan is too.

After a rather good – stuffing, truly – breakfast, we were supposed to have ample time to make our ways towards the Transfiguration classroom in the east wing, it was supposed to be just a couple corridors down from the Great Hall, in front of a square garden nestled there. The thing is that we couldn't find it, and by this point we were surely late to class. Susan didn't seem to care overly much, saying that we'd find it eventually, but really I couldn't help but worry as I knew the stern witch that had first met us at the castle was the one teaching the class, and surely we'd lose a huge amount of points because of this – my rail of thought was interrupted by Susan speaking out loud – louder than she was already – and pointing towards a patch of green; the square!

"Look, there! Come on, let's hurry up!" she grabbed my hand and began her trot towards what should be the classroom door, it was closed already so I knew we were truly late, and within a few strides and I nearly falling due to her haste, she was knocking on the door – without letting me go mind you – and it groaned open as only an old wooden door can, the stern look directed at us quite sobering.

"We're so sorry! We got lost an hour ago on the way here, we still don't really know the castle," I blurted out as fast as I could, her gaze shifting to me, and it was scary, and Susan still hasn't let go of me darn it!

"Five points from Gryffindor, each;" she sentenced, and pointed towards one of the last two desks free, "Let this not happen again. Sit down and pay attention; there is much to be covered today."

Just as we sat, a boy I identified as Ronald barged into the classroom, face flushed with effort as it seemed he has just run through the castle, waltzed through the door and sat on the last desk available, the faintly echoing sound of Professor McGonagall resounding another five point deduction, and the stares of all gathered Gryffindors planted themselves firmly upon all three of us for a few seconds.

That's interesting.

And so class began, the theory behind transfiguration wasn't as complex as it seemed, in the short terms it seemed to boil down to making the object think it was something else, via magic, as if that was empirical at all, but maybe magic and scientific concepts just didn't get along that much. The lecture was rather stretched, and it covered the safety rules for what we could and could not try to transfigure, and what was safe to transfigure other things into. Then, it came to the practical part, we were then set to work on turning a matchstick into a needle, the instructions were to see the needle in your mind instead of the matchstick, and then use your wand to channel your magic and make the change happen.

Simple enough, I thought, and so began trying it, focusing very hard on making the wood into metal; I stared at it for about twenty seconds, waved my wand over it then flicked and… nothing.

I glanced to my left to see how Susan was doing, and she seemed to have done the same as I, that is, exactly nothing, and so began a quite tiresome hour of attempt after attempt without success, although there was a funny incident where the same boy who had tried to change his water to Rum, Seamus he was called, managed to set his matchstick on fire. Of course, the Professor immediately put the fire out and admonished him, over the snickers of the whole class at his now lack of eyebrows. Alas, the frustration was mounting for me, and I grabbed the matchstick between my thumb and forefinger of my right hand, bringing it close to my face, maybe looking at it from closer, getting all the details would help.

That was the excuse I had for myself, though; in reality my thoughts are more along the lines of change already you stupid stick, change, change, change!

Wait, did that just happen? A silvery glint answered me, and I refocused on the stick to find it wasn't a stick any longer, well, it was, but it certainly wasn't wood anymore. It was metal! I had a needle!

Giddy thoughts, yes, I had accomplished the task already! Wait, was it pointy? A poke to the tip of my finger… ouch, yes, yes it was.

"Susan!" I chirped, and turned towards her; "Look what I've got! I did it!"

I nearly shoved the damn thing into her face, in my excitement, her eyes slightly crossing and she leaned back in order to actually look at the object between my fingers.

"Is that a needle?" she questioned and then chirped; "You've managed! Brilliant!"

I nodded furiously, a beaming smile on my face, and then proceeded to try and help her out with hers.

Everything was working out just fine.

The routine settled in rather quickly, the first few days went by without any unexpected hitches, and I seemed to be doing brilliantly in every class, although in a different way to everyone else. You see, the rest of my class seemed to depend entirely on their wands, and I tried to as well, but everything just worked out better when I willed it into happening rather than using my wand. On charms, we had been started onto the levitation charm, and though we were basically negating the laws of physics, the incantation was ridiculously simple.

Swish and flick your wand, intone Wingardium Leviosa while you did the movement, and if done right the feather in front of us would have to rise to wherever the point of our wand was. This didn't work like that for me, in the end I tried to do it differently after hundreds of failed attempts, I pointed my wand straight at the feather and thought, ordered it into rising… and it did. Apparently my magic had its way to convince the world to do what I wanted all by itself. Wicked!

Alas, today was potions, and the man in charge of the class was rather intimidating, I had seen this man before though, at our house when I was young, I suspected he was a friend of mum's, as he constantly looked at me as he interrogated everyone on the subject with questions that I couldn't tell were of our level or not.

Soon enough, instructions were on the board and we were to begin, a simple potion he said, cure for boils, and Susan rushed off rather quickly to deal with the gathering of ingredients, while I read the book in order to make sure of what we should do.

It wasn't long after, the potion was simmering in between phases of the brewing; Susan and I were talking once more, in hushed tones, about what it had been like as she grew up:

"You know, it was pretty lonely before Hogwarts, they don't send us to school before and the only one I had was my aunt, she's really busy though so…" she trailed off, and then continued; "I've always liked running through the garden, and I used to climb every tree I could find;" she giggled, "My auntie always said that I shouldn't run barefoot in the mud, that it wasn't proper of a lady, blah, blah,"

" - That's what my mum says too," I cut in briefly, and giggled at her slightly betrayed look, "Because I kept running off in parks where she couldn't see me, and shoes were definitely annoying!"

"Potter!" Snapped from the front of the class, the man who had introduced himself as Severus Snape, our Potions instructor, was staring directly at me, "If you wish to ruin your work with your banal chatter, you should turn off your cauldron and leave my class immediately." A glare, and I was quiet once more, then began adding the slugs as I should have, it was time anyway.

Susan then took the cauldron off the fire while I ground the porcupine quills into dust, and we added it together, then I glared at Snape while he was busy vanishing Longbottom's attempt at the potion while Susan did the necessary stirring, a wave of the wand and… the satisfying pink smoke that should come out of a properly made potion made itself present in our cauldron.

"Not terrible," said Snape as he passed us on the way back to the front, and soon the class came to an end.

Time passes by quicker than you'd expect, I think.

It was already the third week of October by the time I came to look at a calendar, the 18th to be precise, and the routine had settled quickly enough that I no longer grumbled about being up late for Astronomy, then up early for History, I quickly figured out that History was another name for napping, as all my classmates would attest, and thus it no longer presented such an issue so long as I could manage the self-study.

Hermione was great help in this, of course. The girl had insisted upon helping and correcting each one of my mistakes, eager at seeing me take the assignments somewhat seriously.

The castle was a great place to explore, already had I found numerous classrooms in unused wings of the castle that had all the signs of being used for clubs and meetings in previous times, there was a poster in one that boasted support of Grindewald, of all relevant people in the magical world, it had to be our very own Hitler. There was also a painting room, filled with unused and used canvas of very well made paintings, one of them even resembled one I had seen in a museum with mum! It was very impressive.

It was in one of these bouts of exploring that I found myself in the third floor, right hand corridor, after coming out of a passageway that I probably wasn't supposed to find, that had to be of course a secret passage. And of course, as these things are ought to go, I heard noises.

Three, very distinct barks sounded, and the shriek of a man followed them, and I hid behind the closest set of armour I could see. With the corner of my eye, I saw the professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts; Professor Quirrel, rush out of a door not far from where I hid with what looked like a massive hound on his heels… what?

Why would there be such a huge dog at Hogwarts? Is this what Dumbledore meant?

And so the door slammed closed with a flick of Quirrel's wand, and the man quickly retreated with all the due haste of a coward fleeing his death… fitting, because that dog sure looked hungry.

I waited a few moments after he left, to make sure the dog wouldn't smash through the door and eat me, and then left quickly. As soon as I was back on the staircase, I realized for the first time how much I was shaking like a leaf, and I really felt like crying. Being scared is definitely not fun.

And then it was the night of Halloween, or Samhain as Susan had corrected me. There was pumpkin everywhere, and some of the students, older ones and those of noble birth she explained – as she was wearing them aswell – had bangles and decorations on their persons fitting on what you'd imagine of an old druid, they were rather pretty, and I felt a wild desire to have some of my own. Maybe I'd ask Susan for next year.

Hermione wasn't here, and I had heard that she had a spat with the Weasley boy hours before and had fled to the bathrooms, she had a preference for the ones on the third floor left hand, she said it was the quickest to get to from the inside of the castle as there was a secret passage right next to the Great Hall leading to it, so I knew she'd be back here soon.

Dumbledore stood, I think he was going to do what he had on the last feast, a little speech and some crazy words and then finally let us eat, but before he could speak there was a loud bang, and every head turned as one towards the gigantic doors of the Great Hall;

"TROLL IN THE CASTLE!" Was the bellow of professor Quirrel as he panted and looked close to fainting, "TROLL!"

Then he mumbled something, barely loud enough to be heard even in the absolute silence that engulfed the Great Hall after his entrance, Thought you should know, he said, and promptly fainted.

The reaction was immediate. The Great Hall was in uproar with scared, excited and worried students in equal measure, and a second, louder bang erupted from the head table. The Headmaster there stood, looking very focused indeed, and began ordering the students to stand and gather to be led back to their common rooms.

"Susan! Susan!" I whispered harshly, making sure to get her attention; "We have to go get Hermione, she doesn't know!"

"But Jen, what if we find the troll?" She asked, looking somewhat hesitant, but I knew she wouldn't let me go alone, and I wouldn't stay here while my friend was in danger.

"Then we run as fast as we can and take another way to get to her, there's plenty in the castle, we just have to hope we get there first."

And so we snuck from among the throng of students, with every single year of every house gathered together in lines, there was no way the teachers could notice us, and quickly we were right before the passage that would take us where we had to be.

The stench hit us first. We had learnt in Defence, that mountain trolls were very resistant to magic, and that they were gigantic creatures with very little brains, but very much stronger than a human, specially a human little girl.

Maybe I should have thought this better…

Too late now, we were almost there and the troll was close, so we had to rush it if we wanted to leave here alive.

We rounded the corner, and there was the bathroom, the troll was walking down the hallway, its back to us as it had passed the bathroom door already, and we dashed into the bathroom not noticing that the rumbling footsteps had stopped their advance.

"Hermione," Susan hissed, making her best effort to be loud while not outright shouting, we didn't want to call attention to us, bad enough that we were here as it was, "We need to go now, there's a troll in the hallway!"

The girl ducked out of the cubicle where she hid, she looked as if she was still very upset and I of course had the urge to hug her, as I did every single time I saw someone cry. But this was not the time, we had to leave before something bad happened –

Of course I should never even think that.

The wall was smashed, and the troll was stumbling inside the enclosed space we occupied, straight through the only exit.

What should I do!? What should I do!? The thing had a big wooden club, and it was already swinging it wildly to get rid of the rubble holding it tentatively in place, and it had seen us already, so we were going to have to fight it if we wanted to get out of this one. Susan had already started attacking it, flinging stinging hexes as fast as she could straight towards its face, "The eyes! Aim for the eyes!" she shrieked, and Hermione snapped out of it also.

More hexes began flying, and I had still to do anything. I was terrified, just what could I do? I could see the hexes were doing nothing but making it angry, and it looked as if it was going to charge us any moment now!

So I did the only thing that came to mind… I raised my wand and my hand and shouted "NO!"

It did something, there was a push, and I could see the troll stagger. I knew it was going to kill us, and so I wanted, I needed it to stop. I couldn't let it hurt my friends, so I did it again, and again, "NO! NO! NO! YOU CAN'T! I WON'T LET YOU!"

And with every shout, there was another blast, stronger and stronger, and I could feel myself more energized, I felt stronger with every shout, and the troll looked as if it was getting a beating, the club lay forgotten in the floor, and each impact seemed to be breaking bones now. At last, the troll dropped to its knees, and with one last shout, wordless and filled with panic, the impact blew its head apart.

Did I… Did I just kill a freaking troll!?

And so I was on my knees, I couldn't believe what just happened, Ikilledafreakingmountaintroll!

And they were by my side instantly, Hermione stood in front of me, looking dumbstruck at the gory mess that was left, and Susan was hugging me looking like she would start crying any moment now, and now that the adrenaline was wearing off I felt myself getting tired and sleepy…

Maybe it was a good time for a nap.

Hello again, I'm free from work currently so my updates may speed up a bit, though I don't promise anything. Reviews appreciated.