Chapter 4

 

The commen room was full of people all in robes. There was a welcoming fire in the grate and many soft armchairs next to it.

“May I have your atteintion for a moment,” said professor Magonigal addressing the many students in front of her.

“These are some transfer students from another magic school very far from here.” She gestured at the three of them. “This is Holly Short,” she pointed at her, “Artemis Fowl,” she pointed to him. “And Ronan Garrowson.” She indecated Foaly.

“They have all made it into Gryffindor so treat them with respect. Miss Granger will you come here for a moment.”

A girl dislodged herself from the hords of staring students. “Miss Short, you will be in the same Dorm room as Miss Granger here.” she indecated the girl in front of them. “Would you please show her to her bedroom. There is already an extra bed which has been added for her.” The girl nodded.

“Mr Potter, Mr Weasely, would you come here please.” Two boys came forward. Holly, Artemis and Foaly all recognised the name Potter and stared at the two boys.

“Mr Fowl and Mr Garrowson will be in your room. There have been two extra beds added already.” The two boys nodded and then Magonigal nodded. “Right then I will leave the six of you alone to get aquainted,” and with that she pushed open the portrait that had swung shut and dissappeared.

At once the room erupted in a storm of sound. People continued their conversations as if Magonigal hadn’t come in at all.

“Right, we know your names so I think you should know ours,” said the brown haired girl cheerfully. “My name is Hermionie Granger. This is Ron Weasely,” she indecated the red haired boy with freckles and a long noise. “And this is Harry Potter.” She indecated the boy next to her. He had black hair just like Artemis’s but much intidier. He had odly shaped emerald eyes and you could see a jagged scar on his forehead.

“Nice to meat you,” said Holly smiling and holding out her hand. Hermionie shook it warmly. “Let me show you to our room.” She pointed to a door to the right of the portrait hole. Holly nodded and followed her to the door. They walked up a spiral staircase till they; reached a door near the top. Hermionie pushed open the door to reveal a spacious room with seven beds spread around the walls. There was a name on each bed. Holly found hers and said friendly to Hermionie,

“Thanks.” Hermionie smiled brightly and replied. “No porblem.”

“What’s it like here anyway, I’ve never seen a place like Hogwarts before,” Holly enquired.

“Oh it’s amazing,” replied Hermionie enthusiasticly. “There are the lessons which are great to begin with, then there’s the library and of course there is meeting lots of people from all around Brittain.”

“It sounds like I’m going to like it here,” said Holly smiling happily.

When the two girls came back downstairs they found that they couldn’t find the boys in the commenroom at all.

“They must be up in their dorm room, follow me,” said Hermionie and marched off to a door to the left of the portrait whole. It was the same as the girls but reverse. Instead of the stairs going clockwise they went counterclockeise and the doors were on the other side of the wall.

Hermionie stopped at a door near the top again and knocked. “Come in,” a voice called from behind the door. The two entered to find Harry, Artemis, Foaly and Ron all sitting on their beds talking quite plesently to each other.

“Oh, hi Hermionie and ….. Holly right, find your dorm room alright,” Ron enquired looking at Holly.

“Yeah, the room’s pretty big. There’s seven beds around the walls I don’t know how they namaged to get them all in,” Holly replied.

“Same as in here I guess. When we first got here there were five beds in here and I thought that was pshing it a bit. Now there are seven beds and the room looks a lot bigger. I don’t get it,” said Ron cheerfully.

“Well anyway it’s late so I think we should all go to bed,” said Hermionie. “We have our first day of lessons tomorrow and I for one want to be rested and ready for them.”

“Which subjects did you three take,” asked Harry politely.

“I took charms, transfiguration, potions herbology, defence against the dark arts, history of magic, care of magical creatures, ancient ruins and arithmancy,” said Foaly. “So did Artemis and Holly took the same except she didn’t take the Ancient ruins course.”

“Great choices,” said Harry.

“You better watch out in Care of magical greatures,” warned Ron.

“Why,” asked Foaly curious. “Well, last year Hagrid had us looking after Blast ended Skrewts,” said Ron darkly.

“What are they,” asked Artemis interested in the new knowledge.

“You better hope that you never have to find out, comented Harry.

While those four were having a conversation Holly and Hermionie were talking about their classes.

“At the beginning of third year I couldn’t decide on what subjects to take so I just took them all,” Hermionie was saying in a rush.

“All of them, how did you manage to fit them all in,” asked Holly amazed.

“Well I got a time turner from Professor Magonigal. It really helped that year with my subjects,” Hermionie answered.

“How did it work?” asked Holly thinking that it might be useful for LEP buisness

“Well it’s a little hourglass on a chain that you put around your neck. You then turn it. Each time you turn it once is an hour so if you turned it three times you would go back in time three hours.”

“I’ve never heard of them before,” said Holly even more amazed.

“Yes well, niether had I till Professor Magonigal gave me one in my third year.”

“I wouldn’t mind having one of those to carry around with me just in case.,” said Holly a grin on her face.

“Yes I agree but Professor Magonigal had to assure the eministry of Magic that I wouldn’t abuse it in any way if I got it,” said Hermionie.

The boys had stopped talking and now everyone looked quite tired so Holly and Hermionie left and headed for their own Dorm room to get some sleep.

When they entered the commenroom there weren’t very many people that were still awake. There were two red haired boys which Holly took to be Ron’s older brothers passing around some sweets to firstyears.

“Fred, Gorge Stop that,” comanded Hermionie stomping over towards them with Holly following her.

“Oh, we wouldn’t want to upset a Prefect would be Gorge,” said one twin sacrasticly.

“No, no we wouldn’t want to do that,” agreed the other twin, his voice tripping with sarcasm.

“Oh, shut up both of you, I know that those sweets you just gave them are some kind of sweet that will make them colapse or something,” repied Hermionie heatedly.

“Right as always Hermionie,” said the twin called Fred. “These ones are Fainting Fansies. Look.” He took out an orange and purple sweet. One end was orange and the other was purple. “You bite into the orange end to faint then one of your mates gives you the purple end which slides down your throat and then you wake up. Simple right.”

“And did you tell these first years what they were eating,” demanded Hermionie.

“Course we did,” replied Gorge. “We advertised for testers and this lot signed up. Oh that reminds me hay Fred you can wake them up now.” The other twin went around inserting something purple into the mouths o the unconcious first years. All of them woke up at once.

“See, there’s nothing to worry about,” reassured one of the twins.

“Hay, what was it Holly right, would you like one of these,” asked Fred holding out a green and purple sweet. Holly pretended to think about it. “Um, no I don’t think I would thanks. From what I’ve seen that will probably make me start vomiting or something.”

“Oh no, not another know-it-all!!!” growned Gorge. “We’ve already got enouph of them with Hermionie around.”

“Well get used to it because my friends Artemis and Ronan won’t be fooled by you two ether,” replied Holly confidently. “Come on Hermionie let’s get to bed.”

“Good idea,” replied Hermionie and the two of them walked over to the girls dormitories to get some sleep.

 

Next morning Great Hall Breakfast time

 

Harry, Ron, Hermionie, Holly,, Artemis and Foaly all sat together at the Gryffindor table having a good time.

 ”So you lot have had a different DADA teacher every year?” asked Foaly a little suprised.

“You got it mate,” replied Ron through a mouthful of toast.

“Outa the lot there was only one decent one. That was Professor Lupin. We learned tones with him. He let us face lots of dark stuff like boggarts for one thing.”

“What are boggarts?” asked Artemis latching onto the information.

“Well, no one knows what it looks like because every time someone gets near one it turns into your worst fear.” replied Hermione sounding as usual like she had swallowed the textbook.

“That was also the year that the dementors came to the school,” said Harry, shivering slightly as he said that.

“What are Dementors?” asked Foaly.

“They are horrible,” replied Hermione. “When you get close to them they make you fort of forget all the happy memories you have and only remenber the bad ones. It is different for everyone depending on what kind of life they had. Harry had it quite bad before Hogwarts so he is effected a lot more then the rest of us.”

“God, I hope I never meet one,” said Foaly.

“I agree,” said Artemis.

“Over the summer Harry and his cousin were attacked by a dementor,” said Ron.

“What?” asked Foaly and Holls together.

“Yeah,” said Harry. “I got a full scale trial as if I had broken some kind of big time rule or something. Thank god Dumbledore was there or I could have been expelled. Thanks to him almost all the people in the court room agreed to let me continue at Hogwarts.”

“Who didn’t want you around?” asked Holly curiously.

“Well the Minister of magic, Fudge, two people who I don’t know the name of and the new DADA teacher. Her name is Umbridge. That’s her there, the one with the face like a toad. She has a black bow on her head and is wearing a  disturbingly pink outfit.” He gestured to one of the people at the teacher’s table.

“You willing to bet that she has some goblen or sprite blood in her somehow,” whispered Holly to Foaly.

“Yup,” he replied.

“And you wonder why I’m not a girly-girl. I think I rest my case,” said Holly in a louder voice so that Harry, Ron and Hermione could hear.

“After seeing that woman, if you can even call her that I don’t even blame you,” said Ron.

“Oh look boys, it looks like we have some more skum in the school. That’s all we need, isn’t it enouph to have Potty, the weasel and the know-it-all?” Everyone turned around to face the boy who had made the coment. Harry, Ron and Hermionie groaned. It was Draco Malfoy and his two goons Crabbe and Goyal.

“Oh, great that’s all we need,” muttered Ron.

“Why can’t you find someone else to annoy?” asked Harry staring at Draco with a look of clear loathing on his face.

“I annoy everyone Potter, but I love anoying you, My father says he was there, you know, when you were almost killed. He says it was quite a show and you only got away out of pure luck.”

“That’s not true,” replied Hermionie angrilly.

“I don’t recall asking what you thought of this you filthy little Mudblood!!,” said Draco in a snide voice.

Harry and Ron leapt to their feet and took out their wands. Hermionie tried to push their arms down by their sides.

“What’s going on here?” asked a voice from behind Draco. It was Professor Magonigal who had seen the comotion and had come to stop it.

“He called Hermionie a… a Mudblood,” said Holly who was still sitting down and glaring at Malfoy with a look that could kill. Artemis and Foaly recognised it and didn’t try to intervine. If they did they would probably end up getting punched in the face themselves. That was something Artemis didn’t want to experience again and Foaly didn’t want to experiance it at all.

“Ten points from Slytherin,” barked Professor Magonigal and strode off. Draco and his goons glared at them and walked off to the Slytherin table. Holly was still glaring at him and imagining how to get him alone and what would hirt him more, a punch in the face or a kick up the arse.

“He’s a right old git,” comented Ron when Professor Magonigal was out of earshot.

“I agree,” said Holly, her attention back to the table at which she was sitting.

“The best thing to do is ignore it,” comented Hermione dryly. “If we just ignore him then he’ll get tired of bothering us and leave us alone eventually.” 

“And How long will that take?” asked Harry bitterly. “A couple hundred years probably.” Hermione conseeded and went back to her bowl of cornflakes. 

“I wouldn’t be suprised,” muttered Holly. “Those kinds of people never get tired of annoying the people they hate.”

 A bell rang but everyone remained seated. They were all waiting for their head of house to come and destribute their time tables for the year. When Magonigal reached the six of them she gave them their timetables in silence, odviously not wanting to say anything.

She continued down the table and they all looked at their sheets of partchment. They looked at each other and talked about it for a while. They looked at each other’s classes and found that most of their lessons were the same except that Harry and Ron had Divination instead of Arithmancy or ancient ruins.

Another bell rang and they all headed off to their first period class which they all had together.

Some other stories by Arya:

• Animagus choosus
• Moonlight Ritual

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