Having made her way through the Common Room without talking to anyone - SCORE! - Olly climbed the steps to the girls dormitories. Right. Fifth Year. Hopefully her fellow fifth year girls weren't annoying. Or talkative. Or you know, THERE right now. But she was in luck it seemed. After she'd pushed open the door that said "Fifth Years", she glanced around cautiously at first, only to find that the room was indeed empty.

YES!

She soon spotted the bed her bags had been placed next to - house elves? The Headmistress had mentioned they were back - and walked over to it. Good, it looked okay. Yes. She wasn't exactly used to sharing a room with other people though. The last time she'd had to do that had been...well, back in the home really. But she had been so focused on making sure Odette was taken care of that she hardly remembered how SHE had felt about it. However, she was pretty sure that she wouldn't exactly be thrilled to be sharing her room with her fellow Hufflepuff Fifth Year girls.

With a small sigh, Olly let herself drop onto her new bed with her feet just barely above the floor and leaned back until her bag was resting against the mattress. Here she was. Welcome to Hogwarts.

With the feast a fleeting memory already, Elodie had headed back to her common room as fast as she could as to avoid the first years and the new students and prefects and everything else. She wanted to get herself into bed and not have to worry about the feeling in the pit of her stomach about the lack of Charlie in Hufflepuff. None of her new friends had been sorted into the same house as her, unless you counted little Bristol, and Stan. No one of almost the same age, who she could stay up with and talk to about the important things. Like boyfriends.

It made her miss summer. The nights she could stay up with Cat and talk about everything. Like best friends should.

Pushing open the correct dormitory door, Els cooed at the cat and toad on her bed and let them out as soon as she got to them, giving them a few kissies and making sure they were okay. Which they both were. Both fine, both alive, both super happy to be back apparently. She immediately felt the presence of someone else in the room, and out slipped a normal "hey B," whilst messing around with her belongings and getting her extra blankets and things out. All to make her bed her own again. Of course, the cogs were ticking and it hit her barely ten seconds after she had spoke. Bliss wasn't here. There wasn't a B. So...someone else was here. Someone new. Someone..she didn't know.

She turned, and leant against one of her bed posts. Ah, the girl from the table. The one who's face she hadn't been able to place. No wonder. "Hey... I'm Elodie. Welcome..to Hogwarts."

Was she going to be one of those over enthusiastic morning people?!

Absently staring at the ceiling above her, Olly tried to assess her momentary situation. She was here in Hogwarts. And she would be staying here at least until Christmas. And then come back. And stay again. Until the summer months. And then the cycle would start anew. Until she had graduated. And all the while she was here, Odette was at home with their parents. Maybe she should have bought one of those two-way mirrors for her and Odette as well. But they were just so expensive. However, maybe she could ask their parents. Maybe they would buy them as a Christmas gi-

........Olly was suddenly interrupted in her train of thought by somebody pushing open the door to the dormitory.

There went her peace and quiet.

She pushed herself up a little so her weight was resting on her elbows and silently watched the other girl make her way to one of the beds. Wait, was that a toad? Before Olly got around to take a closer look, the other girl called out something that left her quite confused. Huh? B? Who was that? She actually turned her head left and right only to rest her eyes back on the other girl once she had made sure that they were indeed alone. What?

By now the other girl had apparently noticed her and Olly regarded her for a moment. Elodie. So she was one of the people she would be sharing a room with. Well, it could have been worse, Olly supposed. At least this one didn't look as excited as certain other people at the feast. That was definitely a welcome change. "I'm Olly." And sitting up properly this time, she tilted her head slightly to the side almost curiously. She seemed a little...hesitant. "Yeah..." Too many people had welcomed her to Hogwarts already. And she still didn't quite know what to make of it.

Els sat herself down onto her bed at that point, and took in the other girl on first glance. Seemed okay, she guessed. Olly? "Well it's nice to meet you, Olly." Was it? Was it really? Was it so nice to see a new person when all she wanted was to see Bliss sat in this room? She didn't know. It wasn't something she could change, and she wasn't going to try change it. So..Olly, huh? Elodie could handle this. If Olly could handle her trying her hardest to not make friends in fear of replacing others. She didn't seem particularly chirpy, so that sat well with her. "I saw you at the table...."

But if they were going to live together in the same room until graduation, then they'd at least have to know something about one another. "So..where were you at before coming here?" There were plenty of possibilities. People came from all places if they started later. Look at Charlie and Stan.

Pulling her cat into her lap, Elodie stopped looking at Olly and then looked around the room they were in. "You like lollies?"

Another thing she had heard A LOT since arriving here. Or well, since Diagon Alley really. Why people always insisted on telling the other that it was nice to meet them even though they didn't have any idea whatsoever what said person was like remained a mystery to Olly. And in her case she could only assume that most people wanted to take it back after a few seconds of conversation with her too. Well, tough luck. You couldn't take back words.

I saw you at the table.

Olly opened her mouth to tell Elodie that that was just the lamest thing ever and that they should just stop their conversation now if neither of them had anything interesting to say but stopped herself in the last moment. Right. Play nice, Olly. She was going to have to share a dorm with her after all. Plus, she wasn't as annoyingly excited about everything so Olly had decided that it was sort of worth trying to at least get along without fighting.

So all she got in reply to that were a few slow nods. Because really, what was she supposed to SAY to that. 'I saw you too?' That was pretty redundant, no? So instead she went ahead and answered Elodie's second question. "I was homeschooled. So...at home." Olly replied with yet another nod, her eyes resting on the other girl for a moment to take her in. "How long have you been here?" Might as well find out a few basic things about her.

o_____________O

"...what?!" Okay, Elodie's next question threw her completely, it was so out of the blue. Lollies? Her eyes which had briefly wandered off to the other so far unoccupied beds were back on the Hufflepuff. What?

Laura was really bored and hadn't really done much lately, she decided to take out some of her sweets and eat them whilst thinking about all her life at Hogwarts so far, she had chocolate frogs, honeydukes chocolate and a lot of other sweets, she hoped that Sophie or Ella would come in and join her or at least someone would join her because she needed to have some fun.

Sophie entered the sixth year girls dorm and saw Laura was already in there. "Hey there!" She greeted her friend, walking towards her bed and leaving her bag there. She took a few thing out and went to the other side of the room. "I'm going to practise a few spells." The brunette told the other badger. "Be careful not to get in the way of the flying things!" She smiled at her friend and turned around to face the wall.

Okay. She felt ready. Holding up her wand at her side, Sophie concentrated hard on a specific piece of parchment she had just placed on her bed. She was concentrating so hard it was probable that, even if Laura spoke to her now, she wouldn't listen to a word she was saying. All of her focus was on that particular piece of parchment on her bed. When she believed she had her full mental aim on that particular object, she did a quick wand flick. Once she heard the thing flying her way, she turned around and waved her wand abruptly at the flying parchment...

...which froze a few inches away from her face.

Wooooooooooooooo!!! "Brilliant!" Two spell at ONCE, how awesome was THAT?? Asdfghjkl Merlin, that was too awesome. Ignoring everything else that could possibly be happening around her, Sophie looked at Laura with sparkly eyes. "Laura, could you do me a favour??" She asked, grabbing the parchment and hurrying back to her own bed. "I have these things here on my bed," the girl spoke fast and gestured around as she tried and explained her idea to Laura. "And I'd like you to throw one of them my way once I'm standing over there. BUT!" Bounce, bounce, bounce! "Don't tell me when you decide to throw it and also don't tell me what the object is!! Okay??" She was readehh!!! Arresto Momentum on unexpected things! Well, sort of unexpected, really. She kind of knew stuff would be thrown at her and she had a general idea of what it might be, since it was the things from her bag. But anyhow, it would be fun nontheless!

Have fun with Charms! FUN. WITH. CHARMS!! YES!

Sophie rushed back to her spot on the other side of the room and faced the wall once again. Her wand at the ready by her side as she stood ALERT. READY FOR WHATEVER WAS COMING HER WAY! WOOOOO!! Charms Charms Charms!

Laura watched as Sophie came into the room and listen to her, whilst eating her chocolate, she was enjoying it loads and she was thinking about a lot of different things but she was also watching her friend doing her work, she had done hers with Nerida not that long ago.

Laura was just eating one of her chocolate frogs when suddenly Sophie stopped and came over to her, she wanted her to help her out with something well that was what friends were for right, they helped each other out and Laura was a good friend so she would help her friend out, finishing off her chocolate and leaving a few out in case Sophie wanted one later, she got off her bed and went over to Sophie's and looked at the items.

Laura didn't want to throw anything at Sophie because if she hurt her friend she wouldn't forgive herself ever and she did have a deadly right arm, she loved throwing things. "Okay I think I see what you want me to do." Laura grabbed Sophie's pencil case and without warning threw it at Sophie, she just hoped her friend was ready.

ALRIGHT! This was exciting!!

Still facing the wall, Sophie was trying her best not to bounce up and down. She was SO excited about all of this. Charms were awesome! TOO awesome! She just wanted to go about and hug them all, but that would be difficult because they weren't actual things that could be hugged. All she could do was keep practising and casting them all over. Which was far from being a problem, really! Woooooooooo!!

OHWAIT. Focus. She needed to be alert! Constant vigilance! Or something like that. "Lovely!" She told Laura as her friend agreed to help her out. Brilliant, brilliant!! She was ready! The brunette held her wand up, ready to turn on spot whenever she felt it was time. Any minute now...

SOMETHING WAS COMING HER WAY! "Arresto Momentum!" Sophie said loudly and firmly as she turn around and waved her wand in the general direction of her bed, Laura and the flying object. They were all just behing her, so it wasn't hard, really. And looooooooooook at that! The pencil case was slowing down! "Oh, hello!" She jokingly greeted the object as she reached out and grabbed it. "Thanks, Laura!" She smiled at her friend, not really caring that much about the fact she had not done it nonverbally this time. It had been her intention, true, but whatever. For some reason she was happy she had been attentive enough to turn around at the right time before the object could hit her face. "This is a brilliant spell, isn't it??" She said cheerfully, walking back to her bed and reorganizing her things. "I just can't get enough of Charms! Honestly!" She beeeeeamed!

Well after her failed attempt at moving the bench and that room just freaking her out so much that she had to leave.. She just had too. Minerva had said her goodbyes to Claudette before going back to her room. Not being able to move the bench bothered Minerva though. Was it charmed to the floor. Maybe that was why she couldn't move it.


Well that just wasn't working well with her, she didn't fail. No she never failed, well she did, but she didn't take the failure well. So she was going to do this spell on something and she was going to do it right. Looking around her room she put her eyes on her bed. That was heavy wasn't it. Well she thought so at least. Now time to move it. Doing the whipping motion Minerva focused, "Carpe Retractum!" The ropes came out and wrapped around the bed.

Now time to pull.. pull.. and pull. This thing was heavy, but she was a beater as Alec said, she should be able to do it. Another good pulls and she heard the feet of the bed move against their will. She smiled excited that she could do the spell. Now time to put the bed back before an elf heard her moving things.

You know, she was pretty certain that they could have more space since not all the beds were taken anyway. And they probably shouldn't even have the curtains either, is not like others were using it.

Does she complain too much about this? Perhaps she just ought to stop doing s. She will. Soon.

In the meantime, she eyed the bed close to hers and the open Charms textbook in hers... why not? Wand in hand, she stood up and focused on a foot of the bed. The one she'll attempt to move, that is, not hers. Moving the wand as if it was a whip, she spoke the incantation, "Carpe Retractum!" Got it, purple rope around the foot - which was the part that will make a bed easier to move, common sense - and then started the pulling. It was rather easy to pull the bed towards her, away from her own bed. Albeit, a super heavy piece of wood. But easy, yeah?

It was already two feet away from her bed when she decided she'd grown bored of all the pulling and simply walked over to the bed and pushed it further away with her own hands.

See? That was simple. Still heavy, but simple. Clearly, this particular charm couldn't be useful for everything. She has more room now, though, so that's good.

After slamming the door behind her, Fern wrenched off her tote and threw it across the room. There was the sound of glass breaking, and letting out a scream, the 11-year-old stomped to where her bag had landed. She turned it upside down, letting all of her school supplies - along with shattered glass and wet ink - spill onto the floor.

Moaning, Fern pulled at her hair, and sank to her knees to examine the disaster before her. Everything was covered in ink, and her favorite Hexy Boyz folder had been completely ruined. Half of Dante Dark's face was now covered with a huge black spot! Desperately, Fern tried to wipe off the ink, but she only smeared it over more of the lead singer's face, staining her hands in the process. "Nononononono!"

This was all Forrest's fault. It was all Tora's fault. It was all BenziCuthbertThatStupidWandMakerEVERYONE'S FAULT!!! THIS WAS THEIR MESS, AND THEY SHOULD BE THE ONES WHO CLEANED IT UP.

AND THEY SHOULD PAY FOR A NEW FOLDER!!

Clutching the damaged folder to her chest, Fern started to look for her other Hexy Boyz folder, the one with their logo, when she saw it-

Her potion!

Fern hadn't tested it out yet!

And she knew just what to do. Setting her Dante Dark folder gently on the ground, Fern pulled her potion from the pile before popping off the stopper and chugged its contents down. Then tossing the flask back with the rest of the mess, the tween crawled over to her trunk and began digging through its unorganized contents.

By this time, she had begun to glow a faint pink, and catching sight of her changing skin color, Fern started to giggle while she continued searching. At last she found it! Celestina Warbeck's Greatest Hits! Leaving the trunk's lid open, Fern crawled over to her bed and yanked out her phonograph from underneath. Record out of cover. Record onto turntable. Stylus down. Wand out of holster. A twirling motion. "Rotatus!"

The record began to spin, and out of the phonograph's horn came music,

"Oh, come and stir my cauldron
And if you do it right ~"

Hopping up, Fern pointed her wand tip to her neck. She didn't know the spell for amplifying her voice, but she'd seen the Hexy Boyz do it at concerts, and now, shining hot pink and fabulous, the first year lifted up her free hand to form a fist and belted out the lyrics to her adoring, imaginary crowd,

"I'LL BOIL YOU UP SOME HOT, STRONG LOVE
TO KEEP YOU WARM TONIGHT!"

Her fans were screaming, and she could picture Forrest listening to her on the WWN, crying with jealousy and regret.

It was beautiful.

It was bedtime.

Ella had done everything she could to prepare for her potion, not that she needed to prepare or anything. She simply really wanted it to work and she felt that getting into her comfiest pajamas and warming her blanket and fluffing her pillow might help.

Sliding under the covers with the potion in hand, the blonde took the stopper out and eyed the liquid curiously. The lavender smell was lovely and calming and she smiled a little before downing the potion. She smacked her lips once or twice before placing the stopper back and setting the vial to the side. Now it was time to see if it had worked.

YAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNN

Her eyelids were quite heavy now. And her mind wasn't racing like it usually did. Actually, there were no thoughts of Quidditch rosters or homework assignments or problems with Gran at all. Instead there was only peaceful quiet.

So peaceful, in fact, the it wasn't long at all before Ella drifted off to sleep.

Laura had been sleeping peacefully until suddenly she started dreaming of bad things and it wasn't long before she screamed out and woke up. She had had a crazy dream where she had been eating by a dragon and DJ had just laughed and watched which wasn't nice and her friends had watched as well and Laura hadn't like it.

Laura looked over and saw that Ella was asleep okay then time to change that. She quickly walked over to her friend and started poking her in the side. "Ella!! Ella!! Ella!!" Laura said still visibly shaken from her nightmare, if she had to she would use the water spell on Ella just to wake her up. She didn't care or know what time it was, she just wanted someone to help her understand why she was having this nightmare. It was the third time in a week.

Sound asleep. Ella hadn't heard any tossing or turning and wasn't disturbed when her friend jumped out of bed. Really, the potion she'd brewed was working brilliantly. Well, that was until she was being poked and prodded.

O____o

The blonde peeked one eye open and swatted the poker, unaware that it was Laura. She then peeked the second eye open and frowned when she noted it was her friend, annoyed at being disturbed. "I...Laura, it's the middle of the night. I don't want to have a pillow fight." And Sophie probably wouldn't be too happy if their talking woke her up too.

Laura was glad when her friend had woken up. "I don't want a pillow fight." Laura cried, she had been crying since she had woken up and hadn't stopped though she was trying her hardest to stop. "I just... I just." Laura didn't know what to say it was a strange dream and Laura really didn't want to have another one of them.

Laura glanced over and saw that Sophie was asleep and maybe she should have left Ella asleep but she didn't know what to do in the situation and well surely Ella was the best person to ask because she was awesome in strange situations. "I just had a weird dream." Laura said as she sat on the floor and just cuddled up-to herself.

She was crying? Ella rubbed at her eyes and sat up a little, confused. It was completely disorienting to be so sound asleep and wake up to this so she was trying to work it out as best she could with a fuzzy brain.

Weird dreams. Ella was no stranger to those and she frowned slightly before letting out a yawn. "Don't sit down there, you'll catch cold." The floor was quite chilly. The blonde patted the edge of her bed and pulled her feet up to make room.

"What was the dream about?" She whispered.

Laura just stayed were she was, because she was really scared and was still crying. It took her a few minutes to stop the crying and the get up and sit where her friend had told her too. She didn't say anything though at the minute she didn't care if she caught a cold but that dream had just been scary.

Laura listened to Ella before whispering back. "Well DJ and I was on a date." Laura had liked that bit but then disaster had struck. "But then all of a sudden a dragon came and ate me and all DJ did was laugh and smile and then left." Laura said starting to sob again, it had been a really bad dream and she had hated it like crazy.

Fern sprinted into the first year girl's dorm room and skidded to a stop before her bedside table, on which the tank that held her toad, Lewis, rested. She took a moment to catch her breath before gently lifting off the tank's wire roof. "Lewis, Lewis," she whispered softly, snaking in a hand, which was grasping a hot pink nail file, "I swear this won't hurt, I promise, I just need-" she scraped the shorter edge of her emery board, the side without the gritty, abrasive texture, quickly against his back, and the toad went jumping across the tank and behind a rock, "a little sample! A little sample, Lewis! That was it! That's all!"

Pulling the file out, Fern maneuvered the wire netting back in place and blew a kiss to her toad. "Love you Lewie! I'll bring you some nice crickets after class, okay!? Nice and fresh!"

Then she scampered out the door and back to class.

Okay, she was waiting. Ella had moved her pillow and held it to her chest so she could squish it a bit cause she was tired and trying to be patient and the squishing helped.

When her friend finally spoke up, the seventeen year old raised her eyebrows and then frowned. "That's a horrible dream." Yeah, Ella was no stranger to those. "But sometimes things in dreams don't necessarily mean what we think they do, yeah? We learned that in Divination." But Alec was much better at the Divination stuff than she was. "It's all good, okay? Don't cry."

Laura looked at Ella. "I know it was a horrible dream." Laura really hadn't liked it one bit and that was why she had woke Ella up in the first place, maybe that had been a bad idea but she was sure her friend wouldn't mind and well Ella knew what to say.

"I know what you mean." Laura sighed. "Maybe I'm just worried because he's in America that he's forgetting about me." Laura hoped that it would be true but you never know. "I'm sorry." Laura said as she tried to stop the tears. "I just can't help it." Laura was trying to stop crying but was finding it hard. "I'm sorry for waking you up as well."