Stormy Weather

Hermione fidgeted slightly, twitching at her robe as she stared down the tracks. She'd never known the Hogwarts Express to be late, and every time she checked the time it wasn't yet, but it just felt as if it were late. She could see Professor McGonagall watching her with a slight amused curve to her lips, while Draco was leaning against the wall of the station house, looking patient, calm, bored, and most of all, in need of a good slap across the face to knock all of that out of him while she was fretting.

"It'll get here when it gets here," Draco told her. Hermione grinned a bit sheepishly.

"I just miss my cousin. I haven't seen her since last summer." She stared down the tracks again, and started to grin. "There it is!"

Draco looked at the approaching train as it came to a stop. He could only vaguely understand Hermione's excitement, since he hadn't ever really been close enough to any of his family to care if they showed up or not. "Which one of them is she going to be?"

"You won't have any trouble spotting her, we look exactly..." Hermione trailed off as a group of teenage witches and wizards stepped off of the train. One of them in the front had long, richly colored violet hair hanging down, but other than that, she looked almost exactly like Hermione herself did. The Hogwarts Head Girl stared. "Alike..."

"I don't really think you can say that anymore," Draco murmured dryly.

Hermione stared at her cousin, shock written all over her face. "Sam?" The other nodded, grinning. "What did you do to your hair?"

"Do you like it?" Sam shrugged lightly, touching the unusual coiffure casually. She didn't really sound anything like Hermione, so there was even less chance of the two of them being mistaken for each other. Hermione most definitely was English, while Sam could never be anything but American.

"It's...different." Hermione decided, then remembered in a flash the real duties they had here. "Samantha, this is Professor Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress and Transfigurations Professor, and Draco Malfoy, Hogwarts Head Boy."

Draco nodded slightly, while the Professor worked on getting all the other new arrivals organized. Sam eyed the blond. "Heard a lot about you from my cousin."

"All bad, of course," Draco grinned, looking quite as if he wouldn't mind some of the bad things that Hermione had to say. Sam shook her head.

"Not recently."

Draco raised one eyebrow slightly, then glanced over at Hermione, who just shrugged. "What? You expect me to trash my boyfriend?"

Everyone looked over as Professor McGonagall cleared her throat to get their attention. "Welcome to Hogwarts. You are the first group of exchange students we have ever had, and I hope you enjoy your stay here. Follow me." She headed over to where the line of waiting carriages stood ready to carry them to Hogwarts. Hermione, Draco, Sam, and the Deputy Headmistress got into the first one, and once they were all full, the trip up to the castle began.

Draco's arm slipped around Hermione as they rode, and she smiled lightly at him. Sam chuckled from across the carriage, and Hermione looked at her quickly. "What?" The English girl's eyes narrowed quickly. "I have never trusted that grin. What's up?"

"Nothing!" Sam tried to look innocent, and failed rather miserably. Hermione eyed her again, knowing that something was going on behind her cousin's eyes.

Before she could figure out what it was, however, a small black nose came out of Sam's robe pocket. The nose was followed by a sleek brown furred body, and an attractive ferret crawled onto its' mistress' lap, peering unerringly at Draco. The Slytherin Animagus reached over and petted the creature lightly, a soft smile on his lips.

The ferret almost seemed to be preening under Draco's touch, then leaped over to his lap easily, curling up there. "I think he likes you," Sam said with a chuckle. "He's usually not that friendly.

"I'm not surprised." Draco looked just a trifle smug. "You might say I'm kind of a distant cousin to him." Sam looked curious and Draco's trademark smirk appeared. "I'm an Animagus. I turn into a ferret."

Sam's eyes widened in surprise, then she grinned. Hermione always did know how to pick them. "How did you two start dating, anyway?" From what she'd heard, they hadn't really been the best of friends from the time they first met. She was almost certain she saw Draco's pale eyes going over to Professor McGonagall, then back to Hermione, somewhat furtively.

Her cousin just shrugged. "He asked me out, and I said yes." She paused for a moment. "Actually, we talked a little."

"Then I asked her out." Draco put in. Hermione nodded.

"After he kissed me."

Sam grinned widely. "Do I want to know how much more you've done?" She wondered. Hermione blushed deeply, ducking her head slightly. Sam could hardly believe what she seeing. My cousin... She glanced over at the professor, whose lips were set into a thin, faintly amused line. I don't think she believes it was quite like that.

Hermione glanced down at the ferret, who had drifted off into a snooze in Draco's lap. "He's nice."

"For now." Sam warned her. "He's usually a hyper little guy."

Draco chuckled. "Most ferrets are." He'd done a lot of research into them, learning their ways and habits, as a prelude to his Animagus lessons, once he'd figured out he was most likely to become.

"When did you get him? I thought you had a cat last summer." Hermione wondered. "He was kind of old, though."

"I know. It caught up with him." Sam shook her head, her eyes going a bit teary for a moment, then she quickly wiped them. "Mom was going to get me a new one, but this guy and his littermates were on sale, and they didn't have any new kittens that day, so she got him. It took a lot of convincing to be able to bring him to school with me, but I worked it out."

"What's his name?"

"Ramas." Sam reached across to run a finger down her pet's spine gently. "He's smart as a whip, too. Has a theft problem sometimes, though. Keep any small shiny objects out of sight, or they just might go missing."

Ramas slept all the way to Hogwarts, putting up no protest as he was returned to his mistress' pocket as they started up the final curve of the road there. "Sam." Hermione nudged her cousin's leg gently. "Look out the window. That's Hogwarts."

Sam peeked out of the window and stared, her jaw dropping at her first sight of the castle. "Salem Institute is nothing like this!"

"Nothing in the wizarding world is like Hogwarts," Professor McGonagall told her. The carriage came to a halt, and the four of them started to get out, joined shortly by the other new ones. Draco and Hermione headed inside as Professor McGonagall motioned them in, joining their respective houses. She waved her greetings to Ron, Harry, and Ginny, then grinned as the doors swung open and the group came in. Ron peered over at the new ones, just as curious over them as he was over all the first years, then stared. Hermione looked at what he was looking at, then grinned and leaned over to him.

"That's my cousin, Sam," Hermione whispered softly. That's who you saw. She wanted to tell him that out loud, but now wasn't the right time. Ron just kept on staring, and Hermione shook her head, shooting a quick look across the room to Draco, who smiled a bit back at her.

Hermione grinned widely as the Hat screamed out "Gryffindor!"

Sam bounced over to join them. "Looks like you're stuck with me, 'Mi!" The violet-haired girl grinned.

"I think I can manage," Hermione murmured a little dryly. This was going to be pretty interesting.

"Mi?" Ron wondered, looking over the food at them. Hermione grinned a little, trying not to notice the nickname. Sam was the only one who dared call her that, anyway.

"Harry, Ron, this is my cousin, Samantha Jameson." She motioned from one boy to the other. "Sam, this is Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, my two best friends."

Sam waved at them both. "Hi! So you're the famous Harry Potter."

"That's what they tell me." Harry grinned just a little. "I keep trying to tell them that I'm Larry Potter, his Muggle cousin, but no one believes me."

The newcomer laughed a little, then looked at Ron. "You must be Ron Weasley. Gryffindor Quidditch Keeper, right?" The redhead nodded, the tips of his ears turning red, and Sam's grin widened. "I'm very pleased to meet you. Any chance you're related to Fred and George Weasley? The prank guys?"

Ron nodded, looking ever so slightly nervous. "They're my brothers."

"I kind of feel sorry for you." Sam told him, ignoring Ginny's whispered 'don't' from the other side of the table to keep talking. "One of their prank wands nearly burnt one of the dorms down."

Hermione remembered when Sam had written her about that as her cousin continued. "I moved the water from the lake to the dorm. Flooded the entire basement where the teachers lived." She snickered a little. "Got out of school for two weeks while the teachers tried to dry out the place. Even magic couldn't dry it all that fast."

"Sounds like fun," Harry commented. He was fairly certain if that had happened at Hogwarts, they would've been dry in nothing flat. Dumbledore was the greatest wizard ever, after all.

"Other than that, your brothers' business is a big hit at our school. Even with the teachers!"

Ginny grinned; she wasn't all that surprised by this. "Great! They'll want to know about this."

"I'd like to meet them." Sam blushed a bit at the thought of meeting the twins. "Don't they have a shop in Diagon Alley?"

"Right. They've had it set up for the last two years. I hear rumors they're going to buy out Zonko's pretty soon, if they haven't done it already."

"Cool." Sam looked over at Ron. "So, you're a Keeper, huh?"

Ron nodded a bit eagerly. "I sure hope so...uh, I mean, yeah!" Idiot. She was talking about Quidditch! "Do you play?"

"I'm more into precision flying," Sam told him. Ron looked surprised; he'd never really met anyone who liked to fly but didn't like Quidditch. Were there more of these strange creatures around?

Hermione chuckled. "She taught me how to fly upside down." Part of her enjoyment in flying had come from learning how to do it all over again with Sam as a tutor.

"It's a head rush if you're not used to it," Sam grinned, eating some. The group lapsed into silence, stuffing themselves quickly. Hermione picked up a fresh apple, then over it spied a familiar sight: Dobby peering from around a corner at the Slytherin table and Draco. He vanished before she could do anything more than recognize him, however.

"Hermione?" The Head Girl looked to see her cousin had been looking in the same direction she was. "Was that house elf wearing a top hat? And socks?"

"That's Dobby," Hermione told her. "He used to belong to the Malfoys, but he was set free and now he works here."

Sam looked curious. "Malfoys? Your boyfriend's family?" Hermione nodded and Sam looked back towards the Slytherin table. "Do they know that he works here?"

Hermione bit into the apple thoughtfully. "I never asked, but I think so."

"Unless he's hiding from Malfoy," Ron suggested. "Remember he used to get daily death threats from them."

"True." Hermione nodded, remembering the things Harry had told her about what Dobby had told him. I wish S.P.E.W. had done better.

"Mom would never let dad have a house elf." Sam thought out loud. "My best friend had some, and we used to go down and bug them a lot." She grinned a little; the worst they'd ever done was just get extra snacks in the middle of the night. "They were cool."

"I like Dobby." Ron put in. "He's weird, but I like him."

Harry nodded, remembering how Dobby had helped him in the Triwizard Tournament. "Maybe we'll introduce you."

"Just pray that he doesn't try to save your life." Ginny suggested. Ron nodded quickly in agreement as Sam looked curiously confused.

"When he was trying to save Harry's life he got him locked up, then we crashed a flying car into the Whomping Willow because he tried to stop us from coming back to Hogwarts, and then broke Harry's arm." The redhead recounted.

Harry shuddered, rubbing that arm as it tingled. "Don't remind me, Ron. Our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher tried to fix it, and removed all the bones."

"Lousy git." Ron muttered under his breath, then tried to draw attention away from Lockhart. "Um, why is your hair purple, Sam?"

The newcomer shrugged. "Had to do something that made it easier for people to tell the difference between Mi and myself. We look alike otherwise, kinda like Fred and George."

Ron blinked, then groaned, burying his face in his hands. "I can't get away from twins!"

Harry patted his friend's back soothingly, then everyone looked up at the Head Table as Dumbledore stood up, ready to make his speech. It was fairly similar to the usual one given at every Welcoming Feast, and those who had heard it before tuned out until it was over with and they were all dismissed. It was starting to get late, and everyone wanted to get some rest.

Hermione led the newest students for Gryffindor back to the common room, then turned to face them all. "All new students, welcome. This is the Gryffindor common room. Like the rest of the students here, please note that it is against the rules to go into another house's tower or dungeon." Those who knew her well might've noticed her blushing at that. "Your luggage has been moved to your rooms. Please enjoy your stay at Hogwarts." She paused for a moment. "One last thing, please beware our school's poltergeist, Peeves. He likes to play jokes on people, and spread rumors. If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask any of the prefects, Head Boy, or myself. Until then, I suggest that everyone get some rest."

As the new students scattered, Hermione slid into a chair by the fire and stared at it quietly. Everything seems to be piling up at once. I know it always does, but it just seems...worse this year for some reason.

"Hermione?" She looked over to see Harry looking at her worriedly. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I'm just feeling a little unnerved. The trial, waiting to see if Draco's heard from his mum about that broom. N.E.W.T.s. Final planning of the family weekend." Something else crossed her mind just then. "Is it just me, or has Snape being almost...nicer to Gryffindor for awhile?"

Something flickered behind Harry's eyes. Hermione wondered what he knew that she didn't about their Potions Professor, but she couldn't think of any way to ask without seeming fairly rude. "Maybe it's just because it's almost the end of the year and he'll finally be rid of 'The Dream Team'." Harry suggested at last.

"Maybe." Hermione yawned slightly; it had been one of the more trying days of the year. "I'm going to head up. Good night."

"Good night," Harry headed up to his own dormitory as Hermione climbed over to hers.

Time to get some studying done. She wasn't going to let her lessons slide now that her cousin was here. She turned page and after page, committing it all to memory, until darkness stole over her, and she was face down on her books, sound asleep.