Love Knows No Shape

"A few words before the ceremony," Albus Dumbledore proclaimed as the last first year sat at the Hufflepuff table. "Mr. Filch has reminded me that Brain Freezies" (AN: *giggles madly* You wouldn't understand unless you're a fan of the delicious-as-always Jhonen Vasquez's more... graphic... artistic renderings) "have been added to the rather large number of objects forbidden within Hogwarts. That brings the list to four hundred and forty-nine, I believe, and is available in Mr. Filch's office. First years, along with the rest of the students," and here, Dumbledore's eyes flashed merrily to Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, both of whom opted for confused innocence, "would do well to note that the Forbidden Forest is still forbidden.

"One last announcement, if you please. We have a new student, a seventh year, who will be joining us. She moved here from the United States of America. Gazell Whitestar, if you would please step forward."

Standing in place of the first-years, with whom she had come in, a tall girl stepped up, waist-length, neon-blue hair nearly hiding her face from view. Piercing eyes, one an icy blue, the other an icy green, glared out at the other students.

A few pupils looked up, mildly curious, but most were far too busy staring expectantly at the golden dishes.

At a nod from Dumbledore, Gazell walked up to the Sorting Hat and plunked it on her head, sitting down on the stool. The murmuring ceased and all eyes were on her.

The Hat muttered quite a bit, but after a minute or two, it bellowed, "GRYFFINDOR!!" and Gazell stood, removed the hat, and, at a gesture from Professor McGonagall, walked over to her new House table, which was clapping somewhat enthusiastically at the prospect of gaining another seventh-year.

She plopped herself down in the nearest empty seat, throwing a dirty look at Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who were whispering among themselves, staring quite pointedly at Gazell's hair. They silenced immediately, eyes wide.

The boy on Gazell's left turned to her, emerald eyes looking at her from between strands of unruly black hair. "Welcome to Hogwarts," he said, smiling. "This is Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger," he continued, motioning towards said persons, "and I'm Harry. Harry Potter."

She took his proffered hand, squeezing it in her vice-like grip, and nodded curtly. "I'm Gazell." Her brows furrowed as she thought of something, looking intently at Harry's face. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

Ron's eyes widened. "He's Harry Potter!! You know, the boy that brought down You-Know-Who?"

Gazell tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Oh, yeah... I remember reading something or other in the paper about that... That's yao, Harry, beating the living daylights out of the greatest Dark wizard. And more than once, wasn't it? I'd say I know how you feel about the whole no-parental unit thing and all, except I don't. Well, not exactly. I at least knew my parental units for seventeen years before they were killed."

Harry looked blank.

"Is that why you moved here?" Hermione spoke up. "Because your... er... 'parental units' died?"

Gazell nodded and began looking around the table for familiar food. "Exactly. Me parental units were killed by some hot shot Dark wizard in the States, and so I moved here to live with my aunt. All in all, the U.K's pretty yao. Especially the guys," she said, winking at Seamus Finnigan, who reddened very slightly and became suddenly engrossed in whatever Dean Thomas was saying.

The three friends exchanged looks. "Do all Americans talk like you do?" Harry asked.

"First of all, hon, I'm not American. I lived in the States- Texas, to be exact-, but I wasn't born there. I'm Canadian by birth. And no, neither all Americans nor all Canadians talk like I do- I've my own dialect, just about," she said, her eyes roaming over the foreign dishes. She smiled as she spotted a rather small bowl of some sort of food hidden behind a giant plate of some sort of pudding. (AN: I'm not British, never have been, and can't think of any British foods right now, so I'm going to pretend that the narration is from Gazell's POV, meaning she has no idea what the hell these foods are) She pulled the bowl closer and emptied it onto her plate, filling her goblet with ice water. The vegetable dumplings (me favourite actual food ever; an Indian dish) disappeared one by one as she popped them in her mouth, took a small swig of water, chewed, and swallowed.

The trio of friends watched with mixed amazement and disgust as she did this.

"How can you drown everything in water like that?" Ron asked, turning the palest green.

Gazell grinned. "That's what me parental units used to say. I really dun know, but I've tried it normally before, but it's just unyao like that."

Hermione swallowed a mouthful of steak and kidney pudding. "What in the name of the giant squid do yao and unyao mean?"

Gazell shrugged. "Yao's just a word I made up years ago. I use it for anything from a noun to an adverb, and it even has it's own opposite." She grinned. "Oh, by the by- call me Ell. Or Gaz. Or Zell. Or any variation of my name. But dare to call me Ellen or spell my name with only one L or an E at the end, and I will curse you into last year."

The other three nodded. "Okay, then, Zell," Harry said. He was about to say something else but was interrupted by Dumbledore clearing his throat loudly.

"Prefects, if you would please lead your Houses to their common rooms," he announced, and the students stood up and filed out. Zell followed Harry and Ron, who followed Hermione, who led the rest of Gryffindor, being a prefect (AN: As is she wouldn't be. Actually, she'd probably be Head Girl, but I want her in the Gryffindor tower for a reason, and according to yours truly the Head Boy and Head Girl have separate rooms outside of the House dormitories).

A minute later, after extracting Neville from one of the trick steps (Zell burned that image into her mind forever- not only to remember where not to step, but also because his expression was so damn funny), they arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady.

Hermione stepped forward and said, "Querkafk," in a loud, clear voice, and the portrait swung open. She then led them into the common room.

The firelight glinting off the gold hangings was hurting Zell's eyes; she stepped into Ron's shadow, hoping no one would notice. No one did, as they were heading towards their respective dormitories, Hermione pointing the first years towards theirs. Zell caught up to her and poked her in the small of the back.

Hermione turned around. "Yes, Zell?" she asked.

"Where do I sleep?"

"Oh!!" Realization dawned in Hermione's eyes. "Of course. Follow me."

She led the way up a set of stairs to a room with four four posters. Zell noticed her own belongings resting on the one beside the one Hermione flopped onto. Changing into a black tank top and baggy, midnight blue silk pajama pants, Zell extracted a small Dragon plushie from her trunk, which yawned and stretched, glad to be free of its confinement.

An owl, silvery white with large, stony grey eyes, sat perched inside a cage on her nightstand, and Zell opened the hatch, allowing the owl to step out. It hopped over to a perch by the window where it ruffled its feathers and tucked its head under its wing.

Hermione, now clad in a scarlet nightgown, frowned. "Why isn't your owl going to the Owlery?"

Zell smiled and fondly stroked her companion. "Poor guy... I raised Drago from a hatchling. He's a smart owl, knows I'm not his actual mum, but still, he hates to be away from me. I practically had to tie him up when we got here; he didn't want to be taken up to the dormitory, wanted to stay with me..."

Hermione clenched her teeth, the corner of her mouth twitching upwards. "You-you named your owl... Dragon in Italian?" she said, an odd look on her face.

A crease appeared between Zell's eyebrows. "Yes, why?"

Hermione sniggered. "Oh, nothing. It's just that there's this asshole in Slytherin named Draco Malfoy- Draco is Latin for Dragon-, and the funny part is, he looks exactly like your owl. He's got cold grey eyes and silvery blonde hair."

Zell cocked an eyebrow, smiling. "Really? An asshole, you say? Well, then I guess he'll just have to change his name, now, won't he? I'm sure as hell not going to let my poor likkle Draggikins share a name with an asshole, now, am I?" she crooned, tickling 'Draggikins''s breast feathers.

Hermione sniggered again and climbed into her four poster, scratching a large, squash-nosed, bowlegged cat that lay curled up at the foot of the bed behind the ears. "This is Crookshanks," she said, and Zell bowed in mock formality. Then Hermione pulled up the covers, said, "G'night," and closed her eyes, falling asleep immediately.

Zell climbed into her own bed, kicked the covers down to the foot, and stretched out, the Dragon plushie settling into the nook right beneath her chin. Mebbe this won't be so bad, she thought. Moments later she was fast asleep, snoring lightly. (AN: Heh heh... Very lightly- I dun snore that loud)