Oliver's Girl

Oliver's Girl (prologue)

It was a soggy, late-September afternoon, and Harry had just come back from potions. Ron and Hermione were trudging along behind him; all in a bad mood because of Snape's favoritism towards the Slytherins. Ron was yelling at Hermione for stepping on the back of his robes, when Harry saw her. His crush, Cho Chang, was chatting a little ways down the hall with some of her fellow Ravenclaws.

"I'm so excited! She's coming next week!" Cho said.

"That's cool... but... how can someone just enter Hogwarts in their 6^th year? It doesn't make sense."

"I told you, she's transferring."

The girl Cho was talking to rolled her eyes and walked off. Harry admitted, it sounded pretty funny. Transferring? To Hogwarts?

Harry was now somewhat intrigued by the idea. He made his way towards her down the hall. Cho saw him coming. Quite frankly, she thought the whole thing about Harry having a crush on her was kind of cute. A 4^th year having a crush on a 6^th year!

"Er - hi Cho," he managed. Why did he always get tounge-tied around her?

"Hi Harry."

"Er - so you have a friend coming to Hogwarts?"

"Yeah. Next week. She's transferring from Maxwell... in America. Anyways, she'll be a 6^th year, with me. I hope she makes Ravenclaw. Though I admit, she's much more of a Gryffindor. I'm so excited! Even if she is in Gryffindor, I'll still see her around, and it's much better than being across the ocean, don't you think?"

"Yeah. So, what's her name?"

"Serenity Michaels."

Hermione and Ron walked up. Hermione had an impatient look on her face, but Ron spoke.

"Harry, we've got to go. We're gonna be late for class."

"Okay. Bye Cho."

"Bye."

Hermione was obviously a little nippety today. "What was that about?"

"I thought you said we had to get to class." Ron and Harry laughed and they all headed to Defense Against the Dark Arts.

* * * * * * * * * *

in class

as soon as Nearly Headless Nick (filling in this year... amazing, isn't it?) turned his... well... half-chopped off head, Hermione turned to Harry.

"So, what were you and Cho talking about?"

"Well," he said, "she has a friend coming here to Hogwarts... next week."

"But how could someone enter Hogwarts in their... er..."

"6^th year?"

"Yeah. It's pracitically impossible. It's never happened before, and if it has, it wasn't put in Hogwarts, ..."

"A History," finished Harry and Ron.

"Exactly. But I guess it could happen...."

They all spent the rest of the day discussing how it could possibly be that a student could transfer to Hogwarts. They were all bored of the topic by about dinner time though, because they had all come to the conclusion that, knowing Dumbledore, it could easily happen. Harry thought to himself while drinking pumpkin juice. Maybe a new student... if she's put in Gryffindor, will bring some excitement. We do need some excitement this year...