Worlds Apart

The Sonorous charm, invented in 1863, takes advantage of some of the natural properties of air to magnify sounds up to ten-fold. Howlers, and, coincidentally, magical alarm clocks, both make use of this spell.

Julie was jolted violently awake as five of those alarm clocks rang simultaneously. There was a brief sensation of fire sirens and then the alarms, satisfied that no one could have slept through the racket, went suddenly and meekly quiet.

"Oh dear God, I'm going to be deaf," Thalia Sorenson said sleepily from the next bed over. "Let's only set one of the clocks next time."

"Yours, then." Julie rolled onto her side, looking distinctly irritable. "It isn't ringing right next to my ear."

"Yes, but then it would be ringing next to mine."

Julie ignored this rather obvious statement. She laid for a few more luxurious moments in bed, watching Cho and Thalia, the more energetic roommates, get dressed. Autumn Foxfire, poised on the edge of the bed between the two, held up a robe, looking as though she was hovering between sleep and wakefulness. She stood, and made a half-hearted attempt to propel Julie out of bed by the arm. "Come on, get up."

Julie pulled her elbow back against her chest, half opening her eyes. "Don't want to," she mumbled in mock protest, but pulled the covers off and slid her feet to the ground even as she did. On the first day of term, the room resembled a hotel - trunks lying neatly on the thick royal blue carpeting, and wooden dressers, desks and beds clean and empty of debris. A few stray rays of sunlight gave the whole area a cheery look. Now one of the awake, she took it as her duty to get the last remaining girl out of bed. "Marietta! You're the last one up!"

"Fine." Marietta neatly untucked herself from her blankets, giving Julie a look that was slightly more venomous than necessary. Then again, that was typical Marietta behavior, especially at any time before nine o'clock AM. None of them, with the possible exception of Thalia, was really a morning person.

Julie turned to her suitcase, still packed and orderly. The only thing she'd taken out was her pajamas. Of course, this wasn't necessarily a good thing. By the time she'd managed to pull out a shirt, shoes, and the proper uniform, everything was in disarray. Everyone but Marietta already had their clothes on - Julie hurried to get dressed, reminiscing on how awkward changing around other people had felt in her first year. It was the sort of thing you got used to quickly. Threading a brush rapidly through her hair, and flipping it into an untidy bun with habitual ease, she forsook the mirror for a more accurate human opinion.

"Nice," Cho said unconcernedly, hunting doggedly through her suitcase while casting a cursory glance at Julie. "It's cute. Don't you think they're a bit short, though?"

Julie's robes, which had fit perfectly in her second year, were now fashionably knee-length. Somehow, they managed to turn the requisite crisp white shirt and tie into something she might have been able to pull off wearing normally. In the wizarding world, of course. "Nah." She tucked a strand of dark blonde hair behind her ear and grabbed her toiletry bag from her suitcase. "I mean, there's nothing about it in the dress codes - so they can't do much about it, right?"

She hadn't really expected an answer. The five of them left their room and headed towards the girl's bathroom. The hallway was still dark and had a peculiar sort of early-morning chilliness, but the lights, chatter, and periodic slamming of doors gave the place a companionable sort of feeling.

The House bathrooms had been an odd amalgam of 20^th century plumbing and medieval architecture until a pipe had burst in Julie's second year, after which the whole place had to be renovated. It was now thoroughly modern, and the stainless steel and white tiles were an enormous improvement over its former look. Right now, it was swarming with Ravenclaws - returning students maneuvering confidently around the first-years, who were huddled by a sink in the corner. The showers hummed with the water in the pipes and sent steam into the air.

Julie maneuvered herself into the shortest line for a sink, and proceeded to monopolize the mirror hanging over it while she applied mascara.

"Julie! Are you coming down for breakfast or not?" Her usual seatmates were assembled by the door, waiting for her.

"Just a moment!" Her reply was slightly garbled by a mouth full of toothpaste - she spat it out and dashed towards the door. "Yeah. I'm coming."

Bags were deposited - or thrust, more accurately - into their respective rooms, and the first group of girls headed down into the common room, a few others right behind. A great deal of the male inhabitants of the dorm, having gotten ready in significantly less time, lay sprawled on all the good chairs and sofas next to the fireplace.

"What, had to wait for us?" Mandy teased, following Thalia down the stairs. "I thought only girls went places in groups..."

"I can't believe that the Founders thought girls were more trustworthy," Anthony groused, completely ignoring the insult. "I don't think we would ever have snuck into your dormitories, stolen all your things, and hidden them in the Common Room. I mean, I appreciate pranks as much at the rest, but it wasn't even clever..."

"We were first years, we didn't know anything better. What were we supposed to do, use 'Wingardium Leviosa' to make them fly?" Julie sniffed the air appreciatively - perhaps it was a magical property of Hogwarts that let the appealing smell of sizzling sausages float all the way up to the Ravenclaw Annex. "Let's go, shall we? The twerps are coming." She motioned up towards the gaggle of first- and second-years giggling on the stairs. Maybe the Sorting Hat was losing its touch - some of them looked mindless enough to be Hufflepuffs.

The Common Room emptied into a quiet hallway, the door concealed by a classical Greek statue whose disappearance had puzzled the Muggles for quite some time. Unfortunately the path from the Annex to the Great Hall, which curved downwards, made a sideways skip across the corridor that most of the main classes were located in, and came up through the dungeons was a long one, second only to the distance from Gryffindor Tower to the same place. (Not that any of the Ravenclaws would know where any of the other Houses were, of course. Students never visited the other Houses' Common Rooms. They couldn't have just followed the other students when they were going back to their rooms to find the entrances - or asked their inter-House friends. And any stories you might hear of a Password charm are just plain rubbish.)

By the time they had reached their tables and assumed the usual seats, most everyone else was already seated, breakfast was served, and the owls were just swooping down with the mail. Julie buttered a piece of toast and examined the copies of the Daily Prophet and the New York Times that she'd subscribed to. Another owl soared over her head and deposited a small package containing an unlikely assortment of Muggle and wizard sweets.

"I thought your parents were Muggles?" Roger asked her curiously, looking at the card attached to it.

"They are." Julie shoved the whole thing into her book bag, making a mental note to look up some sort of volume-expansion charm. "But the Ministry needed some Muggle liaisons involved in the news industry to take care of damage control, work with the Obliviators, things like that." She grinned. "Mum and Dad are thrilled. They've got an owl, a talking mirror, Floo powder, all those things from Diagon Alley. More excited about wizarding than the actual wizards, I think. We tried to get tickets to the World Cup, even, but they sold out."

Padma Patil, who'd been at the staff table, returned with a thick sheaf of paper in her hands. If it was possible for a prefect badge to glitter smugly, hers was certainly doing so. "Seventh years... sixth years... here you are... fifth years..." She moved on down the long table, completely oblivious to the way Mandy was glaring after her.

While Julie and Cho tried rather unsuccessfully to console Mandy, Autumn examined the new schedules. They looked the same as usual, all neatly handwritten in emerald green ink, and so identical that they'd obviously been made using an Exscribo spell. She nudged her year-mates. "Don't you want to see our schedules - see if we have any classes together?" She was met with rather blank stares. "You do realize that since we're all taking different NEWTs, our schedules are going to be different."

Julie looked rather absently at the sheet of paper in her hand. "Well, today's not too bad for me. I've got Transfiguration and Charms, break, double Arithmancy, lunch, double Ancient Runes. And then Astronomy at midnight."

"I'm in most of your classes!" Thalia gave her a profoundly relieved look. "Except I have Herbology instead of instead of Transfiguration, and I'm taking Care of Magical Creatures..."

"What - you haven't dropped Herbology?"

"Well, I had to take something," Thalia replied rather defensively. "I already got a letter from the Holyhead Harpies, I know I'm going to play Quidditch. I don't need to take hard courses, and Herbology's easy." She peered over at Roger's schedule. "Anyone know what Houses we're taking the classes with? It doesn't say."

"It's all the Houses combined. There aren't enough people to go around with all the different schedules." Marietta folded her own paper neatly. "Does anyone else have History of Magic first today?"

"I do." Autumn glanced at the enormous clock that hung suspended in the air over the passage to the Entrance Hall. "There's only fifteen minutes till first period - we should go back to the dorms and get our stuff."

Silverware fell with a clatter as Thalia, Cho, Marietta, and the 7^th year boys took her suggestion. Julie stood up a moment after them. "I brought all my books today," she said, pointing at her bulging bag. "I'll see you in class."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Cho caught up with her in Professor McGonagall's class, and took the seat next to her. She was smiling, but Julie could see that her eyes were suspiciously red and puffy. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." Cho pulled out her Transfiguration textbook and put it on the desk, looking very much as though she wished she hadn't been asked. "Er... what classes are you taking this year?"

"Well, the career brochure I got from WANDS (Wizarding Academy for New Development of Spells) was pretty vague - so I'm taking NEWTS in all the academic classes, plus Arithmancy, Runes, and Spell Development. I want to be well-rounded." Julie was secretly glad for the opportunity to change the subject. "You?"

"I need to get NEWTs in Potions, Herbology, Transfiguration, Charms, and Defense Against the Dark Arts," Cho recited as if from memory. Most likely it was - Cho had wanted to be a St. Mungo's Healer for as long as Julie could remember. Or at least her parents had wanted her to, but Cho seemed so dedicated to the career that it was hard to believe the decision wasn't mutual.

"Planning future career decisions?" Katie Bell slid into the seat next to Julie. Although her mother was a witch, and she'd grown up knowing about magic, the Fawcetts and Bells lived in the same neighborhood, and the girls had been childhood friends. They'd been thrilled when they'd run into each other at Diagon Alley, and though Katie was in Gryffindor, they'd managed to remain friends.

"Of course." Julie remembered the message Anthony had given her on the train, and dug briefly through her bag, bringing up a motley assortment of scrunchies, books, T-shirts, and, rather conspicuously, a non-stick spatula. "Here's all the stuff I borrowed from you. I told you I wouldn't forget."

"Yeah, but you also told me you'd return them before school started..."

"Miss Fawcett and Miss Bell! If you could kindly direct your attention towards the front of the classroom and open your textbooks?" Professor McGonagall gave them a sharp look as she took her place at the head of the class.

The two looked up, startled, and pulled out their books. "Could you keep them till tonight?" Katie whispered. "I don't have room."

"Sure."

"Miss Fawcett! Do I need to take points from Ravenclaw?" Professor McGonagall lapsed smoothly back into her speech. "As you all know, you are now beginning your NEWT training. Your two last years at Hogwarts are highly important in determining your future career. It is imperative that you achieve good marks, not only in this subject, but in all those that you are taking. We will be studying difficult concepts this year, but I have confidence in all of you. Anyone needing additional help in my class needs only to ask. Now, our first lesson will deal with mental transfigurations in animals. You can all turn a mouse into a cat, in the physical sense, but we will be studying how to also change the mouse's mind into that of a cat. After that, we will deal with creating new mentalities entirely when transfiguring inanimate objects into animals, and taking them away when doing the opposite. We will learn how to interpret the dynamics of an object to see how it has been transfigured, and then you will be ready for your first exam. After that..."

Julie's Quick-Quotes Quill scribbled furiously across the paper. She listened with definite interest, but also a feeling of trepidation. She'd never taken Divination, but you didn't have to be a Seer to sense large amounts of impending coursework.