The Others

Jamie Zuberry, a Gryffindor student with long blonde hair and a beautiful smile, looked around the Great Hall sighing. She was sitting between her two friends, Nicole Sincary, who was also in Gryffindor and had brown hair and brown eyes, and Cassandra Natelli, the other Gryffindor who completed the trio of the three girls with her blue eyes, red lips and her long black hair; they were all wishing the Sorting would take place-- very soon.

Jamie tossed her blonde hair to one side and looked over at Nicole. "This is going to take forever. I'm starving!"

"Like we aren't" Nicole replied sarcastically.

"Judging by the way you sucked down most of the food on the train, we figured that you wouldn't even be hungry," Cassandra said rolling her eyes.

"Finally!" all three of them said in unison as the doors opened and the first year spilled into the Great Hall.

The first years were led by Professor McGonagall, a stern looking witch who was the Transfiguration teacher as well as Gryffindor's Head of House. Most of the students looked up where the Sorting Hat was when it broke into its annual Song. Jamie, Nicole, and Cassandra just sat there at the Gryffindor table, bored and wishing for the food to appear already.

At last, when the Hat stop singing and the school stopped clapping, the names of the first year were read as each of them was Sorted into their houses. Cassandra looked at the group of first years, remembering when they were that small. Now that the group was entering their 5^th year, they were excited as ever.

Cassandra nudged Nicole and pointed up to the Head table, looking at the short stumpy witch. "Guess that's the new Defense of The Dark Arts Teacher," she said, her eyes scanning the rest of the table. Nicole nodded. Finally, their headmaster, Professor Dumbledore stood up and the room went quiet.

"To our newcomers welcome! To our old hands-- welcome back! There is a time for speech making, but this is not it. Tuck In!" And as those words were spoke by Professor Dumbledore, the golden plate filled with food and the Great Hall began to eat.

"Oh thank you Merlin! Food! Sweet, sweet food!" Cassandra exclaimed as she reached out and piled so much food onto her plate her other friends were sure she would suffer heart problem in the very near future.

"Pig," both Nicole and Jamie said laughing, beginning to eat what was on their plates.

"So how was your summer?" Jamie asked the two girls, both of whom were busy stuffing themselves.

"Mine was good; hung out with some of the Muggle kids around my block and played basket ball," Nicole said.

"Food!-uh, wait- what? Summer?" Cassandra stammered, looking up from her plate. Both Jamie and Nicole laughed at her, shaking their heads.

"Yes. How- was- you're- summer?" Jamie asked again in a slow voice, barely containing her snickering.

"I'm not slow," Cassandra replied, rolling her eyes. "It was fine; basically, I helped mom with the new baby, watched over the twins and went shopping in Diagon Ally."

"Well, I went to Romania to see some of the Dragons with my family!" Jamie said grinning from ear to ear.

"We know," replied both Nicole and Cassandra.

"You only mentioned it in every single owl you sent us-- Romania, Romania, Romania!" exclaimed Cassandra.

The three girls just looked at each other and laughed. Soon, the plates were cleared and Dumbledore stood up to make the start of the term announcements.

"Well, now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start-of-term notices. First years ought to know that the forest in the grounds is out of bounds to students, and a few of our older students ought to know that too"

"Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me, for what he tells me is the four hundred and sixty-second time..."

Cassandra yawned, Dumbledore's voice drowning out into the background, waiting for the announcements to be over. Jamie poked Nicole in the ribs, as a sign not to falls asleep yet.

"We are also delighted to introduce Professor Umbridge, our new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher," continued Dumbledore.

There was a round of polite applause for the new teacher, the short stumpy witch standing up and bowing.

"Tryouts for the House Quidditch teams will take place on--"

At hearing this, all three girls sat up in their seats, grinning. But Professor Dumbledore was interrupted by Umbridge, who gave a polite "Hem, hem," and had gotten to her feet, intending to make a speech.

Jamie looked over at the other two girls and rolled her eyes, not caring about what the new teacher was talking about.

"It would have been nice if she would have waited until Dumbledore finished the announcement about Qudditch tryouts," Jamie whispered as Professor Umbridge began rambling about "progress for progress's sake", and something similar to "pruning whatever we find practices that ought to be prohibited.

Cassandra looked around the hall, seeing that many of the students were not listening to a word Umbridge was saying, and decided to do something else. She looked back over at Jamie, shrugging and mumbled, "Apparently she doesn't know who things work around here. And no one seems to care on what she is saying."

"Maybe it's because we have other things to worry about, like passing our O.W.L.S or trying out for Quidditch. All I know that she better hurry up or I'm going to fall asleep from this boredom," Nicole replied.

Umbridge had finally sat down, letting Dumbledore stand back up to dismiss the students. Jamie, Nicole and Cassandra all got up yawning and made their way out of the Great Hall. They passed by the Slytherins, who where throwing dirty looks to them, and Cassandra just waved over to Malfoy. He sneered.

"You're mental, do you know that?" asked Nicole.

"Yup, and Malfoy is hot," replied a snickering Cassandra, looking over her shoulder at the blonde Slytherin.

Both girls just made faces at Cassandra as they were walking up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower. Hermione Granger called out to all the Gryffindors surrounding the portrait that the new password was Mimbulus minmbletonia. Nicole rolled her eyes. I wonder who picked out these weird passwords, she thought.

The Trio made their way into the common room smiling. At last, they were home. They moved over to a corner of couches and sat down, watching the first years look around in amazement.

"Were we ever look that tiny?" asked Jamie incredulously.

"Probably, 'cept my height really hasn't changed," replied Cassandra laughing.

Before the three girls headed up to bed, they made there way over to where Fred and George were putting up a sign looking for beta testers for their products. The three girls smiled and waved to the twins as Fred and George went up to their dormitory.

Jamie moved her attention away from their sign and found what she was looking for.

"Aha! Qudditch tryouts are Friday!"

"Oh Joy! Now that I know when tryouts are, I can die happily," mumbled Cassandra sarcastically.

"Oh shush! We have waited to try out forever!" she replied.

"Sleep," Nicole insisted, grabbing her best friend's arms and dragging them both up to their dormitories before they started another argument.

Jamie walked over to her bed and quickly changed, already wanting to go to sleep.

"See you in the morning!" she said as she closed her hangings, and immediately fell asleep.

"Morning is going to be fun trying to wake her up," mumbled Cassandra under her breath. She climbed into bed after changing into her pajamas.

"Tell me about it..." was the last thing said by Nicole as she dozed off into sleep.

Within minutes, all there girls fell fast asleep, stomachs full, not worrying about anything. They were just living their lives as normally as possible.

*****

"DAMNIT JAMIE! GET UP OR I SWEAR I WILL THROW WATER ON YOU!" screamed Cassandra into Jamie's ear.

Jamie jumped up, bumping her head on a very annoyed looking Cassandra, while Nicole shook her head, laughing in the background.

"Sorry," Jamie mumbled as she got out of bed and headed into the bathroom.

Cassandra rolled her eyes and looked over at Nicole. "Well that took forever," she said snickering.

"It would have been better if you had just thrown the water on her."

"Nah. I don't want Jamie to kill me on the first day of classes."

Cassandra walked over to her bed and picked up her bag, throwing books into them. Nicole sat on Cassandra's bed, watching her. There was something odd about the way Nicole was looking at her.

"Yes Nicole?"

"Nothing! Is it illegal for me just to sit on your bed while waiting for Jamie to be done? I'm so sorry!" Nicole cried sardonically, jumping off the bed and bowing so low her head hit the carpet.

"Loser! I was just kidding!" Cassandra said laughing throwing her pillow at Nicole.

By the time Jamie came out of the bathroom dressed and ready to go, there was quite a serious pillow fight going on between Nicole and Cassandra.

"Ah, acting like 5 year olds again I see," Jamie said as she grabbed her bag and hitched it over one shoulder. "Are you two ready to go yet?" she asked.

"Nothing wrong with having a little fun," replied Cassandra, laughing a little and grabbing her stuff. The three of them walked out of their dormitory and headed out of the Common Room.

"Hope we don't have Potions first," Jamie said sighing.

"You cursed us! We are jinxed now!" exclaimed Nicole, pointing an accusatory finger.

The three girls continued to make fun of each other, their spirits high as they walked into the Great Hall. They made there way over to their usual seats at the Gryffindor table, sitting down. Like always, Cassandra dived into the food that was around her. The girl was always hungry.

Jamie snickered and said under her breath, "I don't know you Cassie. You eat like your going to never eat again!"

Cassandra just ignored her and continued to eat. Professor McGonagall was now moving along the table handing out schedules. Nicole looked at hers and groaned.

"History of Magic, double Potions, Divination-- wait. I thought we were going to drop it? Ah, too late now. Let's see, what else: double Defense against the Dark Arts and that's it. Did you two get the same thing?" she asked.

Cassandra rolled her eyes and nodded. "Oh, great; Snape, the old crazy lady stuck up in the tower and the ghost-who-refuses-to-bugger-off. This must be my lucky day."

Jamie laughed at the two. "Well at least I didn't jinx the schedules! I win! I AM the best!"

"Oh shut it," replied Nicole and Cassandra at the same time. They definitely did not want to listen to Jamie saying all day how she was right and was the best.

"Do you reckon the O.W.L.s is as hard as everyone makes them out to be?"

Cassandra asked the other two as they left the Great Hall shortly afterward and set off toward the History of Magic classroom.

"Well..." Jamie said slowly, "it depends on who you ask. The teachers would be making a big deal about it for sure, but some of the other upper year students have told me it really isn't that hard."

"I heard from other people it depends on what we want to do. You have to have a certain amount of O.W.L.s to pursue that career. But, enough with O.W.L.s! Let's just try to make it through this year without driving ourselves insane," Nicole said as they entered into the classroom. They took seats behind the famous trio, Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Throughout History of Magic, Cassandra began to take notes, but her attempts drifted off onto playing a Muggle game called tic-tac-toe with Nichole. Jamie always took notes in every class anyway, resisting the urge to join in with Cassandra and Nicole in not doing anything. Without Jamie, the other two girls would fail this class.

As the bell rang for the class to end, Jamie packed up her books while she prodded the two who had dozed off, after playing about 32 games of tic-tac-toe.

Cassandra looked up and yawned, blinking a few times. She gathered her belongings and sighed. "Well, that was fun."

"Oh loads. Perfect way to start off the school year! What's next?" asked Nicole who had left the class room with the three girls.

"Your favorite class in the whole wide world: double Potions," replied Jamie as they headed down to the dungeons.

Nicole groaned as they entered the class room early, taking their usual seats in the back of the classroom in the right corner. As the class filled into the room, the Slytherins glared at the Gryffindors and tensions began to run high. It was just another usual Potions class with the Slytherins.

Cassandra looked over to where Malfoy was sitting, on the other side of the room. He was flanked by his two cronies, Crabbe and Goyle. He looked over to where Cassandra was and sneered at her, but gave a small wink. Cassandra rolled her eyes but smiled, as her friends watched her.

"Eww Cassie...eww! I don't even want to know. And if Harry finds out your flirting with him, you're dead," Jamie said shaking her head at Cassandra.

Cassandra shrugged, replying under her breath, "Doesn't he have other things to worry about?"

There was no time for an answer as Professor Snape shut the door and told the class to settle down. But of course, that wasn't necessary. Snape's mere presence caused the room to fall silent. When he was done talking bout how important the O.W.L.s were and how he does not accept anyone into his N.E.W.T classes without a high grade, he finally explained to the class what they were going to be doing.

"Today, we will be mixing a potion that often comes up at Ordinary Wizarding Level: the Draught of Peace, a potion to calm anxiety and to sooth agitation. Be warned: If you are too heavy-handed with the ingredients you will put the drinker into a heavy and sometimes irreversible sleep, so you will need to pay close attention to what you are doing," Snape flicked his wand. "The ingredients and method are on the blackboard. You will find everything you need-" he flicked his wand again- "in the store cupboard. You have an hour and a half. Start."

Each student in the class room began working on their potion, the entire class in absolute silence. They kept to themselves and worried about if the potion was coming out correctly or not. Time had passed slowly for the class, and they were all glad when Snape had told them they had ten minutes left.

"A light sliver vapor should now be rising from your potion," called out Snape, walking around the room checking on his students' potions.

All three girls looked at their potions, smiling a bit. They had produced a potion that had the sliver vapor that the professor had ask for rising up out of their cauldron. As usual, Professor Snape took the time out to find something wrong with Harry Potter's potion-- something about not adding all the ingredients on the third line-- and failed him for the day.

"Those of you, who have managed to read the instructions, fill one flagon with a sample of your potion, label it clearly with your name, and bring it to my desk for testing. Homework: twelve inches of parchment on the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion making, to be handed in on Thursday," Snape drawled, in his usually mean voice.

Jamie, Nicole and Cassandra brought up their flagons to his desk and returned to their stations, beginning to clean up. Jamie and Nicole looked over at Cassandra smirking. "You get to wash out the bowls for the first school year. Jamie is next in line for the washing," Nicole said.

"Fine!" said Cassandra, grabbing all three bowls used and went over to the sink, running to cold water over them. Someone came up next to her and stuck their hand in her pocket. She felt something drop in and she looked up in time to see Malfoy quickly walked back to his seat. Confused, she returned to washing her bowls.

After she was done washing them out, she heard the bell ring and went back over to her friends, who were waiting for her with her bag.

"Thanks guys," Cassandra said as she put her bag on. Nicole and Jamie nodded at her and made their way to the Great Hall for lunch, heading to their usual.

Cassandra sat down between them and didn't start to eat yet.

"SWEET MERLIN! THE GIRL HASN'T BEGUN TO EAT!" exclaimed Jamie, pretending to faint.

"The world has come to an end!" Nicole said, falling off her seat. Most of the students by now were looking over to them as Jamie and Nicole laughed, getting back up looking at Cassandra.

"Ah shut up the two of you," she replied snickering. She shoved food into her mouth and spoke with a full mouth. "Better?" she asked spraying them with food and laughing.

A first year Gryffindor student came up to Jamie and handed her a note saying it was from someone who admired her. Jamie nodded and took the note looking back over to the other two girls. "Someone does love me!" she said laughing as she tucked the note in her pocket.

"Aren't you going to read it now?" Nicole asked her eyes wide.

"Later, when we are in our dorm," Jamie replied. "Finish up eating so we can get to Divination. I don't fancy being late."

"Oh yes, because we are all dying to run to Divination class so we can learn of our wonderful fate," Nicole said snickering as she got up and took along some fruit with her.

Cassandra looked at the food then back at her friends, then back at the food. She sighed as she stood up and took her things with her, following her friends. She also grabbed a bunch of sandwiches on the way out of the Great Hall.

*****

"Turn, please, to the introduction and read what Imago has to say on the matter of dream interpretation. Then, divide into pairs. Use the Dream Oracle to interpret each other's dreams. Carry on," said the dreamy voice of the Divination teacher, Professor Trelawney.

Most of the time in the class was spent on reading the introduction, leaving only ten minutes to interpret.

"Cassie, make something up," Nicole said hurriedly, flicking through the book.

"Okay, how about this: I dreamt I was a Ketchup bottle, running from little dogs, because they wanted to steal my condiments," Cassandra replied trying not to burst out laughing.

Nicole turned the pages of the book, mumbling under her breath. "Nice dream," she said snickering. "Let's see...ketchup? -- dogs? -- maybe you're going to have a wonderful lunch in a room with puppies?" she said, not really caring.

"More like going to go on a date with Malfoy!" whispered Jamie giggling. Cassandra kicked her under the table.

"Funny, Jamie, extremely funny."

Professor Trelawney's voice drifted over to them as the bell rang. "For the next month, you are to keep a dream diary. I shall see you next class."

The girls quickly left the room sighing. More work is defiantly what they did not want on the first day back. They headed to their last class, Defense against the Dark Arts with the new teacher. Taking a seat in the back, the three girls took out their wands, ready to learn.

"Well, good afternoon!" Professor Umbridge said cheerily as the class settled down.

Only a couple of students answered back, mumbling disinterestedly. Dissatisfied, she had them all chant out "Good afternoon" in return to her. The trio of girls exchanged glances trying not to laugh. Clearly this lady was a nut. Umbridge put up their lesson and aim, telling them to put their wands away.

Sighing, the girls did so and took out their books, after be instructed to read the first chapter. This was going to be a boring class.

Well, not exactly.

The girls stayed quiet as they watched Hermione question about the course aims. The rest of the class broke out into rage when they learned that they were not going to be using any magic at all. Cassandra, Nicole and Jamie were rather disappointed as well. After all of this was done, Harry had landed himself a note to Professor McGonagall and a weeks worth of detention.

After that, class was dismissed and everyone ran out, talking about the events that had just occurred on there way to dinner.

"Well! This year is defiantly going to be interesting," Jamie said, finally speaking.

"Can't we just have a nice and peaceful year with nothing containing You-Know-Who is involved?" sighed a very hungry Cassandra.

"That is never going to happen with Harry around. There is always something going to happen," Nicole replied.

The three nodded as they ate quickly and made their way up to their common room to try and at least get some of the homework done.

Cassandra took out some parchment and a quill, wrote her name and titled it The Properties of Moonstone. She looked up at Jamie and grinned. "So, what are the properties of moonstone and its usages in potions?"

Nicole and Jamie laughed as they began on their essay for Snape. By midnight, they were finally finished with it. They all packed up their belongings and headed up to their dorms to finally get some sleep.