Harry Potter and the Ones to Finish It

Chapter Nine

Dumbledore

Theirs was one of the last carriages to reach the steps that lead up to the castle. They piled out, all feeling nervous knots forming in their stomachs. They followed the others inside, but realised when Steven and Derek left them that they had nowhere to sit. The other students sat in their houses. The stood in the entrance hall, looking around them at the statues in awe. A ghost flew through the ceiling and swooped into the Great Hall, where they could hear hundreds of students talking loudly. Jess and Lina gasped, but Emma remained completely calm. She had seen a ghost before when she was six, she explained. They heard footsteps and turned around to see the stern face of Professor McGonagall.

'Good Evening, I am Professor McGonagall. You will be sorted with the first years, follow me.'

She led them down a corridor that ended in a large door. They had been waiting for a few minutes when there was a loud knock on the other side of the door making Emma jump. Professor McGonagall opened the door and there stood Hagrid, almost completely blocking their view of the timid looking first years huddled behind him.

'Hullo there, Emma, Jess, Lina,' Hagrid said happily, 'here are the first years Professor.'

McGonagall told the first years to follow her and they marched swiftly back toward the Great Hall. All three of them looked excitedly towards the ceiling as they entered the hall. The first years saw them and followed suit, gasping at the star speckled night sky. McGonagall led them towards the table where the teachers sat and they stopped, the whole hall watching them interestedly. Dumbledore stood.

'Welcome, first years, to Hogwarts,' he said, 'Before the sorting begins, I would like to give a special welcome to Jess, Emma and Lina, who will be joining our school at sixth year, they will be sorted first.'

There was a lot of neck-craning as everyone in the hall tried to get a glimpse of them, Lina felt herself blush. Then there was silence as Dumbledore sat back down and stared at a tatty hat sitting on a stool at the front of the hall. A hole at the brim opened and it started to sing:

'Welcome new students to the school of Hogwarts,

I will sort you now,

Students come in all sorts,

Pow-Pow-pow!'

'Wow, it certainly lost its spark over the years didn't it,' whispered Jess.

'Shitty,' said Lina. 'I was looking forward to that.'

'I thought it was good, I mean it's hard to rhyme!' insisted Emma, who felt a strange affiliation with the tatty hat.

Alphabetically, Lina was first of the three. Her name was read and she made her way up to the chair where the sorting hat sat. Lina looked nervously at the hat before picking it up at placing it delicately on her head, trying, and failing, to keep it from falling over her eyes. She sat on the stool, feeling stupid with the hat over her eyes blocking her view.

A little voice spoke to her.

'Hmmm, very interesting...someone truly unique, good quality. Tolerant, accepting, kind ...you could be a Hufflepuff, but no, there's something more. Plenty of brains, and the motivation to work hard when you enjoy it. Perhaps Ravenclaw? No, no, for no real reason, mainly because its easy for the author, you are most defiantly a Gryffindor!'

The last word was yelled to the hall. Lina stood up and pulled the hat off her head, flattening her hair again before walking over to the Gryffindor table and sitting down to much cheering. Jess was next to be called.

She put the hat on and a little voice spoke to her.

'Right...yes...you have all the qualities of a Slytherin.'

'No!' thought Jess, 'Put me with Lina you dickhead.'

'Alright, no need to be a bitch,' said the voice, 'I stopped caring a long time ago, I'm only a hat. Gryffindor!'

'Your song sucked!' thought Jess before she hastily pulled the hat off and replaced on the chair, sitting down next to Lina at the Gryffindor table amongst more cheering.

Lastly Emma was called. She walked up to the chair and picked up the hat. Someone wolf whistled from the Gryffindor table and Emma saw Logan grinning at her.

A little voice spoke to her as she slipped the hat on, telling her to burn things. As usual she ignored this voice. Then another voice was heard.

'Hello?' it said. 'HELLO?'

'Put me in Gryffindor!' thought Emma vehemently.

'Oh well done dear, a thought! Fancy that!'

'Hey!' thought Emma angrily, it wasn't her fault that she stopped thinking when she was nervous.

'Gryffindor!' the hat yelled unconvincingly.

Emma frowned and took the hat off, taking her place next to Lina and Jess, Logan whooping loudly further down the table gaining disapproving stares from Professor McGonagall. The first years were alphabetically sorted, Lina Jess and Emma joining in with the cheering whenever a new Gryffindor was announced. Jess wondered if Dumbledore knew how slack the sorting hat was.

Dumbledore stood up as Yogi, Robert sat down at the Slytherin table. Jess giggled at the name Yogi. Dumbledore waited for the Slytherin's final cheers to die down before clearing his throat.

'Welcome again new students, and welcome back to the rest of ya'll. I am pleased to note that everyone has returned quite healthy, unlike last year.' There was some murmuring around the hall at this statement, or perhaps because Dumbledore had just said 'ya'll,' Lina made a mental note to ask someone about it. The healthy thing, not 'ya'll'.

'I would like to remind you all,' continued Dumbledore more properly, 'that the Forbidden Forest is indeed, dark to all students. I mean, forbidden. Damn American movie producers have confused me greatly. Any-hoo, we now find ourselves once again faced with a dangerous year. I hope you can all enjoy it despite that. I have only one more thing to say: Beware who you trust. Let the feast begin!'

Dumbledore waved his hands and the platters in front of them instantly filled with food. Jess's eyes widened at the sight of huge piles of barbeque chicken wings. Emma was already helping herself to pork and bacon, piling her plate high with nothing but meat.

'I love this!' she said gleefully. 'I'll never eat my greens again!'

Jess and Emma soon engaged in a chicken eating competition, watched in awe by the girls around them who had pitiful plates of beans and peas.

'Woat? Oim hungwy!' said Jess to the skinny girl next to her, who was staring at her open-mouthed as Jess shovelled endless amounts of chicken into her mouth.

Finally the food faded from the plates and dessert appeared. Jess looked at it and felt sick.

'Urgh,' she said. 'I just ate fourteen barbeque chicken wings...'

'Damnit!' said Emma. 'I only managed twelve, but that's not fair, I had already eaten things before we started the competition.' She sat back and groaned. 'Too much chicken!'

'Now THAT'S attractive!' said a voice behind her. Emma turned quickly to see Logan grinning down at her.

'Shut up!' said Emma, sucking in her bloated stomach the best she could.

'I was wondering if you'd like a tour of the castle,' said Logan.

'Oh yea, sounds cool,' replied Emma. 'Presuming that Lina and Jess can come too, and that I can still walk.'

They got up and were about to leave the hall when they were stopped by Professor McGonagall.

'I'm sorry girls, but Dumbledore has requested to see you right away.'

The followed her to Dumbledore's office up the tall, moving spiral staircase. Jess had wondered since reading the books what happened when two people were on the stairway going opposite ways. She never got her answer. McGonagall knocked sharply on Dumbledore's door and after a moment he opened it, smiling calmly at the three girls. McGonagall left and the girls awkwardly walked in and accepted Dumbledore's offer to sit; Emma and Jess were still full of chicken. Dumbledore surveyed them for a moment.

'I have been looking forward to meeting you for a long time,' he said. Lina couldn't help herself.

'Why though? And what did you mean by "the ones to finish it"?'

'I thought you would ask me that, but alas, I cannot tell you. For, if I did you would surely leave Hogwarts right now.'

'Give us some credit,' said Lina, slightly angry.

'Believe me, I give you a lot of credit, and you must trust me,' said Dumbledore. 'That, however, was not the reason I called you here. As you must have observed, it would be ridiculous for you to start at fifth year with no knowledge of any subjects. I shall be placing a spell on you that will bring you up to date with your subjects.'

Dumbledore raised his wand.

'Wait,' said Jess, 'in assembly you told us to be careful who we trust...no offence, but how do we know we can trust you?'

'Very good question Jess, and indeed you do not know. You can only hope that I am trustworthy. However I hope that the fact that many other wizards and witches trust me will play a part in your deciding.'

Jess shrugged and nodded and Dumbledore raised his wand once more.

'Serecaldo Montiago!'

Suddenly the girls knew things they hadn't before. Jess remembered how to successfully care for a Hydrania Plant, and Lina could name hundreds of stars. Emma knew how to do a disarming curse!

Dumbledore smiled at the looks of revelation on their faces.

'Yes, yes very good,' said Dumbledore, 'you may head to your dormitories now.'

'Can I ask you a question?' said Lina.

'You have just done so, but you may ask one more.'

Lina giggled. (That's what he had said to Harry in the first book.)

'Why don't you just do that charm on everyone? I mean, wouldn't it save a lot of time and money?'

For a moment Dumbledore seemed a bit put out. Then he thought of an answer.

'Indeed it would, however nothing is as good as experience. You may know the facts, but you do not have the other experiences. You never snuck around the halls at one in the morning, discovering rooms full of gooseberries, or broke your pinkie finger trying to reach the legendary stash of galleons in that crack beside the third floor bathroom. You will have no memory of that time when you were busted by Professor Flitwick making out with your Defence Against the Dark Arts project, nor will you be able to recall the unfortunate incident when you attempted to hex the annoying Slytherin first year... '

He rambled on as they edged nervously out of his office. When the girls reached the entrance hall they realised that they were horribly, horribly lost. Just as they began to panic they saw Logan waiting for them.

'Hey, I thought you might need an escort to the common room,' he said.

Emma beamed at him. They followed Logan up, along, through and across the castle until they were completely disorientated and facing a portrait of a fat woman in a pink dress.

'Password?' she asked.

'It's Hogliandria,' said Logan, and the portrait swung open revealing a hole. They climbed through into the Gryffindor common room. They sat down on some large armchairs by the fire, still recalling, fascinated, all the things they now knew. Emma explained to Logan what had happened.

'Well, if I could move I'd be going off to bed right about now,' said Logan, sighing deeply. Jess made a mock-sympathetic face.

'Same here,' said Emma. 'I just ate so much god-damn chicken.'

Logan sighed loudly again.

'I wish someone would help me upstairs...' he said mischievously with a look at Emma.

'Fine!' said Emma, grinning. 'I'm coming already...'

She took his hand and he led her upstairs to the boys' dormitory. Jess raised an eyebrow.

'If she's not back in ten minutes, I'm going to find her,' said Lina.

Emma hesitated as she entered the boys' dorm room. She felt quite slutty being there.

He sat down on his bed and smiled across the room at her. Emma slowly walked over and sat down next to him, but not too close. He turned to her and opened is mouth to say something, and she did the same. They both laughed and then Logan said:

'Emma, I know I've only just met you, but I really like you.'

There was nothing hotter than an Irish accent.

'I like you too...'

BANG! The dormitory door crashed open just as Logan leaned in and his friend Jack came crashing into the room. He stopped abruptly when he spotted them.

'Oh ho ho, what have we got here?' he said, looking very pleased with himself, 'not interrupting am I?'

'Actually you are,' said Logan. He made 'go away' faces at Jack, and, getting the message, Jack grabbed something from his suitcase and thumped back downstairs.

'Where were we?' said Emma.

'Um...here,' said Logan. He slowly leaned in and kissed her.

Ten minutes later, Emma still hadn't returned. Lina stood up and headed over to the boys' dormitory.

'Emma!' she called up the staircase, 'We're going to bed.'

'Ok!' came the call from the dormitory. Lina took that as an 'ok go on without me' kind of ok, but seconds later Emma came bounding down the stairs looking very happy, singing her all time favourite eighties classic, Come On Eileen, by Dexy's Midnight Runners.

'Toora Loora Toora Loora AYE,' she wailed, making Lina shudder.

Their dormitory was large and spacious, with five beds spread across the room. Two girls were already sitting on their beds reading magazines. They looked up as Jess, Lina and Emma walked in. One of them was plain looking, with dull blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and small brown eyes.

The other was very short and pretty with wavy golden hair down to her belly button.

'Hey,' said the small girl, 'You must be Lina, Jess and Emma.'

She had a strong southern English accent and a tendency to blink a lot when talking. Lina smiled and nodded.

'I'm Tina,' said the small girl, 'and this is Jacinda.'

They introduced themselves to their new room-mates, who seemed really nice.

'Did I see you talking to Logan Llewellyn before?' Jacinda asked Emma. 'At the station?'

'Umm, yea,' said Emma, feeling herself going slightly pink. 'Why do you ask?'

'Jacinda's had a thing for him for AGES,' said Tina. Jacinda threw a cushion at her.

Boy was this awkward. All three of the girls' rings turned lilac, meaning that they were in a situation they found uncomfortable.

Over the next few minutes they learnt that Jacinda was totally obsessed with Logan. (And who could blame her?) Jess kept making 'tell her!' faces at Emma, who tried her best to make 'no, you tell her!' faces in return. Emma won as it is physically impossible to make a 'he's your potential boyfriend' face. Although Jess did try.

Chapter Ten

Harry Potter

Classes began the very next day. Lina was happy to find that she had all her astronomy classes with Ravenclaw, which meant that she'd be with Steven who also took astronomy. Their first class was Care of Magical Creatures with Hufflepuff, and after a big breakfast of pancakes with jam and whipped cream, they made their way across the lawn to Hagrid's hut. It was a mild summer day, with no apparent reason not be excruciatingly hot except that it wasn't. Hagrid smiled broadly at them as they joined their Gryffindor classmates who were sitting sprawled on the grass. Tina from their dorm room waved at them and motioned for them to sit with her and Jacinda and two Hufflepuff girls - Julia and Toralee. Hagrid welcomed everyone back for the year before disappearing for a few minutes, and reappearing again carrying a large wooden crate. Inside were small, furry creatures that looked exactly like squirrels except that their fur was dark green. Hagrid handed each student one of them, and explained that it was their job for the year to keep them alive and happy. Their first homework task was to find out what the creatures were called and what they ate. The rest of the lesson was spent lying around 'getting to know' their new pets in the sunshine, which unlike their squirrel look-alikes, were very timid and cuddly. Lina named their squirrel-thing Aurora, which meant dawn in latin. Jess called hers Moss- 'coz it looks like moss.' And Emma called her pet Fergus...just because.

Everyone seemed very interested in Lina, Jess and Emma, and fair enough, Lina thought, she would be too if some new students randomly joined their class after five years. They sat in a circle with the rest of the fifth year Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. Emma tried her hardest to avoid looking at Logan; she still hadn't told Jacinda about their relationship, and didn't want her noticing anything. It was a wonder Logan didn't know about Jacinda's crush on him, the way she kept looking at him, and making very unsubtle comments. Emma felt a pang of jealousy and her ring turned dark blue.

Julia and Toralee turned out to be pretty nice, although Toralee was sometimes hard to understand, with her heavy South African accent, and Julia obviously thought she was hot stuff.

They conjured up glass cages using their wands with a spell Hagrid gave them. It took them quite a while because, having being expelled, Hagrid was not allowed to do magic and therefore couldn't show them. Eventually they all had a cage of some description, Lina's looked perfect but hummed when the lid was open and shut. Emma's seemed to be slowing getting bigger and the glass sides of Jess's cage wobbled when touched.

After a quick stop at their dormitory to drop off Aurora, Moss and Fergus they headed to the class they had been most looking forward to; Defence Against the Dark Arts. It was a good thing the other Gryffindors knew the way, because Lina, Jess and Emma's rings were all grape-purple. Emma decided this was her favourite ring colour so far and determined to get lost more often. They entered the class and looked around for a three person seat as their classmates sat down. All the seats were in pairs so Emma sat behind Jess and Lina. Logan moved to the vacant seat next to her as she had hoped he would. There was no sign of a teacher and so they chatted noisily to one another while they waited. Jacinda got up from her seat at the front of the room and made her way back to where Emma and Logan were sitting.

'Why aren't you sitting with Jack this year?' she asked Logan.

'Because I wanted to sit with Emma,' said Logan.

Crap.

'Oh...are you guys, you know, together?'

Emma shook her head quickly. Beside her Logan was nodding.

'We're not,' said Emma bluntly. 'He's just kidding.'

Logan looked slightly hurt but Emma didn't get a chance to explain. Jacinda returned to her seat as Harry Potter walked in.

'Hello, everyone,' he said merrily, placing a stack of papers and books on his desk. 'Please get out your wands and set book and we'll begin.'

There was a rustling as everyone reached for their things.

'Open your books to page thirteen, today we will be studying the Impedimenta curse. Do I have a volunteer to read?'

Jacinda was the only one to put up her hand and she began to read. Emma was trying to whisper to Logan about the Jacinda thing, but he was either ignoring her or he couldn't hear over Jacinda's loud voice.

Lina was listening intently to what was being said, and Jess was too at the beginning, but then Jacinda's voice started to get annoying and she started thinking about chicken, and ways to maximise her consumption. When the page on the Impedimenta curse had been read they were instructed to get out their wands and practise freezing and unfreezing each other. While they were practising Emma explained things to Logan.

'I do want us to be together,' she repeated for the third time.

'I already knew about Jacinda,' said Logan smiling. 'She sent me a Valentines Day card last year and I did a tracing spell on it.'

All three girls found that they were naturals at freezing people. Logan was so thoroughly frozen that even Professor Potter couldn't reverse it first time. At the end of the lesson Professor Potter asked Lina, Jess and Emma to wait behind. The approached his desk after everyone else had left for lunch.

'I just wanted to formally introduce myself,' he said. 'I'm Professor Potter. I suppose you've read my books?'

He sighed as they all nodded.

'Well, I was a bit immature then...irrational. I mean, I'm still irrational...' he grinned. 'Anyway, Dumbledore's really excited about you three, and so am I. And I need you all to focus very hard in my classes, I noticed that you didn't seem that interested in Impedimenta curses, am I right?'

'We are,' insisted Lina, but it was obvious she was lying.

'It's just, you learned Impedimenta curses in your fourth year,' said Emma, 'and today was really easy...we were hoping we'd be doing more advanced stuff.'

'Well obviously I can't teach that in class because the other students couldn't keep up, but if you like I would be happy to tutor you separately.'

They decided on Tuesday evenings for their lessons and the girls went to lunch - more chicken. Jess beamed.