The train arrives.

I turned to face Laurie. "Do you think we wasted our holiday?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
"I just feel empty, that's all."
"It's just the shock about your sister, that's all."
"Oh, ok. Well, whilst we're here in Hogsmeade, waiting for the train, why not do one last spot of sweet shopping for the midnight feast?"
"Might as well." Laurie said as she looked at her watch. "The train isn't due for another half hour, or so. Give or take ten minutes."

Laurie and I wondered around Hogsmeade for a while, just talking, until we came to Honeydukes. We went in, all excited to be buying sweets, when we saw at the counter, Luella.
"She got better fast! Look, there's my sister with her! Oh *bleep*."
"Come on Annie, let's go, we've got enough sweets for the midnight feast for that matter, and we can always get some food from the kitchens."

We trudged back through the slushy snow, in time to see the crimson train pull into the station.
"They're Back." Laurie and I said as we smiled at the thought of seeing our two best friends. Hundreds of students swarmed out of the trains. We stood up on the benches that were on the station to get a better view of the people leaving the carriages.
We didn't see Tash or Sam. We looked at eachother, worried. Suddenly, we felt a sharp pain in the backs of our legs. We turned round and saw the bright, smiling faces of Sam and Tash!
"Sam!" "Tash!" Laurie and I said at the same time.
"Tash!" "Sam!" We said at the same time.
"Have you guys been practising that? You're really good at it!" Sam said, smiling. We all hugged and walked back to the castle together. On our way back, we relayed everything that had happened in the holidays. Sam would gasp at the correct times, whereas Tash would cut in and try to make a comment about Luella's behaviour.

We climed up the stairs of the castle and as we did so, something hit me in the back of my head, hard.
I turned around to see Luella and the Clones' sneering faces looking at me. "Payback." I heard Luella say as I fell over. I saw a malicious grin spread across her face, and then I blacked out.

Christmas time is here!

It was Christmas morning and Laurie and I were sat in our dormitory, exchanging gifts.
"Merry Christmas Lolly!" I said as I handed over my present. Laurie opened it and as she did so, an illusion of a bird flew out and landed on her head. "Bet you didn't see that coming, did you!" Laurie's face when she saw her present was priceless.
"Aaaaw, thanks Annie! A fluffy toy owl! I love it! I've never had a toy owl, let alone a real one! It's fantastic! Thank yooooou sooo much!" Laurie said, as she put the owl back into the wooden box it was in.
"Did I say it was a toy owl? No, I didn't! It's your very own owl. It's a scops owl and I thought you would like it, seeing as your mum doesn't like you sending her letters with my owl, as he's so clumsy. BUT remember, this is your birthday present too." Laurie and I hugged and Laurie's owl hopped onto her shoulder.
"I shall call him Fluffy, and he shall be mine!"
"Really?"
"No, I'm not calling him Fluffy! I'm going to call him... Thor."
"Thor?"
"Thor. Because he looks all windblown and Thor was the God of storms, if I remember my Scandinavian mythology... here, have your present." Laurie said as she thrust a parcel into my hands. I opened it and in it was a selection of jokes from Zonko's and a beautiful quill from Scrivenshaft's in Hogsmeade.
"Aaaw, thanks Laurie! You're the best! I love these practical jokes and this must be the most beautiful quill I have ever seen! This is great!"
"Think nothing of it. It is Christmas after all!"
"Come on, let's go and visit Luella in the Hospital Wing."

We quickly walked down to the Hospital wing, but when we heard voices, we paused to listen to what was being said.

"Come on Sophie, I know it was your sister. I need my payback. You PROMISED me that you would give me the dirt on Bolt." It was Luella and Sophie!
"Ok then Luella, anything for you." We heard Sophie simpering from inside. "She is deathly afraid of Snails, she still sleeps with a toy and she has a diary absolutely FULL of embarassing stories. I have it here if you want it."
"Perfect. Give me the book, now!"

I looked at Laurie and she mouthed some rude sayings about the girls.

And to think that I trusted my sister! I thought to myself. We heard Sophie get up to go. We hid behind the doors as she went out.

"Those b...witches! I can't believe my sister is selling me out to Luella!"
"Don't worry Annie, we'll get them back. Come on, let's give Luella her present and go."
"I can't now go in after hearing what they said. Sure, it was our fault that Luella is in this state, but my own sister? I... I... I just don't know what to do."
"Annie, forget about it. We'll just drop her present on her bed. Say that we hope she gets better soon and then we can go and play some Quidditch. I have some friends who are still here that are quite nice."
"You're right, Laurie. Come on, before I change my mind again."

We went in and gave Luella her present then quickly left. We went down to the broomshed to get our newly acquired brooms.

We were about to start playing another game of Beater bludgeroo, when some people came onto the Quidditch pitch. 2 were in Hufflepuff and one was in Slytherin.
"Laurie, do you know who any of them are? I recognise them from somewhere."
"Yeah, they came into our compartment on the Hogwarts express before Luella and her scumbag friends. Um, the Slytherin girl is Helen Higgs, I know that. I can't remember the two Hufflepuff girls."

"Hi Laurie! Hi Annie! How's your Christmas day been going?" The Slytherin girl said. "If you don't remember me, my name's Helen. These are my friends Phoebe," she gestured to the shorter girl. "and Alice. She likes Chickens." She gestured to the taller girl. All three were carrying Comet 260s.
"Want to play some 3 on 2 Quidditch?"
"Yeah, Ok." Said Alice.

We got onto our brooms and started playing a great game. Soon it got dark so we went inside to get our Christmas dinner. Laurie, Helen, Phoebe, Alice and I were all sat at the end of the table together. We pulled our Wizard crackers and had a brilliant time. In my Wizard cracker, I got a top hat and a fake wand which melted on use.
"Hey, Annie. I know your sister. She's rather chummy with that horrid Luella, isn't she?"
I gave Helen a weird look.
"Aren't you in Slytherin, though? I thought you would like Luella."
"NO way! I may be in Slytherin, but it's only because I'm ambitious. I really dislike Luella with every fibre of my being."
From the other end of the table, Sophie was shooting nasty looks at Annie.
She's most definately up to something. This is going to be interesting.

A few hours later, in bed, Annie and Laurie were chatting from either side of the dorm.

"It's been a fabulous day! Apart from Luella turning my own sister against me, of course. But otherwise, it's been great! We got some absolutely fantastic gifts from our family and friends and we had an absolutely scrummy Quidditch match with Helen, Phoebz and Alice."

Laurie looked at me weirdly. "Scrummy? Have you been watching Daisy Pulls it off, again?"
"Maybe... Fine. OK! I watched Daisy Pulls it off recently. Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the Nargles bite?"

The holidays passed all too quickly after Christmas day and soon enough, they came to the last day of their holiday.

The hospital wing

It took a while to get up to the Hospital wing with the combined weight of Luella and her broomstick. I decided it would be easier to levitate her and just fly her there in less time, but as magic was banned in the school, I thought better of it. Checking my map every so often, I found that Prof. Malfoy was coming round the corner and would soon find me. I hid Luella behind the tapestry that conveniently hung next to me and hid the broom and took out my comic of the Beano that had been delivered by my owl that morning.

"Miss Bolt, I trust that you are not doing any illegal activities?"

"No sir, I'm doing no activities of the sort you speak to me of."

"Yes... hm. Have you seen Luella anywhere? I need to talk to her."

"Yes, I think she's down by the boathouse or in Hogsmeade."

"Oh, thank you. Carry on."

He strode round the corner and I carried on to the hospital wing the Luella and her broom.

I got there quite soon and found Madam Pomfrey.

"What's wrong with this poor dear girl!?"

"She fell off her broom and then the Whomping Willow pummelled her. I saw it happening. There was nothing I could do!" I was lying through my teeth but there was nothing I could do. If I told her that Laurie had done this to Luella, and that I helped, we would be expelled!

"By the looks of it, she'll have to stay here for at least a week!"

"Can I please stay with her for a while, until I know she's ok? It would be horrible to spend Christmas in the hospital wing. I hope she'll be ok."

"Ok. Do you know if any of her friends are staying here this holiday?"

"Yeah, my twin sister Sophie."

"Ok. If you want to go get her, then I'll bandage up Luella."

"Yes Madam Pomfrey."

I ran up to the common room to find Laurie there.
I told her what had happened.

"This is terrible! I can't believe how bad this is! Thank you for not telling her that it was us, I really don't want to leave Hogwarts. Ok, once you've told your sister, we'll go into Hogsmeade to get her a Christmas present. Although she deserved what was coming to her, she needs to be cheered up. I had to spend a Christmas in St.Mungo's when I was given a tester sweet that went wrong and I had a nose the size of my body."

I owl-posted Sophie with the news about Luella.
Then Laurie and I got out the last of our month's pocket money and put on our winter cloaks an trudged through the snow to Hogsmeade.

Luella's in for it now!

"Ok Laurie, I am in! Let's get that girl! First Scott McCraig and now my Sister!!! I will be avenged!"
"Ok, enough of the mad monologue. Let's get down to business!"

We found her broom and quickly bewitched it. We quickly ran to the whomping willow courtyard and dis-illusioned ourselves. In but a few minutes, Luella had arrived with her broomstick. She mounted it and climbed higher and higher. Laurie and I whipped out our wands. Laurie then took her wand and swiped it around in mad circles, as she did so, Luella's broom flew around mirroring Laurie's wand movements. Luella's face was hilarious!!! Laurie then flicked her wand so that the broomstick flipped upside down. Luella was nearly off at that point. Laurie then made quick and mad zig-zags with her wand. This time we succeeded in catapulting her off her broom. As we had hoped, Luella landed in a heap under the whomping willow. It started to twitch and then it started whacking around. It narrowly missed her several times. I started to have second doubts about whether our plan was in fact good. I quickly made a decision and decided to do the right thing.
I leapt towards where Luella lay and as I was in mid-air, transformed. I sprinted straight past her and hurtled towards the trunk of the whomping willow. I found the notch and immobilised it. Luella was safe, for now. As Luella lay unconscious on the ground, Laurie came over to me and I transformed back into a human.
"What do you think you're doing!?! You've ruined our plan! What made you do such a thing?"
"I'm doing what's rght, and you can't stop me!"

I bent down and hoisted Luella up on to my shoulders, picked up her damaged broomstick, and took her up to the Hospital wing.

An interesting development

As soon as we returned to the dormitory, I disillusioned Laurie and myself.

"I'm sooooo going to kill Luella!!! Laurie, I'm joining you in hexing Luella's broom. She won't know what's come over her."

"You're on. Come on, let's go up to bed. I need a kip."



As soon as I got into my bed, I drew the curtains closed around me and illuminated my wand tip and took out my map.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."



I looked over my map and saw the two dots from the astronomy tower move away from each other. I tapped the Luella spot and saw that she had a bloody nose. I then tapped the Scott McCraig spot and saw that he had a red slap mark all over the right hand side of his face. Then I thought that it may be due to Luella breaking up with Scott. I formulated a plan that when I could, I would approach Scott. I quickly flashed my eyes back over the map and saw Scott approaching the Ravenclaw tower, but around the corner was filch! I whispered into the end of my wand for him to hide. I saw his dot then move behind the tapestry. He was safe, for now.



The next morning, we all went downstairs to breakfast, to find a big golden 3 hanging up over the dais. As we sat down, Prof. McGonagall stood up and said, "I'm sure you have all noticed the big golden number. This is to show that there are only three days to Christmas. As a treat, I would like to tell you that the whole school are allowed to go to Hogsmeade whenever they want to and that unlimited access to the broom shed has been granted to all of you, even first years. Have fun."



Laurie and I wolfed down our breakfast and rushed out to the den. We got a smallish leather ball and borrowed some of the old un-claimed Nimbus 2000s that had been left over the years. We played a great game of beater bludgeroo, a game we invented ourselves. What we did was we bumped the ball between each other using only a beater's bat and then tried to knock each other off of their brooms. Later on, we went to Prof. McGonagall's office to ask her if we could claim the Nimbus 2000s that had been in the broom shed for nigh over 10 years.

"Please professor, these brooms have been in the broom shed for about 10 years so that means that the people that they belonged to have now left the school, as the nimbus 2000 is a really old model since the Nimbus 3000 came out."

"Yes Professor. I looked at Broom Brigade monthly magazine and it said that the old Nimbus 2000 is one of the cheapest Nimbus models currently on the market. As it was first manufactured 14 years ago, those Nimbus 2000s in the broom shed are only worth the amount of a 3rd year's book set for Hogwarts and that's a maximum of 60 galleons and in the condition that the brooms in question are in, you would be lucky to get 47 galleons."

"Well... as you have put forward a very strong argument, I will permit you to take these Nimbus 2000 brooms on the one condition that you don't tell anyone in your year. As you know we can't allow first years to have brooms in school. Thank you very much for coming to see me girls."

"Thank you Professor."

We left prof. McGonagall's office and ran straight to the broom shed. We looked for the two Nimbus Two Thousands that we had been using, but before we found them, Laurie checked her watch and saw that it was 4:20.

"Quick, find Luella's comet 290! We'll do the hex now."

I found the broom and Laurie performed the spell. We heard footsteps so we hid behind the quidditch equipment chests. We saw Luella and my sister Sophie walk in.
Luella rammed Sophie up to the door and started to question her.

"Ok Sophie, are you my friend?"
"Yes Luella."
"Now, since we are friends.... would you do me an itsy-bitsy favour?" Luella asked her in a sickly cutesy voice.
"Of course Luella. Anything for you."
"Ok. Give me all the dirt on Bolt."
"You mean Annie?"
"Yeah. Bolt."
"I dunno what to say... I can't betray my sister."
"I'll give you until boxing day to decide where your loyalties lie."

The creation of thye map.

That night, we got out of bed and put on our winter cloaks. It was getting to be really cold at the castle. It took a while for us to disillusion ourselves successfully, often we would have a foot that was still visible or our ears. But eventually we were completely disillusioned and set off for the highest astronomy tower. Normally, the astronomy towers were out of bounds and students were only allowed up there with teachers for lessons. Eventually, after getting lost several times, we made it. But we weren't the only people there. We got up there and started to look around at the view, when we heard murmuring from our right. I shot a look at Laurie and motioned her to follow me, although we were invisible we could both see each other. There were 2 bodies standing close to each other in a passionate embrace. On closer inspection, we saw that the two people were literally sucking each other's face off. I was about to fall over from the silent mirth when Laurie got behind the girl and was literally wetting herself with silent laughter. I went up to the girl as close as I could and realised that the people who were kissing were Luella and Scott McCraig! The guy who I fancied! I was so going to kill her! Laurie and I went to the exact centre of the moonolight courtyard and said the spell. As soon as our wands had touched the paper, a huge map of hogwarts spread over it. We decided to try out the powers of the new map. We found the dot where we were and where Luella and Scott were and poked our wands at their dots. A picture of what they were doing spread up to cover the section of a 10 cm squared space on the map. It was fantastic! I then put the tip of my wand to mouth and whispered into it: Luella, say "Scott, it's over." Then I put my wand onto the picture of Luella and she did exactly what I had wanted her to do! It was hilarious!!! The map had serious powers! I tapped the picture twice and it vanished and then said to the map: Mischief managed. Just like the Marauder's Map, the whole map disappeared, leaving only a blank piece of parchment the size of my palm. Laurie then made hers and we made our way back to the dorms.

The sneak of the 1st

We knew it had been done by Luella. There was no-one else who knew about our den. We had to go and find her, but how could we? The castle was so big! We could never find her!

We decided that today would have to be the day we made our map.

We went back into the den and started to clean up.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" With a flick of her wand, Laurie made all the boxes zoom back into place but in doing so, sent one flying into my head! It was really painful!

"Hahaha!" Laurie cackled with glee at what she had done!

"We'll see about that!" With a wave of my wand, I sent all the pillows flying at her. "Ha!"

We quickly finished cleaning our den and then started to have a pillow fight with bewitched pillows. It was great fun.

" You know what, Annie?"

"What?"

"You need to work on your aim!" With that I shot another pillow at her.

"Thanks, you too."

Suddenly an owl zoomed into our den through the portal to Hogsmeade and crashed into the wall of the cave. It was the one we had sent earlier. It dropped a note in our lap and went back to the post office.

It was from Sam.



"Dear Annie and Laurie,

Thanks for the parcel, I'm not allowed to open it yet, but knowing you two, it's going to be great! On the train back home, I was looking up revealing spells in 'The Auror's Companion: Constant Vigilance!' by Mad-Eye Moody, and I found a really good one to map out a whole building onto a peice of parchment. What you do is this: Go to the highest point of the building with a piece of parchment with you. Then, you point your wand at it and say: Carta edifica. I've got to go now, mum hates the amount of bird droppings we get from owls. By the way, thanks for not using Albus, mum would have gone balistic had he smashed her favourite vase!
See you soon, hex Luella for me!
Sam.
xxx

It was nice to hear from Sam. We just wondered what we were going to do now that Luella had threatened us further. Although we knew that first years were not allowed broomsticks, we knew that Luella had snuck her comet 290 into school after half-term and flew it whenever she got the chance.
"I've got an idea! You know how she flies her Comet 290 every afternoon at 3:25 outside of the Owlery near the Whomping Willow. Well, I found a book recently *ahem* in the Restricted Section,"
"WHAT?!?!?!? The restricted section!?!? You know we're not allowed to go there!" I looked at her with admiration, "How did you do it?"
"Being an animagus is certainly very helpful. Now, where was I? Oh yes. This book I read said that the only was to hex a broomstick is to set fire to the handle but with a freeze fire charm. It will put the broomstick under your complete control for 24 hours. You can see why this spell is illegal in Quidditch Leagues. So I thought, I do that and we fly her under the whomping willow and see what happens."
"I don't know. She may get hurt. If you want to do it, so be it. But on your head be it. If she gets hurt or even worse, killed, I shudder to think at what may happen to you. If you do it, leave me out of it. I'll watch in my dog form, but I won't do anything bad."

The Christmas Holidays

It was finally the Christmas Holidays!!! Mostly everyone in the school had gone back home for the holidays, but about 14 people had remained in Hogwarts. Laurie and I had the whole of Ravenclaw tower to ourselves for a whole three weeks! Plus no homework!!! How could it get any better? Well, it did! Not only did we have the whole Ravenclaw tower to ourselves, it was always snowing outside and the castle was always cozy and warm.


We spent most of the first day having snowball fights outside.




After a while of pelting each other with snow, we retreated to the den. The inside had magically transformed into a "Winter Wonderland" in our absence.
The note on the wall carried the message:
Messrs Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs
wish you a merry Christmas and hope you have fun.
We hope you like the den.

It was covered in fake snow with lots of butter beer and chocolates and, what's more, a passage to Hogsmeade! We checked around and made sure that no-one was around, and went down our secret passage. It was a special treat for anyone left in the castle that christmas to go to Hogsmeade, but when we sent our owls, our permission slips were late, so we didn't get to go. So it was great.



We first went to Honeydukes sweet shop and bought some presents for the others. We didn't particularly trust Albus to be able to deliver our presents without harming someone when he arrived so we used a postal owl. For Tash, we bought her some Bertie Botts' Every flavour beans and chocolates frogs with a gift packet from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes and for Sam, we bought her a set of jokes from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes and a Gryffindor style scarf with lions on it that actually roared.

Now that we had finished with our christmas shopping, we went to the three broomsticks and bought some butterbeer to take back with us to Hogwarts. On our way back, we dropped into Honeydukes and bought a tonne of chocolate to celebrate christmas with.

When we got back, we noticed something was wrong imediately, the boxes had been over turned, glasses smashed and pictures ripped off the wall. We saw, written in Red acroos the wall:
I know your secret, Bolt, give over your den to me or I will reveal to everyone your secret. Yes, I know about your sister. You have until Christmas Day to hand yourself over. 3 days.

Laurie and I looked at each other, then said in perfect unison, "Luella!"

She had infiltrated our den. This meant war and I didn't care if I lost my sister as a friend.

The Secret's out!

Tash, Laurie and Sam all came bounding down the hill in their dog forms and transformed back into their usual forms. Unfortunately, Laurie, somehow still had a tail.
"Uuuh, Laurie, you may want to finish off with your tail." I pointed out to Laurie, trying not to laugh.
"Oh," she turned around and chased her tail, "thanks. You know, that's kinda fun!"
"Anyway, Annie, what's this you want to tell us?"
"Yeah! Tell us about your house-change!"
"What? House-Change?" Laurie looked very confused.
"Yeah, House-change because I saw her in Gryffindor common room and in Gryffindor uniform."
"You two, Shut up!!! You," she pointed at me, "Explain!"
"Ok then. I need you to it down. I have a lot to tell you. I'm not an only child as I have led you all to believe, I have a twin sister who is called Sophie."
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Good one Annie! Twin sister! Ok, tell us what you're really on about."
"That's the thing. I'm nkot joking, I really do have a twin sister. When we came to Hogwarts, we separated into other factions. I went off on my own, and she went off with some girls whom she had met in Diagon Alley. It turns out that the girls who are her friends are Luella and the
Luella-ettes. None of you say anything. We haven't been in much contact except for some notes. She gets up early to go down to breakfast and leaves early and then she comes in last for lessons and leaves first. She spends her free time outside down in the boathouse with Luella and her clones. Apart from those three friends, she prefers her solitude. She begged me to tell everyone that I was an only child and to only say something if someone saw her. You got that?"
"I think so." They said in perfect unison, all looking at me with the uniform disbelieving expression.
"Ok then. The moment you have been waiting for. Sophie, could you please come out?"

My sister came out from behind the rock which had been keeping her from view.
"Hello. I'm Sophie. Nice to meet you." she turned to me, "Annie, I have to go now. I'm meeting up with my friends down at the boathouse."

The girls all gasped.
When she left, they bombarded me with questions.
"Why didn't you tell us? You promised us you wouldn't keep anything from us."
The girls all left in a huff, all except Laurie.
"You know, I think you were right. You honoured your promise to your sister. I'm guessing the others will be going home for christmas since they both got letters from their parents telling them to come back. I'm staying though. I think it will be fun. Tell you what, we'll map the school together. There won't be anyone to stop us. You think that will be ok? I've got to go, I need to go to the library and finish my H.O.M report on the Goblin revolts of 1287."
"Ok, thanks. See you. Good thing that it's Saturday, the Hols start tomorrow! We must finish our homework so we have holidays free, eh? See ya soon."

I went off towards the owlery to send my parents their Christmas present packages containing my favourite Wizard sweets and a cross-stitch golden-snitch iPod case for mum and a package of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes jokes.

But unknown to me, a sixth person had been listening in on our conversations. Luella came out from behind the little crop of trees and sniggered to herself.
"Hehe, Sophie's going to help me now with humiliaiting Annie. Whether she knows it or not! Muahahaha!!!!"

Meeting Sophie.

I sent a quick reply back to Sam saying:
Sam, meet us tomorrow in the hideout.
I have something to tell you.
Claws,
' ' '
O '

"Ok, guys. Meet me in the hideout tomorrow after breakfast and I'll fill you in.
Can't tell you here."

With that, I rushed up to bed and closed the curtains of my four poster and got out some more parchment.

Sophie,
Sam, one of my friends, has spotted you.
Must tell them.
Meet me at the Sandy cove down by the lake after breakfast.
DO NOT BE SEEN.
Annie
,,,
O

I made sure that no-one was watching and called my owl Albus to my side.

"Ok Albus. I need you to take this to Sophie in Gryffindor tower. Got that?
Make sure you're not clumsy. See you soon."

Next morning, we went down to breakfast as usual and wolfed down our toast and cereal.
"Ok Annie, what's the deal with this look-a-like in Gryffindor?"
"Yeah tell us pal," Laurie punched me in the arm," buddy, chum, AMigo!" she punctuated each and every word with a harder punch each time.
"You finished bruising my arm yet?"
"Nearly." Laurie gave me an almighty punch and I toppled to the floor. "Ok. Now I'm done."
"Ok. Annie, TELL US!"
"I CAN'T TELL YOU HERE!!!!" Everyone in the hall turned round to look at me, "Meet me at the hideout in 5 minutes."

I rushed off down to the sandy cove to meet my sister.
"Hello there Annie. Ok, what is it you wanted to tell me?"
"My friends. They've seen you. They're meeting me down here in five minutes."
"Ok. Well. I'll have to meet them then."

Christmas comes over the castle.

It was the end of November and we were ever nearing the start of our Christmas holidays. The castle had been transformed overnight into a Winter Wonderland, fake snow fell in every corridor and everywhere there were floating candles that gave off the smell of fir trees, those were so amazing. But overall, the Great Hall looked the best. Twelve humongous Christmas trees had been put up, all covered with house decorations, three trees per house, miniature Santas flew around on toy brooms over all the tables and a group of ghosts were always sat in the corner singing Christmas carols.

We only had three days left until the holidays.
"Can't you wait until the holidays?" I whispered to Sam during Potions.
"Like, le Duh!" Sam said all to loudly.
"You two, quiet!" barked Prof. Malfoy.
Laurie and Tash behind us started giggling uncontrollably.
"Oh, Shut up, Tash!" I hissed over my shoulder.

The bell rang and we all got up and left for our next lesson, Defence Against the Dark Arts.

"Ok then class. What do you think we're going to do today?"

"You're going to show us how you did in the Dark Lord?" Laurie piped up.

"Oh come on loser, you're so stupid. It's obvious that he's going to teach us how to duel." Luella sneered.
"Luella, five points from Slytherin. Ok class, today we will be doing a practical lesson on simple combative spells or otherwise known as disarming spells. Ok, if you can get out your notebooks and take down the notes and spells written on the board then we can get started."

We quickly finished taking our notes. He paired us up with random people, some of whom we had never met before.
Sam was paired up with her Slytherin crush, Delphinus Malfoy. She went bright red when she made his wand fly into her hand.
Unfortunately, Laurie was paired with Petunia Pygge, whom immediately got to work in attacking Laurie, it was all she could do to protect herself on the onslaught of hexes.
Tash was paired with Peter Broom, a tall Hufflepuff boy who was very clumsy.

I was then paired with a boy whom I had never met. His name was Scott McCraig. He was in Ravenclaw but I had not come across him. He was the most charming, handsome and witty boy I had ever met. I went so bright red when he flicked my wand out of my hand. It was so embarrassing.

The lesson soon ended, thankfully, and we went to go have our dinner. We all sat in our usual seats and we talked.
"OMG, I duelled with Delphinus! He was so cute when In took his wand! What about you Laurie, what was your experience in being *ahem* hexed?"
"Painful. Excruciatingly painful! So humiliating!!! What about you Tash?"
"Fun, Peter Broom was so clumsy that he tripped over his own feet every few minutes! Hilarious! What about you Annie?"
"Well, first off, pass me a sausage from the plate on your right, then I'll tell you. Thanks. Right. You see that guy down there on the other side of the table chatting with Brown? That is Scott McCraig. He is so charming, handsome and witty! He was so amazing! I actually blushed!"
"Wow, Annie! It seems that there may still be hope yet to turn you into a girl!"
"That's not the end of it. At then end, rather than hitting my wand out of my hand, he accidentally knocked me over with his spell and he blushed furiously when that happened. He stuttered an apology and helped me back to my feet."
"Brilliant! Well, it seems that all we need to do now is to make Annie into a proper girl!"
"Do you know what time it is? I'm expecting an owl from my mum saying if I can stay here for Christmas. I need to go at 6:30."
"Oh. it's 25 past right now. You should go. For that matter, I'm done. I'm going upstairs. Anyone joining me?"

Sam went to Gryffindor Tower and we went to Ravenclaw tower.
I knocked on the door-knocker and it said in a wheezy voice,
"You heard me before,
Yet you hear me again.
Then I die, 'Til you call me again
What am I?"

"That's simple. A phoenix."
"Nope!"
"Um, is it a... um... an echo?"
"You may enter."

We went into our common room and I promptly got a letter from Sam.

Dear Annie,
I've just seen the strangest thing.
I went into my common room and waited for my owl when someone came in. I didn't look round,
but obviously, they didn't see me and went and sat on one of the chairs by the fire with a book.
I swear she looked just like you. Except that she was wearing golden snitch earrings, but when I last saw YOU, you were wearing nimbus 2000 earrings. Strange.
EXPLAIN!
Bite.
xxx

Oh no! She'd seen Sophie!

Animagi at last!

Luella was gone and so were her clones. We checked around one more time to make sure no one else was around and then Laurie set up the area for the spell. I got my notes out and checked them over one more time.








Once Laurie set it up, Tash volunteered to go first. She was shaking with fear but went and stood in the center of the triangle.


"Are you ready?"


"Yeah, don't worry Tash, I won't let anything go wrong. Are you completely sure you want to go first?"


"Ok Fetcher? You completely ready?"


"Yes Guard, I'm ready."


"Ok." I pointed my wand at her and recited the incantation, "Animagus Doggus Golden Retriever."


As soon as I had said the incantation, she immediately started to shimmer with light and started to change form into her chosed dog. Then as suddenly as it had started, it stopped and where Tash had been, a big Golden retriever was standing there.


"Tash? Can you hear me? Nod if you can." The dog nodded. "Ok, now try changing back."


The dog started to grow and it's paws changed into hands and feet. The ears sunk down the head and were once again human. In a matter of seconds, Tash was standing in front of us once more.


"That felt amazing! It was great! Thanks so much!"


"Ok, Bite, your turn."


Sam then walked into the triangle. Looking much more relaxed as Laurie prepared herself to do the spell.

"Ready bite?"

"Just do it."

"Animagus Doggus Belgian Sheepdog!"



Sam immediately went through the transformation just as Tash had done and then turned back.

She looked a bit dizzy and disorientated.

"Wow, that was amazing! I loved it!"



"Ok Laurie, your turn now."



Laurie stepped into the triangle, looking rather apprehensive.

"It'll all be fine. Don't worry. Animagus Doggus sheepdog!"

Laurie started to change and then, before we knew what was happening she was a dog and then was Laurie again. Looking slightly confused, she was obviously a bit dazed.

"Oh my God! Fantastic! Genius! I'm loving this! What're my parents going to say?!?! They'll kill me for doing such dangerous magic!!!"

"We can think about that later. Now it's my turn," I stepped into the triangle and said to Laurie, "Ok, Do the honours."

"Ok then." With a shaking hand, she pointed her wand at me and said, "Animagus Doggus Black German Shepherd."
It felt amazing! I felt as though I was weightless. It was a wonderful sense of Euphoria. Then all of a sudden, it stopped and I was on all fours. It was great! Apart from the fact that I had a burning desire to chase my newly grown tail, I still could think like normal.
"Annie? Can you hear me? Try changing back now."
I imagined myself as a human again and without any warning, the weightlessness and Euphoria returned.
"WOW!!! That was so amazing!" I looked around to check that everything was ok,"I think we should go back up to the castle."

We walked back up to the castle and talked about everything that had happened. We couldn't wait until the Christmas holidays, we planned that we would map out the school.

Uh oh, We're in trouble!

Luella had set us up! But we had expected it. We weren’t sure how much Prof. Malfoy knew, but we were sure that Luella had told him everything.

“Hand over the evidence,” we didn’t move, “I SAID hand it over.”
We had also expected this and hadthe fake notes that were in actual fact the doodles I had swiped from Luella in History of Magic.
“Here you go.” Sam handed over the doodles, “Just to say, I think you’ve got it all wrong. We came…” Sam didn’t get to say anymore before Prof. Malfoy turned on Luella.
“What is this? Luella, you told me that these students were doing illegal activities! The notes that these girls have are merely doodles! You,” He pointed at Laurie, “Explain!”
“Well, you see Professor, we came down here to do some sketching competitions. These were some of our previous ones to compare,” she took her sketch book and some chocolate frog cards out of her bag, “here are some of the sketches from last week. We also came down here to trade some chocolate frog cards.”
“Professor, that’s not what…” Luella started. She never managed to finish as Prof. Malfoy started to scold her.
“Luella, I can not believe that you have accused your fellow pupils of doing illegal activities with the intention of having them expelled. I have never been so disappointed with a student, let alone one from my own house!”

Prof. Malfoy took Luella by her ear and lead her back to the castle.
"Ow ow ow ow ooooooooow!!!!" Luella threw us a death stare.
"Oh shut up Rencor."

We waited until they were out of earshot and then fell around laughing.
"Amazing Laurie! You did that perfectly! I never knew that you could lie so well!"
"I wasn't lying, I merely stretched the truth, I was going to do some sketching afterwards."
"Well, as far as I am concerned, I don't care what you call it! But I think that we should start doing what we were planning before anyone else comes down."

We're two months in!

We had reached the end of our first two months at Hogwarts and we had done pretty well in coping with school work and coping with Luella and the Luella-Ettes.
We made a list of things to be done and things we had done to Luella, each thing based on different scenarios. So far, we had: Bewitched matchsticks to follow her and the others around, enchanted her shoelaces to tie themselves together, grown her teeth to an enormous size and we dyed her hair bright orange.
But, in return she had: Poured soil down my shirt, take credit for my work, mocked Laurie and I and shaved off Tash's hair. Not to forget the nosebleed nougat she put in Sam's pumpkin juice the morning after the teeth incident.

Laurie and I were doing progressively better in our Transfiguration and had reached human Transfigurations now. We had finally persuaded Prof. McGonnagall to let us get the Animagus book out from the restricted section in the Library.

The date was Saturday 4th November. We decided that we would go down to the Marauders' hideout and do the Transformation. Laurie and I had copied out the needed page for the transformation spell and returned the book as to not be caught with the book. When we got to the inlet of the beach, we were not the only ones there. Luella and her clones were there, waiting for us. Zofka looked as though she was ready to re-arrange our faces. Petunia had a look as though she knew that we were going to be in a whole heap of trouble soon. But Luella, she looked the most dangerous. She was there, sitting on a rock, sneering at us. We knew that something bad was about to happen.
"I have a bad feeling about this." Sam whispered in my ear through the corner of her mouth.
"Stop quoting Star Wars, Sam!" I hissed back.
Tash kicked me in the ankle. "Something's up. Act normal. Don't give the game away!"

Luella strode up to us with a sneer that was even worse than that of her normal one.
"Well, there you are Bolt! I thought you'd not show up. Yeah, I knew you would be here, today, at this exact moment. I heard you talking a few days ago, when I was hidden behind a tree, that you were going to do something that would be breaking over a hundred school rules. So, I've put you in a position where you can do one of two things. Option number 1: You can do what you were planning ,and threaten me all you like about this, but I will tell a teacher, and you'll be in trouble. Option number 2: You can hand over your notes, give me all your pocket money AND do whatever I say and I won't tell a teacher about this. I will give you 2 minutes to decide."

We huddled in a group and discussed what we would do.
"You know, she's probably going to tell a teacher whatever we do."
"Yeah and I bet you anything she has a teacher down here right now."
"I have a ton of Leprechaun gold that we can give her and we do this at a different time."
"You know what? I think that we should tell her. I have some fake notes here and we can give those to her. They're just a ton of doodles that I swiped off her in History of Magic the other day. Tash, you then cast Homenum Revelio and see if there is a teacher here in disguise. We then pretend that we were coming down to do a sketching session. Laurie, you have your sketchbook with you?"
"That I sure do."
"I think we'll do that plan. It's gold!"
"Ok Tash, cast the spell, quietly."
"Homenum Revelio! Yeah, Prof.Malfoy is using the Disillusionment charm and is hidden behind that tree."

"Time's up! What're you going to do?"
"Luella, ven do I get to give zer faces a make-over?"
"Calm, Zofka. You'll get your chance soon enough."

"Luella, here's all our pocket money that we have left," Laurie handed over the bag of Leprechaun gold. "We'll do whatever you say, as long as you don't tell any teacher what we're doing down her."

"Ok." Luella paused and then an evil, malicious grin spread over her now very pimpled face. Tash and Sam had noticed and were now stuffing their hankies into their mouths to stop them laughing as they saw the word 'Tattler' writing itself over Luella's face in spots. "Professor Malfoy, could you please come out now. These girls are here doing illegal activities."
Professor Malfoy came out of hiding, looking like a big Chameleon when he appeared out of nowhere.
"Thank you Luella. I now need to see the evidence of their 'Illegal' activities."

The beginning of the Quidditch season.

We weren't sure whether it was the work we had or the amount of fun we had, that took us so quickly through the first 2 months at Hogwarts. It was the start of October, and it was nearing to Me and Sophie's 11th birthday.

I had never forgotten to get her a present, but I wasn't sure for the first time ever on what to get her. Because I couldn't leave the Castle to go to Hogsmeade because that's a third year privilege, I had to send Albus off with an order form and money.

I sent him to Honeydukes to get a gift package of Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Beans, Drooble's Best blowing gum and Sugar Quills. I was really apprehensive and gave him a note to put on the counter saying that I needed the gift package wrapped, with extra cost if needed.

Our birthday came and in the morning, we both had presents sent from our parents and she received my package and had no idea who it was from. I also received a package from her, it was a book called "Flying with the Cannons", it was a book about the Chudley Cannons Quidditch team. I also got some presents from Tash, Laurie and Sam. Tash gave me a framed photograph of us 4 together, Laurie gave me a pack of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes jokes and Sam gave me some Chocolate frogs. It was so sweet of them to remember. From my parents, I got a musical snow globe from my favourite musical called Wicked, which was really, really beautiful. I couldn't thank my friends enough and I sent a note to my parents thanking them for the gift.

That day was a special day because we got the afternoon off to watch the beginning match of the Quidditch season; Gryffindor vs Slytherin.
It was great fun, of course we rooted for Gryffindor. We made a banner and enchanted it to have a lion on it that moved and roared.
It was amazing! The match went like lightening. The three chasers on Gryffindor passed the Quaffle like lightening. In the first 7 minutes, they had already scored 3 goals! Their Goalkeeper was amazing as well, she seemed to know where the ball was going to go before it even happened! It was a very long game because the Snitch evaded capture for so long. The Slytherin seeker attempted the Wronski Feint maneuver once but instead crashed to the ground whilst the Gryffindor seeker was in actual fact following the Snitch. When the snitch was finally caught, the scores were 430-70 to Gryffindor. With the Snitch's score added, the scores were 580-70!
It was thrilling. We stayed awake that night after homework in our dorm talking about the Quidditch match. I pulled out my special FX sweets which make the eater act like/sound like whatever type of FX sweet. It was so fun!

The second note.

That night, when the rest had gone to bed, I opened the second note that Albus had brought me. I didn't dare open the second note, because I knew who it was from.

I looked around the Dorm to make sure that everyone was asleep and opened it.

Dear Annie,

How are you? I'm fine. Are you liking your teachers? I really like mine.

I'm sorry that I haven't made any contact during our first week, although we have many lessons together.

I liked what your friend Sam did this morning to Luella at breakfast, I heard you talking about it just before the teeth started to grow. Did you get something from Mum too? I got a red scarf with owls on. I love the little scops owl mum got me. I prefer it to Albus, no offence, but he knocked my bottle of ink all over my Potions essay! See you sometime. Remember, don't tell your friends about me unless they see me. I like my privacy!

Sophie.

P.S. I'm really sorry for being such a prat when you got your acceptance letter.

xxx

It was from my twin sister Sophie. Not many people know her because she likes being on her own. But she is a very brave girl. Unlike me, she was sorted into Gryffindor, with Sam.

Because people don't pay attention at the sorting, no-one realised that she was my twin sister.

Every morning she would be up early and down at breakfast quickly and leave before anyone else came down and even though we have a lot of our lessons together, she sits at the back of the class, last in and first out. She doesn't really take her studies very seriously but is a very nice girl once people get to know her.

I took this photo at the beginning of term, at the end of the day so that we had it.

We are identical to the last curl, except that our interests are very different. Although we both are interested in Quidditch, she cares about her appearance and what people think of her.

I'm more of a 'Don't care what they think' type person.

I remember the day we got our letters. She got her letter first and went absolutely mental! She opened her letter and screamed! She then went and flapped it in my face and started gloating. She even made up a song. It went something like this (to the tune of we are the champions chorus): I'm going to Hogwarts, and you're not! I'll be learning Magic and you won't! I'm going to Hogwarts, I'm going to Hogwarts! No time for muggles, 'cause I'm going to Hogwarts, and you're not!

She kept singing this over and over and over, all day long! Then, during the evening, I got my letter!!! It was so funny! She was halfway through her song and this letter landed in my lap and her face fell. She wouldn't talk to me after that. When we went to Diagon Alley, she went off with Mum and I went off with Dad. We met up back at the leaky cauldron and Sophie and I had to share a room. She still wouldn't talk to me. When we got onto the train, we were waved off by our parents then went different ways. She went and joined up with 2 girls and a boy, and I went off to the carriage where I met Tash and Laurie.

At the sorting, no-one was paying attention, so we went off without notice.

After reading her letter, I went to bed with thoughts buzzing around my head. I was thinking up an idea on how to get my friends to know her.

On and on and on!

We finally reached the end of the first week with relatively no damage done. It was a pretty good start.
In our first week, we had already managed to make 3 enemies, Sam got into trouble in Potions, Tash had blown up a desk, Laurie punched Petunia Pygge, I got locked out of the tower because I couldn't figure out the riddle, We found the Weasley Twins and Marauder's hideout and decided to become Animagi. Yep, a really good start.

We were sitting in the common room, Sam was there too, on the friday night with our homework and listening to Billy Ray Cyrus on our wireless. Suddenly, my owl, Albus, flew in and crashed into the bust of Rowena Ravenclaw. He dropped a parcel and two notes.
"Annie, that owl is starting to become a menace! Just yesterday, he knocked my pumpkin juice all over my astronomy homework!"
"Yeah, and on Wednesday he landed in my porridge!"
"Oh never mind about that! Let's see what you've got!" Sam was starting to get a bit short tempered because of the detention she had received from Prof. Malfoy.
"Well, the parcel is from my parents, as is one of the notes. I'll open those first."
I opened the note and I read it out to my friends.
"Dear Annie,
I hope this letter gets to you. I don't know about this owl post, it's a bit hectic, as it were. I guess I just need to get used to it. Your owl is a teensy bit clumsy. It knocked over Dad's bust that his mother made... thankfully it fell onto the washing pile. It could have been horrible!
I just want you to know how proud I am of you and hope that you've made new friends. I know that you really didn't want to leave Tash and Molly and all the other friends that you've made. I've sent you some of our home-made fudge and a present which I crotched for you. I hope you like it.
We're both missing you lots. But some really funny things happened whilst you've been gone which we wanted to share with you. Do you remember how dad really HATES those Tele-Marketers? Well, someone phoned our house a few days ago and said in a slightly american accent 'Hi!' but your dad immediately assumed that it was a Tele-marketer and shouted down the phone 'OH, F*** OFF!' . The phone rang a few moments later and he picked up and the caller said ' Johnny, it's Jean!'. It was sooo hilarious! It was your Godmother that your dad had sworn at! I've got to go now, your owl is starting to bug the dogs. What're you going to do with it in the summer?
Lots of Love,
Mum.
xxx"


"Aaaaaaw-that's-so-sweet!" Said Laurie in between fake sobs. She got her hanky out and did a long and loud nose blow!
"Yeah, so sentimental!"
"Let's stop jawing and see what she made for you!"

I opened my mum's package and found a Scarf with Brooms and Quidditch balls over it.
"Aaaaw, it's so sweet! She knows that I've always wanted to play Quidditch! I've got to thank her for that."
"Hey, if you're from an all muggle family, how does your mum know about Quidditch?"
"Every summer, I go into my 'Harry Potter obsession' faze, because I love the books and films so much. You should see my room, I've got pictures of Quidditch all over my room! It was really bad last summer, I got a branch which had been cut off my tree which was the perfect shape, and I made it into my own Firebolt broom! It was very beautiful infact. Now that I know how to make things fly, I can even try to bewitch it to make it fly for next year so that I can join our Quidditch team."
"That's cool, but also quite sad..." Laurie said with a huge smirk on her face.
"Careful there Laurie, she may bludgeon you to death with her 'Firebolt'!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah! Real mature guys! Anyway, if you carry on, you won't get any of my delicious fudge!"
"Ok, we'll be good!!!" They all said at once.
We shared out the fudge and went off to our dormitories, Sam going back to Gryffindor Tower.

That night, I lay in bed writing a note to my mum about everything that had happened. I told her all about my friends and enemies and about my lessons and Hogwarts in general.

The next morning, we jumped out of bed and went down to breakfast. It was Saturday, which meant no lessons!!!! We were so happy. We sat in our usual group and talked about what we would do. Sam then told us what she had been doing last night.
"You'll never believe what I did last night. When I went to bed, I got out my parchment and wrote a letter to Luella which she'll get this morning!"
"Yeah, uh, Sam... That's not really that interesting!"
"You haven't heard the best part of it yet... I put a charm on the envelope so that when she opens it and reads it, her teeth will grow and grow and grow!"
"That's awesome! I wish you'd told us earlier though."
"You guys, this isn't really the best idea ever. First of all, 1. She knows Sam's writing because of that note I got which she read, 2. She'll recognise your style, 3. She'll recognise your owl and last but not least, 4. What provoked you to do something like that! In the morning, at breakfast! With the teachers at the high table!!! You're mad! You'll get detention... again!!!! Not your best work Sam." I then put on a voice and imiatated Prof. McGonnagall, "I'm very disappointed in you Sam. 20 points from Gryffindor!"
"Oh... I'm very sorry," she said in an apologetic tone, we knew she was faking. We all laughed, "Ooooh, look, Show time! Watch those teeth go!"
We quickly finished our breakfast and left the Great Hall. As we left, we saw that Luella's teeth had already grown down to her knees.

We went outside to enjoy a nice sunny day.

The second day

The next morning, my friends and I went down to the great hall to have our breakfast. We ate it quickly and went back up to the common room to get our books for our next lesson. We had to go to History of Magic, which was easily the most boring subject at Hogwarts.

So we sat down and got out our books. Unfortunately, Laurie wasn't quick enough and I had to share a desk with Luella.
She looked at me with the look one gives to dog muck on the underside of their shoe, "Well, this is great. I have to share a desk with YOU!!!"
"Well, I'm not exactly doing cartwheels am I?"
"Just keep away from me, ok?"
I was very close to making a retort, but thought better of it.

All the way through the lesson, Luella kept pinching my notes and flicking my ears. I was really irriatated when Proffessor Binns collected in our essays and he gave Luella five house points. I told him that it wasn't her work but he just ignored me!

When we left the classroom, I bewitched her shoelaces to tie themselves together so that she tripped in front of a big crowd. Everyone laughed at her! It was great!!!

After History of Magic, we went to our Herbology lesson where we learnt about Devil's Snare. It was a very interesting lesson, but Luella kept chucking soil down my shirt from her desk behind me.

Thankfully, after Herbology, it was our lunch time. I had a quick lunch and went to clean myself up. I swore that I would get my revenge on Luella. I couldn't believe it! Two days into my new school and I already had an enemy!

Tash and I went for a walk around the school grounds looking for a place in which we could meet. We realised that we wouldn't be able to use the Room of Requirement after the Fiendfyre in 1998, well, we assumed that anyway.
The first place we looked was at the rocky inlet we had been the day before, but found nothing of obvious use.

Tash was really frustrated and in her anger kicked a rock and yelled,
"This is never going to work!!! Why can't we just be normal students and NOT leave a legacy?!"
"Because we're not normal students! We're the biggest bunch of oddjobs and misfits I've ever known!"

We hadn't noticed that a big door had opened up in a boulder when Tash had kicked the rock. We went in and found a room, big enough for four people or so and filled up with dungbombs, nose-biting tea cups and all sorts of old Zonko's products. We also noticed that there were also scores of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes products as well. There was a note on the wall directly opposite us. We took it off and read it.

Messrs Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs,
Purveyors of aids to Magical mischief makers,
hand over to whoever reads this note, our hideout.
As you can see there are hundreds of magical jokes here, which will replenish themselves when used.
Use them well.

There was an addition on the bottom added by another person.

Fred and George Weasley and Lee Jordan, have benefited from this hideout,
we discovered it in our first year. It has helped us very much in our mischief.
To help the future mischief makers, we have also left a self-replenishing stock
of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes products.
Good luck.

We ran back to tell Sam and Laurie about this. But, before we had gone far, we realised that we had been followed. Luella had been sneaking around, watching us whilst we had been searching.

"You know what, Bolt? I'm going to get you. The teachers will find out about this, mark my words!"
"You know what, Rencor? You're not going to get us because, we'll know if you tell, and I also know, that Tash and I are very able with the Bat-Bogey hex. So if you tell, your bogeys will become bats."

We went off back to the castle.
"Annie, I didn't know that we had been practicing the bat-bogey hex!"
"Yeah, we haven't. I was bluffing. But she was very scared! But don't worry, I've got something else up my sleeves. If she does tell, she'll get bad acne on her face with the word Tattler, written across her face in spots. I got that from Hermione Granger's security charm for the D.A. in 1995."

We arrived back at the castle in time to get our books and go to our next lesson.
We had double Defence Against the Dark Arts, with Mr.Potter. We were really excited! In our first lesson, we were learning about the different types of hexes and curses and jinxes. As our homework, we had to write an essay about any crse we may have heard of.

We went back to our common room to do our homework. I only had to do D.A.D.A. I did my essay about the unforgivable curses. It was quite an interesting topic.

We soon went to bed, but before I went to sleep, I sent a letter to my parents telling them about all my new friends and what we were planning to do and all sorts of stuff.

First day at Hogwarts: The rest of the day

We 4 went off laughing together. Unfortunately, we didn't have all of our lessons together. Whilst Tash, Laurie and I went to charms, Sam went to Flying lessons with the Slytherins.
Charms went quickly and without incident. We were all meant to be doing the levitation charm. But Tash, Laurie and I had all practised it before, so we were done quickly. So Flitwick told us to write an essay on the Levitation charm using evidence from our book. It took us the rest of the lesson to finish that off. Flitwick then set that for everyone else as homework, so we didn't get any homework that night.
Lunch time came and once again, all 4 of us sat together. Sam told us everything that happened in her last lesson.
"It was hilarious! You should have seen it!"
"Seen what?" Asked Tash, shaking Sam so hard that she almost fell of the bench.
"Luella had been boasting that she could fly a broom really well, but when it came to the flying, she fell off her broom!!!" At this, Sam did an impression of Luella's face. It was hilarious!
"So tell me, did you ask Delphinus out yet?"
"Who's Delphinus?"
"Oh, Delphinus Malfoy is Prof.Malfoy's son. Sam has a huge crush on him. Unfortunately he's a Slytherin." Tash said knowingly.
"Well, no I haven't asked him yet. I was a bit put off when he helped Luella back onto her broom and she started flirting. Annie, may I PLEASE pelt her with Mandrakes?" Sam stared at me with the look of someone who wants to do really dangerous things.
"No Sam, you can't! We have our plan!!!"

We left it at that. After we had eaten our lunch, we went outside for our 2 hour break. We took all of our Chocolate Frog Cards to do some trading, for I had procured some from some of the boys in my year.
We started to look around and found a little inlet of sand on the edge of the Lake. It was too cold to start swimming so we just sat around trading our cards. I dug my hands into my pockets and I dug out a chocolate frog from the train and we opened it. The card was Morgana.

"Wow, you got Morgana!"
"Is that good?"
"Good? Blimey Annie, it's the rarest card!"
"Wow. Hey, any of you have Harry Potter?"
"Yeah, I'll trade for your Paracleus."
"You know what? I want to be remembered when we leave Hogwarts. I want to leave a legacy. Like the Marauders! I have a theory that they became Animagi in the first maybe second year, and with Laurie and Annie's aptitude in Transfiguration, I think that we can all become Animagi. What do you say?"
"I think that's a great idea, as long as we don't hurt people badly, only Luella and the
Luella-ettes. As we know, the Marauders were to bullies to Severus Snape."
"I'm all for it, as long as we can find out how to do it."
"I'm not so sure, it could be dangerous..."
"Oh come on Annie! Please!"
"Ok, fine. I'll try and find a book. It will probably be in the restricted section... I'll ask McGonagall if I can get a book about how to become an Animagi, so I can 'Understand more about how people can become Animagi' It'll take a while though, at least 2 months before Laurie and I can be anywhere near ready."
"Ok, then. From now on we'll become the roamers. We'll have to decide what we're going to be."

And at precisely the same moment, we all said: "I want to be a dog!"

We talked and decided that:
Laurie was going to be a sheepdog, called Guard.
Tash was going to be a Golden retriever called Fetcher.
Sam was going to be a Belgian Sheepdog called Bite and that I was going to be a Black German Shepherd called Claws.

We made a deal and then left to go to our next class, which unfortunately was double potions with Prof. malfoy!!!! We weren't very keen, but decided that we could have a few laughs.

We got to Potions and were lectured about potions an stuff. Once he was done, we were told to brew a boil-cure potion. We started at once. Tash and I were in a pair and Laurie and Sam were together. It took us most of the lesson to do. We noticed though that Sam was mucking around, for everytime Prof.Malfoy sat down, Sam made it sound as though he farted. Thankfully he didn't realise it was her. The bell rang and we were all thankful to be out of potions.

We all went to our common rooms to do our homework and chat.

First Day at Hogwarts: First lesson.

Somehow, I don't remember, Laurie, Tash and I all managed to wake up in time to go down to breakfast and get ready for classes. The tables in the Great Hall were brimming with lovely breakfast food, like: Cereal, Pancakes, Porridge, Toast and all sorts of other things.

Since the Ravenclaw table was next to the Gryffindor table, we sat with our new Friend Sam. We discussed all sorts of things. We decided that we would have to be prepared to cause mayhem sometimes, like the Weasley twins used to do. We also decided to map out the school like the old marauders. Since the Marauders' Map hadn't returned.

Our first lesson was Transfiguration with McGonagall. It was a mixed lesson, so all four houses were together. We all sat together, we were adamant not to get told off the first day. So McGonagall came in and gave us a lecture about how Transfiguration is a dangerous magic. So were told to take out our books and open them on chapter one: Small object transfiguration.
As all first years have to, we started off with math-to-needle.
Laurie and I mastered it immediately, whereas Tash had a small problem and somehow blew up our desk! Sam didn't do much better, and instead of transfiguring the match, accidentally making the match fly around the classroom and conveniently wedge itself in Petunia's ear. Sam had 5 points deducted for that...

Since Laurie and I had already completed the assignment, McGonagall gave us a much harder one to do, which was used for 2nd years, to test our ability in Transfiguration. The assignment she gave us was to Transfigure a Beetle into a button. This took a while to do but we got there in the end. The bell soon rang and Laurie and I were awarded ten house points each for our astounding work. She said that we were the most remarkable students she had met since Hermione Granger and that we were ready to do Human Transfigurations. Luella couldn't believe what she was hearing and was in a foul mood.

"Bet you loved that didn't you Bolt?" she put on a high voice, "Ooooh, look at me, I'm Annie Bolt and I'm marvellous at Transfiguration! Ooooh, I'm a teacher's pet!"
"Yes, and I'm Laurie Royal! Look at me, I can turn beetles in to buttons! Ooooh."
"Yah, and I'm Sam, vooosh! Look at ze match steek go!" As she said that, she rammed a matchstick into Petunia's ear. It caused a huge scene, Sam was giving her a standing ovation and Tash was rolling on the floor laughing. But Laurie and I just grabbed the others and went. What Luella had said had really hurt our feelings.

We didn't care, much, we knew how to get back at her. Sam had been snooping in Greenhouse 3 where the mandrakes are kept and said that she could pelt Luella and her Luella-ettes with mandrakes. We all laughed at this until she said that she was serious.

"Don't let that bra-stuffer get you down. Anyway, I went snooping in Greenhouse 3 last night and saw that there are young mandrakes there. If you want, I can pelt Loo-seat-Luella with mandrakes for you." Sam said encouragingly.

We all laughed at this.

"I'm serious."

Laughing even harder, we went on our way to Charms.

The feast and Ravenclaw Tower.

"May I have your attention please? Thank you. Welcome students, welcome back to Hogwarts.
As always, there are the start of term notices. I would like to remind you that The Forbidden Forest is Forbidden! I would also like to add, we have some new teachers. Although, Defence against the Dark Arts is no longer jinxed, we have a new professor. He will be with us for a year, whilst on leave from the Ministry of Magic Auror division. I am pleased to introduce, your new D.A.D.A Professor, Mister Harry Potter!"
A thunderous round of applause erupted around the room. The only people who were disgusted by the idea were: Slytherin and Professor Malfoy, our potions master.
"I only have one more thing to say. In the immortal words of Albus Dumbledore: Nitwit, Oddment, Blubber and Squeak! Well... I think that's how it goes... Anyway, Dig In!"

As soon as she said that, the plates all magically filled with food. All my favourite food was there! Laurie, Tash and I were all talking about what we were going to do as the mischief makers, when our friend Sam caught my eye. She came over with a friend, called Aisha and introduced us.

The feast soon drew to a close and we were all stuffed full. We left the Hall and went to find Ravenclaw Tower. We knocked on the bronze eagle door-knocker and had to answer a riddle to get in. It was so cool!!!

There were hundreds of really fluffy, blue armchairs by a roaring fire. There was a bust of Rowena Ravenclaw in the middle of our common room and several desks. There were bookshelves absolutely STUFFED with books. I even noticed some of my favourite muggle books which I could read.

We quickly went up to bed, so tired that we immediately fell asleep. We were so tired that we didn't even realise that our stuff was already there.

The Sorting ceremony.

Professor Sprout led us into the Great Hall. We all looked around in amazement. There were hundreds of floating candles everywhere! Obviuosly they didn't adhere to Health and Safety guidelines, but that didn't stop them! It was a fantastic sight! We all stopped and stood in our lines waiting for the ceremony to begin. We looked at the rest of the line to see who was where. We immediately saw Luella.

"Oh my God! I can't believe she's posing there. I bet she thinks all the boys are staring at her." Laurie whispered to me under her breath, clearly she was repulsed by Luella's short skirt and tight jumper.

Professor Sprout brought in the Sorting hat with its stool. It looked a lot worse for wear than I had imagined. But then again, it had been set on fire. We all got ready to listen to the Sorting Hat's song.

" Blobbedoo, nikanpop, rinkochak, proom." It sang very tunelessly.

"The Sorting hat's been a bit off when it comes to the songs since it was put on fire in 1998. But don't worry, it will sort you properly." I was relieved when Professor Sprout said this, "I hope..." That didn't really help.

Professor Sprout then started to read out names. Soon enough, she read out my name.

I walked up to the stool, turned around and sat down on the stool. Just before I put the hat on my head, I saw some people laughing at my still very wet appearence.

I then heard a little voice in my ear, the Sorting hat was talking to me.
"Aaah, yes. Annie, yes, you have a good mind, not afraid of work, very loyal, a good friend and there's courage, oh yes, a great deal of courage." I felt myself starting to blush under the hat. "But where should I put you? I know... RAVENCLAW!!!!" The last word, he said out to the whole hall.

The table on the far left erupted with clapping, I removed the hat and went to the table, not wanting to look a bigger idiot than I already felt. Unfortunately, because my shoes were still wet, I slipped, but by happy accident, I landed, in a sitting position on the Ravenclaw bench. I got a big cheer for that.
I took a quick glance at Luella and saw that the nasty smirk had been wiped off her face and that she was glaring angrily at me.

More students names were called off and finally she came to Tash. Tash was also sorted into Ravenclaw. The Sam girl we had met on the lake was sorted into Gryffindor. Then Petunia Pygge was called up and was sorted Slytherin. Eventually it came to Luella; the sorting hat barely touched her head when it said: "Hey! Get me away from that greasy hair!" No, not really, only joking. It barely touched her head when it yelled "Slytherin!!!"

She took the hat off with a smug look on her face and went to join Petunia Pygge. Just after her, it was Laurie. She put the hat on and it took a while for it to decide her. Finally after a minute or so the hat yelled out "RAVENCLAW!!!" I was cheering and clapping, I was so happy. It was great, all three of us were together. Then Zofka had to be sorted, she was also a Slytherin. When she got to the Slytherin table, she pushed off two Slytherin boys who were goggling at luella and sat down.

Then the sorting ceremony ended and Professor McGonagall stood up to do the start-of-term announcements and the hall went quiet.