Elffire: Volume One - Secrecy and Sorcery

2nd Year - Unfortunate Partners

If ever I needed a quiet moment to myself, my dorm room in Gryffindor tower would be the last place I would resort to. The beginning of first year all four of us were usually quiet and withdrawn on most days. The room consisted of four of us, Angelina was the one I found myself closest to, then there was Ellie and Willow Spinst, who were twin sisters and the most beautiful, prettiest girls in the year. They both were usually seen with their two brothers who were also a set of twins, one was in Ravenclaw and the other in Slytherin, they were 3 years older than us.

The girls were quite... snobby, they weren't fond of me at all, Angelina they tolerated, asking about homework and such every so often, but with me, they gave one word answers and would only speak to me if they were asking me to tidy up the room or straighten my shelves which were rarely messy.

My second year had run like clockwork so far, for the first few days as usual I spent as little time in the dormitory with Ellie and Willow breathing over my shoulder, and more time with the twins, refusing to participate in their pranks, and then joining them anyway at the last minute. I didn't want to waste any time this year. I completed my summer reading and assignments early in the summer, and I skimmed through most of my new books from Diagon Alley.

The first day at breakfast, I was greeted with two letters, one from Mum along with a package, and one from Dumbledore. Finn had dropped the post in front of me, nipped a bit of toast and soared back through the rafters to the owlery.

"Alvar,
You forgot your Transfiguration book, I knew you would forget something, I've put your new hat in there too... which you left on your bed.
    Hope your journey was ok,
    With my love - Mother."

I had left the hat behind on purpose, it itched my head, and the colour was awful. I wrapped the scratchy sage green hat back in the brown paper, and put my Transfiguration book in my bag. I then turned to the letter from Dumbledore.

"Who's that from?" asked Fred and George, after finally arriving for breakfast.

"My mum, and this one's from Dumbledore." I said, holding up the second letter, covered in the headmaster's handwriting.

"Anything important?" Said George?

"Lessons start next Tuesday evening." I replied, skimming over the note.
Our timetables were handed out by Professor Mcgonagall, who took a lengthy amount of time speaking to all of the older students before getting to us near the end of the table.

"She's probably talking about NEWTS and OWL classes with them," said Angelina.

NEWTS and OWLS were to two test periods that counted from fifth year to seventh, OWL stood for Ordinary Wizarding Level examination, tests that were taken in our fifth year to determine our subjects for the final two years at Hogwarts to sit our NEWT exams - Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Test.

"Oh come on, it's nearly nine o'clock, we might be on the other side of the castle for the first period." George complained.

"Yes!" Fred jumped after we had received our timetables, "No more potions with the Slytherins!"

"Yeah, but we have Defence and History with them" I said, examining the classes:

"History of Magic ~ Slytherin/Gryffindor"
"Defence Against the Dark Arts ~ Gryffindor/Slytherin"
"Charms ~ Gryffindor/Ravenclaw"

"Well... it's history first." I said, dreading facing the Slytherins after what happened with Carter and Warrington on the train yesterday.
Carter had been hissing and sending glares from the Slytherin table for all of breakfast.