Cale nodded his head sympathically. "I've been there. My mum was paranoid I'd break a leg or something if I came to school, so I spent my first four terms being homeschooled as well," he explained. He thought about telling Zeke about his evil stepsister Ezra, but he didn't want to bum the guy out or anything.

Cale laughed and took a bite of his roll again. "We could have used a few people like you," he said with a wink. "Those Ministry professors probably got everything that was coming to them...this one guy Borr made us sit in water!" he exclaimed, as if it was the most atrocious thing he had ever heard of. And really, it was. He and Shel had been so humiliated that day! Actually, now that he recalled it, Shel HADN'T had to sit in a bowl of water, cause he gave himself low marks on his fingernail cleanliness. Cale had just been being honest--his nails were perfect. Duh. And yet he had gotten punished.

Lost in his thoughts, he snapped back to reality when Lyra claimed she had no crush on Dominic Denton, very suddenly and very loudly. Even though he was sure she was speaking the truth--after all, who would have a crush on HIM?--but that didn't stop him from taking the opportunity at hand. "EWWWWWWWW you have a crush on DOMINIC?" he asked, making a grossed out face and holding a hand over his heart like it was the worst news in the world.

Hannah looked over at a boy who looked incredibly nervous. Poor kid, I bet it's his first year, she thought. "Hi," she said to him in a calming tone. "I'm Hannah."

"Hannah," she said back. "You're Winnie? My brother told me he met you. Zeke. He said you were a lot of fun," she said with a smile. She could easily see herself being friends with Winnie. "Well, last year, I went on a frog hunt," she said with a grin. "That was pretty crazy!"

Sylvan jumped a little as a hand was thrust in front of his face. He had missed the boy's introduction due to the distraction of his dinner roll, but he shook his hand anyways and waved at him with a smile on his face, mouthing the word hello as he did so.

Sylvan was blissfully unaware of Nathaniel's greeting.

He was also unaware of Hannah's greeting.

"Yeah, mothers can be that way, sometimes," Zeke said with a grin. "But ya gotta love 'em. So do you have any siblings?"

Zeke smiled at the kid. He had a feeling he hadn't quite caught everything, but gave up. He'd figure it out eventually.

"Strange, but I don't fell like I'm in your year yet either," she said. "I mean, I feel like I'm a seventh year, because I'm so excited, but it still seems like you're a school year higher than I am." Anna frowned when Cale mention homework. She knew it was coming sooner or later, but she didn't even want to think about it right now. Especially the Herbology homework. Oddly enough, that subject was both Cale and Anna's least favorite. "Jobbbbssssss?" Anna asked, making a slight face when she said the word. "Can't we just ride off into the sunset and play Quidditch forever or something?" Anna hadn't really thought about the future yet. She couldn't imagine holding down a steady job a year from now. The thought alone seemed scary. "Cale?" she weakly whispered. "Do you think I have to work right off the bat?"

"Oh, I won't," Anna replied, instinctively running a hand through her hair. "I think it would turn out to be a disaster!" Anna blinked and jumped back in surprise when Reese starting choking on her roll. Anna was afraid her friend would react this way. Anna gave Reese an apologetic look. "I'm afraid it's true. I'll be graduating at the end of this school year," she said. "But...we can always write...and see one another on weekends and during the summer!"

Anna jumped once again as Lyra began exclaiming---quite loudly---that she didn't have the hots for Dominic Denton. When she was recovered from the shock of the loud outburst, Anna laughed softly at her friend. "Good. I was afraid you'd lost your mind for a minute there," Anna admitted. "Oh, and I sort of got into a bit of trouble on the train and blamed the whole mess on Dominic." Anna smirked and bit into her roll once again. She wondered in the Jelly Slugs were still plastered to the wall of the train where she, Copernicus, and Chris had left them.


"Hey there," Anna said, looking over at a young Gryffindor and offering him a polite smile. "Welcome to Gryffindor house. I'm Anna Greingoth, and I'll be your house prefect." Anna eyed the boy and watched as he stared at her mouth while she spoke to him. Did she have a bit of dinner roll stuck to her lip or something? Just in case, Anna licked her lips, hoping there really wasn't any food stuck there.

Cale nodded and took a drink from his goblet before continuing. "Yeah, I've got a younger sister who just started her second year...Theresa, she's a Gryffindor too," he explained. "Then I have another little sister named Ellie who's only 7. Then there's my ev--I mean, my charming step-sister Ezra, who's also in Gryffindor but really doesn't hang around with this crowd. She kind of does her own thing," he said. And thank goodness for that, he thought. The only time he ever saw that girl was when she was stealing his hair products. Or visa versa.

"Maybe it's cause I'm older. And wiser." Cale suggested with a grin as he took a bite of mashed potatoes. He shrugged when she mentioned working and just continued to eat. "Well, probably not RIGHT off the bat, there's the job hunt and all that jazz, plus we've got a whole summer to look forward to."

When she mentioned Quidditch, Cale nearly jumped out of his chair. "Let's do that! We should get signed by a Quidditch team!" he chuckled. How COOL would that be? To play Quidditch for the rest of his life? He could be just like Ryan!

By this time, Sylvan had started look around the table again. He should have realized that people would want to talk to him. An older looking girl caught his attention and he watched her carefully as she spoke. He waved at her in greeting, and waited expectantly to see if she would say anything else.

"Well then your my hero if you can deal with all them." she said. Sitting hre, talking with friends, was really making her feel better about Astrid not comign back. And she was actualyl starting to believe that she could make this a great year.
"Hmm interesting." she said jokingly. "Well then, looks like were just gonna have to do something crazy..you know, since we can get away with it."
"Oh well my first year at Hogwarts, there was no Hogwarts, it was split up into two different scools." she said. "And last year there was this wierd treausre thing."

"Okay,"Reese said.She looked at Anna when she started to talk about graduating,again.She couldn't believe this was happening! "Okay,as long as we still talk to each other."She looked down at her rool.Suprisingly,she wasn't hungry anymore.

Reese has been waiting for Cale to say something to her since she got to the table.She picked up a new roll,not the one she ate off of,and through it at Cale's head."Are you going to say something to me or are you going to ignore me,Cale?"She gently smiled at him.

"Exactly.Now you are on the same page I am,"Reese said wit a smile.

Zeke thought she was fun! She smiled inside. ...I hope that's a good thing.

"A frog hunt?!" she asked excitedly. "What for?"

Whitney strolled across the Great Hall over to the Gryffindor Table. She stopped and looked for one of the Weasley's. Seeing as she hadn't seen or spoken to Hannah in ages, that's who she specifically looked for. Just as she was about to give up hope she spotted Anna,Cale,and Zeke. As she was walking over to that small group she saw Hannah not too far away. "Hello Hannah. It's literally been ages."

Then she walked over to the trio and simply looked at all three of them. Even though she'd seen one of them on the train,she still really missed all of them. She was contemplating whether she should say something smart or just say something. Whitney decided to go her way. "Group hug!" she exclaimed opening her arms wide assuming the other would join the hug. Sure,the Gryffies had caught up with each other,but not with her. "It's been too long."

Sylvan grinned from ear to ear as a new girl came up to the table and gave a bunch of its occupants a great big hug. Perhaps this school would be alright after all, if it had such wonderful people like that nice girl in it.

With the grin still on his face, he settled back in his seat to eat his dinner. As he ate, he remembered to keep his eyes up, watching the other students around him.

"Hey, Whitney!" Anna greeted, happy that yet another one of her Slytherin friends had come up to talk. "It's so good to see you again. What have you been up to all summer long?" Anna patted the seat next to her, offering Whitney a chance to sit down if she wanted to. Anna glanced at the pumpkin juice she'd recently spilled. Maybe she should clean that up now. It may be in other's way. Anna quickly cleaned up the spill and then looked up at Whitney once again.

Anna tore off a bit of her roll and playfully tossed it at Cale's face. "Older and wiser? Psh. So you may be an old prune, but somebody got stomped last year in the house points race," Anna said. She playfully stuck her tongue out at Cale. She didn't really care which one of them got the most house points, she just liked to joke with her boyfriend. What had been important was the fact that the entire house won the house cup last term. "Well, do you think I have to even start on the job hunt right off the bat?" she asked. The working word scared her. She wanted to be carefree and free of any major responsibility for as long as she could.

Anna blinked and jumped back when Cale starting getting really excited about being on a professional Quidditch team. "We could, but what if we ended up on separate teams? We'd be touring around the country in different places at different times!" she said. "I've always thought about being a researcher. I'd like to research potions."

Anna wrinkled her eyebrows, confused as to why the boy didn't speak to her in return. Nevertheless, Anna waved back. She felt kind of odd waving at someone sitting right by her. Maybe the boy was just shy and didn't really have much to say right now. "Sooo, erm. What's your name?" she asked. Maybe he'd at least tell her that. It was a good starting point, at least.

"Awww, I'm sorry, Reese," Anna said. She knew that this part of saying goodbye would be tough. Sure, she'd be going on to bigger and better things in her life, but leaving behind her friends and professors would be tough. "I promise you we'll still talk all the time. You can come visit me in the summer, and I'll still come to all your parties!" Anna said, hopefully assuring Reese. Anna watched Reese stare at her roll. She didn't seem all that hungry anymore. "But, hey, let's make the most out of my last year!" Anna said.

Nathaniel looked over at the kid who seemed to ignore him. What was up with that?. Nathaniel reached his hand over in front of the kids face and said "Hello."

"'Ev-charming?'" Zeke asked with a joking smile. "So is she a sweetheart, or what?" he asked in a tone suggesting he suspected the opposite was true.

Just as Sylvan was about to reply, another hand was stuck in his face. He gave a little sigh. He must have missed someone. This always happened to him. He really needed to learn to pay better attention. Hoping the boy hadn't thought him too rude, he waved back at the boy and gave him a friendly smile. The girl he had been talking to previously was now occupied with someone else. He frowned to himself. What would be the best way to get her attention?

Cale snapped out of his Quidditch fantasies with something hit him on the head, and rather hard. He looked down and saw that someone had chucked a bread roll at him, and that someone happened to be Reese. Grinning, he chuckled and shook his head. "Sorry, there's a lot going on here," he explained with a smile. "So, what's up?"

Cale looked up again as someone came over, ready to give them all a group hug. He smiled when he saw it was Whitney and hugged her back. He wondered if Clifford and Evangeline were spying on him by any chance...probably not, but if they were, they could see just how many Slythie friends he had. Tee hee.

"Hiya Whitney! How are you?" he asked.

The second roll took him off guard, causing Cale to drop the fork he had just been about to stick in his mouth that was loaded with green beans. "Stop throwing rolls at me!" he exclaimed. First Reese, now Anna? Did he have a target on his head or something? "Pssh, that is SO going to change this year," he told her, sticking out his tongue. "You've never lost a point in your life, but I can feel it...THIS term you will."

Cale snorted. "Hardly. She's a real menace, actually--but we have a peaceful understanding. The only time we ever really talk is over break when we're both at home, and other than that, we just pretend the other one doesn't exist," he explained with a smile.

"So, looking forward to your first term? Must be pretty exciting," he added with a head nod. Cale couldn't remember his first day at Hogwarts, mainly cause HIS first day was at that lame Cooper's school when the Ministry split up Hogwarts.

Hmm. That was weird. Hannah thought. Oh, well, she thought. She almost took it personally, but the kid seemed to be a little freaked, so she gave him the benefit of the doubt. She figured he must want to be left alone or something.

"I've always wanted to be someone's hero," Hannah said jokingly.


"Well, another girl in my year wanted a pet frog, so we decided to find one for her," Hannah said with a grin, remembering it.

"Whitney!" Hannah said happily, hugging her. "How's it going?"

"Hey, Whitney!" Zeke said with a grin, getting in on the offered group hug. "How's it been going?"

"Yes,I can see that,"Reese said with a smile."Hm.Nothing much.What's up with you?"She noticed that there was some bread crumbs on Cale's curly hair form her bun."Um-Cale,you might want to...brush the right side of you head.There some bread crumbs on it,"she told him.

Reese bursted out laughing when Anna through a piece of a roll at Cale."That time is wasn't me,"she said.

"It's okay,Anna.It's not your fault.I'm sorry for making a big deal out of it.It just took me by shock,"Reese said.She was trying to think of a Hogwarts without Cale and Anna.Nothing.Well,think positive.She still had Miles and Allie."Okay.You and Cale will always be the first people on my party list,"she said with a smile."Yes,let's make this an awesome year."

Adrianna walked into the Great Hall. It was all too much to take in. Not to mention, she had now been sorted into Gryffindor. That was one of the few things that actually felt right to her. She walked over to the table and took a seat, glancing up only to have her breath taken away once more. "Wow..." she said, a bright smile lighting up her face.

Hannah looked over and saw a younger girl walk in. "Hi," she said. "Amazing sight, isn't it? You always hear about it, but it's way different when you actually see it. I'm Hannah, by the way," she said with a smile.

"Did you find one?" Winnie asked. Then, without being able to stop herself- "Is it common to give amphibians as pets?"

James followed the rest of the crowd into the Great Hall. His dad had told him about this place, but it was much, much bigger than he could've imagined. And the ceiling looked more than realistic, it somehow looked, better. He stopped staring, and looked up. Someone was calling out names in alphabetical order. Ah, the sorting then. He would be near the end of the line, unfortunately. It was a long way until S. He watched carefully to see where people went. It seemed like some people stayed longer under the hat than others. He hoped the old rag wouldn't take too long for him.

Eventually, though, his name was called. He nervously walked up, in front of the entire school. It was rather nerve-racking. He sat down on the old stool, and the hat was put on his head. It was too large for him, though, so it slipped over his eyes, which was actually a blessing. That way he didn't have to look at the sea of eyes watching him.

'Gryffindor, Gryffindor, please let me be in Gryffindor!' he thought.
'Gryffindor? Your father did so well in Hufflepuff...' the sorting hat replied. His father had luckily told him about the sorting hat's knowledge of people's thoughts.
'I'm not like my father. Please, put me in Gryffindor.'
'Well, then you should be in... "GRYFFINDOR!"

James almost threw the hat off with glee. He set it down quickly on the stool and ran over to the Gryffindor table. This was so exciting! He was in Gryffindor! He'd thought he'd be in Hufflepuff, but he supposed he was more like his mum than his dad. He sat down at the nearest spot at the table.
Looking around, he said, "Er, hello, I'm James Henry Stapleton."

"That's for sure!" she said, smiling over at the girl. "Thing is, I've never heard about it, so its even more amazing!" she said with a slight laugh. "I'm Adrianna... nice to meet you!" she said with a broad smile.