Laura's first year at Hogwarts chapters 1-5

                                                       

 Chapter 1

Laura woke up and a sense of excitement flooded through her to the tips of her toes. She stayed in bed for a moment, trying to savour the feeling.

A few seconds later, she jumped out of bed and ran downstairs. Laura had no idea what time it was, but she didn’t care. Today she was going to Hogwarts! She rushed into the kitchen of number 13 Teapot Street and almost knocked her mother to the floor.

“Sorry Mum!” Laura said as she threw herself into a chair. Mrs Conelly, Laura’s mother, flicked her wand and a bowl of porridge flew towards her and set itself down in front of Laura. A spoon flew into the bowl, quivered, then was still. Laura picked it up and started to eat.

                                          *

Two hours later, Laura was changed into her muggle clothes and holding her trunk and owl’s cage.

                                           *

Laura, her two brothers, her baby sister and Mr and Mrs Conelly were now walking to platform 9 and 10 of Kings cross station. Laura’s oldest brother William quickly checked around him for watching muggles. Then, with his trolley piled high with everyone’s trunks and owls, he ran quickly forward straight into the pillar in-between platform 9 and 10. Even as William disappeared, Laura winced as if was going to crash into the pillar.

However, Laura’s brother disappeared. Next, Laura’s other brother ran and disappeared.

“Your turn, darling.” Mrs Conelly said gently and pushed Laura gently forward. She ran straight at the pillar and emerged on platform 9 and 3 quarters. Laura looked around her. A massive scarlet steam train sat puffing in front of her, billowing smoke everywhere.

Hogwarts students were everywhere she looked, saying goodbye to family or else just loading their belongings on to the Hogwarts express.           

Laura hugged her parents and said goodbye to her baby sister Olivia and climbed on board the train. She found an almost empty carriage and hoisted her trunk up to a rack above her. Then she rushed back into the corridor and stood at the window, waving to her parents and Olivia as the train started to move. Slowly, they slid out of sight as the train puffed through a tunnel and out into the dazzling sunlight that stretched out over the countryside that they were now travelling through.

                                                          Chapter 2

Laura walked back to her compartment and slid the door behind her shut. She turned around and saw the girl whom she was sharing with. She had long, knotted, ginger hair that went down to her waist and square glasses. Her clothes were ripped and dirty and she had a sallow face that reminded Laura of the poor that lived down an alleyway near Teapot Street.

“Hello,” Laura said cautiously as she approached her. She didn’t want to scare the girl. “May I share this compartment with you?” When the girl didn’t answer, Laura said, “I can move if you want.”

As Laura got up to leave, the girl whispered, “No! Please stay. Please.” Laura sat down again. “What’s your name?”

“Ada, Ada Adams.” She replied nervously.

“That’s a lovely name, Ada!” Laura told her enthusiastically.

“Really? Wow, no-one has ever said that to me before!” Ada said happily, her eyes bright. “In fact, everyone says that my name is fit only for a girl who lives in the slums.” She mumbled unhappily. “I guess it’s true though, I do live in the slums.

“Hey!” Laura whispered. “Don’t say that! I think it’s a beautiful name. And whoever says otherwise is completely mad and has me to stand up to!” Laura finished triumphantly. Ada laughed. “Thanks.” She said.

                                                         Chapter 3

An hour and a half later, the trolley witch strolled through the train and past Laura’s compartment.

“Anything from the trolley dears?” she asked sweetly.

Ada shook her head sadly and just as the trolley disappeared past the door, Laura piped up. “Oh, actually, yes please!” 

Laura pulled out of her pocket a handful of gleaming Knuts, Sickles and Galleons. Ada gaped at them.

As Laura got up from her seat and walked over to the waiting trolley, Ada sprang up to join her. They chose the things they wanted and waddled back to their seats, arms loaded with food of all sorts.

“I’ve never seen this much food in my entire life!” Ada exclaimed.

Soon, the compartment was littered with wrappers and discarded Bertie-Bott’s Every Flavoured Beans tasting of vomit, earwax, rotten eggs and black pepper.

Ada had gotten the fright of her life when she had opened the chocolate frog packet. Laura was laughing so hard when Ada dropped her box on to the pile of wrappers. Ada fell off her seat as she stared disbelievingly at the frog that was clambering quickly up the window. “Have you never seen a chocolate frog before?” Laura choked, trying to talk at the same time as giggling breathlessly.

“No.” Ada said. “Why do wizards do that?”

“Do what?” Laura asked.

“Invent those, things.” Ada spat, looking disgusted.

“Oh come on Ada! They aren’t that bad.” As Laura reached for another chocolate frog box, her mouth fell open as she saw Ada’s discarded one.

The box was lying open and revealed a gold, glittering card within. Laura reached for the card and gasped. It was!

“What is it?” Ada asked, peering over at her box.

Laura reached and pulled the card out. It was studded with beautiful magic gems and had the Golden Trio waving at Laura. “Whoa. This card is ultra-rare you know!” Laura gasped. She stared back at the smiling Harry, Ron and Hermione. “There are only about 20 in the whole entire wizarding world!”

Ada shuffled over to sit by Laura. “Who are they?” she asked.

“Who are they? Um, only the most famous wizards and witch in the entire universe. What! Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of them!” Laura yelped, shocked that Ada didn’t know.

“Never heard of them.” Ada stated matter-of-factly.

Laura was puzzled. If Ada used to be a muggle than I wouldn’t be surprised that she didn’t know. However, I did asked her and she was definitely from a wizarding family. Well, I guess she is half Spanish. Maybe Ada’s Spanish father didn’t tell her because he didn’t know either. No, that can’t be it. Voldemort travelled the world killing people. He must have gone to Spain. Surely her father would know about Voldemort’s defeat! Her mother is British, surely she would know and have told her about it. Aha! I know, Ada has been pretending this whole time! She probably is an expert on the Golden Trio’s history.

Laura had obviously been pondering about this for a long time because when she looked out of the window, the sky was dark.

“You’ve been pretending this whole time that you don’t know about Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger haven’t you?” Laura said triumphantly, very pleased with herself that she had worked that out.

“No!” Ada exclaimed indignantly.

Laura raised her eyebrows at her.

“I would never lie to you, you’re my best friend!” Ada said, slightly hurt at this.

Laura was surprised, but also touched, she had only known her for almost three hours.

“Do you not have any other friends back home?” Laura asked Ada.

“No. I live in the slums in Bristol with my Mum and Dad. I used to have a muggle friend called Joseph and we used to talk through our fence until my Mum caught me and I got very badly punished. That was last year. For another punishment my parents pulled me out of school. I love learning, and my Mum knew that which is why they did it. I almost finished the year so I didn’t miss much. Thankfully, I know everything I need to know, so it will be fine.” Ada said the last sentence with a beaming smile on her face and Laura wondered how she could be so positive.

Laura now realized how comfortable her life was and she told herself that she would try to never complain about the little things that she would usually complain about.

                                                       Chapter 4

An hour later, after talking all about each other’s lives, the compartment door slid open and a Slytherin prefect walked in. “You had better change into your robes.” She sniffed haughtily. As the girl walked past the door down the corridor she quickly turned back and poked her head into the compartment. “Oh, and you there,” she indicated Ada with a flick of her wand and green slime suddenly appeared on her head and dripped down her face, “You had better sort out your hair, it’s a mess.” The prefect laughed and walked away.

“Hey, come back here you, you, you horrible girl!” Laura spluttered, extremely angry.

She turned back to Ada and tried to think of a spell that cleaned things up. Laura tried to remember what spell it had been that her mother had used to clean up her clothes when she had spilled strawberry jam all down them that morning.  

“Sburlify. De spell iz sburlify.” Ada struggled to say the words while green slime dripped into her mouth.

“Sburlify?” Laura repeated, raising her wand, about cast the spell.

“Stob!” Ada yelled. She pushed her slime covered hair out of her face and repeated the correct version of the spell. “Scourgify. The spell is Scourgify.”

Laura lifted her wand and pointed it at Ada. “Scourgify!” She said loudly.

Immediately the slime disappeared and Laura reached into her trunk to pull out a wooden hairbrush.

                                         *

Half an hour later, Laura had finished brushing all the knots out of Ada’s hair and it was lying flat and shiny down her back.

Suddenly, the train started to slow and pulled into Hogsmeade station.

“Oh no! We have been so busy doing your hair that we forgot to put our robes on!” Laura yelped, as she hurriedly platted the rest of Ada’s hair.

They quickly changed into their Hogwarts robes and rushed out of the train, the very last people to leave.

“Phew. That was close! The train almost left for London with us still on it!” Ada remarked.

                                          *

As they ran towards the boats that would take them to the castle, they realized that they were too late. The boats had already left and were halfway across the lake!

“Help!” Ada and Laura screamed, “Help! Help us!”

But the people in the boats couldn’t hear them.

“Oh no. What are we to do?” Laura sat on the ground with a heavy thump and started to sob.

“We will have to walk.” Ada said this so confidently that it gave Laura a surprise.

“W-walk?” She said shakily. “B-but it takes ages to g-get all the way to H-Hogwarts from here!”

“Well, do you have another suggestion?” Ada asked her.

“No.” Laura replied miserably.

“Well then, let’s go.” Ada pulled her to her feet. And they started walking quickly around the lake and in the direction of the gleaming towers and turrets of Hogwarts.

                                                        Chapter 5

Laura and Ada approached the castle gates, shivering and soaking wet as rain pelted around them.

“How do we get inside?” Laura wondered out loud.

“Let’s shout. One, two, three HELP!” Laura and Ada shouted at the gates in vain. “They can’t hear us.” Laura admitted after about two minutes of shouting till their voices grew hoarse.

“Maybe we should wait in the shelter over there till they notice we are gone.” Ada shivered with cold and fear.

“Good idea.” Agreed Laura.

They waddled over towards a little canvas shelter that had been set up by the castle gates. There was an old rug lying there and they wrapped themselves up in it, only slightly warming their cold bodies.

                                        *

They had been sitting there for over twenty minutes, discussing how they might be able to get in to the castle if they didn’t get rescued when they heard someone calling their names. “Conelly! Adams! Are you there?” Laura and Ada sprang to their feet and tore up the path to the gates, where a little lady stood calling their names.

 “Connelly! Adams! Oh there you are!” She said, relieved to see them at last.

 “Oh you poor things! You must be freezing!” And with a complicated wave of her wand, she produced two fluffy brown towels that soared towards Laura and Ada and wrapped themselves around them. Then, the lady herded them through the now open gates, which swung closed behind them, and up the path to the inviting glow of Hogwarts castle, at last.

                                       *

As Laura and Ada followed the lady, who was actually their Charms teacher, Professor Imogen Midget, through the doors into the Great Hall, having just finished their story of how they got to be outside the gates in the pouring rain, silence fell. They walked through the hushed hall and up to the teachers table where the head master, Professor Scorpius Malfoy (son of Draco Malfoy), was now standing. Professor Midget walked up to the head master and hurriedly whispered in his ear how the girls had not gone with the boats. Professor Malfoy solemnly nodded and the Charms Professor hurried away.

“So, Laura Connelly and Ada Adams missed their boats, which is why the sorting ceremony was postponed. Let the sorting begin!”  

All the first years came up to the front, and the chatter grew loud and excited as Professor Midget brought the stool and hat into the Great Hall.

She unrolled a long piece of parchment and called the first name.

“Petal, Eliza!” Midget called.

A shaking and petrified looking Petal walked up to Professor Midget and sat down on the stool.  

“Hmm, difficult. Difficult.” The sorting hat mused. “Well, it has to be, Ravenclaw!”

Eliza jumped off the stool looking delighted, and ran to join the Ravenclaws who were cheering for her.

“Parker, Lydia!” Midget called again.

Parker was sorted into Ravenclaw.

Then came John Bean, Hannah Cawley, Jeremiah Finch and finally, Laura.

“Conelly, Laura!” Professor Midget said.

Laura froze to the spot, unable to move.

What if I’m sorted into Slytherin? Oh no! That’s what happened in my dream last night! Laura thought.

Hands pushed her gently from behind, but she still couldn’t move. It was only Ada’s comforting voice that made her put one foot in front of the other and make her way to the stool.

She sat down on it, excitement suddenly streaming through her to the tips of her toes. The sorting hat was placed on her head and it immediately started to talk.

“Very kind I see. Not a bad mind either. Well, it can’t be Slytherin, that’s for sure!”

Laura almost fainted off the stool with relief. Anywhere but Slytherin! She thought.

“Hufflepuff!” The sorting hat declared.

Laura sprang off the stool and took the sorting hat with her!

“Um, the hat if you please, Miss Conelly!” Midget called after her as Laura went bright red in the face, gave the hat back to Professor Midget and apologized.

The Hufflepuff table was cheering and applauding as Laura took her seat.

That was so embarrassing! I can’t believe I did that.  Laura sunk into her seat with embarrassment as she watched the rest of the sorting.

Ada was sorted into Hufflepuff too, and she was beaming with happiness as she slid into the seat beside Laura.

The last two people to be sorted were twins, Elizabeth Potter and Rubeus Potter, grandchildren of Albus and Florence Potter.

(Florence by the way is Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom’s child.)

The Potter twins were sorted into Gryffindor.

                                                          *

Professor Malfoy stood up and declared that the feast should begin.

Immediately, food appeared on all four tables and everyone started to eat. Laura realized how hungry she was.

“Well, this has been an eventful first few hours at Hogwarts hasn’t it?” Laura remarked to her friend Ada as the pudding appeared on the table.

“It really has!” She agreed.  

The excitement isn't over yet!

Click here for the next five chapters of Laura's first year at Hogwarts!