Bewitching Darkness (A Harry Potter Fanfiction)

Chapter 17

"Which way do you think the office is?" I asked as we stepped inside the school. The walls were painted a light blue and the floor and celling were grey. The floor might have been white once. The hallways were crowded with people and there was loud chatter everywhere. Hermione pointed down one hallway.

"I think we're supposed to go that way," she said. "I see a sign for the school office." So she lead us down that corridor and we all followed her. All around us, people went about their business and talked in loud voices. I noticed most of them had odd muggle devices in their hands too and they seemed to be tapping the screens impatiently.

"They're phones," Hermione told us. "You lot should probably get them too."

"Do you have one then?" Luna asked her and she nodded.

"Yeah. Muggle devices go haywire near Hogwarts so I didn't take it there, but I have it with me now." She fished around in her pocket for a second before pulling out a white rectangular object with a black screen. It only had one button near the bottom and thinner ones on the top and left side.

"How do they work?" Luna asked. But just as Hermione was going to answer, a group of girls walled by. They all seemed to be wearing a black and red uniform and were walking with their heads held high. One of them stopped when they saw us.

"Hi!" she said. Her voice was high and preppy. "Are you guys new?"

Ginny stepped forward. "Yeah, today's our first day. Do you think you could tell us where the office is?"

"Sure," replied the girl. "It's just over there." She pointed to a door a little way behind her. "I'm Hayley by the way." We introduced ourselves and her eyes widened. "You're all British! I love your accents."

"Er, thanks?" Harry said, moving past me to get to the office.

"We'll see you around!" Hayley called after us and Ginny waved back at her with a smile. Hermione pushed open the door to the office and we walked in. It was a huge room with plush leather couches and a short woman in a grey suit sat at the front desk. She had her brown hair pulled into a knot at the back of her head and wore a tight smile on her face.

"Hi," said Hermione. "Er, we're new here and...." But the woman cut her off.

"You must be the American exchange students," the woman said. "Welcome to Rosewood High. I'm Kathy." We waved feebly at her and she pulled a drawer open and took several papers out. "Here's your locker information and class schedules." She handed us two papers each and looked at mine in awe. One of them had "locker 206" written on it and underneath it, "combination: 6438" was printed. I peered at Harry's locker number and it was 204.

"Thank you," said Hermione.

"You're welcome," Kathy smiled. "The lockers are just two hallways away. Just take the third right once you leave the office." We nodded and made our way back to the door.

"Why do we even need lockers?" Neville was saying. "We never had them at Hogwarts."

"But this isn't Hogwarts, is it now?" Luna said dreamily. "This is the muggle world. What's your locker number?"

"201," he replied and Luna beamed.

"Mine's 202," she told him. Ginny's locker was 205 and Hermione's was right next to mine: 207.

We made our way down the corridor and took the third turn just as Kathy had said. Now we were facing rows and rows of faded blue lockers. Just as I was about to try and open mine, a group of three girls came and started talking in loud voices.

"I did not say anything like that!"

"You did! You told him you would help him. Now help him, Ivy!"

"Fine!"

"Besides, I thought you guys were getting close now?" One of the girls wiggled her eyebrows and the other, called Ivy, went red as a tomato.

"We are, but....oh shut up." They stopped talking when they saw us and smiled uneasily at us.

"Hi," one of them said at last. She had dark brown hair and light green eyes. The girl called Ivy had blonde hair and bright blue eyes and the girl on her left also had blonde hair but hers was lighter and she had deep sea green eyes.

"Hi," Harry stepped forward.

"Are you guys new here?" Ivy asked. But then her eyes widened and she started talking really fast. "Of course you're new here. I've never seen you guy around before so you must be new. I'm Ivy by the way. You have a nice face."

I started to laugh but then Hermione elbowed me and I tried to stop. Harry looked flustered and was looking around him wildly. The girl who had said hi to us smiled uneasily.

"Sorry about her. She tends to ramble a lot. I'm Tracey, and this Avery." She pointed to the other girl with blonde hair.

"It's alright. I'm Harry." He started introducing all of us and the girls smiled.

"You guys started in the middle of the year," Avery noted, opening her locker which was right opposite mine.

"Yeah, our school had some problems at the start of the year so we couldn't come then," Hermione explained. Some problems was an understatement.

Hermione easily opened up her locker and glanced down at her schedule before putting some books inside and discreetly opening Ginny's for her. I noticed how she had entered the combination and the rest of us proceeded to place our books inside.

"Do you guys need help getting to your homeroom?" Avery asked Hermione who smiled gratefully.

"That would be brilliant. We hardly know our way around this place."

"You'll get used to it," Tracey said with a smile after glancing at our schedules. "Come on. We have the same homeroom."

She led us down another corridor till we came to a door at the end of the hallway and pushed the door open.
"Here we are. There are seats at the back," Avery chirped and we quickly plopped down into the seats before turning to look at tie front of the class. This would be an interesting day.

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A/N
This is unedited for now. I'll edit it later so I'm sorry if there were any errors.. Guys I have no idea why I can't write this fanfic like I used to. I know the new chapters are not as good as the old ones...Maybe it's because they're not at Hogwarts anymore. I don't know. But I promise I'm trying to make it good. Please leave feedback!