meant to be (1)

10

At five to three Harry, Ron and I left the castle and made our way across the grounds. Hermione didn't come with us because she had schoolwork left.

Hagrid lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the forbidden forest. As we arrived Harry knocked and we heard a frantic scrabbling from inside. Then we heard Hagrid saying: "Back Fang - back!" Shortly after he opened the door and let us in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous black boarhound.

"Make yerselves at home" said Hagrid letting go of Fang. He directly ran to Ron and started licking his ears, which made me chuckle.

"This is Ron Weasley and this is Julie Clarke." Harry said, introducing us to Hagrid, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes on to a plate.

"I spent half me life chasin' yer twin brothers and yer brother away from the Forest." Hagrid said, while putting the plate of rock cakes in front us.

The rock cakes almost broke our teeth, but we pretended to be enjoying them as we told Hagrid all about our first lessons.

Fang now rested his head on Harry's knee and drooled all over his robe which made me chuckle again. We were all delighted to hear Hagrid call Filch "that old git"

"An as fer that cat, Mrs. Norris, I'd like to introduce her to Fang some time. D'yeh know everytime I go up to the school, she follows me everywhere? Can't get rid of her - Filch puts her up to it." he continued.

Harry and I also told Hagrid about how Snape treated us during our first potions lesson. He told us not to worry about it, because Snape liked hardly any of the students.

"But he really seemed to hate us" Harry said.

"Yes, he embarrassed us twice in front of the whole class!" I agreed.

"Rubbish!" Hagrid said "why should he?"

I noticed how Hagrid didn't look us in the eyes when he said that. I had a feeling that he was lying to us. Harry seemed to think the same as he looked at him curiously.

"How's yer brother Charlie?" Hagrid asked Ron "I liked him a lot - Great with animals."

Hagrid clearly tried to change the subject. While Ron was telling Hagrid all about Charlie's work with dragons, both Harry and I noticed a piece of paper that was lying under the tea cosy.

We both wanted to grab it, so we started hand fighting over it. In the end he grab it first, but I quickly snatched it out if his hands and layed it on the table so both of us could read it.

GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST
Investigations continue jnto the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown. Gringotts' goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.
"But we're not telling you what was in there, so you keep your nosed out if you know what's good for you" said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.

I scanned the paper and realised that my family and I were in Diagon Alley that exact day. Harry must've also figured out that he was there too on the same day.

"Hageid" said Harry "That Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday. It might've been happening while we were there!"

There was no doubt about it, Hagrid definitely didn't look at any of us this time. He simply grunted and offered us more rock cakes.

"Weird" I thought to myself.

We walked back to the castle for dinner, our pockets weighing down with rock cakes, we were to polite to refuse.

After dinner Hermione and I went to our dormitory and I couldn't help but notice that Hermione seemed like something was bugging her.

"Mione, is everything alright?" I asked her after we both already changed into our pyjamas.

"Yes" she said coldly.

"You're lying" I said "Just tell me what's wrong, I'll help"

"I think you're the only one who likes me" she said a tear streaming down her face. I looked at her in shock. Why would she ever think that?

"Why?" I asked her.

"Well it's just that you're the only one who's nice to me." she said "I feel like even Ron and Harry are sick of me always being by you're side. Just the way Ron looked at me when you both said that you wanted to go to Hagrid's house with Harry to have tea. He clearly didn't want me there. That's why I didn't go with you."

"Oh Mione, you're worrying about Ron? He just doesn't know how to communicate with anyone else than Harry, his siblings and me. Trust me when we first met we didn't talk for an hour and just sat around. If he ever makes you feel like an outsider then he's the one who should be worrying about his friends" I answered which seemed to cheer her up.

"Thank you, but I honestly don't want to talk to him or Harry if they treat me like that." she said.

"That's okay, you've got me" I said.

And there we were, two eleven year old girls, talking about everything and everyone, gossiping, laughing and telling stories and jokes, just like ordinary people.

The first week at Hogwarts was, with no doubt, awesome.