Melody Riddle and the Order of the Phoenix

Chapter 21: Professor Umbridge

 "First day of classes! Wake up, wake up, wake up!" Becky screeched into my ear, shaking me back and forth under the blankets.

I cursed like there was no tomorrow. When I sat up, she stood back and smiled cheekily at me. "What the hell, Becky?"

"Time for breakfast. Get dressed!"

I looked at my alarm clock... seven thirty.... "It's not going to take an hour and a half to eat breakfast," I replied monotonously. "Let me remind you how this works, Becky. My alarm clock goes off at eight. That's when you and I get dressed, and downstairs by eight thirty. Why are we awake now?"

"If we get a head start to breakfast, maybe Snape will give us our schedules first... then we have time to chill out a bit outside before our first class."

I rubbed my eyes with a groan. "Oh, fine." I pulled the blankets off of me and dragged myself out of bed while Becky hopped up and down excitedly. I looked over at our roommates, and grumbled, "Even Pansy and Millicent don't get up this early."

"I'm sure that they did on our very first day of Hogwarts ever, though.."

I laughed, "I forgot. They did, didn't they? In fact, they didn't even start talking to us like we existed until last year."

"Yup!" Becky said, hurrying to get herself dressed as well. "How times have changed, Melody! How times have changed."

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We got downstairs to find Draco, Vincent, and Greg waiting there for us.

"What took you so long?" Draco asked, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Didn't expect this to be a part of your idea, too," I said in surprise. "Usually you'd also prefer to sleep."

"Not much I can do about it. Even if I disagreed, Becky could easily come up to our dorm to wake us up, whereas we can't go anywhere near your dorm."

"Because according to the Founders, girls are more trustworthy than boys," Becky recited.

"Yeah... sure, whatever," Draco replied. "Girls could do some of the same untrustworthy acts as boys do."

"You wish," Becky replied.

I rolled my eyes at both of them. Always arguing about one thing or another... but, hey, it's a good sign for me. As long as I hear that, I know they're still with me as friends. As annoying as they get, I'm glad that I still have them.

When we got to the Great Hall, the ceiling showed to be a miserable, cloudy gray. "Do you still want to go outside?" I asked them.

"We'll eat quickly and stay outside until it rains," Becky said, pulling me over to the very empty Slytherin table.

Surprisingly enough, the food appeared in front of us as soon as we sat down. I raised my eyebrows interestedly. "Huh, never thought that that was how breakfast actually worked. First come, first serve, I see."

"You're up early," I heard the drawl behind me. I turned to see Severus, his own eyebrows raised at me.

"Surely, that's not surprising. You've seen me do it over the summer."

"Never for school."

"Of course not." I said with a smirk, "That would mean that I take school seriously."

Becky giggled uncontrollably.

"Remember Miss Riddle, that not all teachers will take that as a mere joke," he replied as he placed my schedule in front of me.