Hogsmeade Station, Second Year

Lena stepped down from the Hogwarts Express and onto the platform of Hogsmeade Station. A swarm of students were heading toward the carraige trail, and a little ways off from the main flow of foot traffic, Hagrid was holding up his lamp and yelling, as he had last year for Lena's class, "First years! First years over here!" Lena spotted her sister with a group of a few other first years clump around Hagrid, who at that moment was waving to Hermione Granger, a Gryffindor girl in Lena's year who was also her roommate. Lena thought it was strange that Ron Weasley and Harry Potter were not with Hermione, since everyone knew they were all very good friends and very much inseparable.

Lena turned to her own friends and smiled wide as a new thought formed in her imnd. "I just remembered! We get to take the carraiges this year."

Having already known this, Melenie Astor had wandered away from the second year cluster to meet up with her older brother and his friends. She had taken to following them around at times and interrupting their arcade excursions.

"Oh gosh!" When Rachel jumped out of the train, she ran up to catch with Lena, rubbing her hands together the entire time.

"It's really cold for only September, don't you think?!" Rachel exclaimed. "I wish I had my scarf with me, it would have be a lot warmer that way."

Selia stared off at the carriages, wondering what in the world was holding them up, before going over to where the large man was yelling for first years, looking frightened. She had lost track of her compartment buddies, but hopefully she would see some of them at Hogwarts.

Serenity, on the other hand, skipped off to the carriages. She wasn't that excited about Hogwarts- just school, right- but she was extremely excited about the food choices. She came up right next to Lena and Rachel, grinning. "Hi! Oh, it's a wonderful September, isn't it? But geez, I wonder how bad winter will get if it's already this cold. I hope there's a huuuge snowstorm."

Amanda had become separated from the group in the chaos of screaming first years and hollering seventh years. She was becoming quite anxious, she did terribly in crowds.

"Yes, I agree," Lena said, shivering next to her friend. "Hey, they carraiges are already leaving, we should get in." She headed toward the line forming to get into the carragies. She and Rachel fell in line behind Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom.

"Hi, Serenity!" Lena greeted her first friend from last year. She spotted Amanda a little ways off. "Hey, guys. Isn't that Amanda?"

"Hm.. Whatever! I talked to her once last year and she seemed really off her rocker. No offense or anything, but can we be in a different carriage than her?" Serenity asked, frowning. "Besides, I have a lot of luggage."

Lena shrugged, playing the role of impartial friend. "Looks like we will anyway. We're next." She nodded at the carraige right in front of them, which Hermione and Neville were already piling into.

"We don't even take our luggage with us." Rachel said with a toss of her hair. "Besides, Amanda is in my house and she's super nice!" And Rachel marched right into her carriage.

"Oh, great.." Serenity mumbled, but followed Rachel in the car anyways. And sometimes, mean things just slipped out of Serenity Rosensteel's mouth, like profanities from the lips of drunken people.
"Hi, crazy. Uh, Potter. Uh. Hi."

"I agree with Rachel," Lena muttered, too tired from the train ride to sustain energy for an argument. With that she too climbed into the carraige, right next to Rachel and across from Neville.

"Uh, hi Amanda!" Rachel said cheerfully, a bit louder than Serenity's speaking voice. "I didn't see you on the train ride-did you have a nice summer?"

"Hi, guys!" Libby jumped into the carriage with them. "I was sitting with some people in my House on the train, so I didn't get to see you. How are you?!"

Amanda ignored the crazy comment, "Oh hey guys, sorry I got separated from you. This crowd is insane, eh?" She laughed a bit, taking a look at the people filing in carriages around them. "Yeah, I did, thanks for asking! It was a bit hectic, a ton of kids moved onto my street and some houses were be built..." She shuttered, "The noise is so annoying! Especially when it goes on at 6 AM! How was your summer?"

"It was alright, it was a little slow and boring, but that's okay sometimes. Either way, it was restful." Rachel turned to look at Libby mischievously.

"People in your house like Max by any chance?" Rachel teased her.

Lena decided not to get into the brouhaha that was threatening to form between Rachel and Serenity, and instead turned her attention to Hermione and Neville. She asked them little conversational questions about their summers, and Neville mumbled answers, all the while Hermione fidgeting nervously. Finally Lena's keen-minded roommate explained what was bothering her, and Lena spent a few minutes consoling her housemate's frazzled nerves. Once the bushy-haired brunette contented herself with a copy of Standard Book of Spells, Grade Two, Lena turned her attention to Libby and Amanda.

"Hello to you both." Lena smiled brightly. "My summer was fine, how about yours?" It was a lie, but it was a polite lie.

Serenity suddenly laughed loudly at Rachel's comment. "That's so funny!" She said, grinning. "A..haha.. Max."

Lena picked a little piece of lint off her robes and smoothed them down. She cast her eyes away from everyone else at the sound of her least favorite classmate's name (and that was coming from a girl who was in the same year as Draco Malfoy, who she got on surprisingly well on since she was very skilled at the art of minimal contact). She scoffed, saying very prissily, "I hope he doesn't bother me very much this year." Then, spotting the castle getting closer and closer, and not very far off in the distance, she exclaimed, "Oh look! We're almost to the castle. Good thing too. I'm so hungry." Just then, her stomach growled to prove the truth of her words.

"Ew, no!" Libby wrinkled her nose. "Max is just weird. I mean, I passed his compartment, and he was being SO loud and SO obnoxious!" she said hypocritically.

"What? Aww..." Rachel patted Lena's arm, and then looked at Libby cheekily, and she even outright chuckled at him.

"Max teases the daylights out of ALL the girls... it's just who he is. I think he's funny sometimes. But, I wonder how that Nicolas guy can stand to hang around him..." Rachel added thoughtfully.

Amanda considered what the two had said about Max and Nic, "They're quite the odd couple, aren't they? Wouldn't expect such opposites to be connected to the hip."

"Yeah, well, opposites attract and all that. I don't really see what the fuss about them is. Angel and Elroy are by far the most attractive guys in this entire school."

Lena stayed out of the conversation for fear that she might get blow up and come across as bad-tempered. Changing the subject to the state of their carraige ride, she commented, "Look, we're at the castle!"

"Hah, yeah, right! Besides, they're way too old," Libby said, rolling her eyes.