It was the morning after quidditch practice. I awoke in my dorms, quite later than usual. There were girls milling about and brushing their teeth as I ruffled my hair, glaring at the light of the candles that had been lit. I felt awkward. I never woke up around other people. I'm sure I looked like a mess. A few girls were giving me weird looks as they put socks and shoes on, but they didn't seem too threatening. I looked at a clock by my bed stand.

  7:23

  I groaned and covered my face with my sheets, blocking out noise and light. I was going to have to eat with other people if I wanted to eat at all. Classes started at 8:00. I dragged myself out of my bed and rummaged around under my bed for my favorite shampoo before trudging out of the room and into the girl's bathrooms. I loved this shampoo; it was made by a muggle company that was popular among muggle teens. It made delicious smelling bath liquids that I loved, and my utmost favorite scent was blood orange and something else from Thailand I could never put my finger on. Mangosteen? Maybe. It smelled divine.

  I showered, dried my hair, and put on robes as fast as I could before leaving for the great hall. I didn’t want to see anyone today.

  When I reached the great hall, I growled and turned back around swiftly. I really didn’t want to see any of the people in it. I could see all of the tables nearly full, people shoving food down their throats like there was no tomorrow. I didn’t check if Jackson or the others were there or not. Like I had before, I went straight to my Defence Against the Dark Arts class.

  As I sat in my seat, I sighed and closed my eyes, leaning back in my chair. I didn’t bother lighting the chandeliers this time. I kept them closed until students began arriving some thirty, maybe forty minutes later. I had fallen asleep and didn’t really know.

  When the first student entered, I jolted upright and started taking out my books and readying my parchment, not bothering to see who had entered. My stomach lurched in protest, but I ignored it. As more students began entering, I hurried my movements so that I could get everything out without having to worry about it later. I also hated bending over and being awkward in front of other people. In my scramble to get everything organized, I dropped my DADA textbook. It hit the floor with an obnoxious thud that was closer to a cracking noise. A few students entering briefly stopped their conversation, but then went on. I groaned inwardly as I looked at where it had fallen- it had fallen out of my reach, over the top of my desk and onto the floor in front of me. I got up to make a move and pick it up, but someone else did it before I could. And arm and shoulders, covered in thick, brown and black wolf-like fur, reached down and picked it up. On the hand that lifted the textbook was a silver ring with a very dark red tiger’s eye stone. I looked up at its owner, a tall girl with black hair that had a bright red stripe on her right side, her bangs highlighted with the same color. I couldn’t tell her ethnicity. She smiled.

  “This is yours?” She asked. She had a very heavy accent. Bulgarian...? I thought. Startled, I just nodded my head, taking the book from her outstretched hand. She was wearing fur-trimmed robes that were dark burgundy with a browner tinge.

  “You’re…You’re from Durmstrang!” I stammered. She nodded expectantly. I looked around. There were a few other Durmstrang students ambling about and finding seats, but I didn’t see any of the French from Beauxbatons. I sat back in my chair.

  “Let me guess… I missed the arrival of the other schools and Professor Mcgonagall's big speech?” I said, a bit exasperated.

  “You must have missed breakfast,” she said, and came to sit down by me. She rolled her r’s and laid it on thick with consonants, especially the t’s.

  “May I sit here?” she asked, and I nodded. She sat down with a large thud, heavily dropping her black leather bag I hadn’t noticed before on the ground at her other side.

 “We arrived earlier than we expected,” she began. “However, Beauxbatons may still be late. They came across some air travel problems, I believe,” she finished. Her accent was so thick I could barely understand what she was saying. I was not familiar with Bulgarian accents at all. I scratched my neck and thought. Her sitting there meant I most likely didn’t have to deal with Yugyeom and Bambam, which I was not against at the moment.

  “Um, how was your trip?” I asked, trying to be nice. I new the school had to keep up appearances.

  “Good, thank you,” she replied. She turned back to the front, but after a moment, seemed to decide to say something else.

  “They announced that you can put names in the Goblet of Fire already, even though Beauxbatons isn’t here yet. They set the age limit at fourteen this year,” she concluded.

  “What?” I exclaimed. She nodded.

  “Someone might die. Apparently they aren’t very worried about that this year. I suppose the tasks are less life-threatening. At least, last time someone died,” she continued.

  “But still… fourteen? That seems young…” I trailed off. She just shrugged her shoulders.

  “I suppose. I am fifteen, so I do not have to worry. But lowering the age three years below last time seems slightly foolish.” She pulled out some parchment. “How old are you?” she questioned.

  “Only fourteen. This is my fourth year.”

  “Do you play quidditch?” she asked. I looked at my parchment.

  “A bit,” I muttered. Someone jumped on me, grabbing me from behind. I yelped and smacked whatever was behind me until a very hyper Bambam let go.

  “A bit?” Bambam shrieked. “She’s probably the best beater her team has ever had,” he continued, looking at the Durmstrang girl. I rolled my eyes and shook him off.

  “I play beater. Do you play?” I asked, looking at the Durmstrang girl again. She smiled.

  “Yes. I am a chaser.”

  “Woah. That must be crazy hard, in your school. You must be very good,” I said, smiling back.

  “Ah, yes… crazy hard,” she said, as though she was unfamiliar with the term. Bambam huffed, annoyed that he was getting ignored.

  “I play seeker on the Gryffindor team,” he said, sneaking to my left side and facing the Durmstrang girl. “My name’s Kunpimook, but you can call me Bambam if it’s easier.” I rolled my eyes again.

  “My name is Adyelya Desislav, but you can call me Adi it that’s hard,” she responded. I  could nearly feel Bambam grin from behind me.

  “My name’s Izara Wang, but many call me Iza,” I said, smiling at her. Bambam pulled up a desk on my left side, where there previously hadn’t been one. I closed my eyes. So I would have to deal with him after all. To be honest, I was just too embarrassed to see any of them because I lost my cool the day before. Who I really didn’t want to see was Yugyeom and Jaebum, though, because I knew Bambam would just brush it off and pretend it never happened. I was a little more worried about the other two. I didn’t think Yugyeom would brush it off, and Jaebum was still scary to me. I looked around Bambam, and noticed Yugyeom wasn’t with him.

  “You came here alone?” I questioned. He wasn’t one to do things by himself.

  “Yeah. Yugyeom had to get something or do something, I dunno,” he said. I shrugged and looked around at everyone. Slowly, people were beginning to get into seats and sit. After a few minutes, there was only a few people still standing, and Yugyeom was still not here. I sighed and gave up waiting for his arrival, looking to the front of the room where Professor Park would soon be. To my surprise, he seemed to be late as well. I looked at a clock on the wall. 8:10, it read. I jumped a bit, surprised that they were both so late.

  After about three minutes, the professor finally arrived, wish someone else in tow. Yugyeom, I thought darkly as I observed his form following Professor Park’s down the stairs at the front of the room. I wondered why they had been talking. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, the professor motioned for Yugyeom to find a seat. He looked around, eyes finally settling on Bambam, Adyelya and I. Them, he slowly began walking towards us.

  “I would like to inform you all of something very exciting happening this month,” Park began as Yugyeom reached us and pulled a desk up beside Bambam’s left, glaring at him as he sat. I looked back up at Professor Park as he continued.

  “To begin, I would like to welcome the new students from Durmstrang that will be joining your classes this year. I would also like to inform the new students that you don’t have to call me professor, and can call me JYP as my students do,” he said.

  “For the exciting bit, I would like to announce an event. I don’t believe Hogwarts has ever had one quite like it. I believe that muggles call it a ‘field trip’,” he said, and I heard some of the muggle borns whisper to each other. I knew what a field trip was, as I had gone to muggle school before I went to Hogwarts. I smiled as I thought. You are going to get into a lot more trouble than you think, Professor, I mused. Field trips in the muggle world were chaotic enough, but with wizards and witches? I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see the carnage. With my luck I could probably die. However, it sounded exciting, and a part of me wanted to escape the stone walls of Hogwarts.