SIX

THE FIRST DAY OF TERM was something Annalise really was not looking forward too. Which is why she was still in bed, hiding underneath the covers, while Roxy and Talia and the other two gryffindor girls who they shared a dorm room with, Libby and Alorna, were busy getting ready.

"Annalise you really should be getting up now." Roxy called from across the room.

"You don't want to miss breakfast on the first day of term." Talia added. "We need to leave in ten minutes in order to have enough time to eat and we have to confirm our schedules after too."

"Five minutes!" Annalise groaned, rolling around, and pulling the covers over her head to block out the bright morning sunlight. She was not a morning person, unlike Talia who was always up bright and early.

Getting up meant facing the hard year ahead of her. Sixth year meant NEWT level classes, which were much harder than the classes they had been taking the last five years. She did pretty well in school, as she had received 9 OWLS out of 10. History of magic was awfully boring and she knew she had failed as soon as she had taken the exam, as she hadn't payed attention to a single lesson. However, she didn't enjoy school at the slightest.

"Annalise! You get up now or we're leaving without you!" Roxy yelled once more.

Annalise let out another groan, as she got up from the warmth of her bed and made her way to the showers. She took a quick 5 minute shower, and got dressed in another 3 minutes.

"Let's go!" Talia said, ushering them out the door. Annalise tried to tie her left shoe as they walked down the stairs, but it proved to be more difficult than she thought it would be. She gave up trying to put her right shoe on and decided she would just put it on once they had sat down at the gryffindor table.

"I'm so excited!" Talia squealed, skipping down the staircase.

Annalise and Roxy just stared at their best friend. "Excited is not the word I'd use to describe it." Annalise said, shaking her head. "More like depressed, or grouchy, or mournful."

"Aren't you excited for all the NEWT level classes." Talia sighed happily. "We're going to be learning such advanced magic! It's going to be so cool."

"You are crazy." Annalise said. "Literally crazy."

"I'm excited for the free periods though!" Roxy squealed.

"They won't be free anymore once you're swallowed with all the classwork." Annalise grumbled, in a bad mood because of both the classes and waking up early in the morning.

The three of them walked into the hall which was surprisingly already filled with students. Turns out everyone wanted to be early on their first day. They made their way to their usual spot at the Gryffindor table to find James, Alex and Asher already eating. Annalise sat down next to her brother, and grabbed a piece of bacon off of his plate.

Asher glared at his sister. "Get your own food." he whined.

She smiled innocently at him. "Love you, Ash." She said to her brother, before bending down and putting on her right shoe.

"How on earth did you three get here before us." Talia demanded to know, her hands on her hip.

"We woke up earlier to play a prank on Asher so we ended up just heading to breakfast early." Alex informed them, munching on an apple.

"What did they do to you?" Annalise looked over at her brother, who surprisingly looked unscathed.

Asher turned and glared at Alex and James who both burst into laughter. "They filled the underside of my mattress with Weasley's Wildfire Whiz-Bangs when I was taking a shower last night. Then they woke up and set them off at 5 AM in the morning and well none of us could sleep after then." Asher explained to the girls. "I couldn't because I was scarred for life, and those two because they couldn't stop laughing for the next three hours."

Annalise joined in on the laughter. "Ash, that actually is funny. I wish I would have been there to see it."

"You should have seen his face!" James exclaimed, still engulfed in laughter. "He was so scared!"

"You would be too if you were sleeping and then suddenly woke up and thinking everything around you is blowing up and that you're going to explode next!" Asher shuddered. "I don't know how I'm still friends with gits like you!" Asher scowled at his friends who were roaring with laughter.

"You two are very lucky that there were an uneven number of boys sorted into Gryffindor, in our year." Talia said to James and Alex, referring to the fact that there were 7 gryffindor 6th years, so the three boys got a dormitory all for themselves. "You would have driven your roomates crazy."

"I'll be back" Annalise announced, before standing up and making her way to the Ravenclaw table to find William Jones, her boyfriend. She scanned the table with her eyes searching for his face until she spotted him and his friends at the very end of the table. She hadn't seen him since they had arrived at Hogwarts.

After their awkward time at Diagon Alley, and his lack of letters during the summer, Annalise was getting doubts about their relationship and his feelings. She expected him to come and find her last night during the feast, like he always does during dinner, but yesterday he didn't. Her mind filled with possible reasons of why he was acting so strange. Was he going to breakup with her? Did he no longer love her? Her plan was to simply ignore him until he came and talked to her, but Talia and Roxy both advised her to go talk to him first and ask him why he was acting differently instead of being petty like she always was. In her defense, she was just naturally a petty person.

She walked up behind him and took the empty seat next to him. He was busy laughing with his friends until he turned and noticed her next to him. She thought she saw his smile slightly falter when he made eye contact, but maybe she had just imagined it.

"Hey," she smiled at him. "Do you want to take a walk and just catch up before we have to get our time tables?" She asked him, hoping that his answer would be yes.

She saw him hesitate before opening his mouth. "Maybe later if that's ok with you?"

She frowned slightly, hoping that they could talk now. Will obviously noticed her face fall and gave her a quick kiss. "I'm just catching up with my friends right now, but how about later tonight?"

"Yeah, that's fine, don't worry. See you tonight." She smiled before getting up and walking back to the Gryffindor table. See Annalise, she told herself. It's nothing. You guys are going to talk tonight. It's all going to be ok. He's still in love with you. She smiled to herself and felt her heart flutter as she sat back down with her friends. She was not a huge romantic, but she loved the way Will made her feel.

"It feels so weird!" James sulked. "I miss Freddie and Oscar." He sighed, referring to Roxy's older brother Fred Weasley, and Oscar Jordan, Alex's older brother.

"I know it doesn't really feel like Hogwart without them." Alex nodded sadly.

Fred Weasley and Oscar Jordan had both graduated last year. They got along very well with Alex James and Asher and the five of them (most of the time Asher against his will) would prank everyone, from Filch and Mcgonagall, to their fellow students. They gave everyone at Hogwarts some good laughs and funny memories.

But now Oscar and Fred had moved on and it was just Alex, James, and Asher who probably would soon be pulling off their pranks (Asher still against his will). It was different though, not like the five years before.

"I miss them too." Roxy added. "It's different." She said to James and Alex who were still pouting. "It's different just like every year is, but I assure you both that you will survive, however much it pains you."

The six of them continued to eat breakfast, and everyone, except for Talia of course, complained about the amount of classwork to come. Turns out that Annalise wasn't the only not looking forward to sixth year. They chatted while the rest of the students started to file out of the great hall, heading to their classes for the year, once they received their time tables. However, the sixth years had a bit of a more complicated process in order to receive their time tables. At 8:30, each of the head's of houses walked down from the professor's table and rounded up all the sixth years.

They stood in line while Professor Longbottom, head of Gryffindor House, checked over their time-tables in order to verify that they had received the necessary OWLS that were required for the class. The group stood at the end of the line, which was moving very slow. Everyone in their year tried to get away with taking classes that they couldn't as they had not received a high enough mark on their OWLS. It took a while for Professor Longbottom to go through all of the students.

"Why on earth are you taking seven classes?" Roxy questioned Talia, when she listed off the classes she planned to take for the year.

"Because! I need all of them." Talia replied, counting her classes off on her fingers once more.

"What do you want to do after Hogwarts?" James asked her.

"I want to be an ambassador for the ministry of magic. So I get to negotiate and work with other magical governments across the world." Talia explained. "So obviously I need the core classes, potions, transfiguration, defense against the dark arts, herbology, and ancient runes and arthimacy are helpful too, and I like them so I'm taking those as well."

"Well I want to be an auror, and I'm taking the same classes." Asher added. He was always the more studious twin, and always aimed to do the best. Annalise cared about school of course, but she was nowhere like the model student Asher was.

"I'm taking the same classes, minus ancient runes." James added.

"You've got to be kidding me." Annalise groaned, realizing what that meant.

"What is your problem now?" James glared at her.

"Just the fact that I'm going to be spending every minute of every day with you." She whined.

James eye's widened finally coming to a realization. "You're taking the same classes? Why! You don't even need any of them to become a quidditch player."

"My mum's insane and she wants me to take all the core classes, incase I change my mind in the future. And I like arithmancy." Annalise shot back, defending her class schedule.

"She's not wrong that is a good idea." Talia pointed out. "It's always good to take the necessary classes as a backup incase you want to explore other career options."

"Great. Just fantastic." James grumbled as they reached the front of the line. Alex stepped up first as Professor Longbottom went over his schedule.

"Let's see," He started, going over Alex's classes. He looked up at Alex confused. "Alex I'd recommend taking more than two classes."

"I thought we could take anywhere from two to seven classes?" Alex questioned.

"Did you seriously only choose two classes?" Asher asked in confusion, as he peered over at Alex's time table in Professor Longbottom's hand. "Defense against the dark arts and Astronomy? You really are the new definition of lazy."

"It says anywhere between two to seven and you know I only choose the bare minimum!" Alex yelped, defending himself.

"If you want a decent job, I'd recommend taking at least five classes." Professor Longbottom advised.

"Not potions! Definitely not that horrid class!" Alex groaned. "Can I take transfiguration?" He asked, looking up and giving Professor Longbottom a pleading smile.

"Unfortunately your herbology OWL will not suffice, but I am pleased to see you got an Exceeds Expectations in transfiguration. Why don't you continue with that?" He asked Alex.

Alex shrugged. "Sure, why not."

James sniggered from behind Alex. "How do you even get a poor in herbology."

Alex turned around and glared at James, before smirking and continuing with "How does one get a dreadful in astronomy? Well ask James Sirius Potter."

James turned red as everyone laughed. "At least I didn't get a troll in history of magic." He said laughing at Alex, who was pouting.

"James, please stop making fun of Alex for his grades. Everyone learns differently." Professor Longbottom cut in, even though he had an amused smile on his face.

Alex turned to James and stuck his tongue out childishly. "Yeah James, don't make fun of me!"

"Now, why don't you also take charms. And you got an outstanding in ancient runes. I say take that as well."

Alex nodded in agreement, and Professor Longbottom handed him his approved timetable. He waited aside while the rest of them finished. Annalise stepped forward as Professor Longbottom went over her time table.

"Everything looks good." He said, reading off the scroll. "I don't see that you chose potions on here?" He asked her. "You got an Exceeds Expectations?"

"I really hate potions." Annalise said blatantly. "Mum wants me to take it though, but I'd rather not torture myself for the next two years."

"Potions definitely was not my favorite class when I was in school, I can tell you that." Professor Longbottom chuckled. "But, your mum also sent me a letter saying that you would try not to take potions, but that you have to anyway or she's taking away your broom." He told her.

Annalise's jaw dropped and she whipped her head around to Asher who was laughing. "Is she serious? I have to take potions or I don't get to play quidditch? She's insane!" She yelped, while her brother continued to laugh at her.

"She's also definitely physic." Asher pointed out, as Annalise sulked over the idea of NEWT level potions. She grudgingly agreed to add potions to her schedule, not like she had been given any choice, and waited for the others to finish up. They walked out of the great hall, all going over their schedules.

"So many free periods!" Alex exclaimed happily like a child on christmas morning. "I can't wait."

"Why do I have to take potions." Annalise said again, as she had been sulking miserably for the last ten minutes. The five minute bell rang interrupting their conversation signaling that class would start in five minutes.

"We all have arithmancy first periods." Talia read off her time table, pointing to her, James and Asher.

"Ha, losers, have fun." Alex laughed, making an L with his finger, as they all rolled their eyes at his childishness. "I'm going to go take a nap for the next two hours since defense against the dark arts isn't until 3rd period."

"I'm going to start reading the textbooks which is something you should be doing." Roxy said, turning to Alex, and staring him down.

"No thanks." Alex said, waving off the idea. "Studying is for losers like Asher." He sniggered as Asher glared at him.

"Well studying helped me get more than five O.W.L.S!" Asher snorted.

"Five?" Roxy said in surprise, turning to Alex in shock. "I thought you only failed transfiguration and history of magic!"

"I did!" Alex exclaimed back. "And I might have also failed potions and..." He paused. "Care of magical creatures." He muttered under his breathe.

"Care of magical creatures?" Remarked Talia, also in surprise. "You failed Care of Magical Creatures?"

James and Asher were trying hard to hold back their laughs. "He didn't just fail. He got a Dreadful."

"Oi! Incase you forgot, you also got a troll in divination!"

"You got a troll James?"

"Shut up!"