Chapter Five

First Year

After lunch I met up with Jake. Immediately I sent a letter back to Silvius, thanking him a million times for my present. Cal, Nico, and Gabe even gave me little gifts as well. This birthday was too good to be true. I never wanted it to end. "Hey, since you have your broom, why don't we play a little game of Quidditch?" Gabe asked me. "We'll explain the rules to you. I'm sure you can pick it up fast." Gabe loved Quidditch more than anything. He was more intense than anyone I have ever met.

"You really like Quidditch don't you?" I asked him even though it was obvious. "And yeah I've always wanted to learn how to play. I'm probably not very good at flying," I admitted embarrassed. They were definitely pros by now. We've only had a few lessons so far. I wasn't horrible. For being a first year I was pretty good at it. Silvius used to sneak me out a couple of times and tried showing me. The flying wasn't too difficult, it was just that my skills were probably rusty. Getting off the ground was simple for me, but moving around could get tricky. I can't imagine trying to catch one of the balls.

"We'll go easy on you," he joked as we all walked down to the pitch. They brought their brooms with them when they heard about my present. I really didn't want to embarrass myself, but I also wanted to put this broom to use. "I want to be the keeper for the Sweetwater All-Stars. Been a fan of them since I was little," Gabe told me.

"Who are they?" I asked. Gabe sighed and shook his head.

"Good thing we got you the book," he said in a relieved tone, talking about the book, Quidditch Throughout the Ages, they gave me. "The Sweetwater All-Stars are one of the only two teams from The United States. They are located in Texas which is the closest team to Hawaii. My dad took me to see them when I was little on weekends." Silvius never mentioned any USA teams to me. He only talked about his favorite European ones.

"Cool," I said. "So which team am I closest too?"

"The Fitchburg Finches, they are actually located right in Massachusetts. Didn't you go to any games when you were little?" He asked me seeming surprised. Most of the pureblood kids have been attending Quidditch games all of their lives.

"Um no," I answered while needing to think quickly. "My parents were always too busy to bring us to any games."

"That sucks. You'll have to come to the game with us over the summer, Sweetwater All-Stars versus Fitchburg Finches. It's going to be a good game, both good teams." If only my parents would let me out of the house.

We made our way down the hill towards the empty Quidditch Pitch. Gabe and Jake explained the rules to me. It surprisingly wasn't as difficult as I would have guessed. The game ends when the snitch is caught, watch out for bludgers, throw the quaffle through the hoops, and they went over the positions on the team. They let me play the keeper's position first, which I was insanely bad at because I kept dodging the quaffles. I didn't want to get hit and they were moving at painfully fast speeds. I already knew that I didn't want to be a seeker, too much pressure for me, and I'd probably lose interest after a few minutes of not finding the little golden snitch. They didn't even let me try being a beater, because I dodged the balls when I was playing keeper. Gabe also made fun of my very weak looking arm muscles. So finally they let me play chaser and I really enjoyed it. Flying came almost natural to me, well, once I got the hang of it again of course. I even scored a goal on Gabe when I was close enough to him. He was really impressed. "Wow," he said. "You're pretty good for a first year. If you keep practicing, you could possibly make a professional team by the time you're seventeen, maybe."

"Yeah Carlie, you should think about joining your house team," Cal said. "Oh wait, never mind because you'd be playing for Slytherin." I laughed at that. Sometimes they forgot that I wasn't in Gryffindor.

"I wouldn't make it even if I was as good as Gabe," I said shaking my head. "Malfoy is on the Quidditch team and I'm sure he would do anything to keep me off." Malfoy hated me, more and more every day. He loved bossing me around though. He most definitely would not me on his team and I would not want to be on it for that matter. We could never be on the same team.

"That's not exactly true," Jake said shrugging. "I know he's a git but he loves winning more than anything, and if you would help their team win then I'm pretty sure he would put you on." I didn't think of it that way. I guess it could be true, if I was even good enough for that matter.

"Yeah, well I wouldn't want to be on a team with him anyways," I said truthfully.

We were out there playing Quidditch and just flying around for about four hours. The Halloween Feast was starting in an hour. "I'm going to go shower and change. See you guys at dinner. Thanks for teaching me," I said and then ran back towards the castle. The decorations inside the castle were stunning. They really took Halloween seriously here. I think I've counted over a thousand pumpkins today.

"Carlie!" I heard a voice call as I was walking down the hall. I turned around and saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione walking towards me. Hermione reminded me so much of Dasha with the way she always knew the answer to every question. Whenever I walked by the library I always saw her in there studying or maybe even reading books for fun. They would never be friends though. Even though Dasha was nice to me, she felt the same way about Gryffindor's as everyone else in our house did.

"Hey guys," I said turning around. Ron and Hermione gave me a quick 'hello'. I wasn't very friendly with those two. It was normally just Harry I would have occasional conversation with. I'm not sure they trusted me as much as Harry did because of me being in Slytherin, but what can you do? I saw Ron eyeing my Nimbus 2001.

"I heard it was your birthday, sorry I didn't get you anything. I would have if I'd known," Harry said seeming truly sorry.

"It's fine," I responded. It was nice he even thought of getting me something in the first place. "I've gotten more presents this year for my birthday than I ever have before." Before this year, I only ever received a present from Silvius. A few times my parents would give me a random gift like a pillow or stool, probably from our attic.

"What did you get?" he asked as I joined them on their walk. I told them what I could remember. Hermione's face lit up when I mentioned Hogwarts a History and Ron's face lit up when I mentioned Quidditch Throughout the Ages. My broom was an obvious one and Ron couldn't tear his eyes away from it.

"Which teams your favorite?" Ron asked me. It was the first time he has ever said more than a word to me.

"The Fitchburg Finches I suppose," I responded quickly. "They're from my hometown." Good thing for Gabe. I didn't know much about any other teams though.  "What about you?"

"The Chudley Cannons!" Ron answered. "The Fitchburg Finches are a pretty good team. They won the US cup seven years in a row." I laughed, I had a lot to learn I guess.

We got to the stairs where they were going up and I was going down to the dungeons. "Well I should probably go get ready for the feast. See you later," I said waving and then walking off. They all said their goodbyes back. Hopefully Hermione and Ron could see that I was nothing like the Slytherins they hated, mainly that I was nothing like Draco Malfoy.

The common room was nice and empty when I got there, so I rushed upstairs and took a shower. After that I got dressed for dinner. I loved not having to wear the robes on weekends. They got boring for a while but did save me from having to find something new to wear each day. I decided it was time to use the book Dasha gave me. I opened it and I decided to just use a straightening spell for now. I would save the big stuff for later. Then I did a quick make-up spell and I was done in less than three minutes, how clever was the witch who invented that? That gave me a whole seven minutes to spare. I decided to walk down into the common room and see if Dasha or Eowyn were down there. They weren't. Everyone must already be at the Great Hall for the large feast. "Wow, look who's actually on time today," I heard Draco say coolly. I hadn't noticed him over in the corner. "Probably going down there to flirt with some Gryffindorks am I right?" he asked looking at me. He and his friends were all gathered around the fire.

"Be nice it's my birthday," I replied. "Have you seen my friends?"

"You have friends?" he asked back with a laugh, obviously not getting the whole birthday thing. I rolled my eyes at him.

"Ha. Ha. You're so funny, now really have you seen them?"

"They just walked down. They asked us to tell you."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Because this was much more entertaining," he laughed. I rolled my eyes once again and then walked out. Shaking off my annoyance from Draco, I happily made my way to the Halloween Feast.

When I got there it was incredibly decked out. Pumpkins were floaiting with candles inside of them, and our meals were practically made of just candy. Every single candy known in the wizarding world was laying out on the table. Crabbe and Goyle were stuffing their robes, along with many other boys, at the table. I wasn't one for candy, but I did love ice cream, and yes they had ice cream. I was so stuffed though. I hated that feeling. I needed to walk it off. As I got up I passed the Gryffindor table. "Leaving your own birthday celebration?" Jake yelled up at me. "And the Professor's organized this all for you!" I rolled my eyes and laughed before stepping out of the room. He was beginning to remind me of Silvius.

I decided to go on a walk around the castle. I didn't want this day to end. It has been surprisingly good, for me that is. The corridors were empty. At least that's what I thought. "Kill...Kill..."  I heard a voice hissing. Quickly I froze and looked around. "Hello?" I asked out loud. "That wasn't funny. Who's there?" I peaked around the corner, there was no one. Was it a ghost? "Blood...I smell blood!" It sounded like it was moving but I couldn't see anything.What the hell? I began to run after the sound of the voice. Where was it coming from or what was it coming from? I turned the corner quickly and the voice disappeared. In its place was Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "Did you guys hear that?" I asked them looking around.

"You heard it too!" Harry said in a frantic voice.

"Hear what?!" Ron asked annoyed.

"That voice! It was muttering something about wanting to kill..." I said to Ron. Hermione's head turned towards the wall and she gasped. We all turned to see a message on the wall.

"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware," she read aloud, "It's written in blood." She gasped once again, "Filch's cat!" We all ran towards the cat and saw that a puddle water was beneath it. They cat looked frozen solid.

"What's wrong with it?" I asked leaning closely. Suddenly we heard footsteps all around us. I saw Jake, Cal, Nico, and Gabe walk around the corner with shocked faces. People were walking from every corridor, looking at the message, the cat, and then us.

"Enemies of the heir beware?" came the voice of Draco Malfoy, "You'll be next mudbloods." He said smirking at Hermione. Then he noticed me standing next to them and I looked away quickly, not wanting to see his reaction. He would definitely say something about this later.

"What's going on?" Filch yelled pushing his way through the crowd. When his scary eyes landed on Mrs. Norris, I've never seen Filch look angrier. And I've seen him angry. Try spending half of your detentions with this guy and purposely doing everything wrong to annoy him, and trust me did he get aggravated. Of course it was funny to me though, until he began threatening me with all the large chains in his office... "You've murdered my cat..." he muttered in a dangerous whisper, "I'll kill you," he muttered again, "I'll kill you!" He raised his voice. We all backed away from him quickly.

"Argus, what is the meaning of this?" Dumbledore said as he approached the crowd. I'm not sure what he thought of the message because his face held no expression change. Filch pointed a finger at us.

"They murdered my cat!" Filch said angrily.

"The cat is not dead," Dumbledore said calmly, "She has simply been petrified." Dumbledore looked around, "Everyone, back to your dorms." I began to quickly rush away when he said again, "Except you four," I looked at Dasha and Eowyn wide eyed and then turned back around, mouthing help me. "Explain please."

"I want to see some punishment!" Filch exclaimed, "My cat has been petrified because of them!" Lies. We found him like that, the four of us would never do anything like that.

"Sir, we didn't..." Harry muttered.

"Perhaps, they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time," Snape said stepping forward in his cool tone. We all exchanged glances, Snape was defending us? "However, I don't remember seeing Potter at dinner."

"That was my fault Severus," Lockhart interrupted stepping forward as well. "Harry was helping me with my fan mail and time flies by when you're having fun. I'm sure Mr. Potter forgot all about the feast." I highly doubt that Harry was having fun answering Lockhart's fan mail, but if it gets us out of trouble....

"How does that explain you three?" Snape asked looking at us.

"I was heading back to the common room," I said honestly. I was actually going on a walk, but I was aiming towards the common room. "I finished eating early."

"Ron and I were on our way to find Harry, but then we found Carlie and they both said..." Hermione began saying when Harry nudged her shoulder.

"Yes, Ms. Granger?" Snape pressed on seeming very interested. All the teachers were looking at us to go on.

"That we both weren't hungry anymore," I finished for Hermione. "And we were gonna walk to the stairs together."

"Very well," Dumbledore said. "Back to your dorms." I gave a small wave to Harry, Ron, and Hermione before taking off back to the common room, rushing in quickly through the entrance. Ignoring all the stares, glares, and sneers I got as I passed, I walked up to my dorm.