Twin Power *Cedric Diggory Love Story* (EDITING)

The first week of classes

Professor McGonagall was again different. Cassia wasn't kidding when she said she wasn't a teacher you wanted to mess with. Strict and clever, she gave us a talking-to the moment we sat down  her first class.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. We were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized we weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, we were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only my sister and Hermione Granger had made any difference to their matches; Professor McGonagall showed the class how they had gone all silver and pointy and gave Cassia and Hermione a rare smile.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told us, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but we weren't sure we believed this story. For one thing, when Seamus Finnegan asked eagerly to hear how Quirrell had fought off the zombie, Quirrell went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, we had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and the Weasley twins insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Quirrell was protected wherever he went.

I was very relieved to find that I wasn't miles behind everyone else. Lots of people had come from Muggle families and, like me, hadn't had any idea they were witches and wizards. There was so much to learn that even people like Ron didn't have much of a head start.

Cassia's POV

I sighed in annoyance as I rounded a corner, having just caught another group of students staring and whispering about me as I walked past them on my way to Transfiguration. This had been going on since the first day of classes, even at breakfast, and it was really getting on my nerves. I had no doubt in my mind that Harry felt the same way. Speaking of which, Harry never showed up for breakfast. Neither had Ron. Where are they? Oh, no, did they get lost again?!

Harry and Ron have had trouble navigating the castle for the past few days. The worst, Harry had told me, was when classes first started up -- he and Ron had stumbled upon the door to the forbidden third floor corridor and tried to pull it open, thinking it was the door to a classroom. I can only imagine what Filch would have done to them if Quirrell hadn't been passing through and managed to bail them out. I felt sorry for Harry and Ron, even though it felt like I shouldn't. It was their fault for getting lost, but at the same time, they didn't mean for it to happen. It is a big school, after all. Dora had told me she'd lost count of how many times she had gotten lost trying to find her way to classes.

My train of thought was cut off when I smacked into something hard. I was so distracted that I had forgotten to watch where I was walking. My quills, parchment, and ink bottle all fell out of my hands. Shards of broken glass covered the floor, some obscured by puddles of ink.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" I apologized quickly, bending down to pick up my belongings while also trying not to accidentally cut myself on the broken glass. "I should have been paying better attention."

"No, no, it's my fault. I wasn't paying much attention either," the other person said. "Here, let me help you, Cassia." I immediately looked up to see who I had just bumped into. My green eyes met a pair of dark grey ones, belonging to an older boy -- I assumed he was around thirteen or fourteen. The yellow and black striped tie and badger emblem marking the left side of his chest told me that he was a Hufflepuff. He was considerably taller than me, with blonde hair so dark it was almost brown, and chiseled features. He was incredibly handsome. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back up! You're eleven, he's thirteen or fourteen! You should NOT be thinking of him that way, Cassia!