Reading and Realizing ((anyone))

[Chelle]

Karissa, or Kari for short, sat in her dorm room. She had a book called Dragon Rider open in front of her. She was laying on her stomach, a quill in hand. She pulled a piece of parchment out from under her pillow, and started to scrawl a thank you note to her mom and dad for the present.

Dear Mum and Dad,

Thank you so much for the new book. It's really good, and I can't wait to find out what happens. I'm sorry, but I've got to go.

Love, Karissa

Karissa rolled up the note and, tying it with a silver ribbon, attached it to the leg of a brown barn owl that belonged to the school. She opened the window and felt the cold draft bite her face. She released the owl, telling it to go to 'Mum and Dad'. She got up, closed the window, and put her book on the bed side table. She climbed onto the four-poster bed and pulled the warm covers over her. Karissa drifted off to sleep...

Karissa was flying through the air on her firebolt. It was the early morning, but thunder boomed around her. 'That's strange,' she thought, 'it's winter. It shouldn't be raining...' Suddenly, lightning flashed across the sky, and Karissa lost control of her broom. It went into a dive, and Karissa fell forward, almost slipping...

Karissa woke up with beads of sweat on her face. She could hear another 3rd year girl entering the dormitory.

What time is it? she thought.

[Alexis]

Alexis looked about the dormatory. Shadow wasn't sleeping on her bed anymore. She sat up and wiped her red bangsfrom her sparkling blue eyes. Alexis looked about the dormatory, her twins ister sleeping soundly next to her. She sighed and swing her legs over the side of the bed. Her bare feet touched the cold stone floor and she got down on her knees. She searched under the beds and quietly called for her cat, Shadow. The black cat was no where to be found.

"Shadow!" she whispered hoarsely. A meowe resounded from the door of her dormatory. Her head snapped up and there was shadow- Sitting in the doorway licking its paws. Alexis smiled and stood up, brushing off her plaid pajama pants and black knee length shirt. Her feet padded on the stone floor as she walked over to her cat. The kitten meowed again and trotted off. Alexis shook her head and started after the cat. She followed the young black cat into another thrid year dormatory. She whispered sharply at the cat to get back! But the kitten would not. Instead the cat ran under a girls bed. When Alexis looked at the occupant of that bed she saw a girl. The girl was awake. Alexis looked around slightly embarrassed...

[Chelle]

Karissa looked around. She was in her dormitory, not on the quidditch pitch.

"Thank God," she mumbled, but then saw the third year girl she had heard come in. She was reaching under her bed, and Karissa heard a quiet mewing.

"Let me guess." Karissa said, a smile showing on her face as she tried to forget the nightmare. "Your kitten?"

Karissa climbed out of bed, her thick white nightgown at ankle length. Her mom had chosen it, saying it would be warm. "Need any help getting him out?"

[Cassandra Blackfire G7]

Cassandra walked into the dormitory after her long night with Pyro. She really didn't want to bothered. She just wanted to climb into her bed and hug her cat. She walked into the room and saw two girls peering under one of the beds. Great, she thought to herself.

Ringo was lying on her bed, looking at the two girls oddly. Ringo only really liked one person, and that was her. " Maybe I shouldn't of brought you to Hogworts," she whispered to him. Ringo purred at her.

She continued to stare at the two of them while she removed her blue and silver cloak. She finally got sick of their rummaging, and had to ask.

" Are the two of you needing help with something?"

[Chelle]

"Her kitten snuck under my bed, and he doesn't exactly want to come out," Karissa answered, looking at the other girl. She had seen her in the halls. Her name's Cassandra Logton, Karissa remembered. Karissa finally managed to pull the kitten out from under the bed.

"There. My name's Karissa," she said, introducing herself to the other girls. "I just got here a few days ago."

[Cassandra Blackfire G7]

Cassandra looked the girl up and down trying to size her up. Ringo wasn't quite sure about her either. She guessed she was cool.

" Well, I'm Cassandra, Cassie or Cass for short. This is Ringo right over here," she pointed to the very large cat that sat on her bed, " It's nice to have you here."

She took her blue and silver cloak and threw on top of her still wet Quidditch robes in the box of stuff that still needed to be cleaned. Ringo promptly went to go lay on it.

" Is the kitten okay? I just wanted to make sure. My first year here, when Ringo was smaller, he got stuck under my bed and got bitten by something. He had this huge mark on his leg for a couple of weeks. I had to give him to the Care of Magical Creatures Teacher for about a month before he felt any better."

[Chelle]

"I think so," Karissa said. "Nice to meet you. I wonder if there was anything really dangerous under the bed. It was probably cleaned out though. I wouldn't want my two kittens to get bitten. He's okay, right? It might have been some experiment Fred and George Weasley left behind when they left."

[Cassandra Blackfire G7]

Cass looked at her quite oddly. Who were Fred and George Weasley?

" Whatever," Cass sat down on the bed. " So where are you from? Did you just arrive?"

[Chelle]

"I'm from Hogsmeade. My mom didn't want me to come really, she's muggle, you know, but my dad finally convinced her this year. Of course, then I got this terrible flu and missed the train. My dad taught me magic though, so at least I won't be completely in the dark. And yeah, I just got here a few days ago." Karissa noticed Cassandra's look of confusion at Fred and George Weasley. "Fred and George Weasley are these two guys I met once near my house who own a joke shop in Diagon Alley. Two years ago I caught them trying to let some creature they had snuck from their dorm room into my room through the window. Boy, my mom sure told them off. She wrote to their mom and everything. They're Ron and Ginny Weasley's brothers."

[Cassandra Blackfire G7]

Oh, Ron's mother. Made sense. Of course, she really wasn't sure how prolific the name Weasley was in the wizarding world. It definetly wasn't in the muggle world.

"Yeah, those guys who own the shop in Diagon Alley," she had only been there once, and didn't get to really visit all the shops, " So, your from Hogsmeade? How does it feel to live in the only all wizard village? I think it would be quite fun. At least you didn't have to come far to go to school. You can visit your parents whenever you know. A few days of homecooking would be great for me."

[Chelle]

"You can come, you know. To my house, I mean. My mom wouldn't mind a few friends over. I must warn you though, my dad might bore you with questions about what were learning, and everything going on at Hogwarts." Karissa told Cass. "I know my sister Anne wouldn't mind someone visiting. She's all alone at home."

[Cassandra Blackfire G7]

Cass smiled at the girl. " You know, I might like that."

She had never been to an actual wizarding home. It might be fun.

" How old is your sister?"

[Chelle]

"9. When I visited her two days ago on Sunday she almost suffocated me she was so happy to see me. It was actually pretty funny when you think about it," Karissa looked at Cass. "What do you think of throwing a party in the Common Room?"

[Cassandra Blackfire G7]

" A party in the common room? Not a totally bad idea, but not many people hang out here. You would have to have plenty of advertising. You'd be surprised, but most us are usually so busy we don't stick around here much. But, if it was held, I would show. And probably most people." Cass shrugged her shoulders. as she landed on her bed. She wasn't sure how, but somehow she had migrated into her pajamas. She took out her Nimbus 2000 and began go at it with a broom polishing kit.

" The hardest part would be getting the word out."

[Chelle]

"Yeah, I thought that would be hard. Cool broom," she said, looking at the broom, admiring it. "It's a Nimbus 2000, right?"

[Cassandra Blackfire G7]

The girl certainly knew her brooms.

" Yeah, its my first broom. I bought only a few weeks ago when I made it to the house Quidditch team. Not the newest, but definetly not the worse. They were clearancing them out in a shop in Hogsmeade and I picked it up," she continued to polish," I've never owned by own broom before. Except for the kind you sweep and dust with. But, I love it. The last match was in like 20 feet of snow. I was afraid if I didn't at least get out the water spots she would never shine again."

She pointed to her Quidditch robes in the corner. " Those will probably never dry out. The have been soaked for at least 3 days now. For some reason, the house elves hadn't picked them up for laundry. I'm going to put that whole pile at the foot of my bed with a big lighted sign saying 'Clean Me'."

[Chelle]

"Hey! My mom taught me a cleaning spell. They might dry out eventually, hopefully before the next match. I wish I had a broom. I'm saving my money for one, and so far I've got about, um, seven sickles." Karissa said, remembering how much money she had. "I spent most of it at Zonko's buying my sister a birthday present."

[Cassandra Blackfire G7]

Cas looked up at the girl as she continued to apply the wax to the broom.

" I don't have any brothers and sisters. But, I do have plenty of cousins who have enjoyed abusing me over the years."

" My cousin Craig owns a Kendo studio back in Birmingham and he is the only reason I didn't get beaten up by the rest of them."

[Chelle]

"Well, your cousins sound-er-okay," Kari said. "Craig sounds like the best, though." Kari thought about what to say next.

"When do you think you might want to come to dinner?"

[Cassandra Blackfire G7]

Cass smiled at the girl. " Well, whenever is convenient for you family. I"m not going to impose."

(( If you want, you can start a post in Hogsmeade. It seems like my character spends all her time there anyway. ))