A/N: Enjoy and please leave a review.

Why's It Gotta Be A Snake

Ch 1

I run through Kings Cross station out of breath as I push a cart weighed down by my trunks. A small grey, almost white, feline rests on my shoulder with a death-like grip to keep from falling off.

Her claws make me wince as they dig deeper after having accidentally bumped into someone.

The large number nine comes into view and I relax slightly at my first-ever good fortune.

I'm not late for the train, at least, not yet. The large family that just walked through the doors however, might be.

My dad had dropped me off just outside the doors, but it took longer than I had expected to get my trunk into a cart.

In the end, two muggle men had helped me out.

I slow as I come to the barrier of platform nine and three-quarters, nervous for the briefest of seconds.

My father had of course told me what I was supposed to do, but it still seemed quite strange to me.

After a pause, I pushed my cart and walked through the wall.

It was even more loud and chaotic on the other side.

The whistle of the Hogwarts Express shrilled loudly over the notice of witches and wizards alike saying goodbye to children and owls swooping over heads. A few rats scurry along the floor, carefully being stalked by differently marked cats and I think I even saw a toad somewhere in the midst.

It was magnificent and for the first time since receiving the acceptance letter, I let myself feel a thrill of excitement.

I tip the cart and let my trunk spill onto the ground just before the steps of the train.

I tug hard until I become red in the face and my arms give out.

It thumps back to the ground with only having lifted an inch.

"Wingdarium leviosa." A voice calls and like magic, which of course it was, my trunk lifts off the ground and hovers in the air.

I look up from my collapsed and gasping position on the stairs to see pretty brown eyes looking down at me.

"Hello." The girl, who can't be much older than me, says. "I figured you can use some help, if that's okay?"

"Are you kidding? Yeah, thanks!" I say leaping to my feet.

She, like most other wizarding folk, is wearing muggle cloths. But unlike most of the others, hers seems more naturally selected.

She's muggle born, I decide, or at least muggle raised.

She has brown bushy hair but it frames a cute face. She smiles at me and leads me into the train with my trunk floating just in front of her.

"I'm Hermione by the way, what's your name?"

"Alex." I say

We make it to the far back of the train before we find an empty compartment, but a trunk is already lying in it. She sets mine down next to it and smiles.

"You can sit in here with me and my friends." She looks worriedly out the window at all the people saying last minute goodbyes. "If they ever make it." She murmurs.

"Oh! There are the Weasley's!" She says suddenly after several seconds, making me jump. "Good, they made it." She relaxes more into the seat cushions and studies me closely, like I'm a fascinating book.

I shift uncomfortably, my feet flopping uselessly off the ground.

I grab my cat- kitten actually- off my shoulder where her claws still dig in. She's a tiny thing, definitely the runt of the litter just being slightly bigger than my hand, and my dad would not be pleased that I chose her out of all the more nobler pets in the wizard pet shop.

Hermione's eyes light up at seeing her. She had previously been hidden by my long hair.

"Oh, she's so cute! What's her name?" She asks jumping down to pet her.

"Astrid. It's Norse for divine strength."

I had just gotten her yesterday when I went to pick up my books. My father had given me money to get a pet, said most of the first years will have one, but he hasn't actually seen her yet. "She may be small but she can survive."

The door to our compartment opens and we both look up to find a girl standing there. She's small like me, though I'm still the tiniest first year I've seen, and she has fiery red hair that is messy as if she had been running.

She pants slightly as she looks us over. "Can I sit in here?" She asks.

"Of course. Ginny this is Alex, Alex, Ginny."

"Hi." I murmur looking down, petting my kitten as she purrs, and blushing.

There is a rattling as she struggles to pull her luggage into the compartment with us.

When she finally gets it, she sits down with a sigh and the train starts moving. Then she just stares at me.

"Wait, where's your brother? And Harry?"

Ginny looks up at the clearly older girl and opens her mouth in an O shape that makes me giggle.

"They were just behind us, they should have made it." She says looking around as if they were hiding in the small room.

Hermione bites her lip nervously and looks out the window.

"What happened?" Ginny asks and I turn to see her looking at me. She moves along the seat to sit closer and touches my cheek.

I jerk away slightly, blushing.

"I fell." I say covering the small bruise just beneath my right eye.

"Oh." She says and retracts her hand. "You don't talk much do you?"

"I don't know what to say." I admit.

"How about hello?"

"Hello." I say and she giggles. A weird fuzzy feeling, like giddiness, floods my stomach and a smile can't help but form on my face too.

So we talk easily with each other and Hermione, though she keeps worrying about this Ron and Harry, until a plump witch rolls by with a cart full of sweets that makes my stomach growl.

I fish in my pocket for a few galleons that I stole from my father- he wouldn't miss any of it- and pay for a hole arm full which I then proceed to share with my new friends.

Our compartment door slamming open interrupts our happy chatter.

A boy stands there, hair so light that it's almost white, and two other, much larger boys flank him.

They seem to be about Hermione's age and she's glaring at them. She had leapt to her feet the moment the door slid open.

"What do you want Malfoy?" She growls making me blink. She was so nice to me; what did this boy do to make her like this?

The boy sneers at her and I'm taken aback.

"Where's Potter, Granger. He get scarred of being showed up and decide to just not come to school?"

"Eat slugs," she spits, clenching her wand at her side. The blond boy's own hand is twitching nervously at his side.

He's scared of her, I realize. She must be a really great witch.

Their hands twitch and I suddenly realize that they are going to fight.

Ginny seems to understand this too because she ducks underneath the seat. I don't have that good fortune as they both shoot curses at the same time.

They hit mid air and bounce off each other's, Hermione's splitting and hitting the tall boys on either side of the Malfoy kid, getting bright pink hair each, and his bouncing off the window.

I give a small shriek as it comes straight at my face and I twist quickly.

Something solid hits me in the back making me surge forward and bang my head on the metal rim on the seats.

I groan, clutching my throbbing forehead.

Warm hands grasp my face and turn it up as tears well in the corners of my eyes.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry Alex." Her wide brown eyes stare into mine worriedly.

"S'okay, I've had worse." I mumble rubbing the lump tenderly.

A glance at the door tells me that that Malfoy kid ran away. The butt face- it was his curse.

"Oh no, look at your hair!" Ginny says as her hands hover over my head.

I touch it curiously only to find my hands come away white and sticky.

The bloody kid got glue stuck in my hair.

I groan loudly. "Bloody hell."

They look at me in surprise but I just move Astrid from my lap and kneel next to my trunk.

After rummaging through it for a while, I find the muggle tools I was looking for.

"Muggles call these scissors. They're used to cut things." I say as I turn my head upside down, bunch my hair up in one hand, and snip it all off.

Hermione gasps and reaches forward to stop me but the ruined locks have already fallen to the floor.

"Watch the door, will you?" I ask, ignoring their wide eyed shock, and start tugging at my ruined muggle clothes. "I should get into my school robes soon anyway."

I turn my back to them and pull off my shirt as I once again search around my trunk.

Cold fingers graze my rips making me gasp and jerk.

Ginny looks up at me with wide, innocent green eyes. "What happened?" She asks softly.

I quickly pull a shirt over my head and move to straighten my hair only to realize that it's all gone now.

"I told you, I fell. Help me fix my hair?" I request and hand her the scissors. The only good I had done was hack all the gunk out, but now it was uneven and sticking everywhere.

"Um..." She looks down at the muggle tools with a frown.

Hermione steps forward and takes them gently. "Here, let me do it."

She works carefully and quickly, evening it and putting it into a style. When she puts the shears down, Ginny giggles.

"You look like a boy."

I grin and run my hands through my short, light brown hair.

It's very different from the previous overly long length.

"You're even wearing a boys uniform. Why?" Hermione's asks.

"Heh heh, well... See, I don't like skirts very much because they make me trip. Plus, these are much more comfortable." She rolls her eyes.

"It's against school regulation." She says and I grin.

"It's okay, I always get in trouble for one thing or another. Might as well be comfortable doing it right?"

She rolls her eyes but I swear I can see a smile twitch her lips just the slightest bit.

Right then, the train starts to slow.

"Hurry up, you've both got to change!" I say and step up to the door. "I'll make sure no one comes in."

And for the next five minutes, all I hear is the shifting of clothes.