Okay so this is kind of late but if any of you live in England you know that we've had annoyingly and tediously long exams to slave through these past couple of months so that's why I haven't updated recently, sorry +.+

The bonus to having just done a thousand and one exams is that I now have an insanely long ten week holiday with absolutely nothing to do so that means more chapters for you guys... probably...

Hope you enjoy :)

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"So why the bloody hell were you up that early anyway?" Ron asked me as we made our way to the first lesson of the day.

After Fred had finally stopped animating the school's cutlery, calling it a day after making them do the Macarena-surprisingly well for eating utensils-, we had to stop talking about all things prank related because our table had begun to slowly fill up with drowsy Gryffindor students, making their way down to breakfast.

Among the last to arrive had been Dean followed behind by a stumbling Ron who, for all intents and purposes, was still very much asleep.

It was around the fourth time he'd tripped, fallen and pulled himself back up again in an almost hypnotic state, that I took pity on him and got up to help guide him the rest of the way to where we were sat.

He'd then proceeded, much to the twin's delight, to fall asleep in the bowl of porridge Dean had placed before him and would have remained sleeping peacefully on his oaty pillow of dreams if I hadn't lightly tapped him-read whacked him upside the head with one of the placemats- enough to wake him up again.

So, after we'd finally managed to get Ron to actually eat the food on the table and not use it as his own personal bedding area, Fred and George decided to once again take advantage of the fact that Dean and I were completely new to the whole wizard-school business and made sure to tell us that we're "not to worry, the school really do try their best to keep horrible magical deaths to a minimum and only about a quarter of the students by the end of the year have a few extra eyes or gills and they're nothing to fret about" "yeah they add a certain extra character to a person!"

Though, with the troll incident still fresh in my mind concerning the sorting ceremony, I took their warnings of what 'crazy Professor Kettleburn's beasts from the deepest depths of ancient horrors would do to you if you didn't smell of daisies', with a little scepticism, especially so when Ron called what they'd just said the biggest load of goblin dung ever and that they'd been reading too many of the muggle fairytale books their dad kept bringing home with him.

However they did eventually give us some real information about a few of the teachers, especially which ones to avoid getting into their bad books-"Blimey, Professor McGonagall's a brilliant Head of House but she doesn't half know how to punish you if you don't hand your homework in on time" "Couldn't get rid of those duck bills for weeks"- and they couldn't stress enough how important it was for us to realise that a certain Professor Snape hated almost anything that moved and that he had a whole bookshelf full of books dedicated on how to suck every last drop of fun out of school life for each and every one of his students.

Then after a few more passing remarks on how many litres of grease Fred thought you could siphon from Snape's hair, it had been time to go to our first lessons of the school year and, according to Dean's timetable (I'd forgotten to take mine before I went off exploring and Ron had lost his already), it was Herbology with Professor Sprout so right now, we were headed towards the back of the school to get to 'Greenhouse 1'

"I was just really hungry?" I replied, though it came out as more of a question than an answer.

Fred, George and Lee had all made me swear on pain of dismemberment, not to tell anyone about the Marauders Map, and seeing their display with Malfoy earlier I didn't want to test how serious they had been when making their threats. So I decided it was probably best to keep the whole morning a secret, knowing that I'd get bombarded with questions I even mentioned the words 'secret' and 'passageway' to Ron or Dean.

"Yes, you did get up rather early this morning, I woke up to get in some last minute studying pretty early and you were already gone!" cried a slightly annoyed voice from behind us as we walked along the path down the school grounds.

Looking back I saw it was the girl with the mousy-brown, bushy hair who had yelled at us last night for not being in bed.

Her eyebrows were scrunched together in a suspicious frown and her mouth opened as if she were about to say something but was thankfully cut off by a cheerful voice coming from in front of us.

"Alright there first years? I'm Professor Sprout, Head of Hufflepuff House and the Department of Herbology here at Hogwarts and I'd like to welcome you to your very first Herbology lesson" she finished, squeezing her hands together over her chest and beaming round.

She was a fairly short, quite plump grey-haired woman dressed in a large dirty green overall, pockets stuffed with trowels, gardening forks, mini spades, her wand, a few plants that looked to be growing out of the material and she was standing outside the door to 'Greenhouse 1'.

"Well then, if you'd like to follow me into the greenhouse. Don't worry, nothing in here is particularly dangerous unless you- Young man! Get your head away from that Jubokko tree or you'll get to know firsthand where it gets its crimson colour from!" she cried out when she turned round to see Seamus peering closely at a miniature red willow tree, not noticing how the needle-like branches seemed to be inching closer and closer to his neck.

I rolled my eyes good-naturedly, laughing along with Ron and Dean at Seamus' startled expression as he finally saw the mobile, pointed branches on a collision course with his face.

So, while Seamus was getting his face eaten off by a carnivorous tree, I gave a quick glance around the greenhouse where our Herbology lessons would be taking place for the rest of the year.

At the moment, we were stood at the very front of the greenhouse and, adding to the fact that I couldn't see the back, it was a lot bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside-something that didn't really surprise me all that much to be honest after what I'd seen concerning the ceiling of the great hall last night- and the atmosphere of the house itself was the same pleasantly humid one of an ordinary greenhouse; but what it contained couldn't be further from Aunt Petunia's perfect begonias.

From floor to ceiling, bursting out of their orange ceramic pots, clinging to the muddied glass of the walls, creeping across the haphazard pathway were hundreds upon hundreds of different types of plants, trees and herbs, toadstools, mosses and vines; all with their own unique colours, smells and, I'm sure, magical properties.

The faint outline of an overgrown path could be seen winding its way along the floor bordered by the numerous purple, fuzzy vines hanging down from the ceiling and led to an open space in the centre of the greenhouse where four, large oak wooden tables stood covered in soil and compost, one with a dozen or so trays laid down on top of it.

"Right then class! If you'd like to make your way to the tables over there and sit in front of a tray of Pinkylan saplings each, we'll begin the lesson" the cheerful voice of Professor Sprout sounded from behind us, followed by the clapping of her hands in a gesture to get us moving.

"What's a 'Pinkylan'?" Dean wondered, a bewildered look crossing his face as we made our way towards the tables.

"I think we've got a few growing in our garden somewhere, pretty useless if you ask me" Ron commented after we'd sat down in front of a tray, each containing a short stemmed brightly coloured yellow sapling with ridiculously large leaves sprouting from the top of it.

"What you just said could not be further from the truth young man, and I doubt you have this type of breed growing in your garden" Professor Sprout said sternly from where she had appeared beside Ron's elbow, though a good-natured smile remained on her face, "Ah, you must be the latest Weasley, Ron was it? Yes, your brothers talked quite a lot about you, until I had to ban them from the greenhouse for messing around with my vampire pumpkins during their teething phase" she finished a frown briefly flashing over her face before it was replaced by her usual beaming smile.

She turned back to face the rest of the class.

"So, yes, as I was saying, Pinkylan saplings are very useful if," she held up a finger and surveyed the room, "you know what to do with them"

Then she walked over to the tray in front of Lavender and picked up the small block of mud that the plant was living in.

"If grown in the right conditions they can be used, almost like one of those muggle compasses I should say, to find absolutely anythingyou wish" she finished as she stroked one of the saplings large, yellow leaves tenderly.

"What, so if you wanted it to find one of your missing socks for you, it would?" Seamus questioned, peering sceptically down at one of the plants in front of him (though not getting too close after the earlier incident of nearly getting mauled by an overly-friendly plant).

"Exactly Finnigan, all you have to do is grow the seed up to the stage they are at here, in whatever it is you want to find-say the material the socks are made from, then chant the correct spell and the leaves will point in the direction of the rest of the material you've grown it in or in other words Finnigan's missing sock."

"Wait, so if you grew it in diamonds or something, it would direct you to a whole pile of them?" Ron asked incredulously, awe replacing the earlier doubt across his face.

"It's not like there's just going to be a random pile of diamonds somewhere for it to direct you to," the girl from before said condescendingly, an eyebrow raised as she stare at Ron whose face had turned a light shade of pink, "And besides, growing a plant in diamondsisn't exactly going to be easy, is it? That's why they aren't so widely known to most people because they are incredibly difficult to grow, even though no cloaking spell however powerful can prevent the plant from finding what it's been grown in."

"Yes, good knowledge there girl, you seem to have read up a bit before you came here, what's your name dear?" Professor Sprout cut in, giving poor Ron a break from the girl's verbal tirade.

"Hermione Granger" Hermione said primly.

"Right, yes, well as Granger said, the Pinkylan sapling is notoriously difficult to grow in anything but the simplest of natural, organic materials such as..."

My eyes began to wander around the greenhouse as I began to lose focus on what the Professor was saying-I'd never been very good at sitting down for long periods of time, a bit of a pain really when you're locked in the cupboard under the stairs for most of the day- and I was distracted by the huge diversity of magical plants that were growing inside the greenhouse.

'If only we could learn about some of these plants, they look way more interesting than a sapling with Dumbo ears for lea-'my thoughts were cut off abruptly when a glint of gold standing out against the dirty ground caught my attention as my eyes drifted across the room.

But before I had the chance to focus on whatever it was that had caught my eye, I was nudged in the arm by Dean and I realised that Professor Sprout had finished talking and was now giving me a pointed look, as if waiting for an answer.

"She asked you what the incantation is to make the plants become compasses" Dean supplied helpfully, whispering in my ear.

"Er, bibbity bobbity boo?" I blurted without thinking, immediately blushing a red darker than both the Weasley twin's hair combined as I realised what I'd just said. (Sometimes I feel the need to simply bypass the 'brain-mouth' filter most people have and, as you can quite clearly see here in Exhibit A, it usually works out splendidly)

Sniggers could be heard smattered round the class as the children who obviously didn't come from wizarding families realised what I'd just said, even Dean was trying to hide a chuckle behind his hand, though Ron looked absolutely clueless as to why people were laughing.

"Well perhaps that might be a spell in your fairytale world Potter, but here we rely on real magic to get the job done," she gave me a hard stare that only furthered developing my dark red blush, before surveying the rest of the class saying "Now if you'd all like to carry out the task I've set you we can get on with the lesson, and Potter? See me after class"

I groaned and slumped my head down on the table as the rest of the class got to work with whatever she had told them to do while I was off daydreaming. I felt a reassuring pat on my back from Dean, though I could still hear him chuckling under his breath.

"Wow I think you've broken Fred and George's record, I'm pretty sure they got to at least their third lesson of their first day here without getting detention from a teacher" Ron grinned from next to me when I finally lifted my head from arms and looked at him.

Well that's the perfect start to the school year Hailey, beating even Fred and George's record for misbehaving I thought dryly to myself, though thinking of the Weasley twins...

With another moan my head fell back onto the table in despair.

They're never going to let me live it down if they hear about this

"So what did Professor Sprout want with you?" Dean asked me as we made our way back up to the main school building from where he and Ron had been waiting for me outside the greenhouse while I stayed behind.

"She..." I paused scrunching my eyebrows together in confusion, "She gave me a seed"

"Well Potter seeing as that lesson was completely lost on you due to your inability to pay attention for more than five seconds, you need to take responsibility for it" Professor Sprout told me sternly as she searched through a dirty set of old wooden drawers I hadn't seen on my first glance around the greenhouse, as they had been covered by the drooping branches of a small willow tree growing next to it.

"Ah, here it is" she muttered to herself as she pulled something small and yellow out of one of the drawers.

"It needs care and paying attention to," she told me pointedly, "And all that you need to know about looking after it was discussed in the lesson, but fortunately for you it will be in 'One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi' the book that you should have bought before coming here"

When she finished she placed whatever it was she wanted me to look after, into my waiting hand. Looking closely at it, I saw it was small, rounded, with streaks of yellow shot through and reminded me of the marbles Dudley had gotten for Christmas one year (which occupied him for all of two seconds before they were thrown across the room and he was demanding Aunt Petunia to hand him his next present form the enormous pile under the tree.)

"I'll expect updates of its growth every lesson and you can get whatever you need to help its growth from here, meaning I'll have to give you the key..." she trailed off then, biting her lip and thinking hard before her face brightened, "Ah well there's nothing too dangerous in here and as long as you're careful I'm sure you'll be fine. So here you go"

With that she dropped a large dark brass key into my other hand before quickly ushering me out of the greenhouse, telling me I'd better hurry if I didn't want to be late to my next lesson.

"She gave you a Pinkylan seed?!" Dean asked me incredulously as we entered the castle and began hurrying through the stone corridors.

"Uh I guess so, why? What's wrong with that?" I asked nervously, but before he could give me a proper answer we'd arrived at the door to our next lesson and had to rush straight in to avoid being any later than we already were, leaving me with an unanswered question and a decidedly worried feeling worming its way into my heart.

"What does writing a seven and a half inch essay even mean?" I cried to Dean and Ron as we made our way up to the Gryffindor tower finished with the last lesson of the day and receiving our first piece of homework.

"I can't believe we got homework on the first day" Dean grouched, his face turned downwards in an upset frown.

"We have to wait until six to get dinner?" Ron said disbelievingly as he stared down at the timetable in his hands.

I rolled my eyes good-naturedly at him before saying "Trust you to only be worried about when we get to eat Ron"

Dean laughed beside me as Ron looked up his face blushing slightly but still carrying the indignant expression he'd made when he discovered he'd have to wait another two hours before he was fed.

"Caput Draconis" I said to the large pink lady in the portrait as we reached the door to our common room.

Stepping inside we were met with the laughter and loud chatter from the numerous other students already back from their lessons, and the crackling sound the fire made sat in its huge stone fireplace.

But before I could get any further into the room, I felt two arms wrap themselves around my shoulders and two familiar voices filled my ears.

"Heard she got called back after class Fred"

"And on her first day here, no less Georgie"

"I think our first punishment-"

"Was in our second lesson-"

"Though if it hadn't had been potions with Snape, I'm almost certain-"

"We might have been able to last the whole day" the two twins finished together, grinning down at me from where they stood at least two heads of height above me.

"How do you find out these things?" I muttered almost to myself in exasperation, staring longingly at Dean and Ron's sniggering forms walking away from me, leaving me, quite literally, in the arms of the twins.

"We have eyes and ears everywhere dear Hailey" George said grandly, the arm that wasn't currently clamped to my shoulder, sweeping in front of us to emphasise 'everywhere'.

"'Bibbity, bobbity, boo? Really? Trying to turn old Professor Sprout into a pumpkin are we?" Fred added smugly, obviously pleased with himself knowing about the fairy tale the 'spell' came from.

"It would turn her into a carriage anyway, but that's beside the point! I got distracted by this glint of gold from-"but before I could finish I was interrupted by the loud guffaws coming from the twin to left: Fred.

"You got... distracted by... something... shiny?" he gasped between his laughter, laughing harder when a dark red blush crept up my face and I crossed my arms over my chest in an embarrassed huff, "What are you? A bird?"

"Wait, wait. Where was this 'shiny' thing?" George asked me curiously, ignoring his brother who had now collapsed on the floor with tears in his eyes.

My eyebrows scrunched together as I thought back to this morning, before my highly embarrassing escapade with Professor Sprout, to when I'd caught sight of the out-of-place gold colour.

"Near some weird looking pumpkins I think" I said, before remembering something else.

Fred suddenly stopped laughing, catching the meaningful look in his brother's eye when he suddenly stared down at him. He then sprang up from the floor only to grab me by the elbow, George of course in perfect sync with grabbing the other one, and the both of them steered me over to an empty corner of the common room away from the loud chatter from the rest of our house mates.

"Pumpkins you say?" Fred whispered conspiringly when we seated on one of the sofas dotted around the room.

"Oh so you're interested in what the 'shiny' thing was now, are you?" I said a frown still on my face from Fred's outburst earlier.

"While it is hilarious that you were distracted from your first ever lesson concerning magical plants in the wizarding world by something shiny that caught your eye, the fact you saw it under the vampire pumpkin patch peaks our interest quite a bit" George said eagerly, eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Wait a minute" I said suddenly, the mentioning of 'vampire' pumpkins bringing a memory to the forefront of my mind, "Weren't you banned from the greenhouse because you were messing around with them?"

"Ah yes and that is exactly why we are interested in what you saw my dear" Fred nodded his head.

"Shame that we can't get to it anymore though, I mean we only moved one slightly-"

"It's not like we knew that they were in the teething stage or anything-"

"Alas if we only had a way of breakin- I mean entering the greenhouse-"

"With all those pesky spells cast around the door-"

"Wouldn't want to end up like last time, with roots growing out of our-"

"Hold up!" I cried, before they could go off on another one of their creepy twin conversations, and to be quite honest I really didn't want to know where that last sentence had been going, "What exactly is under the pumpkins? And if you need a key..."

I trailed off as I rummaged around in one of the large pockets in my robe before pulling out the tarnished brass key Professor Sprout had given me that morning.

"I've got one right here" I smiled triumphantly at the twins identically shocked faces.

"Our room. Tonight. After lights out."

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So there you go, please review if you can, again sorry for taking ages!

Also everyone has been asking what pairing this will be and I was gonna tell everyone but my friend told me off saying I would be spoiling it for people so I can't :( But I don't think there'll be much romance in this story anyway as they are all in first and third year but there will definitely be some in the sequels, I plan to do all the books :)

Oh and if you want to see the twins play and practical jokes on Malfoy and Filch that you've come up with yourself just PM and I'll try to write it into the story

Sammyluv21: Yay! Thankyou ;)

Padfootette: Thanks and sorry I couldn't update but hopefully I'll be able to make it up to everyone with more chapters soon

t0neverland7: Ta dear ;)

roos1414: Sorry about the wait

Toniboo: Yeah I loved Lee in the first book when he was commentating on the Quidditch match and thought it was a shame that J.K never really went into too much depth with him so I'm really enjoying giving him more to his character

fifespice: I love that you reviewed my other chapters as well, thank you :)

Panda Cannons: Yes I have lots of ideas planned for a prank war with Malfoy don't you worry ;)

NoodleNuggets: Like I said earlier, my friend told me not to tell anyone but being perfectly honest with you, I'm not too sure myself :3 I keep changing my mind as I write it

Beaver96: Yeah kinda took time with this update didn't I? Thanks ;)

ptl4ever419: Yeah this is more of a story now ;) But if you want me to write you a one shot I'd be more than happy to give it my best ;)

lexica1999: Hehe maybe your hunch is correct maybe not ;) I love the ending line I gave this though, so innuendo-y :3