The Adopted Weasley

first morning at Hogwarts; Part two

Grace woke up one more time that morning a bit past 6 having a hard time breathing, she went back to sleep quickly though, and only woke up again when George got out of bed and tripped over his trunk. Grace shot up, waking Fred in the process. He groaned and put a pillow over his face. Sunlight streamed through the windows of the room. Grace rubbed her eyes and glanced around.

"Could you get Fred up Gigi? I'm going to take a quick shower." Grace nodded and nudged Fred to get his attention.

"Go away. I'm sleeping." He mumbled, and rolled over.

Okay. This'll be fun!  Grace crawled to the end of the bed and started climbing up the wooden post that had the curtains on it. 

"Grace!" Lee whispered yelled from across the room, almost making her fall. She hadn't realized he was awake. "What are you doing??" Grace held up her pointer finger, positioned herself and jumped off the post landing next to Fred, making him yelp and fall off the bed in a tangle of blankets. Lee started laughing, Grace laid on her stomach on the bed and peered down at him grinning.

"Are you awake now?" 

"Grace!" He shouted, half angry, half surprised, "Don't do that!" He glared at Lee. "And you, don't encourage her. She comes up with enough stuff on her own!"

"She didn't have much of a choice mate," Lee laughed, "You were totally out of it." Grace looked worried,

"Are you mad?"
Fred took a breath and cracked a smile.

"No, you just surprised me."

Grace slid off the bed onto his lap. He kissed her forehead and rested his chin on the top of her head. 

"You two are so adorable." Lee exclaimed, making Fred and Grace roll their eyes.

"I'm going to get ready." Grace said and headed to the common room. It was fairly busy and she was relieved when she saw no one had moved her books and robes. She scooped everything up and headed back to her room. The girls up there other than Hermione, were Lavender Brown (who Grace found rather unbearable) and Parvati Patil. Lavender was already gone when Grace got up there and she felt rather relieved. Parvati walked out when she came in, Hermione looked up nervously from her book.

"Are you alright? I heard you had an asthma attack this morning."

"I'm fine. It happens." Grace smiled, "Thanks for asking though." 

"Of course," Hermione said glancing out the window, her foot tapping. Grace felt her anxiety and her own started growing. "Do you think we should head down?"

"We might as well. Don't worry, magic isn't that hard. All my brothers that have been here said so." Grace hesitated a second. "I've already done a bit. Bill and Charlie were worried about me not talking and taught me how to do non verbal." Hermione's eyes widened.

"Non verbal?!" She exclaimed, "Do you know how hard that is??"

"Well, both my parents were pretty powerful wizards.." 

"That doesn't count!" Hermione said, sounding dazed, "it depends on your magic and skill.. Why, we're not supposed to learn it till 6th year!"

Grace shrugged, not really sure what else to say on the subject.
"We should head down."

Hemione didn't look like she wanted to continue the conversation but dropped it. The two of them packed their bags and headed down to the great hall. Hermione almost stepped off a stair but Grace grabbed her robes and yanked her back. Then told her the 5 second rule. 

"I forgot," she said sheepishly. "I read about it but I was too excited."

"Yeah well, that's a deadly mistake." Grace shivered remembering the feeling of falling. "Fred and George basically have the pattern memorized. We'll get to that." 

After a few more minutes of walking and getting to know each other (Hermione's parents were dentists, she had exactly 6 cousins, and a Rottweiler named Hippy) they arrived at the great hall. Grace slid into the seat next to Percy and grabbed a chocolate chip muffin. George, Fred, and Lee came down a few seconds later and joined them. George glanced at her plate and put some eggs on it. Grace shot a look at him.

"You know I hate eggs!" She signed her nose wrinkled with disgust.

"You're going to need the protein." He answered sternly, "You can't just have a muffin and milk." Grace tried to glare at him but he was talking to Lee about something so she huffed with frustration and dutifully shoveled them in her mouth. She didn't want to make any of them mad. Minnie was making her way down the Gryffindor table, a few minutes later, she got to Grace. 

"Here is your schedule Miss. Gansta. All the teachers are prepared for your use of sign language. I look forward to seeing you in transfigeration."

"It's Grace Weasley." Grace tried to say, but the woman had already moved on. She suppressed a sigh and glanced at her watch. It was almost time to head for -she checked her schedule- Charms class. She threw a spoon across the table at Ron to get his attention.

"What class do you have next?" He glanced at his schedule

"Charms. You?" She grinned

"The same!" 

"Awesome!" 

Professor Dumbledore stood up and announced that it was time for class. Grace couldn't decide whether or not she liked this man. He just felt off. It could easily be nothing.

Ron and Harry hadn't brought their books with them to breakfast and they dashed back up the stairs for Gryffindor's house leaving Grace to walk to charms with Hermione. She waved goodbye to the twins and Lee. Not noticing when Fred started to follow them to make sure they got there, or when George grabbed his elbow and yanked him back.

"Let her go." He said quietly, "She's got this."

. . .

It took Grace and Hermione almost 15 minutes to find charms class. Luckily, it didn't start for another 5. Grace could practically feel the state's she was getting and convinced Hermione to find a 4 person table in the back so they could be away from the people and save room for Ron and Harry, who dashed in while Professor Flitwick was doing roll call. Grace waved them over. 

"Grace Gansta?" Grace breathed hard out her nose with frustration. 

"It's Weasley." She thought. But raised her hand to show she was present. 

With the words "We won't be doing magic today," Flitwick launched into his safety and information speech about charms.