Harry's POV

The first thing I noticed as we exited the airport was the heat. The sun glared down at us from above and I could feel the scorching heat burning the back of my neck. The sky was a sapphire blue with not a single cloud in sight, and the breeze that was blowing was warm upon our skins.

"Bloody hell, it's hot here," Ron exclaimed, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. We followed his example and followed Hermione a few paces before she stopped and hailed a cab.

"Where to?" The cab driver was a plump man with a thick mustache. Hermione gave him the address of our new home and soon we were driving down the road towards our new neighborhood. The streets in Rosewood were bordered with tall oaks that were casting soft feathery shadows on the ground, and the traffic was moving fairly quickly.

"I could really use a nap," Ginny said after a while and Luna agreed with her. Now that she mentioned it, I felt sleepy as well. My eyes were drooping and I could hardly stay awake. The others looked like they wee feeling the same way.

Hermione looked at her watch. "I suppose we can sleep for about ten hours to get over the jet lag," she said. "Then we need to wake up for school tomorrow."

"School?" Ron asked incredulously. "We have school. Tomorrow?" Hermione nodded with a small smile on her lips.

"Yes, Ronald," she said. "School. We start tomorrow."

"But we just got here!"

"But the sooner we start, the better..."

"Hermione, we don't know a thing about this place or about muggles in general."

Neville looked away from the window and said, "Yeah, and I still don't know a thing about the subjects we'll be doing in school. Do they have anything similar to Herbology?"

"Do they teach about nargles here?" Luna asked seriously. Hermione and I sighed in unison. This was going to be hard.

"Neville, Luna, they don't have Herbology or....nargles," Hermione pointed out. "But the other subjects are great, trust me. I've always wanted to study Physics and Math."

I snorted. I had seen Dudley struggle with his physics homework and it certainly did not look fun to me. Then again, Hermione thought Arithmamcy was fun at Hogwarts.

"We're here." Hermione paid the taxi driver and we were standing in front of a two-story redbrick house that was surrounded by other houses with neatly trimmed gardens. We made our way up the front path and I looked around at the driveway and garden. There was an apple tree at the far end of the garden with several ripe apples hanging off it's branches. But what really got my attention was the car standing in the driveway. It was a sleek black Honda Civic and it looked brand new. When I looked closely at it, I noticed a small note tucked between the wipers. It read:

This is just a little something from the Order. Enjoy it, and please refrain from using the flying mode unless necessary. Your licenses are in the dashboard, but do not give the authorities any reason to confiscate them. For those of you who do not yet know how to drive, we suggest you learn before driving this car.

Cheers,
_The Order Of The Phoenix.

I grinned to myself and quickly took the keys that were also placed next to the note. The others soon noticed what I was looking at and came rushing over. I showed them the note.

"Wow," Ron breathed, walking around the car and looking at it from all sides. "This is brilliant!"

"I wonder how it flies," Ginny added, but Hermione cut in.

"We're not supposed to fly it, remember? It's a good thing I took driving lessons from my dad the year before last. I never actually drove on the road except a couple of times though."

"I don't know how to drive," Luna sighed and Neville grinned.

"I could teach you and Ginny," he said. "Gran made me take a few lessons."

We went to the front door of the house, but just as I was unlocking it with the key Professor McGonagall had given me, we heard someone call us from the sidewalk

"So you're the new neighbors." We quickly turned to see a girl with long brown hair waving at us. She had her hair braided over one shoulder and was smiling brightly.

Hermione smiled back at her. "Yes. We just came."

"Boy am I glad to see some new faces. You'll be going to Rosewood High, right?"

"Yeah," said Hermione. "We start tomorrow."

"Cool," the girl said, walking over to us. "I'm Ashlyn by the way. I live over there." She pointed to the house next door.

"Nice to meet you," Neville grinned at her.

"I'm Hermione and this is Ron, Harry, Ginny, Luna and Neville," Hermione introduced us with a small smile. I could tell that she was glad to be making a new friend.

"You sound British," Ashlyn pointed out. "What made you guys move here?"

"Oh," Hermione hesitated. "We're exchange students. We just have a year of High School left so we decided to get a house together. To make it fun."

Ashlyn narrowed her eyes mischievously. "Oh, I see," she said. "I'm in senior year too so I guess we'll be seeing each other in school."

"You have really nice earrings," Luna said suddenly. I hadn't noticed them before, but Ashlyn was wearing chunky earrings that were in the shape of small owls. I could tell why Luna would like them. Ashlyn smiled.

"Thanks. I like that necklace." Luna was wearing a necklace made out of bottle caps. These two could be good friends, I thought to myself.

"So is there a good place to eat around here?" Ron asked and Hermione and Ginny burst out laughing.

"He likes food," I said with a chuckle.

"A lot," added Luna. Ashlyn smiled back at us.

"There's a McDonald's two blocks from here. And Larry's; they have great friend chicken." Ron's mouth fell open at the mention of friend chicken.

We quickly said goodbye to Ashlyn and made our way into the house. It was a very spacious house with three bedrooms upstairs and three downstairs. The kitchen and living area was wide and there was plenty of room to move about.

Hermione immediately started pulling the curtains apart so that fresh sunlight could stream in, and Ginny and Luna were peering into all the rooms. Ron was looking at the television with an awed look on his face and Neville was examining the telephone with a curious expression.

"We better go to bed and unpack tomorrow after school," Hermione told us after a while.

"Hermione, why can we not start school the day after? We need to get used to this place first!" Ron argued. She shook her head stubbornly.

"You are sounding like a ten year old, Ron," she sighed. "The earlier we start, the better."

"But it's Harry's sister. Shouldn't he get a say in this?"

"No! School is important. We need to go and start fitting in so we can find his sister quickly." Ron heaved a sigh of defeat and stomped up the stairs after Hermione. Neville, Luna, Ginny and I quickly decided to go to bed too, seeing as Hermione would wake us up pretty early the next day.

I chose the bedroom between Luna and Ginny and quickly realized that this room was larger than my old room at the Durseley's. Dudley's second bedroom had been smaller than this one. Here I could easily fit all my clothes in the cupboard and the desk and bookshelf in the corner would be enough for all the books. After taking a quick shower, I got into bed and closed my eyes, feeling sleep slowly overcome me.

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At seven the next day, we were all sitting at the table, fully dressed in muggle clothes. Hermione had gone and bought some groceries a while ago and now she and Ron were trying to make pancakes. I chuckled to myself, knowing this was going to be the first of many mornings where the two of them tried to cook together.

"What do you mean there aren't enough eggs!?" Hermione was asking Ron.

"I think we need more...."

"Ron, next time, try putting the eggs in the batter, okay? Not on the counters," snapped Hermione and Ron threw a helpless look over his shoulder. But after twenty minuted, we had eaten three pancakes each and were all piling into the car. Hermione was driving.

We followed the directions to the school given to us by the taxi driver the previous day and soon found ourselves parked outside a tall glass building with huge windows that were reflecting warm sunlight.

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A/N
I'm back guys! My exams are over so now I'll be updating this story more regularly: twice a week at least...XD I haven't written this in a while so this chapter might not have been that good, but I promise the next one will be better :)

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