Chapter 1 – New Beginnings
I started school at Camelot School for Adult Witches and Wizards when I was 15-years-old. Camelot is a school for witches and wizards who show magical activity when they are too old to go to one of the three wizarding schools: Hogwarts, Durmstrang or Beauxbatons. I would have been in Hogwarts if I was three years younger, but unfortunately, my magic came too late.
I've noticed that I have an unusual kind of magic, different from the kind that is taught at Hogwarts and even Camelot. At these schools, a wand is needed to perform spells, whereas I've noticed I am able to close my eyes and concentrate hard on the thing that I wish to do with my dominant hand outdrawn. This ability of mine is kept from everyone I know except a certain special boy whom I met on my first day.
Five days before students are sent to Camelot, they are sent a letter by owl telling them to take the train from Platform 9 ¾ at 11 o'clock am on September the 2nd, a day after the Hogwarts Express. The Camelot Train went in the opposite direction of the Hogwarts Express. With the letter comes a list of things they are going to need in the upcoming year at Camelot.
On the first day at Camelot, Professor Joseph Bloomsbury met all the students in the Feast Hall for a special welcoming dinner. When all the students were there, they were separated by age: 13-16 year olds in the Novaculite house, 17-21 year olds in the Merkabahs house and 22-30 year olds in the Turitella house. It may be hard to believe, but there were people who hadn't learned of their magical abilities before they were adults. Professor Bloomsbury then gave a speech, welcoming all the new students and the old students back.
I ate at the table with my new 13-16 year old classmates. There were two other new 15 year olds and five who had attended Camelot before. Tessandra Clark, who prefers to be called Tessie, and Kalan Panama were the two new students my age. Tessie was born in Australia, but moved to London when she was 5 years old. She has long, black hair that falls straight down to the half of her back and Kalan has short, curly, dirty blonde hair and a flashing smile. They instantly became my friends.
After the feast, the students who were returning to the school directed us to our common room. I was in the same bedroom as Tessie and the two other 15-year-old girls. The other three were in the guys' room across the hall with Kalan.
Tessie, Kalan and I decided to explore the school a little and find our classes before the next day when we would start attending them. Our timetables were the first real magical thing I encountered. They show you you're next class and it shows you where you should be on the map. It also shows any extra activities you have going on.
According to our timetables, which were showing us around, breakfast was from 8am to 9am in the Food Hall and classes started at 9:30am. We had Transfiguration from 9:30am to 10:40am and had ten minutes to get to our next class which was Potions. Potions class was from 10:50am to 12pm. We had ten minutes to put our books away before lunch started at 12:10pm and then we had an hour to eat lunch. We were given another ten minutes to get our books again before third period class started, which was Defense against the Dark Arts. DaDA class went from 1:30pm to 2:40pm. We had ten minutes to get to Charms class and then attended that class from 2:50pm to 4pm. Charms was the last class of the Thursday and we had a whole different bunch of classes for all of our other classes. Some were the same, but we didn't have all the same classes everyday although, everyday had the same time routine. We had 2 hours to study, do extra activities or just hang around, before supper at 6pm.
We were halfway through finding our classes when I had to use the washroom, so Kalan and Tessie continued on the search for our classes while I went to look for the nearest washroom. I wandered for about 5 minutes before I found a door that was open an inch. I looked around before opening the door wider and looking in. Behind the door was a long set of steps going down.
I stared down into the darkness before curiosity overwhelmed me. I looked around to make sure no one was coming down the hall before I started down the stairs and closed the door behind me. I walked down those stairs for over a minute before I reached the bottom. They didn't circle around a tower, or curve around a bend. They just went straight, for over a minute.
At the bottom was a very cold, dark, dungeon looking place. The pathway went straight before turning to the right. I walked and peered cautiously around the corner. There were cells on both sides of the walls and at least 10 cells on each side all the way down the corridor.
After staring in amazement for a minute, I was snapped out of my reverie by the sound of movement. That's when I realized that I really was in a dungeon. I mentally kicked myself for not realizing it right away, after all those steps and then, it looked like a dungeon. How could I have been so transparent?
I then returned to reality again from the rustling sound that I heard earlier, snapping me out of my first reverie. I made my way slowly forward until I got to the third cell on the right and stopped dead in my tracks. There was someone in there, and they were staring right back at me.
It was a boy about my age, probably older, with silver, almost-white hair and entrancing blue eyes. He was much taller than me, but I was only 5"3', therefore I predicted his height to be 5"8'. He was thin, but not overly so, yet still very handsome.
We stood there staring at each other for a while, both surprised to see one another down there. He talked first, breaking the silence. I figured he was much older than me because he voice had already changed.
"Who are you?" he asked, "What are you doing down here? How did you get down here?" I didn't know what to say at first, but I decided that I shouldn't give my name away just yet. So, I answered question number three.
"It's my first day here and I was on my way to the bathroom and came across a door that was partway open. I tend to be very curious, so I couldn't help but go through the door and down the many, many stairs behind it. So, I'm technically not down here for any reason. What about you? Who are you? Why are you down here? And why are you behind bars?" I just stared at him, hoping I would get some sort of useful answer.
"My name is Draco Malfoy and I'm 16 years old." He announced, "I go to Hogwarts and am in my sixth year there, or should be, but I may not be. Never mind." I must have had a really confused look on my face. I adjusted my expression and let him continue, "Now, I've answered one of your questions, in detail not to mention, so you can answer one of mine. Who are you?"
I shifted uncomfortably. I wasn't sure if I should give my name out. Yet, he had given me his so, I took a deep breath and answered his question, hesitantly at first.
"I'm Alexi, Alexi Hilroy." I became more confident and continued on. "My friends call me Lexi. I'm fifteen years old and I'm just going to be starting magic school here at Camelot." I let out all the breath I'd been holding. He smiled at me.
"There," he said, "Now that wasn't so hard was it?" He had an amazing smile that just made you melt when it was sent in your direction. I looked away, feeling my face becoming redder. When my face was back to its normal colour, I looked back up to Draco.
"So," I started, "why are you be-" I stopped mid sentence and we both fell as quiet as we could be. I darted my eyes to the corner from which I had come around. He must have heard it to, for he was looking the same way. There were shuffling steps coming from the stairway I had come down. I turned back to him, a look of distress across my face.
"What am I going to do?" I whispered. I closed my eyes and prayed that I were invisible so I wouldn't be found down there. I opened them to see Draco looking around, confused. It was as if he was looking for something, or someone.
"Lexi?" he whispered, "Lexi, where are you?" I stared at him.
"I'm right here," I answered, "Can't you see me?" That was when I realized that he couldn't. I'd forgotten all about my special powers. I had made myself invisible just by closing my eyes and wishing for it to happen.
"No, I can't see you," said Draco irritably, "but I can see your backpack." He added pointing to the ground beside my feet. I closed my eyes and concentrated on making the bag disappear. When I opened them, I saw that Draco was looking to my left, hoping that he was looking at me. He had his right hand in thumbs up to indicate that the bag was gone, just as I was, and he was smiling.
"Thanks, Draco. Bye." I whispered before slipping away from his cell and towards the stairs. When I turned the corner, I saw that there was a man coming down the corridor towards me. He had in his hands a little plate with the tiniest bit of food on it and I figured that he was bringing it to Draco. I felt very sorry for him and wanted to go back, but then I remembered my friends. I realized I must have been down there for about 15 minutes and they would probably start wondering where I had gone. I hurried my way back up the stairs and found my friends.
The next day I woke up early and couldn't fall back asleep. I got dressed and headed to the common room, which was deserted and cold. The fire that had been blazing in the grate the night before had diminished into a small pile of coals. I went over to it, put a log on top and poked at the coals to try and get it to start. Then I remembered that I was at a magic school and I could just use magic to start it. I held out my right hand and closed my eyes. I opened them when I felt the heat of the flames on my hand and I pulled one of the big armchairs closer to the fire.
I sat there for a long time thinking about how different my life was going to be now that I was going to be living away from home and going to be learning magic. Before I got my letter, I lived at home with my Muggle mother and my wizard father. After my thirteenth birthday, when I didn't get an acceptance letter to Hogwarts, my parents figured I had more of my mom's genes and not enough magic in me. You could imagine how excited they were when I got accepted to Camelot. They threw me a huge party, but it was only for us, including my older brother, Tom.
Tom is two years older and was in his last year at Hogwarts when I started school at Camelot. I was looking forward to going to the same school as him. We went to school together when we were younger, but that wasn't magic school. I have a feeling I missed out on a lot, not going to the same school as him.
Although, right now, I'm just happy I got to go to magic school at all. I would've felt extremely left out if I weren't a witch, as if my parents were disappointed in me on the inside, but wouldn't let me see it. As I stared at the flames in the fireplace, thinking about all this, I noticed that people had started to wake up and come downstairs to the Novaculite common room. Fifteen minutes after people had begun to arrive, Tessie came down and sat in one of the other big chairs by the fire, where she could see me. I would have moved back, but I was too tired to even get up.
"Down here already?" she asked me, "How long have you been awake?" She looked at me anxiously.
"I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep," I answered, "The sun had just started to rise. It must have been between 5:30 and 5:45."
"Wow," Tessie raised her eyebrows at me. "You've been up for a while. Aren't you tired?" I looked over at her and could see the concern in her eyes.
"Yeah," I answered, "I am a bit tired. It's probably not the best thing for me to be tired on the first day of classes is it?" I smiled out of the corner of my mouth and let out a breathy laugh. Tessie shook her head at me.
"Maybe you should skip breakfast and try to get some rest." She suggested, "I could bring you up a piece of toast if you like?"
"That's probably a good idea, but I won't be able to sleep," I said and then I yawned. That's when Kalan came bounding up to the fireplace.
"Hey guys!" he said, cheerily, "Ready to go down for breakfast?" Just watching him with all that energy made me feel wearier and I yawned again. I turned back to Tessie.
"You know, maybe I'll go for that rest you suggested." I told her. She nodded and I got out of my big, comfy chair. They helped me put the chair back where it belonged before I headed up the stairs to our bedroom.
I was awoken just over an hour later to Tessie shaking my shoulders. When I sat up, I saw that she'd brought me the toast, like she said she would, and it was sitting on a napkin on my bedside table. I thanked her and ate it up before getting out of bed and changing back out of my pajamas. Fifteen minutes later, I had my books ready and the three of us were set to head off to our first magical class of our lives.
Our first class started at 9:30am and it was Transfiguration, the art of changing one thing into another. We got there at 9:20am to make sure we wouldn't be late.
Our teacher was Professor James Johnson. It was only his second year teaching at Camelot. He was quite young, maybe in his mid-twenties and was probably the coolest teacher I'd ever had. He was really laid-back and easy-going. We called him Professor JJ.
The walls of his classroom were decorated with posters of animals and objects with their transfiguration steps. There were rats into water goblets, mice into coffee mugs, birds into picture frames and more. On Professor JJ's desk, there were piles of paper, and behind that, a door, which most likely led to his office.
Class started three minutes after the bell rang. Professor JJ was standing in front of his desk, beaming. I hadn't even noticed that he had arrived, but he looked as excited as I felt.
For our first day, we just went through our textbooks and started working on a spell called Avifors, which can change stone into birds. All we did was read about it and Professor JJ said we'd start trying the spell during our next class. My excitement for starting magic school vanished when he assigned us a page of notes on the spell Avifors, its pros and cons and things that could make it faulty and go wrong.
Our class after that was Potions with Professor Marino who was a very understanding, but strict woman. I hoped it would be easy an easy class, as I was a good cooker and worked well in the kitchen with ingredients and such things. Unfortunately, Potions is much more complicated and much more precise, but I was able to get the hang of it pretty quickly.
Lunch was next and I was starving. Tessie, Kalan and I went back to our dormitories to drop off our book bags before heading to the Food Hall. I decided to keep mine and maybe try to understand a bit more about the Avifors spell, because I was stumbling with it a bit.
As I was stuffing my face in the Food Hall, I all of a sudden saw a picture flash in front of my eyes. It was of a man with a tiny plate of food in his hand and then I saw a boy with blonde hair behind bars. I abruptly stopped eating, feeling, all of a sudden, not hungry and very guilty. Both of my friends looked at me.
"Are you alright, Lexi?" asked Kalan, looking over at me from the other side of the table. "How come you're not eating?" I looked up into his face.
"I, well I," I couldn't find the words for an excuse, "I think I ate too fast. I think I should just take a break. I'm fine. Don't worry about me." Kalan shrugged and went back to eating, and so did Tessie after staring me down, hard.
I sighed, thinking of poor, starving Draco. I wished there was something I could do for him, I wished he were able to eat more than what he was given. And then I realized I was staring right at the thing I could do to help. I looked around to make sure no one was watching me, and then stuffed some pieces of bread into my book bag. Luckily no one saw me so I took another stab at stealing some food. In the end, I had three pieces of bread, a couple pieces of sandwich and some deserts.
Before heading off to our afternoon classes, we had to go back up to the dormitories so Tessie and Kalan could get their book bags. I also dropped off the food I'd collected and hid it away where no one would find it.
The classes we had that afternoon were Defense against the Dark Arts and Charms. I got more and more homework by the class and by 4 o'clock, when classes had finally finished, I had a ton of it and didn't know if I'd be able to finish it all in one night. But that was swept out of my mind as I remembered that I had to take care of something. Kalan and Tessie were sitting in the common room playing a game of cards. Regular, Muggle cards that everyone thought were extremely weird because they weren't magical.
"Hey, guys," I said as I approached, after being in our dormitory, "I'm going to study some. I'll see you two at supper, alright?" I slung my book bag over my shoulder and started to walk away.
"Hold on a sec," said Tessie, stopping me in my tracks, "Why don't you just study here?" she asked me, gesturing to the empty chairs all around the common room. I sighed.
"Well because I won't be able to concentrate," I said, "Plus, while I was going to the bathroom yesterday, I found the perfect place to work where I wouldn't be disturbed. But I promise I'll see you two at dinner. Bye!" I hurried away from them before they could ask me where this study place was.