This story takes place at the same time as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and is written as though it could be canon - as in, nothing that happens in it should interfere with or contradict the events of the original novel. This is both a fun fic for me to write, and an interesting writing experiment for me, that I hope will help me develop my skills. I plan to, as much as possible, post a new chapter every other week (though since I am in the process of moving, that might initially prove difficult).
I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
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Cheep. Chirp! CHEEP!
The chirping of the birds always ended up acting as Samantha's alarm clock in the summer - waking her up way before she otherwise naturally would have. She had long ago learned to adapt to this by going to bed early, because her parents had shot down her initial idea of chopping off all the limbs of the large tree that grew in their house's yard, right outside her window.
She yawned, slowly sitting up and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Though she couldn't yet see it, she could feel her long brown hair was yet again a collection of frizzy, tangled puffs about her head. She'd tried putting her hair up in a bun at night, but found she couldn't stand the feeling of it being pulled, even in a loose bun.
After her mind finally felt awake enough to support basic movement, she swung her feet out of bed and hopped onto the floor. Her spotted blue pjs had scrunched up around her torso and upper legs, as they tended to. A few tugs and twists fixed them. Then she headed for the bathroom, which was across and down the hall a small ways. It was far too early, especially for a Saturday in the middle of July, for anyone else to be awake, so she had the room to herself.
Once she'd taken a leak and brushed her teeth, she stared at her freckled visage in the mirror and reluctantly attended to the mess that was her hair. It took a good fifteen or twenty minutes, not to mention lots of gritting of teeth and barely suppressed yelps, but she eventually returned her hair to its usual straight and relatively neat form.
Finished with her morning ritual, she headed downstairs, treading quietly so as not to bother her likely still sleeping parents. Shuffling across the tiled kitchen, she scooped a bowl out of a cabinet, and soon was placing it, a spoon and a box of Ricicles cereal on the dining room table. Soon after pouring the milk and putting it back into the fridge, the sounds of shuffling feet upstairs met her ears, and by the time she was gulping down her last bite, her mother was waltzing into the kitchen.
"Ah, Mark, you're already up!" she said, as though this were a surprise and not exactly what had been happening all summer for the past few years. Samantha winced at the sound of her, technically legal, but no less inappropriate, 'guy' name. In fairness to her mother, Samantha had never divulged her real name, but in fairness to Samantha, she had never been given any reason by either of her parents to expect that they would actually use it.
"Hey, Mom," Samantha grumbled, doing her best to keep irritation out of her voice and mostly succeeding. One did get used to stifling such emotion, afterall.
"Mark! Up nice and early, as usual," said Samantha's dad at his usual thunderous volume. She wasn't sure if it was just that no one had ever actually told him that he constantly spoke too loud, or if he had tried but failed to lower the volume his voice apparently naturally came out at, but at least she was rarely ever surprised by it anymore. She made her way to the sink to wash her bowl and spoon as her father walked past her to examine the inner contents of the fridge.
Her dad was a very tall, very thick man. He had a black beard that was just as thick as the rest of him, but well-groomed, and covering most of his lower face, including above his lips. The rest of his body was almost equally hairy, something he prided himself on, though Samantha honestly found it a little disturbing. Her mother, on the other hand, was very thin and lanky, and virtually hairless besides the top of her head. Interestingly, though, she wasn't much shorter than her husband, something that worried Samantha - she really didn't want to be taller than all the other girls at school... she had enough trouble fitting in with them already. Her mother's short brown hair hung loosely around the shoulders, and her mom's face looked young and beautiful even without makeup, at least as far as Samantha was concerned. She hoped to look so good at 45.
A small clinking and flopping sound from the entrance hall caught the ear of all three family members. Not particularly wanting to deal with it, Samantha held up her wet and soapy hands for her parents to see, a mischievous grin spread across her face. With a roll of the eyes and a small 'harrumph', her father closed the fridge door and went to collect the day's mail. She knew he didn't actually mind too much, though - he quite enjoyed flipping through the daily mail, and had always been rather happy about the fact that their house was the first on the street to be visited by the mail carrier.
"Ah, wonderful!" Samantha heard him say, loud enough to be an announcement. "Good, Mark, I was planning on talking to you today about this anyway!" he said once he returned, sitting at the dining table and dropping all but one of the letters onto its surface. An eyebrow raised, Samantha cautiously sat across from her father, eyes on the mysterious letter.
Silence ensued as her father opened the envelope and read its contents, after which his face lit up and he proudly proclaimed, "You made it in! As I knew you would!"
Blinking irritatedly, Samantha cocked her head to the side and said, "Made it into what?"
Sliding the torn envelope across the table, her father said, with a giant smile on his face, "You've been accepted into Smith Hollow, a prestigious private school!"
Samantha grabbed the envelope, barely stopping it from falling off the table. She tentatively turned it over, irritated to see "M. Johnston" as the person it was addressed to, despite knowing it would be. She pulled out the slightly crumpled letter that her father had haphazardly pushed back into the envelope, flattening it out so she could read it. Suddenly her body went cold, and it felt as though her heart had stopped. "S-Smith Hollow's School for Boys!?" she cried, a definite note of panic in her voice. "You enrolled me in a private all-boys school!?"
Her father's large grin quickly turned into an angry grimace. "Of course I did! It's a very prestigious school!" he said, as though repeating its apparent virtue would make her happier about it. His tone, as always, conveyed the sense that he was both surprised and offended that Samantha would be anything but happy about what he'd just said.
"B-but dad!" she said, trying to prevent the buildup of panicked tears and failing miserably. "I don't want-"
"Why wouldn't you want to go!?" he roared, rising to his feet and thus his full, intimidating height. Samantha's wide hazel eyes flitted over to her mother, last seen by the stove, desperate for any help she could get. But, predictably, her mother was turned away from the incident, tacitly endorsing the whole scene with her silence, but ostensibly letting her husband be the 'bad guy'.
"I'm not-" Samantha started to reply, stopping herself as her brain reminded her of where this well-worn path always led. "I'm not a boy..." she said meekly, despite herself.
The furious man before her visibly twitched, a vein bulging in his neck. "You are a boy, and it's my hope that you attending this school will finally force you to accept it!" He slammed his fist on the table in frustration before standing at his full height once more. "I'm so tired of this 'I'm a girl' nonsense! What's in your pants and on your birth certificate say otherwise. It's crazy of you to try to deny it, and I just won't have it!
Samantha said nothing, staring furiously at her lap, arms crossed and tears streaming down her face. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed her father sitting back down, calmed.
"Karen, I was thinking," he muttered, though even his muttering voice was oddly loud, "tomorrow's Sunday, but the store in London that they sell Smith Hollow uniforms at is open every day. I was thinking you could take the boy to get his uniform."
"Sure, dear," she said, setting a plate of eggs in front of her husband and another in front of an empty chair, which she then sat in.
His smile returning, Samantha's father gave a curt nod and stared back at her. "Hear that, son? Tomorrow you'll get your uniform! I know you're upset now, but I'm sure you'll have a great year, and I'm sure the uniform will look so handsome on you!"
"Sure," she muttered, pushing her chair away from the table and standing up to leave. As she sulked toward the front door, desperate to get out of the house, she heard her father say, "I just don't understand that kid. But Smith Hollow will sort him out, you'll see!"
The next day, Samantha and her mother took a train to London. The still sulking girl had to be practically dragged into the uniform shop.
"Ah, Smith Hollow! Yes, yes, of course!" said the withered old woman at the front counter. "Just this way, and we'll have someone take your measurements."
They were led down a short hallway and into a square, mirrored room. Soon enough, Samantha was standing on a footstool while a pretty blonde woman ran measuring tape up and down her thin, gangly body. After a few minutes, the woman was done with the preliminary measurements, and walked away to grab a uniform. She was back more quickly than expected however, her face confused.
"I swear I wrote it all down, but... Well, the sheet is blank! I must have lost the one I was writing on somehow..." She glanced around, and so did both Samantha and her mother, though Samantha did so half-heartedly at best. There was no extra sheet to be found. "I-I'm sorry..." the woman said, still looking very puzzled. "I'll just have to do it again, real quick..."
Samantha shrugged, in no way trying to hide her apathy for the whole affair. A few minutes later, the woman walked away again to grab a uniform, and this time managed to return with one in tow.
Reluctantly, Samantha began to change into it, but soon dropped the the tailcoat to the ground in a crumpled heap. "It's way too small," she said with a frown.
"It can't be that small..." the woman said, picking it up from the floor. When she held it up in front of her, though, it was obvious at a glance that it was sized for a child five or six years younger than Samantha. The woman stared at the size tag, her face conveying utter befuddlement. "It... it says it's the right size though... I know it wasn't this small when I grabbed it..." She continued muttering to herself as she walked away, presumably to retrieve a different uniform. When she returned, it was with a uniform that Samantha was able to easily, if reluctantly, put on.
Both the black tailcoat and the tan trousers sagged in some places, but seemed to fit well otherwise. The blue tie didn't need to be altered. The blonde woman began pinning certain parts of the uniform up, and after around fifteen minutes had the uniform in a state that she seemed pleased with. As she went to write something down, however, every single pin suddenly fell unceremoniously to the ground, causing all three room occupant's eyes to go wide.
"Mark!" yelled Samantha's mom, hands on her hips.
Flailing her arms around, Samantha shook her head back and forth. "Mom, I didn't! I was just standing here! I barely moved!"
"This poor woman has had enough accidents happen today, young man, and she doesn't need your shenanigans making things worse!"
"Mom, I swear I didn't!" Samantha whined, completely at a loss as to how to prove her innocence.
The blonde woman waved a hand, her face matching the exasperated sigh that escaped her lips. "It's fine. It's... fine. I'll just do it again, and then we can be done, okay?" She looked pointedly at Samantha with that last line, and Samantha glared back, refusing to admit guilt in any way when she knew herself to be innocent.
About fifteen more minutes later, everything was pinned up again, and about ten minutes after that, Samantha and her mother stood in front of the wizened old woman at the front counter, waiting for the blonde woman to bring out the uniform that they would be taking home. Mere seconds later the woman appeared, and draped the uniform over the counter. Wasting no time, the old woman rang the purchase up, but when she lifted the uniform to hand to Samantha's mother, she stopped, staring at it in irritation.
"Becky!" she called, stopping the retreating blonde woman in her tracks. "This uniform is far too small for this young man! You must have mixed it up!" As everyone besides the old woman's eyes traveled to the clothes, they all realized that, indeed, the uniform was too small for anyone within Samantha's age group.
"I, I... I'm sorry, I'll go fix it..." Becky said, utterly baffled.
"Nice girl, but a bit absent-minded," the old woman said with a smile, folding her arms in front of her as Becky walked away.
With a curt nod and a small sigh, Samantha's mother said, "We'd noticed," Samantha stared at the hall Becky had retreated down, an eyebrow raised. At first, it had seemed like the blonde woman was just very unlucky, but then with the pins suddenly falling out... It seemed to Samantha as though that woman had supernaturally bad luck.
"Here you go," Becky said some time later, dropping a new uniform on the counter, her face noticeably haggard.
Samantha and her mother paid and left without further incident, and when they got home Samantha was reduced to frustrated tears once more as her father waxed poetic about how amazing the uniform looked, and how wonderful the coming school year would be. As soon as she'd scarfed down dinner, she made a break for the stairs, carrying the accursed uniform with her and tossing it angrily to the floor of her room.
She grabbed her copy of Return of the King and plopped onto her bed, doing her best to lose herself in the world of the book. Yet try as she might, her eyes inevitably wandered back to the awful clothes lying on the ground. Eventually, she tossed the book to the ground too, flicked off her reading lamp, and tried to go to sleep, hoping to forget within her dreams the awful mess her life was due to become.
Eventually, sleep found her, but the uniform haunted every dream she had.
The next morning, the chirping of birds waking her as usual, she glanced sullenly at the ground where her uniform lay. Something seemed off about it, though. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, but still, something didn't seem right about the lump of clothes on the other end of the room. Still a bit groggy, she pushed herself to her feet and walked over to examine the offensive cloth.
A few paces away from it, she suddenly froze, eyes wide. Instead of the tailcoat, trousers and tie that had been there last night, before her eyes was a black blouse with blue accents and a tan, knee-length skirt.
"Wh-wha...?" she said, shaking. How in the world could this have happened? It was the same colors as the uniform from yesterday, but it was clearly meant for a girl. "What the bloody hell!?" she yelled in surprise, clasping her hands to her mouth almost immediately.
Standing frozen, she listened intently, trying to ignore the tweeting of the birds to listen for sounds of movement from down the hall. It seemed as though she might be in the clear, but then she heard a telltale creak, and her panic went into overdrive.
In a flash, she scooped the uniform up, practically leaped over to her closet, and flung it open, just as the door to her room did the same. Terrified, her eyes moved shakily to her room's entrance, to see none other than her sleepy-looking father in the doorframe.
"Is something wrong, so..." He trailed off as his eyes suddenly caught sight of the new uniform lying in Samantha's hands, the tan skirt undoubtedly unmistakable from his vantage point.
Puffing up, the tiredness on his face instantly disappeared and he said, "What... the hell... is that!?"
Samantha mumbled incoherently, a deer caught in the headlights of a monster truck.
"Explain yourself, boy! What are you doing with a skirt!?" her father roared, filling up the entire doorway. His eyes cast about the room, then locked back on Samantha. "And where the bloody hell is your school uniform!?"
"I... I-I-I..."
Her father stormed over to her, wrenching the new uniform from her grasp, and stared intently at it, as though he could will it into the uniform it should be with his gaze. "This... these are the same colors as your school uniform! Where the hell did you get this!?" He threw it to the ground, looking angrily around the room. Samantha noticed her mother's head briefly pop into view, only to disappear again seconds later. A few moments after that, her father rounded on her again.
"WHERE IS YOUR UNIFORM, BOY!?" he shouted. Given his normal voice was already basically a shout, when he was actually TRYING to yell, the sound was almost deafening.
"I-I... I d-don't know, Dad... I..."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW!?"
Trembling uncontrollably, Samantha tried her best to avoid stuttering as she again attempted a response. "It was... it was on the floor when I went to sleep, but... But then that one with the skirt was there when I woke up..."
"ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME IT JUST MAGICALLY APPEARED? DO I LOOK STUPID TO YOU, BOY!?" her father raged, towering over her as though he were a giant and she were Jack.
"I don't... I don't know, Dad... It was just there..." she said, tears crawling down her cheeks.
"STOP LYING TO ME!" the man roared, gritting his teeth in an utterly terrifying display.
"I-I-I..."
"YOU'RE GROUNDED!" he thundered, finally turning away and stomping toward the door. "If you don't bring your uniform downstairs with you to breakfast, you'll be grounded even longer!" he said, not quite yelling this time. His stomps echoed down the hallway, and as Samantha, still shaking, bent to pick up the new uniform, he suddenly appeared in the doorway again, stormed over, and grabbed it from her tiny hands. "And don't think I'm letting you keep this... this thing! No son of mine is wearing something like that!"
He stormed off again, and Samantha simply stood there, still in a daze from what had occurred. After a good ten minutes of blank staring, mind racing to try to explain how she had ended up in this predicament, she finally walked downstairs.
Of course, she didn't have the uniform her father wanted, and thus she was grounded for "even longer", though he made no effort to explain exactly how long that was. Fortunately, Samantha didn't have to deal with her father's raging for much longer, because he had to go to work at the computer company he worked for. Unfortunately, before he left, he insisted that she and her mother return to London and get a new uniform, to which her mother, of course, agreed.
When she went to sleep that night, it was with another ugly Smith Hollow uniform hanging in her closet. And yet, when she awoke the next morning, she was greeted by another feminine uniform hanging in the exact place the other uniform had been, and later that morning was greeted by more yelling and a further extended grounding sentence.
This whole series of events happened one more time before her father finally decreed her grounded for the whole summer, and decided that the uniform would be kept in a separate room, so that she could no longer "mess with it."
Despite the frustration this whole scenario left her with, a not insubstantial part of her was rather tickled about it. If she had to be miserable, at least her father got to be, to some extent, as well.
The next morning everything seemed to be normal for once. Her father, when he came downstairs, didn't scream at her about the uniform, so she assumed, wherever they had stashed it, that it did not suddenly have a skirt instead of trousers again. And yet, as it would turn out, today would be the start of a more strange series of events than any that had come before, instigated by an unexpected letter that had arrived with that morning's mail, written in emerald green ink.
