A/N: Hello everyone! Another story for me to begin but never finish…PSYCH!! I will finish them someday…I promise! Anywho, this one involves an OC in Hogwarts! Exciting, right? I'm excited…well, I hope you like it! On with the story!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my OC. That's it. I own her. Everything else belongs to the lovely J.K. Rowling.
Ch.1
Have you ever felt like you were the only person in the room, even though you were surrounded by a large group of people? Have you ever felt so isolated, so out of place, so left out, that you almost wanted to pass out or die right then and there to see if anyone would even notice you?
That was how I felt that day, the day that I was boarding the train to Hogwarts. Surrounded by people, yet no one even knew I was there.
A song from the musical Chicago began to play in my head as I climbed up the stairs and walked into the first empty corridor, sliding the door shut behind me. "Cellophane/Mister Cellophane/Should have been my name/Mister Cellophane/'Cause you can look right through me/Walk right by me/And never know I'm there…" I collapsed in a heap in one of the chairs and looked out the window. All of the people out there were talking to people, laughing, a few crying (the parents, anyways). Hugs and kisses all around. It would have been nice if my dad would have come with me on this crazy train, but no, he has to meet me at the school.
I sighed. 'This was going to be a long trip…' I told myself, beginning to search through my bag for some chap stick.
The door slid open suddenly, and there stood an Asian-looking girl about my age (which would be 15, in case you were wondering) with long black hair that was curled slightly at the ends and strikingly light brown eyes, which were large with surprise.
"Oh…I'm sorry…I didn't mean to…umm…here, I'll leave you be…" I could tell she was shy. I was too (sort of), but I wasn't going to miss this opportunity to meet someone so I wouldn't have to go into the school alone.
"No, no, come on in," I said with a smile, "it's fine."
She smiled a bit. "Umm…okay." She came in and sat down across from me. She was pretty; I'm not going to lie. Dressed in a black t-shirt (with something on it, I couldn't tell what it was) with light colored jeans and pointy black flats, I could tell she knew how to dress. Either that, or she liked black.
"Umm…I've never seen you before. Are you new?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Long story…but yeah, I'm new. Just transferred from Ashberry."
"Ashberry…" Her eyes got big again. "Isn't that in America?"
I nodded again. "Yep. It is."
"That must be a long story then, to come all the way here from America. What state are you from?"
They always have to ask. "Indiana."
"Indiana? I've never been there."
I laughed a bit. "Well, besides Indianapolis, there's not really all that much to look at. Except corn. Have you been to America before?"
"Only New York City. That was fun, though. I loved Times Square." She smiled. She had a nice smile.
"You know, until I took the plane here, I had never been to New York City. It is a really great place, I will agree." I paused, realizing something. "Hey…what's your name?"
"Oh my goodness!" She jumped up to her feet. "I am so sorry! Su Li," she responded, sticking out her hand.
"Krystel Koromashi," I replied, shaking her hand.
"Koromashi…isn't that an Asian name?"
I nodded. "Japanese."
"Oh, okay. That makes sense, I guess…you don't look Asian, though."
I really didn't look like what people would expect with my last name. I had dark cherry red hair, blue eyes, was about 5'6", pale, and was a little bit overweight. The only things that made me look Asian were my slanted eyes, which, even with those, weren't that noticeable.
"I know. I'm only half Asian, on my dad's side. But, even with that, I came out looking like an American." We both laughed a bit at that.
"Well, Su, I'm happy to meet you."
She nodded. "I'm happy to meet you, too."
~*~
Su and I talked the entire train ride. I discovered that she was of Korean descent (and went back to South Korea at least once a year), liked the same music as I did (what was on her shirt was Ayumi Hamasaki's "A" logo, who turned out to be her favorite Asian singer, which is the same as me), loved to read, was extremely active in her church's youth group program (she had been to 3 different countries on missions, which I thought was amazing), and had an obsession with chocolate and shoes. She was pretty much my twin.
"So, what house are you going to be in?" She asked about fifteen minutes before the train arrived at its destination. I could see the faint outline of mountains and what appeared to be a giant castle in the distance.
"…House?" I had no idea what she was talking about.
"Yeah…like…what dorm section are you going to be put in?"
"Oh…well…no one ever told me about that…I don't know." She looked confused that I didn't know about this "House" thing. "At Ashberry, we had four girls to a room, all spread out over the school."
"Well, Hogwarts has these things called 'Houses'. There's four of them…Gryffindor," she proceeded to count them off on her fingers, which I noticed had black nail polish on the nails, "Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw (which I'm in), and Slytherin. Each of the houses has a different trait that goes along with it. Gryffindor is bravery, Hufflepuff is patience, Ravenclaw is wisdom, and Slytherin is cunning, but not everyone in each house matches these descriptions. It's more of a…general thing."
I nodded, sort of understanding. "Okay…so, is it like, boys in one house, girls in another, or how does that work?"
She laughed a bit. "Oh no! The houses are co-ed. The rooms are split up, of course, but we're still around each other all the time."
I sighed a sigh of relief. "Well, that's good, because I didn't want to not be able to meet any new hot boys soon."
She laughed. "Oh, there's quite a few to choose from." She then looked out the window. "Hey, we're almost at school. We should probably get our robes on."
"All righty then." I stood up and grabbed my purse, following her out of the corridor. "Hey Su, when we get there, I have to go straight to…" I grabbed the paper from my pocket. "Headmaster…Dumbledore's office. Do you know where that is?"
"Of course I do!" She said over her shoulder, still walking towards where the robes were kept. "Do you need someone to show you the way?"
"That would be nice, would you?"
She nodded. "Sure thing. Not a problem." The train began to slow down a bit. I followed her into the back room, where we grabbed our robes and put them on. The train put on its brakes, lurching forward slightly.
"Follow me." Su said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me along through the crowd of Hogwarts students.
~*~
"How much farther is it?" I asked, a little perplexed. Hogwarts, on the inside, was dark and full of shadows. It was really creeping me out. I was hoping that whatever house I got stuck in was a little more cheery than this.
Oh, did I mention it was really cold? They evidently didn't believe in central heating.
"No, not much farther. It's actually right ahead."
"…Su…there's a statue right ahead."
"I know." She said, stopping in front of the statue. She then said something (it sounded like "lemon berry wedges", but I couldn't really make it out), and pushed me back a bit. The statue swung open, and there stood a new, spiral staircase to climb up.
'Random…' I thought to myself as I followed Su up the stairs, watching her hair swish back and forth. I really wished I could make my hair do that.
Candles were arranged the entire way up, the flames flickering shadows on the walls. I would have thought it was a cool effect, even to the point of wishing I had a camera to film it, except for the fact that it was in such a way that creeped me out even more. There were a few random gargoyle-looking statues on the sides of the walls, and a few windows very high up on the wall.
The stairway was short, which was good, since I'm a tad claustrophobic, and it was a bit narrow. It opened up into an extremely large area, filled with clocks, beakers, tables, cages, and anything else imaginable. It was better lit than what else I had seen of the place, all done with candles. I followed Su into the sea of thingamabobs, which was easier navigated than I had thought. Towards the back of the room, I saw a large wooden desk, with a very elderly man sitting behind it in a large chair. He had a very long, very white beard, half-moon shaped silver glasses which sat on the edge of his nose, and a robe of moons and stars on. To his left, on the desk, was sitting a very large hat with the same pattern.
He was talking to someone in the chair opposite him when we approached the desk. Hearing our footsteps, he looked up, and an expression of warmth came over his wrinkled face.
"Hello Su, it's wonderful to see you!" he said to Su. She beamed.
"Hello Professor! How was your summer?"
"Oh, summer for me as usual…eventful." He winked, and she smiled. "I see you brought Miss Koromashi. Thank you very much, Su. I had hoped that someone nice would be able to aid her today."
"It was no problem, Professor. We met on the train by chance, and she said she needed to see you, so I brought her up here."
"Well, thank you, Su. I hope you will continue to aid Miss Koromashi while she's here." He looked at a clock on his wall. "Now, you should probably go join everyone else for the opening ceremony."
"Yes, Sir." She said with a bow. "Bye, Professor!" She turned on her heels and ran out. Her run was more like a cross between a power walk and a skip. It was interesting to watch.
"Bye, dear." He then looked at me. "Well, Krystel, it's wonderful to see you arrived here all right, and that someone was nice enough to help you up here." He gestured to the other chair across from him. "Go ahead and take a seat. There are a few things we should probably all discuss before you join your classmates."
I sat down in the chair, looked over, and, lo and behold, there was my dad, sitting there, looking over a book in front of him, completely oblivious to the fact that I had even come in the room. I took out a pencil from my purse and poked him in the arm with it.
"Hey!" He said, jumping and finally noticing I was there. "Oh…it's you. Scared me for a second there. Hey, sweetie. How was the train ride?"
"Fun." I said with a smile.
"Well, since we're all present and accounted for now," Dumbledore began, folding his hands, "we should probably get started. First thing's first, I want to welcome you to Hogwarts, Krystel. I know it must not be easy to transfer to a school so far away when you're so close to graduating, but I and the rest of my staff will do our best to make sure that your stay here is as lovely as we can. I also know that your circumstances are a bit difficult right now, so if you ever need anything, anything at all…" He pointed to himself. "I will be here."
I smiled. "Why thank you, Professor…that is very kind."
He smiled back, and then looked at my dad. "And, Ben, it's very nice to see you again. I haven't seen you in quite some time…probably since you were in school here, right?"
My dad nodded. "About that long, I'm sure." He looked around the room. "It sure is nice to be back here again. I've got so many memories wrapped up in this room alone…"
"I'm sure you do, all the times you got sent to my office. Your father was a troublemaker in his day, you know." He directed that at me. I nodded and smiled.
"I know, sir. Sad to say, I think a bit of it has rubbed off on me."
He laughed. "Well, then, I expect you to be in my office quite a bit then." He winked. "Just kidding, of course."
My dad rubbed my shoulder with a smile on his face. This was strange for him…he was actually being affectionate in some sort of way. Crazy stuff.
"Secondly, we need to decide what house she should be in."
A light bulb went off in my head. "Oh! Su and I were talking about those on the way here, on the train."
Dumbledore nodded. "Wonderful. Unfortunately, the Sorting Hat is not present, since the Sorting Ceremony for the first years is currently taking place, so we can't sort you traditionally. I'm just going to have to base it off my own good judgment. Now…" He paused, looking at both me and my dad intently. "Ben, you were a…Gryffindor, correct?"
"Yes, Sir, I was."
"Hmm…well, Slytherin is out of the question, and Ravenclaw seems a little…out of place for her." He stared at me some more. His eyes almost seemed to go into my soul. I'm not gonna lie, it was a bit creepy. "Right now, I'm thinking either Hufflepuff or Gryffindor for you, Krystel. You would work well in either one." He stopped. "Wait…you are honest…and a little gullible (to which, in response, my dad chuckled a bit. I threw the pencil I had poked him with earlier at him)…but you're also brave…braver than you think…you've been through a lot in the past few years, haven't you?
'A lot' was an understatement. Ashberry, while not a place I would want to live at year round (as some kids did), was the place I considered home, especially in the past 3 years. When I came home from school for the summer my 3rd year, I could tell something was wrong. My mother wouldn't even look me in the eyes anymore. As the days turned into weeks, she started to drop things, misplace things more often, and run into things, things like that. My mom never did that as much as she started doing it then. Going back to Ashberry after that…I kept receiving word that she was getting worse and worse. This summer, I was sent to live with my dad, because my mother's mind had officially "snapped". She lost her mind. She was presently in the "Looney bin" in a section of a hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.
"Yes…I guess you could say that."
"…Gryffindor. You should be in Gryffindor. You would be a wonderful addition to that house." Dumbledore sat back, satisfied.
'How did he do that?' I wondered to myself. He was a very powerful wizard, though, so I figured he used some sort of extremely powerful power to come up with that. Then, I realized that I had thought of the phrase "extremely powerful power", and I laughed to myself.
"Wonderful!" My dad exclaimed. "Another Koromashi in Gryffindor. Maybe it'll be a tradition now."
"Yeah, a tradition of troublemaking…" I added with a smirk.
"Well…I think that is all that is necessary to cover with the both of you at this time. I will have all of your things taken to up to the Gryffindor common room for you, and put in this 6th year area, Miss Koromashi." Dumbledore waved his hand. "You will not have to lift a finger until you get to your room. I can get your things up there, but I won't put it away for you."
I smiled. "Thank you, sir."
"I hope you will have a wonderful year here, Miss Koromashi. Remember…if you need anything, I'm here."
I nodded. "Yes, I will remember that."
He smiled, eyes twinkling. I knew I would be able to talk to this guy if I needed it He was like the nice grandfather I never had. Or…great grandfather. Whichever. "Ben," he started, "why don't you lead your daughter to the Gryffindor area? I'm sure you remember where it is."
"Yes, sir. I will do that." He stood up, and I stood up to follow him. He gave a wave, and I waved back, smiling. I followed my dad out of the room and down the stair way.
"Krys, are you nervous about this?" my dad asked as we were going down the stairs.
I chuckled a bit. "Of course not. Why would I be?" The words dripped with sarcasm.
He shook his head, and I could see his shoulders moving from laughing. We walked down the staircase and back out into the large hallway that Su and I came through.
He suddenly stopped and turned around, grabbing me by the shoulders. Not roughly, but in a…fatherly way, I guess. I think he could see the surprise in my eyes by this, so he took one of his hands and ran it against my cheek.
I love my dad. I do. But this was so out of the ordinary for him to do. Whenever we were around each other, we would just sit on the couch, one seat apart. Never be affectionate; never tell each other how much we truly cared for one another. Nothing like that. Of course, since my parents had been divorced since I was about 2, and with mom choosing to stay in America while my dad moved back to England, it wasn't very often we saw each other. I guess he realized now that…well…we had to stick together.
Something like that. Anyways, back to the story. "Krys…" he said, looking me straight in the eyes, his own brown eyes (which were quite lovely, I'm not gonna lie…I wish I would have gotten his eyes instead of my mom's) glistening from…wait…were those tears? No way! "I know that this whole…thing…has been hard on you, and that this is not going to be the easiest thing for you to deal with right now…a new school and all…but…I just want you to know that…that…umm…" His eyes started to really tear up right now. Affection was never his strong point, so I just took the lead. I pulled him into a hug.
"I know, dad…I know. Same here." I said. We knew what we were saying without even having to say it. That's just how we worked.
We broke off the hug, and I followed him to the Gryffindor area, him pointing out things he remembered, and me laughing along with him.
A/N: Okay…I hope that wasn't a) too long, or b) too cheesy. Haha. Well, tell me what you think! Review, review, review! Thank you all!
