Visitors to the Castle
Intro: Filius Flitwick looked at the couple walking through the gate wondering how they'd gotten inside. "I don't mean to be impolite in any way, but you are Muggles, correct?"
Head cannon goes off with a sign fluttering to the ground. "I don't own Harry Potter but I do play in the Forbidden Forest."
Professor Flitwick stared at the Muggle couple walking through the Hogwarts gate. He'd been charming flowers around the castle grounds when he noticed a movement by the wall, looked around and saw a young man and young woman casually strolling through the gates, heads tilted upward as they looked at the spires high overhead. They had backpacks and walking boots but there was no doubt at all they shouldn't be where they were currently standing, in fact they shouldn't have been closer to the castle than the warning sign saying it was dangerous. But there they were,
right in front of his eyes.
Still holding his wand he walked to where they were gazing up at the castle. "May I help you?" he asked.
"Yes please," the young man said. "We heard there was a haunted castle in the area, we saw the ruins and wanted to take a closer look. At least it was a ruin. Now it's a bloody huge castle. What is this place?"
"Hogwarts school," Flitwick answered easily.
"What's that you have?" the young woman asked. She was looking at his hand.
"It's my wand, of course."
"What's it do?" she asked, a skeptical grin forming on her lips.
"It focuses and channels magical energy," Flitwick said. "I don't mean to be impolite in any way, but you are Muggles, correct?"
The two looked at each other and shook their heads. The young man answered,
"I don't know what the word means so I don't know. Is there a family nearby by that name?"
Flitwick muttered to himself a moment then said, "Well, you're already here,
might as well come in. Would you like some tea?"
The young lady said, "That would be delightful," and looked around at the soaring castle walls. "You say this is Hogwarts school? The hiking maps don't mention a school, just the lake. When we walked past there was something moving in the water,
something big. Do you know what it was? Loch Ness Monster perhaps?"
"The giant squid. It's actually quite friendly if you wish to go swimming," Flitwick answered. "Please come this way and we'll get you sorted out. Come along."
The man turned to his girlfriend and said, "You know, I get the oddest feeling from this place. I know there's no castle around here, we saw the ruins from the bottom of the valley, yet here it is and in good shape. It just can't be here but it's here right in front of me."
The girl smiled, "Yes it is so just enjoy it no matter how odd our guide seems to be. We should have brought the camera. You have your cell?"
He pulled it out of his shirt pocket, pressed a button, pressed it again then again.
"It's dead. I charged it this morning, it should be working. I'd sure like a picture of this castle. I ve never seen anything like it. It's not like Windsor or Arnwen or Balmoral, this place is magnificent." His eyes rose again to gaze at the sight of the tall towers.
"I wonder if they take in guests," he said. "I could spend days in this place it's so ... amazing comes to mind but it's much more than that."
They approached the entrance, walked up the broad marble steps looking at the grooves worn into the stone by many feet over many, many years. The girl looked around at the huge oak doors and said, "Yes, it really is amazing. It has that feel of being well cared for, like people live happy lives here, but still, what he said doesn't make sense. It's a fantasy he's living in, for sure." When they got to the Great Hall both of them stared wide-eyed at the ceiling; it was a view seemingly direct to the sky above.
"Here we go," Flitwick said with a smile. "Tea for four please," and a serving pot and four cups appeared on the table in front of him.
"Please sit and relax," he told the visitors. "The Headmistress will be here shortly.
Would you like a biscuit or cookies?"
"No thanks," the man said, looking at the service sitting on the table then sitting down to take a sip. "This is really excellent tea. You said this is a school. I suppose the students are on summer holiday then?"
"Yes, but they'll be back the first of September," Flitwick said. "For now we're resting up from the year and getting ready for next year's lessons. I'm thinking of changing my curriculum a little to reflect the new Muggle technology. If I may ask, is that one of those cellular telephones I've heard so much about?"
The man held his hand out, opened the phone and frowned again. "I was sure it had a full charge on it this morning when we left the inn but it doesn't look like it wants to work right at the moment." He handed it over to the small man in front of him.
"And what does it do, exactly?" Flitwick asked. He turned the device over in his hands then brought it up to his ear, listened intently a few moments and held it in front of him to look it over again.
"Well it's not the fanciest model on the market," the man said, "but it takes pictures and can bring up the net if a wi-fi is close. But I'm sure you know all that. This one isn't anything special at all."
"So, you can make a telephone call to anyone you want wherever you are?"
Flitwick asked.
"Well, yes, of course," he said. "If it was working I'd show you all the things it can do. Sorry about it's not working at the moment, I don't know what the problem could be."
Flitwick looked up and said, "I suppose it's the castle itself. There's so much magic in the air most electrical things just don't work."
There was the sound of a door and they all turned. The Headmistress strode across the Great Hall with her lips pursed, looking over the visitors. "Good afternoon.
I'm Minerva McGonagall," she said and took a seat. "How is it you came to be here?"
The girl spoke up. "We like castles and heard there was a haunted castle here but we only saw ruins. I know the sign said it was dangerous but we really wanted to experience it and the next thing we knew we were coming through the gates. This place is so beautiful. Odd but beautiful."
"Yes, it is beautiful," McGonagall agreed. "Please understand that we don't take offense at your tenacity and curiosity but we rather prize our privacy. Not that visitors are unwelcome, just that you are not supposed to be able to see Hogwarts at all. It's supposed to be invisible and unplottable so I'm quite interested in knowing how you managed to get inside the gates. And how did you manage to see the castle in the first place? Last I checked the wards and charms were quite well set."
"Wards? Charms?" the girl asked and got that skeptical smile on her face again.
"Is this part of the Society for Creative Anachronism or something?"
McGonagall chuffed her breath and said, "I understand that's a group of people that go about playing kings and knights and whatnot, and no, we are not part of that kind of group."
"So, this is a school then?" she asked and got a nod. "I didn't know of any special academies around here. What's the name of it?"
McGonagall thought a moment and decided it would be better to tell the truth so she could find out how they got here. "This is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We have been teaching young witches and wizards how to use and control their magic for nearly a thousand years here. They start at age eleven and stay for seven years. We primarily teach students from the UK but we do have other students from time to time."
"Witchcraft and wizardry?" the girl asked and got a steady gaze for an answer.
"You're serious then? Witches and wizards? Really? But that's only in fairly tales or Tolkein. Are you like Gandalf then?"
McGonagall smiled softly. "Yes, he was quite the story teller, but no, we are not like that. There are elves and goblins but not in the way he wrote about. We are magical people, yes, but people just like you, just that we go about our lives a bit differently. We prefer to keep our society separate from the Muggles' society for a lot of reasons.
"The more important question is you two," she said. "Perhaps you have some magical ancestors, that might explain how you found yourselves here. Do you have family members that always seemed a bit odd or that went to a private school in Scotland, say for instance, Hogwarts?" McGonagall struggled to keep from smiling.
The two visitors looked at each other then gave small shrugs. The girl turned back to say, "Not really, but there was a story of my great-grandmother. She was supposed to be a seer of some sort."
The young man frowned then said, "And I heard of an old relative, don't know the exact relation, but he's supposed to have been some kind of hermit or the like. The funny thing was the story said he had no garden but always had fresh vegetables, he didn't hunt but always had meat. But that was back in the eighteenth century or thereabouts so no telling how accurate it is. I never really believed it myself but right at the moment I'm having doubts about a lot of things." His eyes flicked around the Great hall and up to the ceiling mimicking the sky.
McGonagall gave them a calm gaze. "With marriages and migrations I am not surprised there might be a bit of magic mixed in your families generations back. That might explain how you two managed to see what cannot be seen. Might I ask your names and any names of your relatives that might help us figure this out?"
"I'm Mary McGill," the girl said, "and this is Roland Goodspeed. My great-
grandmother's name, I think it was Darcy but I'm not sure of that." That started the conversation and it went on as they sipped the delicious tea. Half an hour later they'd finished telling all they could about their families and sat there as McGonagall and Flitwick conferred for several minutes.
McGonagall faced the two visitors and said, "Though your families' names don't ring a bell with either of us, and we're rather convinced we would have recognized a relevant name, we can only speculate that there is just enough magical blood in you to be able to see this castle. But like I said before, we value our privacy. Normally we would automatically obliviate your memory of being here but after getting to know you, I believe you would hold to an agreement to not discuss your visit with us with anyone. It might be best to think of it as a nice afternoon walk where you became a little confused as to where you were, wandered around then found the trail back. Does this sound acceptable to you?"
Mary had a puzzled look when she said, "You said you would obliviate our memories? It sounds a bit dangerous. It's that important to you to keep your castle a secret?"
"Yes, it's that important," McGonagall said. "Generally, memory obliviation isn't dangerous, per se, just that there are instances of more being erased than one would want. As to our privacy, think of the witchcraft trials of long ago. I wish I could say the magical community was innocent of such things but the facts speak otherwise. Recently there was a war of sorts where some wizards thought they could take over and enslave the non-magical world. We paid a high price to stop him with so many deaths and so much grief we are still recovering in many ways. We have since decided the separation of our two societies remains the best for all concerned."
"So, you really are witches and wizards here?" Mary asked.
McGonagall gave a partial smile and said, "You may choose to disbelieve your senses, the most important being common sense, you certainly wouldn't be the first to do so. On the other hand you can look around you, feel the magic that is instilled in the air here and decide the experience is real, that I am real, that you are also. It follows that you must choose what you are to do next."
Mary gave that a minute of silent thought, turned to her boyfriend and said, "I think it's a good idea if we agree to never mention what we have seen today. I actually believe everything she's telling us. Perhaps it should be a lovely memory to keep in a special place, the castle and these nice people. Don't you agree?" She got a nod from Roland and he gave her hand a soft squeeze.
"If we are in agreement on keeping this day's experience in the strictest confidence," McGonagall said and got a pair of nods, "then let's have another cup of tea before you leave. I must say this has been a most interesting meeting with two people I wish I could get to know better. If things were different I'm sure we could become good friends."
With that she took out her wand and waved the teapot over to refill the cups of two wide-eyed young Muggles, made a plate of biscuits appear and traded conversation about the world as it was until the tea was gone and the biscuits were naught but crumbs. McGonagall waved her wand once more to clear the table and stood up.
"We will escort you to the gate," she said. "I wish you all the best in your lives,
Mary and Roland, and remind you of our agreement. May we meet again some day."
Professor Flitwick and Headmistress McGonagall walked the two visitors through the gate and across the bridge, gave a final wave and watched the two holding hands as they walked down the trail, turned at the bottom of the hill to look back, both of them looking puzzled before they moved on to disappear between the trees.
McGonagall sighed. "You know, Filius, there are times when I wish we didn't have to stay hidden. With such young people like that it makes one's faith in the goodness of all people feel renewed."
"I agree, Minerva," Flitwick said as he turned to walk back to the castle gate. "I also wish we could have become better acquainted. Perhaps a more tolerant and rational day will come when we all can recognize each other for what we mean to one another rather than the labels we are forced to stick on. I think I'm going to plant a flower garden to remember this day."
Fifteen years later Neville Longbottom looked at the piece of parchment in his hand, remembered a tale he heard just after he came to teach at Hogwarts and got a smile on his face. "She's going to love this," he said.
Minerva McGonagall opened the door of her cottage near Hogsmeade to see one of her former students, now a professor himself, standing on her doorstep with a big grin on his face. She smiled affectionately and said, "Do come in, Neville. It's so nice to see you. How's teaching going for you?"
"Quite well, Minerva" he answered. "There's more Potters and Weasleys now than I ever expected to see. I jut hope sibling rivalry keeps them from ganging up on the rest of the school. Even Peeves is a little wary of them when they get together.
"But I'm actually here to ask if you would like to deliver a Hogwarts letter to a family that you may remember," he said. "I checked it twice and it is just who you think it is."
He held out the parchment and Minerva's eyes went wide then a grin came to her wizened face before she began chuckling to herself. "Yes, I'd be most happy to deliver the letter in person. This is going to be most enjoyable. Thank you so much for thinking of me, Neville."
"I'm glad I could deliver this to you," Neville said. "I've arranged for us to Floo to the Ministry then on to Portsmouth where they'll have a car waiting. They live a little outside the town but it will only take a few minute's drive to get you there."
"After all this time," she said to herself and chuckled some more.
That afternoon she knocked on the door of a smallish but well kept house in the seaside town of Portsmouth. A boy answered and she asked if his name was Joshua Goodspeed, got a nervous nod and asked if his parents were home.
"Mum, Dad, there's someone here to see you," he called out. A younger girl looked at the new visitors from her drawing desk then went back to coloring.
As if it were just yesterday she saw them, older with all that carried with it but she knew them at that moment like she knew them fifteen years before as they walked down the hill. The look in their eyes when they saw her standing in the door was of delight as they invited her in, grinning at her and each other until she stepped forward to embrace the both of them.
McGonagall held out a letter to the boy who looked to his parents to get a nod then took it with a wary glance at McGonagall and stepped back to open it.
"Mary and Roland Goodspeed," she started. "It seems like just the other day when you casually walked into the castle. It's so good to see you again. I hope your life has been filled with joy."
They both nodded so she went on, "I'm here to give your son a letter on his eleventh birthday inviting him to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry come September. He is a wizard and Hogwarts will teach him what he needs to know to be the best wizard he can be. When a child comes from a non-magical family we send someone along to explain it all to them, though I daresay convincing you magic is real will hardly be needed. I'm retired from teaching now but Professor Longbottom saw your son's name come up on our registry and was kind enough to let me do the introductions. Welcome to the Wizarding world."
Mary Goodspeed looked at her son as his eyes got wide, watched him reading the letter again to make sure then turning to give her a huge grin. She nodded to him and turned to Minerva to say, "We've been expecting you."
Head cannon goes off. Fluttering, singed sign says, "Please Review."