Kelly Galena woke up, expecting a normal day at the Pungo Institute for the Magically Gifted (a politically correct way of saying lousy orphanage). She got up, brushed her long dark hair into a high ponytail, and sighed at herself in the mirror. Kelly's eyes were her best feature, colored a bright, arresting grey-green. They were really quite pretty. Other than that, she thought her skin was too freckly and her faintly Grecian nose was too long. She pulled on a red t-shirt and faded, many-patched, extraordinarily frayed blue jeans, followed by a pair of off-white socks with a hole over her left big toe and old, slightly scuffed up tennis shoes that used to belong to someone else about a thousand years ago.
She made the smallish, slightly lumpy twin bed that was against the window, and attempted to tiptoe out so as not to wake her extremely stupid, bitchy roommate who was fat and a Squib and hated her with a passion. She yanked open the door so that the squeaky hinge wouldn't stick and wake Her Most Evil Bitchiness. Kelly thundered up the hall, slid the banister down the stairs, jumped over the threshold and arrived in the canteen where she bolted down a piece of toast and ran to the changing rooms for the Quidditch pitch, pausing there only long enough to pull on her gear and grab the venerable and ancient school broom that she'd been assigned before racing onto the field to be met with disproportionate glares from her team-mates.
The team captain, Jianine Samhill, blew her whistle impatiently. "GOLDEN! YOU'RE CHASER NUMBER TWO TODAY!" she yelled across the pitch as Kelly got on her broom and flew to join the other chasers, Andrew Midget and Sarah Hanson.
Suddenly a handsome, slightly piebald eagle owl fluttered out of the sky, making for the chasers. It paused long enough to drop its letter into Kelly's hand, and then flapped off again.
"Who on earth would actually want to be writing to a sniveling little twit like YOU?" The Beater, Jose Riddell, enquired, sneering.
"I really don't have a clue. What concerns me more is why a sniveling little twit such as you would be concerned with who's writing to me. Butt out," Kelly called back, struggling to keep her temper in check as she flipped over the letter, glancing at the unfamiliar golden seal pressed firmly into grape-colored wax before reading the address.
Kelly Galena, Selena Hugo Memorial Quidditch Pitch, Pungo Institute for the Magically Gifted, 50 Fleet St, East Side, London
"Hmmm," Kelly mumbled, slitting the seal.
Dear Miss Galena,
You have been selected to be present at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on scholarship. We sincerely hope you shall attend, as Hogwarts is the finest wizarding school in all of Britain and you shall receive an education like none other. A list of the materials you, as a first-year, shall require, is enclosed.
Sincerely,
Minerva Severna McGonagall,
Deputy Headmistress
"Oh my God! That's frickin' crazy! They want a, a, a, little tart-to be to attend Hogwarts, of all places!" Kelly said, her thoughts drowned out by the loudspeaker.
"WILL MISS GALENA, MR. PIDDLINGTON, MISS MORAN, MR. KNIGHTE, MR. CRANDLE AND MR. BLOTTS REPORT TO THE HEAD'S OFFICE. THAT IS ALL. GOOD DAY."
"GALENA, GO AHEAD!" Jianine called, in the middle of a drill with the Beaters.
Kelly promptly shot straight through an open second- story window as the team continued to practice.
She flitted through the halls at breakneck speed, coming to a screeching halt in the Headmistress' office and nearly removing Zacharias Blotts' head with her foot, sheepishly landing next to the others as the petite yet terrifying headmistress, Madame Caulfield, glared at her.
"What have I told you about flying in the halls, Miss Galena?" She said, sounding quite annoyed.
"Sorry," Kelly said, as Mr. Hornby, (the deputy head) began to speak.
"Now listen up everyone, all of you have gotten your Hogwarts letters, I trust?"
"Yes Mr. Hornby," The small group chorused, waiting impatiently, most of its members if not all fidgeting.
"We will be going to Diagon Alley to get your school things, and when we get back you will all owl Professor McGonagall that you accept. Your train tickets have been already purchased and will be given to you the day before departure. Go get changed and cleaned up, especially you Mr. Knightly," said Madame Caulfield, eyeing his mud- splattered countenance with frustration, exasperation, aggravation, and provocation.
"Go! Shoo! You will meet me in ten minutes in the canteen!" Ms. Chatfield said, as the children left the room.
Kelly went slowly up the stairs, her head reeling. She had done accidental magic, of course- when she was five she accidentally levitated a cup full of boiling water over the head of Lisa Fuller, who had such a severe scalding she had to visit St. Mungo's. Kelly entered her room and tore off her dirty Quidditch things, pulling on a white t-shirt, clean yet still scruffy blue jeans with an enormous hole in the left knee, and the much-mended grey wizard's robes that the orphanage required them to wear on trips.
She stuffed her money pouch and list into her back pocket and buckled her watch on her wrist, heading downstairs.
She thought they might Apparate, but if it was a horrible day and she was very unlucky they would probably floo. "Now!" Ms. Chatfield yelled, causing all movement, noise, and general commotion within at least a thirty-foot radius of her to cease.
"We shall be flooing in this order. Mr. Knightley, first, then Miss Moran, Mr. Piddlington , Mr. Crandle, Mr. Blotts and lastly Miss Galena. When you get there you will wait for me. Understood?" said Madame Caulfield, looking quite fierce.
Michael got a pinch of floo powder out of the small wooden box that Madame Caulfield held out and threw it in the fireplace.
"Diagon Alley!" he said, stepping in and vanishing in a swirl and a rush of green flame.
Finally, after what seemed like multiple eons, all the others had gone and it was Kelly's turn. She got a handful of the pale grey powder, slung it in the fire, and stepped into pleasantly warm emerald-colored flames.
"Diagon Alley!" She yelled, spinning and twirling and bouncing from side to side faster and faster inside the fireplace, watching blurred grates go by until with a very loud thump she landed on a cold flagstone floor, at which her new-ish glasses shattered. She had flooed only once before and ended up in Gringotts Cairo where a nice red-haired man named Bill Weasley had taken her back to the Wizarding Museum Of Natural History. That had been when she was seven.
Ms. Chatfield appeared and sighed impatiently.
"Oh, for heaven's sake! Reparo !" she said, swishing her wand at the glasses in question, which repaired themselves and jumped back onto her face as Ms. Chatfield ushered them into the Alley proper. Their first stop was Ollivander's (Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.)
Everyone else got their wands before she, as apparently they were doing absolutely everything in the order they had arrived.
"Next!" said Mr. Ollivander, motioning vigorously for Kelly to step in front of him on the slightly raised wooden platform.
"Wand arm please!" He said, his drooping mustache adding a comical air to him.
Kelly hemmed and hawed and finally stuck out her left arm, knowing that this meant the hand she wrote with. Mr. Ollivander measured the lengths of her arm and fingers, the length of her right eyebrow, around her elbow, down the middle of her forehead, between her nostrils, across the arch of her left foot and athwart her palm before he hurried into the back store-room, letting the quill he had been using continue to jot notes and the tape continue to measure. In about five minutes he came back with nearly twenty-five long, slender, rather dusty pasteboard boxes piled in his arms.
He grabbed the measure, wound it up, and handed Kelly the first of the wands.
"Ebony, dragon heartstring, supple, fifteen inches! Give it a wave, that's a good girl!" Mr. Ollivander said, watching Kelly as she swiped the wand about in the air, feeling rather foolish. It didn't feel right.
The mirror over Casey Moran's head shattered with a piercing whistle, causing Casey to give Kelly a sympathetic look.
"Oh dear, oh, no, no, no!" Mr. Ollivander said, plucking the first wand out of Kelly's hand and replacing it with a new one.
("Seventeen inches, maple, unicorn tail-hair, sturdy!")
Kelly twirled this one too, causing a vase to jump off an end table and soar not quite completely past Michael Knightly, who caught it, grinning.
"Definitely not!" Mr. Ollivander said indignantly, settling yet another wand in Kelly's hand. The second she touched it all the wand-cases ricocheted out of the window display and hit Andrew Crandle in the head one after another, causing him to fall down. They continued to bombard his prostrate form until Mr. Ollivander snapped his fingers sharply.
"Terribly sorry..." Ollivander trailed off, running off to the back room again and returning with a single box.
Kelly laid the angry wand on the desk, feeling embarrassed as she apologized to Andrew.
"Fifteen inches, holly and mahogany, phoenix feather and basilisk fang core, rather springy and excellent for Transfiguration. Quite similar to another wand or two I sold once upon a time." Mr. Ollivander said rather dreamily, gently laying a dusty wand with a pleasant all-over mahogany finish and an air of mystique in her palm. Not quite unwillingly her fingers closed around it.
She waved it, liking the gentle whoosh in the air around her and the golden glowy sparks that sent her longish bangs into wild disarray and nearly caught them on fire. She stamped out an ember that had caught fire in the carpet.
"A rather temperamental wand, that, but a good choice nevertheless! That's a nearly unique wand, Miss Galena, none other like it around today!" Mr. Ollivander said, happily, hurrying over to the register.
"Fourteen Galleons, three Sickles and two Knuts," Mr. Ollivander requested. Kelly handed him the money, grinning like it was Christmas.
Madame Caulfield bustled her charges out of the wand shop and into Madame Malkin's Fine Robes for All Occasions.
A sales-witch measured each of them, all at the same time, and Madame said something that sounded like "... Never this many to Hogwarts at one time before..." in conversation with Madame Malkin, a slim, sharp-featured, aging witch in flowing black chiffon and silk robes who had just come out of the other fitting area. A bundle containing five charcoal grey, pleated skirts, eight sets of plain black work robes ornamented only with the Hogwarts crest, eight white collared shirts which Kelly made a face at, and one black and white woolly sweater were thrust into Kelly's arms. Kelly gave the required amount of money to Madame Caulfield, who pooled it with the others' and paid Madame Malkin, hurrying them into a nearby apothecary, where they purchased cauldrons, potions kits and ingredient refills.
As soon as they left the apothecary shop, they headed to Flourish and Blotts', where Andrew Crandle said something to Zacharias Blotts about his parentage, causing him to kick Crandle in the shin. A fight would've broken out had Madame Caulfield not taken each boy firmly by the ear and banged their heads together.
Kelly bought her schoolbooks as well as Hogwarts, A History and a few Comics titled "Martin Miggs, The Mad Muggle; Volumes One through Six" and a crescent moon bookmark, which the slightly pimply saleslady said was pure silver.
Her nametag read: ELOISE MIDGEN, PROPRIETOR
The next shop they headed to sold animals; in the display windows were many- even a tortoise with a jeweled shell!
canteen- a British word not in use much in the U.S. meaning cafeteria