I looked around my upscale apartment in urgency. Moving my head swiftly from left to right, I felt my high ponytail whip loosely against my neck.
Okay, pretty sure that's everything.
I hauled up my luggage with both arms and waddled over to the fireplace. Placing my heavy trunk into the already lit green flames, I grabbed a handful of floo powder and squeezed into the fireplace.
"Hogwarts!" I bellowed after throwing down the light glittering powder. I shut my eyes as blurred images travelled around me. Travelling through Floo Network always made me sick. Feeling my feet land gracefully on hard wood floor, I opened my eyes.
"Minerva." I flashed a smile and walked over to the respected Hogwarts Headmaster, my new boss.
"Grace! Welcome, welcome," I let the aged women pull me into a light embrace. "It's good to have you apart of our staff."
"The pleasure is all mines." I replied.
"Here, let me take you to your room." I nodded in acknowledgement and turned to let McGonagall lead me out the office doors, abandoning my luggage behind.
My name's Grace Charles and I am the new Astronomy professor here at Hogwarts. I'm very young, only twenty-two, but I'm very wise for my age. I spent my seven years of wizardry education at Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and for the five years that followed after my graduation, I spent my freedom well. And being away from my beloved France has taken its toll on me. Though I kindly accepted the gracious job offer Minerva McGonagall offered me here in Scotland, France's beauty has always fascinated me. I will miss the divine gourmet food, the classic literature, the wine and delicious cheese and most of all, I will miss my dear close friends, Casey Vale and Hilary Harp.
"Here we are," I stopped abruptly as Minerva turned into a small corridor, stopping at a lone portrait of a young woman. "Up those stairs is the Astronomy classroom." She said while pointing to another portrait at the end of the hallway. I nodded.
"Your luggage is already in your room and as soon as you're settled in, head on down for the Start of Term feast."
"Thank you Minerva." I smiled mercifully.
"You're welcome dear." She gave a light pat on my shoulder and turned to stalk down the hallway. I watched until she fully disappeared before sighing. Pulling the portrait open, I set off into my new room.
Well, this was definitely a down-grade from my apartment back home. It was kind of like a hotel suite at the Leaky Cauldron, had all the essentials of a little house. There was a small living room to the front of the room and to the top right hand corner was a kitchen. To the left, I suspected was the bedroom.
My parents were very wealthy before they died a few years back. Cause of death: unknown. Me being the only child, I was left with a lot of money.
I walked through the room and groaned. Who sleeps in a twin bed? I'll have to fix that later, same goes for all the ugly dull colors that surrounded me on the walls. I walked slowly over to my trunk and heaved it onto the bed. Opening it up, I walked over to the closet.
You call this a closet?
That's another thing I'm going to have to improve later. I kicked the doors to the pathetic closet in front of me. I bet I wouldn't even be able to stand in there. I'm starting to sound like a real spoiled girl, but hello? France, remember? Paris? City of fashion. I gave up on unpacking and walked to the bathroom. I starred back at the young girl in the mirror.
My facial features were very prominent. I had a sharp jaw and cheek bones. My nose was perfectly pointed and my eyes were a mixture of brown and green that popped against my thick, unusually long eyelashes. My dark, brown wavy hair, when not in a ponytail, laid just above my chest and bangs that swept feverishly to the side.
I considered myself normal. Growing up, I never had any problems with getting what I wanted. Not to sound smug or anything, but it's true. It became easy almost natural, to talk myself out of detentions when I got in trouble with my professors at Beauxbaton. Now, I knew better. I consider myself mature for my age and people seem to agree.
Though I may be into high fashion and what not, I'm also a much laid back person. One thing I enjoy most: laying outside, in the grass and just staring at the stars. And that's why I became fascinated with Astronomy. Everyday, something changes in the sky and I find that change to be interesting, curious, and thrilling. I find change to be rewarding.
This is why I took this job opportunity. Maybe something good will come out of this.
Entering to what I assumed to be the Great Hall, I let in a sharp breath. The school was as beautiful as the last time I came here during the Triwizard Tournament about eight years ago. I looked up in awe at the ceiling, starring at the beautiful constellation filled sky. Walking slowly between the house tables, I snapped out of my thoughts and began swerving out of the way of the first years. Reaching the teachers table, I gave a swift nod to McGonagall and took a seat to the one empty seat, next to a giant. No, literally. He was a giant, I'm sure of it.
As the conversations died down in the Great Hall as I observed each student, being sorted. So... they just let a hat decide what house you're in? Weird. I dozed off into a day dream in the middle of the ceremony.
"And I'd like to introduce our new Astronomy Professor, Grace Charles!" McGonagall's strict voice chimed in. I politely stood up from my seat and gave a slight nod and a wave. She went off into another speech about Quidditch, which I really didn't care for. It was a ghastly sport. I prefer to jog. Or maybe Pilates.
I collapsed on my, still small, bed, feeling content. Boy can they throw a good feast. I rubbed my stomach to try and soothe my full belly and hopped back up. Grabbing pajama pants and a tank-top from my open trunk, I slipped into the bathroom to change.
Walking back into my room, I dropped in the bed falling asleep the second my head hit the over-stuffed pillow.
It's dense that I have to wake up at six in the morning when I don't start lessons 'till nine o'clock in the afternoon. It's the perfect opportunity to sleep in, but no. I must attend breakfast.
"Suck it up Grace." I muttered, rolling off the bed landing perfectly on the hard cold floor. Grudgingly, I walked over to my trunk. Grabbing a black pencil skirt that reached down to my knees and a button up white shirt, I walked to the bathroom to change. Throwing on small heels and a thick black robe, I headed out the door.
I listened to the distant tap of my heels against the tile and drifted off. This is it. My first day of teaching. Teaching my favorite thing in the world: the night sky. I figured it wouldn't be such a hard subject to teach, as it just comes to me naturally. My youngness might rub off on the students as well. I wouldn't say I was nervous. Actually, I was ecstatic. This day. The first day of teaching Astronomy, is proof that change is happening.
Sitting down next to the giant at the head table, I grabbed some food.
"'Ello, my name es Hagrid." I was startled when a cauldron sized hand appeared in front of my face. I brought my hand onto of my chest and breathed out a warm smile.
"Nice to meet you Hagrid, I'm Grace Charles." I took the kind giants hand and awkwardly shook it. Awkward because my whole hand was about the size of his palm.
"How old are you Grace?" Hagrid's accent was thick and certain words he pronounced were hard to make out.
"Twenty-two sir." I cranked my head to look at the giant man and smiled.
"Really? Phew, you're young. I was pretty young when I started to work at Hogwarts too. You see..." I cut his voice out of my head as his words came out in a huge jumble. I was fine deciphering his accented words in short sentences, but that last one was too much work. I continued to eat, pretending to listen.
Soon the bell rang for first lesson and I rushed out of the Hall. I felt extremely... awkward. I made it back to my room in record time and set off to fix my "living quarters". Making the living room, bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen bigger, I started to add color. I put stylish dark brown furniture and light blue walls in the living room
Pastel yellow for the kitchen.
Tan for the bathroom.
And a deep deep red, with matching red and black comforters for the new king sized bed.
Satisfied with my results, especially my big walk-in closet, I began to unpack.
It was hard to make this room feel like home.
Five hours passed when I was doing my renovations and it was time for lunch. Brushing my skirt down and straightening my robe, I headed back down to the Great Hall. I appeared to be early as there were hardly any students in the Hall. I took the liberty to befriend my colleagues.
"Hello." I waved at a very strict looking woman. Her nose was sharply pointed and her face was so thin you can visibly see her cheek bone line. Her eyes were...creepy looking, really. They were a dead white with a small black circle in the middle of her irises.
"Rolanda Hooch." She said sticking her hand out sharply, causing me to jump.
"Grace Charles." I politely shook her hand. "What subject do you teach?" I asked curiously.
"I am the flying instructor and Quidditch referee." Ugh, Quidditch. Without even realizing it, I drifted off to the next closest person.
"Hi!" I exclaimed. This woman was weird looking. Her eyes looked the size of bowling balls behind the thick rimmed glasses she were. She dressed and smelled kind of funny too.
"Oh! Hello dear..." She replied, as if just noticing I was standing in front of her.
"I'm Grace Charles, Astronomy professor." I held out my hand.
"Sybil Trelawney." She took my hand, but didn't shake it. I looked into her eyes. They were distant. As if looking at something from afar. I stood there, awkwardly and waited for the old women to let go of my hand.
"Um..."
"I'm sorry dear." She pulled out of her…trance. I guess that's what you call it and reluctantly let go of my hand. I'm guessing she teaches Divination?
Moving on.
"Hello." I muttered, getting bored with all the greetings already.
"Hi deary, I'm Pomona Sprout." This woman was round in the middle and smelled strongly of…herbs.
"Hi Pomona, I'm Grace Charles."
"Well, welcome to Hogwarts hun. I hope you like it here..." She smiled. Finally! A normal person! I'm liking this Miss. Sprout. She reminded me of my mother before she died, very warm and loving. Perhaps, I'll be going to her when the going get's tuff.
Being pulled out of our conversation, my evaluation was wrong. She was nice and loving, but I'm just not that interested in plants. I was grateful when the bell singling for lunch rang, and we both turned to take our appointed seats at the head table.
"Hello class, I am Grace Charles, but you guys will formerly call me by, Professor Charles, or Miss. Charles. Or whatever." I looked around to the aging seventeen year olds. My first class of the year, and I have to teach seventh years.
"Yes?" I asked, as an olive-skinned boy raised his hand.
"Is that a Miss. Charles or a Mrs. Charles?" It took me a second to actually figure out what this boy was asking me. When I did, I was appalled that this guy was actually hitting on me.
"That would be none of your concern. Anyways..." I brushed the boy's stupid question over my shoulder and continued on with my lesson.
"So, I'm a pretty cool lady. I can be lazy and laid back at times, but remember, I am still in charge of you." I looked around the class at the individual students. By their faces they seemed pretty intrigued by me, so that helped the nerves a little.
Getting into a full discussion about the lesson plan for this term, I found class ending too quickly.
I stayed after, waiting till every student filed out the room. Once the room was clear of adolescent teens, I walked over to the edge of the Astronomy tower. Peering up at the moon, I smiled.
The moon is such a beautiful thing. It's like the sun, only at night, controlling and overpowering everything in its splendor. My eyes shut closed as a short gush of wind pushed around my face. I felt my knees buckle and I turned. Leaning against the inside wall, I slid all the way down to be seated on the floor.
I wasn't feeling anything. Nothing. No emotion. Nada. My eyes opened again and I leaned my head back, staring at the stars this time. What if there was a star for every person in the world? Or what if you were the moon and every star that surrounded you were people that would compete for your attention. That's quite a lot of admirers. But how would you know who's the right one?
I've contemplated this for practically my whole life. My friends, Casey and Hilary, constantly usher me to go out and date, but I'm just not into it. Oh, I've been on my fair share of dates and I've had quite amount of boyfriends, but none of them were the one. But is there such a thing as the one? Maybe there is. Maybe there's just one star that shines brighter than the rest. A star that catches the beam of the moon.
I feel like I need to find that right one now, instead of waiting for it to find me. From what I hear, love is the greatest emotion, the greatest feeling and I find my self anticipating feeling like that. I just want to look into a guy's eyes and determine whether they're the right one or not. I'd know. I'd know because once I looked into his eyes, I would know in an instant that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.
That seemed less than likely to happen.