Chapter 1. Parting
"But mamaa, why couldn't we travel by our limousine to the stupid castle?" I protested for a thousandth time, but alas! still in vain.
"How many times do I have to repeat it to you, Anarietta Anastacia Antoinetta de Aignous," my mother called me by my full given name, thought she knows how much I despise it.
I held my tongue then, but I kept mumbling to myself. I really couldn't understand why I, as the countess de Aignous, am forced to travel by train with the rest of base-born students, but my mother Marie-Hortensie insisted.
I was looking around the platform and I didn't see anybody who would pick my interest. Everyone wore absolutely hideous black robes. Me and my mother, on the other hand, captivated lot of people due to our beautiful expensive brocade dresses with train.
I wrinkled my nose.
"People here don't even know how to dress properly; nobody here has any taste. Britain is truly horrible country," I snorted and fanned myself with my pearl-decorated, lily-adorned fan.
"I am not going to please you, dear daughter. You will have to wear it as well," mother said.
"What?" I yelped in terror. My mother calmly answered:
"Didn't you notice that Henry brought one more suitcase with him? Your school robes and other school things are in there."
I glanced at our servant Henry. And indeed – beside my three suitcases which I had packed PERSONALLY (I wouldn't trust any silly maid with that, in certain matters you just can't rely on your servants), there was a extra one and on the top of it-
"Wow, mamaa, have you diminished my Alfons Emilian so he would fit into the owl-cage?"
My mother smiled upon my delight when seeing my beloved stallion.
"Yes, so he would be able to go by train with you. Of course you can enlarge him again when you reach Hogwarts – it's just a trivial spell. Engorgio."
"Engorgio?" I repeated. I didn't realise I was holding my wand and my mother grew to the size of an average telegraph column.
Fortunately enough, I didn't perform the proper wrist movements so it lasted only for a second and then my mother came back to her normal self.
At the very next instant the train arrived and Henry with Jean and Pierre (these are our servant too) loaded my suitcases inside. Then I kissed the air around my mother's brilliant earrings and said:
"Ou revoir, mamaa!"
"Farewell, my dear Anarietta." My mother parted with me and I, holding my brocate skirt, stepped in that antique relique, that probably remembers even the times of my great-grandfather Louis Luc Didiere de Aignous.