Christina, Mark and the Magical World


"Christina Marie Fairchild! Get your butt out of bed this instant!" Lucy McFront banged on the cellar door. "A good portion of the taxes I pay go to keeping you in school so you better get up and get going before you're late!"
She was answered by a not-so-alert voice from somewhere under the floorboards.
"Maybe I'd get up earlier if you'd be so kind as to buy me an alarm clock, or any clock for that matter!" it yelled at her, a tint of anger floating among the tired tones.
"Then get a job and buy yourself one! Heaven knows it'll be a load off me!" Lucy yelled back before stocking into the kitchen to fix herself a cup of coffee.
"Ever heard of labor laws?" muttered the voice from the cellar. A few minutes later, during which Lucy pounded on the door several more times much to the displeasure of its occupant, a young girl stumbled out of the dark room under the rest of the house. She had laughing hazel eyes that were dreary with sleep and golden brown hair that fell in tangled tendrils around her face and spilled like coffee mixed with someone's tea over her shoulders. There was a pillow mark across her cheek and her uniform, which consisted of a black skirt, socks, shoes and vest with a dirty white, collared, long sleeved shirt, looked in serious need of a good washing and ironing session but also gave the impression that it wouldn't last long if someone were to give it such treatment. The black hair scrunchy around her wrist looked quite content as a bracelet, and it appeared doubtful that it would ever have been capable of holding captive the wild mass of hair on the girl's head much longer then it would take a dropped pin to hit the ground. The girl was weighed down by a black backpack that was bursting at the seams. It groaned and a few more stitches snapped apart as though they had been pieces of a spider's web but the bag held so the girl took no notice.
"There you are, you lazy girl!" snapped Lucy, coming in from the kitchen. "Here's your lunch money. And don't forget; you're cleaning the toilets tonight!" and with that, the girl was ushered out the door and onto the busy streets of the block upon which she lived.
As she stepped onto the sidewalk, the girl was rudely showered with bits and pieces of various garbage articles as the family renting the space above them emptied their trash onto the sidewalk for the sidewalk cleaners to pick up. The girl shook off what she could of it before starting off toward her school, St. Mario's School for Unintelligent Females. In truth, Christina, for that was her name, was not unintelligent at all. As a matter of fact, she was extremely smart by the standards to which she had been introduced, and therefore found the entire school to be a total waste of time and usually spent the hours during which she was there throwing spit wads at teachers who were just as stupid as the vast majority of the students, the minority being Christina. Even so, Christina continued to go to St. Mario's not only because it was the only school cheap enough to suit Lucy's liking but also because spending time at home was much worse. Lucy was not Christina's mother, nor were they related in any way. As a matter of fact, the only relationship at all between the two was that of master and rebellious slave. Christina had never known her real family, really the only things she knew about herself were her own name, Christina Marie Fairchild, and that she was underestimated. She also considered herself quite ugly, although the truth was quite the opposite even with the dirty uniform and matted hair.
So, underestimated and mistreated, Christina Fairchild strutted up to the front door of the school in which she did not belong. Reaching up, she grasped the knocker and rapped it against the door hard. She heard the sound penetrate the thick silence behind the large oak door. Soon, the brisk clicking noise of shoe on marble could be heard and the door flew open to reveal a vast room that looked to be some kind of medieval ballroom in which the whole countryside could gather. In truth, the building was actually a church but the school was allowed to use some of the space to "expand the minds of the unfortunate girls learning from St. Mario's" under the circumstances that the children attending the school must also learn of the Christian god and must follow him religiously.
Christina regarded the room as though it were merely the cellar in which she lived. She turned to the woman who had opened the door for her. The woman was a short, plump one with dark brown hair piled on top of her head in a French twist, stern, black, beady eyes and pointed, silver librarian glasses through which she attempted to peer at down at the tardy student, failing miserably.
"Late, Miss Fairchild? And I see that you have not yet put up your hair." The woman said hardheartedly with a disapproving glare.
"Yes, Ms. Lortforth." said Christina, heaving a great sigh and staring at the floor. "I was late in waking."
"Put up your hair and hurry to class; you're missing the morning sermon." The uptight woman said, waving her hand dismissively. "I'll discuss your punishment with the headmistress later."
Christina was quick to obey. She took off and didn't slow down until she came to a door on the far side of the room. Throwing her hair into a ponytail, she reached for the doorknob but stopped abruptly. Slowly, she reached up and pulled the ponytail down so it covered the back of her neck, thereby hiding the light brown, serpent shaped birthmark there. Having hid the mark, she proceeded to open the door and head into the midst of a throng of girls all with IQ's of twenty and below. Quietly, she took her seat and pulled out a piece of paper to throw in the form of a spit wad at the priest.

"Christina! What are we going to do with you?" cried an exasperated and agitated headmistress, who was one of the only people in the entire school with an IQ that matched that of the average American. She looked questioningly at the young girl sitting in front of her.
"Put me in the choky." The girl answered solemnly, referring to one of her favorite books.
"Christina, you were late to school, got caught throwing spit wads at the priest, convinced another pupil to draw whiskers on a painted portrait of Ms. Lortforth and on top of that mimicked your Language Arts teacher." The headmistress ticked off the offences on her fingers.
"Mrs. Morgan! She said that the verb always came before the noun! She's as dumb as a pencil shaving!" Christina burst out, her face flushed with anger.
"I think that lunch detention will do you some good, Christina. Report to the back parlor at the start of the lunch period with your meal." A stern glare stopped the outburst that was trying to push its way into the open air by way of Christina's throat. "I trust you know where the back parlor is, seeing as you stole Ms. Lortforth's glasses from the coffee table in there last week."
So, despite her protests, come lunch time Christina was sitting at a table in the back parlor writing 15,000 times "I am not to throw spit wads at god's messengers" at the bidding of the priest, of course. She entertained herself at first by adding insults such as "even though they fail to recognize that they have gone five minutes overtime" and such to the end of every sentence. Soon, however, she grew bored with that game and started spacing out in the general direction of a painting of a snake with its head resting on a bowl of fruit that was hanging on the wall in front of the table that she was working at. Once, she thought she saw the snake blink but when she looked again it was perfectly still. She shook her head to clear the thoughts that were gathering there and wrote a few more lines.
It wasn't long before she was staring at the snake again. It looked almost real, even though it was a painting. Just to have a little fun, Christina decided to talk to it.
"Hello," she said, not expecting an answer. "My name is Christina. What's yours?"
"Mark." Replied the snake. Christina blinked.
"I'm sorry, did you say something?" the startled girl asked uncertainly.
"Yes, I did. You asked what my name was, so I told you." The snake lifted his head up off the fruit bowl to see better the girl who, wide-eyed and open mouthed, was staring at him as though he were Frankenstein. "You were talking to me, right?"
"Um…yes." Christina replied uncertainly.
"Well then, what's the problem?" the snake questioned.
"I've just never met a snake painting that could talk before." Christina stuttered.
"Well, have you ever said hi to one before?" countered the snake, staring unblinkingly down at the shocked girl.
"Well…hmm, you're right." Christina realized. "I haven't ever tried before now. Do you talk to people often?"
"No, most people can't understand me. I've only talked to other snakes before this." Came the response.
"Well, do you want to talk and maybe help me think up insults for the priests?" Christina asked, coming around the table.
"Sure, sounds like fun." He replied. Christina smiled.

Often after that Christina would talk to the snake during her detentions. The snake could move between pictures, so it didn't matter where she was serving her detention. The girl and the snake spent most of their time together planning tricks to play on teachers and priests. Then, Christina would carry them out while the snake, Mark, watched from various picture frames and smiled his encouragement and enthusiasm.
But somehow, word of the snake got out.
A tall but thin man with bright red hair that was starting to fall out came to the school. He came in a little blue car that gave the impression that it was alive because it had a habit of sighing and rattling every few seconds even when it was turned off. The man spoke to the headmistress, Mrs. Morgan. She showed him to the back parlor.
She forgot that Christina was serving detention there for sticking the priest's sermon papers together with chewed bubble gum.
When the man, named Arthur Weasley, came into the room, he was met by somewhat of a nasty shock. At one of the tables, facing the snake painting that he had heard rumors was wizard painted, sat a girl no older or younger then his youngest son, Ron. This was not what startled Mr. Weasley, though. No, the reason that his jaw dropped and his eyes bulged out until they were as big as over ripe tomatoes was that she was talking to the painting.
In Parsel Tongue.
He must have caught his breath or made some other noise because suddenly, the girl whirled on him, dropped her pencil and yelled, in English,
"Who are you? Don't you know this is an all girl's school?" anger and revelation flashed through her hazel eyes, giving her an unintended threatening appearance.
"I-I'm sorry," Arthur stuttered, caught off guard by her sudden outburst. "My name is Arthur Weasley, I'm with the Ministry of Magic. You might have heard of me and my family." He took a step forward and extended his hand. She gave him a look that held an emotion that could be classified as right in the middle of confusion, excitement and disbelief.
"I'm sorry, did you say magic? As in, like, card tricks and pulling rabbits out of hats?" she took a step forward to study Mr. Weasley's face and expression, ignoring his outstretched hand.
Mr. Weasley suddenly realized that he had made a terrible mistake. This girl was a Muggle, not a witch-in-training like he had originally assumed.
"Um…" Mr. Weasley groped for a believable excuse as to his odd introduction. One that wouldn't give away the fact the witches and wizards were real because then he would have to use a memory charm on the girl and he didn't want to zap the memory of a kid the same age as one of his sons.
"Well?" Christina took another step forward. Mr. Weasley was about to say something when suddenly the girl dumped her previous questioning in favor of a new, more important one. "Did you see Mark?"
"You mean the snake that you were…um…talking to?"
"You did see him. Oh, well, I'm not crazy! He really can talk! See?" she ran over to the picture and hissed at it. Sure enough, the painting hissed back at her. "See? Mark really is a talking snake!" she nodded her head earnestly as though the harder she nodded, the more believable her claim would become.
"Um…yes," Arthur turned this new information over in his head. "Well, run along now. I have business in this room that you should not interfere with." The girl hissed at the picture a third time and it hissed back again. Then she gathered up her books, picked her pencil up off the ground and left the room.
Sighing, Arthur took the painting off the wall and replaced it with a picture of a vase that was muggle-painted so it wouldn't move.
But Arthur wasn't thinking about the painting. He ran into that kind of stuff all the time, being in the Ministry and all.
The girl was a Muggle…he thought disbelievingly. But she spoke Parsel Tongue…Arthur knew of two people who could speak Parsel Tongue. He-who-must-not-be-named and his victim.
Harry Potter.

When Christina discovered that the tall man had taken Mark, she stopped getting into trouble. Without her partner in crime, the sport of trickery and getting caught had lost its appeal altogether. School once again became a chore, something that she dreaded and dragged her feet to. And so her life returned to the monotonous, uneventful, downright boring happenings of an old, black and white educational film about the importance of blue cheese to the world's chicken population.
Until one day when a letter arrived in the mail. It was addressed to a "Miss Christina Fairchild". Even stranger then Christina getting a letter, was that the address specifically stated that it was to be sent to the cellar. Christina had to do some begging and finally had to scrub out the inside of the oven but she got the letter and didn't hesitate to tear it open. She scanned the contents of the piece of parchment inside. She blinked. She scanned them again, more slowly this time. A third scan, slower than both of the other two, told her that her reading abilities hadn't suddenly collapsed over night.
At the top of the page was a colorful coat of arms that included a snake, an eagle, a badger and a lion all surrounding the letter 'H' in the middle of the shield, which was divided into four sections. The emerald green writing calmly informed her of the first unbelievable fact:
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Christina stared at the parchment. The calm, docile looking writing went on to explain what she would be needing to attend, what train platform to go to and at what time and that she would have to send an owl as quick as she could. Then Christina realized something.
"Oh no," she whispered. The place where she was supposed to catch the train was in Britain. Overseas.
"Christina! Hurry up!" called Lucy from the kitchen. "You have to wash the windows to pay for that new textbook you bought for school!"
"Just a minute, Lucy!" Christina called back. She scanned the page for a forth time to see if it recognized that she was American. When she saw nothing she hadn't before, she sighed, tucked the letter into her pocket and ran off to clean the windows before the increasingly annoyed woman in the kitchen decided to see what exactly was so important that the girl couldn't come to do a chore.
The days slowly ticked by and Christina pretended that she was going to this odd British school. She counted down the days and made inventive substitutes for the things on her list. She didn't know what 'sending an owl' meant but she guessed that it was something like mail, wrote a letter and tossed it out the window. It didn't go anywhere special but it was the feeling that counted.
But as the time slowly wound down to what would have been departure time had she been going to the school, she became more and more depressed. She dearly wanted to get away from Lucy and St. Mario's School for Unintelligent Females and going to this new school would have been the perfect solution. She wished that Mark were still around, because he would have been able to think of a fun way to get her to Britain even though it would most likely have been so outrageous that it could never be done.
Then, rather unexpectedly, two days before the departure date, Christina got a visitor of the strangest sort.
When Lucy called the girl to the sitting room, Christina knew something was up. As she walked in, she was surprised to see a tall, ragged looking man who was clutching a pink umbrella in one of his over sized hands sitting in one of the spotlessly clean, expensive sitting chairs. He had wild, out of control hair, a dirty, greasy black beard, twinkling black eyes and a large, messy trench coat with more pockets then could possibly be necessary. Lucy was cowering in one corner, obviously terrified of the giant of a man. Christina knew she should be scared but, despite his size, there was something kind in his eyes and the way he smiled at her when she came in that caused her not to be afraid.
"Why, hello. You must be Christina Fairchild. Am I right?" He asked. He talked with a British accent but it had a rough edge to it that was not commonly found in British speech.
"Yes, that's me. I'm Christina. And who are you, may I ask?" she said tentatively, not even sure if she had spoken loud enough for him to hear her.
Apparently, he did.
"Me name's Rubeus Hagrid and I'm Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts, thanks to Dumbledore." He replied with a huge grin. "Great man, Dumbledore. He's the one who sent me ter get ya' when your owl didn't come. Americans don't often get accepted into Hogwarts because Misnag is much closer. O' course, Hogwarts is better than Misnag but that's just 'cause it's got a better headmaster." He winked and his smile got even wider. "Well, come along. We haven't got all day. We've got to get ter Britain ter get yer school supplies. Yer gonna be a forth year, no doubt about it. You'll be a bit behind the class but you'll do fine once you get used to it."
"Shouldn't I get changed first?" Christina asked. Hagrid eyed the dirty apron and work clothes she had been wearing to scrub the bathroom floor.
"Um…yes. I musta missed that in me haste to get back to Britain. Too many Muggles in America and not enough Magical folk." He started to scratch his nose with the end of the umbrella but thought better of it. Christina ran to the cellar to change into her school uniform. Despite its condition, it was the best clothing she had so that was what she wore.
When she came back out, Hagrid noticed how old and dirty her outfit looked. Reminds he of when I went ter pick up Harry, he thought. Only this time it was much easier. No Dursleys here! He gestured for Christina to follow him, tipped his hat to her guardian and strode out of the house, closing the door with a BANG hard enough to make the windows rattle and loud enough to cause the cat upstairs to yowl in surprise and shock, fearing a new breed of dog.
"So…how are we going to get to Britain?" Christina asked, looking up and down the street but not seeing anything that looked like a mode of transportation with the exception of the various parked cars of the families who lived on the block.
"That's right, you can't apparate. Well, lets go." And with that, Hagrid started off down the sidewalk.
Christina, although she was totally confused in every respect, shrugged and followed Hagrid without a word, trusting that he knew what he was doing.