International Wizarding School Competition
Beauxbatons 3rd year
Grammar school challenge, round 7
WC 872
Perfectly Normal?
Felicia St Clair looked at her new Reception pupils with interest. She was only in her third year of teaching, and it was still a great fascination to her to watch each successive class of four-year-olds entering school for the first time. She was learning to pick out which were the quiet ones, which would be first to answer a question, and which would be the troublemakers.
This year, two children in particular intrigued her. They had arrived together, but she could see that they were quite unlike each other. The larger of the two, a fat blond-haired boy, had been described by his mother as "very, very special, and extremely advanced for his age". Felicia had already learnt to take such maternal over-enthusiasm with inward scepticism. Mostly, such children were spoilt and unruly, and showed no sign of anything special other than an advanced ability to misbehave.
The other boy was much quieter. His solemn green eyes under the untidy thatch of black hair watched her carefully, and she could see that he would need encouragement to draw him out in the classroom. The blond boy's mother had said she was his aunt and that his parents were dead, but had spoken quite abruptly and obviously resented any further enquiries.
Felicia could not help but notice that the blond boy was dressed in the latest licensed clothing, so new that it still showed the creases from being packaged. The dark-haired child, though, was clad in much more worn and ill-fitting clothes. Even though they looked the right length for him, they hung loosely on his slender frame and his shorts were gathered into ridiculous folds around his skinny waist.
Felicia felt sorry for him. Being an orphan was bad enough, but it appeared that he wasn't very welcome in his cousin's family.
She clapped her hands to gain the class's attention, and noticed that the dark-haired boy jumped a little at the sound.
"Welcome to school, children. My name is Miss St Clair." She pointed to where she had written her name on a corner of the blackboard. "When we start school each day, I shall say 'Good morning, children', and I expect you to answer with 'Good morning, Miss St Clair'. Let's do that now. Good morning, children."
A rather ragged chorus answered her. The dark-haired boy joined in with the rest, but his cousin merely lolled across his desk and stared at her. Felicia knew that some children could take a little while to adjust to school routines, but she did not intend to let such obvious defiance pass completely.
"That was very well done, children. Some of you seemed to have a little trouble, but I'm sure you'll be able to do it very soon."
She looked meaningfully at the blond boy, who glared back resentfully. He obviously didn't like the subtle implication that he was incapable rather than rude.
She held his gaze for a moment longer, and then turned to mark the roll.
"The next thing we do, children, is make sure you're all here. I shall call all your names, and I want you to answer your name with 'Yes'."
Felicia was accustomed to the almost inaudible answers that the most nervous children gave, so she listened carefully after she spoke each name. She had her own code for this; she added a single dot next to the name of those children whose replies she could barely hear, and two dots next to the ones who spoke out with excessive confidence. When she came to "Dudley Dursley", the blond boy replied with a casual "Yup", and she promptly added an extra dot beside his name.
The dark-haired boy answered to "Harry Potter" with a faint "yes", and she smiled reassuringly at him. Teachers weren't supposed to have favourites, of course, but she had a feeling that he might become an unspoken one of hers.
She finished marking the roll, and then addressed the class again. "Now, children, I'm going to take you on a little tour around the school and show you where things are. We won't cover everything today, but you'll need to know where the cloakrooms are and where your section of the playground is. Stand, please, and line up at the door."
There was an immediate sound of chair legs scraping across linoleum as the children got to their feet. Those who had already been used to lining up at pre-school moved quickly to the door. Felicia noticed that Harry hesitated beside his desk for a few moments, and his cousin shouldered him roughly aside as he clumped heavily toward the door. Harry staggered and nearly fell, clutching at the desk to support himself, and then...
Felicia blinked. Somehow Harry was standing at the end of the line at the door, while Dudley was still walking toward it. She shook her head in disbelief. Her eyes must have been playing tricks on her. Perhaps she had mistaken another child for Harry.
But no matter what she told herself, Felicia could not shake the conviction that something extremely odd had just happened. Dudley Dursley might be perfectly normal – albeit with a rather unpleasant tendency to bullying – but Harry Potter most definitely was not!