Olivia stood with her back against the wall, staring at the deserted street. The last taxi had pulled away five minutes earlier and she was now alone in front of the tiny train station. She sighed and shifted her weight from side to side. Her back was throbbing but she couldn't sit on the ground and risk getting her trousers dirty. She was nervous enough about starting her first teaching job and was committed to making a good first impression. She looked around and bit her lip nervously. The sun was beginning to set and Olivia was stranded. There were no taxis and it would be impossible to drag her two enormous suitcases into town. She didn't even have a phone number for the school, not that she had a cell that worked in Scotland.
As she readjusted the heavy bag slug over her shoulder, a strange popping noise startled Olivia and she jumped to the side, nearly falling over as her high heels skidded on the mossy stone street. A tall man wearing a black cloak was standing next to her, staring at Olivia with a mixture of surprise and disdain. "Ms. Williams?" the man asked, raising one dark eyebrow up his pale forehead.
"Yes. Are you from Hogwarts?" Olivia asked.
"What keen deductive reasoning" the man replied. "No wonder Dumbledore was so eager to import you all the way from . . . where was it again? Vancouver?"
"San Francisco," Olivia replied, tugging on one of her suitcases that had fallen over.
"Ah. An American Muggle Studies teacher. Well, this should be very interesting."
"I'm teaching Social Studies. What's a Muggle?"
The man smiled, but his expression was devoid of warmth. "Didn't Professor Dumbledore explain that Hogwarts is a rather special school?"
Olivia's face reddened, partly from embarrassment and partly from the effort of struggling with her suitcases. "He did. It's just that part of me thought I had hallucinated that part of the conversation. Or, I thought that perhaps "wizard" meant a 'gifted child' in the UK."
The man grunted. "I assure you, the students are all wizards yet very few of them are gifted. Now come along, there's a carriage waiting for us." Olivia took a few awkward steps forward, dragging her bags behind her. The man turned around, stared at her for a moment, and then extracted what looked like a highly polished twig from his pocket. Olivia's suitcases began to levitate and drift forward.
"Oh my god. This is real," Olivia stammered as he hurried to catch up with the man and her bags. "Are you a teacher too?"
"Did I not introduce myself? This errand rather took me my surprise. I am not accustomed to having to babysit new teachers. I am Severus Snape."
Olivia wasn't sure how to respond. This was one of her new colleagues? Was he kidding? She watched as her suitcases settled into the back of an old-fashioned carriage. Without saying a word, Snape took Olivia's elbow and helped her up the steep steps, his gentlemanly action a bewildering contrast to his harsh words. Once he was settled next to her, the carriage rolled forward on its own. "I'm sorry for any inconvenience I've caused you," Olivia said uneasily, looking forward rather than at her companion.
Snape cleared his throat. "Forgive me, Ms. Williams. I understand why you needed someone to meet you at the station." He smiled slightly. "Muggles . . . non magical people . . . cannot find Hogwarts on their own." The carriage picked up speed as it turned off the cement street and began bouncing along a rocky dirt path. As it veered around a sharp corner, Olivia was thrown sideways and fell against Snape. She felt his arm stiffen at the contact.
"I'm sorry," Olivia said hurriedly as she straightened up.
"No matter," he said, looking straight ahead.
The carriage turned again and Olivia's gaze was suddenly transfixed. An enormous, turreted stone castle loomed up ahead. She gasped softly and squinted, as if convinced that readjusting her eyes would reveal the castle to be an illusion. But there it was, growing more solid as the carriage moved forward through the fading light.
"It's rather pretty, isn't it?" Snape remarked in an offhand manner.
"It's stunning," Olivia whispered as she glanced with awe and apprehension at her new home.