AN: This story is a crossover of the Hunger Games fanfiction "Finding the Light" by TallTalesInk and Harry Potter. I decided to write this story simply because the idea wouldn't stop bugging me. So, with approval from the readers and a bit of help from Tales...here's the chapter. Also of note: this will be written in American English 95-99% of the time, with a couple exceptions; and, all the characters are aged back a year but will be back to their proper ages by the end of the story.
Disclaimer: I am not Suzanne Collins, or J.K. Rowling.
Chapter 1: Avell
The Hogwarts Express began to slow down as it pulled into the station, causing one incoming first-year to quiver in anticipation.
Avell Watts had never been a normal kid; he'd always been absolutely fascinated by magic for as long as he could remember.
Of course, none of the other lads his age back home had understood his obsession; they'd all been chattering on about rugby, or football, or cricket, or some other sport that didn't matter to Avell.
His headmaster back at the all-boys school was perplexed by him as well.
"Mr and Mrs. Watts, your son is one of the brightest boys this school has seen in decades, but we simply cannot wrap our heads around why Avell does so poorly in all of his classes, save for maths. And even then, he's barely passing. We just don't understand it."
Avell fancied himself a loner; he wasn't bothered by this, except when Jack Smith and Callum Alexander were poking fun at his expense.
"Hey look, it's the freak again." Jack's bitingly crude tone mixed with Callum's snorts, an unpleasant combination.
"Freak boy, freak boy, whatcha gonna do? Can't turn the teacher's hair funky colors now, huh, freak?" Callum laughed.
Avell closed his eyes and wished that the boys would just shut up and leave him in his peace to study the latest magic trick book he'd bought.
"Lookie here, Cal." Jack snatched the book from Avell's hand, causing the latter's eyes to jerk open. "Freak boy's got another book for his little hobby. What'll do with it?"
"Hey, give that back." Avell protested.
Jack rolled his eyes. "You really think I'm going to listen to you, freak?"
"Give the book back." Avell felt himself growing angrier by the instant.
Callum smirked. "Like we'd really listen to you."
Suddenly, a huge flash of purple light came out of nowhere and forced Avell to squeeze his eyes shut. When he reopened them, he saw Jack and Callum knocked flat on their backs ten meters away and the book back in his hand.
Those kind of things had been occurring to Avell since he was in year two. They kept happening, but he didn't know why. At least, until his eleventh birthday last February, when a blue-cloaked woman turned up on his doorstep.
She'd introduced herself as Professor Finola Ehrenberger and delivered some of the most astonishing news the young boy had ever heard in his short life: he, Avell, was a wizard.
He'd been flabbergasted and rather skeptical at first; however, the more Professor Ehrenbereger explained, the more Avell realized that his wizardry made logical sense. Weird, unexplained incidents when emotions got the best of him? Other kids calling him a freak and social isolation because of those incidents? Fascination with the possiblity of magic? Check, check, and check.
His parents, especially his mother, hadn't taken the news quite as well as he had.
Late that night, as Avell crept into the kitchen for a small snack, he heard arguing coming from the living room.
He stayed as silent as he could while he listened to what his parents were fighting over.
"Graff, I just can't believe it. Some random woman shows up, claiming that our son, our baby boy, our only child, is a wizard? How believable is that?"
"Honey, you're forgetting that she managed to turn the table into a pony. It's not too far-fetched. Maybe it's proof she's a loon who never grew out of that phase Avell's in where he still believes in magic. Hopefully, that school'll be able to make a good, sensible man out of him."
Avell stopped in the middle of chewing. Did his father really believe magic was just a phase? It was his passion, his reason to keep breathing. No one could understand that.
No one, that is, but other wizards.
He tuned back into the conversation as his mother was talking : "...my fault he's so into this magic thing, isn't it? Just because we're not home, we need to work a lot, we-"
"Zanya." His dad's voice, tired but firm. "We've done what we can, why not let this Hogwarts do the rest?"
As soon as it became clear he was going, Professor Ehrenberger came back and collected Avell to take him supply shopping. The best part, in young Avell's opinion, was Flourish and Blott's. New books, explaining actual magic, instead of the hocus-pocus abracadabra stuff he'd always thught of magic as? Sign him up.
But he did rather like Ollivander's, for he was proud of his wand- after all, it was the true mark of a wizard.
Avell was eager to skip forward to September and just start learning. But alas, he'd had to wait six and a half months for that day.
And today had been that day.
He'd climbed on the Hogwarts Express, trunk and all, but not without some tears from his mother and a promise to write from his father.
At the beginning of the ride, he'd taken his seat in a near-empty compartment with an older girl, whose long dark hair was in stark contrast with her pale eyes and skin. Judging from her robes, she was a Ravenclaw, the house Avell secretly hoped he'd be in.
She was a good compartment mate; quiet, not bothersome, and just staring out the window the entire time save for when the food trolley passed by.
But now, at the end of the journey, the older girl stood up and left the compartment without so much as a glance back.
Avell shrugged before he exited the compartment and stepped out on the platform.
Once he was there, he was swept into the crowd and would've gotten lost if he hadn't heard the cry of "Firs' years this way please!"
When Avell looked for the source of the bellowing voice, he was shocked. About ten meters away, the tallest man he'd ever seen stood. His bushy gray beard indicated his age, and somebody his height should have been terrifying. In reality, most of the older kids were either waving politely or calling to the man; despite his size, he obviously wasn't seen as a threat.
So Avell did what any lost little firstie would: he followed the voice and got sucked into the crowd.
He was hustled into a boat with three other kids; one a snooty-looking blond boy, who sat next to a girl with brown pigtail braids and an identical expression. The last kid in the boat was another girl, who looked friendlier than the others.
He studied the latter for a moment. She was pretty, he decided, with her red-velvet hair and dark-chocolate eyes. He also decided he should have eaten more on the train; these food comparisons were really making him hungry.
The girl turned and looked at him. "Isn't this amazing? Of course, I've heard a lot about it from my siblings, but-"
"You have siblings?" Avell interrupted, cringing internally at how stupid he sounded.
She laughed. "Yes, two of them. I'm the youngest, but I've been hearing stories about how amazing this place for ages, seeing as my family's been coming here for generations." She stuck out her hand. "I'm Alana, by the way. And you would be...?"
He shook her hand. "Avell. Avell Watts."
"Watts, you say?" He nodded. "Funny, haven't heard that surname before. You're muggleborn, then?" Avell nodded again. "What's that like?"
Avell cleared his throat. "Well..." He went on in glorious detail until he heard a cry from a boat towards the front of the fleet.
"LOOK! THE CASTLE! STRAIGHT AHEAD!"
Avell stopped mid-sentence as he and Alana both looked up.
Avell's jaw dropped; indeed, Hogwarts was more fantastic than he ever thought it'd be.
A few moments later, the boats docked in a chamber in the school's underbelly as the kids climbed out of the boats. Since he was on the side of the dock, he scrambled out and offered Alana his hand and helped her out of the boat.
"Thanks."
"Any time."
The group of first years followed the giant man up a seemingly endless flight of stairs, until at last they were waiting in the entrance hall.
Once they got there, the man spoke up. "Here y'are, Professor Entwhistle, sir."
"Thank you, Hagrid." a male voice said. Once Hagrid stepped aside, Avell had a slightly easier time seeing the other professor.
Professor Entwhistle was a rather short and stocky man in his late fifties, whose hair was only just beginning to gray. Something in both his voice and his gaze suggest that he was not the type of man anybody'd dare to double cross. Avell made a mental note to stay on his good side.
Professor Entwhistle cleared his throat before he started to speak. Avell tuned him out, as it was something anybody who'd either been born into wizardry or bothered to read their copy of A History of Magic: Revised Edition would know- how the school was founded, the point of the different houses, and so on.
About halfway through, Alana nudged him and whispered, "What house d'you think you'll be?"
"Ravenclaw. And you?"
She shrugged. "I dunno. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff's where most of my family has been in, but my brother's the first in...seven generations, I think?...to get Ravenclaw. Don't think there's been a Slytherin yet, though."
Avell nodded, only half-listening.
Finally, Professor Entwhistle cleared his throat again. "That's enough of that; let's head out and get you sorted. I bet your fellow students are eager to see which house is right for you."
He pushed open the doors to the Great Hall, and more than a few of the older students turned their heads as the first years filed in.
Avell gasped as he looked up at the ceiling; it looked exactly like the sky outside, but with a thousand floating candles suspended in the air. It was even cooler than he thought it'd be.
When he finally managed to tear his eyes away from the ceiling, he saw Professor Entwhistle placing what appeared to be a tattered hat on a three-legged stool. Once the hat was on the stool, the Professor stepped away.
Silence overcame the hall as the hat split open at a rather large rip and began to sing:
"Many, may years ago,
When I was newly sewn,
The founders four faced troubles
Of which they'd never known.
Choosing students for their house
Was their big dilemma,
For each of the four was quite sure
They wouldn't live forever.
At last one said,
"Let us use Godric's hat!"
One the subject of using me,
I thought they were crazy,
But when I found I liked the work,
That was the end of that.
Gryffindor, my owner,
Was chivalrous and bold;
He rather liked bloody crimson
Despite his heart of gold.
Ravenclaw, the lovely dear,
Favored ingenuity and wit;
When choosing her house colors,
She knew blue and bronze were it.
Slytherin chose those whose
Ambitions and blood were purest;
In choices for his colors,
Green and silver were the surest.
But Hufflepuff, she took those
Who believed in everything just;
And as for colors, well, for her,
Yellow and black left the rest in the dust.
Now it's almost time for me
To put you where you belong,
When that'll happen, why yes,
Is at the end of this song!"
The whole hall burst into applause, and as it died down Professor Entwhistle pulled out a scroll and began to read off names.
"Aldrich, Jackson."
The snooty-looking boy from the boat swaggered out of the line and paced the hat squarely on his head.
A moment's pause. "SLYTHERIN!"
The table on the far right clapped politely as Jackson put the hat back on the stool and headed over to them.
"Boone, Kayla."
"GRYFFINDOR!"
"Broderick, Jillian."
The pigtail-braids girl from the boat stepped out from three places in front of Avell and made her way up to the stool.
The hat sat on her head for a good thirty seconds before finally making its decision. "SLYTHERIN!"
Avell then proceeded to tune out until "Hayden, Alana," was called.
Alana gave him a hand squeeze before walking up to the stool.
The hat couldn't have sat on her head for more than five seconds before finalizing her as "HUFFLEPUFF!"
Avell smiled as he saw Alana head over to her new house. It suited her quite well, from the little he knew about her.
He tuned out again until "Scamander, Sylvia," (a "HUFFLEPUFF!") was called and he realized only five people remained.
"Thomas, Mackenzie."
"GRYFFINDOR!"
"Turner, Maximus."
"SLYTHERIN!"
"Watts, Avell."
That was his cue. Avell took his most confident stride up to the stool, sat down, and immediately put the hat on.
It drooped over his eyes, and a little-albeit-creepy voice filled his thoughts.
Ah, a difficult one, aren't you?
Avell jumped. He hadn't expected this; he just thought-
That I touched the head and called out a random house? Don't worry, that's only for the easier sorts.
So what house could I be, then? Avell thought.
Let's see here... You don't quite have the guts or near-stupid bravery required for a Gryffindor...
I should hope not.
The hat chuckled. You've got the ambition and resourcefulness for Slytherin, certainly, but seeing as you're muggleborn they wouldn't take too kindly to you.
What about the other two?
Definitely not patient or hard-working enough for Hufflepuff, so that just leaves...
"RAVENCLAW!"
Avell took off the hat and practically skipped his way over to his new table. For him, this wasn't just the start of a new school year; it was a start on a whole new chapter of his life.
And he was all too eager for it to begin.
Well, that's the end of that chapter.
I plan on this story giving each character a whole chapter devoted just to them, plus an epilogue at the end of the school year for a total of tewnty-five chapters.
Next up: Ranger's chapter and Quidditch tryouts! If nothing else, this'll be interesting...
Catch you next time on One Long Year.
Cheers,
Purple