Absolutely Normal Chaos
Chapters One—Four
by Amara.
A/N: Yes, there IS a plot to this. It comes a bit later. I was just wondering...what if Harry hadn't gotten his letter from Hogwarts? What if Hagrid hadn't told Harry that he was a wizard? What if he'd gone on with his dull and depressing life and gone to Stonewall High....go ahead, say it: BO-RING! But, what if some other students hadn't gone to Hogwarts either? What if their records are scrambled, their magical quill defective? Yes, the magical world as we know it is in jeopardy. For three years now, it's been sending invitations to the wrong people, forgettting the right people, or simply not sending any letters at all. Imagine, now, what would consequently happen...no Harry to prevent Quirrel from presenting the Philosopher's Stone to his master, a big lot of muggles at Hogwarts with nowhere to go, dozens of wizards angrily crying out that their children had been forgotten...and hundreds of muggle-borns ignored, to become boring and ordinary like everyone else they know. *sigh*...yes, I know, I've got to find a way to make Harry and....a certain someone else.....realize that they're magical, because otherwise who will save the day?
Well, enjoy. And if you wish I could have written a better plot right away, I merely say: Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus (you jerk).
CHAPTER ONE. Gray.
"Wake up! You don't want to be late for your first day of school! Up!" Aunt Petunia's voice screeched through the door to the cupboard under the stairs. Fumbling for his glasses, Harry pulled back the sheets and caught a glimpse of Aunt Petunia's sharp noise through the grill in the door. Slipping into the baggy gray potato sack that was supposed to pass for a school uniform (after pulling several spiders off of it), he stepped into the kitchen, squinting his eyes against the sunlight. Uncle Vernon was sitting at the table reading a newspaper.
"Bring me my coffee, boy!"
"Yes, Uncle Vernon," Harry mumbled, reaching for the coffeepot and burning his hand. With a yelp he jumped back. Uncle Vernon grunted. Harry poured the coffee.
"Where's Dudley?" he asked. Aunt Petunia pursed her lips.
"We've driven him to his academy already. Now hurry up, or you'll miss your bus! Don't think we'll drive you to school, boy!"
It was a silent, uncomfortable breakfast: Harry chewed on a piece of toast, Uncle Vernon grunted as he read the newspaper, Aunt Petunia checked her watch every thirty seconds with a sour face. When he finished with his toast, Harry slung his schoolbag over his shoulder and, not knowing what to do, timidly said, "'Bye." They didn't say anything, so he walked outside. A gust of cold air hit his face as soon as he stepped onto the porch. Wrapping his scarf more tightly around his neck, he walked slowly down the road to his bus stop. The sky was barely tinged with pink. He grinned as he thought of Dudley, waking up at 5 A.M. for the rest of the year. Sticking his hands in his pocket to keep them warm, he waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, a rumbling came around the corner told him the bus had decided to show up (a/n: are there school buses in England?...). The foggy glass doors opened, and he stepped onto the bus and into his new life.
The bus driver glanced at him uninterestedly and shut the door behind him. It was an ominous sort of sound. Nervously, he walked down the aisle looking for a seat. Dull, empty faces stared at him from the sides, people of no particular sex in their smart gray uniforms, simply waiting for another schoolday to start. They didn't look remotely excited to begin their school year. Harry found a seat next to a likely-looking person: a boy of about his age, with dreadlocks.
"Er...can I...can I sit down here?" he asked. The boy just stared at him blankly. Harry sat down. The seat was at the very back, so when the bus rolled down the road once more, he jounced up and down in his seat. It was most uncomfortable.
A few more blank-faced people in gray uniforms got on, and the bus stopped. Wiping a circle in the misty window, he saw a large mouldy-looking brick building. Next to it was a much nicer building, with a neatly printed sign that said in calligraphy, Maris Academy for Girls. He stared. He had been quite sure that Stonewall High admitted all sexes, and that it had, in fact, been called 'Stonewall High.' Then he realized that the faceless people were getting off of the bus. He followed them into the mouldy-looking building and realized that this was Stonewall High.
An enormous mass of people in dull gray uniforms were milling around in the hall, whispering and talking and even laughing a bit. They seemed a good bit more alive than the students on the bus had been. He joined them, nervously rolling up his baggy sleeves and hoping he didn't look like he was wearing old elephant skin. Through the windows he could see other schoolbuses stopping. A mixed assortment of Stonewall students and girls wearing dark maroon and navy uniforms got off of them, the girls going into the much nicer neighboring building.
"Attention! Attention, all students!" Suddenly, there was an empty circle in the center of the congregating students, and a stern-looking woman stood in the middle of the circle, holding a bullhorn up to her mouth. "You will note that the rooms are numbered: our school consists of three floors, and six halls. On the first floor, A and B halls. On the second floor, C and D halls. On the third floor, E and F halls. The rooms are numbered accordingly. If your name begins with the letter 'A,' please report to..." She read off a long list of names, and gray-clad students of varying heights walked off in different directions. When 'P' was called, Harry wondered what to do when he noticed a group of people walking to the stairwell. Running to catch up, he walked with them up the stairs to the third floor. Through the hallway, and to their classroom. Inside, a man wearing long, pinstriped pants and a pinstriped blazer was taking roll in a dull voice. He looked as though he were wearing his pyjamas. Harry quickly took a seat with everyone else. With no change of expression, the teacher finished roll and put the list down on his desk. Harry's hand went up and the teacher stared at him.
"S...sorry," said Harry, trying to find his voice, "but...you didn't call my name."
"Well, what is your name?" said the teacher in a voice that plainly said: I've never been wrong.
"Potter. Harry Potter." The man scanned the list.
"I'm sorry, your name isn't on the list, Mr. Potter." Harry gulped. Everyone was staring at him. The teacher continued.
"Perhaps you should see the main office. It's on the second floor, between rooms 5C and 6C."
Harry nervously got up and swung his schoolbag over his shoulder. Over his shoulder, he saw the class and the teacher staring after him before he walked into the hallway. Down the stairwell, to the second floor. As room after room passed him, he looked up on the walls. Grim-looking portraits hung above the lockers (which were a sea-green color) of past principals and administrators. The carpet was a dirty gray color, like almost everything else in the school. Here and there a student was opening their locker, and stared at him as he walked by. Quickening his pace, he reached the office. A sign on the door said:
MAIN OFFICE
~
Principal M. Shuffleburger
He pushed the door open hesitantly. Inside, several important-looking people were on the phone, typing furiously on computers.
"Ex—excuse me?" One of them paused, annoyed, and said, "What?" impatiently.
"I—my name's not on the roll," he explained. The woman he said this to looked exasperated.
"Well, don't tell us, then, tell Mr. Shuffleburger, he'll sort out trivial problems like that," she said, pointing at a frosted glass window, which belonged to a polished wooden door, which had a sign on it that said, "Principal Mauritius Shuffleburger."
Inside, a chubby man with a flowery tie was doodling on a yellow notepad. He jumped when Harry walked in and chuckled.
"Hello, hello, haven't had a person in my office for months, besides the garbage-collector." He chuckled again and shook Harry's hand.
"I...um...my name wasn't on the roll." The man's smile vanished.
"Well, if you don't belong to this school, then that is a problem indeed." Harry wanted to tell him that he didn't belong anywhere, that the Dursleys had picked Stonewall High, that Privet Drive shouldn't have been his home, that he should have been swooped up by long-lost relatives a long time ago...
"My name's Harry Potter, sir," he stammered. Putting on a tiny pair of spectacles, Principle Shuffleburger scanned the list.
"No Potter on this list, no," he said. Harry felt a queasy sensation in his stomach.
"Are you...are you sure?"
"Yes, indeed, we've got Harry Abernathy, Harry Abel, Harry Batton, Harry Bellingham, Harry Crup, Harry Diddle, Harry Dursley, Harry—"
"That's me!" Harry interrupted. "Harry Dursley!" The principal looked at him severely.
"You quite clearly stated that your name was Harry Potter. Do you know, lying will get you—"
"I live with my aunt and uncle," Harry explained, "my parents died in a car crash when I was little, and I came to live with them." Principal Shuffleburger's cheery blue eyes searched Harry's green ones for honesty, and finally tore away.
"All right, then, Mr. Potter—er, Mr. Dursley. You're registered as Harry Dursley here, so mind you use that name. Goodbye then."
Walking down the halls to the stairwell, he thought about his meeting with Principal Shuffleburger. Somehow, the thought that the Dursleys had registered him under their name wasn't very comforting. It just brought him closer to the Dursleys: he had insisted on the name Potter, and the Dursleys had not objected, all his life because it was one more thing to separate him from his horrible relatives. Now, while nobody would know the difference, he wouldn't be Harry Potter anymore. Just...Harry Dursley.
He suddenly realized that he didn't know where to go now. Oh, well, he thought, at least Dudley wasn't around anymore...
CHAPTER TWO. Mystery Girl.
It had been about a month into the term. Harry had learned that Maris Academy for Girls, the school that shared the campus with Stonewall, was an ancient rival. The girls were smarter, better-looking, sportier, and superior (according to the envious girls of Stonewall) and, according to the boys, unbearably annoying. Harry now sat down with a group of friends at lunch every day, instead of finding a lonely corner to eat in. He could now tell the difference between most of the gray uniforms moving about the hallways. Like the other students, he was also bored stupid by their teachers.
One day, in mathematics, Mr. Butler was droning on about all the fascinating ways to use a protractor, and demonstrating for them with a giant cardboard protractor painted a garish pink. He seemed very much taken with his subject. Harry rested his cheek on his palm and stared out the window. The sky was stormy gray outside. Across the field the Academy girls were having soccer tryouts. Harry had heard these, and all other sports tryouts, were mandatory: Maris Academy was very big on sports, especially since they had wiped the field with Stonewall Highschoolers for at least fifty years. He bemusedly watched the coach whistle on her metal whistle, very loudly if her red and puffy cheeks meant anything. She finally gave up and started shouting. He followed her gaze to a girl with bushy brown hair, sitting on the grass next to the bleachers and reading a book. She jumped up, startled, and walked reluctantly to the tryouts. In goalie-and-player pairs they tried out before the coach. First, the girl was a player, and the first time she kicked the ball she slipped and fell on her back. The girls snickered. The next time she kicked it too far and to the side of the goal. She jogged hopelessly to get it, cheeks glowing red. As a goalie, the first time the ball was kicked at her she covered her face and crouched. Harry saw the coach throw up her hands in exasperation. The girl trudged back to the bleachers, face burning with embarrassment, and immerse herself once again in her book. Harry shook his head and returned his gaze to the teacher, now enthusiastically demonstrating the way to draw an acute angle.
At lunch every day he saw the bushy-haired girl sitting under a tree with a sack lunch scattered around her, an apple in hand and her nose in some formidable-looking book. She always stayed after the bell thirty or forty seconds, gathering her lunch with one groping hand and savoring the book for just a bit more before going back into the Academy building for class. He sometimes felt a bit sorry for her: she always seemed by herself, and half the Maris girls would giggle and whisper behind her. She didn't seem a bit regretful about not having very many friends, so he soon forgot about her.
The first soccer game of the year arrived: the students poured onto the bleachers rosy-cheeked and excited. The Maris girls came with smug looks on their faces. The game began. Harry noticed that the Maris team consisted of tall, thin girls with fierce expressions, while the Stonewall team looked depressingly ragtag. He found a seat on the edge of the silver bleachers. Swinging his legs, Harry watched as the girls scored goal after goal. Quite suddenly, an irritable voice came out of nowhere and asked him to please stop. He fell right off of the edge of the bleachers in surprise. The voice had come from underneath him. Brushing himself off, he saw the girl with bushy brown hair sitting underneath the bleachers, at the very edge where sunlight filtered in, reading a thick book, her knees hugged to her chest.
"What are you doing down here?" he asked in surprise.
"Reading, what else?" she snapped, waving her book in front of his nose (Darwin's Theory of Evolution). He stared at her.
Not having anything much else to say, he said, rather stupidly, "You're supposed to be watching the soccer game, you know."
"I don't care much for soccer," she replied, "and anyway they'll—" she jerked her head to a group of Academy girls watching her and giggling—"they'll make fun of me."
Harry shrugged and settled down on the grass next to her to watch the game. She continued to read.
CHAPTER THREE: In which Hermione discovers how cruel Academy Girls can be.
The next day the same group of girls taunted Hermione in the hallway: "Granger's got a boyfriend! Granger's got a boyrfriend!" She asked them impatiently what they were talking about.
"You know—the boy you spent the soccer game talking to!" said one.
"Oh, honestly! He just sat next to me and watched the stupid
soccer game while I was reading!"
"Oh, how ro-man-tic!" the girls
shouted ridiculously. She scowled and walked away from them as fast as she
could.
Harry saw the bushy-haired girl leaving lunch the next day, clutching her books, and he followed her. Tapping her on the back, he said, "Hi." She whirled around.
"You!" she said furiously. "Don't even talk to me! It's your stupid fault that everyone's saying I have a boyfriend! Just go away!" And she left him standing there with his mouth hanging open.
CHAPTER FOUR: Hermione's P.O.V.
God I hate this academy. All my life, I haven't cared whether people like me or not. Suddenly it feels like my life's been ruined, because of a stupid bunch of girls.
Why does this school have to be so sporty? Why do we have to try out for EVERYTHING? Stupid sports. Stupid soccer. Stupid coach, stupid academy, stupid boy...
I was minding my own business, reading under the stands (okay, so I was supposed to be watching the 'big' soccer game, but who cares?) when he started swinging his feet back and forth. I asked him quite politely to stop, and he nearly fell on top of me! Jeez. I didn't think I'd surprised him that much. Then he had the nerve to ask me what I was doing under the stands, so I said, "Reading." Well, duh. What else could I have said? He saw the book in my hands. I'd seen him at lunch a couple of times, looking over at the empty table I sat at in an, "I-feel-kinda-sorry-for-her" sort of way. Sorry? For me? Ha! No other sixth grader has a 119% gradepoint average. Least of all a skinny, messy-haired boy with taped-up glasses. Sorry indeed!
Ah, well, gotta go. Coach is calling (again);
Hermione
A/N: NO, THIS IS NOT AN H/H STORY! Sorry, all you shippers, but they're only about eleven years old. I'm totally H/H *don't even TRY to convince me otherwise* but I'm tyring to do this as an exercise of plot, not romance.....yeah, so far, doing really bad with the whole 'plot' thing....but I'm working on it! Go bug me in the next few days and I'll write the next part. Please review! and tell me how awful I was!
P.S.-I'll think of a better title next time.
-Amara