Disclaimer:
I do not own Maximum Ride or Harry Potter.
Angel and I pushed my cart. Mom walked along side me, Total tucked into her arms. Gazzy and Iggy were having a conversation while walking around, pushing his cart. Fang listened to Nudge's continuous talking, each pushing their cart. My trunk was packed, they had us get a trunk - we found that out the day after we went to Diagon Alley. We had to head back anyways, we needed to get our robes. We walked through the crowds, the train left at eleven, it was half an hour until.
We looked around, hoping that we could find the way to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. Was there even such a thing? Suddenly, a boy pushed me. He was my size, with sleek blond hair. I looked at him, and heard him mutter, "Get out of my way, muggle." Suddenly a much taller version of the boy walked by.
"Draco, you never push a young lady. And she's definatly not a muggle." he said snidely. I looked at him, he had strange eyes that made my skin crawl. The boy turned around, and looked at the man and me. "Apologize Draco." he said.
"Sorry, you filthy mudblood." I looked at him, giving him my glare. The man didn't say anything, he just followed his son. I watched them, keeping my vision locked. They walked to the barrier, on one side it said Platform Nine, and on the other it said Platform Ten. Suddenly, the boy and his father started running at it, I opened my eyes wider, the next second they had disappeared.
"Come on everyone!" I yelled to my flock. "I found it!" They looked at me, and then shrugged and started to follow me. "Some jerk pushed me, and then ran here. I think this is how you get to the platform." They stared at me. "Gazzy, help Iggy, go." I said. The two got into position, and dashed at it, they flinched, expecting to run into the wall, but they disappeared.
"Nudge." I said, and she did the same as Iggy and Gazzy. "Fang." I said, and he dashed in to. I looked at me mom, I felt kind of sick, I knew that she probably couldn't get in. "Mom," I started, but she raised her hand.
"I know dear, I don't think I can go with you. You can go in, just be very careful." she warned, then she put Total into my cart, and me and Angel started to make a dash for it. We looked in awe at the sight of it all. There was a train, steam coming from the engine. Carts piled along after it, that could carry so many people. There were children everywhere, talking, laughing, saying good-bye.
"Okay everyone, let's get onto the train." I ordered, they nodded, and we loaded our stuff onto the train. We had to search for about ten minutes before we found an empty room. Right across from another group of kids, I didn't look in on them, but I saw that there was only one girl in it, they were arguing with the boy who had shoved me. If he was a flyboy, his head would be crumbled into a million pieces now.
Angel, Nudge, Total, and I took one side of compartment, the boys took the other. We looked at each other, then Angel broke the silence. "It's strange being the youngest kid on this train. So many kids were staring at me." she said.
"They're just not used to you yet. Don't worry." I said, smoothing my baby's hair. She smiled, me and there was silence again. After the longest, there was a loud whistle, and a jerk. The train gained speed, until finally we had left the station completely.
"I hope that those horrible flyboys don't come. I want to feel like a normal girl for once." she said, leaning her head on my shoulder.
"I don't get why I can't go to school." Total whined.
"Well, it could have something withyou being a dog." Iggy suggested.
"No, a talking dog." Fang corrected. Gazzy snickered. Total looked away.
Hours passed, we had gotten dressed in our new school robes and outfits. They were really uncomfortable. There was no room for our wings to get out, but I knew that we'd get in terrible trouble if I cut open the backs for our wings. This was a fancy school after all, and many people had never heard of it. Finally, through the rain the poured down, we saw a castle in the distance.
"You think that's it?" Angel asked.
"Probably." I said, and watched as the large castle drew nearer and nearer, until finally we arrived at a small platform. Slowly the kids started to get out, we followed, we covered our heads with our arms. There were so many children. Suddenly, we saw a stern-faced woman walk toward us, she had an umbrella over her head.
"Miss Ride?" she asked. I nodded.
Just then a large man hollered, "First years! Com' 'ith me!" Nudge didn't walk with the rest of the kids.
"You are the one they call, Nudge, right?" the woman asked. Nudge nodded. "Then you need to go with Hagrid. You'll see everyone else later." she explained, and Nudge slowly started to trug away, getting soaked by the rain. "Follow me." the woman said. We crammed together, trying to keep each other dry. We were led to some carriages, we got in with the woman.
"Now, my name is Professor McGonagall, I shall be your transfiguration teacher. I am deputy headmistress at Hogwarts, and I will be assessing you, to see where you are." she explained. "We shall be dropping off these three," she motioned toward Gazzy, Angel, and Total, "at their home. Then we'll go up to the castle, and see what you can do." The carriage was led away, toward a small cottage at the edge of the lake that surrounded the castle. McGonagall waved them off, Angel gave me a hug, then walked off the carriage with Total in her arms. Gazzy slapped Iggy a high five, then walked off. They ran into the cottage, and waved as the carriage began to move away.
I waved back, hoping that they would be okay. We were brought up to the castle, we saw a fleet of boats on the lake, a long distance away. I guessed that's how Nudge was getting to the castle. The older kids were already dashing into the castle, trying not to get wet. They entered the hall, a large pudgy kid dashed by them. They heard snippet of somebodies conversation. "Blimey." said a boy with fire orange hair, that he was shaking, sending splutters of water onto me and the rest. "if that keeps up the lake's going to overflow. I'm soak- ARRGH!" suddenly the boy screamed. A strange looking creature had thrown a water balloon at the boy, and had soaked him further.
Professor McGonagall ran after him, yelling, "PEEVES!" Then she slipped, and grabbed onto a bushy haired girls neck, that stood next to the soaked red-head. She apologized, and walked back to us. I held my hands over my mouth, so that she couldn't see I was laughing.
Quickly McGonagall lead us into her chambers. She wrote something on the blackboard, and looked at us. "Alright," she sighed. "Start with this spell. We learned it in the first year, so if you can do it, you don't have to be in the first year."
I picked up the wand that we had to bring. I did the motion that it said before saying the words. "Wingardium Leviosa." I said uncertainly, suddenly the board started to float a few inches. Look at that, the stupid scientists added magic in us. Who would have guessed?
The woman nodded. Fang did it well too. I told Iggy how to do it, and he did it - almost perfectly. He accidentally sent it flying, nearly crashing into McGonagall. "What did I do?" Iggy whispered to Fang, so that only our improved hearing could hear it.
"You almost killed the teacher." Fang said simply. McGonagall looked at Iggy, her eyes blazing.
"Why did you do that!?" she screamed, a few loose hairs fell from her bun.
Iggy shrugged, I watched carefully. "I didn't mean to."
She looked at him. "So your saying you couldn't control your powers?"
"No." Iggy answered.
"So you meant to do it?"
"No."
"Then why did you do it?"
"'Cause I didn't know what I was doing."
"Of course you did!"
"No, he didn't." I said, trying to end this. "He didn't know where it was going to go. I had to tell him what to do, and what it said."
"Why?" she asked, staring at me hard.
"I'm blind." Iggy said simply, then I heard him mutter under his breath so that I could barely hear him, "Stupid scientists."
"But you have so much magic, how did you get in if you're blind?"
"Wasn't in the letter? Oops." I said simply.
"We've had blind students before. We could get you a braille book I guess." she suggested. I didn't want to tell her that Iggy didn't know braille, but that would probably have him go live with Gazzy. Then there would be a lot of problems.
I nodded, and we continued with the tests. All except for Iggy, who would be placed in the first year with Nudge. Me and Fang somehow made it all the way to the fourth year. McGonagall wouldn't let us go any farther since our age was fourteen. That was good enough. We were brought through a tunnel, I felt cramped and started to take in some deep breaths. We were in a strange trophy room, where a hat stood, waiting on a bench.
"You've got some early ones." McGonagall said to it. Suddenly, the hat moved, and it started talking.
"Alright, and then I get to sing my song afterwards?" it asked. The woman nodded. And grabbed it, she grabbed Iggy's arm and set him down on the stool. She plopped the hat on his head. The hat started to mutter something that I didn't listen to. After a minute or two, it said. "He's in Ravenclaw. Next."
The hat was taken off of Iggy's head, and Fang sat down next. This time I listened to it, knowing that it would decide his future, and where he would be.
"Well, you're dark and mysterious, but you let your feelings out. You're loyal and strong. You'd make a great Slytherin." I felt my heart freeze, knowing that he might not be with us. "But you're a true friend." Then he started talking normally. "Gryffindor." I sighed, even though my heart was sinking. We weren't in the same class. I sat down on the stool after Fang had gotten up. The hat touched my head, and I heard the vioce loom in my ear.
"Your strong-willed, but your not a wizard or a witch. I can tell, you can't hide from me. Your secret is safe, but be warned, you might have some trouble with magic." I groaned, thinking it was the voice, then remembering. Then began the battle.
"Get out of Max's head." My voice yelled.
"What's this?" the hat asked.
'My voice. I know, it's annoying, isn't it?' I thought.
"Max, you need to leave. You're not needed here."
'To bad, I want to be here.' I retorted, which was mostly the truth. The voice went quiet.
"Interesting." The hat continued. "Anyways, your in Gryffindor." I sighed, and thanked anything that I could think of that I was in Gryffindor. Now all I had to worry about was Nudge. She didn't know that we were in Gryffindor.
Professor McGonagall led us into the dining hall, we took our seats at the edge of the Gryffindor table, I had dropped Iggy off close to the Ravenclaw table, McGonagall had told us where our tables were. Some people stared at us, mostly the red-haired boy from before. He stared at me for a long time. I glared back at him angrily. Then the bushy haired girl slapped him gently.
I looked up, McGonagall was bringing out the new students. I saw Nudge somewhere in the middle, her brown hair starting to frizz. Then the woman brought out the hat. As soon as she took her place, it started to sing, I gave a small groan and looked toward Fang. They smiled, I knew they were just annoyed from the hat as I was. Suddenly, I heard a name be called. Names were called, and children were brought up. After the longest time, of waiting, I heard McGonagall finally call out the word, "Nudge!"
Confusion rang through the crowd, she didn't have a last name, so what? The hat had barely skimmed her head, before it called out, "Hufflepuff!" I let my mouth hang open.
"No!" I screamed, a little loud, but it couldn't be heard over the cheering from the Hufflepuff table. I slumped down in my seat. I couldn't believe it, Nudge is in Hufflepuff. I couldn't believe it, at least I had Fang with me. Finally the last name was called, and a large man with a long beard started talking. Seconds later, there was tons of food all over the place, followed by ghosts, flying everywhere. But I wasn't hungry, which is surprising since I was hungry all the time, but I couldn't think about eating, I could only think of my flock. I even ignored the ghosts that flew around the room.
Finally, I grabbed a few peices of chicken, and ate them, they were probably the best pieces of chicken I had ever eaten. After the longest time, the man started to talk again.
He told us all about some strange tournament going on. Only kids who were seventeen could enter, and there were going to be two other schools coming to join in on the games. Then the old man who had talked before told us it was time for bed. Everyone stood up, and we started to walk away. Me and Fang followed some bossy kid, leading some kids from our table to the dormitory. We followed them, and waited. I looked at the pictures that moved from frame to frame, which I thought was pretty cool. Finally we got to a large picture of a fat lady. "Balderdash." said the pushy kid. The woman's portrait opened up, and we were led into a large room.
There was a fire, burning in the fireplace, more pictures that were waving and laughing. I saw the kids from before, the red-head stared at me. A funny look went over his face, I looked at him, that was to weird. I looked to Fang, "I'm going to head up to bed. I'll see you tomorrow." I said, and I walked up the stairs to the girls room, which had been pointed out by the pushy kid. I wandered up the stairs, at each floor, there were names of who slept there. I was three flights up. Along with some people named Lavender Brown, Hermione Granger, and Parvati Patil.
I walked in, and found my trunk, it was sitting by a window, I laid down on it, grumbling into my pillow, not even bothering to get under the covers, or get into the new pajama's my mom had bought for me. Suddenly somebody walked in.
"Oh, my goodness, who are you?" asked a voice. I turned around and looked up.
"Max. Who are you?" I asked. Two girls stood at the entrance, staring at me.
"My name is Lavender, this is Pavarti. What are you doing here?"
"Trying to get to sleep." I replied.
"We've never seen you here before though." Pavarti said.
"Because I just joined this school. Problem?"
"No, no. Oh, darn, look Pavarti, our beds are on different sides of the room. Hey Max, do you mind trading beds with me?" Lavender asked. She gestured to the bed next to me. It was still by the window.
"It's fine. But you have to move the trunks." I smiled.
"Fine by me." Pavarti agreed.
I jumped over the beds to the other side, and buried my face into that pillow. I sighed, then I heard Lavender scream. I got into fighting position really quick, ignoring my pleas for sleep. "What is it?" I growled looking for the danger.
"Sorry, that bird scared me." Lavender said, pointing toward the window. Nudge's bird sat there, waiting to get in. I opened the window letting it in.
"What, it's only Maskerada." I said. I undid the tie, and read the letter on it.
MAX!
WHERE ARE YOU!? I MISS YOU! AND I'M SCARED, EVERYONE HERE ARE STRANGERS! SEND MASKERADA BACK ASAP!
NuDgE
I sighed, I knew this would happen.
I dug through my trunk for some ink and a quill pen. Why did we have to use these? And I wrote on the back.
Nudge! Calm down! It's alright. You're in Hufflepuff, me and Fang are here in Gryffindor. Iggy is in Ravenclaw, that's what worries me. I'll meet you outside the eating place before breakfast, and we'll talk then. Max.
As quick as I could I tied the letter to Maskerada's leg, and the owl flew off.
"Who was that?" Lavender asked.
"Nudge, she's scared." I said simply.
"Nudge? Oh yeah, that strange girl who didn't have her last name called."
"It's because she doesn't have it, and we don't know it." I said, burring myself into the pillow again.
"Oh." Pavarti said. "How do you know her?"
"Long story, that I don't want to talk about." I said. I knew that I wasn't going to talk about it. "Now, be quiet and let me sleep." I grumbled, closing my eyes. Slowly I felt myself drift off, and finally I fell asleep. I just hoped that the rest of my flock was okay.
