Silver Lining
Chapter 4: A Jumpy First Night
The castle was one of the most beautiful things Lillie, and probably most of the other students, had ever seen. Even across the large smooth black lake it seemed large, like a many eyed grey beast lying in wait. There were turrets and towers sticking out all over like porcupine quills and the light from inside the windows seemed to be flickering oddly, as though a fire was raging inside.
She glanced around to whisper to Victoire, but it seemed that they had gotten separated in the crowd. Instead, she looked around at the rest of her year, there were about eighty people in the crowd and all were staring in awe at the castle.
"There'll be plenty of time to admire it later," came the vague voice of Professor Trelawney, "Now, however, we are on a tight schedule. So pip, pip!"
With that she led them to the shore where there were about twenty little boats waiting for them. "Four people in each boat! Not you four, the stars show that that won't end well," Trelawney called over them in her usual tones. Lillie glanced upwards; most of the stars were hidden behind clouds and the ones that weren't didn't hold anything special for Lillie, so she shrugged and moved towards the boats.
Lillie ended up in a boat with two boys, one short and slightly overweight with white-blonde hair, the other broad-shouldered and tall, with short dark hair, and a girl who looked like she was about to faint, a thin film of sweat across her dark face.
"Hi, I'm Chris," said the boy with dark hair, talking to nobody in particular.
"Lillie, it's nice to meet you," she smiled, she was glad that someone had broken the silence.
The other boy mumbled something which sounded like, "Frank." The other girl said "Leslie."
After that little greeting, nobody spoke again until they reached an underground dock. "Alright, everybody out," said Trelawney.
There was a splash and a squeal as someone fell in. Lillie craned her neck to see if she could find the poor guy but there were too many people in the way. Instead, she turned back to Trelawney, who was waiting impatiently for the commotion to be over. A few minutes later, when the boy had been pulled back out of the water and dried by a wave of Trelawney's wand, they were walking up a seemingly endless spiral staircase. Finally they came out into a large room with stone floors, walls and ceiling. Lillie was amazed by the sight of it all, although she was feeling more and more nervous and slightly intimidated.
"Wait here, should anyone speak I can foresee that bad things will happen to them," said Trelawney, turning to them, her voice even more mystical than before. With a swish, she glided out of the room, multi-coloured shawls trailing behind her.
Silence. No one uttered a word until she returned; when she did, she didn't talk either, on the contrary she acted very mysteriously, holding a finger to her lips and beckoning them towards the large wooden double doors. Then, causing all of the people gathered around to jump about a foot in the air, she slammed open the doors melodramatically. "Come," she said simply.
As she was right in the middle of the crowd, Lillie couldn't see anything other than the people on either side of her. Slowly, they advanced. After about fifty metres, they stopped and once again Lillie heard Trelawney's voice, "When I call your name, come and sit on this stool and place this hat on your head." Lillie couldn't see the stool or the hat, she was too small, and there were too many people all around her.
"Anoka, Ismail!" there was a ripple of movement as everyone got out of the way of Ismail, who was right at the back. As he passed by her, she saw him trembling with fear. His dark eyes showed that he wanted nothing more than to sink through the floor for which Lillie could hardly blame him. A few seconds later she lost sight of him, there was a short pause after that before a voice suddenly shouted "HUFFLEPUFF!" This must be the talking hat Teddy had told her about on the train. What was more shocking though, was the cheer that suddenly came from her right.
Maybe that was where the other Hufflepuffs were. After Ismail, a tall skinny boy called Louis Austin was sorted into Slytherin, a girl called Mindy Bamforth was sorted into Slytherin too, a boy call Michael Bilding went to Gryffindor and a girl called Abigail Bones was also sorted into Hufflepuff. Frank duBoyce became the third Hufflepuff and Samantha Brandon became the first Ravenclaw. After this, Lillie lost track of the names, what she did notice was that different people took different lengths of time to sort.
As the crowd thinned she realised who was cheering: seated around four different tables were hundreds of students. Every time someone got sorted, one of these tables would erupt into applause. Eventually, there were only four people left: Chris Timberlake, the boy from the boat, who got sorted into Ravenclaw, his brother Richard, who went to Gryffindor, Victoire and herself.
"Victoire Weasley," called Trelawney peering at the two girls. Victoire, moving as gracefully as ever, flounced forward, sat on the stool and smiled as the hat fell onto her head. A few seconds later, the hat shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!" A table somewhere to her left cheered and Victoire removed the hat and glided over to it.
Lillie was now the only person left waiting and she refused to look to either side where she knew everyone would be gazing hungrily at her. By this point she was utterly terrified; everything that could go wrong was flying through her head. She was shaking as she walked towards the stool. Glancing to the sides she confirmed that everyone in the hall was staring at her, the students' eyes boring into her back and the teachers surveying her from the front. Her legs were starting to ache from standing up for so long and so she was very grateful that there was a stool to sit on.
For a fleeting moment she could see everyone in the hall staring at her before the hat was dropped over her eyes and everything went dark.
"Oh my, there is a war raging in your head young lady," said a small voice in her ear making her jump for what felt like the hundredth time that night.
'What do you mean?' she thought back at it.
"I mean that you are impossible to place. Slytherin no, you're a muggle-born, on the other hand, you are brave, loyal and intelligent. Now, I don't think you'd be suited to Gryffindor; far too shy for that. Hufflepuff, maybe, you do work very hard. But I think RAVENCLAW!" the hat shouted the last word to the whole hall, and the volume of the cry hurt Lillie's ears.
Lillie jumped up, astounded that everything had gone so well and hurried over to the table that was cheering for her. She saw Teddy cheering with the rest of his, no their house and he grinned at her. Lillie felt strangely happy at being able to call it her house; they looked like a nice bunch. She returned the grin before squeezing onto the end of the bench next to Chris. He greeted her, but before she had the chance to reply, something made her jump- again!
The empty golden platters were no longer empty; from nowhere they had been completely filled with all variety of things. There was every kind of meat, cooked in every kind of way imaginable, not to mention potatoes, carrots, parsnips, broccoli, cauliflower-cheese, pasta (in all shapes and sizes), every kind of sauce she could think of and for some strange reason, rice crispies.
Still hungry despite the food from the train, she piled sausages, mashed potatoes, parsnips and a sauce which she had never seen before but looked nice, onto her plate and began to eat.
It was the best thing she had ever tasted. It was better than the atmosphere at any rate, which was slightly awkward. For the first few minutes, the first years sat in silence while all around them the others chatted jovially. Lillie looked around, there were about twenty first years, about 7 or 8 girls and around 14 boys. Finally, the silence was broken by the girl sitting opposite her, "Hi!" she said brightly to Chris and Lillie, although there was a slight tremor in her voice, "I'm Gillian Marlon, err, who are you?" she asked, slightly nervously.
"I'm Chris, Chris Timberlake and this is Lillie. We met on the boats," he explained.
Following that brief interlude, everyone started talking to each other: asking each other's names, where they lived etc.
"What about you Lillie, where do you live?" asked Gillian.
Lillie thought back to remember the address on the envelope, "Gloucestershire?" she said, although it sounded more like a question, "I've just moved house, and I'm not really sure where it is yet."
"Oh. Do you have any siblings?" Gillian asked, trying to go down a better road.
Lillie swallowed fighting back tears, "Um, yeah, I- I have a younger brother. What about you?"
"Three. Two sisters, one older; she is in the fifth year, one younger; she's coming in two years time. And then there's Jeremy who is in the year above us." she pointed down the table at a boy who was chatting with some friends, "That's him. What about your brother, when is he coming?"
"I don't think he will come," said Lillie, struggling to remain composed.
Gill had realised that Lillie was uncomfortable and so quickly changed the topic. "So you're a muggle-born then?"
"Kind of. Yeah."
"Well don't worry, I'm sure you'll do fine." she smiled at Lillie, who smiled back. Maybe life here at Hogwarts wouldn't be too hard for her. She had expected there to be more of a negative reaction to her being a muggle born.
"Did you expect me not to be cool with that? You look kinda surprised."
"It's just that my grandmother's sister… never mind," she trailed off. She didn't like being so open, these people were pretty much strangers, she didn't want to worry them with her domestic problems.
"Wait, I thought you were muggle-born. How come your grandmother's sister… what?" Gillian asked, looking slightly perplexed.
"My grandmother was a witch, but she married a muggle, and my mother was not a witch either, and she also married a muggle. My grandmother's sister, Dulcia Selwyn, was very disapproving of my grandmother for marrying a muggle, and during the holidays she had to look after me for a bit. I just thought a lot of witches and wizards didn't like muggles," Lillie explained, trying not to make it sound too bad, but by the look on Gillian and Chris', who had started listening in, faces she had failed.
"Selwyn?" he asked.
"Yeah. What about it?"
"They're famous, and not for anything good." The look on Chris' face was not reassuring and Lillie was starting to feel a little anxious. She looked at Chris questioningly, "You don't know! Well, um, a year ago, a bunch of people were arrested for muggle abuse, I don't know the details, but a lot of them were Selwyns," Chris said sheepishly, looking apprehensive.
Lillie did not know what to say. Luckily she didn't have to, for, a few seconds after Chris had finished, the platters of food in front of her, switched for trays of cakes, bowls of ice cream and plates of biscuits and chocolates.
She grabbed a biscuit and started nibbling it, but she wasn't hungry, what little appetite that had remained after the main course, had vanished completely and all she felt was a slight apprehension. She stopped talking after that, retreating into her usual cocoon of silence, once again fighting off the tears that burned at the back of her eyes.
Roughly twenty minutes later, the stern looking woman at the centre of the teacher's table stood up and the whole room fell silent. "Welcome, to a new year at Hogwarts, to all of you, whether you are new or old students. Due to his Bonelus, Professor Cardriggy has had to retire and he has been taken to St. Mungo's; he will be replaced by Professor Lugitte, who has come in from Beaux batons." There was a smattering of applause before the woman continued.
"Our new students should be aware that the forest on the edge of the grounds is out of bounds, prefects will tell you more about it tomorrow morning. Now to you all, I say good night," she smiled at them before putting on a much more serious face and calling, "Get to bed!" causing some people to jump and others to laugh. The next thing she knew, everyone was getting up and moving towards the double doors that they had come through. She looked across at Gillian who looked just as confused as she felt.
"First years, to me! Ravenclaw first years, come to me!" Lillie could hear someone calling over the hubbub. Relieved, she moved towards the voice and finally reached its source: a boy no older than sixteen. "Is that all of you? Well if it isn't, too bad. Follow me and try to remember the way, I'm taking you to the common room, you'll spend a lot of your free time there. Tomorrow morning before your first lessons at nine o'clock I am going to talk to the boys and someone called Maud Keyes will talk to the girls." The boy was already leading them away by this point and the first years once again found themselves in the large entrance hall.
Lillie tried to remember the way that they were going but they went through so many hidden passages and up so many spiral staircases that before long she had no clue where they were. They stopped when they reached a large wooden door with a bronze eagle-head knocker. The boy who Lillie assumed was a prefect knocked the knocker three times and then stepped back.
Lillie jumped along with a few other people as the eagle's beak opened and a smooth voice issued out from it, "What is a word made up of 4 letters yet is also made up of 3. Although is written with 8 letters, and then with 4. Rarely consists of 6, and never is written with 5?" it asked.
"To get into the common room, you have to answer a question, if you get it wrong you have to wait for someone else to come along and get it right," explained the prefect. There was a long pause as the prefect tried to work out the answer to the riddle. He swore.
From behind them someone called out, "What's the hold up?"
The message was passed back along with the riddle and two minutes later they were still waiting outside as no one had figured out yet.
Lillie stepped forward; she suddenly realised what the knocker had meant. Looking at the knocker, for she didn't know where else to look, she said nervously, "What: has four letters; yet has three letters; although has eight letters; then has four letters; rarely has six letters and never has five letters. You're talking about letters," she finished triumphantly.
"Precisely," said the knocker and the door swung open. There was a cheer and a rush as everyone moved towards the door.
"First years stay with me!" cried the prefect everyone was pushed into the common room. Ten minutes later, the crush was over and the first years were once again gathered around the prefect. Okay that staircase leads up to the dormitories, girls are the first on the right and boys are the first on the left."
Suddenly feeling very tired Lillie headed up the stairs with the twenty or so others and filed into the first door she came to. She looked around; she was the first one in and walked across the room. There was a trunk or suitcase at the foot of each bed. By the time she found hers, the other six girls had come in. She had a bed right in the corner: it was a four-poster with blue curtains and blankets. Everyone was too tired to speak, so they just got changed and went to bed.
Lillie couldn't get to sleep. Her green eyes brimmed with tears as she thought about her parents and her little brother. Chris' words kept swimming through her mind and she felt slightly scared. Eventually, she allowed the tears too flow and she cried for a long time, trying to make as little noise as possible. Her brown hair splayed out across her pillow, she tossed and turned but could not find any happier thoughts that distracted for her long. When her tears had run dry and she was lying awake, her thoughts still lingering on the events of the past week or so, the door opened creakily, making her jump –again– and a little creature, rather like the one with the bell at the hotel entered, holding a small broom, an equally small mop and several things which Lillie assumed were cleaning products.
"Who are you?" Lillie whispered her voice slightly hoarse from crying for so long. The creature noticed that she was still awake and it bowed low and immediately left the room again. Feeling confused, she finally fell asleep. Her dreams were confused and made little sense, and when she awoke the next day she could hardly remember the little creature and had no recollection of the dream whatsoever.
Author's note:
I've finally redone this chapter, sorry it took so long. I hope it's better than it was before. I don't know when I'll have time to go over chapter five, but I won't change a lot when I do.