Initiation

Arthur could not stop gabbing on about how impressed he was with Alice and Courtney's tryout. Zephyr even spoke for the first time, saying simply, "You both flew very well." His voice was very deep for an eleven-year-old and I had a suspicion that he'd have girls swooning over him much sooner than any of the other first year boys.

I took a quick look at Alice's schedule when she got back to the group. Outside the table of timeslots, in the bottom right corner of the parchment the word 'Quiddich' followed by a question mark appeared. It was very clever magic. The schedule knew already that Alice would be having quidditch practice every week, but as it hadn't been assigned yet so the paper couldn't mark down a time. I wondered how Professor Silsbury did it.

The tour of grounds was nothing short of magnificent. As we walked, the mist of the morning cleared, as did the thick cloud cover. What remained was a rather sunny day, a sky with fluffy white clouds, and a bright green grass stretching for miles around us. I couldn't stop swiveling my head, unlike Rainy who mainly stared at her feet and complained in a quiet whisper about wanting to get back to the castle to write mother.

Mochi trailed behind us, beside us, and all around us. She chased birds, sniffed the ground, climbed a tree, but always stayed within twenty feet or so.

The grounds were both larger and smaller than I expected. Hogwarts a History never really conveyed how much free green space there was, nor did it give a good sense of just how big the lake was. The book didn't cover where Hogwarts was either. It gave no description that the castle sat atop a mountain, or that trees held up part of the Great Hall. The forest was mentioned, of course, but it was never mentioned that students were forbidden to go into it. Professor Silsbury was clear. No entering the forest, never ever. Although she amended that statement quickly, adding that with teacher supervision we might be allowed. That made me think students went in the forbidden forest far often than "never ever."

I spotted the giant man, Professor Hagrid, who had brought Lucas Morgan to the Hospital Wing. He stood by an equally large barrel filled with water. He cupped his hands, which were the size of dustbin lids—and splashed water over his face. It dribbled down his graying beard and onto his massive chest.

Set right on the edge of the wood, this cabin looked as if it belonged in a long-forgotten meadow, deep in the forest, not next to this grand castle. Stone made up the walls and roof of the cabin, which was octagonal in shape. Large slabs of rock lead up to a wooden doorway. Small windows were set into the side with iron bars. To the left of the cabin were several large flowerbeds, which, at the moment, had giant sunflowers all throughout.

We continued to walk by where we saw a small extension to the cabin. Against this section of the building lay a hoe, a rake, a pink umbrella, and a rack with several dead ferrets hanging off it. Immediately off that extension was a patch of the largest pumpkins I had ever seen.

Dozens of orange squashes, all different shapes, sat in the dirt. Professor Silsbury began to talk about the pumpkin patch and waved to Professor Hagrid as he bumbled over. I believe she started to introduce him, but I stopped paying attention. A large eagle head popped up from between the pumpkins. Gold eyes locked onto the group of students, including me. It cawed, a noise that echoed around the mountainside, and stood.

Alice screamed. I gave her a dead look. Arthur backed up.

"Not to worry," Professor Hagrid said, laughing. "He won' hurt you. Too old to want to."

The hippogriff shook itself and trotted around the pumpkins. It was a silvery gray that shimmered in the sunlight. Its hooves left deep impression in the fresh earth around the pumpkins, and its tail swished all around. In the front it had great talons, black and more than a foot in length.

Professor Silsbury did not stop. She continued to read aloud from her clipboard. I did stop, letting the group carry on without me. The hippogriff had paused. It would not look away from me. I wondered if it was my pink eyes that drew its attention.

"Get going there," Professor Hagrid said to me. "You'll be behind soon." I looked up at him. "I don't believe we've met." He extended one of his enormous hands. "Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds." I shook his hand. "Professor of Care of Magical Creatures too. You'll be Raven Husher."

"Yes."

"How you feeling?"

"Well enough." I pointed at the Hippogriff. "Will we get to study him in class?"

"Blimey, you won't have my class for a couple years." Professor Hagrid scratched at his beard. Large chunks of gray dandruff floated down. "Tell you what though, come round anytime for tea, and I'll let you meet him. Alright?"

I smiled. "Professor Hagrid—

"Call me Hagrid, everyone does."

"Hagrid, is that your wand?" I pointed to the pink umbrella, too small to cover most of Hagrid's head. He nodded. "I like it," I said.

Much like the castle tour, it was difficult to retain everything we'd seen of the grounds—even for me. There were the bridges between towers, and over deep canyons. There were the long stairs down to the boathouse, and the steep climb up to the greenhouses. It seemed the village could only be spotted on a clear day; we could see the points of the tallest buildings in Hogsmeade from the gates of the grounds.

Returning to the Great Hall for dinner, I wanted to eat as quickly as possible and leave. There were so many people at Hogwarts. It outnumbered my old muggle school ten to one. I looked forward to a solitary reading of Gryffindor's biography in the common room. According to the schedule, we had four hours from dinner until this "initiation."

But, of course, my first-year counterparts insisted on talking, and including me in their conversations. Alice went on, for what felt like hours, about how beautiful the school was. Arthur expressed concern about finding all his classes. Even Courtney gushed about the expansive grounds. And, predictably, they talked about Quidditch and the tryouts, and how Courtney and Alice were both on the team. I raced through my blood pudding and spent most of my time trying to bewitch a spare piece of parchment I found into a map of Hogwarts. I didn't make any progress. Any time I managed map out the Great Hall the ink disappeared off the parchment.

As the never-ending conversation continued, I answered questions when asked, and could not find a polite time to excuse myself from the table. Zephyr was equally silent, and equally polite. I couldn't identify if he wanted to stay at the table or wanted to leave. Was he always this quiet, or was it just first day of school nerves?

When we left the Great Hall and started the assent to Gryffindor Tower, we realized too late that we'd chosen the wrong flight of stairs. We made the same mistake twice more, went three stories too high because the staircases bloody move, and got to portrait of the Fat Lady. There were only fifteen minutes to do anything before our schedules said initiation would commence. After I uttered the password and climbed in after the other four, any hope of a solitary reading of Gryffindor's biography vanished. The common room was packed with people. Small people, tall people, people that resembled a ball, people that resembled pencils. None, except for a brown-haired boy with freckles and a large prefect's badge, wore his school robes. All others were dressed in muggle clothing.

"Oy, there they are!" A rather short-for-his-age teenaged boy pointed at the five of us. "Got lost, did you?"

"I told you someone should have walked them up here," said the prefect.

"No matter," said an older black girl with a short afro. "Someone get Cygnus."

Get Cygnus? Get Cygnus for what? Initiation didn't start for…I pulled out my schedule and watched as the time stated for initiation wiped away and was replaced by "now." I stuffed my schedule into my pocket. So, the schedule was an approximate for occasions, not an actual fixed time. I should have figured that. No object can tell the future.1

Cygnus was at the back of the common room, behind the dormitory staircase by the window talking with some girl. People parted to make room for him to walk to the front of the room. He had his hair up in a rough ponytail, still wore his Gryffindor quidditch sweater and a cream-colored pair of khakis. "You all alright?"

Now it seemed everyone, but Zephyr and I had lost their voice. The two of us answered yes in the same monotone. The other three merely nodded.

He clapped his hands together. One clap. The whole room fell silent. "Right, we've got five new Gryffindors this year."

My mind wandered as Cygnus preformed a little speech that was definitely prepared. Was he a sort of Gryffindor captain or leader? Was he that popular? I had gotten the feeling that if he was talking with first years in the Great Hall that he must not be that popular. Was I wrong? Or was the Gryffindor hierarchy letting him do this because he knew us?

My attention snapped back to Cygnus as he said, "Every house does initiation differently. It's a rather recent thing, initiation. It was banned for a while because in 1546 a Gryffindor died swimming in a lake at night during it, but McGonagall has turned a blind eye as long as no gets hurt. Though the Slytherins yesterday were stupid and one of theirs got hurt. Thankfully he didn't get hurt bad enough to ruin it for everyone.

"The Slytherins do the same thing every year, the stupid bastards—oops sorry. They ask their new first-years to do the most daring thing, which is really weird since that's kind of our corner. But because their all ambitious they try and one-up each person, and it gets out of hand every year. They also get an enchanted item, given to them by the seventh years.

"The Hufflepuffs just have a big love fest, sit in a circle, eat stolen food from the kitchens, and get to know their first years. They do stuff like trust falls and it's all very touchy feely. And I still can't get a single Ravenclaw to tell me what they do. It's all very fight night."

I smiled at Alice who returned it. That was one of Mum's favorite movies.

"We Gryffindors," I looked back at Cygnus, "do one thing each year that is the same, and one thing different each year."

The lights went out, Alice gave a small scream, Arthur tripped and fell over. The fireplace roared to life—the only light in the Common Room. All Gryffindors around us were in thick hooded scarlet cloaks. Their faces could barely be seen.

I yawned.

"First," said Cygnus, still standing straight ahead of us. "We swear loyalty to our house."

Cygnus, and all the Gryffindors raised their right hands, gripping their wands. A spell was murmured throughout the Common Room. A gold fire erupted out of the wands. It looked much like each student held a tiki torch. The four other first years raised their wands, though no one uttered the spell. Cygnus' hood pointed in my direction. I raised my wand too.

He had us repeat an oath: "I swear fealty to the ideals of Godric Gryffindor, to be brave, courageous, chivalrous, daring and bold. To honor the great Gryffindor house. To support our fellow Gryffindors, and to help all those who need help, in school and out of school."

We all repeated it. I flushed at the amount of excitement in Alice's voice.

When we finished Cygnus thrust his wand up and a Lion, formed by those same gold flames, rose in the air and a roar ripped through the Common Room. Arthur squealed in fright. I spotted Courtney. Her eyes were bright in the lion's firelight. Her mouth opened in a smile.

"Okay, enough with that nonsense." I recognized the voice. It sounded like Amelia Horford's voice, the quidditch captain. "On with phase two."

Someone lit the rest of the candles, making the room much brighter. People started folding those hooded crimson cloaks, stashing them under chairs and tables, or just holding them. Everyone in the Common Room moved back towards the wall, and two red-haired boys rushed forward a large contraption.

The contraption was a large wheel suspended in the air by magic. The surface of the wheel was made of wood and painted lines divided up the circle like pie. The wheel was colored gold, with red paint for the lines and lettering. There seemed to be a multitude of categories. They weren't all divided like a pie either, some were in circles, other's in oblong slivers. Some of the categories repeated, others did not. There were more than a dozen arrows pointing in all manner of directions. Some arrows were straight, some zigzagged, while a few looked like corkscrews. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure how all those arrows worked.

I tried to read as many of the categories as I could. "Play a massive game of wizard chess." "Wrestle each other." "Fly around North Tower." Those seemed rather tame. But then there was "Eat as many vomit flavored bertie botts as you can." And "Swim across the lake to Hogsmeade." "Three-legged race to the Forrest." Break into the Headmistress office."

My eyes kept flicking back to that one. I did not fancy getting caught by McGonagall on my first real night at school.

Cygnus stood by the wheel addressing all of Gryffindor tower. "This is the Gryffindor Rudimentary Initiation Machine," Cygnus proclaimed.

I leaned over to Alice and said, "Grim for short, eh?" She stifled a laugh.

Cygnus continued talking. "George Weasley, a Gryffindor and brilliant inventor, gifted it to us after the Battle of Hogwarts, starting this entire initiation tradition over again. For the last three years we've had to a footrace to the library and back. McGonagall told me today that if we get a fourth year in a row, she'll be putting all of us in detention for a month."

Some people laughed, most of the tower did not.

Cygnus looked over at all the first years, including me. "We woke her up last year. She was quite cross." He continued to the crowd. "And I will forever hate the time where we all swam to Hogsmeade. I don't know why George Weasley thought that was a fun idea. It was brutally cold. So here is hoping to—"

"Do you all do it with us then?" asked Arthur.

Cygnus cracked a grin. "Course. We're your family now."

There was much murmuring in agreement, and then Cygnus spun the wheel. The experience watching the wheel spin was like watching fireworks too close. Letters, arrows, lines, they all flashed different colors, and made noises. It was hard to see how the arrows moved and twisted around, and even harder to see which category was where.

When the wheel stopped moving one tiny arrow in the top left side lit up. It shimmered in a gold light and it pointed to "House-wide duel."

I thought there would be some explanation to this, maybe a pairing off. Instead, Cygnus leaned closer, muttered words out loud, grimaced, widened his eyes, turned and shouted "House-wide Duel," then fired a stunning spell right at poor Arthur Gully, who was blasted against the wall, and hit the floor out cold.

I caught a fleeting glance of Cygnus looking a bit regretful, before the Common Room erupted. My wand was out before the stunning spell hit Arthur. Alice pulled hers out as well, looking for what to do. I saw Courtney duck through people, racing towards the dormitories. Zephyr had also taken his wand out and he pointed it weakly at another student before succumbing to a jelly-leg jinx.

Alice was stunned from behind shortly after. A dark-haired boy, second year student by the look, turned on me and fired some purple light at me. I conjured a shield charm, which caught the boy off guard. He didn't react in time before I disarmed him and forced ropes to bind his hands and feet. He tottered over into a much bigger girl who fell. I stunned her, stunned the student she was dueling, and shot off several hexes randomly into the crowd.

A girl—I knew this girl, Marie Abdule, the beater for Gryffindor's Quidditch team—she nearly got me with a binding curse, but I heard her shout it and blocked it. I dove behind a squashy arm chair, which was quickly blasted to pieces. I ran sideways towards the dormitory stairs. Cygnus was there, hexing anyone that tried to escape towards the safety of their beds and laughing. I dodged a spell from Marie, then another from Cygnus, and ducked out of the way of Quidditch Captain, Amelia Horford, who engaged Cygnus in a very short duel, where Cygnus used such a powerful shield charm that Amelia's curse rebounded on her, knocking her to the ground where her eyebrows grew so quickly that they blinded her.

I ran past Zephyr, recovered from the jelly leg jinx, who aimed his wand at me. I waved mine at him, sending his wand flying. His shoulders fell forward, and he walked into the middle of the room to retrieve it. He seemed almost resigned to be hit by a spell and didn't have to wait long. Marie hit him with something, and he keeled over, with a large cactus attached to the top of his head.

That gave me time to hit Marie with a jinx which caused her hands to straighten out and her fingers to glue shut. She dropped her wand, and got stunned by some fourth-year student. I stunned two other students, dodged a burst of flame, heard a hurried "Sorry didn't mean to, ow!" before I met my end of the duel. Cygnus stood before me, a handful of students still fighting. I threw up a shield charm preemptively, but his disarming spell broke through. I managed to hold onto my wand, but my glasses flew off. Instantly blinded, I shut my eyes and heard Cygnus roar "Stupify."

1 Turns out this was an incorrect thought. Orbs that hold prophecies can tell the future if the prophecies do come true, but it's sort of a post-mortem future, no one knows the future has been told until it happens, so I stand by this assessment.