Change Is.Different
Disclaimer: As the world must know, I do not have the perspicacity to make up such a shining jewel as Harry Potter. This belongs to JK Rowling.
Chapter 2: In Which Developments Begin To Occur
Dumbledore looked at me with that self-satisfied twinkle in his eyes that seemed to project feelings of self-control and wisdom, which, incidentally, are qualities that I have never possessed and find annoying in others. "Well, Aerin, it seems that you aren't settling into Hogwarts as well as we might have hoped."
Well, duh. That was the proverbial understatement of the year. Spending half of one's academic career at a new school in the office of some faculty member for "BAD BEHAVIOUR" is not exactly settling in. Still, I supposed that Dumbledore wasn't used to twenty-nine year old students, or teachers for that matter. Snape was the youngest teacher in the school and he was like forty-five. Not to mention the students were only seventeen at the most. I was the 'ugly duckling' of Hogwarts, in the sense I didn't belong. (Not that I'm ugly, I'm actually not that bad. More on that later.)
"Well, Dumbledore, it seems to me that I'm not settling in here because I don't want to be here. When someone is almost thirty, you don't want to be dragged back to England when you've been happily living in Portugal so you can attend a boarding school for adolescents who want to kill each other with little wooden sticks. This whole magic idea is completely crazy and I don't want anything to do with it. I still can't believe you and that crazy cat-transforming woman made me come here!"
Dumbledore seemed to lose his composure briefly, and then quickly regained it. "Well Miss Kaelar, it seems to me that you dislike it so much at this school because you feel that you don't fit in. The students are all half your age and the teachers are considerably older. Perhaps I could organize some interaction between older members of the wizarding community and you so you won't feel so isolated."
"Look, Dumbledore, I don't feel isolated in your school, I feel alone in this whole world. I'm not a witch, no matter what you say. I'm a linguistics professor. I document languages. I don't play with little sticks trying to do things that I can do myself anyway. What's the point of a cleaning charm to begin with? I can wash my own clothes, clean my own house, and brush my own teeth by hand. I think it's completely unfair that people should be denied a choice about whether or not to come here."
"Miss Kaelar, try to understand. It's a miracle that you can do any of those charms at all. You didn't have any magic till last April, and now you do!"
"Oh, is that supposed to be some sort of consolation prize? I don't want anything to do with your world. It's all about bigoted, inbred 'purebloods' like weasel-boy Malfoy, or know-it-alls like Granger who think they've got something to prove because they're 'Mudbloods". This whole wizard thing is all about pretending to be something you're not. I'm a horrible pretender and I don't want to be a WITCH!"
Dumbledore looked very grave. "All right, Miss Kaelar, you leave me no choice. I'd thought you'd see reason, but I'll have to make sure you stay in the school. It's not safe to let an untrained witch or wizard loose on the world. They might hurt someone or themselves with raw magic. I'm going to have to find a way to keep you here.And when you report to your next class, Herbology I believe, please refrain from calling your fellow students names. Professor Sprout might not be as understanding as I am."
Herbology passed without incident, mostly due to the fact that it was with the Hufflepuffs, not the Gryffindors. I'm sure some Gryffindors were nice, but the self-righteous image they projected (and still do) was insufferable. Hufflepuffs are very nice children and they all offered to help me and were quite good about me ignoring them the whole time.
Next, however, was lunch and the gossip buzzing around me was too much to bear. I inwardly vowed to punch the next person to cross me, but fortunately for them my scowl kept them all away. Even my fellow Slytherins were wary.
Right after lunch, I had Ancient Runes, an elective course I had chosen because, as a linguist, I knew practically everything on the curriculum. It would have been the only class I enjoyed but for one thorn in my side, the Granger girl. She was one of those people who are obsessed with perfection. She always had her hand waving through the air trying to impress the teacher with her intelligence. Good grief, that girl needed a good smack around the head more than anything. She was always lecturing and the teacher loved it.
"Oh! Oh! I know then answer to the bonus question you assigned last night!" Sure enough, she was barely in her seat and her hand was waving for all it was worth. I too knew the answer, but I couldn't have been bothered to try and compete with the shining star of the Granger girl.
"Yes, Miss Granger," asked Professor Carlen, a witch in her late fifties, with that delighted 'I'm asking someone who's sure to know the answer' look on her face.
"Well, Professor Carlen, I studied some old books I purchased from an antique dealer for some hours last night and I've discovered that the Scandinavian text translates to, 'When earth is still, the heavens are more easily seen to the searching pilgrim.' I thought it might be wrong though, so I compared it against the other stone shields found in the vicinity."
"Excellent, Miss Granger. Thirty points to Gryffindor for your diligence! That is truly remarkable work you have done. I even had trouble getting that answer," exclaimed the professor with an awed look on her wrinkled face.
I felt compelled to interrupt at this point. I am a linguist after all, and I saw a definite hole in her translation. "Professor, if I may interrupt our golden girl's shining moment here, I am a professional linguist, and I feel that her translation is wrong." I paused here for dramatic effect and heard gasps coming from all over the room. Apparently, no one ever contradicted the bushy-haired know-it-all. She was in for a shock.
"Explain yourself, Miss Kaelar. You are a troublesome student and Miss Granger is a child prodigy. Who should I believe?" asked that brainwashed Granger-lover.
"Well, me. You see, I am a linguist. I translate old texts for a living. The inscription, which incidentally Granger I was immediately able to read, goes as follows, 'If earth were to be still, then would this pilgrim gaze upon the starry heavens.' I bet you didn't compare the text against the ones in Lithuania, did you? The other stones in Norway have all proven false and cannot be trusted for translation. Of course, if you lived in the REAL world, and not this psychotic one, you'd know that." I sat down with a smirk.
Both Granger and Carlen were sputtering at being proven wrong. Granger recovered first. "Nonsense. I know that you're just jealous that I can do something better that you and you're being hateful."
Then Carlen spoke up. "I'm afraid she's right, Miss Granger. It does seem that we both translated the text wrong. Fifty points to Slytherin, Miss Kaelar, and Miss Granger, I'm sorry, but I'll have to take back the points I gave you." Gosh, I loved that woman then. She'd neatly put the Granger girl in her place.
Granger wasn't happy though. She stood up and marched over to me with her textbook in hand. "I hate you! You Slytherin, you! You just go out of your way to be mean to Gryffindors. You should just keep your mouth shut. How smart can you be, you're like thirty years old and you're only a second year! Why don't you go back where you came from?"
I'd had enough by this point. "Shut up, Granger," I said. Then I hit her over the head with her textbook. I promptly left the class and went straight for the Headmaster's office, as I knew I'd be sent there anyway.
However, as I left, I heard something that surprised me. After making sure she was alright, Carlen assigned Hermione detention for verbal abuse and led the class in a short round of applause (to me, I assumed) before resuming the class.
A/N: How'd you like it? Please review!
Disclaimer: As the world must know, I do not have the perspicacity to make up such a shining jewel as Harry Potter. This belongs to JK Rowling.
Chapter 2: In Which Developments Begin To Occur
Dumbledore looked at me with that self-satisfied twinkle in his eyes that seemed to project feelings of self-control and wisdom, which, incidentally, are qualities that I have never possessed and find annoying in others. "Well, Aerin, it seems that you aren't settling into Hogwarts as well as we might have hoped."
Well, duh. That was the proverbial understatement of the year. Spending half of one's academic career at a new school in the office of some faculty member for "BAD BEHAVIOUR" is not exactly settling in. Still, I supposed that Dumbledore wasn't used to twenty-nine year old students, or teachers for that matter. Snape was the youngest teacher in the school and he was like forty-five. Not to mention the students were only seventeen at the most. I was the 'ugly duckling' of Hogwarts, in the sense I didn't belong. (Not that I'm ugly, I'm actually not that bad. More on that later.)
"Well, Dumbledore, it seems to me that I'm not settling in here because I don't want to be here. When someone is almost thirty, you don't want to be dragged back to England when you've been happily living in Portugal so you can attend a boarding school for adolescents who want to kill each other with little wooden sticks. This whole magic idea is completely crazy and I don't want anything to do with it. I still can't believe you and that crazy cat-transforming woman made me come here!"
Dumbledore seemed to lose his composure briefly, and then quickly regained it. "Well Miss Kaelar, it seems to me that you dislike it so much at this school because you feel that you don't fit in. The students are all half your age and the teachers are considerably older. Perhaps I could organize some interaction between older members of the wizarding community and you so you won't feel so isolated."
"Look, Dumbledore, I don't feel isolated in your school, I feel alone in this whole world. I'm not a witch, no matter what you say. I'm a linguistics professor. I document languages. I don't play with little sticks trying to do things that I can do myself anyway. What's the point of a cleaning charm to begin with? I can wash my own clothes, clean my own house, and brush my own teeth by hand. I think it's completely unfair that people should be denied a choice about whether or not to come here."
"Miss Kaelar, try to understand. It's a miracle that you can do any of those charms at all. You didn't have any magic till last April, and now you do!"
"Oh, is that supposed to be some sort of consolation prize? I don't want anything to do with your world. It's all about bigoted, inbred 'purebloods' like weasel-boy Malfoy, or know-it-alls like Granger who think they've got something to prove because they're 'Mudbloods". This whole wizard thing is all about pretending to be something you're not. I'm a horrible pretender and I don't want to be a WITCH!"
Dumbledore looked very grave. "All right, Miss Kaelar, you leave me no choice. I'd thought you'd see reason, but I'll have to make sure you stay in the school. It's not safe to let an untrained witch or wizard loose on the world. They might hurt someone or themselves with raw magic. I'm going to have to find a way to keep you here.And when you report to your next class, Herbology I believe, please refrain from calling your fellow students names. Professor Sprout might not be as understanding as I am."
Herbology passed without incident, mostly due to the fact that it was with the Hufflepuffs, not the Gryffindors. I'm sure some Gryffindors were nice, but the self-righteous image they projected (and still do) was insufferable. Hufflepuffs are very nice children and they all offered to help me and were quite good about me ignoring them the whole time.
Next, however, was lunch and the gossip buzzing around me was too much to bear. I inwardly vowed to punch the next person to cross me, but fortunately for them my scowl kept them all away. Even my fellow Slytherins were wary.
Right after lunch, I had Ancient Runes, an elective course I had chosen because, as a linguist, I knew practically everything on the curriculum. It would have been the only class I enjoyed but for one thorn in my side, the Granger girl. She was one of those people who are obsessed with perfection. She always had her hand waving through the air trying to impress the teacher with her intelligence. Good grief, that girl needed a good smack around the head more than anything. She was always lecturing and the teacher loved it.
"Oh! Oh! I know then answer to the bonus question you assigned last night!" Sure enough, she was barely in her seat and her hand was waving for all it was worth. I too knew the answer, but I couldn't have been bothered to try and compete with the shining star of the Granger girl.
"Yes, Miss Granger," asked Professor Carlen, a witch in her late fifties, with that delighted 'I'm asking someone who's sure to know the answer' look on her face.
"Well, Professor Carlen, I studied some old books I purchased from an antique dealer for some hours last night and I've discovered that the Scandinavian text translates to, 'When earth is still, the heavens are more easily seen to the searching pilgrim.' I thought it might be wrong though, so I compared it against the other stone shields found in the vicinity."
"Excellent, Miss Granger. Thirty points to Gryffindor for your diligence! That is truly remarkable work you have done. I even had trouble getting that answer," exclaimed the professor with an awed look on her wrinkled face.
I felt compelled to interrupt at this point. I am a linguist after all, and I saw a definite hole in her translation. "Professor, if I may interrupt our golden girl's shining moment here, I am a professional linguist, and I feel that her translation is wrong." I paused here for dramatic effect and heard gasps coming from all over the room. Apparently, no one ever contradicted the bushy-haired know-it-all. She was in for a shock.
"Explain yourself, Miss Kaelar. You are a troublesome student and Miss Granger is a child prodigy. Who should I believe?" asked that brainwashed Granger-lover.
"Well, me. You see, I am a linguist. I translate old texts for a living. The inscription, which incidentally Granger I was immediately able to read, goes as follows, 'If earth were to be still, then would this pilgrim gaze upon the starry heavens.' I bet you didn't compare the text against the ones in Lithuania, did you? The other stones in Norway have all proven false and cannot be trusted for translation. Of course, if you lived in the REAL world, and not this psychotic one, you'd know that." I sat down with a smirk.
Both Granger and Carlen were sputtering at being proven wrong. Granger recovered first. "Nonsense. I know that you're just jealous that I can do something better that you and you're being hateful."
Then Carlen spoke up. "I'm afraid she's right, Miss Granger. It does seem that we both translated the text wrong. Fifty points to Slytherin, Miss Kaelar, and Miss Granger, I'm sorry, but I'll have to take back the points I gave you." Gosh, I loved that woman then. She'd neatly put the Granger girl in her place.
Granger wasn't happy though. She stood up and marched over to me with her textbook in hand. "I hate you! You Slytherin, you! You just go out of your way to be mean to Gryffindors. You should just keep your mouth shut. How smart can you be, you're like thirty years old and you're only a second year! Why don't you go back where you came from?"
I'd had enough by this point. "Shut up, Granger," I said. Then I hit her over the head with her textbook. I promptly left the class and went straight for the Headmaster's office, as I knew I'd be sent there anyway.
However, as I left, I heard something that surprised me. After making sure she was alright, Carlen assigned Hermione detention for verbal abuse and led the class in a short round of applause (to me, I assumed) before resuming the class.
A/N: How'd you like it? Please review!