This part is dedicated to Bradan ? and Lianne Gregory, the co-namesakes of a new character introduced in this part. Speaking of names, most of the students mentioned in this part are named after people I know, two are named for characters from one of my original stories, two last names were in actual HP books, "Veritas, Sarah" is a sneaky reference to a certain potion, and "Takeru" is taken from Digimon. :-)
Towns, fields, trees, streams, and other countryside sights rushed by outside the windows of the Hogwarts Express. Inside, Alena Reyes and her new friend Miyana Hease were enjoying themselves very much, chatting and playing checkers over their datapads (Miyana's was a violet color swirled with darker purple). Alena's cat, Zed, was curled up in the lap of his owner.
A woman pushing a cart entered the cabin. "Would you like some lunch, ladies?" she asked.
The two girls got up eagerly. They each bought a ham-and-cheese sandwich, a smoothie, a container of fruit salad, and an assortment of candy.
Much later, a boy came suddenly into their cabin. He had blue eyes and the strangest hair the girls had ever seen - brown and blond interspersed together. He had already put on the school uniform.
"Have you seen my Digipet?" he asked. "It seems to have gotten away from me again - don't know what I've done wrong to it - this just had to happen right now - I'm Bradan Gregory, by the way, who are you?" This all came out very fast.
"I'm Miyana Hease," said Miyana.
"Alena Reyes," said Alena. "And no, I'm afraid no Digipets have come through here today."
"Oh," said Bradan. "Well, you might put your uniforms on soon - we're nearly there." He left.
Indeed, they had arrived at the station within fifteen minutes. Clad in their new jumpsuits and helmets, Alena and Miyana climbed off the train.
"First-years! First-years! This way!" called a tall, black-haired woman with glasses. She led all the first-years along a narrow path that ended at the shore of a lake.
"Oh, whoa!"
Atop a mountain on the other side of the lake stood a huge, majestic, old, creepy - no, it's not creepy! - castle. The first-years were led onto a small boat to take them across the lake.
There was an entrance for the boat under the castle. After they got off, the first-years came into the entrance hall.
"Welcome to Hogwarts!" said the woman who had led them. "I'm Professor McConnell, Deputy Headmistress and Transinformation teacher. In a moment, you will be taken into the Great Hall for the Sorting Ceremony. The Sorting Ceremony will determine which Hogwarts team you will be on. The teams are Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue. You will have classes with your team and sleep in your team dormitory.
"You will be Sorted by means of a neural readout computer that analyzes your personality traits and uses the strongest ones to place you on a team. The Red team is for the bravest students; the Yellow team, for the most diligent and loyal; the Blue team, for the most intelligent; and the Green team, for the most ambitious and cunning. I hope you will all be successful members of whatever team you are on. Come along, it's time."
Now, the first-years walked in a single-file line, through a small side door into the Great Hall. It was the largest room most of the students had ever been in. It had stone walls and four long tables with tablecloths in the colors of the four teams. Up at the front of the hall, on a raised platform, were a smaller staff table and a squat square silvery thing.
As the line approached the silvery thing, Alena realized that it was the neural readout computer. It was made up of a large metal box with a gray glass panel on the front. A helmet was suspended from an arm on the right side of the box. Beneath the helmet was a stool.
The line mounted the platform and stood waiting. The ceremony was about to begin!
"When I call your name," said Professor McConnell, "sit down on the stool, take your tech-helmet off, and pull the receiver helmet down onto your head. Atley, Joel!"
A nervous boy stepped out of the line, sat down, and put on the helmet. After a moment, the gray glass panel turned bright blue. The Blue team's table applauded, and Joel went and sat down at it.
"Bronstone, Maria!" The panel turned green. Observing the table Maria went to, Alena decided she didn't like the look of the Green team.
"Cawthorne, Denny!" Yellow.
"Cromley, Elric!" Green. No surprise, thought Alena.
"Davidson" . . . "Ellery" . . . "Eowyn" . . . "Franco" . . . then Alena crossed her fingers for the other people she'd met:
"Gregory, Bradan!" Red.
"Hease, Miyana!" Also red.
"Jeffers" . . . "Lemos" . . . "Nott" . . . "Preston" . . . "Quigley" . . . and finally:
"Reyes, Alena!"
Heart racing, Alena took the seat and pulled the helmet down. It was so big it covered her eyes, and she saw nothing but darkness. Then, out of the silence came a click and a long, low hum. The blackness before her eyes began to lighten, to glow with a color . . . red!
"Yeah, Alena!" called Miyana's voice. Alena removed the helmet, got up, left the platform and sat as close to her friend as she could.
Four more people remained to be Sorted: 'Takeru, Sheena" became one of the Yellow team. "Veritas, Sarah" joined the Red table. "Welton, Mark" was placed on the Blue team, and finally, "Zinda, Bort" went to the Green team.
"Dinner!" called Professor McConnell.
At once, eight robots entered the room and served a large, delicious dinner to each student. When it was finished, they took the plates away just as efficiently.
"Ahem!" came an amplified voice.
Everyone looked up. A bearded man in dark-blue business clothes was speaking into a microphone.
"Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts!" he went on. "For those who don't know me, I'm Professor Draconis, the headmaster here. It's great to be back. If you're new here, congratulations and I hope you enjoy your time here. Now, as a school tradition, we're going to sing the school song."
He clapped his hands and a recording started to play. The old students led in the singing, and the new ones followed as best they could. The words appeared on a silent radio on the front edge of the staff table.
"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, hoggy warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please . . ."
(A/N II: No, the school song has not changed in 250-some years,
and I don't feel like typing it all out. :P)
"Ah, music," said Professor Draconis at the end of the song. "The most wonderful thing anyone can create. And now, it's bedtime. The dorm leaders from each team will take you there. Good night."
A boy and a girl, clearly older students, stood up at each table. The ones at the Red table called out, "Boys, this way!" and "Girls, follow me!" at almost the same time.
Alena and the rest of the girls on her team followed the older girl up several staircases and down many hallways. They finally ended up in a circular room with a fireplace and many soft chairs.
"For the new students, my name is Chris'nice Evers," said the dorm leader. "The girls' dorms are up this staircase over here."
At the top of the staircase, there was a room for the students in each year. Alena and Miyana went to the room labeled "First-Years," along with Lynne Ellery and Sarah Veritas.
The four of them found their suitcases already at the foot of their beds, their contents in small closets. They changed into their pajamas and climbed into bed, tired and very happy.
*********
The next morning, when Alena and her roommates got up and dressed, they found Chris'nice waiting for them outside their door.
"Good morning, girls!" she said. "I have course schedules and directional programs to hand out. This way, you'll know where to go at what time, and how to get there. Get out your datapads, please, and turn them on." She pressed a few buttons on the screen of her own datapad. "You first, Lynne."
Lynne stepped forward, holding up her datapad. Chris'nice pressed two more buttons, and Lynne's schedule appeared on her datapad.
Miyana got hers next, then Alena, and finally Sarah. Chris'nice led them all back down the stairs to breakfast.
"Can you believe all our schedules are exactly alike?" Lynne commented, when they were all seated at the table, eating.
"Well, yes," answered Miyana, "because we're all in the same year and on the same team." She turned to the person sitting on her other side. "Hey, Bradan, check this out. Do you have this same schedule too?"
"Yes," said Bradan.
"Neat, huh?"
"Yeah. I'm really looking forward to Transinformation . . . that's our second class today. QUIRL Programming is first. Let's see . . ." He opened the directional program on his datapad. "To get there, we go through the second door on the left after we pass the team-points board -"
"Team-points board?" Alena cut in suddenly.
"Yes, there's this big board over there in the hall where they show how many points each team has. Achievements will earn you points for your team, but rule-breaking will lose points. At the end of the year, the team with the most points gets some sort of award. Anyway . . ."
They endured listening to the know-it-all-ish Bradan read the directions for a little longer, then it was time to go to class. The room where QUIRL Programming was taught was full of rows of computers. The teacher, a youngish man, told them to sit anywhere.
"I'm Professor Taylor," he said. "Please get out your Standard Book of QUIRL textbooks and your datapads. We're going to start on page 3 in the book.
"QUIRL, in case you didn't know, stands for Quantum Universal Informational Relationships Language. It's one of the most common programming languages in use today. It operates on the principle that every piece of information has a relationship to every other piece, and the pieces can be assembled in different ways to create different results. Now, our first lesson will be to take a look at this programming method in action. Everyone open the game 'MathBubbles' on your computer."
The students opened it. It was a simple game, one most of them
had played before in school. In the game, numbers floated
around within bubbles on the screen, and there was a bar at the top
of the screen that said, for example, "Addition 0-30." If
this was the case, the player would find two number-bubbles with a
sum between 0 and 30 and drag them together. If the player did this
successfully, those two bubbles would disappear. The player would
continue to do this until all the bubbles were gone, and then the game
would advance to the next level.
"You can play for ten minutes," said Professor Taylor, "and while you do, try to think about what the game's programming might say. When the ten minutes are up, I'll show you what it actually says. Okay, go."
Ten minutes later . . .
"Time's up," Professor Taylor announced. "Now, right-click on the top bar and click 'Program Code.' That will bring up a password window; type the word 'learning' and press enter."
Alena did all this, and the game and all evidence of the operating system vanished. Her screen was black, with blue, green, and orange words.
"Now," said Professor Taylor, "look up at the very top of the screen and tell me what that first block of code does."
The first block of code read:
[Screen1]
textdisplay1(Heading1)=MathBubbles
textdisplay2(Heading2)=by the EduCompany
button1=New Game
button2=Saved Game
button3=Instructions
button4=High Scores
textdisplay3(Normal)=MathBubbles ™
and © The EduCompany. Copyright 2223. All rights reserved.
Alena raised her hand. "Yes?" said Professor Taylor.
"That's the code for the opening screen - the window that comes up when you first open the game," said Alena.
"That's right!" said Professor Taylor. "Five points to the . . . Red team, right?"
"Right."
"Okay. Notice how the code for the buttons is set up in rows of two - exactly the same way the buttons are placed on the screen. That's one of the things that makes QUIRL so easy to use; whatever you put in the code will show up in the same place in the finished program. Also notice where it says "Heading1," "Heading2," and "Normal" - those specify how big the text is. Those particular terms were created a very long time ago for a programming language called HTML, which isn't in common use today - you'll learn all about that in your history class. Now, hook up your datapads and start copying this down . . ."
They spent the rest of their class time learning every detail of the inner workings of the game of MathBubbles, ending with a worksheet for homework.
*****
The Transinformation classroom was very much like the last, only all the desks faced forward and there was a large wall-screen at the front of the room. Professor McConnell was sitting at her desk, on one side of the screen.
"Good morning, class," she said when the students started to come in. "Your seats are labeled with your names. Please take them, and get ready to listen."
They all sat near the front, as there were only seven of them - the four girls and Bradan, plus Daniel Preston and Cory Franco. They sat in alphabetical order by last name, which put Alena between Daniel and Sarah.
"Transinformation is one of the most exciting classes Hogwarts has to offer," Professor McConnell began. "In advanced stages, the art of Transinformation can be nearly mind-blowing. Anyone messing around in my class will be removed from lessons. You have been warned."
She turned to her desk console and entered something. The wall-screen
displayed:
Transinformation
Transinformation is the art ofcreating informative presentations and publishing them. You are expected to be able to present information well, but also to learn from the presentations made in this class.There is more readily available information today than ever before. New things are often discovered in space and new chapters of history are constantly being written on Earth. The purpose of Transinformation is to keep all this information organized and easy to find out. Transinformation skills are used very often in most workplaces, so yes, they are valuable.
"Okay," said Professor McConnell, after giving the class time to read the display. "Please get out your Beginner's Guides to Transinformation." She flipped the switch to turn on all the student's consoles.
"We're going to start this class by making a simple presentation of your personal information - don't worry, you don't have to publicize anything you'd rather not; just tell the class a little bit about yourself. Look on page 10 of your book, where Lesson 1 begins: 'Gathering Information.' The first step to making a presentation is collecting the information that will go into it. That should be easy enough; using the tips in your book, type out the information you want to present in Write It!. Don't forget to save your work to your datapad."
Write It! was a word-processing program in the same line as Present It!, which the class would use later on to make their presentations. The students now began to think carefully, reading a little and typing a little. By the end of class, they had finished gathering information and started putting it into a presentation. At the end of class, they saved their work to their datapads and left.
*******
Alena was now anxious to go to history class. What her teachers had said had made her curious. What had HTML been like, and why were they called "slides?" Too bad she didn't have history class until Tuesday!
On Tuesday afternoon, when Alena entered the history classroom, she was surprised to find that four people she didn't know, and one she did, were also in the class. Oh, no! Why, of all the teams, do we have to share a class with the Green team?
This was another class without assigned seating. Alena sat next to Miyana, but behind Steve Jeffers, who was sitting on Elric Cromley's right.
"Oh, it's you, Reyes," said Elric bitterly, turning to her.
"Um . . . yeah," said Alena.
"So, you're on the Red team. That makes us rivals."
"Oh, it does?"
"Yes. I've heard that more often than not, either the Red or Green team wins the team points competition."
"Oh."
"Quiet, please, class," said the professor. "Thank you. I'm Professor Parsons, and this is First-Year History. We will be studying the history of computer science in this class, but remember, the textbook is called A History of Electronics, not A History of Computers. Therefore, we will study all areas of electronic technology and their effect on society. Please set your datapads to 'Notes,' because we're going to take some from the book right now. Find the introductory lesson and start reading, and enter the main ideas into your datapad."
The class went on like that for most of the period. It was definitely not their most interesting class, and they were assigned two pages of homework. A few minutes before the end of class, Alena raised her hand.
"In QUIRL Programming class yesterday, the teacher said that parts of the QUIRL language came from an old computer language called HTML, and I wondered, what was HTML like? What was it used for?"
"Well," said Professor Parsons, "Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML, was originally used to create websites - that's what the term 'hypertext' refers to. For a computer language, it lasted quite a long time, but eventually we started using QUIRL for everything. We'll cover that in chapter four or five."
"Oh, okay. One more thing. In Transinformation, I wanted to know why it's called a 'slide,' and Professor McConnell said I should ask you. So, uh . . ."
"Sure. You see, before there were computers (and even for a time after), in order to make a presentation, you had to use slides and a slide projector. A slide was like a little photograph on a clear piece of plastic, and the slide projector shone a light through the slide so the image was projected onto a wall or screen. When we started making presentations with computers, we just continued to call each image in a presentation a slide, and that's what they're called to this day."
"How interesting! Thank you."
"No problem."
The bell rang, and the class moved on.
*******
Time flew by for Alena, and October was almost over before she knew it. On the Friday evening before Halloween, she changed drowsily into her pajamas. The school was going to have a party in two days!
As she was about to climb into bed, she was startled to find a note lying on her pillow. It was on parchment paper, and folded in thirds. Discreetly, Alena opened it. It read, in someone's slightly blotchy handwriting:
Dear Alena,
This is not a threat or an angry letter from a teacher or anything like that. This is a friendly letter from three Hogwarts graduates and former members of the Red team. We would like to meet with you, Miyana, and Bradan to discuss Hogwarts and its history and things like that. If you come, you will find out the truth about the "mysterious" beginnings of Hogwarts, and what its true nature can offer you. If you don't come, it's your loss, but it's also a loss to the school. Please meet us at midnight in your common room on Halloween. We hope to see you there.
Sincerely,
The Three of Us
(We'll tell you who we are when
we see you)
Alena read the letter several times over. Was it true? Was that rotten Elric Cromley trying to trick her, or did some old Hogwarts graduates really want to see her? And why had they asked for her and her friends?
She slept restlessly that night, thinking about it. In the morning, when she showed the letter to Miyana and Bradan, they were fascinated, but wary.
"So, do you want to do it?" Miyana asked.
"I guess," said Alena. "I'm game if you are."
"Well, that's not much help, because that's how I feel."
"I'm going to do it," Bradan announced. "We've got the chance to find out something about Hogwarts that no one else probably knows! Why not do it?"
"Yeah," said Alena, "that might be fun. Okay, I'll be there."
"I'm in too," agreed Miyana.
*******
The three of them did their best to enjoy the special weekend, but they could never completely ignore their nervousness. What would happen? Who were the mysterious people who wanted to meet them? Was it a trap, after all?
A few minutes before midnight on Halloween night, three datapads set off three silent alarms for three sleeping students in the Red team dormitories. These three got up, put on slippers, and began to descend the stairs from their rooms to the unknown destiny awaiting them in the common room.
To Be Continued . . .
Disclaimer: I do not own Hogwarts, the school song, or anything else
that I took from the Harry Potter books. Nor do I own the name Takeru
(from Digimon) or any of the people who have characters named after them.
No money is being made off this; I write because it's fun. [I decided
that it's dumb to say "No copyright infringement is intended," because
it happens whether you intend it to or not. :-( ] :-)