A/N: Since there seems to be confusion over who is who in this story ::sheepishly:: I guess I owe you people an explanation on whom is who.
Hannah is Robert's wife, and their children are Carolyn and Rob.
Sarah is divorced, and she has one child, Susan.
Seamus is Gabriel's husband, and their children are Gerald and Grace.
Hayley is... unmarried, and her child is Helen.
Samantha/Chenelle was managing the wand shop.
Hopefully, this will help.
# # #
The owl tapped against the window. Rob rolled over, groaning. It couldn't be any earlier than five in the morning, and that was early, even for him. But the owl refused to go away, it just kept on tapping and tapping and tapping until finally Rob was obliged to go and open the door, lest it break in the windowpane.
A piece of parchment fell in through the window, though the owl flew immediately away. Shading his eyes, he tried to spot the bird, but it was no longer there.
How strange, Rob thought as he looked at the parchment. He wondered who it could be, since he knew for a blatant fact that none of his friends were awake at this hour. He opened the parchment, and put on his glasses.
Tomorrow is September the first, Mr. Ravenclaw.
One sentence. That was all. It was on snowy-white parchment, and the words looked horribly like somebody had pricked their finger and wrote it in blood. Hands shaking, he crumpled the paper up and looked around, trembling, as if he were expecting somebody to pop out of the chest of drawers and murder him.
"What do I do?" he asked himself, feeling ashamed that he was so afraid of a letter. Making a quick decision, he went down to where the family owl had been tethered - Skipper. It was going to sleep, and was rather upset to be interrupted at this hour. But Rob scribbled out three letters, to some of the only friends he knew that were wizards, and sent Skipper off.
# # #
Tap. Tap. Tap. Went the owl at Helen's window. It didn't wake her up, but it was rather a pain in the behind.
Ever since she had seen green when she had bumped into Mr. Malfoy (the eldest), she had been more attentive to her fog when she walked about. Most of the time, on the edges of her 'vision' she could detect flickers of yellow (she didn't know how she knew that this color was yellow, but she supposed it was) about her. It was rather puzzling.
"Oh, alright, I'm coming," Helen moaned, opening the window. The owl flew in and dropped a piece of parchment in her hands. Helen could hear the flapping of wings, and the owl was gone.
She ran her fingers over both sides of the paper, only to find them smooth. "Bother whomever sent this!" she said crossly, "it isn't in Braille."
Muttering a small incantation that she had heard from her mother, she heard a soft pop, and then small bumps rose out of the paper, like little grains. From here she ran her fingers over the paper.
Helen -
I apologize I didn't make this in Braille - I don't know it. But, is there any way you could possibly get over to Diagon Alley? Now?
-Rob
Helen frowned. Diagon Alley? Now? But she was almost positive that it wasn't six in the morning yet! Before she could finish pondering this, another owl swooped in the room.
As soon as the parchment hit her fingers, flashes of red and green hit her eyes so vividly that she dropped the paper and grasped at her eyes, which were watering like mad. Once she got herself under control, she grabbed the parchment and ran her fingers over it.
Tomorrow is September the first, Miss Carloton.
Helen reeled. How did this person know her rightful last name? Was this what Rob wanted? Sunspots from the flashes of evil color danced across her eyes. Suddenly, she felt very scared and alone.
Walking down the stairs, she turned her head around dubiously. She knew that the fire was out in the fireplace, and there was no way that she was going to start a new one by herself. Frowning, she walked around until she felt herself in the kitchen. The stove.
Grabbing the floo powder from the other room, she turned the knobs on the stove as high up as they could go, until she could feel quite an inferno building up. Feeling dubious, she tossed three big handfuls of the blue powder over the flames. They hissed and crackled, and Helen dragged over a chair.
"Diagon Alley!" she whispered to the flames that she couldn't see. Gathering all her resolve, she took a mighty leap off the chair and into the gas flames. She never hit the bottom, as she was whisked off.
# # #
It was raining, and very wet, Susan noticed. She also prayed that the invisibility cream that she had found in her mother's memory box still worked. After she had gotten that letter from Rob, and that spooky letter from God knew where, she had made haste for the closet in the back of the penthouse.
It held all of her mother's old things, and she rummaged around until she found the two things she sought - the smear of nearly dried invisibility cream and the very old broomstick that sat in the back of the closet, nearly in cobwebs. She had then went into her new school things and gotten her waterproof winter cloak. Tucking both the letters into her pocket, she launched herself from the window and hurtled out into the world.
# # #
"Where is everybody?" asked Gerald. He and his sister, having lived closest to the Alley, were there first, and were squashing themselves flat against the sides of Zonko's, trying to stay dry. It wasn't working. The rain was driving at an angle, and seemed to be getting colder every minute.
"Umph!" a voice said to the left of them. Whirling around, Gerald and Grace saw a very bedraggled Helen fall on the cobbles of the street. She looked like she had walked though a raging fire to get here, as her bedclothes were charred, and her left hand seemed to be the worse for wear.
"It has not been a good week for me and fire," she said pointedly. "Hello Gerald. Hello Grace."
"How did you know it was us?" asked Grace suspiciously.
Helen shrugged. "Blind man's intuition. Where's everybody else?"
"Just got here," Rob said, walking towards them, rain falling on him in torrents, but he didn't seem to mind. In his left hand he held a book. "Emergency portkey," he said grimly. "Thought it the best way to get here. Where's Susan?"
"Is that her?" asked Gerald uncertainly, pointing to the sky. A figure was swooping about in the air, before it stopped on the cobblestones in front of them.
"Rob," it said, removing a hat, "you had better have a good reason for calling me out at five in the morning in a pouring rainstorm."
"Hail, hail the gang's all here," Helen said, sighing. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the letter I got this morning, would it?"
"Everything," Rob said shortly. "I was sure that you'd all get the same letter. What do you make of it?"
"Well, obviously, somebody wants us to know that it's September first tomorrow," Susan snapped. "Maybe it's custom to send first years bloody letters."
"No," Helen said suddenly, with quite a bit of force. "This letter is evil."
"How do you know?" asked Grace lazily.
Helen took a deep, shuddering breath, as if to tell them something, but she fell quiet instead.
"Must be more of this 'Blind man's intuition'," Gerald muttered sleepily.
"Enough!" Rob said forcefully, shaking water droplets off of his glasses. "Don't you want to know who sent it?"
"Of course we do," Helen said sensibly, "but how do we plan on doing that? I know two spells total: floo powder, and one to make regular letters Braille. That's not going to help us any."
"Okay, okay," Susan said, rubbing her temples. "It's wet out here, and that's not helping our moods much. We need to go somewhere dry and talk about this."
"Why didn't we all just meet at someone's house?" Gerald inquired.
Now that they thought about it, the foursome thought this the most sensible thing to do, but since they had overlooked that earlier, it was rather useless to them now.
"Did anyone leave our parents a note?" asked Grace suddenly.
There was silence for a moment, and then everybody moaned their despair.
"We are so dead!" Gerald moaned.
Helen tapped her chin and shook her head. "And I left the burners on..." she mused sadly, thinking of the stove at home.
Rob looked around the Alley, and Ollivander's wand shop caught his eye. "Maybe not as dead as we think," he said. "C'mon."
They all sprinted to the wand shop, which held a large sign on it that said 'Closed' in big, bright letters. Rob looked up at the top window and nodded at a lit candle. "Just as I thought," he said aloud. "Samantha is an early riser." Picking up a cobble from the road, he threw it at the window. He took hold of another, and threw that one at the window too.
An irate head peeked down at them. When she saw the five children there, she hurried down to the shop and unlocked the doors.
"What are you doing here so early?" she asked, though not unkindly. "I was going to deliver your wands today, and... where are your parents?"
"Samantha," Susan said crossly, cutting her off, "we could explain if you'd let us."
Most adults might think this an impudent answer, and yell at Susan for it. Samantha just smiled, and murmured something that sounded like 'Just like her mother', and let the wet fivesome in.
In the very back of the wand store there was a concealed door, and beyond the door there was a set of stairs. Samantha led them up the stairs, and they emerged in a very snug kitchen, which was incredibly welcome at the moment.
"I'll put the kettle on," Samantha said briskly, "and notify your parents that you're here." She then did as she said, and let loose four owls with notes tied to their talons.
"Why do you have so many owls?" asked Gerald, curiously.
"When you run a wand business, you need lots of messengers," Samantha explained, while getting out mugs of assorted origin and pouring tea into them, and passing around the cream and sugar. "Now," she said when she had sat down, "what's with you coming to Diagon Alley at all hours in the morning?"
# # #
The letters sent by owl could not have been more welcome to Hayley and Rob's family - as they had gotten up, feeling something was amiss, found that their children were missing. Hayley got quite a shock when she came downstairs to a mess of floo powder, a chair, and the burners on the stove, and was fairly hysterical until the owl from Samantha arrived.
On the other hand, Sarah and the twins' families were rather indifferent to the news until they got it - they were still sleeping when the owls arrived. But you could imagine their shock when they got word of what their children had done.
A few moments afterwards, six irate, slightly damp adults burst in the room, and stomped up the stairs to Samantha's house.
"God," Grace muttered, putting her head into her hands. "Here we go."
The door to the kitchen slammed open, and looking quite reminesant to Angels of Death, the adults lurched in the room, with Hayley frantically balancing a sleeping Christopher on her hip. The children shifted nervously in their seats, seeming to take a great interest in the wooden tabletop all of a sudden.
"So," Robert said, low and dangerously. Sarah opened her mouth, but Samantha cut her off.
"Oh, don't even start, Sarah," she said. "Take a look at this," she went on, wrenching the piece of icy white parchment from Helen's grasp and flapping in Hayley's face. "They had a reason for coming."
Hayley - who still looked irked - took the parchment, and scanned it. Her face went nearly as white as the paper before showing it to Sarah.
"I see," Robert said when the scrap of paper went around. "Why didn't you just come to me, Rob?" he asked.
Rob went a little red, and hunched over further. "I-I don't know. It didn't occur to me."
"Well," Sarah said, sighing. "It's not like I ever went to authority for help, either. But," she said, face looking tired, "I do wish you would tell me these things before you go galloping off like that."
"Sorry, Mummy," Susan said in her most fawning voice. Sarah rolled her eyes and cuffed her daughter lightly.
The adults looked at each other wanly. "Maybe it's time we told them," Gabriel said, speaking for the first time.
"Told them what?" asked Seamus in a drowsy voice.
"The story," Samantha said, nodding.
"What story?"
"The story of Sapius, dimwit!" Sarah snapped, being in a foul mood.
Samantha shook her head. "Hayley, why don't you put Chris in here," she invited, pointing to another room to the left, which had a bed in it.
"I don't get it," Gerald said when she had returned. "We already know that story. We've heard it a thousand times."
The adults exchanged glances. "You haven't heard the whole story," Robert said finally.
"Or perhaps even a true one. I've read the history books. Some of the stories are rather ridiculous," Hayley explained.
"Then why not tell the whole, true story so somebody can get it right?" asked Helen plainly.
Sarah smiled, showing very white teeth. "Silent amusement," she said haughtily. "Have you ever read a story about yourself, and have the writer get it wrong? It's hilarious."
"That isn't the only reason," Gabriel muttered to the kids.
"Anyway, we might as well get on with it," Samantha hastily put in. "Robert? You do the honors."
Robert puffed out his cheeks in thought, leaning back in his chair. "Ahh, where to begin? I guess I should start from the top, eh? Well, when we were about your-alls' age, none of us lived in England, with the exception of Gabriel..."
# # #
The next morning dawned pearly gray in the Finnigan household. Gabriel rolled over sleepily and shot a quick glance at the clock on her bedstead before shutting her eyes again. Three quiet seconds later, pandemonium broke loose.
"Get up!" she yelled frantically to her sleeping husband. "We've overslept! The kids are going to miss the train!"
Bathrobe half-on, hair astray, Gabriel ran to the twins' room, where they were sleeping peacefully.
"We've overslept!" she repeated over and over as she shook Gerald and Grace awake. "You're going to miss your train!"
In the fifteen minutes that followed, there was much yelling, tripping, screaming, and chaos in general.
"What about the wands?" wailed Grace, who was yanking her golden hair into a ponytail, and putting socks on at the same time.
"Here," Seamus grunted miserably, opening a wooden box and producing two identical wands, handing one to Grace and Gerald each.
Pointing her wand at the fireplace, Gabriel made a large bonfire in the fireplace, and in her excitement she made the fire a little too big, and soon parts of the living room were engulfed in flames.
"Oh damn!" Gabriel yelled, preparing to soak a flaming chair.
"Just never mind!" Seamus shouted back. "I'll take care of it. They need to get to the train!" he said, obviously meaning Gerald and Grace. "Send me letters!" he called after them as Gabriel tossed floo powder into the fire.
# # #
They arrived at the platform seconds before the train was leaving. Rob was standing guard at one of the compartments, and he waved them over. "We've saved a seat for you!" he called grimly. "We were late too."
They hauled the trunks in the back of the compartment, and the twins' collapsed tiredly on one of the seats.
"What a morning," Gerald muttered.
Grace looked around. The compartment was predictably a rectangle shape, and this particular one had seats on the perimeter of the boxy room, so everyone was facing each other, like a conference room. Grace didn't recognize most of the people in the compartment, besides her friends - and one other person.
"He invited us in here," Helen said, blind eyes looking in the direction of Alexandre, who was chatting with Susan, and coolly adding a word here and there to the girl behind him. "It was the only compartment left with adequate room for all of us anyway," she added.
"It isn't so bad," Gerald muttered. "There's some other blokes in here as well," he said, motioning to the others in the room with them. What's your name?" he asked in the same breath, looking at a little redheaded girl sitting beside him.
She looked up, startled. "Karen. Karen Weasley," she said, fiddling with her left pigtail. "And you?"
"I'm Gerald, and this is Grace-"--he jabbed at his sister with his thumb--"-Finnigan. That kid with the glasses is Robert Ravenclaw the second, that's Helen, was it Color-Carloton? Yeah, and the one that's over there yapping away is Susan Harrisford."
"Who's she talking to?" Karen asked, leaning forward to look at Alexandre.
"That's Alexandre Malfoy."
"Oh. Wait. Did you say that that boys name was Robert Ravenclaw?" she asked suspiciously.
Rob sighed and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Here we go, he thought absently. "Yes. That's my name. Please call me Rob, however. I don't like my full name."
Karen stared, but didn't say anything more to him. "Really. So, what house do you want to be in?"
There was an assorted chorus of 'Gryffindors', 'Ravenclaws', 'Hufflepuffs', and 'Slytherins' from the six people sitting on the same side of the compartment.
"Strange," Karen commented. "Most people who know each other want to be in the same house. I think being in Gryffindor is the way to go for me, however, but if I can't get that, I'd like to be a Ravenclaw."
"Why does everybody hate the Slytherins?" Susan pouted, turning away from Alexandre for the moment. "It's not like we're all little Volde- You-Know-Who's," she finished hastily, remembering at the last moment not to say the name.
"I don't hate all the Slytherins," Grace said, "your mom is pretty cool."
"Yeah," Gerald added, "and she has cool cars."
"And," Rob said, kicking Gerald in the foot, "she was one of the ones that defeated the Dark Lord anyway. I don't think that you should have any problem with amnesty from the other Houses."
"What?" Karen asked, not getting the gist of the conversation.
Rob sighed. "Susan's mother is Sarah Slytherin. Mr. and Mrs. Big Mouth over there-" he pointed at the twins, "mother is Gabriel Gryffindor. And Helen's mother is Hayley Hufflepuff. Now that you know we have famous heritage, could we get onto other topic of conversation?" he asked, slightly pink in the cheeks. He didn't want people fussing over him because of who he was friends with and who he was related to.
Karen seemed to get that by the tone of his voice. "So I see. You wouldn't know my mother - she's a muggle, but my father is Fred Weasley. You might know him."
"We've heard stories," Helen said, grinning.
Karen giggled, shaking her head so her pigtails flopped about. "Haven't we all?"
# # #
Meanwhile, the parents of the ones on the train were still standing at platform nine and three-quarters, watching the train slink out of sight.
"Well," Gabriel said, "that's that. I assume that Robert is already at Hogwarts, Hannah?" she asked.
Hannah nodded. "Yes. He left last night. Gracious, an entire year in an empty house, now that Rob's left. What will I do with all of the time?"
"You can come out to lunch with us," Hayley interjected, looking at her watch. "You could go and get your husband, Gabriel."
Gabriel smirked. "I had better, or the big lump will be whining all day about how I didn't take him out to eat. What about you, Sarah?"
Sarah turned slightly pink and shook her head. "I can't. Maybe tomorrow?"
Hayley's ears perked up at Sarah's unusually civil response. "And why not?"
"I was already invited by somebody," she replied shortly.
A wide grin split across Gabriel's face. "Oh, man! It's Draco! You were asked on a date with Drakey-wakey!" she burst into unstoppable gales of laughter.
"Shut up!" Sarah wailed. "It's not a date!"
Hayley cracked a grim smile. "Of course it isn't, Sarah dear. Go on, you don't want to be late."
Nose in the air, but a smile playing around her lips, Sarah disapperated.
"-for your date," Hayley finished.
Gabriel had her handkerchief over her mouth, and was sputtering into it. "This is great. Oh, oh man. Well, anyway, there's a nice place down the street - and we're wearing muggle clothes, so why don't we walk?"
"I just hope Sarah knows what she's doing," Hannah said, shaking her head.
"What do you mean?" asked Hayley sharply, looking over the rims of her glasses.
"Oh, you didn't know?" Hannah said mildly. "The Malfoys are heavily involved in the Dark Arts."
Gabriel and Hayley stopped dead in their tracks, and looked at each other.
# # #
On the way to Hogwarts, the weather had gotten pretty nasty with black stormclouds and an increasingly darkening landscape. But nobody seemed to notice inside the train, as everybody was gobbling sweets and swapping riddles to pass the time.
"Mmm!" Karen Weasley said, licking chocolate off of her finger. "I have one!"
"A metaphorical blade,
Though no sharper than dirt,
A forest to an ant,
A lady's skirt."
There was silence in the compartment as everybody chewed, and thought.
"A metaphorical blade?" asked Alexandre, biting into an Every Flavor bean, and promptly choking on it. "Egg white... yuk!"
"I don't get it," Gerald said, chancing to look at Grace, who was smiling smugly. "I think that Gracie knows," he said darkly.
Grace nodded. "It's grass! Oh, I do so love these riddle things."
Karen smiled at Grace and nodded
"Grass? Oh, I get it now," Rob said thoughtfully, sipping pumpkin juice. "A blade of grass, a forest to an ant, a grass skirt... very clever, Karen."
Karen blushed. "Thank you, Robert."
Susan grinned at everybody, and bit into a pumpkin pasty. "Imm goff a 'diddle!"
Helen giggled. "Susan, swallow your food."
"I've got a riddle!" Susan repeated, after swallowing.
"What can speak,
But has no face?
What can walk,
But go no place?
"What can stalk,
Unseen, but heard,
What never argues,
But always has the last word?"
"What?" asked Rob. Susan repeated the riddle for him.
"How can you walk, and go no place?" inquired Karen. "Is it a muggle treadmill?"
"What's a tread-mill?" asked Alexandre, confused.
"Nevermind. It stalks, unseen, but heard? Damn, Susan, this one is a good one. Hint?" asked Gerald.
Susan sighed as she unwrapped another pasty. "You find this thing in places like caves. And it's rather deceiving to say that it walks... it really doesn't."
This was of little help to anyone, until nearly three minutes later; Grace clapped her hands together.
"It's an echo, isn't it, Sue?" she asked.
"Don't call me Sue. But yes, it is an echo."
Helen turned her head in the direction of Susan and Grace. "Well, it does make a little bit of sense, granted, but I'm not too sure it's fair to consider an echo walking."
Grace grinned with maddening superiority. "I love riddles. Does anybody have any more?"
Rob was about to open his mouth, before the train came to a grinding halt, nearly throwing all of the passengers forward out of their seats with surprise. The door to the left opened.
"Firs' years over 'ere!" a burly voice called.
Gerald smiled. "That must be Hagrid!"
From the corner of his eye, Rob thought that he could see a slight line of irritation form between Alexandre's brows, but he didn't voice this. Instead, he opted to squish through the door with everybody else, and stand on the pebbled spot to get in line for a boat.
Susan looked around. On their left was a river of water with many boats bobbing in the iron-gray waters, and on the right carriages were lined up for the older students. Helen gripped her arm tightly, as she was lead by Susan into a boat.
All five of them (Alexandre had spotted some other friends) managed to squeeze into a boat that was only meant for four people. The wind picked up, throwing mist into the air.
"I wish he would hurry," Rob said, glancing meaningfully at Hagrid, who was still herding students into boats. What seemed like an eternity later, Hagrid climbed into the front boat, and they started off.
"Oooh," Helen said, squirming in her seat. "I'm so excited!"
"Watch yer 'eads!" Hagrid called, and they all ducked low to avoid being decapitated by a low hanging eave with ivy. When they were past that, they came upon a bend in the lake.
"Ye'll get yer first view o' Hogwarts in a moment," Hagrid said as they rounded the bend.
When they did so, there was a chorus of 'Oooos' and 'Ahhhs', but the five in the boat didn't say anything - they were too awed.
The entire castle was of a shimmering wet-sand color (most likely from the moisture in the air), and turrets sprouted from every direction. There were stained-glass windows in some of the panes, and others were shaped into things like unicorn heads and some sort of flora that Rob couldn't recognize. The western wing of it was swathed in what appeared to be purple ivy - though the plant seemed to be melting into a soft russet color as they looked at it - and was altogether a magnificent building.
While everybody was gawping at the castle, the boats had stopped, and Hagrid had to call everybody to attention so they could get out of the boats. Once they had done so, the first years plodded in the gargantuan castle, where they met a very old, severe-looking lady.
"Wait here," the lady instructed them, before turning to Hagrid. "You may go to the Great Hall now."
Hagrid tipped his hat to the lady, winked at the trembling first years, and strolled out the doorway with all the grace of a bull in a china shop.
The lady looked them over, before adjusting her spectacles. "I am Professor McGonagall, to those that don't know, or haven't heard torture stories from your parents. I'm going to see if the Great Hall is ready for you yet - wait here."
Professor McGonagall left the room, and whispers exploded throughout the Great Hall. Almost as soon as she left, there was a colorful explosion, and a drenching of freezing cold water.
"Ickle Firsties alla wetsie?" a wicked voice cackled, watching the first years run around, trying not to get wet.
"That's Peeves!" several voices called out.
"He broke my mum's trunk!"
"Never mind your mum's trunk! I'm all wet!"
There was a sound like a firework going off, and Peeves zoomed off, cursing black words. The first years looked up to see their savior, and their eyes met a smiling woman, smoothing back long hair with an absent hand, while the other was slightly smoking.
"Hello," she said pleasantly. "I'm your Charms teacher, Professor Wazird. But you may call me Professor W. if you'd rather. You're first years, I assume?"
All heads nodded dumbly.
"Well, I suggest you get used to the antics of Peeves quickly - you'll have seven years of him. I'll see you in the Hall." With that, she swept gracefully off.
More whispers cascaded through the hall. "Semvara," Alexandre muttered in Susan's ear.
"What?"
"I had heard that one of the teachers here was a semvara - Professor W. must be it... you saw her finger, didn't you?"
Susan shrugged, but didn't have time to ponder over semvara professors, because at that time, Professor McGonagall had come back in the room, nostrils flaring like a snake's when she saw their soaking clothes.
She muttered under her breath something that sounded like 'Peeves, I expect', and flicked her wand. In an instant, water started rising out of the fabric of their clothes, and a large puddle was soon wavering over everybody's heads. Before anybody had a good look at the levitating water, Professor McGonagall flicked her wand again, and it was gone.
"Come," she ordered brusquely, "we are ready."
The first years obeyed, walking through an assortment of impressive rooms before a very large set of doors swung open, and the Great Hall, in all of it's splendor loomed before them.
It was every bit as magnificent as their parents had described it to them. Four large, rectangular tables sat, one in each corner of the huge room, each one adorned in either green, red, yellow or blue in coordination of the house colors. In the back of the room, where large windows took up the entire wall, the High Table jutted out between the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables, swathed in a white and golden tablecloth. The celing was the exact same as the weather outdoors - huge black thunderheads swirled against a pewter-gray sky.
In the very center of the Hall sat a stool, and a scroll. Professor McGonagall worked her way out of the throng of first years and picked up the scroll - and in the same movement, set a ratty looking hat on the stool. The hat opened at the brim, and began to sing:
I can tell what you're thinking,
As I sing this song.
You want to know where you've come from,
And where you belong.
Well, first year,
Leave all the thinking to me,
I can make your decision simple,
I'll place you where you ought to be.
Maybe you're a Gryffindor,
Where the brave reside,
Under the bold and brash exterior,
A lion may dwell inside.
What about a Hufflepuff?
Who stand for naught but the right,
Honest and loyal to the core,
A badger, that can see beyond sight.
Or perhaps a Ravenclaw,
Where lives the logic and wise,
Sharp as a blade, knowledgeable as a book,
For the eagle, there is no compromise.
Even a Slytherin,
Sly and devious as their name,
Slippery as an eel, charming as a cobra,
Is what brings the snake honor and fame.
So try me on,
For below the surface I see,
I will place you where you belong,
In the house that you ought to be!
The Hall erupted into cheers, especially the first years. Professor McGonagall unrolled the scroll, and read the first name off (Megan Abromivitch) who turned out to be a Ravenclaw. Names were called out, such as Casey Brandt (Hufflepuff) or Martin Brown (Gryffindor), before the hat shouted:
"Carloton, Helen!"
A few of the more bookish people whispered behind their hands - they knew the child of Hayley Hufflepuff when they saw her. Helen stood uncomfortably for a few moments, not being able to see the stool.
"C'mon!" someone from the Slytherin table jeered. "We don't have all day!"
Grace grabbed Helen's hand, and roughly steered her around. "Walk straight - as long as you don't veer off, you should be okay," she muttered through clenched teeth, glaring in the direction of the Slytherin table.
Helen nodded weakly and started inching her way forward. But she needn't have worried about missing the hat, for as soon as she took a step, she felt an odd pulling at her feet, compelling her to walk in a certain direction. Before she knew it, she was sitting on the stool, and the hat was plopped over her head, and she felt the brim of it rest easily on the edge of her nose.
"Sorry about that," a breezy voice whispered in her ear. "I forgot for a moment you were blind - anyway. I should hope you know where I'm placing you, but I have a message. The blind do not see what one looks like; you see what things are like. All right?"
"Hufflepuff!" the hat screamed.
Helen frowned and hesitated to take that hat off for a moment - what did that mean, 'seeing what things are like'? Helen couldn't see at all.
Shrugging, she pulled off the hat, and a burst of golden shimmer shot through her eyes. She visibly flinched from the brightness, but was used to odd color explosions in her retinas by now. She set the hat neatly on the stool, and took her place at the Hufflepuff table.
More names called out. Casey, Derek turned out to be a Slytherin, while Emmre, Samantha joined Helen at the Hufflepuff table.
"Finnigan, Gerald!"
By now Gerald had gone so pale that his blue eyes appeared like pain on his waxy features. But he walked up and grabbed the hat, which fell over his eyes.
"Gryffindor!" the hat called out, almost immediately.
"Finnigan, Grace!"
Grace swaggered up, and pulled the hat on. There was actually a few seconds of a lull, while the hat spoke to Grace. Grace's features contorted in what appeared like horrified shock, but then she grimly nodded.
"Gryffindor!" was the call, and Grace took her place next to her brother, looking quite pale and forlorn. Susan couldn't figure out for the life of her why, but decided not to voice it.
"You're next," Rob informed his friend.
"Thanks," Susan said stiffly, as Handock, Laura became a Slytherin. That was soon followed by a flurry of other names, before Susan was called up.
The hat sat on her head for awhile, and Rob noticed Susan's lips moving - she was talking to the headwear. Soon, the hat called out, almost dully:
"Slytherin!" as if the hat almost didn't want to say it. Soon after, Alexandre was summoned.
He walked calmly to the hat and put it on. There was virtually no time before the hat cried out:
"Slytherin!"
Alexandre took his place at the great green table and thumped Susan on the back, who rolled her eyes and knocked him over the head.
Rob's food turned to lead in his stomach as names were called out, and shunted to the different tables. He would have given anything to have a different last name than he had. But the inevitable soon arrived.
"Ravenclaw, Robert!"
Whispers hissed along the walls like fire. There was a kid among them that was related to the headmaster, and presumably to the founder. Rob swallowed and timidly yanked the hat over his head, glad that it fell over his eyes.
"A Ravenclaw, eh? Goodness, that's an odd thing to hear. No need to get sloppy, now that I'm almost done."
"Erm," Rob said, unsure if he was supposed to answer the statement. "Nope."
The hat gave something of a chuckle. "Watch out for black skies, Rob."
"Ravenclaw!" the hat sang, pleased with itself.
Rob ambled his way over to the blue-swathed table where people were clapping for him. After sitting down, Rob looked at his father, who was seated at the High Table. Robert the first gave his son the tiniest wink before resuming watching the Sorting.
"Watch out for black clouds?" Rob muttered to himself. "What's that supposed to mean?" He then lost all track of the Sorting, but he remembered to clap politely when Karen was sorted into Gryffindor.
"The blind see what things are?" Helen asked nobody in particular.
Gerald and Susan were muttering things to themselves too - obviously about what the hat had told them. All except for Grace, who was looking at the floor dejectedly, humming a few bars of Amazing Grace under her breath.
# # #
Far, far away, a bugle played taps along with Grace's humming.
# # #
"Thanks for lunch," Sarah said to Draco, awkwardly. They had just apperated to the front of Sarah's penthouse, after a meal at one of London's finest muggle restaurants. The food was good, but Sarah found it hard to converse about things, when Lucius was hovering over them like a dragonfly.
"It was my pleasure," Draco said courteously, looking over her shoulder at his father, who was leaning up against a wall in the hallway, covering a yawn with his hand. "I'm glad you enjoyed it."
There was silence for a few tense seconds when Draco reached into his pocket. "Before I forget, I brought something for you."
"Really?" Sarah asked, throwing a scathing look at Lucius.
Draco produced a round object, wrapped in forest green silk, and tied in a silver ribbon. Sarah pulled the ribbon off, and the wrap fell to the floor.
It was a Lumosphere. A clear orb about the size of a baseball with several floating objects inside, changing color periodically. Sarah laughed.
"I thought you might like it since the last one, well, broke," Draco explained, a smile playing at the corner of his lips.
Sarah cracked a grim smile at the Lumosphere that she had accidentally brought into the storybook dimension of Sapius, and had broken. "I didn't think you would remember something like that," she drawled. "It was about fifteen years ago."
"Some things you never forget," Draco retorted.
"Draco, we had better go," Lucius said, looking at his watch. Sarah glared at him.
"He's right," Draco said. "Appointments and such... anyway, I'm glad you could come."
"Me too," Sarah said, feeling odd.
Draco opened his mouth to speak, but then shut it. Slowly, he leaned over and kissed Sarah's cheek, and then pulled back quickly. "See you another time," he supplemented quickly, before apperating away. Lucius followed in suit.
Sarah stood there for a moment, and then raised her hand to the place in the cheek where Draco had kissed her. Abruptly she smashed the door open to her penthouse and ran in, collapsing on the couch, feeling her insides bounce up and down.
Sarah Slytherin was in love.
# # #
"And this," the prefect said, sounding bored, "is the girl's dormitories. Any questions?"
The first year Hufflepuffs, who were exhausted, mumbled a chorus of nos, and ambled up the steps to their beds, Helen being the last one, to avoid getting trampled.
Even though Helen couldn't see it, the dormitory room was a stone wall, with lightly yellowed carpet. There was a fireplace with a simple mantle on the left side of the room; a mirror on the right. The bedsteads were a warm honey color with sunny yellow sheets and colors. A warm golden color emitted in front of Helen's eyeballs, showing peace.
"This one's your bed," a girl said, grabbing Helen's wrist and gently leading her to a bed in the far corner.
"Thank you," Helen said politely, setting on the bed, feeling very full and sleepy. She knew that she ought to put on her pajamas, but felt it too much work. Instead, she opted to roll over and fall asleep, dreams daunted by talking hats.
# # #
As the castle slept, the black clouds grew denser and more numerous, rumbling an ominous thunder.
# # #
Above the thunder, there was the sound of the squawking of a bugle, and arguing voices.
"Give me the damned trumpet!"
"It's not a trumpet - it's a bugle!"
"I don't care what it is!"
"I'm practicing!" the first voice said defensively.
"I'm trying to sleep!" the other voice snapped.
"Children, children," a voice sarcastically scolded.
"Salazar, shut up. Godric, put the trumpet away," a fourth voice demanded, sounding very grumpy.
There was some grumbling, but the commands were heeded, and all was silent again.
# # #
Above, below, and level with the clouds, all slumbered in anticipation for sunrise, which would, hopefully, bring challenges, triumph, musical lessons, or even death.
# # #
A/N: ::eerie music plays:: Oooh, sort of a cliffhanger ending, eh? Well, I hope that this chapter isn't as confusing as my other ones, and please tell me what you think! ^_^
~Moxie ^_^
Disclaimer: Whatever is familiar belongs to somebody else, whatever isn't belongs to me.