A couple of months passed. June melted into July, which turned into August. Celeste was wiser now than she had been at the beginning of summer. She now knew how to talk to almost any specie of animal that existed (execpt for the horsefly and the duck-billed-platypus) and was doing well on the Kormic's farm. Her two dragons were growing nicely. Celeste looked over with pride to the dragon on her left. His scales were a glowing orange, and he had blazing red wings. When he flew at the top speed that his tiny wings would allow, he looked like a shimmering streak against the sky, earning him the name Sunsmear.
Looking over at the dragon on the right, Celeste saw the glossy purple sheen of sleek scales. The wings on this dragon were a smooth hunter green color, with the appearence of velvet. A striking contrast to her bright-colored twin, her name was Nightshade.
Inca whinnied and trotted. The twins scampered to keep up. Celeste giggled. Even though the twins had not gotten much bigger (Arabian Sandwedgers can decide how big they are going to get) they could not grapple onto Celeste's shirt without tearing it badly, and now they had to scamper around on the ground. A flock of sparrows flew over her head, and some of them swooped down and twitted hello. Celeste raised her head and shrieked in sparrow-call back. She felt so implusivly happy that she began to sing.
"So I was riding through the desert on a horse with no name...it felt good to be out of the rain...in the desert, you can remember your name, cause there ain't no one there to give you no pain..."
# # #
"Cause there ain't no one there to give you no pain..." Draco drawled out these words in a melodic fashion at the booksellers. He couldn't help it. And it couldn't have come at a more inoppertune time. Granger, Potter, all the Weasleys, and his father gawked at him in shock. Then Ron began to twitter, followed by the twins, then everybody else fell onto the ground in a sickning display of estatic glee. Even his father was chortling to himself, in spite of everything. Rage boiled up inside Draco. He shut his eyes, and he saw red swimming in front of them. He sent all of his anger with this one comment.
Damn you! Look at what you made me do! # # #
...Look at what you made me do! Celeste blinked, and the whitish-blond boy was there, with people laughing at him. Fury overtook her happy mood, and Inca stopped, as well as her two dragons. They wanted to know what was going on, but Celeste didn't answer them. It wasn't her fault this blasted boy did what ever he did - so why was she so angry? She sent back the comment with not an acid one of her own, but with a potent blast of copper-yellow light, Wild Magic.
# # #
Draco's eyes were still shut, but the red was suddenly replaced with a bright flash was yellow. Abruptly, the laughing stopped. Draco cracked his eyes open, and saw that everyone was now staring, flabbergasted at him for some reason. Unknownst to Draco, he was glowing with a faint outline of yellow. When he spoke next, it came out as a lion growl, but words were audible from the deep pitch of it.
---It's not funny, you blithering idiots!--- Draco felt a little prick at each of the pads of his fingers on his right hand, but paid it no heed. The entire group stared at him, even his father looked a bit rattled, which by Draco's view of his father, was a first. Draco swung out his right hand at Ron. He did not make any move to grasp the cloth that was Ron's shirt, but he pulled him up anyway. Looking down at his right hand, Draco nearly fainted to find that he had five long, spindly claws! He was so shocked that he lost his anger, which made the yellowish glow around him fade. The claws reatreated; the skin which they had punctured sealed up as if nothing had happened. Ron fell on the ground. Nobody spoke. Finally, Draco whirled around on his heel and walked out the door. This was getting too weird for his taste.
# # #
Celeste saw Cindy Kormic motion her inside. She gave a long, suffering sigh and hopped off Inca. She did so hate to go inside on wonderful evenings like this. But judging by she sun's position in the sky, it was dinner time anyway. She motioned for her two dragons to follow her inside, and they went. While all three of them were washing their hands, Cindy spoke.
"Celeste, dear," she said while putting a plate of chicken on the table, "where do you go to school at?" Celeste wiped her hands on a cotton towel before answering.
"Well, I went to school at St. Samuels, but, I wish I could go to a wizard school, considering that I have magic," Cindy felt bad for her charge and walked over to her.
"I wish you could too, but you don't have the right type of magic. It can't be taught," she looked down at Sunstreak, who was playing with her wand.
"You stop that!" Celeste scolded, snatching the wood from his scaley fingers. He bowed his head in submission and walked over to his stool at the table. Cindy was about to take the wand from her, when suddenly, there was a bright flash from the end of it, and Celeste, and her dragons disappeared.
# # #
It was the first day of school at Hogwarts, and Draco Malfoy was terribly bored. The first years had been sorted, and now they were watching Professor Dumbledore do his normal welcoming speech. Draco yawned. Couldn't he do a new speech every other year, or something? Leaning back in the chair, he looked up at the celing, which looked radient with the colors of the setting sun. He started to drift off into sleep, actually, save for a bright white flash that exploded over the center of the Great Hall. Draco nearly rocketed out of his seat. Was this some new thing the ghosts cooked up? He shot a look over at the Bloody Baron, who had his normal gray ghosty look that he always did. Even Dumbledore stopped speaking and looked at the celing, until the whiteness stopped. Dumbledore looked down with a piercing stare.
"I would like to know who pulled that on me during my speech," nobody moved. Draco sat ridged in his chair, hoping that nobody was looking for a scapegoat. He looked around, and saw half the Gryffindor table staring at him apprehensivly. Draco sneered back at the lot of them. For once he didn't do anything.
A screaming sound filled the room. A terrible, high-pitched sound of suprise and terror filled Draco's ears and nearly made him scream too. Then it stopped. A figure came, floating down from the celing, kneeling on two floating things. They all landed on the Gryffindor table. The person cautiously stood up and looked around. Draco gasped loudly and then clapped a hand to his mouth to stifile the sound. But it was too late. The entire school looked at him, and then the girl. She had blue eyes, silver-blond hair, and pale skin. When her eyes settled over on Draco, she gasped as well. Draco stood up.
"You're the one that was making me sing those stupid songs!" The girl smiled before answering him.
"And you're the one I've been having dreams about," she looked him over. "Damn, you look familiar," Draco raised an eyebrow.
"That might be because you look exactly like me, but anyway. I'm Draco Malfoy. What about you?" the girl turned paler, and she blanched.
"You're joking. That's my name too." Draco raised his other eyebrow.
"Your name's Draco too?" The girl frowned impatiently.
"No, you fool! Yeah, my name's Draco. That's it." The voice was so dripping with scarcasm that Draco winced. "No, my last name is the same as yours. It's Malfoy. Celeste Malfoy," she looked around and jumped off the table. Ron cleared his throat.
"Errm, Malfoy, Celeste?" Celeste turned around to face the red-haired boy.
"Yes?" Ron pointed to the dark-scaled dragon, Nightshade, who was eating his food greedily. Sunsmear was doing the same at Lavender Brown's plate.
"Your, err, is this a dragon? Well, what ever it is, it's eating my food," Celeste snapped her fingers, trying to call the dragons down.
"Nightshade! Sunsmear! You know better!" the two dragons got off the table sheepishly, whimpering as they rubbed against her legs. Celeste clucked, as both dragons had food smeared all over their muzzles. She reached over and grabbed a cloth napkin from the Gryffindor table, and began running it over their faces, to wipe the mashed potatoes off their sleek scales.
"Are those your dragons?" asked Hermione, bending over to get a closer look at Sunsmear. He snapped at her.
"Yes. I found them at the beginning of the summer, and they've been nothing but trouble since," she finished, tapping Nightshade on the head. Nightshade stuck her tongue out playfully at her.
Celeste stood up. "Would anyone mind telling me where I am?" A familiar voice called her from the other end of the school. Katelin Kormic came running up to her.
"Hey Celeste! This is Hogwarts, the place you've been reading about," Katelin came to a grinding halt in front of her feet. She waved at the pair of dragons. "Hey, Sunsmear. What's up, Nightshade?" both dragons looked up from Celeste's feet and snorted.
"They say hello," Celeste said. Harry knocked his goblet of pumpkin punch over. The orangish liquid spilled onto the floor, where the dragons preceeded to lap it up.
"You can talk to dragons?" Celeste shrugged nonchalantly.
"Sure. I can also talk to birds, cats, snakes, frogs, bats, rats, elephants, anything you can think of. Well, execpt for the horsefly, and the duck-billed-platypus, but that's only 'cause I haven't tried to yet," the table stared open-mouthed.
"Wow. I can only speak to one animal, and I thought that was something," Harry said, flabbergasted. Celeste giggled.
"That is something. It's just that I have Wild Magic. I can also shape-shift to any animal I wish, but I haven't had the desire to do that yet." Hermione glowered.
"I'm jealous." Celeste flashed her a sharp smile that looked oddly like a very smug sneer.
"You should be," Celeste poked back playfully, cornflower blue eyes dancing around mischeviously in her head. Dumbledore spoke.
"Well, this has sure been an intresting dinner. Miss Malfoy, have you any relation to Mr. Malfoy over there, for chance?" Celeste looked at Draco, and they both shrugged.
"Maybe. I mean, we look alike, and I don't think that Malfoy is a very common name and all..." Dumbledore nodded.
"I see. Is that your wand?" Celeste looked at the dark-brownish-reddish wand that was protruding out of her hand.
"No," she said, a bit embarrassed. "This is Mrs. Kormic's wand, I picked it up from Sunsmear to give it back to her, and I was transported here by mistake..." Dumbledore held out his hand.
"Give it here, and I will make sure it gets back to Mrs. Kormic." Celeste tightened her grip on the wand. She had lived on the street before, after all, and she knew better than to give valuable stuff to people on a whim.
"How do I know I can trust you?" she nearly spat at him. Dumbledore sighed, took out his wand and muttered something. The wand flew out of Celeste's grip, and into Dumbledore's waiting open hand. He waved it and muttered something else, and the wand disappeared. Celeste felt a rush of rage - she didn't like being defied. A wave of copper-yellow fire rippled through the ground, making the room gasp. A split-second later, the window above the High Table shattered, and birds of all types came hurtling though the air at Dumbledore. Celeste saw her error at once.
"No! NO! NO! Turn back! I didn't mean it! I'm fine!" the birds came to a screeching halt and flew back out the broken window. The entire room gawked at her, and Celeste felt herself turn red.
"Err, sorry about that. It kind of happens that way when I'm angry.." Dumbledore sighed, waved his wand again, and the little glass shards went back into the window - it was as if she was watching a video in slow rewind. When he'd finished, Dumbledore turned to the now open mouthed Celeste.
"No problem. Now, I suppose that we can bring out the Sorting Hat one more time for this fine young lady..."
Celeste's breath caught. She had read all about the Sorting Hat. That could only mean one thing...They were admitting her to Hogwarts! She wanted to jump up and down and scream with happiness.
A severe women, looking about in her late thirties, early forties, came out with a ragged looking hat. She set it on a stool, and motioned for Celeste to sit on it. Celeste did so, and the woman dropped the hat on her head. Celeste waited.
"Oooh, a student with Wild Magic. I haven't seen one of your type in...in forever, I do believe. Well, you're too tart for Ravenclaw, too tough for Hufflepuff, too shrewd and cautious for Gryffindor, and too thoughtful for Slytherin. Hmm. Well, since it's a tie between the four of them, I suppose I'll put you where your family has been for centuries...."
"SLYTHERIN!" screamed the hat. The Slytherin table whooped and cheered, while the other three tables clapped grudgingly. Draco threw an arm around his sisters shoulders.
"Welcome to the family, Celeste," he said, sounding quite pleased the Celeste wasn't chosen for any of the 'lesser' houses. Celeste grinned and shook his arm off him. She whistled over to her dragons, who were mooching food off of people from the Ravenclaw table. They came over to her obediently, and batted at the old hat, which was still dangling from her ear. Celeste laughed and handed the hat back to the severe looking woman, who gave her a thin smile before taking it from her. Celeste walked over to the Slytherin table, following her brother.
# # #
Somewhere in a cave under Bulgaria, a figure sat. The cave was old, musty and smelled of damp and decay. In these sorts of places, you just get the flesh-creeping sensation that something evil is always brewing in a metaphorical cauldron, even if the real cauldron is off the fire and hanging on the wall. Well, in this case, the cauldron was on the fire, and simmering something unpleasant, in the form of a gluey, goopy green mess. The figure that sat over it waved a broken half of a wand over the cauldron, and a scene appeared on the glossy surface of it. A scene of a young girl calling on a large flock of birds to attack an older man. The figure tapped the broken wand on the side of the cauldron, intrested. That power could be harnessed and used for the figures own purposes...the scene melted into nothing. Soon, the figure could only see it's own reflection in the smooth green surface; matted black hair that straggled down to about it's mid back, and a pair of unfathomable dark blue-gray eyes. The figure's name was Synthia Grindelwald. Many would have considered her pretty, but she never bothered much about her looks to care. She was the granddaughter of the great dark wizard Grindelwald, and would be living the high life, if not for that confounded do-gooder Dumbledore. Instead she was hiding beneath ground, with a broken wand. Synthia tried to bring the scene back, but the broken wand didn't have enough power to bring back the image. Cursing blackly, she tossed the wand against the cave wall.
"Craggle! Snare!" Synthia snarled into the blackness. For a couple of seconds, there was no noise, with the execption of the steady drip-drip of water running down the stalactites, but then there was the pattering of feet. Two giant lizards appeared. Their looks could resemble that of a small dinosaur, about five feet tall apiece. They each wore a leather belt with knives stuck in them, and held a bow in their hands. They had a quiver full of bows on their backs. They were Lizfolos.
"Yesss, Misssstresss Ssssynthia?" Craggle asked, twirling his bow around his fingers while answering.
"I want to send you on a mission for me," Synthia rasped wither her hoarse voice, as she rose, her soiled robes dragging on the ground, as they were a bit large for her.
"And what would that be, Misstress Ssynthia?" Snare asked. Synthia sighed. Snare was a bit better at speech than Craggle was, but not by that much.
"I want you to kidnap this one child for me," Synthia ordered. She got up to retrive her wand that she had hurled at the wall earlier. Craggle cleared his throat.
"Why?" Synthia straightened, broken wand back in her grip. She ran her nose down her sleeve before answering. "The child has power that I could use, it might be of some assistance, I think that the child attends Hogwarts," Synthia finished, tapping the cauldron, trying to get it to produce the image again. It wouldn't. Craggle and Snare gasped.
"Ssssynthia!" Craggle protested feebily. "Dumbedore resssidesss there! Even your grandfather wasss reluctant to try to challenge him!" Synthia smacked the cauldron very hard, making some of the green slop slosh out.
"And where's my grandfather today?" she shrieked at the reptilian pair. "He's wasting away in a cell in Azkaban! So's my parents, my aunts, and everybody else! Even my baby brother!" her eyes began to water dangerously. "You see? I'm their only hope! I can't let my family down!" she went back to her cauldron.
"What doess thiss child look like, Ssynthia?" Snare sighed, scuffing the hard earth floor with a two-toed foot. "Whitish-blond hair, I don't know what color eyes, but the child is in Slytherin, I believe. I'm not entirely sure what sex the person is either," she said thoughtfully. Snare and Craggle looked at each other.
"Are you sssure that that'sss enough information to go on?" Craggle asked. Synthia glared at him.
"Yes," she snapped. "You can use your dragon magic to put the house to sleep, and I can give you something to keep the child quiet while you take him or her," she handed them a small jar of yellow powder.
"This is essence of silence. Just put a pinch on the victim's tongue and he or she will be silent for hours," Synthia gave an evil smirk.
Craggle shrugged. "See you later, Missstresss," a loud pop, and the scaley twosome were gone. Synthia sighed and sat down, using a cushion of moss as a pillow.
The only thing to do now was wait.