*
Author's Note: the characters of the Harry Potter novels are the property
of their creator, J.K. Rowling, and are used here without her knowledge
or permission. All other characters property of the author, with the exceptions
of Becca Morgan and her parents, who are themselves. November 2001. 35,000
words.
*
For Becca, with love.
*
Chapter Two – News from the Ministry
The Weasley's home was as Harry
remembered – crowded, cluttered, and full of life and laughter. Ron never
believed that he, Harry Potter, the Harry Potter, the great and
powerful Harry Potter, was deeply envious of the happy home life that the
Weasleys enjoyed.
The last two weeks of summer passed
in a busy blur. Ginny, the youngest Weasley, had improved to the point
that she no longer blushed every time she saw Harry, and was even
able to talk directly to him without hiding behind her hands. Percy was
barely seen, and Mrs. Weasley fretted constantly that he was working too
hard, but Percy seemed to be thriving on it.
Harry would have been sorry to
see his time at the Burrow come to an end if it hadn't meant that Hogwarts
would be next. He could hardly wait to be back in Gryffindor tower with
his friends, eating in the Great Hall where the food was far more plentiful
than anything he'd ever had with the Dursleys, and soaring over the Quidditch
field. He was eager to see Hagrid, and Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall.
He didn't even mind the prospect of another several months of Draco Malfoy
and Professor Snape.
"Wonder who they've got to teach
DADA this year," Ron said as they arrived by Floo powder in a fireplace
in Diagon Alley. Harry had finally gotten the hang of the stuff, though
it would never be his favorite way of getting from one place to another.
DADA was Defense Against the Dark
Arts, and in Harry's time at Hogwarts, they'd seen an amazing rate of turnover
in professors. Hardly any of them lasted out the whole year, and according
to Mr. Weasley, it was getting harder and harder to find anybody willing
to take the position because they were all starting to believe it was cursed.
Diagon Alley was one of the hidden
streets in London, a place where wizards and witches could go about their
business away from Muggle eyes. Away from most Muggle eyes, that was. Some
Muggles did occasionally venture in, like Hermione's parents. On that twisting
cobblestone lane, where the buildings leaned this way and that, most everyone
wore robes and pointed hats. The shop windows were full of cauldrons, wands,
candles, spellbooks, and the various trappings of witchcraft and wizardry.
Despite his lingering concern
over who was trying to interfere with him this time, Harry had a fine time
in Diagon Alley. He visited Gringotts, the goblin-run bank, to withdraw
enough money for his school supplies – this part was always the most painful,
because he knew how little money the Weasleys had and wished he could convince
them to let him share his wealth, but they were too proud to take gold
and silver from him. Harry tried to make up for this in other ways, such
as laying in a large store of snacks for himself and Ron, or 'accidentally'
buying the wrong textbook and then giving it to Ginny while claiming it
was easier than going back to Flourish & Blotts and trying to return
it.
Every year, Hogwarts students
received a list of their required supplies and textbooks. Harry glanced
over this list, remembering past years when the contents gave them some
hints about the instructors. The time Gilderoy Lockhart had gotten the
DADA position, for instance, and made all the students buy each and every
one of his books. Or the time Hagrid had assigned them a monster book that
was quite literally a monster, taking vicious chomps at anyone who tried
to open it.
This year, the list had no clues
as to that. There was the standard spellbook for Harry's year, a book titled
The
Advanced Wand and Cauldron Primer, Magicipulation of Inanimate Objects
and
its companion volume, Magicipulation of Animate Objects, one called
Wards for All Occasions that puzzled Harry at first, because
he
was the Dursley's ward, but it seemed to be all about defense spells. The
last on the list was the only one that made him really stop and ponder.
"Hermione," he said. "Have you
seen this?"
Hermione Granger, a Gryffindor
girl in the same class as Harry and Ron, and their closest friend since
a troll incident on their first Halloween at Hogwarts, came over to him
with her arms loaded with books. She wasn't taking double classes this
time, but she had garnered permission from Professor McGonagall to do an
independent study project on the Witches' Rights movement of the late 1600's
and staggered under the weight of four extra books.
"What?"
"This one. Wizardry in the
New World. What's that about?"
"Oh, haven't you heard?" Ron,
his cauldron full of slightly tattered copies from the second-hand section,
came up to them. "I'm sorry, Harry, I thought I told you. Dad was going
on about it earlier this summer."
"Going on about what?" asked Hermione
impatiently.
"The exchange student. We're having
an exchange student at Hogwarts this year."
"From Durmstrang or Beauxbatons?"
Harry asked, naming the other two schools he knew of.
"Neither," said Ron, his eyes
wide beneath his red fringe of hair. "From America!"
"America!" echoed Hermione, aghast.
"You must be joking! They're the Muggliest Muggles of all! Why, they don't
even have a magic school over there!"
"So that's what this is about?"
Harry skimmed the contents table of Wizardry in the New World,
noting headings such as 'Shamanistic Rites of Native Peoples' and 'Salem:
Fact and Fiction.'
"It's true," Ron said earnestly
to Hermione, who looked horribly offended. "I heard it from Dad. What's
more, it sounds like the exchange student's going to be in our year."
"Well," said Hermione, adding
a copy of Uppity Witches of Medieval Times to her stack, " I hope
we're not expected to take it easy on this American."
"I wouldn't expect her to take
it easy on anyone," Ron muttered to Harry, but of course Hermione heard
him and tossed back her mussed brown hair to glare at him. She'd taken
to copying Professor McGonagall's glare, and gotten much too good at it,
in Harry and Ron's opinion.
"I only mean," she said haughtily,
"that the professors had better not expect us to dumb ourselves down so
that the new student won't look bad."
"I'm sure Professor Dumbledore
wouldn't have agreed to it unless he thought it would work," Harry said.
On the street again with their
parcels, all tied in brown paper and twine, they spotted their friend Neville
Longbottom, another Gryffindor who was being towed along by his formidable
witch of a grandmother. Neville managed a wave before he was pulled off
in the direction of a basic spell supply shop; he always started a new
year with a full complement of supplies and had lost or broken almost all
of them by the end of exams.
They also saw, and deftly avoided,
the pale, sneering face of Draco Malfoy and his Slytherin cronies, Crabbe
and Goyle. The three of them were following Draco's father, Lucius, who
swept along with his head held arrogantly high, just as if everyone didn't
know he was a complete Dark wizard gone over into full support of Voldemort
– or, as almost everyone but Harry said, "You-Know-Who."
One the shopping was done, they
had time for refreshing mugs of butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron. Harry
looked around hopefully for Hagrid, but there was no sign of the bearded
giant this time. Then they were due to head to King's Cross Station, where
the Hogwarts Express would be waiting.
Getting to the train was always
an adventure in itself. Ever since one fateful encounter when the wall
that was supposed to part harmlessly and let them through to the secret
Platform 9 ¾ had stubbornly refused to part, resulting in Harry
and Ron crashing full-tilt into solid brick, Harry had been apprehensive.
He went at the wall now wincing, one eye squeezed shut in anticipation
of the jarring impact, but his trolley whooshed through just like normal.
He'd been half expecting that whoever had been up to magical mischief at
the park to strike again here, but he boarded the train without incident.
The Hogwarts Express was filled
with excited students, going from compartment to compartment renewing acquaintances
and sharing news. Ron wasn't the only one who'd heard about the exchange
student, though nobody knew anything more than he or she was an American,
and that his or her parents were Kertches.
"What's a Kertch?" Harry asked
cautiously, hoping it wasn't a nasty term like 'Mudblood,' which Draco
Malfoy loved throwing around.
Hermione always had the answer,
and this time was no exception. "A wizard or witch who grows up without
knowing it and never goes to school or learns how to use magic. Somewhere
between a wizard and a Muggle. It's understandable, I guess, for America.
Can you imagine going through your whole life and never realizing you're
a wizard?"
Harry thought about that and shuddered.
Growing up with the Dursleys, living in that cupboard under the stairs
for the rest of his life, or at least until he was too tall to fit – Harry,
being short and slim, knew that might be a long time coming – and eventually
having Uncle Vernon give him a job making drills so that he could keep
an eye on Harry forever. Forever.
He shuddered again.
"Well, I think it'll be interesting,"
Ron said around a mouthful of cake.
They'd stocked up on treats from
the refreshment cart as usual, iced pumpkin juice and candy and Snapcorn,
similar to popcorn except that it snapped without heat and could hit a
person in the eye if they weren't careful. Fred and George wasted no time
organizing a contest to see who could catch the most Snapcorn kernels in
their mouths. That came to an end when Neville got one up his nose and
sneezed for two minutes solid.
One other piece of news was circulating
on the train, concerning the identity of the new DADA teacher. Harry attended
this with particular care, since with his luck, it'd probably turn out
to be the very mystery wizard who'd tried to stop him meeting up with the
Weasleys. As if he needed another enemy.
"Reginald Winterwind?" Hermione
raised her eyebrows.
"Can it be?" asked Ron, wide eyed
and teasing. "Someone our Hermione hasn't heard of?"
"I've heard of him," she snapped
as sharply as any kernel of Snapcorn. "He's listed in The Who's Who
of Contemporary Wizardry. He was at Hogwarts the year of the big Quidditch
Cup scandal. A Hufflepuff, I think."
Ron sat up straight, his teasing
forgotten. "The year they disqualified Slytherin for cheating? Oh, for
a return to those days!"
"Do you want to hear this or not?"
Hermione snapped again.
"Yes, please," Harry said, his
interest piqued. "Was he a Quidditch player?"
"No, a referee. They used to have
student referees, you know, one from each House."
"Right!" said Ron brightly. "I
remember now. They stopped that because too many of them were playing favorites,
ignoring fouls, that sort of thing."
"The story was," said Hermione,
"that Slytherin didn't have many good players that year but they wanted
to win anyway. So they bribed and threatened the rest of the referees into
looking the other way when they cheated."
"Not Gryffindor's!" blurted Harry,
appalled.
"Even Gryffindor's," Hermione
confirmed somberly. "Winterwind was the only one to resist. He exposed
the whole thing. It's said that the entire Quidditch team and every upperclassman
in Slytherin got together to hit him with a curse."
Absently, Harry rubbed the lightning-bolt
scar on his forehead, visible reminder of a time he was on the wrong end
of a curse. "He survived it?"
"He warded it," Hermione
corrected. "The combined power of dozens of wizards all in one curse, and
Winterwind deflected it. Nobody knows how."
"That should make him a good instructor,
then," Harry said with cautious optimism.
"Except," said Ron, "I heard deflecting
Dark spells was all he could ever do right. Otherwise, he was like Neville.
No offense," he added to the pudgy boy who had overcome his sneezing fit
and was now trying to coax his toad, Trevor, down from the light fixture
in the ceiling.
"None taken," said Neville with
a rueful smile. "Maybe it'll help me finally get good marks in Defense
Against the Dark Arts."
"I bet Snape must hate this,"
Harry said, grinning. "The one who got Slytherin disqualified, taking the
job he wants."
"It gets better," Hermione whispered,
leaning conspiratorially close. "Snape wasn't a teacher then, but a student
in Slytherin. And so was Winterwind's own sister! I even heard that she
was Snape's … girlfriend!"
"No!" gasped Harry.
"Get out!" cried Ron.
Even Neville turned and goggled
at this bit of news.
"Snape … with a girlfriend?"
Harry's brain hurt trying to envision
that. He could see the Potions teacher quite clearly in his mind, of course
he could; Snape's face haunted his bad dreams even more than Voldemort,
it seemed like. Snape, with his forbidding height that he loved to use
to tower intimidatingly over the students. Snape, with his lank black hair
and his glittering black eyes like chunks of coal. Snape, with his sweeping
black cloak and his silky voice and his way of always being right behind
you when you were talking about him.
Chilled by that last, Harry whipped
around in case Snape was standing in the door to their compartment, glowering
down at them with his cold eyes. The only one there was a Ravenclaw third-year
that Harry recognized as one of their Chasers, passing by without giving
any indication of having heard.
Snape, with a girlfriend?
"What a scary thought," Ron said,
diving into the pile of treats for something sweet to take his mind back
to more pleasant things.
Harry's mind wasn't so easily distracted. He tried to picture what
such a woman would be like, and all he could see was Snape with longer
hair and a witch's hat.
Hermione, meanwhile, had gone
back to speculating how hopeless any American would have to be when it
came to magic. She seemed to conveniently forget that she herself was Muggle-born,
and hadn't even known about the existence of wizards and witches until
her acceptance letter arrived unexpectedly from Hogwarts.
"I've been there," Neville suddenly
volunteered. "America, I mean."
"You never!" Hermione said, intrigued.
"Honestly! I have. My cousin married
one. An American. So my grandmother took a bunch of the family." Neville
grimaced awkwardly at the recollection. "Florentine – that's my cousin
– told us she was marrying a computer wizard."
Harry and Hermione snorted, while
Ron listened curiously.
"How were we to know?" Neville
went on. "We showed up, all of us, my uncles and aunts and everyone. Dressed
in our best, you know."
They nodded. There weren't many
occasions that called for the use of dress-robes, which tended to be fancy
and quite ornate, with full flowing sleeves and trim of gold or silver
or multi-thread that changed color according to the whim of the wearer.
"Needless to say, everyone got
a shock," Neville concluded. Oddly, he seemed to brighten at this recounting
of a large-scale family blunder, for once it not having been his fault.
"They went through with it anyway, though. Last transoceanic owl post Gran
got, she says they're doing fine."
The train pulled into the Hogwarts
station on a billowing breath of steam. Excited chatter burst out as the
students rushed into the aisles. Harry caught a glimpse of Malfoy's slicked
blond hair but soon lost him in the crowd, for which he was glad.
The herd of first-years, looking
bewildered, milled about until Hagrid's great booming voice tolled across
the crowded platform, calling them to the docks where the spell-propelled
boats sat empty in readiness. It was tradition that the first-years undergo
this unnerving journey by water, impressing them with the importance of
the occasion and also giving the older students time to get to the castle
by other means so that they could be present in the Great Hall when the
first-years were ushered in.
Even over the heads of dozens
of students, Hagrid's gaze found Harry's. A lot of white teeth surfaced
through the untamed black bristle of his beard. He knew better than to
hail Harry by name, because the last thing either of them needed was the
entire new class whirling around trying to see the famous Harry Potter.
He'd gotten enough of that on the train with people making excuses to stop
by and gawk at him. It was the same every year, but at least by now the
rest of the students had gotten used to him and it was only the youngest
ones who went through the awed reaction.
As Hagrid led them away, Harry
joined Ron, Hermione, Neville, and others from Gryffindor. They'd all changed
into their uniforms and robes, each with the House patch neatly sewn on
the right side of the chest.
Ahead, looming on the horizon,
was the dark bulk of Hogwarts castle. Eerie lights flickered in the windows,
and the towers were shrouded in the mist that rose from the mossy shadows
of the Forbidden Forest.
Harry sighed in relief. He was
home.
**
Continued in Chapter Three -- A Late Sorting
2001 / Christine Morgan / http://www.christine-morgan.org
/ christine@sabledrake.com |