1.1.1 Chapter 3
Tai woke early and so did the sun. Sunlight drifted in through the window. It was cheery and reflective. It mirrored her mood. Tai was lying in bed, thinking about the boy who had comforted her last night. There was something about him. She wasn't attracted to him but she felt an affinity to him. It was as if she had known him a long time but had never met him. Tai shook her head. That wasn't possible. She knew that. But the feeling remained.
She turned her thoughts to the sorting hat and although she still felt a bit of anxiety about what it had said she felt ready to accept her different kind of magic now.
Tai finally forced herself to get up. She'd never get back to sleep now and the sun had warmed the room. She quietly dressed and tiptoed downstairs. She wasn't surprised when she found the common room empty. She sat in an armchair, turned it around so she faced the sun. She closed her eyes and felt herself warm.
Tai's head jerked up suddenly. She had been dozing but she had heard something. A whisper. There it was again. She strained her ears and this time she did notice the magic as her hearing suddenly became sharper.
'Is it her?'
'Is she worthy?'
'It can't be her.'
'It must be.'
The voices were sly and cruel. Tai didn't know what to make of them. But she knew she didn't trust them.
'The library!' One whispered and this time the whisper was directed at her. She could tell.
'The library!' Others whispered.
'To the library!' 'Library!' 'Go!' 'The library!'
Tai abruptly stood up and looked around. The voices stopped. No one was there. She knew the voices weren't human and she would have sensed if someone were playing a trick on her. She would ask someone when they woke up what these strange, disembodied voices were.
'The library.' A solitary voice whispered. Challenging.
Unnerved, Tai ran lightly up the stairs, the strange voices drifting up from the common room to reach her ears.
* * *
Tai sat nervously at the breakfast table. The voices followed her constantly. She new she looked pasty and shaken but they kept whispering in her ear and she was afraid. She had considered telling Kayla or someone else in her dorm about the whispering creatures but something had held her back. She would see Dumbledore after breakfast, he had told her as much and then she would speak to him about it. He would probably laugh and say it was just some strange being that haunted the castle. She hoped he would.
Tai pulled tiny pieces off her toast and forced herself to swallow them but every time she did he stomach turned and knotted.
"Tai Yang will you come and talk to me in my office?" a friendly voice said from behind her chair. She turned and looked into Dumbledores' twinkling eyes.
'Tai Yang!' 'Her name is Tai Yang!' 'Tai Yang, the Sun!' The voices hissed madly but Dumbledore didn't hear them and looked at Tai expectantly. She rose to her feet and Dumbledore gracefully glided towards the door of the hall. Tai followed silently and obediently and the creatures whispered.
Tai followed him through the maze of corridors, moving staircases and hidden passageway and the creatures whispered.
Tai watched as Dumbledore stopped by a statue and mumbled a password. She followed Dumbledore through the door hidden behind it and up the moving staircase and the creatures whispered.
Tai followed Dumbledore into his office and the creatures followed Tai and whispered.
Tai sat in the chair Dumbledore indicated and the creatures whispered.
Dumbledore spoke. "Tai I realise that you have a different kind of magic to that of other people but I think it best if you stay at hog…" His voice was drowned out by the deafening roar of whispers that reached Tai's ears and crawled inside them and filled them with their horrid sound and they whispered one word.
'Library!' They whispered in a chaotic, disquieting chord that sent sharp needles of pain into her head. Suddenly, she could no longer bear it. She whipped around.
"SILENCE!!!" And power lashed across her tongue and as her voice reached their ears so too did her magic. The shrieks of the whispering creatures echoed in the room and their shrieks even reached Dumbledores ears.
'She fights!' They cried. 'She burns!' 'She rages!'
The creatures sounded triumphant and that scared Tai more than the whispers. She trembled and turned to face Dumbledore. She knew her face reflected complete shock. She was not only shocked at what she could do but also how badly she could lose control of herself with just a little taunting. She expected Dumbledores face to be harsh and condemning but instead he just looked politely surprised.
"Goodness!" he said softly. "I have not been surprised by anything in quite some time but that was very much a shock." Tai looked at her hands, folded in her lap. The silence deepened. "What were they?" Dumbledore asked finally. Tai looked up. He didn't know?
"I-I don't know. I thought you would." She said, her voice shaky. Dumbledore shook his head.
"I've seen nothing of the sort before." He frowned at her. "I can see your magic is very potent though and it really does need training quite desperately." Tai blushed. "We were going to put you in the with the first years but I don't know if that is wise. You would probably find it quite uncomfortable being so much older and your magic could be quite unpredictable. I will get the teachers to tutor you in their free periods and you can research in the library when there are no free teachers." Tai didn't really like the idea of going to the library because of the whispering creatures but she held her tongue. She would have to go there sooner or later anyway. "Your first lesson will be charms with Professor flitwik. I will take you to your classroom as you don't know the way and I'll arrange a timetable for…" A knock at the door interrupted him. "Come in." Dumbledore called. Brian walked in and flashed a smile at Tai. Tai tried to smile back but was largely unsuccessful. Brian exchanged a few quick words with Dumbledore and Brian turned to go.
"Brian could I ask you a favour? Could you take Miss Yang to the charms classroom?" Brian nodded and Tai was relieved that Dumbledore wouldn't be taking her. She followed Brian out the door and mumbled goodbye to Dumbledore.
Once the statue had sprung back into the doorway Brian turned to Tai.
"Well what did he say?" Tai looked at him. He was full of confidence that he was right and that all had gone well. Well he was half right. She hadn't been expelled. She told him what had happened. About the disembodied voices and how they beckoned her to the library. How she'd lashed out at them with her magic in front of Dumbledore and Dumbledores' or her private tutoring. Brian just stared at her in shock. She tugged at his arm to get him moving as they were still outside Dumbledores office. Brian followed numbly.
"Well." He finally managed to say. "I guess you found out some of the stuff you can do with your magic. And private tutoring sounds like a good idea."
"Thanks. That's very comforting," she said sarcastically. "I wonder if I can do stuff with my wand. I mean it worked when I got it at Ollivanders but…" She shrugged.
"I guess this is the moment of truth then. Can you really use a wand?" He said mockingly. Tai just looked at him, face expressionless and then slipped through the door. That hadn't been the reaction he'd been looking for. Or one that he'd been expecting.
* * *
Professor had given Tai a charm to practice and shown her the arm movements for using the wand and then he had sat down and started marking some papers. It was obvious he didn't expect results from her this lesson. Tai wondered if she would ever get results with a wand. She would. She was determined. She would make her ten-inch cedar wand with dragon heartstring work magic. She'd show everyone, including herself, what she could do. She'd get that feather to levitate. Tai lifted her wand and flicked it at the feather.
"Wingardium leviosa!" she said smartly. The feather was caught by the gentle breeze, caused by her movement and it floated slowly off the table. Professor Flitwik chuckled at her angry and frustrated face.
"Don't worry. The first charm is always the hardest to cast. No one gets it right on the first try and hardly ever on the second." He turned his attention back on the papers.
Tai fumed. The stupid bloody feather! She'd show Flitwik. She'd get it to levitate this time! She picked the feather off the floor and shoved it onto the table. She closed her eyes and calmed her emotions. She took a deep breath and opened them again. Her eyes were fixed on the feather. A few more calming breaths. Nothing else existed nothing else mattered. Just her and that frustratingly still feather. She lifted and cried determinedly.
"WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!" the feather sat stubbornly still. Now Tai's frustration flared into anger and rage. She pointed at the feather and screamed in a language foreign to this world but, as Flitwik would say later, was eerily beautiful. The earth gave an angry lurch, the castle groaned and the room screeched. An angry hole ripped open in the fabric of time and space. I was black and empty and very, very hungry. But it was hungry for only one thing. The feather spun dizzyingly towards it and was swallowed in an instant and in that instant the black hole was gone.
In the middle of the pacific a million feathers, all exactly the same fell from the sky and covered the water in a white, soft down.
Professor Flitwik stared at Tai in disbelief. Tai looked at her feet. She would definitely be expelled now.
"I-I'll go now." And she dashed out the door.
* * *
Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid! How could she be so damn stupid?! The sky darkened outside as the clouds blocked out the sun. Tai lay, spreadeagled, on her bed, her face in the pillow. How could she let her emotions run away with her like that? A strand of fiery red hair fell in her eyes and she pushed it away angrily and turned over onto her back. What she ha done had not only been stupid, it had been bloody dangerous! She could have killed everyone in the school with the black hole she'd created! Stupid stupid!
There was a knock at the door.
"Go away!" She shouted but Gemma entered anyway. She was one of Tai's roommates. "I said go away." Tai mumbled weakly. Gemma sat on her bed.
"Are you ok?" Tai looked at her.
"No." She replied bluntly. "I nearly killed everyone. That doesn't make me feel too good."
"Did you know there's been reports of millions of feathers covering the Pacific Ocean?" Gemma tried to sound amused.
"Oh no." Tai groaned.
"Don't worry. The ministry of magic will clear it up but it's probably the biggest operation they've ever done for clearing up an accident by a school kid." She chuckled. "Don't worry they won't kick you out. Dumbledore knows that it wouldn't be smart to expel you. But the ministry might not think so." She frowned and then shrugged. "Don't worry. I'm sure it'll be ok."
"But, like I said, I nearly killed everyone. I could have lost control of the wormhole and it could have sucked the whole school in. I'm dangerous to everyone around me." Tai put her head in her hands. Gemma patted her back awkwardly.
"Look, I know it sounds like your at a dead end but Dumbledore will help you. I know he will." She got up and walked out the door. Tai sighed. All this school had been for her was trouble. She'd never been such a mess. She'd never cried so many times in two days.
The bell went for the end of lunch. Another knock came at the door.
"It's Brian." He called through the door. "I've got to take you to your next period." Tai got off her bed and opened the door.
"What do you mean next period?"
"I mean you've got Snape right now."
"Really?" At least they weren't intending to kick her out just yet.
"I wouldn't sound so excited if I were you. Snape isn't too nice and you'll have his undivided attention 'cause there's no one else in your class."
"He can't be too bad." Brian just smiled knowingly and led her out the door.
When they reached the dungeons Brian told her it was nice knowing her and left. Tai rolled her eyes at him and walked through the door.
Tai woke early and so did the sun. Sunlight drifted in through the window. It was cheery and reflective. It mirrored her mood. Tai was lying in bed, thinking about the boy who had comforted her last night. There was something about him. She wasn't attracted to him but she felt an affinity to him. It was as if she had known him a long time but had never met him. Tai shook her head. That wasn't possible. She knew that. But the feeling remained.
She turned her thoughts to the sorting hat and although she still felt a bit of anxiety about what it had said she felt ready to accept her different kind of magic now.
Tai finally forced herself to get up. She'd never get back to sleep now and the sun had warmed the room. She quietly dressed and tiptoed downstairs. She wasn't surprised when she found the common room empty. She sat in an armchair, turned it around so she faced the sun. She closed her eyes and felt herself warm.
Tai's head jerked up suddenly. She had been dozing but she had heard something. A whisper. There it was again. She strained her ears and this time she did notice the magic as her hearing suddenly became sharper.
'Is it her?'
'Is she worthy?'
'It can't be her.'
'It must be.'
The voices were sly and cruel. Tai didn't know what to make of them. But she knew she didn't trust them.
'The library!' One whispered and this time the whisper was directed at her. She could tell.
'The library!' Others whispered.
'To the library!' 'Library!' 'Go!' 'The library!'
Tai abruptly stood up and looked around. The voices stopped. No one was there. She knew the voices weren't human and she would have sensed if someone were playing a trick on her. She would ask someone when they woke up what these strange, disembodied voices were.
'The library.' A solitary voice whispered. Challenging.
Unnerved, Tai ran lightly up the stairs, the strange voices drifting up from the common room to reach her ears.
* * *
Tai sat nervously at the breakfast table. The voices followed her constantly. She new she looked pasty and shaken but they kept whispering in her ear and she was afraid. She had considered telling Kayla or someone else in her dorm about the whispering creatures but something had held her back. She would see Dumbledore after breakfast, he had told her as much and then she would speak to him about it. He would probably laugh and say it was just some strange being that haunted the castle. She hoped he would.
Tai pulled tiny pieces off her toast and forced herself to swallow them but every time she did he stomach turned and knotted.
"Tai Yang will you come and talk to me in my office?" a friendly voice said from behind her chair. She turned and looked into Dumbledores' twinkling eyes.
'Tai Yang!' 'Her name is Tai Yang!' 'Tai Yang, the Sun!' The voices hissed madly but Dumbledore didn't hear them and looked at Tai expectantly. She rose to her feet and Dumbledore gracefully glided towards the door of the hall. Tai followed silently and obediently and the creatures whispered.
Tai followed him through the maze of corridors, moving staircases and hidden passageway and the creatures whispered.
Tai watched as Dumbledore stopped by a statue and mumbled a password. She followed Dumbledore through the door hidden behind it and up the moving staircase and the creatures whispered.
Tai followed Dumbledore into his office and the creatures followed Tai and whispered.
Tai sat in the chair Dumbledore indicated and the creatures whispered.
Dumbledore spoke. "Tai I realise that you have a different kind of magic to that of other people but I think it best if you stay at hog…" His voice was drowned out by the deafening roar of whispers that reached Tai's ears and crawled inside them and filled them with their horrid sound and they whispered one word.
'Library!' They whispered in a chaotic, disquieting chord that sent sharp needles of pain into her head. Suddenly, she could no longer bear it. She whipped around.
"SILENCE!!!" And power lashed across her tongue and as her voice reached their ears so too did her magic. The shrieks of the whispering creatures echoed in the room and their shrieks even reached Dumbledores ears.
'She fights!' They cried. 'She burns!' 'She rages!'
The creatures sounded triumphant and that scared Tai more than the whispers. She trembled and turned to face Dumbledore. She knew her face reflected complete shock. She was not only shocked at what she could do but also how badly she could lose control of herself with just a little taunting. She expected Dumbledores face to be harsh and condemning but instead he just looked politely surprised.
"Goodness!" he said softly. "I have not been surprised by anything in quite some time but that was very much a shock." Tai looked at her hands, folded in her lap. The silence deepened. "What were they?" Dumbledore asked finally. Tai looked up. He didn't know?
"I-I don't know. I thought you would." She said, her voice shaky. Dumbledore shook his head.
"I've seen nothing of the sort before." He frowned at her. "I can see your magic is very potent though and it really does need training quite desperately." Tai blushed. "We were going to put you in the with the first years but I don't know if that is wise. You would probably find it quite uncomfortable being so much older and your magic could be quite unpredictable. I will get the teachers to tutor you in their free periods and you can research in the library when there are no free teachers." Tai didn't really like the idea of going to the library because of the whispering creatures but she held her tongue. She would have to go there sooner or later anyway. "Your first lesson will be charms with Professor flitwik. I will take you to your classroom as you don't know the way and I'll arrange a timetable for…" A knock at the door interrupted him. "Come in." Dumbledore called. Brian walked in and flashed a smile at Tai. Tai tried to smile back but was largely unsuccessful. Brian exchanged a few quick words with Dumbledore and Brian turned to go.
"Brian could I ask you a favour? Could you take Miss Yang to the charms classroom?" Brian nodded and Tai was relieved that Dumbledore wouldn't be taking her. She followed Brian out the door and mumbled goodbye to Dumbledore.
Once the statue had sprung back into the doorway Brian turned to Tai.
"Well what did he say?" Tai looked at him. He was full of confidence that he was right and that all had gone well. Well he was half right. She hadn't been expelled. She told him what had happened. About the disembodied voices and how they beckoned her to the library. How she'd lashed out at them with her magic in front of Dumbledore and Dumbledores' or her private tutoring. Brian just stared at her in shock. She tugged at his arm to get him moving as they were still outside Dumbledores office. Brian followed numbly.
"Well." He finally managed to say. "I guess you found out some of the stuff you can do with your magic. And private tutoring sounds like a good idea."
"Thanks. That's very comforting," she said sarcastically. "I wonder if I can do stuff with my wand. I mean it worked when I got it at Ollivanders but…" She shrugged.
"I guess this is the moment of truth then. Can you really use a wand?" He said mockingly. Tai just looked at him, face expressionless and then slipped through the door. That hadn't been the reaction he'd been looking for. Or one that he'd been expecting.
* * *
Professor had given Tai a charm to practice and shown her the arm movements for using the wand and then he had sat down and started marking some papers. It was obvious he didn't expect results from her this lesson. Tai wondered if she would ever get results with a wand. She would. She was determined. She would make her ten-inch cedar wand with dragon heartstring work magic. She'd show everyone, including herself, what she could do. She'd get that feather to levitate. Tai lifted her wand and flicked it at the feather.
"Wingardium leviosa!" she said smartly. The feather was caught by the gentle breeze, caused by her movement and it floated slowly off the table. Professor Flitwik chuckled at her angry and frustrated face.
"Don't worry. The first charm is always the hardest to cast. No one gets it right on the first try and hardly ever on the second." He turned his attention back on the papers.
Tai fumed. The stupid bloody feather! She'd show Flitwik. She'd get it to levitate this time! She picked the feather off the floor and shoved it onto the table. She closed her eyes and calmed her emotions. She took a deep breath and opened them again. Her eyes were fixed on the feather. A few more calming breaths. Nothing else existed nothing else mattered. Just her and that frustratingly still feather. She lifted and cried determinedly.
"WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!" the feather sat stubbornly still. Now Tai's frustration flared into anger and rage. She pointed at the feather and screamed in a language foreign to this world but, as Flitwik would say later, was eerily beautiful. The earth gave an angry lurch, the castle groaned and the room screeched. An angry hole ripped open in the fabric of time and space. I was black and empty and very, very hungry. But it was hungry for only one thing. The feather spun dizzyingly towards it and was swallowed in an instant and in that instant the black hole was gone.
In the middle of the pacific a million feathers, all exactly the same fell from the sky and covered the water in a white, soft down.
Professor Flitwik stared at Tai in disbelief. Tai looked at her feet. She would definitely be expelled now.
"I-I'll go now." And she dashed out the door.
* * *
Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid! How could she be so damn stupid?! The sky darkened outside as the clouds blocked out the sun. Tai lay, spreadeagled, on her bed, her face in the pillow. How could she let her emotions run away with her like that? A strand of fiery red hair fell in her eyes and she pushed it away angrily and turned over onto her back. What she ha done had not only been stupid, it had been bloody dangerous! She could have killed everyone in the school with the black hole she'd created! Stupid stupid!
There was a knock at the door.
"Go away!" She shouted but Gemma entered anyway. She was one of Tai's roommates. "I said go away." Tai mumbled weakly. Gemma sat on her bed.
"Are you ok?" Tai looked at her.
"No." She replied bluntly. "I nearly killed everyone. That doesn't make me feel too good."
"Did you know there's been reports of millions of feathers covering the Pacific Ocean?" Gemma tried to sound amused.
"Oh no." Tai groaned.
"Don't worry. The ministry of magic will clear it up but it's probably the biggest operation they've ever done for clearing up an accident by a school kid." She chuckled. "Don't worry they won't kick you out. Dumbledore knows that it wouldn't be smart to expel you. But the ministry might not think so." She frowned and then shrugged. "Don't worry. I'm sure it'll be ok."
"But, like I said, I nearly killed everyone. I could have lost control of the wormhole and it could have sucked the whole school in. I'm dangerous to everyone around me." Tai put her head in her hands. Gemma patted her back awkwardly.
"Look, I know it sounds like your at a dead end but Dumbledore will help you. I know he will." She got up and walked out the door. Tai sighed. All this school had been for her was trouble. She'd never been such a mess. She'd never cried so many times in two days.
The bell went for the end of lunch. Another knock came at the door.
"It's Brian." He called through the door. "I've got to take you to your next period." Tai got off her bed and opened the door.
"What do you mean next period?"
"I mean you've got Snape right now."
"Really?" At least they weren't intending to kick her out just yet.
"I wouldn't sound so excited if I were you. Snape isn't too nice and you'll have his undivided attention 'cause there's no one else in your class."
"He can't be too bad." Brian just smiled knowingly and led her out the door.
When they reached the dungeons Brian told her it was nice knowing her and left. Tai rolled her eyes at him and walked through the door.