As soon as Lianne stepped out of the train she became completely
disoriented. There were people swirling everywhere, a cacophony of voices
shouting. *So much for finding answers. * The, suddenly, somebody grabbed
her arm, making her jump and let out a little yell.
"Sorry, did I scare you?" The owner of the hand sneered. He was a tall, unpleasant looking man in his mid forties with greasy black hair. "You're Lianne Dodge, correct?" She nodded dumbly. "Follow me."
She hesitated a moment. *Maybe he's evil. He looks pretty evil. Maybe he's a secretly evil teacher at the school. But what about all the nice stuff Hermione said about the teachers here? Actually, they all seemed to think this was a pretty nice place. I'll just follow him. If he's evil, well, I'm in trouble enough already. Won't make a difference.* She trembled slightly as she stepped forward to follow him. He led her up a steep rocky path. She was panting heavily by the time they got to the top. *I must look like I've been washed in the sewer. How come he looks completely unflustered? Grrr.* She muttered something distasteful, causing him to turn and glare at her.
"Come." He said shortly, still glaring, and led her into a narrow tunnel. She hesitated again. *Going into small dark tunnels with strange men is usually NOT a good idea. - I'll remember that for next time. * She grimaced cynically and followed him. They came out in a corridor lit only by torches, which were starting to gutter out. She raised her eyebrows at the creepy effect. Sure, she was scared, but slime dripping down the walls? A little over dramatic, isn't it.
"Where are we?" She asked, more to herself then to him. "The dungeons." He didn't seem to want to talk to her, so she decided to just be quiet from then on. He led her up a large, sweeping staircase, through more corridors (less creepy and better lit than the first one.) until they finally came to stop in front of a large gargoyle statue.
"Giggling Gumdrops!" he directed the peculiar words to the gargoyle and, to Lianne's great surprise, it grinned and jumped to the side, revealing a moving spiral staircase.
"Go up the staircase and pass through the door on your right. Don't you dare go anywhere near the door on your left or I will personally see you are expelled before you even take your first class." When he finished this little speech he was slightly out of breath. * He must be really worked up to run out of breath so soon when that cursed hill did nothing. * She shivered. She really didn't want to get him that angry. Then something struck her. Expelled? Classes?
"So this really is just a school!" It was more of and exclamation than a question. "You're not going to torture me or, well, something else horrible." She said, very relieved and rather at a loss for words because of it. He looked extremely taken aback.
"Of course it's a school! What did you think it would be? No, wait, don't answer that. The headmaster will be waiting in his office. The door on the RIGHT!" She stepped on the staircase without a backwards glance. She never looked back; it was just the way she did things. Anyways, she didn't want to see his face again! When she came to the top of the staircase there was a door on her left and a door on her right, just like he had said there would be. *I wonder what's behind that door on the left. Creepy looking dragon thing carved on the door doesn't really give me a good feeling about it; plus that greasy guy's warning. I think I'll leave that door alone. * She shuddered and opened the other door. She was in a large room full of photographs of old people sleeping. *Who would take pictures of people sleeping? * As she was pondering this she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head quickly and found herself staring at a picture. *I wonder what was over there a second ago. It must have been something! I just know I saw- *
"ARGH!!" She yelled and jumped back nearly three feet as an old lady with long grey hair rolled over mumbling in her sleep. Usually a sleeping old lady wouldn't fluster Lianne in the least! But this old lady just happened to be inside a picture!
"Aha!" A voice said from behind her. She whirled around and found herself face to face with an old man possessing a very long grey beard. He looked a lot like the people in the pictures surrounding them but the twinkling in his blue eyes made him seem a lot friendlier. "I see you are discovering the delights and surprises of the wizarding world." He held out his hand and she shook it tentatively, still a little scared but oddly reassured by this man. "Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am Professor Dumbledore, Headmaster."
"I-I'm Lianne Dodge." She tried but couldn't think of anything she could say that wouldn't sound rude. *Did I wake you up, sir? No, why the hell would he be asleep at six in the evening? I'd really just like to ask him what the hell is going on! *
"Have a seat, Lianne." He invited, motioning towards a chair in front of his desk. He sat down on the other side of the desk and paused for a moment. "I'm sure you would like to know what is going on -" *Finally! I get my answers! * "- but I'm afraid I can't explain everything." Lianne's face fell. "I can assure you that David and Dorothy are perfectly fine and they know where you are and why. I'm afraid you may not see them again for a long time." *I do not like what I am hearing here. *
"There's something I don't understand. Why was I brought here?" Lianne spoke up after a pause.
"There are two reasons for that, the first I cannot go into detail on. There is somebody who wants you dead, and this is the safest place to hide until he is dealt with. No, I'm sorry, I can't tell you who or why. I sincerely apologize but I think it would be best." *I really don't like what I am hearing. And I'm not even hearing the details. * Dumbledore smiled. "The second reason is a little more, shall we say, light-hearted. Lianne, I am proud to be the one to tell you that you're a witch." Her jaw dropped. "However, considering that you are fourteen and have not yet had any training, this does present a few difficulties. I was thinking the best solution to this would be to take private lessons and just tell anyone who asks you that you were missed by mistake, which is the truth. Simply omit a few details until we figure this out." He winked and smiled. "Before you go down to the feast I think it would be suitable to have you sorted up here in private rather than making a scene, don't you?"
"Um, sorted, sir?" She asked.
"Ah! I forgot to explain about the houses!" She looked at him with a quizzical expression and he smiled back. He never seemed to stop smiling. "Here at Hogwarts, you are sorted into houses. You sleep in your houses dorms, spend spare time in your common room, and most likely make your friends there. The different houses are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. The sorting hat judges which house you would be best in. So, why don't we see what the hat makes of you, hm?" *Oh, god nothing could surprise me after this. * Dumbledore place a tired old hat on her head. *I think he's a little loony. *
~He's loony, eh?~ She stiffened as the hat spoke inside her head. ~I'd say the same. Anyway, down to business. I think you'd do just fine in Ravenclaw. But wait! Ah! No, it would make your life a lot easier if I just put you in-~
"GRYFFINDOR!" *Um, excuse me but how, exactly would it make my life easier? * ~Well isn't it obvious? It's because-~ Just at the moment Dumbledore removed the hat from her head.
"Well, fabulous then. Gryffindor it is! Would you give this to Prof. McGonagall on your way down? Thank you Lianne. I will see you at the feast." He gently urged her out the door. She stepped onto the stairs and they began moving downward. When she got to the bottom a stiff looking and slightly elderly woman was waiting for her, hands on hips.
"You must be Lianne. I'm Professor McGonagall, Transfiguration teacher and head of Gryffindor house." She said. Lianne nodded and, recognizing the name, held the sorting hat out to her.
"He told me to give this to you. Dumbledore, that is." Lianne stuttered. She was feeling really nervous about this. She didn't really have any choice but to go along with it. *Right, so I go to. where ever it is they eat and then. where ever it is they sleep and then I. take lessons in the morning and. I really don't know what I'm doing! *
"Thank you. I will now show you to the Great hall. Follow me." Professor McGonagall proceeded quickly down the twisting, turning hallways, Lianne barely keeping up. The professor opened one of the double doors leading to the large eating hall and ushered Lianne through it.
"Find yourself a seat at the Gryffindor table." McGonagall pointed to the table farthest to the left. Then she turned and walked out the door. Lianne looked the length of the table and smiled. Ron was waving madly from the other end. She walked the length of the table, earning many funny glances, and sat down. Harry smiled.
"So your in Gryffindor?" He asked. Lianne nodded and grinned. The hat was right. It would be so much easier being in Gryffindor.
Lianne took a tentative step into her new dorm. Ron's sister, Ginny, was leading her in to meet her other roommates. When she had heard the blasting music coming from inside she had been surprised, to say the least. *Hey! I know this song! This is Jimmy Eat World (for anyone who doesn't know who that is, it's a really good band that you should listen to)! I thought witches would have their own kind of music. * She walked in and saw three girls, a very short one with curly auburn hair was lying on her bed reading a book with earplugs on, another, with very short mousy brown hair was doing some sort of Hip-Hop dance to the music. The third had very long blonde hair and was singing very loudly to the music.
"Put my last quarter on, I play authority song!"
Lianne smiled. She could get used to this. Just then the music went off. She looked up amongst the yells of protest from two of the girls to see Ginny standing with her hands on her hips.
"Ladies!" She announced. "We have a new member!" All eyes turned to Lianne. She smiled and wave. Then Ginny jumped to action. She grabbed Lianne's shoulder and steered her around to shake hands with everybody.
"This is our dancer, Kristy." Lianne shook the skinny dancer's hand quickly before she was hustled on to the next one. "This is our singer, Miranda." The tall blonde bowed with a flourish. Lianne attempted to return the bow but was pulled along to the short girl, who still had her earplugs on and her nose in her book. Ginny plucked one of her earplugs out and yelled in her ear. "Get up, lazy!" The curly haired figure jumped and looked up at Ginny.
"Don't do that!" She complained. Then she saw Lianne. "Good to meet you, whoever you are." She nodded and smiled.
"This is our new member. You would've known that if you weren't such a bookworm! By the way," Ginny turned to Lianne. "This is the local bookworm, Hailey. Everybody! This is Lianne. Nobody knew she was a witch until this year! She's going to be getting private lessons so she can catch up with us in our studies. Give her a round of applause!" They gave her very enthusiastic applause, then turned the music back on and went back to their previous activities. Lianne lay back on her bed. She was really tired from a very long and confusing day. She tapped Hailey on the shoulder.
"Can I borrow some earplugs?"
"Sorry, did I scare you?" The owner of the hand sneered. He was a tall, unpleasant looking man in his mid forties with greasy black hair. "You're Lianne Dodge, correct?" She nodded dumbly. "Follow me."
She hesitated a moment. *Maybe he's evil. He looks pretty evil. Maybe he's a secretly evil teacher at the school. But what about all the nice stuff Hermione said about the teachers here? Actually, they all seemed to think this was a pretty nice place. I'll just follow him. If he's evil, well, I'm in trouble enough already. Won't make a difference.* She trembled slightly as she stepped forward to follow him. He led her up a steep rocky path. She was panting heavily by the time they got to the top. *I must look like I've been washed in the sewer. How come he looks completely unflustered? Grrr.* She muttered something distasteful, causing him to turn and glare at her.
"Come." He said shortly, still glaring, and led her into a narrow tunnel. She hesitated again. *Going into small dark tunnels with strange men is usually NOT a good idea. - I'll remember that for next time. * She grimaced cynically and followed him. They came out in a corridor lit only by torches, which were starting to gutter out. She raised her eyebrows at the creepy effect. Sure, she was scared, but slime dripping down the walls? A little over dramatic, isn't it.
"Where are we?" She asked, more to herself then to him. "The dungeons." He didn't seem to want to talk to her, so she decided to just be quiet from then on. He led her up a large, sweeping staircase, through more corridors (less creepy and better lit than the first one.) until they finally came to stop in front of a large gargoyle statue.
"Giggling Gumdrops!" he directed the peculiar words to the gargoyle and, to Lianne's great surprise, it grinned and jumped to the side, revealing a moving spiral staircase.
"Go up the staircase and pass through the door on your right. Don't you dare go anywhere near the door on your left or I will personally see you are expelled before you even take your first class." When he finished this little speech he was slightly out of breath. * He must be really worked up to run out of breath so soon when that cursed hill did nothing. * She shivered. She really didn't want to get him that angry. Then something struck her. Expelled? Classes?
"So this really is just a school!" It was more of and exclamation than a question. "You're not going to torture me or, well, something else horrible." She said, very relieved and rather at a loss for words because of it. He looked extremely taken aback.
"Of course it's a school! What did you think it would be? No, wait, don't answer that. The headmaster will be waiting in his office. The door on the RIGHT!" She stepped on the staircase without a backwards glance. She never looked back; it was just the way she did things. Anyways, she didn't want to see his face again! When she came to the top of the staircase there was a door on her left and a door on her right, just like he had said there would be. *I wonder what's behind that door on the left. Creepy looking dragon thing carved on the door doesn't really give me a good feeling about it; plus that greasy guy's warning. I think I'll leave that door alone. * She shuddered and opened the other door. She was in a large room full of photographs of old people sleeping. *Who would take pictures of people sleeping? * As she was pondering this she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head quickly and found herself staring at a picture. *I wonder what was over there a second ago. It must have been something! I just know I saw- *
"ARGH!!" She yelled and jumped back nearly three feet as an old lady with long grey hair rolled over mumbling in her sleep. Usually a sleeping old lady wouldn't fluster Lianne in the least! But this old lady just happened to be inside a picture!
"Aha!" A voice said from behind her. She whirled around and found herself face to face with an old man possessing a very long grey beard. He looked a lot like the people in the pictures surrounding them but the twinkling in his blue eyes made him seem a lot friendlier. "I see you are discovering the delights and surprises of the wizarding world." He held out his hand and she shook it tentatively, still a little scared but oddly reassured by this man. "Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am Professor Dumbledore, Headmaster."
"I-I'm Lianne Dodge." She tried but couldn't think of anything she could say that wouldn't sound rude. *Did I wake you up, sir? No, why the hell would he be asleep at six in the evening? I'd really just like to ask him what the hell is going on! *
"Have a seat, Lianne." He invited, motioning towards a chair in front of his desk. He sat down on the other side of the desk and paused for a moment. "I'm sure you would like to know what is going on -" *Finally! I get my answers! * "- but I'm afraid I can't explain everything." Lianne's face fell. "I can assure you that David and Dorothy are perfectly fine and they know where you are and why. I'm afraid you may not see them again for a long time." *I do not like what I am hearing here. *
"There's something I don't understand. Why was I brought here?" Lianne spoke up after a pause.
"There are two reasons for that, the first I cannot go into detail on. There is somebody who wants you dead, and this is the safest place to hide until he is dealt with. No, I'm sorry, I can't tell you who or why. I sincerely apologize but I think it would be best." *I really don't like what I am hearing. And I'm not even hearing the details. * Dumbledore smiled. "The second reason is a little more, shall we say, light-hearted. Lianne, I am proud to be the one to tell you that you're a witch." Her jaw dropped. "However, considering that you are fourteen and have not yet had any training, this does present a few difficulties. I was thinking the best solution to this would be to take private lessons and just tell anyone who asks you that you were missed by mistake, which is the truth. Simply omit a few details until we figure this out." He winked and smiled. "Before you go down to the feast I think it would be suitable to have you sorted up here in private rather than making a scene, don't you?"
"Um, sorted, sir?" She asked.
"Ah! I forgot to explain about the houses!" She looked at him with a quizzical expression and he smiled back. He never seemed to stop smiling. "Here at Hogwarts, you are sorted into houses. You sleep in your houses dorms, spend spare time in your common room, and most likely make your friends there. The different houses are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. The sorting hat judges which house you would be best in. So, why don't we see what the hat makes of you, hm?" *Oh, god nothing could surprise me after this. * Dumbledore place a tired old hat on her head. *I think he's a little loony. *
~He's loony, eh?~ She stiffened as the hat spoke inside her head. ~I'd say the same. Anyway, down to business. I think you'd do just fine in Ravenclaw. But wait! Ah! No, it would make your life a lot easier if I just put you in-~
"GRYFFINDOR!" *Um, excuse me but how, exactly would it make my life easier? * ~Well isn't it obvious? It's because-~ Just at the moment Dumbledore removed the hat from her head.
"Well, fabulous then. Gryffindor it is! Would you give this to Prof. McGonagall on your way down? Thank you Lianne. I will see you at the feast." He gently urged her out the door. She stepped onto the stairs and they began moving downward. When she got to the bottom a stiff looking and slightly elderly woman was waiting for her, hands on hips.
"You must be Lianne. I'm Professor McGonagall, Transfiguration teacher and head of Gryffindor house." She said. Lianne nodded and, recognizing the name, held the sorting hat out to her.
"He told me to give this to you. Dumbledore, that is." Lianne stuttered. She was feeling really nervous about this. She didn't really have any choice but to go along with it. *Right, so I go to. where ever it is they eat and then. where ever it is they sleep and then I. take lessons in the morning and. I really don't know what I'm doing! *
"Thank you. I will now show you to the Great hall. Follow me." Professor McGonagall proceeded quickly down the twisting, turning hallways, Lianne barely keeping up. The professor opened one of the double doors leading to the large eating hall and ushered Lianne through it.
"Find yourself a seat at the Gryffindor table." McGonagall pointed to the table farthest to the left. Then she turned and walked out the door. Lianne looked the length of the table and smiled. Ron was waving madly from the other end. She walked the length of the table, earning many funny glances, and sat down. Harry smiled.
"So your in Gryffindor?" He asked. Lianne nodded and grinned. The hat was right. It would be so much easier being in Gryffindor.
Lianne took a tentative step into her new dorm. Ron's sister, Ginny, was leading her in to meet her other roommates. When she had heard the blasting music coming from inside she had been surprised, to say the least. *Hey! I know this song! This is Jimmy Eat World (for anyone who doesn't know who that is, it's a really good band that you should listen to)! I thought witches would have their own kind of music. * She walked in and saw three girls, a very short one with curly auburn hair was lying on her bed reading a book with earplugs on, another, with very short mousy brown hair was doing some sort of Hip-Hop dance to the music. The third had very long blonde hair and was singing very loudly to the music.
"Put my last quarter on, I play authority song!"
Lianne smiled. She could get used to this. Just then the music went off. She looked up amongst the yells of protest from two of the girls to see Ginny standing with her hands on her hips.
"Ladies!" She announced. "We have a new member!" All eyes turned to Lianne. She smiled and wave. Then Ginny jumped to action. She grabbed Lianne's shoulder and steered her around to shake hands with everybody.
"This is our dancer, Kristy." Lianne shook the skinny dancer's hand quickly before she was hustled on to the next one. "This is our singer, Miranda." The tall blonde bowed with a flourish. Lianne attempted to return the bow but was pulled along to the short girl, who still had her earplugs on and her nose in her book. Ginny plucked one of her earplugs out and yelled in her ear. "Get up, lazy!" The curly haired figure jumped and looked up at Ginny.
"Don't do that!" She complained. Then she saw Lianne. "Good to meet you, whoever you are." She nodded and smiled.
"This is our new member. You would've known that if you weren't such a bookworm! By the way," Ginny turned to Lianne. "This is the local bookworm, Hailey. Everybody! This is Lianne. Nobody knew she was a witch until this year! She's going to be getting private lessons so she can catch up with us in our studies. Give her a round of applause!" They gave her very enthusiastic applause, then turned the music back on and went back to their previous activities. Lianne lay back on her bed. She was really tired from a very long and confusing day. She tapped Hailey on the shoulder.
"Can I borrow some earplugs?"