By: CNJ
PG-13
6: Happy Eleventh Birthday, Lily!
Lily:
"Happy birthday, Lily!" Amelia, Zara, and a couple of my dormmates crowed that Friday night after our first week at Hogwarts. Zara put down a small cake with eleven little candles glowing above it. They were floating, glittering blue candles and the sight took my breath away.
I took a huge breath and blew out all the candles. The others whooped softly, being that it was nine in the evening and we didn't want to get too loud.
I just couldn't believe I was eleven. Eleven sounds so much older than ten. Amelia and Zara each passed a wrapped gift to me.
"Oh, wow....thank you!" I gasped, my eyes widening. The gift from Amelia turned out to be a book...Hogwarts: A History to be exact. I hugged her. She knows I've been curious about Hogwarts, especially its founders. I've heard each of our houses are named after a founder.
Zara's gift was quill pens that glittered with whatever music I happened to be thinking about at the time. Little melodies even danced across one of them on its feathers. I hugged Zara thanks also.
"Ready to dig in?" Nadine asked. We were, so for the next half hour or so, we feasted on the extra food we'd siphoned off from the generosity of the house elves.
Then we played exploding snap while having our cake. I was really feeling at home here now and Professor Pierce was right in stating that our housemates would be like our families.
Once we finally headed up to bed, I saw a small pile of parcels on my bed. Birthday greetings and gifts from Mum and dad, I realized. Wow, I breathed, opening one gift to reveal a necklace with the Gryffindor logo on it.
Once I opened everything, I penned a note thanking my parents, then added in the postscript, This necklace will go very nicely with my Gryffindor sweatshirt.
I sent the thank you note via Lemon to my parents before climbing into bed. The paper fell around my bed, but I figured I'd take care of the mess in the morning just this once.
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I spent most of the next day reading Hogwarts: A History. It was a very long book, over nine hundred pages, but had some interesting little facts. The four founders were Salazar Slytherin, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Godric Gryffindor. The school was founded in the 1000's.
Yes, the founders did have mostly the same personality traits as the house students...Salazar was the planner of the group and very stealthy; Godric was courageous and barreled ahead no matter how bad things seemed; Helga was very loyal and stuck by her friends and fellow founders while Rowena was very logical and practical.
Rowena was the one who'd designed most of the school's inside. Godric was the one who dealt with the sellers of the castle and it was his persistence that convinced the sellers to sell the castle to the founders.
The book itself was very old, but was magically updated periodically, so the new print automatically appeared right alongside the old text. Well, that certainly saved time and money; in the muggle world, new editions have to be reprinted with new paper and ink being used.
By dinner, I'd read about a hundred and seventy pages, so I bookmarked it with a wandmark and headed downstairs.
I had to pee, so close to the Great Hall, I turned into one deserted bathroom. It was a lot bigger than the ones upstairs and I sensed it wasn't a bathroom used very often. The lighting was spotty and as I peed, I got a slightly creepy feeling. I thought I heard a slight whine, then a sniffle.
"Who's there..." I asked, my voice breaking a bit. I cleared my throat, wiped myself, flushed the toilet, then asked, "Is anyone here?" I pulled out my wand in case I needed it.
I was startled to see something white slither out of the toilet I'd just used. I jumped out of the booth. The white form was just a ghost. It was a young girl, maybe around twelve or thirteen and she had dark hair in pigtails, glasses and a very morose, rather sullen look on her face. "Oh, hello..."
"I'm anyone..." the ghost wailed, then appeared to be teary-eyed.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"I'm never all right..."
the ghost started wailing.
"Oh...that's...too bad..."
I didn't know what else to say. "Well...I'm Lily...Lily Evans and
you are...?"
"Myrtle...although I hear the gossip of everyone calling me Moaning Myrtle," the ghost hiccupped. "As if everyone making fun of me is a big joke..."
I hoped she wasn't this unhappy when she was living. I idly wondered how she'd died and decided to put off asking about it for a while.
"Yeah, I know how that is..." I nodded. "I mean, before I came here just this year, my sister used to make fun of me, so I know how it hurts."
Myrtle started fresh wails and I wondered if maybe that had been the right thing to say. "Oh, hey, Myrtle, it'll be all right..." She floated up to the ceiling, hiccupping. "So...how long have you been here?"
"Since my deathday, of course,
which was over twenty-five years ago," Myrtle told me.
"Oh, that's hard..." I nodded.
"I just turned eleven yesterday...I was reading this great book about Hogwarts
history and learned a lot about the four founders...they're quite a group."
"I bet the book doesn't say that the Slytherins used to own this place," Myrtle kind of smirked sideways at me.
"No, I haven't gotten that
far yet," I admitted.
"They did. The Slytherins
lived here for generations until two hundred years ago...that's why Salazar
turned on the others and especially ended up bitter toward Godric."
"Wow...I didn't know that yet...thanks for the imput," I said in surprise. "Hey...Myrtle...it was a pleasure meeting you, but I have to eat...dinnertime..." Myrtle became morose and drooped again and I hoped she wouldn't start crying again.
She didn't, at least not until I was out of the bathroom and on my way to the Great Hall. When I got there, the food was already on the table and my friends had started serving themselves. I sat, my heart pounding a little.
"Hey, Lily..." my friends greeted.
"Thought you'd fallen asleep reading that book," Zara quipped.
"I was reading the book, but stayed awake." I helped myself to some shepherd's pie. "I found out some fascinating information about this school and the four founders. I also stopped to pee and ran into Moaning Myrtle..." I told them about my encounter and what Myrtle had told me about the Slytherins once owning this castle.
"I'd heard something about that too from my parents," Zara put in. "I heard that Salazar got greedy and wanted to take over the school, but the others managed to stop him by putting out a will or something...Salazar became bitter and broke off from the group, then vowed to one day come back and clear the school of anyone not of 'pure' blood, whatever he means by that. Thank goodness he never did."
"I wonder if any of the founders every had any offspring..." I wondered.
"I wonder if they have any descendants living today," Amelia put in. "Wouldn't that be something if some of their descendants are right here at this school with us and in our classes and all?" That would be interesting.
"It actually wouldn't be surprising," I added. "I just hope Salazar didn't pass any of his attitudes down to any offspring he might have had."
We looked around at the four
tables, each one representing different personalities, yet drawn together
with one mission...to become full-fledged witches and wizards. How
each of us would go about the mission was yet to be known.
More later!