I make no attempt to claim ownership to any of J.K. Rowling's characters or
universe. However, Sterling and all her many quirks, oddities, and
histories are mine, so hands off. (Wow . . . I sound temperamental there.
Sorry.)
Without further ado, because I hate long author's notes, the story.
Suggestions are appreciated and will be considered. Cheers.
*
As a first year . . . it was my first year going to Hogwarts, at least, and I huddled on the train. Rumor had it that Harry Potter was but three cars down; I was straining to resist the temptation to go find out. He probably had enough admiring fans cluttering up his space, and anyways, I was much too shy to do something so bold. It would have been nice to see the boy who'd defeated Voldemort face-to-face, though. I should have liked that.
But I made no move from the car I was in. The hills were rolling past the window, lazily, as the train snaked through the countryside. Mist danced over them and faded into rolls of cloud. I felt a sudden, sharp longing for something I could not have, and then I settled back into my chair.
Some time passed, and there was a tap at the glass. A kindly looking witch was pushing a tray of sweets, selling them to all interested. I looked down the list. A lot of the entries were chocolate, which made my mouth water but my head spin, and I shook said spinning head and selected some peppermints. I paid the lady, and she smiled broadly and left. She seemed a nice woman; nice enough. I felt a little lonely.
What was I doing on this train, off to Hogwarts, anyways? Panic had encroached upon my mind as I had no defenses for it, and it was now reminding me, stealthily, of all my doubts. Perhaps they had picked the wrong girl! I was unaccustomed to this talk of witchcraft and wizardry, and I wondered what they'd have me do. I saw no hint of the Elements in it, nor of the Pines, and this did not surprise me, really, but frightened instead. I did not know what I was going to do. Oh, I had magic; and the ability to draw on the magic in anything, leaving me with a nearly unlimited supply if I had time and concentration enough. But I did not have Itheir/I magic.
What if this wand-waving got me nowhere? My wand itself had been an obvious pick. Pine, with a unicorn's hair. But it had felt off when it had shot its sparks into the air, as though something weren't right. As though something were tilting, and myself aboard it, and falling. I shivered. What was I going to do? How was I going to hide myself in this train-ful of people for whom this wizardry felt right? I knew nothing about them, about their world. I knew only echoes of my own.
Another rap at the glass made me start, and I looked up. A small girl, skinny and redheaded, with freckles splayed across her nose, was standing there tentatively. I gave a nod and she opened the compartment door.
"Excuse me," she said softly, "ah - have you seen a toad anywhere?"
A toad . . . I shook my head. "I haven't," I said, "I'm sorry." I forced my lips to smile at her. She looked just as lost and frightened as I did! And it dawned on me, despite my traditional solitude, that I wanted company.
She whispered a "thanks," and started to close the door.
"No, wait," I said suddenly. "What's your name?" I sounded desperate and I knew it, but I felt every one of my small eleven years so very acutely in that moment, and I needed company.
"Me?" she said, and her cheeks reddened with a shy blush. "I -I'm Ginny Weasley. It's my first year."
"Hello, Ginny," I said, my smile strengthening so something sincere. "My name's Sterling Walsh. It's my first year, too."
She grinned a little. "Say," she said, "I'm trying to help look for a lost toad right now, but maybe after we find it, I'll come on back."
"That sounds fine," I said with a smile, and she nodded and closed the compartment. I settled back into my seat once more, looking at the empty seats. There were friendly people on this train; I simply had to choose to find them.
But Ginny had come to my door. I had not gotten up to find her. A little nagging voice in my brain told me that I really ought to go get up and find another similarly nervous first year, but my solitude kept me where I was. One person I could deal with, Ginny I could handle, but several at a time . . . .? No.
I waited.
She came back about fifteen minutes later, shyly knocking, and I beckoned her in. It was on the tip of my tongue to start a fire in the empty grate on the wall, since she looked cold, but I held back from it and simply gave her a seat.
"How are you?" I asked her carefully.
"I'm fine," she said.
"To tell the truth," I said slowly, "I'm more than a little intimidated by this train thing, and the prospect of Hogwarts at the end of it. Do you know how they picked us?"
Ginny shrugged. "Not the foggiest," she said, seeming like she was warming up to the conversation a little. "My whole family's gone to Hogwarts. I think I was simply the last of the Weasleys, and that's why they picked me."
"Oh," I said. It dawned on me why she might have looked cold; her robes were not new, and they could have been a boy's robes at her age. At our age. I looked uneasily at my own. "My family - they're not the Hogwarts types, exactly."
"They're Muggles?" she said cheerily, enthusiasm tinting her voice. "Really?"
I thought a moment, trying to remember. Muggle, muggle . . . oh, yes. The complete nonwizarding type. I weighed my options . . . yes, that quite covered Peggy and Dean, the psychologist and the lawyer. I nodded.
"That's amazing," Ginny said, and I could see that though questions were straining in her voice, she was refraining from asking.
I changed the subject. "Say," I said, "Is it really true that Harry Potter's three cars down?"
She blushed furiously. "No," she said, "I don't know where he is." She paused, clearly not done, and then she said, "I've met him, though . . . ."
*
When the train arrived, we had exhausted the topic of Harry Potter, with whom Ginny was clearly smitten, and Houses, which she explained to me.
"All my family's been in Gryffindor," she explained, "so I may well be too." She said it as though it were still open, but it was plain in her voice that anything else would be a crushing blow. "What about you?"
I shrugged. "Well," I said, thinking the Houses over, "how do they separate you?"
"Oh!" Ginny seemed startled for a moment that I didn't know, but then I could just see her remember, 'Muggle family' and begin berating herself for not telling me. "There's this hat you put on, see, and it reads your mind and puts you in a house. My two brothers would tell you that you had to fight a dragon, but you don't really."
I smiled. A hat, even a mind-reading one, was not nearly so bad as a dragon. "Maybe I'd like to be in Gryffindor, too," I said, "if you are."
Ginny smiled. "Well, that's nice of you," she said, and then paused, distracted. "Look, the train's slowing down! We're almost there!"
Our eyes lit up as we stared out the window, watching the now-nightlit scenes slow down. A hint of a moon shone silver through the clouds, and I could see in the distance the lighted turrets of a castle coming into view. I smiled.
"We'd better get ready, shall we, Ginny?" I suggested. "Say, what do I need to do?"
She looked me over. "Well," she said, "they'll get your luggage, and you'll go on a boat ride. We're both in robes already, so we're set."
A boat ride? "You, too?" I asked.
She blushed. "Yeah," she replied.
"Sounds like fun!" I said. I stood up and carefully looked over the compartment. I hadn't gotten anything out; it was only my trunk, Ginny, those peppermints, and myself. I offered a mint to Ginny, who blushed and took it eagerly. The rest, I swept into my pocket; I was sure I'd need them sometime during the year, and would probably have to find out how to get more.
Then Ginny and I waited, now in silent anticipation, for the train to stop.
When it did, we both looked anxiously at each other and then got off. The night was less misted than it had seemed from within the train, and the air was a clear, cool temperature.
We were shooed, by the calling, "Firs' years, over here!" to a dock on a perfectly smooth, silver -coloured lake, and I saw the boats waiting. A giant man stood helping us onto boats, and I settled into my spot on one. Somehow, Ginny and I had gotten separated, so I was once more all alone.
Six others joined me in my boat, and one of them came up to me right away, waving a camera and shouting happily. "Hello, there," he said excitedly, "My name's Colin Creevey. Say, did you hear that Harry Potter's going to be at school with us this year?"
I smiled at his enthusiasm. "Yes, I did. I'm Sterling Walsh. Nice to meet you." "Bloody good that'll do us, having that git at school," someone grumbled, and I caught sight of an unpleasant-looking boy, smirking at Colin and wearing a heavy serpent ring. "The Boy who lived, blah."
I raised my eyebrows. "And who might you be?" I inquired, my voice as brittle and polite as I could make it.
"I'm Hendrick Lodwhyn," he said, and then added, "Of a perfect reputable wizarding family."
I pretended hard that it was the jibe that had struck me. Lodwhyn! It would only take a slight alteration of the pronunciation to make it the word for 'field,' and I remembered it abruptly. I swallowed hard, and said, "I'm Sterling Walsh. Good to meet you."
"Don't join up with him," Colin hissed in my ear. "He's going to be in Slytherin, mark my words."
I shook my head at Colin. "No, Colin, even the snakes deserve their meat."
He blinked, and I saw Lodwhyn's eyes open slightly. I was intrigued by this unfriendly character. The others in the boat were all looking at us now; a timid, plump girl and her skinny, pretty friend; a boy with dark brown hair and blue eyes who showed nothing on his face; and a quiet, tawny-coloured girl with hair that pooled around her thighs.
Lodwhyn looked at me oddly under that moonlight. "Well, Walsh," he said slowly, "you seem to have something up your sleeve. What would you know of snakes?"
There was a slow heartbeat's time that took forever. What would I know of snakes? I looked carefully at the silver band around my ring finger, and I thought hard, the corners of an ironic smile beginning to curl at my mouth. What would I know of snakes?
And then the castle came into view over the hill and everyone's attention changed, though Lodwhyn threw a strange glance at me.
What on earth had happened to my idea of staying anonymous, in Inxcheala's name? *
He did not speak to me again before the Sorting. He clearly knew a few other boys, who had the same funny arrogance to them as he did, and he stood, muttering to them, laughing at some of the others. But he did not laugh at me. I think I had frightened him too badly; I supposed I had said it rather oddly. Saying snakes deserved meat was no great strangeness; but, it seemed, standing up so calmly to this boy was. He and his cronies acted like they owned the place, and the others cowered before them.
We stood on the castle steps, waiting while the wind blew through our robes, and lifted my auburn hair off my shoulders, blowing past my ears and chilling them. I reveled in the cold as it nipped me. I must have been a sight, standing there in the cold wind. But no one got a chance to notice, for just then the castle doors swung open and a woman, slight of body but clearly tall in authority, stood there. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bun and she had glasses perched upon her nose. She had a stern expression on her face, but my heart leapt, for I could tell she was a fair woman.
"Come this way," she said, beckoning, and we all followed.
She led us in and explained about the Sorting, which I understood somewhat already from Ginny's explanation. I turned, trying to find Ginny in the crowd, and when I saw her, I waved. She smiled.
Then we were moving again, forward, and there was a roomful of people sitting at tables, though there were empty spaces here and there where I supposed the first years would sit. There was a hat sitting on a stool in the front where I supposed we were supposed to go, and before I could be awed of the size of the hall we were in, the hat began to sing. It extolled the virtues of the many houses, and then after some applause, Professor McGonagall, as I learned the stern woman was named began to read off the names of the first years. One by one, we went, and the hat eventually announced the house the person was to be in. Lodwhyn and his friends were sorted into Slytherin, which I supposed pleased them. Before I knew it, McGonagall was calling my name. "Walsh, Sterling!"
Suddenly overcome with a wave of dizzy nervousness, I moved forward and sat the hat in its new place upon my head. For a very long split-second, there was nothing, and then, not in my ears but in my head, I heard a quiet, "Well, well. You'd be a good Ravenclaw, you would. . . But it seems you want Gryffindor?"
I hadn't realized it, but the hat was right. "Yes, I do," I said slowly. "I hear they and Slytherin are opposites, and Ginny seems to be certain she'll be in Gryffindor." I was babbling.
"Are you sure?" the hat asked. "I have never seen one like you. You'll give the teachers a hard time, you will, if they underestimate you."
I smiled. "Can you tell me something?" I asked.
"What?" came the reply.
"Are you sure I'm supposed to be here, at Hogwarts?" I twisted my hands nervously and anticipated a negative.
"I'm sure," the hat said softly, "and if I'm not mistaken, you'll be doing as much teaching as learning. Go on, get yourself to GRYFFINDOR!"
There was a moment before I realized that this last had been shouted aloud, and I had officially been sorted.
I set the hat back on the stool and watched, smiling, as Ginny ran out and had barely done anything when the hat bellowed, "Gryffindor!" once more.
I grinned at her, and she came running to sit by me.
Hogwarts loomed around me; Slytherin, too, and my own troubles, but there was no point in fretting. The Hat's comments about my doing the teaching were quite amusing, to say the least. Perhaps I would? I was, after all, a mythical creature.
I was starting to feel better about this.
(to be continued. Read? Review, please! Flames will keep me warm at night. Thank you. I appreciate constructive criticism, however.)
As a first year . . . it was my first year going to Hogwarts, at least, and I huddled on the train. Rumor had it that Harry Potter was but three cars down; I was straining to resist the temptation to go find out. He probably had enough admiring fans cluttering up his space, and anyways, I was much too shy to do something so bold. It would have been nice to see the boy who'd defeated Voldemort face-to-face, though. I should have liked that.
But I made no move from the car I was in. The hills were rolling past the window, lazily, as the train snaked through the countryside. Mist danced over them and faded into rolls of cloud. I felt a sudden, sharp longing for something I could not have, and then I settled back into my chair.
Some time passed, and there was a tap at the glass. A kindly looking witch was pushing a tray of sweets, selling them to all interested. I looked down the list. A lot of the entries were chocolate, which made my mouth water but my head spin, and I shook said spinning head and selected some peppermints. I paid the lady, and she smiled broadly and left. She seemed a nice woman; nice enough. I felt a little lonely.
What was I doing on this train, off to Hogwarts, anyways? Panic had encroached upon my mind as I had no defenses for it, and it was now reminding me, stealthily, of all my doubts. Perhaps they had picked the wrong girl! I was unaccustomed to this talk of witchcraft and wizardry, and I wondered what they'd have me do. I saw no hint of the Elements in it, nor of the Pines, and this did not surprise me, really, but frightened instead. I did not know what I was going to do. Oh, I had magic; and the ability to draw on the magic in anything, leaving me with a nearly unlimited supply if I had time and concentration enough. But I did not have Itheir/I magic.
What if this wand-waving got me nowhere? My wand itself had been an obvious pick. Pine, with a unicorn's hair. But it had felt off when it had shot its sparks into the air, as though something weren't right. As though something were tilting, and myself aboard it, and falling. I shivered. What was I going to do? How was I going to hide myself in this train-ful of people for whom this wizardry felt right? I knew nothing about them, about their world. I knew only echoes of my own.
Another rap at the glass made me start, and I looked up. A small girl, skinny and redheaded, with freckles splayed across her nose, was standing there tentatively. I gave a nod and she opened the compartment door.
"Excuse me," she said softly, "ah - have you seen a toad anywhere?"
A toad . . . I shook my head. "I haven't," I said, "I'm sorry." I forced my lips to smile at her. She looked just as lost and frightened as I did! And it dawned on me, despite my traditional solitude, that I wanted company.
She whispered a "thanks," and started to close the door.
"No, wait," I said suddenly. "What's your name?" I sounded desperate and I knew it, but I felt every one of my small eleven years so very acutely in that moment, and I needed company.
"Me?" she said, and her cheeks reddened with a shy blush. "I -I'm Ginny Weasley. It's my first year."
"Hello, Ginny," I said, my smile strengthening so something sincere. "My name's Sterling Walsh. It's my first year, too."
She grinned a little. "Say," she said, "I'm trying to help look for a lost toad right now, but maybe after we find it, I'll come on back."
"That sounds fine," I said with a smile, and she nodded and closed the compartment. I settled back into my seat once more, looking at the empty seats. There were friendly people on this train; I simply had to choose to find them.
But Ginny had come to my door. I had not gotten up to find her. A little nagging voice in my brain told me that I really ought to go get up and find another similarly nervous first year, but my solitude kept me where I was. One person I could deal with, Ginny I could handle, but several at a time . . . .? No.
I waited.
She came back about fifteen minutes later, shyly knocking, and I beckoned her in. It was on the tip of my tongue to start a fire in the empty grate on the wall, since she looked cold, but I held back from it and simply gave her a seat.
"How are you?" I asked her carefully.
"I'm fine," she said.
"To tell the truth," I said slowly, "I'm more than a little intimidated by this train thing, and the prospect of Hogwarts at the end of it. Do you know how they picked us?"
Ginny shrugged. "Not the foggiest," she said, seeming like she was warming up to the conversation a little. "My whole family's gone to Hogwarts. I think I was simply the last of the Weasleys, and that's why they picked me."
"Oh," I said. It dawned on me why she might have looked cold; her robes were not new, and they could have been a boy's robes at her age. At our age. I looked uneasily at my own. "My family - they're not the Hogwarts types, exactly."
"They're Muggles?" she said cheerily, enthusiasm tinting her voice. "Really?"
I thought a moment, trying to remember. Muggle, muggle . . . oh, yes. The complete nonwizarding type. I weighed my options . . . yes, that quite covered Peggy and Dean, the psychologist and the lawyer. I nodded.
"That's amazing," Ginny said, and I could see that though questions were straining in her voice, she was refraining from asking.
I changed the subject. "Say," I said, "Is it really true that Harry Potter's three cars down?"
She blushed furiously. "No," she said, "I don't know where he is." She paused, clearly not done, and then she said, "I've met him, though . . . ."
*
When the train arrived, we had exhausted the topic of Harry Potter, with whom Ginny was clearly smitten, and Houses, which she explained to me.
"All my family's been in Gryffindor," she explained, "so I may well be too." She said it as though it were still open, but it was plain in her voice that anything else would be a crushing blow. "What about you?"
I shrugged. "Well," I said, thinking the Houses over, "how do they separate you?"
"Oh!" Ginny seemed startled for a moment that I didn't know, but then I could just see her remember, 'Muggle family' and begin berating herself for not telling me. "There's this hat you put on, see, and it reads your mind and puts you in a house. My two brothers would tell you that you had to fight a dragon, but you don't really."
I smiled. A hat, even a mind-reading one, was not nearly so bad as a dragon. "Maybe I'd like to be in Gryffindor, too," I said, "if you are."
Ginny smiled. "Well, that's nice of you," she said, and then paused, distracted. "Look, the train's slowing down! We're almost there!"
Our eyes lit up as we stared out the window, watching the now-nightlit scenes slow down. A hint of a moon shone silver through the clouds, and I could see in the distance the lighted turrets of a castle coming into view. I smiled.
"We'd better get ready, shall we, Ginny?" I suggested. "Say, what do I need to do?"
She looked me over. "Well," she said, "they'll get your luggage, and you'll go on a boat ride. We're both in robes already, so we're set."
A boat ride? "You, too?" I asked.
She blushed. "Yeah," she replied.
"Sounds like fun!" I said. I stood up and carefully looked over the compartment. I hadn't gotten anything out; it was only my trunk, Ginny, those peppermints, and myself. I offered a mint to Ginny, who blushed and took it eagerly. The rest, I swept into my pocket; I was sure I'd need them sometime during the year, and would probably have to find out how to get more.
Then Ginny and I waited, now in silent anticipation, for the train to stop.
When it did, we both looked anxiously at each other and then got off. The night was less misted than it had seemed from within the train, and the air was a clear, cool temperature.
We were shooed, by the calling, "Firs' years, over here!" to a dock on a perfectly smooth, silver -coloured lake, and I saw the boats waiting. A giant man stood helping us onto boats, and I settled into my spot on one. Somehow, Ginny and I had gotten separated, so I was once more all alone.
Six others joined me in my boat, and one of them came up to me right away, waving a camera and shouting happily. "Hello, there," he said excitedly, "My name's Colin Creevey. Say, did you hear that Harry Potter's going to be at school with us this year?"
I smiled at his enthusiasm. "Yes, I did. I'm Sterling Walsh. Nice to meet you." "Bloody good that'll do us, having that git at school," someone grumbled, and I caught sight of an unpleasant-looking boy, smirking at Colin and wearing a heavy serpent ring. "The Boy who lived, blah."
I raised my eyebrows. "And who might you be?" I inquired, my voice as brittle and polite as I could make it.
"I'm Hendrick Lodwhyn," he said, and then added, "Of a perfect reputable wizarding family."
I pretended hard that it was the jibe that had struck me. Lodwhyn! It would only take a slight alteration of the pronunciation to make it the word for 'field,' and I remembered it abruptly. I swallowed hard, and said, "I'm Sterling Walsh. Good to meet you."
"Don't join up with him," Colin hissed in my ear. "He's going to be in Slytherin, mark my words."
I shook my head at Colin. "No, Colin, even the snakes deserve their meat."
He blinked, and I saw Lodwhyn's eyes open slightly. I was intrigued by this unfriendly character. The others in the boat were all looking at us now; a timid, plump girl and her skinny, pretty friend; a boy with dark brown hair and blue eyes who showed nothing on his face; and a quiet, tawny-coloured girl with hair that pooled around her thighs.
Lodwhyn looked at me oddly under that moonlight. "Well, Walsh," he said slowly, "you seem to have something up your sleeve. What would you know of snakes?"
There was a slow heartbeat's time that took forever. What would I know of snakes? I looked carefully at the silver band around my ring finger, and I thought hard, the corners of an ironic smile beginning to curl at my mouth. What would I know of snakes?
And then the castle came into view over the hill and everyone's attention changed, though Lodwhyn threw a strange glance at me.
What on earth had happened to my idea of staying anonymous, in Inxcheala's name? *
He did not speak to me again before the Sorting. He clearly knew a few other boys, who had the same funny arrogance to them as he did, and he stood, muttering to them, laughing at some of the others. But he did not laugh at me. I think I had frightened him too badly; I supposed I had said it rather oddly. Saying snakes deserved meat was no great strangeness; but, it seemed, standing up so calmly to this boy was. He and his cronies acted like they owned the place, and the others cowered before them.
We stood on the castle steps, waiting while the wind blew through our robes, and lifted my auburn hair off my shoulders, blowing past my ears and chilling them. I reveled in the cold as it nipped me. I must have been a sight, standing there in the cold wind. But no one got a chance to notice, for just then the castle doors swung open and a woman, slight of body but clearly tall in authority, stood there. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bun and she had glasses perched upon her nose. She had a stern expression on her face, but my heart leapt, for I could tell she was a fair woman.
"Come this way," she said, beckoning, and we all followed.
She led us in and explained about the Sorting, which I understood somewhat already from Ginny's explanation. I turned, trying to find Ginny in the crowd, and when I saw her, I waved. She smiled.
Then we were moving again, forward, and there was a roomful of people sitting at tables, though there were empty spaces here and there where I supposed the first years would sit. There was a hat sitting on a stool in the front where I supposed we were supposed to go, and before I could be awed of the size of the hall we were in, the hat began to sing. It extolled the virtues of the many houses, and then after some applause, Professor McGonagall, as I learned the stern woman was named began to read off the names of the first years. One by one, we went, and the hat eventually announced the house the person was to be in. Lodwhyn and his friends were sorted into Slytherin, which I supposed pleased them. Before I knew it, McGonagall was calling my name. "Walsh, Sterling!"
Suddenly overcome with a wave of dizzy nervousness, I moved forward and sat the hat in its new place upon my head. For a very long split-second, there was nothing, and then, not in my ears but in my head, I heard a quiet, "Well, well. You'd be a good Ravenclaw, you would. . . But it seems you want Gryffindor?"
I hadn't realized it, but the hat was right. "Yes, I do," I said slowly. "I hear they and Slytherin are opposites, and Ginny seems to be certain she'll be in Gryffindor." I was babbling.
"Are you sure?" the hat asked. "I have never seen one like you. You'll give the teachers a hard time, you will, if they underestimate you."
I smiled. "Can you tell me something?" I asked.
"What?" came the reply.
"Are you sure I'm supposed to be here, at Hogwarts?" I twisted my hands nervously and anticipated a negative.
"I'm sure," the hat said softly, "and if I'm not mistaken, you'll be doing as much teaching as learning. Go on, get yourself to GRYFFINDOR!"
There was a moment before I realized that this last had been shouted aloud, and I had officially been sorted.
I set the hat back on the stool and watched, smiling, as Ginny ran out and had barely done anything when the hat bellowed, "Gryffindor!" once more.
I grinned at her, and she came running to sit by me.
Hogwarts loomed around me; Slytherin, too, and my own troubles, but there was no point in fretting. The Hat's comments about my doing the teaching were quite amusing, to say the least. Perhaps I would? I was, after all, a mythical creature.
I was starting to feel better about this.
(to be continued. Read? Review, please! Flames will keep me warm at night. Thank you. I appreciate constructive criticism, however.)
