Again: I do not own Harry Potter. I own Sterling. 'Nuff said. Now, about the fic though: I'll say this now. It sucks. I know it sucks. It's a Mary Sue, plain and simple, and the writing's terrible. I know that. However, this is the only project getting me through writer's block right now, so frankly I don't particularly give a damn if it sucks. If you're a canon diehard, get out now. I can't believe I'm saying that, because I myself am a LOTR canon diehard, but I figure I may as well warn you. Sterling is a character I know very well, and for years, I've wondered what would happen if she went to Hogwarts. This is really satisfying nothing but my twisted mind. That said, if you're still with me, please read and review, and I hope, for your sake and that of my ego, that you enjoy.

My first day of classes dawned cold and bright; it was not really all that cold in reality, but the sky had that strange, cool cloudlessness about it and such a pale shade of clear blue that it looked like a winter morning, and one could almost imagine the grounds sparkling in sunrise-soaked snow as it rose. I was sitting by the window; I'd gotten a little sleep and woken early. I felt like I was moving in water; everything was new and slow and strange. My bed was too soft and fluffy, and everything was in the wrong places. I had a lot of acclimatizing to do.

I supposed, now that I thought about it, that there were surely spells for un-fluffing pillows and making beds harder than they already were. These people had spells for everything a human could want! For hair-straightening and tooth-flossing and how-to-apply-a-perfect-coat-of-paint-ensuring – they really did everything with those wands. That too, was very odd. Being inside Hogwarts was like being inside a television. So much was going on; so much static, so many extraneous magics – that I almost felt dulled, as though my connection with the Elements were blurred. And I supposed it was. Here I was – I was going to learn to wave my wand and achieve all sorts of practical nonsense. I had a flash of doubt.

Did I really want to be here?

The sound of a great bell ringing made me start, and the sleepy groans of my fellow Gryffindors as they awoke broke the near-silence of morning. I sighed and stood, and walked to get my things. I was dressed already, hidden in plain black robes, feeling old beyond my small body's age. My wand was tucked in my pocket like a thing of shame; it was hidden carefully so that I might almost forget its existence. I was yet uneasy about its containing a unicorn hair. It made sense, but it made me feel strange; whose hair, what unicorns? I knew that these people had tame unicorns they were fond of, little smiling things with gold-coloured horns that bore none of my own repulsion from the metal. I supposed it was one of them.

I twisted the silver ring around my finger, feeling the edge dig into my skin. That ring bound me, body and soul, to Inxcheala. I looked at it, and smiled softly.

"Sterling!"

I jumped, turning around. It was Ginny's voice, and there she was, red hair flying madly as she tried to brush it into shape. I smiled at her; a shy expression, but given the smile she returned it with, a welcome one, too.

"Hey, Ginny," I said. "'Mornin', there."

"Come on, Sterling," she said, "Aren't you coming to breakfast?"

I started. Oh! Breakfast! "Yes, I'm coming," I replied, following her. She seemed to know somehow where she was going. Maybe she had picked up the directions the night before. I, however, was completely lost, and I followed her dutifully. We reached the Great Hall, as I had learned it was called, and she sat us down beside a similarly redheaded boy, who looked a little older than Ginny.

"Hello, Ron," Ginny said shyly. "May we sit here?" Ron looked up, and I recognized him as the boy who had come in with Harry Potter, riding the rumour that they had driven a flying car to Hogwarts.

"Sure, Ginny," Ron replied, and I wordlessly sat down beside her as she settled herself in.

He was her brother, right? I was trying to remember. Yes; he looked so much like her that it was impossible for them not to be related. Across from him was a girl with bushy, wild brown hair and kind eyes that sparkled, and next to him . . . I opened my eyes a little wider. I'd barely caught a glimpse of him during the house party the night before, but there he was, now only sitting a few people away from me. Harry Potter. He looked like a kind boy, like he might have a good sense of humour.

I smiled into my plate of breakfast and made a mental note to talk to him about his stardom sometime soon. I was curious – surely, he wouldn't remember his first encounter with Voldemort, but according to Ginny he'd had more than one run-ins with the Dark Lord. I also mentally reminded myself not to say said Dark Lord's name. People looked at me funny when I did. I knew Harry wasn't afraid of the name, though, not according to Ginny. Perhaps his willingness to say it was because he'd defeated him? My willingness was simply because I owed my fear to other darkness. Voldemort might be evil, and a good thing to fear, but it was not ingrained in me like some things were.

Harry looked over and smiled at Ginny, who blushed a furious red. "Hello," she squeaked.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," Harry said warmly. He gave a nod in my direction as well, and I nodded back.

"Hello, Ginny," the bushy-haired girl said, and Ginny replied in like terms. I sat, feeling small, and I waved to the girl, a light turn of my hand.

"Who are you?" she asked me.

Me? "I'm – ah – Sterling, Sterling Walsh." Now it was my turn to blush. This girl had an air of wisdom about her, and she held it there with such an ease that it was clear she was quite talented.

"I'm Hermione Granger; nice to meet you," she said.

I smiled.

After some time, we got our class schedules. I looked at mine, and compared it to Ginny's. They were the same; all divided by House. We had Transfiguration first. After some discussion of their own schedules, Ron and his friends turned to us.

"What have you got first?" Hermione asked.

"Transfiguration," I replied nervously. I was starting to worry.

Hermione smiled. "Oh! That'll be fun for you. McGonagall's a good teacher, and it's not terribly hard."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Says you," he said, making it very clear he disagreed with her assessment of the course's difficulty.

Hermione laughed. "Anyways, though – she had us turning pins into needles on the first day, after she explained it. Don't worry if you don't get it."

I guess that she must have seen the nervous look on my face, and was trying to help me out. Pins into needles! Once I learned what I was doing, that didn't sound so bad. I nodded. "Thanks," I said softly. Ginny got herself into a lively conversation with her brother then, and breakfast was over before I knew it.

And we were off to Professor McGonagall's room. She was sitting there waiting, smiling, and when we were all there, sitting nervously, our feet dangling a few inches short of the floor and out wands lying await on our desks, she began the lesson. As she talked, I grew more and more confused. Clearly, there was some logic to waving your wand a certain way and uttering the perfect words and putting your willpower in the right place. I understood the willpower part only. But at last, she was done with the instruction, and with my mind reeling, I stared at my pin. I was going to turn that thing into a needle after all! I was!

I waved my wand and tried hard to do everything she had said. Nothing happened; and it was an eerie nothing. I felt nothing at all. Just to test it, I found the elements for the metal; it was a thing of fire and earth and ice; fed a quiet bit of energy into it, and commanded that it change. It did. Instead of a pin, I now had a needle. Suddenly worried, I glanced around the room, at everyone struggling to transfigure their own pins, and was quiet so as not to attract attention to my unorthodox success. Then I turned it back into a pin, and tried waving my wand again.

This time, something happened. There was a terrible jolt, and the wand blazed hot in my fingers, and I smelled something funny, like something was burning. A puff of smoke issued from the end of my wand, and then it rapidly changed color. It was burning my hand. Now, I yelped, and McGonagall came running over to me. She pulled out her own wand and aimed it at mine, whispered something, and my wand stopped its antics, smoking slightly.

"What happened, Miss Walsh?" she asked me.

I wasn't exactly sure, but I had an idea. "Look," I said softly, not wanting everyone to stare at me, "I think my wand doesn't want me."

She looked at it funny. "Well," she said slowly, almost reluctantly, "given the way it behaved, that could be possible."

I knew it was quite possible. Waving it around might have wakened the unicorn hair within at the shop, but it had felt odd. Actually trying to do magic with it forced the unicorn hair to contend with me. It was too far from myself, I supposed.

McGonagall cast a small spell over it, and it issued a puff of gold-colored smoke. I flinched, fighting the urge at the sight of so much gold to whinny and run. It was a hair from some unicorn to whom gold was acceptable, then, if its color was such. I didn't dare tell McGonagall that, but from my reaction it was clear she understood that I was not at all comfortable with the results. "Curious," she said. "Very curious." I could not understand her look. Clearly, she recognized that something was wrong, but she seemed loath to believe my reason. "It has been many, many years that I have taught at Hogwarts," she said slowly to me. "And I have never seen a student so ill-fitted with a wand; never once." She looked once more at my wand, as if remembering my expression at the cloud of gold. I shuddered once more, and then realized that an idea was forming itself in my brain. At last she sighed, and asked me to try it again, to similar disastrous results.

"Well, Miss Walsh," she said, looking at me suspiciously, "I appreciate that you find something ill at ease about the essence of the wand. Where did you get it?"

I swallowed. "Ollivander's, Professor," I said meekly.

She looked even more surprised. "Ollivander, getting a wand wrong? Unheard of, Miss Walsh. We must keep in mind that you are, after all, merely a beginner, and not yet perfect at casting these spells."

I nodded. "True, Professor," I admitted. "But the gold – it's not right." She looked at me, and she cast the spell over my wand again. I shivered, and felt a sudden wave of nausea, going so far as to clamp a hand over my mouth before it passed. Her eyes widened.

"All you all right, Miss Walsh?" she asked me.

I made a rather weak gesture for yes. "Please, don't do that again," I said. I could feel the impurity of the gold burning the air around me, and my stomach churned. I felt dizzy.

She looked at me. "If, Miss Walsh," she said, "the essence of this wand is incompatible with your own, I don't believe Ollivander would have ever sold it to you."

I shook my head. "Please, Professor," I begged, trying hard to seem meek and submissive, and not show my frustration, "please, I can't bear gold like that."

Her gaze lingered for a long time on my face, searching. At last, she gave a sigh. "I will talk to the headmaster," she said slowly, "but until then I'm afraid you must muddle through with what you have as best you can." She actually seemed a little sorry.

"Professor?" I asked, a hopeful idea forming.

"Yes, Miss Walsh?" she said, now looking irritated, as if she wished she could be done with me already.

"Are there any red pines on the Hogwarts grounds?"

"I believe so," she said.

"May I go try and find one?"

Now she truly looked annoyed. "Miss Walsh, this is nonsense. I have a class to attend to –"

"Please," I said, "I won't cause trouble. If I can find a red pine, we can solve this."

"How?" she asked, as though she were almost trying not to laugh.

I sighed. "Can you just trust me?" I asked. "This issue will be over."

"Miss Walsh," she said, "I have found in my years of teaching that trusting first years to go somewhere on the first day of classes is usually disastrous."

I saw her point, but I pressed her. "Please, Professor. You have my word."

Just then, there was an explosion across the room. She looked alarmed, and resignedly gave me a quick, "Fine, go!" and dashed off to fix another boy's mistake. I felt a little bad for having wrangled it out of her, and it seemed to me that the only reason she had agreed was that she wanted to make sure the other kids didn't kill each other. I didn't expect it was something I would ever get away with again. But on the other hand, I was thrilled. If my plan worked, I would be set to face Hogwarts on much more familiar ground. I liked that idea.

It took me a little while to find my way out onto the grounds, but from there, spotting the telltale shape of the branches and the color of the bark was easy. I knelt before the tree and said a prayer for a minute, and by the end of it, I found that a stick of unpeeled but fairly straight red pine wood was lying beside me, maybe a foot long. I smiled, and thanked Inxcheala and the edrah for the gift. I ran back to class just in time to collect my things and go on to my next class, which was Charms. If Professor McGonagall notice my return, or what I held in my hand, she said nothing.

**

After I was gone, she looked around her classroom and sighed. She picked up some fallen pieces of furniture, and then approached my desk. I had left my wand lying there, loath to touch it. She stared at it, and sighed, shaking her head. I would learn later that that incident had sparked a curiosity in her regarding myself, but that what clinched it was when she picked up my pin to put it away with the others. She gave a start as she took it into her hand; it was heavier than the others, and shone with a slightly different hue. She inspected it closely.

"Silver!" she exclaimed, surprised. "Why, the girl turned it into silver!"