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Chapter 2

The First Dinner

Joad sat stiffly on the four-poster feather bed that was in her guest rooms. She had been laying on it, but when it had lulled her into a quick cat nap, she had quickly sat up and refused to lie on the bed again.

"Come on dear," said the voice she had been arguing with. "A little sleep is good for you."

"Not in the middle of the day," Joad snapped back, then regained her calmness and turned to the little picture up on the slant of the wall to the ceiling. The woman in the picture was frowning at her. She was a pretty, young woman with brown sausage curls hanging around her heart- shaped face. The portrait revealed much of her torso, enough for Joad to see she was wearing some kind of body device to make her waist much smaller than humanly possible and made her breasts gravity defying. It looked uncomfortable. Behind her was a background that was swirled dark blue. If Joad looked hard enough, she could see the circular brushstrokes. Her name was Angela.

"You're not just going to sit there and do nothing, are you?"

Joad didn't reply; she found it hard to believe, after years of working with the computer on her ship, that the pictures had feelings. "Show me where the library is."

Angela was a Carer Portrait. The room her frame was located was the room under her charge. Every exchange student had a Carer Portrait in their room. They were unable to move about the castle while their room was occupied. She was capable of magically cleaning the room, locking the doors, and glares of icy doom. Her current glare was locked on Joad.

"Please," Joad said. She never got anything out of Angela by her monotone commands she was used to giving her computer. Her father hadn't been big on manner lessons; the Fetts were more of the intimidation type.

"You just don't get it, do you dear? I would have a few things to say to your mother if we ever met." She eyed Joad skeptically. "Or did you grow up without a mother."

As a little girl, Joad had never even known what a mother was until her little caper with Janda the Hutt. Though she hadn't remembered most of it until she he done her first hunt and met up with the Jedi twins, Han, and Leia Solo, she had always just realized that mothers did exist and she just didn't have one. Then she had figured out that she was a flawed clone of Boba Fett (she got two X chromosomes instead of an X and a Y) and it was all ok again. (A/N: See 'Mistakes Happen' if you want details. It's a Star Wars story, obviously.)

"I never had a mother."

"Surly you had a mother." Joad was about to object but Angela plowed onward. "But it is not my place to pry in touchy subjects. Let me show you where the library is."

Her smiling self clouded over with dark grey swirls of fog. A 3-D picture of the ground floor of Hogwarts appeared. A blue dot appeared.

"We are here," said Angela's voice. An arrow sprung from the blue dot and turned left down the hall. "Walk past five hallways, then turn right. That's the entrance. The Great Hall, where your dinner will be in an hour, is right there. Be sure to get to dinner on time or you'll hold everyone up. Go past that, up the flight of stair right ahead of you, turn left, and there are the big doors to the library. You can't miss it," finished Angela happily as her face returned.

"Thanks," Joad remembered to say as she left the room. She heard an angry 'tisk'ing from Angela as the portrait swung shut behind her. Making her way down the quiet halls, Joad felt a chill.

She was stuck here, on this primitive planet that built its largest buildings out of stones opposed to man-made products which were much stronger. The silence was strange too; after being on many heavily populated worlds such as Coursant and Nal Hutta, the silence pressed in upon her ears. On Kamino, while growing up, there had always been a hum everywhere she went. While she slept the hum had been there. When she started hunting, one of the worst things to endure when she wasn't concentrating on her hunt, was the lack of hum. The silence of the primitive world and the isolated building was hard to get used to.

"Hey Joad!" The native named Nick saw her as she walked through the entrance wing. Joad didn't really want to talk, but she saw all the natives they called exchange students crowded together. She had no choice but the join them without looking strange.

All of them were cheerful, smiling and trying to talk to each other in broken basic. Apparently, though it was one planet, it was not a unified language like many that Joad knew of. Instead of separated by different dialect, the people on the planet were separated by whole languages; no wonder they hadn't gotten far.

A tall boy with dark skin greeted her.

"Hello," he said kindly, towering over her. "My name is Makalo from Africa. Who are you?" He was wearing long white flowing robes that did not hide his needle-like thinness and long legs.

A girl in back robes with a bright smile and olive complexion stepped forward. "I am Iona, from Greece."

"I am Xiu, from China," said a shy looking girl.

"I'm from America," said the boy Nick who had called her over into this trap earlier.

"I am Victor, from Bulgaria," mumbled a boy lurking in the corner. He had a nose that looked as though it had been broken several times.

They all leaned in toward her a little, eager to hear her name and where she was from.

"Joad Teff, from New Zealand." Joad was careful to keep her voice cool.

"New Zealand," said Makalo thoughtfully. "I think you win the distance contest, though you and Xiu are pretty close. Where are you headed?"

Joad had no idea where New Zealand was, but she knew that was where she was 'from' because Angela had told her so. "Library. Excuse me." She slipped away before they could stop her.

The library was quiet and cool. Joad found that no one, not even the librarian who simply smiled at her, bothered her. It was a nice feeling, finding somewhere finally where she could sit and focus on one thing instead of being distracted by Angela and soft, cushy, warm, comfortable beds. Yes, it was a very good thing.

She had a lot of catching up to do. Being not from the world where you suddenly find yourself going to school without choice will do that to you. Books slowly piled up on her table and she disappeared behind open books, her mouth set in a straight line as she read Hogwarts, A History, Basic Spells and How to Do Them, The World as We Know It, Muggles and Their Contraptions Volume I and II, The Goblin Wars and Its Players, Chess for Dummies, You-Know-Who and Why He Came to Power, Spells for the Advanced, How to Defend Yourself with Spells (Against the Dark Arts), to name a few. She was so focused on studying that she forgot the focus on the time.

"Ah," said a voice above the books. Joad snapped her head up, surprised, to see a very old man in long purple robes, a crocked nose, half-moon spectacles, piercing blue eyes, and a very long, silvery beard. She could only assume that it was Dumbledore, the current headmaster of Hogwarts. "I see we have a scholar." He smiled kindly and there was a twinkle in his eye that made Joad feel as though he knew exactly where she was really from.

"We didn't have a library like this in my school," Joad explained lamely.

"I hope that you use this library to its full extent. If you read all the books, you would be the first to since Uric the Oddball. I wish you luck, but you should probably wait until after dinner, I think." He smiled. "Come." He helped Joad from her seat and walked with her through the halls.

"Dinner is exquisite here, if you don't mind me saying so," Dumbledore said happily. "I've never eaten somewhere where the food is not better, though a little muggle café once came close. Then again, I have not been to many places in the world, so I cannot fairly judge..."

He rambled on like that until they entered a large room with floating candles. Joad glanced at the ceiling she had read about and was rewarded with the fading colors of the sunset. There was one table in the huge room instead of the usual five. Around it, all the present teachers and exchange students were talking happily. They grew silent as they approached. Dumbledore sat her down in a chair between him and a greasy, foul looking teacher.

"Now that we're all here, we will start dinner. Help yourselves." He sat down and food appeared on all the plates and jugs of pumpkin juice floated around them filling up their goblets. The scowling teacher filled his plate with a variety of...lettuce, carrots. tomatoes, celery, and radishes. Dumbledore, on the other hand, helped himself to a everything that come within reach until his plate was piled high with food, more food than Joad had thought him able to eat.

Carefully selecting from the array of foreign food, Joad wondered if there was something in the food that might kill her. If only she had her helmet she could detect any unfamiliar substances in the food, but she doubted even people from New Zealand dressed like that.

"Are you enjoying your stay?" asked a voice to her left.

Joad finished dishing herself a spoonful of mashed potatoes before answering. "It's different." She turned to look at the teacher who seemed to host a permanent scowl.

"I imagine." He looked over Joad's head and frown at someone. Joad assumed that that someone was Dumbledore. "I'm Severus Snape, Head of the Slytherin House, Potions Master."

And Leader of the Anti-Wash Your Hair Group, Joad finished mentally. "Joad Teff," Joad replied, deciding to continue with the introduction theme.

"I noticed," he said dryly, frowned over her head again. "A pleasure. I hope you enjoy your stay at Hogwarts."

"I hope so as well," returned Joad in her usual monotone then returned to her food. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him watch her before returning to his rabbit food.

The food was indeed good, better than anything she had ever had. On Kamino, she had virtually grown up on burnt food. Let's just say that Boba Fett may be the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, but he cannot cook worth beans. As tempted as she was, Joad refrained from stuffing herself, something that some of the other students were not wary enough of.

"Uh, I can barley move," said Nick, patting his stomach. "If I may say so, the food here is delicious!" All of the students agreed.

"You may say so, Nick," replied Dumbledore grandly. He stood up and smiled all around the table, his deep voice kind and fatherly. "A wonderful first dinner to start off your Hogwarts stay, to be sure. A started feast, I think, for your start of the year feast when you will be sorted into your temporary houses and met your fellow students. I would like to thank the teachers who are here for coming to the school early or, in some cases, coming out from the summerly lurks in the school to greet all of you. I think we are all tired enough to sleep late tomorrow morning and spend a relaxing week until the term starts. Sleep tight."

Everyone filed out of the great hall and to their respective rooms. Nick and Xiu each forgot where they were staying and had to be showed by some tired teachers. Joad, however, did not forget, though she suspected that her room was the farthest from the hall.

So Joad returned to where she had been two hours ago, faced with the danger of a too comfy bed, a chatty painting, and a deep sense of foreboding. Glancing at the bed, Joad sat down in front of the fireplace in an armchair, sinking into it. She toned out Angela's scolding that she should sleep in the bed like proper people and fell into an uneasy slumber.