Hufflepuff Concerto
Because not all Hufflepuffs are boring. Set in the year of the Tri-Wizard Cup. Hannah Korvil, a young mage, is forced to go to a wizarding school against her will. Enter Dennis Creevy... let's sit back and see what happens, shall we?
NOTE: Everything you recognize from Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. The Tragyl's should they appear (which they eventually will), are my sister's(Dhrelva). Everything else, like the Korvils, are mine.
A/N: Thanks Cry and Dhrelva for reviewing (and if anyone else is reading, could you review too? It makes me happy...)! Hopefully, Cry, I'll answer your questions within this part. Enjoy!
Chapter Four: Cedric Diggory
Dinner was too long. The HeadMaster kept them there after they'd finished to make an announcement about the TriWizard Cup. It really only applied to the older students, but they'd had to wait around and listen anyway. A couple of the boys whispered excitedly, but even that was short lived. She thought overheard Owen say, "Finish up, man, it's cold..." They weren't as sopping wet as they had been, but partially damp was still more than enough to keep them in a perpetual chill.
When the announcement had finally ended, they followed their prefects across the castle and up a set of shifting staircases. As they walked, one of their two prefects, either Niobe or Cedric, would point out or explain things to them. Such as the staircases that moved, or the hallway they'd take to their classes. After rounding a few more corners, they came to a sudden halt. Hannah looked around, but saw only a portrait of an anxious looking young man.
"This," Cedric announced, "is Kingsly. To enter the common room, you need to tell him the password. It's important that you don't give out the password or bring any of the students from the other Houses here. They, likewise, are instructed to do the same." He sounded like he was giving a speech memorized verbatim from a handbook. Probably the one Niobe was carrying, labeled "The Perfect Prefect by Rik Kingsly." Cedric continued in the same tone, "When the password changes, which it will, you'll be given a few days notice to make sure everyone gets the new password. If you forget it, you can get it from Professor Sprout, Niobe, or myself." Niobe was the other prefect. She exchanged grins with Hannah.
"New batch, eh?" Kingsly puffed at his pipe, making a nice set of little O's float out of his frame. He was eyeing the newbies with interest, "Eight. Decent number. I heard it's a big class this year, what with the TriWizard Cup and all that."
Cedric got a funny little smile on his face, again. At the beginning of the tour he'd been somewhat preoccupied. Niobe had said it was the TriWizard Cup and Cedric was having glory vision worthy of a Gyffindor. Then she'd winked and smiled a little too innocently when Cedric gave her a look.
"Well, it's true," Niobe had scolded him lightly, "If you were paying any less attention I'd have to give the tour for you. Now, hurry along, the dears are shivering."
Now, Cedric managed to pull himself back to the present without Niobe's prodding. He made sure they were all paying attention, catching each of their eyes in turn. He took a deep break and uttered the long awaited password to the Hufflepuff common room, "Fubby Wubby."
"That's it?" Niobe giggled, "That's the new password?" The portrait swung out into the hallway with a, "Hurumph," allowing the first years to peer into the common room.
"Professor Sprout chose it!" Cedric murmured defensively, his pride already on the lurch for the day, "It's what Pernella named her mandrake last year."
"Did she?" Niobe grinned, eyes twinkling merrily. She motioned the first years through the entry, "That's so charming! Fubby wubby!"
Hannah followed Jaci through the opening, leaving Niobe and Cedric to head up the rear. The common room was rich, trimmed in yellows, blacks and blues. A group of older students had made it in ahead of them. As soon as the Kingsly portrait swung closed, Niobe spread her arms wide and said, "Fubby wubby!" Everyone laughed, especially one girl who doubled over, face turning red. Hannah surmised that this was Pernella. Niobe grinned at her, "It's cute. You must be flattered."
"Oh, I am," Pernella laughed, "I'm honored."
Niobe then introduced the first years to Pernella and a bunch of the others who's names Hannah forgot almost instantaneously. Then, Niobe led the shivering first year girls up a spiral staircase on the right side of the common room. At the very top of the stairs, she opened up the last door and pronounced it theirs. Indeed it was, complete with all the luggage they'd left on the Hogwarts Express as well as four four-post beds for the four of them. Each bed had lovely black curtains embroidered with an elegant yellow pattern.
"The wash room," Niobe pointed out, is down past the other rooms, on the landing. Hannah hadn't really noticed the landing, but she didn't ask and Niobe left. As soon as the door closed behind her, the girls looked at each other. It was finally the time they'd all been waiting for.
Hannah kicked off her shoes and left her soggy socks on the floor. She unbungeed her muggle style suitcase from the luggage rack and poured the contents on the bed. A moment later, her school robe was off, her uniform skirt and blouse replaced by the rusty silk dress and light brown robe she'd worn on the train. The other girls had done the same. Blessed warmth.
Jaci had hung her wet things up to dry at the foot of her bed. Hannah did the same. Her other clothes she organized into the drawers provided, and slid the luggage cart under the bed. The suitcase, she left out to store some things in and claim the bed as her own. It looked funny at the foot of the bed where all the other girls had wizard style trunks. She wondered what they kept in those things. She'd only brought the supplies listed, a couple books, and a few changes of clothes.
She set The Idiot's Guide to Elemental Particles on her nightstand with A Mage with a Mission, and Mira Humberly's series: Fun With Fire, More Fun With Fire, and Even More Fun With Fire.
"What are these?" Hannah turned to see Laura Madley, the girl who'd kept quiet at dinner, looking at her books. She read off the Humberly series' titles to emphasize her point.
"They're tutorials, kinda," Hannah explained, "Practice. I'm still working on book one. Those are the texts I'd be using this year if I were still at Holyoke. Mom let me get them anyway."
"Holyoke?"
Hannah tried not to look wistful as she said it, "Holyoke Academy of Mind and Elemental Studies," she failed miserably, "my father's the HeadMaster. But, he and mum wouldn't let me go."
"Why's that?" Jaci asked. They'd all gathered around her bed now and we making themselves comfortable.
"Because I'm not a mind mage," she was getting distinctly annoyed by this thread of conversation. Why did they have to ask so many questions?
She had left her tiara on the bed stand next to the books. Laura was reading the back of A Mage with a Mission. Jaci, on the other hand, was looking at it curiously. She caught Hannah's eye, "Can I touch it?"
At her nod, Jaci scooped it up and carried it back over to the bed. She was studying it closely, as though it might change at any moment. It could have easily passed for a simple necklace if it weren't for the little combs that held it in place. Her mother's was a little fancier, with two of the metal chains on either side. Jaci held it up, upsidedown, "You wear it a lot, don't you?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You have a tan line," she traced a similar line on her own forehead. Eleanor nodded agreement, "You should keep wearing it. It's pretty."
"Thanks," Hannah accepted the little chain back from the Slytherin want to be. Her forehead kinda felt funny without it, anyway. She slipped it back in place, "It was my Great grandmother's. They had to change the charm, of course," that was all she was going to say about it, but they actually looked interested so she kept talking, "Everyone in my family has one. It's the sign of a mage. The sixteen sided star -or sun, or, I like to call it a snowflake- means my elemental power is energy or fire. They're kinda similar. At least, I don't really understand the difference. They usually go together, though, so they have the same symbol. The rest of my family have crescent moons on theirs-"
"Your dad too?"
Hannah shook her head, laughing at the mental image of her dad with a delicate little tiara on his forehead, "Nooo... My dad has this big amulet." She held her fingers about three inches apart to show just how big and placed it over her chest, "Always outside his robes. My brothers too. It's like...," she struggled to find a comparison but found none on the tip of her tounge, "It tells people they're dealing with a mage and not just a wiz-...ard," she finished the word and bit her lip. There were probably a few people in the room who would take offense to that remark. Three girls who just happened to be sitting on her bed, to be precise.
But no one said anything. They just waited, accepting that she had realized her prejudices. Of course, they didn't say anything to change the subject either. The silence stretched awkwardly. Hannah wasn't sure if they even cared about her story anymore, but she kept talking anyway, "It tells people they're dealing with a mage. It also tells them what sort of mage. The star, sun, snowflake... whatever you want to call it, is energy and fire. The moon is mind, which includes telepathy, telekinetics, and thought, uh, shaping. There's air, too, that's a circle, and water is a wave," she twirled her finger in the air to trace out a crashing wave's spiral, "The tiaras and amulates used to be tradition until, a few hundred years ago, the Ministry of Magic started requiring mages to wear them. When they changed the law, most mages stopped wearing them because they could. But my family decided that whether or not it had been law, it was tradition first, so we still wear them." Hannah mentally congradulated herself for remembering anything at all from her Mages and the Ministry class in PreElemental School.
There were, apparently, no questions. After a rather long silence, Jaci said, "Oh." She was wearing a green robe with silver trim. Very Slytherin. Her father had probably not even considered the possibility of his daughter being Sorted into Hufflepuff, "What was it like growing up with mind mages?"
Why did they have to talk about her? Because she was the weird one? Hannah sighed, "It was much like growing up with mind mages. You get left out a lot, what with thoughts flying everywhere. Everyone starts laughing at nothing sometimes. Kinda makes you self-conscious. What are your families like?"
"My parents are Hufflepuffs," Laura volunteered, "They're great, but somewhat overprotective. They didn't really want me to leave home. Dad's been crying for weeks. They're going to be happy, I think, with my Sorting. Unlike the rest of you. Eleanor, you wanted Ravenclaw?"
The dark haired girl nodded, "But I think this might be better, after all. I mean, if I were Ravenclaw, I'd probably have to be in the library 20 hours a day just so I could have a conversation with the others when I came home," she grinned, "Better a smart Hufflepuff than a dumb Ravenclaw, right?"
"Hey, who says you're smarter than we are?" Jaci asked in mock offense, "That's like saying Nick's braver or that I'm more ambitious..."
"Well, are you?"
Jaci grinned mischeiviously, "Or that Laura's more loyal, or Hannah's a better mind reader."
The other girls fell into an easy conversation. Jaci seemed more and more at ease with the Sorting Hat's decision as the night wore on, though Laura and Eleanor soon dominated the conversation. Jaci said a few words now and then, and Hannah tried to participate, too, but she didn't really know what to say. She missed her friends back home.
