I own nothing… accept Carrie and Eaglesbane… but I wouldn't say I own them as I didn't really buy them but that's besides the point… any way
Doom… this is all… doom… Carrie thought matter-of-factly brow furrowed slightly with matching resignation. She was admittedly a pessimist but this seemed ill fated by even her standards. Platform 9 ¾ spread itself enthusiastically out before crackling with sound and uninhibited magic.Wizards and witches alike scurrying about with trunks and bags, toting owls and cats, shouting angrily about late starts and hurding their children about with gusto. It was as though the platform itself was taking on the responsibility of getting Carrie excited about her new school, screaming "HEY! Look how cool this is! Wowsers that person guy just apparated! Jiminy Crickets is that a Rememberal I see? Magic! Isn't England GREAT!" But, sadly, despite the platform's noble attempts, all she wanted to do was go to sleep.
Jet lags a bitch, nearly 3 days since stepping off the plane at Heathrow and her internal clock still hadn't caught up to pace. Carrie wasn't sure what time it was back in the States, but she had inkling that perhaps she should be asleep. Huh. She should be doing a lot of other things right now. Right now, she should thousands of miles away in Salem Massachusetts with the other students of Eaglesbane Abbey, School of Magic. She should eating breakfast, she should be talking to Margot and Titian, she should be freaking out about how she was going to get her Transformations homework done, get to Quidditch practice and still have time to flirt shamelessly with Marcus Shale. ETC. ETC. What ever. The fact was she, Caroline Margaret Price age 16, should be there. And she was very much here. In England.
Ugh, it was a good thing her parents hadn't come to the station with her, otherwise she probably would have killed them. Temporary insanity. It would make sense as the situation was totally insane. They brought it on themselves. Two quick flicks of the wand and boom. Dead. Done. Alright she didn't want to kill them but she was still really pissed. Carrie thought bitterly of the look of sheer excitement on her mothers face when she told her that her father had gotten transferred to the London branch of his publishing company.
"And you can go to that school!" Mrs. Price said beaming proudly at Carrie as though she had found out her daughter was going to bare the messiah. It was touching, but sometimes irritating how supportive her parents were of the whole witch thing. From moving photos to quidditch they were absolutely thrilled to death with everything to do with the magic making world… it had taken Carrie a month the convince them not to go with the matching "My Daughter Transfigures Pencils and Rides a Broom and I Couldn't Be Prouder" t-shirts. "It's called uh…Hog… Hogs, oh god what was its name… David!"
"What?" Her father answered angrily from the kitchen. What he was doing in there Carrie had no idea but every few minutes she heard something break, drop, or curse (the cursing was entirely her father, or at least she hoped.)
"Whats the name of the school in England?"
"Its Hogwarts Mom" Carrie answered for her father.
"Yes, Hogwarts! So you've heard of it? Great! Well apparently it's really prestigious amongst you wizarding folk" Carrie scoffed, of course she had heard of it, and prestigious was an understatement. Anyone who had anything to do with magic knew about Hogwarts. It was almost like asking 'have you heard of Jesus? He's very popular amongst the Christians'.
"But I don't want to a famous school in England. I want to stay at Eaglesbane." Mrs. Price looked back at her like she was criminally insane.
"But Carrie sweetheart, you haven't even heard what it has to offer." She didn't need to here them out. She didn't care if Hogwarts was the Oxford of Wizarding Schools, Eaglesbane was already Harvard.
"I mean how do you even know about Hogwarts?" She asked moodily
" Oh, the Lentini's told us all about it, kiddo" Mr. Price said coming through the kitchen door, remarkably unscathed by his culinary adventures. The freakin' Lentini's. They were the only adult wizards her parents knew and served as informants. She made a mental note to destroy them. "It sounded great. It's up in the English country side, next to an entirely wizarding town… Top notch teachers, great facilities… inter house quidditch teams…" He lowered his eyes at her as though expecting this to set her off into a fit of "WAHOOS!", "WOWZERS!" or similar signs of excitement. But unfortunately for him Carrie wasn't so easily impressed.
"Yeah, so what? Minus the wizarding town thing, Eaglesbane has all that stuff. Hogwarts doesn't have anything new to offer so what's the point?" They sat in dumbstruck silence, gapping back at her with slightly slackened mouths, minds searching furiously for a real zinger. Which Carrie was sure didn't exist. Hogwarts couldn't possibly have something to trump Eaglesbane. For a great triumphant moment, she thought she had them… until her mother's eyes lit up in triumph.
"It's a castle! A castle sweetie, wouldn't that be fun?" Carrie rolled her eyes dramatically.
"I don't care if its Buckingham Palace," She said through gritted teeth. Throwing herself back against the down throw pillows she stared scathingly at her parents. Sure she was acting like a two year old but… she really didn't care. It was intolerably unfair. "You can't honestly expect me go… Its just not going to happen."
Sure told them didn't you kid? Six months all too short months later here she was. Halfway around the world, and enrolled as a sixth year student at Hog-fucking-warts. Her transfer really couldn't have come at a worse time. Her daintily freckled skin had more or less cleared up, hair (blonde,curly) was behaving (authorities baffled) and thankfully her painfully angular twig-esque figure was softening into something more 'womanly' as her mother put it. Carrie didn't know about womanly but she was pleased to have produced something like boobs. She was finally growing out of that awkward gangly teenaged thing, at least physically anyway. She was ready to be noticed by boys at school, specifically Marcus Shale (disturbingly attractive crush figure). But it was now painfully clear that those plans were shot to shite now - BANG Suddenly without so much as a 'watch out' or similar, someone slammed into her from behind; knocking her nearly off her feet, and sending her owl, Constable, into a frenzy of desperate hooting.
"Oh, sorry!" the human battering ram (a bespectacled boy) said quickly over his shoulder before rushing to catch up with his friends. Rude.
"S'alright…" Carrie replied pointlessly to his back, feeling stupid even when she was the one who was nearly run over. She spotted him further up in the crowd chatting to a tall red headed boy and a pretty girl with massive amounts of curly brown hair, who was rolling her eyes dramatically, obviously exasperated. Carrie didn't blame her. Oops, she was shouting now.
"OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD RON! Hogwarts. A history, read it!" The two boys, who had edged back a bit, stared back at her with slightly amused surprise (90 surprise, 10 amusement by the looks of it). The girl stood rigidly, taking a moment to regain her composure before launching back into their hushed conversation. Carrie felt a bit like yelling at the moment too. Not for any reason in particular, just for venting purposes. But she couldn't, as that would be social suicide, screaming loudly out of the blue your first day at a new school. The epoch of tactlessness if you would. That girl could yell because they were friends. God they were friends. Close, annoying, finish-each-others-sentences friends. They were all over Platform 9 ¾, these friends; packs of students huddled together, talking excitedly, laughing, mouths curled into broad smiles.
Somehow or another she was going to have to immerse herself in them. Learn their ways and hopefully be accepted within their society… much like Jane Goodall and the chimps, she thought with a nod, though somehow the chimps seemed like less of a challenge. There were other new students too, first years; a whole bunch of them… most of whom were glancing about looking frightened and bewildered as though they had just awoken to find themselves surrounded by a hoard of drunken octopi. But unlike Carrie, they had the luxury of being new students together, not thrust into a group of teenagers who had had the past six years to get to know one another… and form cliques so tight you couldn't break into one with a supped up jackhammer. Not to mention they were all English; at least they had common swear words to bond over.
A unreasonably load whistle issued from the train, and after an acknowledging pause in the cacophony, students collected their things and began making their final goodbyes. Well all-fucking-aboard. Carrie went stiff as pure unadulterated panic settled over her like a fever and she was suddenly over come with the desire to race to the normal platform and start hexing every muggle in the vicinity. At the moment expulsion from the wizarding world and possible time in prison seemed like a reasonable price to pay if it meant she wouldn't have to board the awful train of certain doom. NO! Carrie thought forcefully to herself, Come on now…chill, calm don't panic… breath… you don't want going to attack muggles, thats just… stupid, She drew a deep breath and compulsively smoothed out her jeans. School is going to be fine, you just have to breath…you're a cool enough girl, just don't make a complete jackass out of yourself and everything will be fine… Now get yourself together. Stop acting like a brat. And get – on – the – train. Yes.Her brain was 100 right; this was going to be fine. Of course it would; she made tons of friends at Eaglesbane and she was a million times more awkward then than she was now, how could Hogwarts be different? Pshhh of course she could make friends, no sweat. All she had to do was be herself and things would be square. Carrie slung her burgundy leather tote over her shoulder and with her head buzzing with blind hopeful confidence, strutted off to the train.
Hey thanks for reading… this is a test chapter, to get feed back before I continue on with more chapters, so please please review… do you like/hate the character the style etc? feed back would be great thanks - Lader