"Across the Pond"
Chapter Six
Enter Padma Patil
Padma, however, was not having such an easy time of it. Just when she thought she understood American customs, she would meet a student from an entirely different region of the United States, and would have to start all over again. Plus, that Ptolemy Anderson fellow was always hitting on her. But she was making some progress: customs and accents were not that difficult to learn, and she was really well liked at St. Malefecent's.
She was required to write a report every other week, and send it back to Hogwarts, which is what she was doing now. It was written in Padma's rather simple vocabulary, but was informative anyway:
Dear Students and Staff of Hogwarts,
Everything is as it should be; the teachers here at St. Malefecent's really know what they're talking about and I am doing well in my classes.
Sincerely,
Padma Patil
Alright, so maybe it wasn't as informative as I said it would be. However, Padma's ambiguity was well-founded: the truth was that she was really rather mediocre in most of her classes, and that everything was not as it should be: there was a constant feeling of fear in the school, nowadays, and there whispers of "the Dark Lord's presence…" "his aura pulsing in the school…" and other frightening things. Of course, Padma daren't ask Professor Mercury about these feelings. She tried (mostly successfully) to put these thoughts out of her mind, but as the weeks went by, this became more and more difficult.
Occasionally, odd, disquieting things would happen: once, a wall in Padma's common room was found, covered in red handprints (upon closer inspection, it was revealed that they had been made with blood); another time, the words "The righteous fools shall perish when the Dawn of Evil is at hand" were gouged in the tables of the great hall; also, the library was ransacked one night, yet all the books were accounted for, save one: The Most Useful and Potent Magic-Strengthening Charms and Devices. In the wake of these occurrences, it was hard to explain away the feeling that Padma had in the pit of her stomach…the feeling that the Dark Lord's power was beginning to infest St. Malefecent's Academy. And, though Professor Mercury seemed to know something that no one else in the school knew, no action was taken on the issue of what were now simply being deemed "the Incidents" until some months after they began to happen; Professor Mercury did not send his Letter until late April, and it didn't arrive until early May.
Enter Uriel Inkwell
Suddenly, as the four friends were sitting around the fire, an owl swooped into the dormitory and dropped a letter in to Uriel's lap. He read it quickly, and faced them, quite shocked.
"They're sending me home," he said, trembling, "nearly a month early."