Chapter Four: Classes
My music training years at Songsmith passed without incident, except for the usual pranks we Musketeers pulled. I remember the time Cat and I stood watch while Try tripped the water main, turning on the sprinklers and watering the lawns orange. Then there was the time Try and I ran Megan Rundleson's nylons up the flagpole during the yearly College Bowl, when Radcliffe was playing Fordham. Or even the time the twins built a giant penguin out of sugar cubes, royal icing, and Park Pingui's Quidditch robes, though I was the one blamed for that. Those were fun times, with Jakkin draped on my shoulders and the Barns twins at my side. As the years progressed, I kept asking Magistra Archon about the pigeon she had sent to that Professor Dumbledore, but she always told me there was still no reply.
When I entered my first year of magic schooling, she told me that Professor Dumbledore had finally deigned to respond, but it was not the missive she had been hoping for. Instead of explaining everything to her satisfaction, he simply said that the two schools would conduct as student exchange when the time was right for me to enter Hogwarts. He would choose one student he thought would best benefit from the musical training of Songsmith, and that student would be exchanged for me at the appropriate opportunity.
I could tell Magistra Archon was less than pleased and quite upset, but I smiled at her and said that Professor Dumbledore would not send an unworthy student to replace me. She told me that I could never be replaced; only marginally succeeded. I left her office only slightly less confused than when I had entered.
The week before my fifteenth birthday, we had our first flying lessons, where Radcliffe and Davis were to learn together on the school brooms. Unfortunately, Angela Nickleby of Davis commanded her broom so forcefully that it flew off the ground and smashed into the wall of the school, shattering into tiny splinters. Magistra Whitehawk was a little surprised by the reaction of Angela's broom, and was just about to send to the broomshed for another, when I remembered the broom the lady in green and black robes had shown me.
Since we all had our schoolbags with us, I asked the Magistra to wait a moment while I ran to mine. I put my hand in and pulled out the broom, giving Angela the school broom I had been about to command. Magistra Whitehawk blinked at me, but must have been given instructions by Magistra Archon, for she only asked to examine the broom to see if it was still flightworthy. She passed it, and we continued with the flying lesson. Not until I arrived at Hogwarts would I discover that my broom was anything but ordinary.
