Not Potter and the Stupid Stone (Part Two)

Noel

I watched Hermione and Laura's retreating backs for a moment, before glancing around the platform. I could not spot my parents anywhere. Suddenly, I felt a hand fall on my shoulder. I swiftly whipped around, coming face to face with Javier.

"Come on," he said, gruffly, tugging me along towards the back of the platform.

"Do you know where mother and father are?" I questioned, startled by the seeming certainty of his movements.

"Mother and father only come to the platform at the beginning and end of the year," he began explaining, "for Christmas they just send..."

"Kidget and Bayrow." I finished, staring at the two house elves which were waiting at the edge of the crowd of families. They weren't the only elves there, but they were easy to spot because of the staple Avery Mannor uniform they wore. Bayrow was in a midnight purple suit with the Avery crest emblazoned on it and Kidget was in a matching purple dress, cut in the style of a maid's uniform, also with the Avery crest on it. Kidget was the house elf bound to serve me and Bayrow was the one bound to Javier. Our parents still followed the old pureblood tradition of bounding a house elf to each child within their first year of life. The spell connecting the house elf to their bound master could only be broken by death. Even if the elf were freed, they would still have to answer to their bound if called upon.

"Master Javier and Mistress Noel," Bayrow exclaimed, bowing deeply. Kidget bowed along with him.

"I will transport your luggage and Bayrow will escort you." Kidget added, reaching out her hands for our suitcases. Once she had both cases firmly grasped, she disapparated. Seeing her leave, Javier and I each took one of Bayrow's extended hands and allowed him to apparate us away.

We landed in the first-floor library at Avery manor. I carefully straightened out my clothes as Nil, my mother's house elf, clothed in an identical dress to Kidget, entered the room.

She spoke promptly, "I have been told to inform you that your mother is out visiting and won't be home 'till dinner, which is to be served promptly at six-thirty." Nil then bowed to us, before turning around and exiting the room. As she was walking through the archway, another house elf entered the room. This time it was Baloor, my father's elf.

He cleared his throat before speaking, "Lord Avery has sent me to tell you that his is working on important business and will not be home 'till dinner." Then Baloor too exited the room. I went back to fixing my appearance, this time smoothing down the flyways which had emerged from my bun, when yet another elf walked in. However, this time, it was only Kidget.

She came in and smiled before addressing Javier and me.

"Your rooms have been tidied and your luggage delivered." She announced, before beaconing me to follow her. As we reached the main hallway on the first floor, I was confused to find Kidget to be leading me towards the Ball Room and, presumably, the stairs, instead of towards the small, first-floor, west wing towards the opposite side of the hall, which housed only mine, my brother's, and my parents' rooms.

"Kidget," I questioned, "where are we going?"

She spoke to me as we continued walking through the house and up the stairs to the second floor. "Did your parents not write you? They asked us to have your room moved up to the top floor."

I cringed thinking of the particular letter Kidget was referring to. It wasn't hard to imagine why I had forgotten the aspect of them moving my room to the top of the house when you considered some of the other... colorful word choices they had used to admonish me, in said letter.

I sighed a bit, not looking forward to having to speak to my parents in person, before hurrying after Kidget. She led me up two more flights of stairs to the fourth floor of the house. The fourth floor lets out into a library which is slightly smaller, as opposed to the one downstairs, from there, there is a door straight ahead. This door opens to a plain hallway that is only wide enough to allow two people to walk side by side through it. It is not a particularly long hallway, and at the other end is a door which opens to a room. And, that room is only slightly smaller than the one I had downstairs.

For most of my life, this room had been a storage room for old furniture from previous generations of Avery's. Now, most of it was cleared out, except for a bed, two sofas, a coffee table, a round table, eight chairs, a desk, and a couple of bookshelves. I looked at the black-stained wood of the furniture and the greens and purples of various fabrics. I had gotten used to the soft wood tones and roaring reds of Gryffindor tower, that now the emeralds, darkened mauves, grays, and blacks of Avery manor seemed depressing.

Kidget seemed to notice my down-turned expression, for she asked, "is there anything I can get you?"

I paused for a moment, thinking.

"Kidget, all the extra furniture that used to be in here, what happened to it?"

"We moved it down to the dungeons," she replied swiftly.

"Do you think..." I began, "I mean is there any... any furniture that isn't black and green?" I questioned

"Well, I suppose there's Master Lloyd's old things." She said, thoughtfully. "Would you like me to exchange your current furniture for them?"

"Yes," I smiled as Kidget snapped her fingers and, almost instantaneously, the old furniture began to disappear and was replaced by pieces that could have fit in the Gryffindor common room. Warm toned-natural woods, red, orange, and brown patterned fabrics, warm-toned Persian rugs, and soft yellow floor lamps with patterned shades began to populate the room.

"You'll need to reorganize all your things," Kidget informed me, as a rather large pile of dresses, skirts, blouses, and sweaters appeared nearby. "I can do it for you, if you like."

"No, that's fine, Kidget," I replied, waving her away dismissively. "I can get everything sorted from here."

"Goodbye, Noel," Kidget said, warmly, as she exited the room. "I'll come to get you before dinner."

"Thank you, Kidget," I called as she shut the door behind her. Then, as I heard the click of the knob, I turned to face the mountain of clothing that piled behind me.

Laura

I jumped out of the car and ran around to the boot to grab my luggage out; I couldn't wait to relax in my room. Don't get me wrong, Hogwarts is great and all, but constantly sharing a dorm with five other girls? The drama is not exactly my idea of comfort. I pulled my bag out and dashed passed Jeff, who was rolling his eyes at me, and around the back of the house.

"Laura!" My mum called after me in exasperation.

I ran forward to her, embracing her in four months' worth of hugs. I shot a smile and finished some small talk before I sprinted around to the set of stairs that led up to the second floor and floating addition of our house. My dad had attempted renovations a few years ago and had miscalculated the spells a bit, so now we had the stairs on the outside of the house, and a small, tree house-like, game room floating about a story above it. Jeff was constantly complaining about having to go outside to get to the first floor from his bedroom, but I kind of loved the outdoor stairs; plus, they're spiral.

I ran up the stairs and pushed open the door to the second-floor hallway. The second floor consists solely of bedrooms. Mine to the far left, Jeff's in the middle, and a guestroom at the other end; my parents' room happens to reside on the first floor. I pushed open the door to my room, dropped my suitcase, and flopped onto the small, twin bed. I relaxed for a minute, letting the soft pinks and white of the room surround me. After staring at the ceiling, a bit, letting my thoughts wander, I picked up my bag and began to unpack, first placing all the foldable items into my dressed before handing the few skirts and dresses I had brought on the metal clothing rack in my room. Then, I removed the large number of books I had stuffed in the bottom of suitcase and placed them on my bookshelf. To finish things off, I removed my favorite quill and the lavender scented paper I had nicked off Noel, for writing letters, and placed them in my desk. I looked up, as, from the side of my vision, I saw my door nudge open and a small whit, orange, and black blur streak into the room.

"Maisey!" I exclaimed, picking up the struggling ball of fluffy cat. She was significantly bigger than I remembered her being. When I had first gotten her for my birthday this year, she was so small you only needed one hand to hold her with. It was because of how tiny she was that I wasn't allowed to take her to school, at the time. She now most certainly needed two hands to be held, however, she was still only about seven months old. I thoroughly doubted that my parents would allow me to take her back to Hogwarts with me after break.

Teasing her with a loose string, one that had made its way to the edge of my blanket, I watched as Maisey happily clawed at the new toy. I laughed as she finally reached it, snatching it within her paws. A happy kitten, I cuddled her with congratulations of her small victory. Yet, cutting the victory short, I heard a knock on my door.

"Who is it?" I called out.

"Me," I heard Jeff's voice reply.

"Come in," I sighed, setting Maisey down.

"Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to come downstairs and watch TV with mum and dad," he said. "That game show you like is on, you know the one where the people win, like, TVs even if they lose."

"Fast Friends?" I questioned. He nodded in response. "Yeah, I'll be down in a minute."

"Okay," and with that, he was gone, bounding back down the stairs towards the TV. Part of me wondered if he had even gone to his room yet to get unpacked.

I opened a small tin in my room, reaching in to grab one small treat out of it. I tossed the treat to Maisey, who still happily sat on my bed, her victory blanket string in clutch. Closing the tin up, I began my journey towards the Christmas festivities of the year.

Throughout the night, after my family's intent on laughing at the nearly regular prizes on Fast Friends, my mum brought out some cookies for decorating. A holiday tradition we had kept true for many generations, and one that I had no plan on letting grow old. Containers of sprinkles flew from cabinet to table, icing following shortly after. Decorative edibles surrounded the air for less than a minute, before, all in a line, they sat themselves on the table.

As the chaos of cookie decorating, by many whom were very much not artists, and Christmas music finished, I ran upstairs to get changed. The new environment, well, old yet new environment, was extremely hard to adapt to. For the first time in months, my nighttime routine had changed to what it once was. That first night, I had even tried to rest scripture on a nonexistent bedside table, to which it fell on the floor, a heavy thump making my room shake in the dark. I gasped, then began to laugh. My forgetfulness was bound to last for the majority of the break, and would surely stick with me even once a new routine was in place. I bent over, picked the book up, and placed it on my desk along with my glasses. Laying back in bed, I stared at the ceiling before falling into a light sleep. A great day was bound to lead to a great break, were the thoughts I last remember thinking, as the darkness of my eyelids became a dream.