A/N: In later chapters I will be using some content from The Perilous Journey, The Prisoner's Dilemma, and maybe even The Riddle of Ages or The Extraordinary Education. The books are kind of mixed up in my head, so I might forget to put a warning in case I use something from them. Just letting you all know, I'd hate to spoil books as great as those. Also I know Hogwarts is in Scotland and Stonetown is somewhere in the US (right?), but we can ignore that for now. Floo-powder anyone? OK- here's chapter 2
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing; I am a mere dabbler. Trenton Lee Stewart is the mysterious master of the Society, and J. K. Rowling is the supreme creator of Hogwarts.
CHAPTER 2: Wizarding Research and Inner Thoughts
Reynie, although exhausted from the previous day, woke before the sun. He felt like someone had played some giant trick on him, but that he wasn't sure who had done so. He looked across the room to where Sticky was still sleeping. He had a stack of eight books regarding magical history next to his bed, and Reynie got the sense he had read them all. Getting out of bed quietly, so as not to wake his new prodigious reader of a friend, Reynie dressed himself and was walking towards the stairs when he heard a shout of alarm. Reynie jumped, and poked his head around the corner to look down the stairs. It appeared that Kate had slid down the banister and startled a stargazing wizard within a picture frame.
"Good morning," Reynie said to Kate and the startled wizard, marvelling at his movements.
"Oops," said Kate to the wizard, running back up the stairs to meet Reynie, "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." She turned to Reynie and continued, "Isn't this whole magic affair fantastic? We get to have fun learning witchcraft off at Hogwarts. Soon my friends will be calling me The Great Kate Weather Witch Machine."
Reynie affirmed Kate's statement noncommittally, for he was still uneasy about the magic and the wizarding world. Although he definitely wanted to attend Hogwarts, could he really trust Professor Dumbledore, a man he had just met? He was excited to learn that he was a wizard, and could explain all the peculiar things that had happened to him growing up. When he was eight, Vic Morgeroff decided he should overturn Reynie's oatmeal bowl every morning. One specific day, the oatmeal flew right out of the bowl, splattering everyone around Reynie but not touching him at all. Another time, he was on a step ladder stretching up to the top shelf in the Orphanage library. As he selected his book of choice, he accidentally caused the book next to it to fall. But somehow, rather than crashing to the floor, it seemed to slow, and drop onto the old, crooked floorboards like a feather. These incidents and more Reynie had pushed out of his mind, insisting they were explainable in some way. Most of all, Reynie was desperate not to feel so friendless and alone, but he wasn't sure if his trust towards Professor Dumbledore was coming from intuition or this desire to belong somewhere.
Kate, for her part, was in fact slightly uneasy about the 'whole magic affair' herself. She displayed bravado toward Dumbledore and Reynie, but she wasn't so sure about meeting her father. Ever since she was two, she'd been forging her path on her own. Would her father, a man who could not protect himself from losing his memory, be able to care for her? As much as Kate was loathe to admit it, she was still a child and did not truly want to be completely independent. Regarding magic itself, however, Kate was ready to jump all in. She clearly remembered with a satisfied smile flying through the air longer than any of the other trapezists in the circus, and landing lighter as well. She reorganized her bucket, trying to clear her head of any apprehension, and slid down the banister again.
Kate and Reynie went to the kitchen, where they met Number Two and Rhonda, this time with hair of a deep red hue. Number Two was still wearing her signature pencil robe. While breakfasting, the inquisitive pair peppered their eggs and peppered the two witches with some of their seemingly endless questions. After cleaning up, they each chose one of the thousands of books about magic in the old house and got to reading. Soon they were joined by Sticky, who summarized the eight books he'd read the night before. He asked Reynie and Kate what they thought about being wizards. To his dismay, both of them had accepted that they were magic without much doubt. Sticky couldn't believe that he, of all people, was a wizard. He felt as if he messed everything up when it mattered, and that he would only disappoint his new friends and Dumbledore. If he did go, could he get kicked out for not being magical enough? Shaking him out of his deprecatory spiral, Kate gave Sticky a wink and insisted that his incredible memory was nothing if not magical; it was something she could never even hope to have. But what really comforted and cheered up Sticky was what Reynie said: "I don't blame you if you don't want to join us. But I'd feel a whole lot better going to Hogwarts with you than without." Sticky, after a long period of silence, took a deep breath and said "I'll go. Thank you both."
A couple hours later, Constance Contraire finally woke up. She composed a poem about three bossy gargoyles, Kateena, Reynardo, and Georgette, who picked their ears, chewed their wands, and ate cat food. She recited it to everyone else in the house. This was her way of agreeing to attend Hogwarts with the other three, even at her young age. While Sticky and Kate were irritated by Constance's inflammatory poem, Reynie tried to be understanding. Constance was somehow barely three years old, and crabby, sleepy, stubbornness was to be expected. He was in awe of her, but also felt protective towards his little, contrary new friend. Professor Dumbledore found Constance's poem to be delightful, and gave a hearty laugh sounding like dolphin chitter.
Once Reynie, Kate, Sticky, and Constance had all agreed to attend Hogwarts for the coming school year, they decided they wanted to see what magic was all about. Sticky, who had already learned a great deal about magic from his rapid reading, questioned Rhonda at great length about her life as a Metamorphmagus. Reynie and Sticky politely asked her what that meant, while Constance screwed her face up in a cross expression while trying to pronounce the complicated term. Rhonda demonstrated changing her face to her favorite style, long dark brown braids, and then made them laugh by switching to the infamous Benedict Dumbledore nose. Number Two, they learned, was an expert on Transfiguration, as well as an advanced potioneer. She slept very rarely, and consequently required a great amount of food to sustain herself. Professor Dumbledore, as they could tell from their first conversation, was an honest-to-goodness genius. He was very conscious of muggle society etiquette, and was famous in the wizarding world. Besides being headmaster to Hogwarts, he was Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and worked with renowned alchemist Nicholas Flamel. He defeated dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, and also discovered the twelve uses of dragon blood (one of which was a cure for narcolepsy, a condition inducing involuntary bouts of sleep and sometimes nightmare paralysis. It had impacted both magical and non-magical people including Dumbledore himself. He developed the cure through a combination of dragon blood, the rare fungus known as duskwort, and Legilimency training therapy). He was even on a chocolate frog, but much to Constance's chagrin, he did not have any candy in the house. The children, anticipating going to Hogwarts more than ever, grew closer to Professor Dumbledore, Rhonda, and Number Two on their quest for knowledge.
The four future Hogwarts students had just under two months before boarding the Hogwarts Express on September 1st. While Reynie would head back to Stonetown Orphanage, Constance and Kate would stay with Number Two and Rhonda until the school year's beginning. Sticky would also stay with them under the condition that he reconnect with his family at least in writing. They planned to reconvene in the last week of August so they could travel to Wizarding London together and purchase their school necessities. As Miss Perumal collected Reynie from the old, gray-stoned house, he waved goodbye to Sticky, Kate, Constance, Rhonda, Number Two, and Professor Benedict Dumbledore, and felt a pang of melancholy to leave his new friends, as well as a burst of excitement for their soon-to-come magical adventure.
A/N: Sorry for the shortness of this chapter- I just wanted some space between the Society finding out about the wizarding world and them jumping right into it. If anyone has a better idea for this chapter title, let me know, since I don't like it too much (I try to make them felicitous like TL Stewart's). My plan is to post a new chapter every Sunday afternoon-evening Pacific time, but it depends on chapter length. This one is early since it's short, but the next chapter is longer and already in the works. OK, WordWizard20260 over and out.