Visiting Hogwarts
I was so excited! It was finally the day when we were moving to Britain. To Scotland, more specifically. I thought that would be the best year of my life.
We had lived in a small country: Hungary, which is in the middle of Europe. It has only a tiny magical school in the capital, and every child goes there by floo on schooldays. I knew a lot of children who would have been my classmates, and I was happy to meet them no more. Even the ones whom I called friends were not fantastic. They'd never defended me against bullies. I was smaller than the average and skinny, making me an easy target. I'd never figured out what their problem was with me, but I'd recently realized my out-of-fashion clothes were a factor in it.
So, I came up with the idea to go to a boarding school as far from anyone I knew as possible. There were three of them in Europe: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. The most obvious choice would have been Durmstrang since it was the one which accepted students from the eastern parts of Europe, but I really hadn't liked the atmosphere there when we visited it in the summer. I reserved it only as an emergency choice in case I couldn't make it into the other schools. Unfortunately, Beauxbatons was not a choice for me, because it only accepted students who can speak French or Spanish, and I speak neither of them. So, this left Hogwarts as my most promising future.
We booked a visit for the autumn when I was 10. It was an expensive trip, but my parents decided to combine it with our yearly holidays. We'd never been this far from our country before, so when we landed after the international portkey travel, I felt the worst sickness in my life. It almost dampened my enthusiasm, but after a short break and floo travel to Hogsmeade (the village near Hogwarts), nothing could take away my awe when I beheld the castle, which housed my (hopefully) future school. I immediately felt that this place was built for me.
Unfortunately, our appointment would have to wait until the next day, so I had to be content with exploring the village after our arrival. Thankfully, the settlement was a true sight for tourists. Its many shops and memorials provided plenty of activity for the remainder of the day. (Of course, the memorials were interesting mostly for my mother, while I got lost in the shops nearby with my dad.)
Still, the day soon reached its end, and I found myself longingly looking out our booked room's window towards the many glimmering lights produced by the castle above us. It was beautiful! I couldn't stop wondering about what it would be like to live up there, to look out of those windows admiring the scenery, or to explore the many rooms and halls certainly present inside the castle. It looked much bigger than Durmstrang was. How many magical secrets were stashed away in this school? I couldn't wait to explore them all. If I can attend Hogwarts, of course, I thought.
On the next day, we were headed towards the gates of Hogwarts. I was agog and jumpy all the way and would have run all along if my parents hadn't lagged behind. It needn't say that my nagging to hurry had no effect. When we finally arrived at the double-winged, wrought iron gate I was quite impatient already. Two huge winged boars flanked it on top of the pillars which looked rather flippant for a famous school like Hogwarts. Behind the open gates stood a stern-looking woman in a tartan gown with a leaflet in her hands.
"Mr and Mrs Slowventure, young Mr Slowventure." She nodded to my parents, then towards me. "Welcome to Hogwarts. I am Professor McGonagall, and I will show you the school today." She handed the leaflet to my parents and gestured to follow her on the path towards the castle. "It only contains general information about the school and must-to-know facts, so I would recommend going through it later and listening to me now." Her voice allowed no defiance, so my parents pocketed the piece of paper and followed the teacher into the school grounds.
I was trying to penetrate the thick, ancient-looking forest on the right side of the path while my mother asked about the school's education and the technical details of admittance only they needed to know. After a while, McGonagall turned her head towards me. "I hope you will like what you see. We are always eager to educate young men who're thirsty for knowledge." I looked back at the stark woman, full of curiosity and excitement. "I like it already! When I got a sight of the castle yesterday, I felt like I belong there. I hope I'll be able to attend this school, and that it's even more fantastic in the inside!"
"Oh, you will not be disappointed," she answered with a thin smile. At that moment, we left the forest with a right-turn and were standing on a beautiful meadow. The school was standing majestically and a little to the left, the grassy slope starting at her gates. Our path continued upward towards those gates. A huge lake lay behind the pasture, shimmering in the morning sun and waving slightly in the breeze. Its corner disappeared behind the castle's hill while its other side extended beyond the forest we'd just left. The forest continued to the left, and with the lake they were nearing each other with a slight curve, making the meadow open to only one side between the castle and where we stood.
"As you can see, we have plenty of space outside for the children, even a Quidditch pitch for sport." She gestured to our left-forward. There it was: a real, middle-sized, standard Quidditch pitch with spectacle stands, not far from the closest side of the castle. We only had one arena in Hungary and students weren't allowed to play there apart from special occasions. To have one available for everyone… It spoke volumes about the opportunities this school provided. Of course, Durmstrang had one too, but I still didn't like that place.
"The forest on our right is home for many magical creatures, even dangerous ones, so it's strictly forbidden for students to enter without supervision," McGonagall continued. "Our gamekeeper, who lives near the forest makes sure, that nothing unwanted happens to anyone." Indeed, I could see a large wooden hut at the edge of the forest, halfway to where it met with the lake. A thin line of smoke was coming out of its chimney.
"Let's go inside. The second period will start soon so we'll be able to walk the corridors without interruption. In an hour I need to teach a class for the third years, but one of my colleagues will take you over.
The castle's huge entry-doors loomed over us as we marched up step-by-step towards them. They opened smoothly and noiselessly, probably supported by magic as they were enormous. Immediately the previous scent of the meadow was mixed in with the Entrance Hall's. It was a heavy, but not damp aroma of the stone joined by the smell of the sunlit dust. The shafts came through the windows above and adjacent to the door, lighting the floor along with the left wall in a kaleidoscopic way.
As I turned around in the middle of the hall, I saw four tall windows bordering the door. Each of them depicted a person in them who eyed us curiously. The rightmost one was a kind, rotund woman in yellow robes, holding a cup close to her breasts. The man next to her was clad in a crimson cape with an ornamental sword on his side, his chest bulging with pride.
As I glanced to the other side of the door, the green-robed man immediately drew my attention. A large, olive- and yellow-scaled snake coiled itself around his torso, rapidly shooting out its tongue. The man itself wore an ugly visage, every muscle in his face conveying his high suspicion.
The last woman donned an expensive-looking, sophisticated blue dress. It was adorned by many jewels, each of them blending stylishly into the fabric, highlighting the allurement of her body. She wore a nice, elaborate tiara, which lent wisdom to her visage, making me feel small and ignorant. Nonetheless, she was beautiful.
"I see you discovered the founders of the school," Professor McGonagall said on my right. "They always appraise the new arrivals. From left to right: they're Helga Hufflepuff, Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw. Our school have four houses named after them; each student belongs to one of them while they're here."
I looked back at the professor during her last sentence and had already turned to continue our journey when the projected lights started to swirl on the wall and the floor. I whirled back to catch the ending of the metamorphosis the glasses were undergoing. Each window now framed an animal. Madam Hufflepuff had become a badger in front of a mostly yellow background sniffing around. Sir Gryffindor had transformed into a bold lion roaring silently at us from a red setting. The obnoxious form of Lord Slytherin had reshaped itself into a silver serpent on his former robe's colour, while Lady Ravenclaw had changed into a bronze eagle, spreading its wings to take off before a deep blue sky.
"They're mostly in their animal forms and only show themselves when a new visitor arrives," McGonagall continued her lecture. "Please follow me into the Great Hall."
The next wonder greeted me there. The walls looked like stretching towards the open sky, which currently featured only a few clouds.
"This is where all the dining takes place. We have roughly 280 students each year who usually sit at their house's table during meals. Unfortunately, inter-house friendships are rare at the moment. I hope you'll provide an exception to that." She addressed me again.
"What do you do when it's raining?" I asked looking up while speaking. "It's probably really uncomfortable, not to mention the food becoming sodden."
"Oh, don't worry about it. It's just an enchantment, there's an actual roof above us."
"Cool! Is the rest of the castle as interesting as what I've seen so far?" I asked while still trying to find a little imperfection in the enchantment to get a glimpse at the actual ceiling.
"Well, this is a big castle full of secrets. I'm sure that even I don't know all of them."
My eyes dilated upon hearing the word: 'secrets'. This is my dream! A place full of exploring and adventures!
"I'd love to live here! What do I need to do to get a place?"
"You don't have to do anything. The only requirement for earning an admission is for your parents to have a job in this country before the summer." With that, the professor turned back to my parents. "We haven't talked about this yet. May I ask about your occupations?"
As always, it was my mother who started to talk first. "I used to work at our portkey regulation department before I left to be at home with Willy." She put her hand on my shoulder. I winced, as she still hadn't learned to call me Will, but at least, she left my hair alone. "Charles, in turn," she continued, "works as an enchantment designer at a private building company and responsible for the plumbing systems or anything to do with water."
"Well, I don't think Mr Slowventure will have a problem finding a job here with his experience, even if a slightly different one. On the other hand, our portkey department was full as I heard last time. Are you skilled in any other fields?"
"Not really… "
I wasn't much interested in the boring 'work-discussion', so I wandered around the tables looking for some hidden secrets along the walls. They were made out of stone and were painted with mild colours in a way, which don't draw attention but made the walls less boring. I was looking for any marks which could indicate a hidden trigger. I was scanning the surface with my eyes while dragging my fingers on the sections I'd been leaving behind me. Almost halfway to the other side of the hall, I found some scratchings on one of the flat stone with my fingers. I turned back to inspect it and leaned closer to the wall. I was gazing at a barely visible '9'.
"Nine?" I said aloud, and suddenly, the wall before me sunk into the floor. I jolted back in surprise, barely believing that I had already found something.
"Mister Slowventure, please leave the service tunnel alone. It only leads to the kitchen and nobody has been using it since the house-elves moved into the castle. You'll just make yourself dirty."
I looked back to the professor astonished, barely refraining from running in and continue the exploration. She looked a little resigned, which made me wonder, how many other students had discovered this tunnel so far. My mother smiled leniently and also a little embarrassed, while my father's visage only mirrored my surprise. I threw one last, longing glance inside the tunnel but returned to the adults.
The rest of the tour was proved to be less adventurous. We saw some classrooms which had no lesson held in there at that moment and were refused to visit the dormitories. McGonagall's reason was that only the members of each house are allowed to know their living quarters, and since we didn't know which one I would belong to, it was only prudent to not see any of them. I thought it was a lot of rubbish. I was going to explore all of them, no matter which house I would be in.
We had just stepped outside into a courtyard when McGonagall excused herself and ran off to her lesson with the third years. Before she left, she quickly introduced us to a friendly woman smelling of earth, named Professor Sprout. She was teaching Herbology at Hogwarts and from her gesticulation, it seemed she loved her subject. The greenhouses were interesting, but I doubted there could be any secrets or adventures there.
On the other hand, the big willow halfway towards the gates was interesting enough. When we had approached the school earlier I had been busying myself with the spectacular scenery of the lake and the castle. I had completely missed the tree left from us. That plant was alive! I mean literally alive. It didn't seem like it was just reacting. It turned its core as we passed by, even when we were far from it. It looked like it stretched its branches to reach us when we were closest on our track. Or was it waving? I waved back, just in case, not to be rude. That seemed to confuse it considerably and it made a sequence of intricate branch-gestures I couldn't comprehend. Maybe it has its own sign-language.
Professor Sprout, who saw us off the grounds, seemed intrigued by the movements. "What did you do?" She asked. "I've never seen the Whomping Willow waggle like that."
"I just thought it was waving to us so I waved back."
"Really? You know, so far everybody thought the tree was just rude and threatens everyone close by." She gazed at the willow.
"Maybe it was rude because nobody waved back…?"
"Perhaps …" She answered vacantly before she turned back to me with a pleasant smile. "Have you ever been interested in plants?"
"Not really. But …" I said fondly, "I like climbing our cherry tree in the garden."
We started to walk again and a curious thought occurred to me.
"Can you tame a plant?"
"It's not unheard of. Why do you ask?"
"The trunk of that willow has a lot of knobs. They would make it easy to climb up."
"Climbing the Whomping Willow?! Merlin! That's too dangerous even to think of. Don't you ever try something like that!"
My father chose that moment to get a word in. "I'm starting to fear he would cause too much trouble and danger to himself if he attended Hogwarts."
"Well, there are a lot of children running around here, but we always manage to get by, even if there are some more mischievous children here than Willy. He just seems to be a little too adventurous for his own good. It's nothing unheard of," she waved it off. "Although, if someone …" she gazed at me, "decides to go against the rules or dangers anyone, even themself, they'll find themself in a detention real soon."
Somehow, the professor's warning made me willing to comply. Maybe it had to do with her kindness: it seemed sinful what she disapproved of by contrast. Well, maybe her warning has some claim to it. I thought. That tree could be dangerous. I glanced one last time back to the willow which was standing still now, and I followed the adults off the school-grounds.