Wearying Work

A bleary-eyed Frodo awoke to a whitewashed room; white sheets, white pillows, white blankets, white walls. He started ... the hospital wing! Struggling to remember why he was here, Frodo attempted to press a hand against his pulsing skull.

"What the ..."

His arm wasn't responding. He was searching for a nurse or doctor when he caught sight of a familiar blonde boy in the bed beside him.

"Sam! Thank God you're here; how did I ..."

A badly broken Sam turned to face Frodo just as it all clicked into place.

"I can't believe you dropped me."

"Hey, I said I was sorry. You should know, I held on to you for a long time!"

"Still. You dropped me!"

"Please let it go? I've been in agony for hours."

"What? How long have I been asleep?"

"Okay ... maybe not hours."

Frodo grimaced. "Sam, I can't believe you! Say ... okay, take for example, what if - okay - what if we had to go on a quest one day? I don't know, sometime far in the future, if we were protecting a ..."

"A magical ring, maybe? Now you're being delusional. I'm tired, Frodo. Please go to sleep."

Frodo narrowed his eyes. "You know what? Yes. A magical ring. What if sometime far in the future, we were guarding a magical ring and in order to protect this ring, we had to have complete trust and faith in each other. Well, I wouldn't trust you because you've dropped me! I'd send you away."

"What a load of rubbish, like that'll ever happen." Merry retorted from across the room.

Both Sam and Frodo clenched their jaws. "STAY OUT OF THIS, FAINTER!"

Gandalf had awoken a little differently than normal. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he seemed whiter than usual. His robe, which had not been changed for over a hundred years, was bright white; his hat, which once had a musty grey look had become crisp white, and his hair had gone completely white! White, white, white, white, WHITE.

"Excuse me, sir?"

A short, brunette girl was staring intently at Gandalf behind thick glasses.

"What is it?" he grumbled.

"Well, it appears that we have gone about fifteen minutes overtime for breakfast and, really, I'm quite sure everyone has found their correct dorms. So, I believe it is high time classes began."

Gandalf grumbled his response. "Alright, alright! You're lucky you're not all white and ..."

"What?"

Ignoring the girl and standing grandly to his full height, Gandalf began, "Students, classes have begun. And, according to this young lady, you're all fifteen minutes late. If any of you reach sixteen minutes, it's detention!"

The death stares the little girl received after that brought a small smirk to Gandalf's face.

"Mathematics."

Eowyn began scribbling in her journal: So the Maths teacher is a geek. What a surprise.

She passed the note to Faramir who shyly took it from her hand. He still couldn't believe he was in all of her classes.

Yeah, what a dork. He quickly wrote back.

Eowyn shot a smile at him, Hey, are you -

She stopped writing and looked up when a shadow appeared across her page.

"Oh my God."

"Sorry, you dropped your rubber earlier."

Eowyn's jaw was ajar. Faramir looked up at the stranger.

"Oh, thanks. I'm Eowyn by the way."

"Aragorn."

Who did this Aragorn guy think he was? Faramir had never seen Eowyn so flushed. It was irritatingly attractive. Once Aragorn had left, Faramir noticed Eowyn stroking the rubber.

Aragorn? What a jerk.

"It's a known fact that not everybody has magic; don't believe everything you see in those phony movies about try-hard wizards! Even though you go to a magic school, even though you have magic blood, you can't necessarily do magic."

"So, Professor Gandalf, is there a means of detecting whether or not a person has magic?"

Gandalf nearly wept when he saw who had asked the question. It was the brunette girl. The irritating, know-it-all brunette girl.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch your name."

"Hermione Granger."

"Ah. Well, we have a crystal ball. If colours appear when you touch the ball, then you have magic. These colours also indicate what sort of magic you have."

His eyes scanned the room before falling on his victim.

"Weasley. Ron Weasley."

Hermione observed a lanky orange-haired boy walk towards the front. But more importantly, she noted his dark-haired friend. He wasn't someone she could figure out.

Ron walked slowly. Gandalf couldn't decide whether it was due to mental defect, physical disability or tardiness. For this reason, and this reason alone, he endured Ron's painfully slow decent.

"Just place your hands on the ball."

Ron stretched his fingers across the cool surface.

There was a long pause.

"I guess there's no magic," Ron said dejectedly.

"Ahhhh!" At the back of the room, a fair-haired girl wearing a makeshift tiara jumped from her seat. She pointed accusingly at a small brown animal crawling through her pencil-case. "It's a rat!"

"Hey!" Ron screwed up his face at her tone. "He's just a little guy trying to get around."

And then they were all doing it. Across the room, brown rats appeared in the strangest places; in shoes, behind drink bottles, even in hats - in Gandalf's case.

Ron looked back at the crystal ball where a small spark of red had appeared.

"Well Mr. Weasley, it appears you have an incredible ability to increase the breeding rate of rats. Tomorrow we test the rest of you and, for those of you who are magical, we'll get some wands!"

END OF CHAPTER

Coming Up Soon … Lots of Love