Note: Once this story is finished I am considering writing a new version of it, but from Teddy's point of view! So, what do you say? Yay or Nay?
Thank you to everybody who reviewed! It's nice to know that people are still reading and enjoying this fic!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I making any profit form this piece of writing.
9: Oakhurst Manor
Carrie Winters hated Oakhurst Manor School.
She disliked it before she even set eyes upon it, and when she climbed out of the car along with her brothers on her first day in Year Seven, she disliked it even more.
As muggle secondary schools went, Carrie mused dully as she made her way through the big, shiny black gates, dragging her feet as she walked, Oakhurst looked like a rather pleasant place. It certainly looked a whole lot posher than the dull, flat roofed concrete buildings that had made up the high school back in Tillbury. Oakhurst consisted of only two buildings: a huge red bricked, rather grand old building and a small, far more modern looking building set off to one side that from what Carrie could recall her mother telling her was the sports hall. Sandwiched between the two buildings was a concrete playground, much like the one that had been at her primary school, except it seemed to be almost half the size. A lawn fronted the main building, broken up by the long driveway that lead from the gates up to the main entrance.
Carrie shuffled her way up the driveway, flinching as a football suddenly flew across her path, narrowly avoiding hitting the girl in the side of the head. Immediately she found herself surrounded as a crowd of boys thundered past her in hot pursuit of the ball, shouting and shoving in their attempts to get ahead of one another. Carrie froze, eyes screwed shut in alarm and waited for them to pass. So consumed by her glum thoughts, she had found herself quite unaware of the crowds of children that were dotted around the lawn. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her blazer and set off again towards the stone steps that lead to the main doors, quickening her pace as she went.
At the bottom of the steps, Carrie paused and looked up at the main school building. The large double doors at the entrance were framed by a couple of vast, pearly white Georgian pillars, the school's crest displayed proudly above. Carrie supposed that if she had had Teddy stood beside her, ready for his first day at Oakhurst too, she would have commented that it looked like a very grand sort of place, and wasn't it exciting to be starting a new school; but as she was, standing all on her own staring up at the building, Carrie thought it all looked a little intimidating.
From somewhere inside, a bell began to ring, and at once streams of children came hurrying past her and up the steps. Carrie shuffled sideways until she was out of their way, looking back out over the lawn in search of any newcomers who were looking as lost as she was. She spotted a number of children she would guess to be her age...they already seemed to be pairing themselves off or forming groups of friends. Carrie wondered if she ought march over to the nearest trio of girls and introduce herself, since that seemed to be the done thing, but she felt a little too shy.
"Year Seven!" a man's voice bellowed from behind her, and Carrie turned to see a teacher stood at the top of the steps, she was surprised that he managed to stand still and not get swept away by the tide of children rushing past him. "Over to the playground, all of you please!"
Carrie adjusted the bag upon her shoulder and, drawing in a deep and determined breath, began to stride over towards the playground, eying the other students as they too gravitated towards the concrete. She was just beginning to think that everybody had already made at least one friend when she spotted a girl who, like Carrie, was on her own. She looked, Carrie thought as she quickened her pace in order to catch up with her target, somewhat different from most of the other girls that Carrie had seen since she had stepped through the school gates that morning. She had black, messy cropped hair that fell into her eyes in a such a haphazard way that Carrie wondered how she could see where she was going, and as Carrie drew closer she could hear a soft jingling noise from the clinking of numerous bracelets crammed onto the girl's skinny wrists. Carrie was just wondering what the teachers were going to say, for the school's dress code specifically forbid the wearing of jewelery, when she noticed that there were already three holes in the girl's tights and there appeared to be some sort of foliage stuffed into one pocket of her blazer...
SMACK!
Carrie felt something collide with her shoulder and before she could react, she found herself sprawled upon the ground, staring bewildered up at the sky, a dull throb aching down one side as her head began to spin. Heart racing, she made to scramble back to her feet, only for a furious face to invade her vision, causing her to freeze.
"Why don't you watch where you're going?" A tall, towering girl with bushy brown hair and what seemed to Carrie to be unnaturally thick, fish-like lips demanded, and Carrie mumbled an apology as she hurriedly got to her feet...
Something caught her by the ankle and with a gasp, Carrie found herself falling yet again, this time flat on her face. Laughter ringing in her ears and face hot and stinging from the impact, Carrie screwed her eyes shut and kept very still, salty tears seeping through her eyelids and streaming in prickling trails down her face. She wished that her big brothers had not been whisked away by their Head of Year upon their arrival to be shown to their form rooms. They'd sort bullies out, she thought miserably...
The laughter was fading. Cautiously, Carrie lifted her head up a fraction of an inch, and she could just make out a group of girls walking off towards the main entrance of the school.
"I could put a curse on them, if you like." a voice from behind her offered, and Carrie slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position and turned to look at the speaker.
It was the scruffy girl with the twigs in her pockets.
"What?" Carrie mumbled a little thickly, glancing back at the bullies retreating backs.
"I said I could put a curse on those bullies, if you like." the scruffy girl repeated, seemingly unfazed by Carrie's bemusement. "I'm really good at that kind of thing, you know. Once I put one on my little cousin because he ate all of my Easter eggs, and the next day his goldfish died."
When Carrie simply stared at her, the girl leaned forward a little, squinting down at Carrie, nose wrinkling.
"You're bleeding, you know." she pointed out conversationally. "And you look a bit silly, sitting on the ground like that. You should get up before everybody sees you."
Carrie was about to point out that, since she had just been tripped up and had near on knocked herself out cold on the grass, it was really rather mean to say that she looked silly, when the girl offered her a hand and asked:
"What's your name?"
"Carrie...Caroline Winters."
"Cleopatra Clancy. You can call me Cleo. Come on, Carrie, get up! Everybody's waiting for us!"
Carrie allowed Cleopatra Clancy to help her back onto her feet.
"I bet you think my name's weird." Cleo guessed as they began to make their way over to the playground, Carrie's head throbbing as she pulled a tissue from her pocket and set about dabbing at the graze upon her forehead.
"I don't think it's weird." she told the other girl, and she wasn't lying. After all, Teddy's family and friends seemed to play host to a whole range of weird and wonderful names. Cleopatra seemed perfectly reasonable in Carrie's book.
"Of course you do, and you're right. But I like having a weird name. I think it sounds sort of...magical and mystical, don't you?"
"I guess..." Carrie mumbled as they came to a halt, having reached the outskirts of the crowd of new students. Cleo immediately rounded on her and, dark eyes somewhat piercing, asked:
"Do you believe in magic, Carrie?"
Despite her throbbing headache and her misery at how her first day at Oakhurst had started off, Carrie found herself with a sudden urge to laugh.
"Yes," she told Cleo with a note of absolute certainty. "Yes, I do."
Carrie was a little disappointed to find that she was not in the same form class as Cleo, but her form tutor, a history teacher named Mr. Clifton-Meyers, seemed to be friendly enough, and as he took their register, reading out the name of each member of 7CM, Carrie took a look at each of her peers and decided that they looked like an amiable bunch. They spent five minutes copying out their timetables into the back of their homework planners and Carrie had barely finished recording Fridays lessons before the bell rang and she found herself following the rest of her form out into the corridor, squinting down at her timetable searchingly, as Mr. Clifton-Meyers called after them with a reminder that the Year Eleven prefects would be on hand to help them find their classrooms.
First lesson on a Monday morning, Carrie discovered, was Geography with Mr. Holmes in classroom number 23. Glancing back at her form room and noting the sign above the door identifying it as classroom number 4, Carrie set off up the corridor, homework planner clutched firmly in both hands, counting off classrooms as she passed.
5...6...caretakers' cupboard...7...
Carrie's shoulder collided yet again with somebody and she winced, spinning around to mumble another apology.
"Sorry!" the other person beat her to it. "Wasn't looking where I was...oh Carrie, it's you! Gosh, you're making a bit of a habit of this, aren't you? What room are you looking for? We might be in the same class."
Reaching to give her sore shoulder a rub, Carrie offered Cleo Clancy an apologetic smile.
"I've got Geography in room 23." she told the other girl, and suppressed a gasp of surprise when her scruffy acquaintance reached to grab hold of her by the arm and drag her back up the corridor towards 7CM's form room.
"Me too!" Cleo enthused as she pushed her way past a group of girls who were clustered together outside of one of the classrooms, giggling at something on one of their mobile phones.
"Aren't we supposed to be going the other way?" Carrie asked as they rounded a corner and began to make their way up a flight of stairs.
"Nah, I asked a teacher, she said to go up here. You're gonna like Mr. Holmes, Carrie, my sister told me about him, he's really funny!"
"You have a sister?" Carrie asked, attempting to be discreet as she pulled her arm out of Cleo's iron-like grasp.
"Yeah, Bowie. She's in Year 10. And yes, that is short for Boudicca...not that it suits her. Dad says I'm the wild child and she's the princess. Our parents are history nuts, in case you couldn't tell...here we are!"
Carrie, who had been busy staring at Cleo's pockets and wondering what exactly she kept in them, came to an abrupt halt and looked up, only to find that they were not outside of the Geography classroom at all.
"That's the girls' bathroom." she pointed out, only for Cleo to reach to push the door open.
"Yeah, I know. Come on, get in here, I want to show you something!"
Carrie glanced worriedly up the corridor.
"We'll be late for class if we're not careful..."
"So? It's our first lesson, Carrie, we can just say we got lost! Besides, we need to sort your hair out!"
Carrie frowned deeply.
"What's wrong with my hair?" she asked, reaching to finger the ends of her two plaits, as if to check that they were still there. But Cleo had already disappeared into the bathroom, and so, with a sigh, Carrie hurried in after her.
Once inside, she discovered Cleo stood over by the sinks, brandishing a comb in a somewhat triumphant manner. It was strange, Carrie mused, because Cleo did not seem to be the sort of girl who would bother carrying a comb around in order to keep her hair neat and tidy – indeed Carrie was not even sure that Cleo had so much as glanced in the mirror since getting out of bed that morning.
"Come here, then!" Cleo said impatiently, and Carrie reluctantly shuffled forwards and at last took a look at her reflection in the mirror.
"Oh!" she moaned, squinting miserably at the large, ugly graze upon her forehead. "I look ridiculous!"
"We can fix that!" Cleo assured her cheerfully, offering her the comb. "You just need to comb your hair across to hide it!"
As Carrie set about undoing her plaits and altering her hair, Cleo set about rummaging through her school bag and after a few minutes of searching she produced a small plastic tub, reaching to thrust it under Carrie's nose.
"You need some of this!" she announced, as Carrie finished arranging her hair and turned to look down to see what she was talking about. Carrie recognized the container as an old Vaseline tub, but the label had been torn off.
"What is it?"
"This," Cleo informed her rather proudly, "is my secret concoction!" she leaned forwards, lowering her voice conspiratorially as she told Carrie: "I made it myself, the ingredients have magical properties, I read about them on the Internet. Here! Try putting some on!"
Carrie looked down at the tub and when Cleo pulled off the lid to reveal what Carrie thought looked rather like a mixture of mouldy mushy peas and mud she struggled to keep a straight face.
"I think I'll pass, thanks..."
"No, seriously! It works! Just try a tiny bit, nobody will notice now you've changed your hair..." Cleo dipped her finger into the grotesque mixture and, before Carrie could duck out of the way, reached to push aside Carrie's hair and smeared it all over her forehead.
"That'll do it!" she announced confidently, wiping her finger clean upon her skirt before replacing the lid and shoving the container back into her bag. "Come on, then, let's go before we're late!"
"I'll be right there." Carrie told her, hurrying towards the nearest cubicle. "I just need the toilet."
Or, more specifically, Carrie told herself silently as she locked the door behind her. The tissue paper so I can wipe that disgusting stuff off of my face...
By the time the bell rang at the end of the day, Carrie had begun to think that maybe school without her best friend wasn't going to be so bad after all. Lessons with Cleo promised to always be amusing, for it soon became apparent that she was absolutely obsessed with magic and witchcraft. It seemed unlikely that she could go more than one lesson without mentioning it in one form or another, be it some act of "magic" that she herself had performed, or descriptions of supposed potions that could turn people into different animals. Each time Carrie would struggle not to laugh, and was often tempted to admit to Cleo just how far she was barking up the wrong tree.
Carrie was looking forward to passing on these silly stories to Teddy, she could just imagine how utterly hilarious he would find them all.
Indeed, as she walked across the grass towards the school's gates, Carrie was feeling far more cheerful than she had done when she had arrived first thing that morning.
That was until she spotted a group of familiar looking girls stood clustered by the gates.
Carrie froze.
They haven't seen me, she assured herself as she stood, staring at the bullies who were blocking her path, they definitely haven't seen me...
Where were the twins? Surely they planned to walk their little sister home on her first day at school...
Carrie turned to scan the school grounds in search of her brothers, but Thomas and Timothy were nowhere to be seen.
Perhaps I should wait for them, surely they'll be here soon, or the bullies will go away...
Carrie waited.
And waited.
And waited...
Come on, she thought miserably as the stream of children heading out of the school began to diminish, but there was still no sign of her brothers.
They must have gone without me, she thought, stomach twisting into panicked knots. Well, there's only one thing for it, then...
Carrie drew in a deep breath, fixed her sights upon the pavement across the road from the school entrance, and began to walk.
Keep walking, don't look at them, keep walking don't look at them, keep walking don't look at them...
She had reached the gates...they would be right beside her at any moment...
Keep walking, don't look at them...
They seemed to be talking amongst themselves, she was going to make it, she'd been silly, they probably didn't even remember her...
Keep walking, don't look at them, keep walking, don't look at...
CRACK!
Carrie barely had time to let out a frightened shout as she felt a familiar weight lock against her ankle and she fell flat on her face yet again...
This time she hit the cold concrete pavement. Pain erupted through her nose as, like before, the bullies immediately broke out into hysterical, mocking laughter.
Idiot! Carrie thought despairingly as she tasted something sickeningly like blood upon her lips. You should have kept an eye on your feet...
Get up, get up, get up!
Carrie scrambled back onto her feet and, ignoring her spinning head and throbbing nose, made a run for the far side of the street, not daring to look back at the group of laughing girls. She was vaguely aware of the sound of screeching brakes followed by a thunderous car horn and angry shout, before she reached the safety of the pavement. She turned and fled down the street as fast as she could manage, desperate to get back to the safety of her home.