The Rime of Chime

Chapter Two

Anna woke up feeling cold and abandoned. Which was silly because she was in her parents' manor, her spellbooks were packed up and ready to go. Today she would board the Hogwarts Express and attend that famous school of witchcraft and wizardry…

She had the funniest dream that she never was a witch to begin with, didn't even know that witches exist, and that she was older. Like college age older. As if she were a Muggle. It was kinda silly because she didn't know too many Muggles. Other than her cousin Emily but that was another story.

"There was this weird boy who said he's going to Durmstrang in Diagon Alley today," her older sister Elsa was saying to her mother. "He said the weirdest thing, that he'll marry me someday. Like, I'm fourteen years old. I'm not interested in eleven-year-old boys."

"Well, you won't be seeing him much if he's going to Durmstrang," her mother said. "Funny, you and Anna might've gone there had we remained in Norway. But I didn't like that school when I was there, and your father still has a scar that a bully set upon him with his wand."

Anna looked at her father, who had a red area on his neck. It didn't resemble a scar much, and she wondered why her mother called it that. But so it went.

"You'd better be in Ravenclaw," Elsa said, nudging shoulders with Anna.

"IYou still haven't told me how they sort people at Hogwarts," Anna said.

"Oh, they stick you in a bucket of eels' eyes while you're wearing a blindfold and spin you around. Then they make you throw your wand, and whatever banner it lands closest to, is the House you'll be in."

"Eek! I hope you're kidding!"

"Of course I am, sis. But I don't want to spoil the real scenario for you."

"Well, girls, everything's packed," their father said, bringing in Anna's owl, who was in a cage.

"Are we going to use Floo Powder to get there?" Anna asked.

Their mother shook her head. "There aren't any fireplaces at King's Cross Station, and Muggles would see us. Instead we're taking you by Side-Along Apparition."

Anna took her mother's left hand while Elsa took the other. Their father held on to the luggage.

She felt an uncomfortable tug behind her ear, and looked at Elsa, whose face was scrunched up as if in pain.

Soon they were on the train platform, grassy meadowlands surrounding them and the large locomotive that Anna hadn't seen since she was nine two years ago.

"It's somassive," Anna remarked.

"Nice ride, isn't it?" Elsa said, a wide smile on her face. But it quickly became a frown. Anna turned to follow Elsa's gaze and saw it hit upon a redheaded boy standing several yards way from them.

"Uh, Elsa? Do you know that boy?"

"Yes. Stay here, Anna."

:Elsa marched over to the boy, clearly not very happy. Anna moved closer so she could catch their conversation.

"IThis is the Hogwarts Express, Hans, not the Durmstrang Steamer."

"Oh Elsa," Hans said. "Don't you know that I just couldn't resist you? My mother demanded I get a transfer as soon as I mentioned your name to her."

"Your mother knows the Summers family?" Elsa asked, a confused expression on her face.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't she? You guys are about as close to being royal as witches and wizards get."

"We don't have as many galleons as say, the Malfoy family for instance," Elsa said modestly.

"Yeah but ol' Draco only has a son, not a daughter. And my mother told me to be nice to you, so here I am. Oh, and I brought some flowers for you."

He yanked some tiger callias out of a vase from a passing fourt-year and handed them to Elsa.

"Thse aren't yours," Elsa said. She pulled out her wand.

"If you're attempting a banishing spell, I should probably tell you that Lindsay borrowed the flowers to show a boy but that I brought them for you, no matter what the circumstances may look like."

"You are a flipping liar," Elsa said. "And if these flowers are yours, you won't have any problem with me doing this."

And with that she flung the flowers in his face, before sweeping away from him.

Elsa didn't notice Anna standing there, nor did she see Hans pass her a benevolent smile, a smear of dirt on his cheek.

"Excuse me, coming through," said a girl wearing a hot pink dress. She looked to be a third year. Hans smiled at her as she boarded the train.

"You sure do a lot of smiling at girls," Anna said to him.

"Who, me? Oh, Aiko and I go way back. We're cousins."

Anna had a feeling he was lying. Something nagged at her, though she couldn't explain it. Was this what déjà vu felt like? A dizziness, the feeling that you've met someone before whom you know you never saw before in your life?

"Oh, Honey's in your sister's House. If you visit the Ravenclaw dormitory, you might see a lot of her."

Anna started to say something but Elsa was standing beside her. "Come on, we have to go!"

"See ya," Hans said, waving her as she followed Elsa.

"What were you doing talking to him?" Elsa asked, a hint of fury in her voice.

"He's a first-year," Anna said. "I don't know any other first-years, so I thought I'd make friendly conversation."

"You'd do better to make the acquaintance of a Weasley. They are good people who are gingers. But Hans is not good, trust me, Anna."

"How do you know? He doesn't seem all bad," Anna said, not voicing the feeling she had when she was near him, because Elsa might think it strange.

"If you look up 'malicious' in the dirtionary, you'd see Hans' mug," Elsa said. "Oh, I wish he had gone to Durmstrang. Would make life so much easier."

Anna stopped in her tracks. "Hey, isn't that Harry Potter?" she asked.

"Where?"

"The one putting that boy on the train. See his scar?"

Elsa had often been obsessed with Harry Potter's scar. She never told Anna the real reason she was obsessed with iti, and with meeting the man who had vanquished He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named when he was only a teenager.

She wasn't starstruck. Her fascination with Harry's scar was similar to the reason she always wore gloves, which Anna still had yet to figure out.

When Elsa had started at Hogwarts three years before, she was a train wreck, never allowing anyone to touch her and always staying locked in her room. When she said that she needed to stay for the Christmas holidays that year, their parents were really worried.

Then the next June she came home, more open, more cheerful. She never shut the door on Anna now. Something at school must've improved her spirits.

But…she still wore the gloves, and never hugged Anna, would only shoulder bump her to express affection. And Elsa shuddered at the thought that one day Anna would discover her terrible secret…the cross she must bear.

Everyone would hate her then, even Anna, her beloved sister. She tried to push it from the back of her mind as she boarded the train, but it hovered around inside her skull, reminding her that unlike most other witches and wizards, she possessed a far greater power, one that isolated her from everyone…including those who meant the most to her.

She and Anna waved goodbye to their parents while the train remained on the platform. Then Elsa led Anna to a compartment which was mostly empty, having within it a single occupant.

It was the girl in the hot pink dress. She had honey-wheat colored hair, and wore glasses.

"Is it okay if we sit here?" Elsa asked.

"Sure," the girl said. "I'm Aiko, but most people call me Honey."

"You're in my House, I think," Elsa said.

"Oh yeah, I've seen you around. Nice gloves."

Elsa was about to say something when a head poked in. "Cousin, I found you!"

The new entrant into the compartment had her long hair (which was six times as lengthy as her body) in a tight braid so that though it went down to her knees, people couldn't trip over it. "I'm so glad I found you. Wish I could see you more at school, but I guess I'll have to content myself with the train rides and Hogsmeade visits."

"Er, Rapunzel," Elsa said. "This is Honey Lemon. She's a third-year Ravenclaw."

"Oh, hi," Rapunzel said, seating herself next to Honey. "You'll be cheering Elsa on in her Quidditch matches, won't you?"

"You play Quidditch?" Honey asked, eyes bright.

"Yeah," Elsa said, not mentioning that it helped that the sport allowed her to keep her gloves on, which was one of the incentives to be on the team.

"I'm not a big fan of sports, but I'd watch your games. I'd usually spend time in my dormitory concocting new Potions. I hope to be a famous Potioneer one day."

"I wish you the best of luck in that endeavor," Elsa said.

The woman who pushed the snack trolley stuck her head in their compartment. "You girls want anything?" she asked.

"A Chocolate frog for everyone," Elsa said, handing over twelve Sickles. The woman deposited four chocolate frogs in her hand. "Anything else?"

"Not at the moment," said Elsa, and the woman waved before going off.

"Oh, I can't have chocolate," Rapunzel said, passing the frog Elsa offered her back. "My face breaks out like crazy. I'll take the card, though."

"I'll take the extra frog, if you don't mind," Honey said. "I want to conduct some experiments on it. I read a book in the library that talks about how chocolate frogs work, the charms that make them seem like organic beings, and I want to study them, see if I can reproduce one. Would be nice to shape the chocolate into something more exotic, like giraffes or platypuses…"

Anna opened her frog, and the card fell out. Her frog then hopped onto her shoulder and then onto Elsa's head, and then to the shelves above them for luggage. Anna only now remembered her owl, which she had hoped to have in the compartment with her. She made a note to ask Anna where her owl might be as she made a scramble to catch her frog, who bounced into Rapunzel's lap.

A green chameleon poked its head out of Rapunzel's bag, and leapt onto her leg. It pounced on the chocolate frog, and Rapunzel offered it back to Anna.

"Erm, pardon me, but I really like how lively that frog is," Honey said. "Could I use that one for my experiment instead? You can have the one that's still wrapped."

"Sure," Anna said, happy to oblige. The frog seemed ready to spring from Rapunzel's grasp at any moment. It did break free just as Honey stood up, but the latter pulled out her wand and said, "Accio chocolate frog!"

It arced toward her hands and she placed it in her purse, zipping it up tight.

Elsa was staring at Honey. "That's a spell they don't teach at Hogwarts until fourth year," she said.

"Is it? I learned it over the summer Took a lot of practice but I think I've got it down."

"No wonder you're in Ravenclaw," Rapunzel said, sounding amazed.

"What House are you in?" Honey asked.

"I'm in Gryffindor."

"You must be very brave," Honey said.

"I hope I am worthy of my House."

A discussion began relating the different Houses. Rapunzel talked about the Fat Lady's portrait that her and the other members of Gryffindor had to climb through to reach their common room. Elsa and Honey talked about having to answer a riddle to get into theirs, and how they made the common room seem like a place w here you could think profound thoughts.

Anna was worried about what House she'd be in. She told herself that it wouldn't matter which House it was, so long as it wasn't Slytherin, i.e., the house of snobs, who tended to only want purebloods in their ranks. Elsa and Anna were purebloods…the Summers family was well known, and their mother came from a long line of witches and wizards who were known and admired too.

Her parents had fought in the Second Wizarding War as part of the Order of the Phoenix. They had been part of the pureblooded families who were called "blood traitors," along with the Weasleys and some others of that sort.

She had a lot to live up to. Sure, her parents weren't Harry Potter or Hermione Granger. There weren't whole books about their deeds. But if she failed to be an amazing person, she'd disappoint them, which she wouldn't be happy about doing.

(Elsa had more cause to be worried about disappointing her parents than Anna, but as the latter didn't know about Elsa's secret, she could not have seen this as the way things were.)

Anna wasn't too keen on Hufflepuff, either. She respected people who were in Hufflepuss but she had this idea of them being kind of goofy. Okay, she could be goofy herself sometimes but even so…there were only two Houses that appealed to her tastes.

Ravenclaw, because her sister was in it.

And Gryffindor, because just being in that House were something her parents could be proud of. Gryffindor meant courage, it meant never backing down, it meant a promise of a bright future. Ravenclaw shared the latter auality with Gryffindor—Anna knew Elsa had a great future.

But the worst thing that could happen would be if Elsa built a barrier against Anna again, shut her out once more. And if she was in Hufflepuff—or worde, Slytherin—that was likely to be the case.

So Anna crossed her fingers as the train screeched to a halt. A voice called out, "Firs' years!" when she stepped off, and she was swept away from Elsa, wishing she could have felt her sister's hands…squeezing them would have been a reassurance that could've eased her into the Sorting procedure, but now she stood alone, or rather, with several first-years she did not know, and one grinning redheaded boy who gave her a bad vibe.

"Four to a boat," said the big man who waved their attention to a dark lake where some flimsy-looking skiffs were waiting.

Anna was shuffled into the same boat as Hans, as well as the boy she had seen Harry Potter seeing off on the train. The fourth member of their boat was a blond boy who looked terrified of the lake.

"It'll be all right," Anna said to him.

"I wouldn't mind if it were ice," he said. "But those waves look hazardous. And I'm certain it might rain."

"Beat off, goober. She's my friend," Hans said.

He wedged himself between Anna and the blond boy. She was ready to shove him away when their boat rocked forward.

It was a very tumultuous ride. Anna felt like she was going to hurl. She had had nightmares about drowning at sea before. Funny because she was certain she had never been at sea…

Thunder crackled above their heads. Hans slipped his hand in Anna's. She screamed but no one heard her over the sound of the rushing waves and the irate storm.

The blond boy seethed at Hans but water kept splashing into his eyes and when he tried to stand up, the other boy pulled him down. "Do you want this boat to capsize?" he hissed.

A tentacle reached up and wrapped itself around their skiff at one point. It separated Hans and Anna from the other two passengers in their skiff. Anna had a feeling of foreboding, as if it were signaling danger.

The big man in a different boat smacked his oar against the tentacle and it withdrew.

After a few more minutes of this periolous-seeming ride, all the boats washed ashore on the side of the lake facing a magnificent castle.

It was upon gazing at this building that Anna felt her spirits rise again. Soon she's be in either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. It didn't matter that Hans was holding an umbrella over her, or that he led her to the castle as if he possessed her. She was so dazzled that she barely noticed these things. And either way, in a short time she'd be separated from him, because there was no way they'd be put in the same House. That would be a miserable event that would drive Anna mad.

Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, she chanted to herself, her fingers crossed, as she stepped into the castle, surrounded by other first-years, all struck by wonder at this imposing place, where they'd be educated for the next seven years.

"