Problems
Harry climbed out of Minerva's fireplace and blinked soot out of his eyes. Minerva McGonagall sat behind her desk looking very serious, Pomona Sprout sat in one of the chairs a thoughtful expression on her face, Filius Flitwick was sitting on the sorting stool on a chair but still so much shorter than everyone. Neville Longbottom sat between the two of them, completely calm and Hagrid stood behind, Harry was unable to tell his expression because of the bushy beard. Horace stood at the corner of the desk.
"And?" Filius' high squeaky broke the tense silence.
"Yes, it is." Minerva paled, Pomona clutched her heart, Filius tumbled off his chair and stool, Neville took deep breaths, Hagrid clutched the back of Neville's chair so hard that it broke and Horace leaned against the desk taking out a handkerchief to wipe away the sweat that had sprung up. Harry helped Filius back onto his seat and repaired the back of Neville's chair with a flick of his wand.
"So Voldermort's wand." Neville said. "Who could have had it?" Harry shrugged.
"We rounded up all his death eaters. It's possible that the owner didn't know whose it was. It doesn't really matter, it's snapped in half and locked in a high security ministry vault in Gringotts. I think what we need to worry about more is Miss Hautly. What's she like?"
"Brilliant." The words came from Horace and Pomona simultaneously, they looked at each other surprised, Horace indicated she should continue.
"She's quiet, modest, I'd say, but a natural at Herbology. Released herself from the Mortius Brigar without instructions, she just knew stroking the central bulb would do it."
"Really." said Neville looking highly impressed.
"Yes. Works of instinct."
"I'll second that." Horace broke in. "Made a perfect burn solution in 25 minutes, first time, that's more effective then some made by professionals. Then she went on to create a different method. Look." He drew out two sheets of paper and handed them over. One was a copy of the original method that had been so heavily edited it was almost impossible to tell what it said and the second was a much shorter version of the method, one that was her own. "Never had a more talented student. Got more talent than you Harry, my boy, Lily and Severus put together." Harry shifted uncomfortably at his supposed potions ability.
"And you?" He turned to Filius and Neville.
"We haven't done any practical work, her first piece of homework was acceptable."
"Not a spark in defence against the dark arts. Everyone else was disarming by the end of the lesson but not her. But then again look at me, I didn't start to do spells till my 5th year and I'm a Professor now." Harry nodded.
"Transfiguration?"
"Nothing but the only people who made progress were Miss Weasley and Mr Malfoy." Harry nodded again, then ran a hand through his hair.
"There has to be something. She definitely said he wanted something."
"Definitely it seems to have been the whole point of the torture."
"And there is something." Minerva interrupted. "This morning she bonded with Fawkes."
"What?" Harry's head snapped up.
"Fawkes came back to Hogwarts for the first time in 20 years. He bonded with her in front of the whole school." Harry ran a hand through his hair.
"She's destined for greatness." They all looked up and saw Professor Dumbledore gazing down at them. Next to him Snape was staring at them impassively.
"It's true. Phoenixs bond with those who will be great. For the right or wrong things but they will be great. Dumbledore is proof of that." He jerked his head at his neighbouring portrait. Who inclined his head.
"You're very kind Severus."
"So what do we do?" Neville asked.
"Keep an eye on her and see if anything happens."
As the weeks passed Caly began to grow more and more at home at the castle. Each day she would wake up and promptly wake Rose, who was not a morning person. They'd meet Al and Scorpius in the common room and go down to breakfast. They'd talk with them and the other first years. Caly had learnt French in junior school and had been a natural, she was nearly fluent, and so she had been the one who talked to Jean-Paul and eventually they began to learn more about him and his English became a little bit better. They'd have lessons which were, with the exceptions of Herbology and Potions, disasters. She just couldn't do magic. Her friends told her not to worry but she did, secretly. In the evenings they did their homework and talked until bed.
She had also experienced the colourful side of living in Hogwarts, namely discovering the pranks pulled by Fred and James and their separate friends. They seemed to have a competition and there targets were mostly the Slytherins and some of the Professors. Her favourite had been pulled by James and Colin when they had charmed the food on the Slytherin so that it would turn them different colours and the more you tried to rub it off the brighter if became. The Slytherins had been bright pink, orange, yellow, red, blue and purple for a week and a half before it had worn off.
The other thing she had learnt was just how obsessed everyone in Hogwarts was with Quidditch. It was why she was glad she had made friends with Phil, Dan, Mike and Jean-Paul. They could all talk about football, which they all loved though Mike and Dan were pretty keen on Rugby and Cricket too, whilst Rose, Al, Scorpius, Finn, Kyle, Martin and Declan talked about Quidditch. Anyhow she discovered the height of the obsession when the sign up sheet went up. There was a great mob, including Al, Scorpius, Rose and all the other wizard born first years, to sign up.
The morning of the tryouts was the most tense she had seen Al, Rose and Scorpius. They were barely eating. Their cousins came by wishing Al and Rose luck, they acted as if Scorpius didn't exist. She decided she didn't want to come watch try outs and so found herself entering Gryffindor tower alone. She looked around and realised the only person she recognised was James. He was sitting staring into the fire looking completely bored. Caly couldn't be bothered with homework now so she went to join him.
"Hey." she said plopping herself down next to him.
"Hi." he replied glancing at her briefly.
"Where are your friends?" Caly was sorely tempted to add 'and admirers' but decided against it, though James did always seem to have a huge swarm of people following him and James, unlike Al who tried to run away from them, liked the attention.
"Watchin Quidditch. You?"
"Same." They stared into the fire.
"Fancy a game of chess?" James said after a while.
"Chess?" Caly was really surprised. "Wizards play chess."
"Yes. It's my hobby." Caly raised her eyebrows. Loud, show off, prankster James Sirius Potter played chess. "Shut up."
"What?"
"I know what you're thinking."
"Oh. Are you any good 'cause if you're not I won't bother playing you."
"Oh you think you're good do you?"
"Definitely."
"Well I'm the best in my family and my uncle beat a giant chess set transfigured by the headmistress in his first year." Caly opened her mouth to think of a good come back. She couldn't best his statement so instead she said
"Bring it on."
Al, Scorpius and Rose came through the portrait all happy or ecstatic. They were just about to shout their news when they noticed a crowd next to a crowd around a table. They pushed themselves through till they could see and saw Caly and James having a furious chess match. The pieces were darting around the board so fast they couldn't work out who was winning.
"They've been playing since Quidditch trials started." said a girl in fourth year. Now it seemed the whole of Gryffindor house had gathered round the table. Everyone knew James was the best in the school but Caly was matching his moves with some of her own.
"Checkmate!" Caly shouted suddenly. James watched in horror as his king threw his crown onto the board at the feet of Caly's lone pawn. He gaped at her with the crowd. She glanced around and saw the whole house staring at her.
"Maybe next time amateur." With that she stood up and made her way through the crowd to Al, Scorpius and Rose.
"So, how did tryouts go?"
It turned out both Al and Scorpius had made the reserve team as Seeker and Chaser, Al was seeker and Scorpius Chaser. Rose, however, had made the first team as Beater. Apparently she was the first first year student to be a beater in over 2000 years. She was partnered with her cousin Fred who she played really well with because of when they played Quidditch at home. They had owled their parents immediately and it was while they were gone Caly went for a walk round the castle.
As she passed the charms classroom on the second floor she heard a strange noise coming from inside. She poked her head round and saw Professor Hardingly kissing Professor Overy, the astronomy teacher, very passionately. The thing that disturbed her the most about this was that Professor Overy was married. Deciding that it wasn't her problem and it didn't really concern her, she tried to back out quietly. However she failed. Her foot hit the door and they broke apart, jumping round. There was an awkward silence. Caly thought that she had best leave quickly so she shut the door after her and ran back up to Gryffindor tower.
She had nearly reached it when she heard another noise from inside another classroom. She was going to walk past, unwilling to see anymore of her professors kissing, when she realised the sound was sobbing. She pushed the door open and saw a adult she didn't recognise. He was bent over a table crying.
"Sir." The man started and looked round and straightened up. He looked her up and down.
"Miss Hautly?"
"Yes sir, are you a professor?"
"Yes I teach arithmancy."
"Arithmancy?" Arithm. Does that have anything to do with numbers?"
"Yes. How did you know?"
"It sounds like arithmetic, something taught in muggle schools."
"Ahh, very smart."
"Are you all right, Professor, do you need me to get someone?"
"No I will be alright."
Caly took this as her cue to leave, now with two problems on her mind. She had already decided not to tell anyone about Professor Hardingly and Professor Overy. From what she'd seen Hardingly had been broken by the women he loved and if Overy wanted to cheat on her husband, what was it to her? As for the arithmancy professor, she was going to respect his privacy too.
When she saw her friends she realised they had another problem.
"What's happened?" She questioned as she went over to join them."My dad." Scorpius said quietly. "He's thrown my mum and me out."
"Oh." She put her arm around him comfortingly, how many people had she seen like this? Too many.
"I should have seen it coming. I should have begged the hat to put me in Slytherin. It considered it. It considered them all but I had to go and choose Gryffindor."
"This isn't your fault."
"But-"
"No. You and your dad were bound to fall out eventually and if your mum sided with you it means she's just as good and liberal as you, okay."
"Yeah."
"So you actually chose Gryffindor?"
"Yeah, I thought it was supposed to choose for me."
"Me too! It told me I could be in any house except Slytherin. So I picked Gryffindor 'cause you guys were in it."
"Really?"
"Yeah, didn't fancy making new friends." He was looking better now. "You know I found another problem with you."
"What?" Scorpius asked.
"You need a nick name." Al and Rose grinned and nodded. Scorpius even let a small smile tug the corner of his lips.
"What are you thinking of."
"Scor or Scorp."
"Scor. Definitely."
When Caly went to bed she couldn't help but think back to all the problems from today. She rolled over and got comfortable and tried to forget about them. After all they weren't her problems.