I sat in the Headmaster's office, feeling quite uncomfortable. He had only come in for a moment, to greet me and such, and then left, telling me that the Head
Boy would be back soon to attend to me.
I looked around the circular office. Plastering the walls were hundreds of portraits of who I assumed were previous Headmasters. But there was something amazing about these portraits-- they moved.
Not only did they move, but the people in the portraits also talked! To each other! It was unnerving and intriguing at the same time.
I blew a strand of my curly brown hair out of my face. How long did I have to wait for this Head Boy to arrive?
"That boy is never on time," a voice said. "He has the maturity of a troll and the responsibility of a Hungarian Horntail."
I looked up, not seeing anyone.
"Muggle, are you? Not used to us talking?"
I looked at the portraits, searching for the one that was speaking to me.
"Over here, pretty little one," called the portrait. "On the right."
I turned and looked, seeing a portrait of an old, pointy-faced man. Not daring to leave my seat, I said, "Hello."
"Hello back," said the man in the portrait. "I am Phinneas Nigellus Black, Headmaster of Hogwarts."
My mouth dropped open. "What? But I thought that Professor Flitwick was the Headmaster..."
The man laughed rather mockingly. "Silly, stupid little girl. I'm the former Headmaster of Hogwarts. Up until August of 1924 I was the ruler of this school."
"Oh," I said. "Then I'm very pleased to meet you. I'm Reagan Carlisle."
"Ah, Hogwarts’ new charity case," Black nodded. "I see. And how are you managing in the magical world?"
"You know about me?"
Black smirked. "I know about everything. I hear all that goes on in the Headmaster's office. I have ever since I was put on this wall almost a hundred years ago. I knew when Harry Potter battled the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. I remember when a necklace of some sort cursed Katie Bell. I was there when the news of Sirius Black's death came." He muttered something about a good for nothing great-great grandson.
"Then I suppose you could tell me about Hogwarts," I said.
"Suppose? I could write a book about the goings-on in this office over the years. "
"Then why don't you?" I asked.
"Ah, the great believer," Black said. "I've met people like you, Reagan Carlisle."
"What do you mean?"
"People who always believe some good can come out of anything. I've met so many of you."
"And you don't believe that?"
"I wish I could," Black remarked, bitterly. "But life doesn't work that way."
"It can," I said. "If you want it to."
Black laughed. "Wanting isn't enough. You have to work for it. Tell me, Reagan Carlisle, what House are you in?"
"House?" I repeated.
Black rolled his eyes. "Yes, House. Have they not told you anything?"
I just sat, silently.
"Each Hogwarts student is Sorted into a House. The four Houses of Hogwarts are Slytherin, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. You will eat, sleep, and take lessons with the other members of your House."
"And how do they decide what House to put you in?"
"It all depends on your strengths," explained Black. "Slytherins are known for their ambition, while Gryffindors for their courage. Hufflepuffs are loyal, and Ravenclaws are intellectual."
"I see."
"I myself was a Slytherin," Black said proudly. "All of my family was. Except for my great-great good for nothing grandson Sirius Black," he said with distaste. "He was a Gryffindor. An Auror. Worked with the Order of the Phoenix during the last Wizarding War, only to be killed in the last year. He was the godfather of the infamous Harry Potter, whose son is your guide at this school."
"He is?"
Black nodded. "James Potter, the second. The first was Harry Potter's father. That boy was a terror to this school. Always getting in trouble, always being sent up here, always being excused by Dumbledore. Sirius Black was his best friend, and the exact same. I'm afraid James Potter the second might be following in his grandfather's footsteps, though he is Head Boy."
"Should I be worried?"
"About little James Potter? No. You have bigger things to worry about." He shifted in his portrait. "Do you see that book on the Headmaster's desk?"
"Yes."
"Go over to it."
Reluctantly, I got up from my chair and went to the book. It was large and thick, with a dusty cover and a moldy smell.
"What is it?"
"It's a book of students," Black said. "A treasure for the Headmaster. Open it."
I opened the book to a random page, dust floating up at me. Coughing, I tried to read.
"This book contains every student to ever come to Hogwarts," Black explained as I looked at the book. It tells their birthdates and death dates if applicable, location, House, year..."
I looked at the first name I saw:
Granette, Margo
May 21st, 1193-October 16th, 1284
Green Grove Cemetery
Hufflepuff
Slightly below this was:
Granger-Weasley, Hermione
September 19th, 1979-?
Surry, Great Britain
Gryffindor
"No student knows of this book," Black said, watching as I carefully turned the pages. "At least, not until they become Headmaster."
"Then why are you telling me?" I asked.
"I have my reasons," Black replied simply. "Maybe someday I'll reveal them to you."
I smiled at him and looked down at the book. Of course I didn't recognize any names, but I felt a rush of power come over me as I turned the pages.
"Now, remember," Black cleared his throat, "no student knows about this book."
I smiled softly at him. "I won't tell. I promise."
The door of the office flung open behind me. I slammed the old book shut, coughing as the dust sprang up at me, and turned so my back was leaning on the front of the desk, hiding the book.
"Bugger," muttered the boy, who had knocked several books from the table next to the office door, in his hasty entrance. He bent down to gather them, not clumsily but hurriedly.
I took this time to measure him up. He was tall, at least as tall as my step-dad. He had a head full of messy back hair, and bright green eyes.
He stacked the books, not neatly, back on the table and stared at them a moment, as if daring them not to fall.
I looked over at Black's portrait and gave him a look as if to say, "This is the boy who is to be showing me around?"
Black shrugged.
"Sorry I'm late," the boy said, turning to me. "I had some, er, Head stuff to do."
"I thought the Head stuff included meeting me," I replied, raising an eyebrow.
He scowled at me, but then came forward, extending a hand. "James Potter."
Before he got any closer, I moved sharply from the desk, as not to let him see the book. "Reagan Carlisle," I said, shaking his hand.
"Yeah," he said, examining me. "So I'm to be your mentor over the next year--"
"But I graduate in two years," I interrupted.
"Very good," the boy said sarcastically. "But I am graduating this year. So I won't be here to help you next year."
"That doesn't make much sense." I smirked. "I don't see why they wouldn't appoint me someone who would be able to assist me both my years here."
James looked at a loss for words. He ran a hand through his messy black hair.
Quite good-looking he was, if he would just wipe the scowl from his handsome face.
"Okay," he said, reasonably. He sounded as if I were a child who needed explaining to. "I think we got off on the wrong start. Sorry, I just am having one of those really bad days. My ex-girlfriend..."
"I would think that the first thing of being a student leader would be to put your personal feelings aside to accomplish your work," I said. I'm not a bitch. I'm not.
"You're telling me that you've never let your personal feelings affect your work?" James raised an eyebrow. "Do you never have a bad day?"
I looked at him. "I've been having a bad month. Don't talk to me about bad days."
He just stared at me, saying nothing, looking quite uncomfortable.
I sighed. "I'm sorry as well. I don't mean to be rude. It's just all a lot to take in."
He nodded. "Okay. Well, first things first."
He walked past me to a cabinet near where Black was hanging. Black smirked at James behind his back. I tried not to laugh.
Oh God. My only friend at Hogwarts is a portrait. How pathetic am I?
James lifted a moldy old hat off the top of the cabinet, being very careful. He looked almost as if he were in awe of it. "Could you sit in that chair?" he asked.
I looked at him. "Why?"
"Because I've always wanted to do this and now that I'm getting the chance, I want to do it properly!"
I sat.
As he carried the hat over to me, he looked as excited as a little boy at Christmastime, but was obviously trying to contain himself. He started to put the hat on my head.
"What are you doing!" I exclaimed, pushing his hands away and jumping out of my seat.
"What are you doing?" he exclaimed back. "I'm trying to Sort you! Can't you just sit still like every other kid did for hundreds of years?"
"Sort me!" I repeated. "What are you talking about?"
James sighed exasperatedly. "Yes, sort you. Each student puts on this hat their first day of Hogwarts and are sorted into one of the Houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin. I need to see which you're going to be in."
I remembered Black talking about the Houses. Everything seemed so much more rational when he said it, rather than James.
I shook my head in awe. "A hat tells you what House I'm to be in?"
"This isn't just any hat," he turned it in his hands. "This is the Sorting Hat.
It knows who you are and what you're capable of. It places you in your House based on those attributes. It knows the future and the past. It remembers everyone. It probably remembers the very day it sorted me into Gryffindor, just like my dad and his dad before him."
I shook my head. "Insane. A hat can't remember things like that."
"This hat can," James replied. "So will you please sit down so I can put it on your head?"
I looked over his shoulder at Black. He nodded at me. I sat down.
"Don't worry," James assured me, "it only takes a moment. And it doesn't hurt." He placed it on my head.
It spoke.
I shrieked with surprise as it began to speak aloud. "Newbie, eh?" it asked in a groggy voice, like that of an old man. "Muggleborn turned witch? Must have been a shock for you. I've seen hundreds, thousands of you come through here. All the same. Each wonders if they're not really going mad, and each asks themselves every day if this is just a dream. But it's not. You are a witch, Reagan Carlisle." My eyes widened when he spoke my name.
"Have to start from scratch with you," the hat said. "Not like those
Weasleys...whenever I get one of them I already have an inkling that they'll likely go to Gryffindor. But you're different. A Muggle. But let's see..." I looked at James, who was watching interestedly. "You had a great-great-great-great-great aunt who was a witch. Andreida Moristante. She was the last of her family to still be associated with the magical world. It was dangerous to be a witch back then. Most gave it up. And that's why you were born a Muggle."
How could he know these things? He was a hat for God's sakes.
"Andreida was a Gryffindor. She was an extraordinary witch, so brave. She died after a duel with a Dark Wizard. She won, of course. She was never beaten in a duel. But the injuries of the duel caught up with her."
Fantastic. The last witch in my family died dueling a Dark Wizard. Lovely.
I looked at Black's portrait. He was watching. I closed my eyes and wished, 'Please, please let me be in Slytherin. Black was in there and he became Headmaster. I want to be in Slytherin, please'.
"Slytherin, eh?" the hat asked. "Aye, you could do great things in Slytherin. But you could be greater somewhere else." My eyes flew open in protest. "I feel like I can never give the students what they want," the hat continued. "Hardly any want to go to Slytherin and then I send them there anyway. But you! You want to be in Slytherin! And I won't send you. You belong somewhere else."
I looked at my hands.
"I can hear your thoughts, Reagan Carlisle," the hat told me. "And I know that you weren't afraid when you received your Hogwarts letter. You were intrigued. And that takes incredible bravery."
Bravery. The word hit me like a knife.
"And that's why you'll do splendidly in," the hat took a breath, "Gryffindor!" And then it became silent.
James watched in awe. He then slowly took the hat off my head and gently placed it back on the cabinet.
"Well," he said. "Now that we know your house we can move onto other things." He whistled and an owl, which had been perched on a tall bookshelf, came swooping down to him. James scribbled a note on a piece of paper and tied it around the owl's leg. "Take this to the house elves," he murmured.
"What are you doing?" I asked, as the owl flew away.
"Owls carry mail," James explained. "That one was carrying a note to the house elves, to tell them to set up another bed in the sixth year girls' dormitories."
"House elves!" I exclaimed.
"Yes," James said, resuming that baby talk again. "House elves. They cook and clean for Hogwarts."
"Don't they mind doing all that work?" I asked.
"Not for me," James replied, smartly. "In case you didn't know before, my family's pretty famous in the Wizarding world."
"I see," I replied. Behind me, I head Black snort.
"What was that?" James asked.
"Oh, nothing," I replied quickly. "So I'll be living in Gryffindor then?"
"Yes," replied James. "And you're lucky. The other girls in the sixth-year room are great. My cousin Rose is in there, and Lena Briggs, and this girl Samara Kay..." He cleared his throat. "But back to business." He walked to a large portrait of tiny Professor Flitwick that hung on the wall opposite of Black, pulled out a long wand, and muttered something under his breath, pointing it at the portrait. Then, to my great surprise, the portrait faded away, revealing a doorway to a book room.
"This is the Headmaster's library," James called over his shoulder as he walked into the small room. "All of the Headmaster's books are held in here."
Not all, I said in my head.
He came out with an armload of books. "You'll need to study these in your free time. Every Hogwarts student has had to read these, and you need to catch up.
You may borrow them from Flitwick for now. Here's Hogwarts, A History," he stacked the books on a table near the desk," that tells you all about Hogwarts, so that you don't have to ask questions like 'how does a Hat sort you into your House?' anymore.
"Here's the Standard Book of Spells Grades One through Five," James continued, piling more books. "You need to catch up on those. A History of Magic, for you know, magical history and such. You're taking Arithmacy, here's the Book of Numerology. The Dream Oracle, for Arithmacy. Magical Drafts and Potions...A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration...Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles," he looked at me. "Well, I guess you won't need that one. And here's some for Defense Against the Dark Arts...oh and my personal favorite," he held up a slightly newer-looking book, "Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland."
I looked at him blankly.
"Well, I guess we'll just come back to that one," he said, putting the book aside. "Why don't you grab those and I'll show you around Hogwarts a bit."
"Are you joking?" I asked, looking at the stack of books.
"Oh," he said, remembering. Taking his wand out again, he waved it at the stack of books and said clearly, "Reducio." And before my eyes, the books shrank until they were the size of dollhouse books.
I picked one up. It was exactly the same as the Transfiguration book I had seen just moments ago, except fifty times smaller.
"That was brilliant!" I exclaimed, looking at James.
He smiled, looking rather pleased with himself. "That was nothing. You should see what great magic we're learning in seventh year."
"Yeah," I said, still examining the book in awe.
"Why don't you put those in your, er, pocket and then we can...oh, I almost forgot!" He pulled another wand out of his back pocket. "This is for you. See, usually you get your own wand, but we don't have a chance to go buy one until next weekend. So I brought you this."
He handed it to me. It was cherry wood, about ten inches long.
"It was my cousin's," James explained. "She lost her original one when she was twelve, so my uncle bought her this one. But then she found her first one and had no use for this one anymore."
I looked it over in my hands. "Thank you."
"Well don't just look at it," James said. "Try it out."
"I...I don't know how," I said.
James rolled his eyes. "Just...swish it at something."
I looked blankly at the wand.
"Okay, we'll do this," James decided. He took the Quidditch book, which was still normal size, and put it on the edge of the desk. "Now hold your wand like this," he held his out in front of him, "and repeat after me. Wingardium Leviosa."
"Wingardium Leviosa," I carefully repeated.
"Good!" he exclaimed. "Now make this movement with your wand." He showed me how he swished his. "Swish and flick. Swish and flick. Good! That's good! Now," he said, taking me by the shoulders and facing me towards the book, "I want you to look at that book, swish and flick, while saying the spell. Okay? Go."
I looked doubtfully at the book.
"It's okay," said James. "You can do it."
I took a breath. "Wingardium Leviosa," I said, swishing and flicking. "Oh!" I exclaimed, as the book began to levitate right before my eyes.
"Control it!" exclaimed James. "Your wand controls how high it goes. Try making it go a little higher!"
I gently tipped my wand and watched with amazement as the book gradually levitated a bit higher.
"Good," said James. "Now lower it back onto the desk."
I carefully tipped my wand down, and the book rested back on the desk.
"Huh," James said in awe. "Maybe this won't be so hard." He grabbed the tiny pile of books and put them in my palm. "Here. Put these in your pocket and we'll go around Hogwarts a bit."
I slid the books into the pocket of my dress and followed James out of the office. I turned to smile at Black, who smiled back. His smile is kind of more like a smirk, but whatever.
James guided me down the hall of Hogwarts. "Do you have the time?" he asked.
"I think it's about nine," I said, remembering the clock in Flitwick's office.
"Okay, we have to move along then," James said, quickening his pace. "Curfew's at ten. Not that it would affect us, but I have to patrol later on."
"Patrol?"
"All Heads and Prefects have to patrol on certain nights. You know, making sure the littlies are in bed, stopping any trouble in the hallways and such..."
"So you were picked to be Head Boy?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, rather proudly. "There's a Head Boy and a Head Girl. They're kind of like class presidents. And then prefects are--"
"I know what prefects are," I interrupted. "We had them at my last school."
"Sorry," James said, guardedly. "I don't exactly know much about Muggle schools."
"Well I don't know much about magical schools," I said. "So I guess we're even."
"Okay," he said. "We'll go into Hogsmeade this weekend to get you your school robes and books and everything. You'll need a cauldron, a pet, a wand..."
"What's Hogsmeade?" I asked.
"It's a little Wizarding village on the outskirts of the Hogwarts' grounds," James replied. "It's cool."
"Oh," I said.
We stayed quiet for a moment, walking.
"So your family goes to school here too?" I asked.
"Yeah!" James said, sounding grateful for something to talk about. "A whole lot of my cousins go here; they're all in Gryffindor too. And then my brother Albus goes here, and my sister Lily now too. She's new."
"Oh, is she eleven?" I asked, remembering what my letters and Flitwick had said.
"No, she's fourteen. She's just new to Hogwarts."
"Like me?"
"No, not like you. She came from a different Wizarding school, one in France."
"Oh."
We were silent again.
"There's the, er, Arithmancy chamber," James pointed.
"Oh, that's nice."
We walked.
"Do you have siblings?" James asked.
I shook my head. "No."
"Oh." James rubbed his forehead with his hands. "God, why does this have to be so difficult?"
Why did it have to be so difficult? I don't know. Something about James just struck me as odd. And something about him made me realize that we weren't going to get along well.
And we didn't.
I just hope the sounds of our arguments didn't migrate all the way to the dormitories.
A/N: I’m not happy with it at all, but it had to be written. It was a bit hard to write because I do want Reagan to come off as a kind of hard-ass. Their relationship should be interesting. Coming up next is either:
- Another Albus chapter; him with Briony, the two of them hanging out and FINALLY his confrontation with Lily
OR
- A SAMARA KAY chapter : )) I think it’d really be interesting to hear from her. And of course during this chapter we’d hear from Rosie, Lena and Reagan since they live in the same dormitories. And there’d be an inevitable conversation with James of course.
Opinions? Thank you : ) Both of the chapters mentioned above will be available soon, but I don’t want to rush them because I rushed this one and I’m definitely not happy with it. So it’ll be here within the next week I suppose. I’d love some reviews, they sort of fuel my inspiration. And tell me what you think of characters and what you think is going to happen or what you want to happen! It would help so much! Love, Caralanne <3 (www.rougette.wordpress.com)