“Er—excuse me?” she said, when the wizard didn’t seem to notice her.
“Yes? Hello!” He said, cheerfully.
“Hi—.” She said, thinking of what to say, ‘Hi, I’m a muggle and I don’t know where I’m supposed to be! Ha heee! Aren’t I funny?’. “I’m Meghan Rose… and I um, am a transfer, I need to register, I came on the train and…”
“Ah, say no more,”
“I was wondering if you could take me to Headmaster Dippet?” Had she got that right? “Well, actually, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” He said, somewhat mournfully. She was shocked, had she blown her cover so quickly? But Dumbledore went on. “Professor Dippet um—retired at the end of the summer, it came quite sudden. I’m headmaster now—if you would step up to my office…”
“Oh!” she said with relief. Duh…he just wanted to tell me he was going to be headmaster… “Of course…”
They went into Dumbledore’s office, which was somewhat cluttered, due to his move. Dumbledore saw her looking around, “Ah, yes, very hectic, decided to leave at the last moment, stressful for all the staff.” He sat down, after moving a pile of books off his chair.
“I have no robes, or school things…”
“Do you have a wand?”
“A wand?” Dolt! What was she going to do now that she had to use a wand and make magic?
“Yes…” he looked worried.
“Oh! Of course! A wand! I thought you said something else…er—no, I don’t, not yet atleast…”
“Well, you shall have to go to Hogsmead tomorrow first thing. You’ll need an escort…. Yes. Remus might help he knows Hogsmead fairly well…”
“Lupin?” she said, absentmindedly
“Yes… Remus Lupin. Minerva McGongall said she must pick up a new set of robes… she didn’t have time… she’ll go with you. I’ll have Flitwick tell them…”
“Excuse me?”
“Professor Flitwick, the charms teacher. Well, we had better go, the sorting will be in a few minutes, I’ll have Flitwick put in your name…” He said and walked out a side door. Sticking his head back in, he said, “Great hall, biggest room in the castle, this floor, you can’t miss it.” He said.
That went well, now only to find this great hall. Meghan walked only a few lengths, and saw a way that lead to a wide opening. The great hall, she had found it. She saw a bunch of ruffled first years, the small teacher she saw earlier had spotted her and ushered her over. Another teacher, whom she hadn’t seen before brought out a stool with a tattered old hat on it… a witches hat. As soon as it was sat down, the hat broke into song. A long song that Meghan didn’t really catch that well. She heard something about Gryffindors-brave Ravenclaw-smart, Huffelpuff-kind and Slytherin-jerks. She shuttered. She heard several names called up.
“Mick Black” was put in Gryffindor with his brother, Sirius, who looked disgusted at the thought.
“Riley Gordon” was put into Ravenclaw. Several minutes and about 100 names later,
“Meghan Rose” she went up to the stool and put on the hat, she sat down. Almost immediately a voice said in her ear.
“My, my you are the sneaky one, aren’t you? Thinking you can outsmart even Dumbledore. Don’t think I won’t tell him your little secret.”
“Please don’t, I—I don’t want to live with my aunt—I have friends…here”
“But this is impossible! You are a Muggle! Muggles can’t come into this school, they can’t live in the wizarding world!”
“Please, I’ll be gone for good at summer, I’ll tell Dumbledore then…”
“All right… Well, since you have no magical talent, this shall be a tough one… I can’t tell if your smart… so no Ravenclaw for you…Of course, I suppose your kind enough, but this lie will go on your permanent record… Slytherin do you think?”
“No! I don’t want to be in Slytherin, I’ve learned enough on the train about them!”
“Kind enough, I suppose… Well, I suppose this is the last choice, even if you aren’t quite brave enough for GRYFFINDOR!!!”
The hat yelled the last word out to the whole hall, she got a wide amount of applause from the Gryffindors…but would the hat keep her word? Upon reaching the table, she found her new friends having a loud conversation.
“You think that no one will remember you birthday!? HOW COULD I FORGET?” Minerva yelled at Sirius. “Your birthday is the same day as mine! We are exactly the same age!”
“I forget your birthday!” Sirius said.
“I know! That’s because your so thick headed that you cant’ get anything to stick—.”
“Enough!” James cut in, just as Sinta Tamara was made a Ravenclaw. “You,” he pointed at Sirius, “should know by now that Minny never forgets a birthday, and you,” he pointed to Minerva, “should know that Sirius never remembers a birthday, even if it’s on the same day as his.”
“Well said!” hooted a 7th year.
“Hear, hear!” Remus yelled. Meghan sat down.
“Glad to see you made it, I wasn’t so sure about you for a minute there…I thought they might put you in Huffelpuff or something…” Minerva said.
*~*
“How did he find out about the map?”
“I don’t know!”
“It can’t be too big of a threat though, it doesn’t have hardly anything on it does it? We don’t know nearly enough about the school to *finish* the damn thing…”
“That’s not the point! Sirius, if Snape knows about the map then Remus will have a heck of a time—.”
“Calm down, James! Nothings going to happen to Remus, he can take care of himself…it’s Peter we have to worry about…” “yeah,”
“Yeah.”
“D ‘you think that Snape will actually go after Peter, though?”
“I dunno, Remus.”
*~*
Meghan unpacked her things in her dormitory—or the things she would be keeping anyway. The next morning, she would be going to Hogsmead and getting her school things with Remus and Minerva. Tomorrow…
Meghan woke sharply at 7:00 to a banging on her dormitory door.
“Oy! Minnie—get up!”
“He’d better shut up or everyone’s gonna be woken up, on a Saturday!” Minerva said, she had woken up also. “Be quiet—I’m coming!” she said, “Your coming with us—right?”
“Yeah,” Meghan said
“Let’s go, I’d say we’ve got about a ½ hour before Sirius is ready… he takes forever.” She looked at Meghan “FOR—EV—ER”
“Sirius is coming?”
“Yeah—Remus asked him, that’s okay right?”
“Yeah, I dunno, he just doesn’t seem to look like a person who would like shopping…”
“He doesn’t… I don’t why he’s coming, he needed some persuasion, though.” Minerva said, and grabbed a towel, heading into the bathroom. Meghan rubbed her eyes, this year was going to be a lot harder then she thought. She dressed in a pair of jeans, probably the last day for a year that she would be wearing them, but what was going to happen if she couldn’t do the spells? Or incantations, or whatever the heck they were? She didn’t even know what the stupid things were called!
Meghan went down to the common room 15 minutes later to find Minerva out of the shower, sitting by the bright fire. “We’re going to have to miss breakfast, so we had to go get some food from the kitchens…” she said and held out 3 rolls and a glass of orange juice.
Five minutes later, Sirius came down wearing a bright red cloak. “What’d you think? Am I an inspiration?” he said, throwing his head back.
“Take that off, James will kill you, you know he hates that cloak!” Minerva said
“Your just jealous you don’t have a cloak like mine,” he said, looking at the cloak again. Sirius danced around the room for a few minutes until Remus told him to knock it off before he tripped over something and broke his leg.
“You haven’t even got ready yet, we’re leaving in 10 minutes with or without you!” Remus called to Sirius, who was on his way up the stairs to slide down the rail again.
“How late does everyone sleep here?” Meghan asked
“Well, classes (on weekdays) start at 9:00, but on the weekends you can sleep all day if you want.” Minerva said.
“Huh, yeah, like you ever would.” Remus said,
“I have!” she threw a pillow at him. “Twice last year… a record for me,” she said, then looked at Meghan. “OK, so I have an internal clock that wakes me up at exactly 6:30.” She said, Remus laughed into his hand as if to say ‘and everyone else’.
They left in 10 minutes, as planned, Sirius hopping on one foot to get a shoe on, but they made it, out the portrait hole, without any broken bones.
The trip to Hogsmead was short, it was only a walk from the castle. In Diagon alley, which Meghan found out was where you got your supplies, Meghan saw so many wizards, she hadn’t seen even this many Muggles for a long time, except at the train station.
“Where shall we go first?” Remus said
“I have to get ‘The Standard Book of spells Grade 3, still. That’s like the only one I didn’t get…”
“We’ll go there first, then Meghan can get all of her books.”
So, they headed over to the bookstore, and Meghan got her books. She didn’t have any wizarding money, so she said that she was from a muggle family. She traded in her ‘muggle money’ for wizarding money.
They went to several shops, but when she went to get her wand, Meghan started to wonder if this was really a good idea. Minerva, Remus and Sirius came in with her, and a misty old man came over. “Hello I’m Mr. Ovallander… which is your wand hand?” he asked
“Wand hand?”
“Are you right handed?”
“Er, no, I’m left handed.” She said, Mr. Ovallander scoffed. He then took out a wand from a pile of boxes.
“Here, try this, one hair from a unicorns tail, solid pine 11 inches.” He said. Meghan took the wand. “What do you want me to do?”
“Wave it about a bit would you?” “Oh!” she said, and waved the wand, nothing happened. “Here, try…2 phoenix feathers, 8 inches.” Meghan waved, nothing happened.
“10 inches, birch, 2 unicorn hairs and a phoenix feather…” Meghan waved again, and again, and again… until there were 10 boxes she’d tried.
“10 inches, oak, 1 phoenix feather and 1 golden unicorn hair.” Wave. And, purple sparks shot from the end of the wand.
“Ahhh a match!” said Mr. Ovallander, smiling. And I believe it’s brother is in this same room…” he said and looked at Minerva, then back at Meghan. “*You*, my dear girl, owe me silver…” he said and went to the counter.
Meghan followed Minerva outside, she watched Minerva scoff her feet on the pavement.
“How much did that looser make you pay?”
“A lot…” Meghan said, “Where are we going?”
“We have to wait for Sirius, he’s—erm getting a uh, new owl…”
“Huh, getting a new owl is that what he told you?” Remus asked, “He’s getting a— Wait. I’m not supposto say anything,” he said, “good lord,” he said with horror, “I’m turning into Peter…”
Sirius hurried out of the pet store—the back door. “Did you get it?” Remus asked
“Yeah—.” Sirius glanced at Meghan and Minerva—and they went to The Three Broomsticks.