Hogwarts Introduction
Nov. 15th, 2005 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthHey hey, I've think I've got a start to a Hogwarts Story that I can kind of get behind, but, well, I have to get some actual work done, so I can't write more now. This makes me sad, but it can't be helped. :) Anyway, I thought I'd post my little bitty start. :) There are probably typos and grammatical errors and omitted words and such - sorry about that!
As I look back now on the years I spent at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it seems strange to think that we were only children. The things that happened, the things we did, I have not done things since that match in all of the years that have passed since my graduation. Yet still I know that there are others that did far more, far different things than I, for I was content to do nothing for the first two years of my time at the school, inaction I still regret to this day. Thus, it was not until my third year as a student at Hogwarts, not long after my 16th birthday, that I started to be active in the momentous events that were taking place in the world around us.
I had spent my first two years at school deeply engaged in studying, seeking to draw as little attention to myself as possible, concentrating on my grades. I had to do my best, to prove to my parents that I had been put in the right house, that Ravenclaw was the place for me despite their hopes that I be placed in Slytherin house. When I was first sorted, I feared I would be disowned, for the family was in general agreement that it was a terrible blow to the our reputation that I not be placed in the ranks of the great and noble house of Slytherin. They used to say that I was the first in my family not of the snake, though I later learned that such was not the case, they simply had chosen not to acknowledge family members who had been put in any other house. I was determined not to join the ranks of forgotten Prince’s. I was determined to earn the respect of my family, to be the daughter that they would have wished me to be, even though I wasn’t a Slytherin.
There was only a single complication, a single stumbling block in the way of my seclusion. I generally preferred to keep to myself, it’s true, but when I was 14, the year that I started school at Hogwarts, my parents asked to speak to me, their faces more serious than I had ever seen them before.
“Delia, we have some bad news for you,” my mother had said. I was instantly very worried, thinking of all the horrible things that might have happened. Had someone passed away? My brother, Alasdair, was a senior at Hogwarts, and I started imagining all the horrible things that might have happened to him. Maybe he wandered into the forest, maybe he got caught by the giant squid, maybe…maybe…my imagination produced all sorts of horrors, focused on my brother for no reason I could have identified, and in the few moments before my parents continued I had thoroughly convinced myself that my brother had been eaten by a manticore.
“Delia…” my parents looked at each other, each looking terribly uncomfortable, “…we don’t know how to tell you this, but, well, you’ll have to use your brothers hand-me-down robes from when he was younger.”
I just stared at them, not understanding what they were telling me. “Alasdair’s alright, isn’t he?” I asked, terribly worried about manticores, chimeras, and giant squids.
My parents both looked startled, though. “Yes, of course, Alasdair’s fine. However, we…we can’t…maintain you at Hogwarts as you might wish. Fortunately, we’ve kept all of your brother’s old school things.” My father looked stern. “You’d better take all of the same classes he did!”
Even then, I still didn’t really realize what they meant. Slowly, I tried to work through my confused thoughts out loud. “So…what you mean is that if I don’t take the same classes as Alasdair, I won’t have school books?”
My mother nodded solemnly, my father looked away as if he was ashamed. “Yes, Delia.”
“But…but…Alasdair focused in transfiguration! I hate transfiguration! I want to focus in potions…” I whined, pouting in an exaggerated fashion.
Whining was exactly the wrong thing to do, though. All sense of sympathy from my parents faded, and my father snapped at me. “Yes, well, we’ve had to make sacrifices, too. You’re not the only one. Your brother has had to manage on the Quidditch team using a broom that is nearly five years old, while all of the other students have new brooms. Your mother,” my mother looked away, her eyes full of tears, “had to wear the same robes to the last three parties thrown by the Malfoy’s. And I myself have had to stop going to the club entirely, lest the others realize my sad situation. Everyone else in this family is doing their best, and we expect the same from you young lady!”
I nodded, trying to look demure, submissive, but already I was forming a plan. My parents surely could not object if I raised the money to buy my books on my own. Even then, I was skilled at potions for my age, a talent neglected by my family members since my great grandmother had died. She left behind an impressively stocked cabinet filled with potion ingredients, both common and rare. No one would notice if I took some with me to school, no one would notice if I began to do some brewing on the side. If I was careful, well, I was certain that there would be demand for potions amongst the students at the school. All I’d have to do was work hard to meet that demand, not waste what ingredients I had, to make some knuts and sickles on the side that I could use to pursue my studies. Surely, I thought again, my parents couldn’t object. So I agreed to their restrictions, let them pack my bags with used books and robes worked over with spells to make them look new again, and planned out what potions I could use to make my own fortune now that my parents would not –could not - allow me access to theirs.
As I look back now on the years I spent at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it seems strange to think that we were only children. The things that happened, the things we did, I have not done things since that match in all of the years that have passed since my graduation. Yet still I know that there are others that did far more, far different things than I, for I was content to do nothing for the first two years of my time at the school, inaction I still regret to this day. Thus, it was not until my third year as a student at Hogwarts, not long after my 16th birthday, that I started to be active in the momentous events that were taking place in the world around us.
I had spent my first two years at school deeply engaged in studying, seeking to draw as little attention to myself as possible, concentrating on my grades. I had to do my best, to prove to my parents that I had been put in the right house, that Ravenclaw was the place for me despite their hopes that I be placed in Slytherin house. When I was first sorted, I feared I would be disowned, for the family was in general agreement that it was a terrible blow to the our reputation that I not be placed in the ranks of the great and noble house of Slytherin. They used to say that I was the first in my family not of the snake, though I later learned that such was not the case, they simply had chosen not to acknowledge family members who had been put in any other house. I was determined not to join the ranks of forgotten Prince’s. I was determined to earn the respect of my family, to be the daughter that they would have wished me to be, even though I wasn’t a Slytherin.
There was only a single complication, a single stumbling block in the way of my seclusion. I generally preferred to keep to myself, it’s true, but when I was 14, the year that I started school at Hogwarts, my parents asked to speak to me, their faces more serious than I had ever seen them before.
“Delia, we have some bad news for you,” my mother had said. I was instantly very worried, thinking of all the horrible things that might have happened. Had someone passed away? My brother, Alasdair, was a senior at Hogwarts, and I started imagining all the horrible things that might have happened to him. Maybe he wandered into the forest, maybe he got caught by the giant squid, maybe…maybe…my imagination produced all sorts of horrors, focused on my brother for no reason I could have identified, and in the few moments before my parents continued I had thoroughly convinced myself that my brother had been eaten by a manticore.
“Delia…” my parents looked at each other, each looking terribly uncomfortable, “…we don’t know how to tell you this, but, well, you’ll have to use your brothers hand-me-down robes from when he was younger.”
I just stared at them, not understanding what they were telling me. “Alasdair’s alright, isn’t he?” I asked, terribly worried about manticores, chimeras, and giant squids.
My parents both looked startled, though. “Yes, of course, Alasdair’s fine. However, we…we can’t…maintain you at Hogwarts as you might wish. Fortunately, we’ve kept all of your brother’s old school things.” My father looked stern. “You’d better take all of the same classes he did!”
Even then, I still didn’t really realize what they meant. Slowly, I tried to work through my confused thoughts out loud. “So…what you mean is that if I don’t take the same classes as Alasdair, I won’t have school books?”
My mother nodded solemnly, my father looked away as if he was ashamed. “Yes, Delia.”
“But…but…Alasdair focused in transfiguration! I hate transfiguration! I want to focus in potions…” I whined, pouting in an exaggerated fashion.
Whining was exactly the wrong thing to do, though. All sense of sympathy from my parents faded, and my father snapped at me. “Yes, well, we’ve had to make sacrifices, too. You’re not the only one. Your brother has had to manage on the Quidditch team using a broom that is nearly five years old, while all of the other students have new brooms. Your mother,” my mother looked away, her eyes full of tears, “had to wear the same robes to the last three parties thrown by the Malfoy’s. And I myself have had to stop going to the club entirely, lest the others realize my sad situation. Everyone else in this family is doing their best, and we expect the same from you young lady!”
I nodded, trying to look demure, submissive, but already I was forming a plan. My parents surely could not object if I raised the money to buy my books on my own. Even then, I was skilled at potions for my age, a talent neglected by my family members since my great grandmother had died. She left behind an impressively stocked cabinet filled with potion ingredients, both common and rare. No one would notice if I took some with me to school, no one would notice if I began to do some brewing on the side. If I was careful, well, I was certain that there would be demand for potions amongst the students at the school. All I’d have to do was work hard to meet that demand, not waste what ingredients I had, to make some knuts and sickles on the side that I could use to pursue my studies. Surely, I thought again, my parents couldn’t object. So I agreed to their restrictions, let them pack my bags with used books and robes worked over with spells to make them look new again, and planned out what potions I could use to make my own fortune now that my parents would not –could not - allow me access to theirs.
