Harry Potter and the Rising Phoenix | By : TallyHo Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 2271 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
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* Chapter Two ~ The
Schooling Begins *
Abby and Caden Weasley had been rather late to Platform 9 ¾ thanks to
a prank gone wrong, an exceedingly worried grandma, and two snowy owls that had
refused any transportation other than proper cages. They’d barely made it onto the train before
it began to leave the station, gasping for breath and grinning at each other.
“No more
last-minute mischief, Abby,” Caden said around
pants. “And I mean it this time.”
Abby smiled
broadly at him, shaking shoulder-length wine-red hair out of her eyes and
smoothing her clothes free of wrinkles.
“Of course,
brother dear,” she agreed readily, and Caden didn’t
even have to glance at her to know she wore the innocent look that always
accompanied her lies.
He furrowed his
eyebrows in annoyance but was interrupted from doing anything else by a sharp
voice.
“Why haven’t you
found a compartment yet?” they both looked up at a woman with thick, mahogany
brown hair, tied back to keep her clever chestnut gaze free.
They were both too
preoccupied with the thought that pranks beneath this one’s eyes would be very
hard to pull off properly, when she continued.
“First years,” she
sighed to herself, shaking her head and sending them an impenitent annoyed
look. “Follow me.”
They stumbled
along behind her, sharing a look between themselves. After a short walk, they pulled to a stop in
front of an empty compartment.
As the woman slid
open the door however they discovered it was not empty at all. A single, young boy looked up at them with
mild curiosity from his seat near the window.
The woman gestured
for them to enter and they shuffled by her uncomfortably, taking seats opposite
the boy.
The woman entered
as well, sliding the door shut and pulling a notebook out of thin air with an
impatient swish of her wrist.
“Names?” she
demanded.
“Abigail and Caden Weasley,” Abby supplied immediately. The woman nodded after a slight hesitation,
writing the names down. She looked at
the other boy then, who was studying her face as if it were something to be
memorized.
“Gale,” he said
after a silent moment, turning his head to look back out the window. “Diggory.”
“Well, hey!” Abby
smiled brightly. “You live in Ottery St. Catchpool! I heard my parents talking about the Diggory’s. I didn’t
know they had a son, though.”
Diggory glanced at
her dispassionately and did not say anything.
Abby broke off into silence at the look, bemused as to why her friendly
advances were not immediately returned.
The woman coughed
once, sharply, drawing eyes back to her.
“I am Professor
Granger. I teach the Advanced Magical
Theory course, which I very much doubt you will have anything to do with. I have some things to talk to you about
before the train gets to Hogwarts.”
She sat down
beside Diggory, who spared her the same glance he’d given Abby.
“First of all I’m
sure you’re aware that the war has been centered in the Forbidden
Forest for some time now. I assure you that Hogwarts is quite well
protected and you’ve no need to worry.
Hogsmead, however, is another story.
Once we get off the train, you must
follow all orders to the letter. It is not
the time for disobedience,” she said firmly, throwing a look to the twins. “Are there any questions so far?”
Abby and Caden shook their heads, knowing when to be serious.
“I have one,”
Diggory put forth, drawing all gazes.
“Just when did the war get so close to Hogwarts?”
The professor
looked rather shocked, and it was Abby who was the first to recover words.
“Are you
joking? Just what rock have you been
living under?” she asked incredulously.
“Ottery St. Catchpool,” he supplied
casually, startling a laugh from Caden. Abby glared at her brother, who trailed the
laugh into a cough and looked away.
“It will be about
nine years come December, Mr. Diggory,” the Professor said finally. “Now, on to business.”
She flipped through
a few pages of her notebook.
“The Forbidden
Forest is, of course,
forbidden. Anyone not authorized to
enter it will be expelled if they do.
Every morning at precisely ten o’clock
there will be a roll-call for every member of each House. Do I have to explain what a ‘House’ is?”
This question was
obviously not written on the sheet, for she glanced up pointedly at
Diggory. Abby smirked.
“If they haven’t
changed in the past eleven years, then no,” Diggory replied nonchalantly. Professor Granger raised one eyebrow but
didn’t persist. She looked over to the
twins, who both shook their heads.
“Very well,” she
continued, tucking the notebook back into the invisible space it had come
from. “Curfew is the same in all Houses,
and there are some general rules all must abide by. Beyond that, the head of whatever House
you’re chosen to live in will brief to you later.”
She rose,
straightening her stern black robes and nodding to each of them.
“It was quite
pleasant to meet you all. Good luck this
year,” she could have been reading from the sheet for all the feeling she put
into it. The door slid open and she
stepped out, throwing one last look to Diggory before the door slid shut again.
The twins shared a
look before turning to their year mate.
“We might’ve started
off on the wrong foot,” Caden offered after a bit,
glancing at Abby disapprovingly. She
didn’t say anything. “I’m Caden Weasley. This
is my twin sister, Abby. I don’t think
anyone knew that the Diggory’s had a son. They aren’t very social, your parents. Our grandpa used to work with your dad, you
know. But he says they hardly ever talk
nowadays.”
Diggory’s foggy green eyes were slightly disconcerting,
pinned so fully upon him. Caden stumbled to a quiet and looked to Abby for help. She fixed Diggory with a stare of her own.
“You could be a
bit more polite, you know,” she said over Caden’s
half-hearted protests. “It’s not smart
to start the year off with no friends.”
That green gaze
fixed upon her and there was irony in it somewhere beneath the detached poise.
“I’m not going to
Hogwarts to make friends.”
They had to be
Fred or George’s brood. They had the
same cleverly amused eyes. Gale had been
surprised at first when confronted with so much from his past. Hermione looked so cold. How many years of war had done that to
her? She hadn’t been like that the last
time he’d seen her. She’d been so
hopeful. They’d all been hopeful.
He’d expected
himself to burst into tears, had prepared for it. To admit then and there that he’d missed her
terribly, that he was sorry he hadn’t been strong enough so long ago, that he
was here to make it better again.
But it hadn’t
hurt, seeing her withdrawn eyes, her crisp attitude. It had been surprising but it hadn’t
distracted him. She wouldn’t understand
if he told her who he had been, and she didn’t really have to know. Gale Diggory had been Harry Potter. He wasn’t him now.
The rest of the
train ride went on in relative silence, the twins murmuring between themselves
and every so often trying to involve Gale in their conversations. He maneuvered his way past their advances
until they finally gave up. His green
eyes reflected faintly in the window of their compartment as night slowly fell
on Britain’s
countryside.
When the
flickering lights and dark silhouette of Hogsmead came into sight, Hogwarts
looming up behind it, Gale felt a stirring of sentiment deep in his gut.
Home. He was home again. Now to see if he could avoid the one person
that he knew would distract him.
“It’s brilliant!” Caden whispered, pressed up against the glass and gazing at
the school.
“It’s wicked!”
Abby grinned, scrunched up beside her brother.
“It’s under
siege,” Gale reminded them, standing up and slipping on his robes. His wand holster, a gift from Mr. Diggory on
his ‘eleventh’ birthday, was empty against his right thigh.
An
uncharacteristic smile was hidden as he bent his head to do the clasp of his
cloak. He was thinking about reuniting
with his eleven inches of phoenix feather and holly.
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