Chapter Text
Calliope took a deep breath as she stepped through the Fireplace with her trunk. With a trembling hand, she took a handful of Floo powder from her mum.
“Look at me!”
She looked up at her mum and saw that she looked sad, angry, scared, but also happy.
“Be good, ok?”
Calliope nodded.
A tear leaked out of her mum’s eye.
She dropped the Floo Powder as she said; “H-hogwarts!” and closed her eyes. Warm flames engulfed her as she spun through various fireplaces, gripping her trunk as tightly as she could. When she opened her eyes, she found herself staring out of a fireplace, into a large, low-ceilinged room with stone walls and empty torch brackets.
There were other first-years who had just arrived too, some of them looking excited, others looking scared.
Calliope stepped out, dragging her trunk and walked over to a boy with a dark brown complexion and close-cropped hair.
“What’s going on?”
“The door’s not opening.”
Calliope watched as one of the first years struggled to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Why not?”
The boy merely shrugged.
“I’m Jaxon Grifhorn, by the way.”
He stuck out his hand and she shook it.
“Shut up, mudblood!”, said one of the more excited looking kids.
“I’m Half-blood, Selwyn. My dad’s a Pure-blood and my mum’s a Half-blood.”
He said this as though he said it a thousand times already.
After what seemed like hours, Just as the room was almost packed, the door opened and a boy no older than fifteen or sixteen walked in. He had a fairly tanned complexion, and had long, brown hair and on his chest, there was no mistaking it, was a small, gleaming badge with the letter ‘P’.
“Follow me, but leave your things.”
They did what they were told without question. Calliope lined up behind Jaxson and a tall, blond girl was right behind her.
They followed the prefect down a cold, dimly lit corridor and Calliope couldn’t help but look up at the walls. There were paintings of people who looked as though they’d like nothing more than to skin some of them alive.
“You all better not be blood traitors!”, yelled a man in a large oil painting, with a particularly nasty grin.
They followed the prefect up a short flight of stone steps, then turned a corner.
This has to be the Entrance Hall, Calliope thought.
The prefect walked on, pushed open the doors of what appeared to be the Great Hall and they all walked inside.
What Calliope saw both scared and awed her. The entire Hall had a deep, emerald green tinge to it, which came from the large, brilliant green flames in the fifteen bronze braziers all along the Hall. They weren’t Floo Powder flames, but they were definitely something else.
The man with blonde hair, up at the center of the staff table gave the prefect a curt nod and he gestured for the first years to sit down.
Calliope went to sit on the second table from the left. Jaxson and twelve other people also sat down with her. When all the first years had sat down, the prefect went to sit at the table on the far right.
The blonde man stood up, took out his wand, waved it, and the doors of the Great Hall closed themselves.
“Welcome and Welcome back, to another year at Hogwarts. For those who don’t know me, I am Professor Corban Yaxley.” He cleared his throat then continued.
“....Let me give our newcomers a brief introduction. For many centuries, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry produced mediocre wizards and witches. Among them, blood traitors and mudbloods. That all changed twelve years ago, on May 2nd, 1998, when Lord Voldemort defeated the once great Harry Potter. Over those next twelve years, the Dark Lord has made necessary changes to both Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic, starting with replacing the Aurors with the very efficient snatchers, followed by other acts that would be better to read in detail.”
Calliope found a hard time trying to take all of this in. She had always heard of Harry Potter when growing up, but she didn’t know if her own mum hated him like everyone else. All around the hall, she saw other first years murmuring among themselves and the older students snickering.
“That’s all for tonight, tuck in!”
Calliope looked down at the table and saw that it had filled itself with food. There were great big Roast turkeys, platters of sausages, roast beef, stew, gravy, carrots, turnips, cabbage, Steak and Kidney pie, fresh bread baked potatoes, apples and large mounds of mashed potatoes.
She filled her plate with roast beef, bread and steak-and-kidney pie and also filled her goblet with butterbeer.
“I…..mean, I hope they just turn themselves in, the muggle-borns, you know”, Jaxson was saying to a third or fourth year boy.
“Why, wouldn't- I mean, yeah, it’s better than being sent to Azkaban”, Calliope put in.
“What subjects are you lot looking forward to, by the way?”, the older boy asked.
“Potions. I’ll get to mix some stuff together, which I used to do back at home”, Jaxson said.
“I’m looking forward to Astronomy”, a girl with black pigtails said.
“Transfiguration”, two twins said in unison.
“What about you?”, he asked Calliope.
She thought a bit hard for a second.
“Er….probably Charms or.....Herbology
“Good choice, good choice.”
After an hour or so, the dishes disappeared from the table and were replaced with chocolate ecclairs, Fudge, Treacle tart and large mounds of ice-cream. Calliope was too full, so she didn’t eat any.
“Wait a second, where’re the ghosts? I haven’t seen one since I got here.”
“They’ve moved to the lower Dungeons, mostly”, the older boy said.”
After everyone else was finished with pudding, Corban Yaxley got up and dismissed the older students, but ordered the first years and four prefects to stay behind.
The prefects pulled out pieces of parchment and started reading off the names of first years.
Finally, Calliope stood in line with fifteen other first years, while the others were with the three other prefects. The female prefect who was in front of Calliope’s cohort of prefects had a smug expression on her face for some reason.
“Come on, follow me.”
They followed her out of the Great Hall and up the grand marble staircase. By the time they reached the fourth floor after many shortcuts, they saw a particularly large ghost floating along, mumbling to himself, but they just ignored him, and he, them.
They continued on, until they reached a spiral staircase. The prefect started climbing it and they all followed her to the top, where there was another door, this time with a broken, brass knocker. She entered and they all followed her inside. Calliope knew this used to be the Ravenclaw common room.
She knew, because her mum was in Ravenclaw during her time at Hogwarts.
The large marble statue of who she knew to be Rowena Ravenclaw was blasted by what looked like a bunch of different curses. Whoever had tried to remove her had clearly failed to do so. Her head and lower left arm were gone, so they were all now looking up at a headless statue that was also missing its lower forearm.
Calliope looked closely and saw that there were scorch marks all over the statue.
The prefect gestured to the other spiral staircase over by the corner.
“Your things have already been brought up and I’m sure you could all read when you get up there.”
She left and slammed the door.
The others started talking among themselves, but Calliope tried to shut it all out, as she was extremely tired and really wanted to get some sleep.
She barely noticed the older students, down in the common room as she started climbing the spiral staircase with a few other first-years behind her. At the top of the landing, was a long corridor lined with doors on both sides. Lucky enough, she read the piece of parchment stuck to the first door on the right;
First year Girls:
Penelope Avery
Lysandra Beaumont
Dera Cadwallader
Calliope Gremar
Indira Hornby
Cassandra Shafiq
She opened it and walked inside. There was one other girl there, who was setting up what looked like a sneakoscope on her bedside table.
“Hullo”, said Calliope.
“Hullo”, the girl said.
She looked at Calliope as though she were a ghost.
“I’m Calliope. What’s your name?”
“I-I-Indira”, she stuttered.
You mind me asking what the sneakoscope’s for?”
“M-my brother told me to put it up, in case anything happens.”
“Oh, I see. By the way, is your brother a Hogwarts student?”
“No, he….finished a few months ago.”
“Oh, that’s cool.”
“What’s going on?”
Both of them turned around and saw that another girl had walked in. Apart from noticing that she had a faint French accent, Calliope also noticed that her sleek jet black hair looked as though it had just been let down from a tight bun all day.
“Were we just introducing ourselves. What’s your name?”, Calliope asked.
“Lysandra Beaumont.”
Calliope couldn’t tell if she was very shy or hadn’t talked to another eleven year old in her entire life.
“I’m Calliope and this is Indira.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet the both of you.”
Again, Calliope thought that she spoke as though she’s never spoken to someone her own age before.
Calliope went over to her own four-poster bed, where her trunk lay. She opened it and quickly changed into her pajamas, then closed it and put it under the bed.
She climbed into her bed and stared up at the ceiling of her four-poster. She thought about her mum, who was probably at home thinking about her. She thought about her now finally being at Hogwarts, which was starting to feel both exciting and scary and last of all, she thought about her dad, wherever he was.
“Goodnight”, she sighed, slowly drifting off to sleep.