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Welcome ter Hogwarts



“Zis is absurd,” Fleur’s accented voice fell funnily over the word absurd. She had her arms crossed. They were standing in the dunes surrounding Shell Cottage, where Hagrid had left his motorcycle. Bill was helping Hagrid to attach a sidecar as Andy tightened the strap of a helmet beneath Ermalene’s chin. “Zat motorcycle is dangerous. Do you not remember crashing it the night we all became ‘arry Potter?” she demanded.

“It ain’t unsafe, Fleur,” Hagrid announced, “I drive it all over the place, have bin since Sirius left it with me, haven’t I? That crash was because I hit that ruddy purple button to get away from old You-Know-Who.”

Fleur did not look at all comforted.

Satisfied with the attachment of the sidecar, Bill walked over to his wife and rubbed her shoulders comfortingly. “It’s okay, dear, the motorcycle’s just as safe as the thestrals are.”

“So take ze thestral then,” she said.

“She’s still too tired from having the colt,” Bill explained. Then, in a whisper, “She would never be able to carry Hagrid, even if she hadn’t just had a baby.”

Fleur scowled.

They’d agreed, mostly, that is, that Andy and Ermalene should go alone with Hagrid to Hogwarts to see the portrait of Dumbledore as he was insisting. So they’d gone out and conjured the sidecar and now they were preparing to leave. Ermalene had butterflies in her stomach.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality,” she told Bill and Fleur - mostly Fleur, though, because of how sullen she appeared.

Fleur’s scowl wavered and she pouted as she pulled Ermalene into a hug. “Promise me you vill both be very careful? This prophecy business, it is troublant.”

“I promise,” Ermalene said.

Merci,” Fleur said as they broke apart the hug. She turned to Andy. “Come back to see us before you go to America,” she pleaded, “I wish to know how this all turns out.”

“We will,” Andy said, and he gave her a hug. “Thank you, gram.”

“You are mos’ very velcome. You always can come here, Andy,” she added and she kissed his cheek.

“Thanks gramps,” Andy said as he turned to Bill.

Bill gave Andy a hug, too, “Anytime, my boy,” he added. “Anytime.”

Hagrid cleared his throat as he climbed aboard the motorbike and attached his own, very large helmet upon his head. Andy and Bill broke apart and Andy helped Ermalene climb into the sidecar before following in himself and they buckled up carefully. Hagrid started the bike and it roared to life, shaking them in the sidecar as he revved it.

“Drive carefully!” Fleur shouted desperately as Hagrid rose off the ground.

“Aye, I will,” he shouted back over the din.

The motorcycle climbed up, up, up, up and Ermalene clutched the rim of the sidecar, feeling rather nervous and excited at the same time. She watched as the world below them got smaller and smaller, Fleur and Bill became less and less distinguishable among the marshy grasses and rocks, and soon the cottage itself looked like not much more than a rock far below. Hagrid steered them in a graceful loop, soaring over the ocean and then back over the land and into the clouds. “Next stop, Hogwarts castle!” he yelled like train conductor.

Andy, whose seat was directly behind Ermalene’s, had his hands on her shoulders, as though holding her in. She put her hands over his as the motorcycle zoomed through the air, past birds that looked at them curiously. Ever north, they flew steadily for hours and hours, it felt, and Ermalene’s legs slowly fell asleep and she got bored with nothing to see but the clouds that surrounded them.

“Got to get out of the muggle area before we can see anythin’,” Hagrid yelled. “Won’t be long now before we’ll duck down so you can see sommat what’s below us.”

It was a bit longer and Ermalene’s legs were most definitely asleep when finally Hagrid descended a bit and broke through the layer of cloud and Ermalene gasped at the jewel-toned earth below, shining in the sun. Trees stretched all around them, broken only by a lonely, winding railway that seemed to go on forever northward almost directly below them.

“There’s the Hogwart’s Express rails,” Andy said, pointing to them, grinning. He’d spent his first few years in school at Hogwarts and had ridden the Express back and forth from King’s Cross before his father had moved the family to the States and he’d transferred to Flamel Academy. He could almost taste the provisions that the witch with the sweets trolley had sold - there seemed no place in the world had fresher chocolate frogs as the trolley had.

They followed the railway for an incredible amount of time before Ermalene let out a shriek of excitement as before them, through mist, atop a large mountain, there came a faint mass, growing ever more recognizable as they approached. First, the astronomy tower, then Gryffindor and Ravenclaw towers, and the other turrets and spires of the castle separated themselves from the general mist of the distance. As they neared, the details came more and more into relief, and soon Ermalene could see the chimneys of Hogsmeade village and the moon glow reflecting off the lake.

Andy grinned, remembering the terms he’d spent there and the friends he’d left behind when he moved to America. He knew none of them would be there now - only Hagrid and a couple of the teachers lived on the school grounds year round - but it still made him feel very good to be back, even if only for a visit. When he’d heard that the family was moving overseas, he’d been quite upset and hated the idea of going to Flamel Academy, until he’d met Ermalene there.

Hagrid lowered the motorcycle onto the lawn in front of the castle and came to a stop in front of his little hut on the edge of the grounds. “Welcome to Hogwarts,” Hagrid called as he cut the engine of the motorcycle. They disembarked the bike and Ermalene stared up that the castle that she’d always dreamed of seeing, without ever thinking she really would. “It’s so much bigger than I ever believed it would be,” she murmured.

Andy laughed, “I told you Flamel is easily a quarter the size.”

“I thought you were exaggerating,” she explained.

Hagrid pushed the bike into a little shed beside his cottage, muttering about the headmistress disapproving of it. When he returned from the shed, he looked at the two teens staring up at the school and said, “Well then, we’ve come all this way. Yeh must be hungry I’d ‘magine. C’mon inside, I reckon I’ve got sommat ter eat. We’ll go up to the castle in the morning.” Hagrid waved the way into the hut and it was with great reluctance that Ermalene turned her back on the glowing orange windows that dotted the castle and followed him inside the dark hut.

Inside, Hagrid lit several candles and the little room became much more inviting so that Ermalene felt less disappointed that they weren’t going up to explore the castle until the next day. The hut was cozy, to say the least, with roots and baskets and bushels of unicorn hair hanging from the ceiling. There was a little fireplace, which Hagrid aimed a pink umbrella at to light, and before long there was a comfortable dinner on the table with big glasses of pumpkin juice and cups of tea.

“So tell us about this prophecy,” Andy said as they sat back once the sandwiches and rock cakes had been eaten (Ermalene had found Hagrid’s much harder to bite into than Fleur’s had been).

Hagrid rubbed his long beard, “I uh… I don’ know ‘ow much I can tell yer,” he said slowly. “I wasn’t serposed to be knowin’ much abou’ it meself. The prophecy was only serposed to be in my care and --” he paused. He took a deep breath, “‘pparently Professor Trelawney had sommat to say abou’ a bit o’ trouble comin’ ter the wizardin’ world --” Hagrid stopped.

“Trouble?” Ermalene asked, raising an eyebrow.

Hagrid hesitated. “Well -- er -- I ought not to say more’n that, I suppose. Yer name wasn’t in the prophecy ‘zactly, but in a book that Dumbledore gave ter me before he died. Only I’m connectin’ the two on account of Minerva said Dumbledore told ‘er I’d find me help in understandin’ when the prophecy was comin’ ter happen by lookin’ in this here book…” he got up and took down a book from the shelf - Aardvarkian Asparagus to Zuzagamber Berries: Baking, Cooking, and Otherwise Preparing Wizard Produce - and flipped it open to a page about making Chattering Cucumber Crumble and handed the book to Ermalene.

A spidery script scrawled across the margin requested audience with her with the signature APWBD.

She looked up at Hagrid.

“Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,” he said, sliding his fingertip along the letters. Hagrid turned and looked out the little window in his kitchen, beyond the pumpkin patch, to the edge of the lake where a ghostly white tomb stood sentinel over the grounds, as though watching over the castle. “The greatest wizard that ever lived.” He paused. “Still great,” he said, swiping a tear from his eye, “Even in death.”

“So I’ll be - be seeing his portrait then?” Ermalene asked.

Hagrid nodded.

“And you said the portrait’s in the Hall of Ancestors?”

Again, Hagrid nodded.

“But my grandfather said that the Hall of Ancestors has yet to be found,” Andy said. “You know where it is?”

Hagrid’s face straightened from the weepy look of reminiscence that he’d had on before to one more of concern at the mention of the knowledge of the actual location of the Hall. He cleared his throat, “Well, ter be honest with yer… The, er, the actual knowledge of the location of the Hall is… er… not sommat I know… exactly.”

Andy looked at Ermalene.

Ermalene looked at Hagrid. “How exactly do you suppose we’re going to see Dumbledore’s portrait if we don’t even know where it’s at?”

Hagrid shrugged, “Goin’ ter hafter find it, I reckon, aren’t we?”

Ermalene thought that Hagrid was making the task of finding the mysteriously missing Hall sound a lot easier than it truly would be - especially given the enormous castle looming over them.