Chapter Five : The Gryffindors
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[(Y/N)'s Point of View]
As I turned to talk to some of the Gryffindors, I realized how wonderful it was to be here.
When my first plate of food was finished, I grabbed the whole plate of fruits and placed it on my plate. Ah, this is just so good.
I couldn't help but think of boasting this to Annabeth, Will, and Luke. We never had this kind of feast in Camp Half-Blood unless someone finished a quest alive, and that was once in a lifetime. I was sure they would be drooling over the food in here.
"Woah, calm down." said the voice of a girl. It was Hermione Granger. "You looked like you haven't eaten for years."
"Not really," I said after finishing the grapes. "Just didn't eat this much in years."
Hermione smiled at me, and I smiled back. I really wanted to befriend her. She had the presence of Annabeth with her.
On the other side of the table, the conversation was made.
"I'm half and half." said a brown-haired boy. I think his name was Seamus Finnigan. "Me dad's a Muggle, mum's a witch. Bit of a nasty shock when he found out."
The others laughed.
"What about you, Neville?" said Ron.
"Well, my gran brought me up and she's a witch," said Neville. "But the family thought I was all-Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me—he pushed me off the end of Blackpool pier once, and I nearly drowned—but nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced—all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here—they thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad."
Oh, so his Great Uncle Algie was the reason why he was struggling with his toad.
They suddenly looked at me.
"What?" I asked.
"How about you?" Seamus asked back.
"Erm..." I tried searching for an answer to the question. "I'm a... half-blood."
"Really?" Ron asked. "On which side?"
I hesitated.
"My mom."
"So, your dad's a Muggle, too?"
A God, I almost said but stopped myself.
I only nodded my head and looked down at my plate to avoid more questions. Thankfully, they went into asking Hermione and Ron about their blood statuses.
I could feel a pair of eyes staring at me. I gazed up at my plate only to see Harry looking at me.
I raised my eyebrows. He seemed to have realized what he had done because he suddenly blushed before facing his food.
"Ouch!"
I confusedly stared up at Harry again. He had just clamped his hand to his head.
"What is it? Are you okay?" I asked, baffled. "What happened?"
"N-nothing," Harry said while fixing his hair away from his face. "Nothing. I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" I asked once more.
"Yeah. I'm fine," he said, smiling. "Perfectly."
"Okay," I mumbled but never left my eyes on him. I had the feeling he was lying.
He turned to Percy Weasley and asked;
"Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?"
"Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? No wonder he's looking so nervous, that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to—everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape."
Snape...
Tons of pictures came into my mind. A snake. It was the same snake I had seen in my earlier vision. A man in black hair. A man with no hair. Blood. The snake again.
I dropped my fork. I opened my eyes. I haven't noticed that I just had my eyes closed all that time.
"(Y/N), are you okay?" I heard Hermione ask beside me.
I waited for my eyes to calm down. I knew it was glowing white again. It always had been every time I had visions of the future.
When I was sure that my eyes weren't glowing, I turned to Hermione and nodded.
"I'm fine," I said in the same tone Harry had to me. "Just a little... toothache."
"Oh, you should stop eating hard food, then," Hermione said, eyeing the plate of pork meat.
"Thank you, Hermione," I said appreciatively.
She smiled.
"Hey, uhm, Hermione?" I called, slightly scooting over to her. "What's your blood status, again?"
"Oh, I think they called it Muggle-born," said Hermione. "Since both of my parents are Muggle or non-magic people."
We continued chatting about things she had read in this book called Hogwarts: A History. I wished I had no dyslexia, I really wanted to know these interesting things about Hogwarts.
After a few more minutes of pure eating and chatting, Dumbledore told us to go to our 'common room' or whatever that was. I think it was the place we were going to reside inside Hogwarts or something. We were led by Percy Weasley, a Gryffindor prefect (I learned from Hermine that prefects are like the head students from the year fifth, sixth, and seventh, just like head counselors in Camp Half-Blood) towards a LOT of stone staircases.
"All Gryffindors, follow me please," he called sternly as we followed him into another set of staircases.
I was fascinated and irritated at the number of stairs we had to take. I mean, how in Tartarus did they manage to have thousands of stairs where in fact the outside of the castle looked like they only had five floors? Hermione said that magic did this stuff. Now, I was completely excited to learn more.
"Now, this is a direct path to the dormitories," said Percy Weasley, stretching his arm in front of us. "Oh, and keep an eye on the staircases. They like to change."
Huh?
Gasps and murmurs filled our group. The staircases could really change. The stairs connect and disconnect themselves from one another and move to either left or right and attach themselves to another floor.
It was amazing to watch, but horrifying to be in one moving staircase.
We continued to stride from one staircase to two, casually passing some moving portraits that were on the wall around us. They kept on greeting us, curtsying and waving at us until we walked past.
According to Percy, in every House in Hogwarts, there are different places to live in. Gryffindors and Ravenclaws are in a tower, Hufflepuffs in the basement, and Slytherins were in the dungeon. There are also different ways to access it. Gryffindors have to give the password to a portrait, Ravenclaws have to answer a riddle, Hufflepuffs have to knock on a certain barrel beside the door, and Slytherins have to say their password on a particular wall.
Common rooms were like the house for each Hogwarts House, which will also lead to the boys' and girls' dormitories.
After what felt like an eternity, we finally made it to a certain corridor and a portrait of a fat lady in pink. She didn't move at first but when Percy stood in front of her, she said;
"Password?"
"Caput Draconis," said Percy.
The portrait swung open and admitted us all inside. All I did today, I noticed, was to gasp in amusement and I didn't have any reason to react otherwise.
The Gryffindor common room was in deep red and gold painted room with two fireplaces. There were a lot of cozy and squashy armchairs. The wideness of it was two times the Big House and wider than our cabin seven. It was so beautiful in the eyes.
Percy directed the boys into one door towards their dormitory.
I looked around and searched for that emerald-green-eyed boy and saw that he was looking for something else. When his eyes met mine, he slightly blushed.
I grinned at him and waved. He waved back before vanishing behind the door of the boys' dormitory.
Percy went back and led us into another door.
At the top of a spiral staircase, we entered one dormitory for our year and were amused to see our beds at last. There were four four-posters hung with deep red, velvet curtains.
Our trunks had already been brought up and were placed in our four-poster beds.
"Hi, (Y/N)," said Hermione.
I turned and was delighted to see Hermione on the four-poster beside mine.
"We're dorm mates!" I exclaimed excitedly.
Hermione nodded and giggled.
While I was pulling on my pajama, I learned that our other dorm mates were Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil.
I had much enjoyment while talking to them until they all fell asleep. I wanted to sleep too but Hypnos couldn't seem to visit me tonight. I had the curtains in my four-poster closed and all the lamps inside the dorm closed, but I still couldn't get sleep.
I tossed around with my eyes closed, gripping my bracelet for some sense of comfort.
You're forgetting something, a voice said in my head.
I opened my eyes. Did I just hear my father's voice?
It's me, (Y/N), said Apollo in my head. As I said, you're forgetting something.
I sat up, and the crimson-red blanket that wrapped around my waist slid down a bit.
"Forgetting something?" I mumbled to myself. "What did I forget?"
The camp, my dad said. Call the camp.
"Oh!" I slapped my forehead. "I nearly forgot."
I scrambled from my bed and went to open my trunk. I pulled out a ready-to-use water container with a nozzle. It was still full of water from the camp.
I made sure that Hermione, Lavender, and Parvati were asleep before I went down to the common room. It was empty and the only sound I could hear was the crackling of the fire in the fireplace, which I didn't notice was lit when we first entered the tower.
I found a good background a little too far from the fireplace to begin my IM. I opened the nozzle's lid and began spraying water in front of me.
"Don't let anyone come down, Father," I mumbled while spraying.
I pulled one golden drachma from my bracelet and said;
"Oh Iris, goddess of the Rainbow, please accept my offering."
I tossed the golden drachma while continuously spraying. The drachma shimmered and vanished almost at once.
"Luke Castellan, Camp Half-Blood."
It took only a second when the mist of the water that came from my water container slowly shimmered until there was a scenery appeared. It was inside the Hermes cabin.
I smiled when I noticed Luke, Will, and Annabeth sitting on Luke's camp bed. They were talking to each other.
"Luke!" I called eagerly. "Will! Annabeth!"
They turned together.
"(Y/N)!" they called back as they scrambled on the cap bed to stand in front of the IM mist.
"Oh, thank the gods! You're okay!" Will exclaimed.
"How are you?" Annabeth asked.
"How come you've IMed us? Are you alone?" Luke inquired.
"Woah, chill, guys." I chuckled while struggling to continue spraying. "One by one... I'm okay, Will, of course, just a little bit full from the food. The food's great in here. I don't think I'll ever starve myself. I'm fine, Annabeth, super fine. And I'm alone, Luke, everyone's sleeping in their dormitories. No one's in here."
I made to look around the common room and still, I saw no one.
"How's your school so far?" Luke asked.
I told them almost everything that I learned, except for the information about the magic things in Hogwarts. I was so careful with my words to tell them. I also told them about my new friends and how I wanted to befriend more of them. They were listening to me carefully.
When I was finished, the three of them already finished some stolen biscuits from the camp store.
"What school is that?" Will asked.
I laughed.
"Nice try, Will, but I'm shutting my mouth," I said.
"Oh, man," Will said, clearly disappointed.
I shook my head. I soon noticed that my water container was almost empty.
"Hey, I'm losing water. I need to go." I told them.
They looked sad about it but told me to take care of myself.
"I will, guys. You know I will." I said.
"IM us again, okay? When you're not busy and when you're alone." Luke reminded me.
"You should make friends there, (Y/N)," said Annabeth. "But don't abandon us."
"I will never abandon you, guys," I said, shaking my water container. "You should go back to your cabins. It's already curfew in there."
"We will," Will said. "You go to sleep too. Tomorrow's a big day for you."
"Yes, and listen to your teachers, okay?" Annabeth said. "If they want you to read, just tell them about your condition. I'm sure, they'll understand."
"I will, madam," I said teasingly.
"Oh, shut up."
"I'll IM you all again," I said. "I'm really out of water."
"Bye, (Y/N)!"
Once the IM was gone, I dropped my hand. I looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that it was half past ten. I was spraying for almost an hour. No wonder why my fingers and arms felt like it was being slashed by multiple blows.
I went back to our dormitory, tossed my empty water container on my trunk, and plopped myself in my bed.
I stared at the canopy of my four-poster, thinking whether keeping the secret from my friends in Half-Blood Hill was a good choice at all. I mean, they need to know where I was and what I was doing here, but... I don't know, I had the feeling that telling them this sooner would change something in the future.
And having some kind of this gut feeling is really rare, and at the same time, normal to a child of the God of prophecy.
Maybe, it was a good decision, I forced myself to think while I was being driven into a deep sleep with no disturbing demigod dreams.
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- 𝑦𝑎𝑛𝑔