Chapter 2
“..Didn’t I already tell you that?”
Jelena and Aventurine both looked at her incredulously, giving Jade a look that seemed to have say ‘what the fuck are you on about right now?’
“No?”
“Oh, haha, my bad.” Came Jade’s lighthearted answer.
“…”
Yeah, ‘my bad’ your ass.
Aventurine didn’t make the effort to hide his eye roll as he crossed his arm. In Jade’s defense, this information wasn’t something that she exclusively made people find out. It just so happens that after all the commotion at Hogwarts from last year, everybody on the streets were whispering something about this ‘You-Know-Who’ lord.
Out of mere curiosity, she had just dived in a little bit deeper, and suddenly found herself down a spiraling rabbit hole.
“Apparently, this Voldemort guy isn’t someone to be underestimated from what I’ve heard.” Jade said, concluding her little powerpoint about the Harry boy’s bland childhood. Aventurine guessed she would have said something more if not for the annoying interference of a certain ugly blonde.
Gilderoy went on about some long rant that Aventurine had tuned out, and so he had only caught the end of said long rant, but it seems that even his last sentence sounds just as annoying, if not more, as a fly buzzing in one’s ears.
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure and pride in announcing that this September, I will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!”
The crowd cheered and clapped and Harry found himself shoved with the entire works of Gilderoy Lockhart. Staggering from the overbearing weight, he managed to squeeze his way out of the limelight to the edge of the room, where a bright orange-haired girl, face adorned with freckles was standing with a strange cauldron.
He said something to the girl, then tipped the stack of books into her cauldron.
“Hey, seems like he isn’t a fan of—”
“Bet you loved that, didn’t you, Potter?” said a voice that seemed to be only slightly less annoying than Gilderoy. Harry straightened up and found himself face-to-face with the speaker. As Aventurine craned his neck to see, he could make out a boy around Harry’s age, his platinum blonde hair slicked back and held in place with tons of gel.
Aventurine could barely see from where the three of them were standing, so he grabbed both Jelena and Jade, somehow stirring them away from the crowd surrounding Gilderoy and towards Harry Potter and his friends.
As they neared them, Aventurine could see the little girl glaring quite passionately at the blonde.
“Aww shucks, seems like we missed—”
“Potter, you’ve got yourself a girlfriend !” drawled the boy. The redheaded girl went scarlet as two other kids showed up, each holding a stack of Lockheart’s books. Aventurine was pretty annoyed that this was the third time he’s been interrupted in this shop, but he decided to just keep it to himself for now.
“Oh, it’s you, Malfoy,” said the other redhead. Aventurine silently made a bet that all the redheads in this shop right now were all a part of one big family before continuing watching. The boy looked at so-called Malfoy as if he were something unpleasant on the sole of his shoe. “Bet you’re surprised to see Harry here, eh?”
“Not as surprised as I am to see you in a shop, Weasley,” retorted Malfoy. “I suppose your parents will go hungry for a month to pay for all those.”
The ginger went as red as his sister. He then dropped his books into his sister’s cauldron before starting towards Malfoy, but Harry and a brunette girl grabbed the back of his jacket and managed to pull him back.
“What? No fight?” Aventurine said dejectedly, earning himself another hit to the back of his head.
“Ron!” said another red-haired man, struggling over with two more redheads. (Jesus, how many people are in this household?) “What are you doing? It’s too crowded in here, let’s go outside.”
But before he could leave, another man showed up.
“Well, well, well — Arthur Weasley.”
It seems like the Malfoy kid’s father. He stood with his hand on Malfoy’s shoulder, sneering in just the same way as his son.
“Lucius,” said Mr. Weasley, nodding coldly.
“Busy time at the Ministry, I hear,” said Mr. Malfoy. “All those raids…I hope they’re paying you overtime?”
Ministry? Aventurine didn’t know what they were talking about, but he listened anyway. Plus, Jade and Jelena weren't stopping him, so maybe this also does count towards investigation of the wizarding world.
He reached into the younger girl’s cauldron and extracted, from amidst the glossy Lockheart books, a very old, very battered copy of A Beginner's Guide to Transformation .
“Obviously not,” Mr. Malfoy said. “Dear me, what’s the use of being a disgrace to the name of the wizard if they don’t even pay you well for it?”
Mr. Weasley flushed darker than both his kids.
“Aventurine, note down that shade of red. Seems like we’ll be able to develop a new color for our products.” Jade said, tapping Aventurine’s shoulder with her closed fan.
He let out a snicker before looking back in amusement. Sometimes, Jade seems like the most humorous person he’s ever met.
There was a thud of metal as the cauldron the girl has been holding suddenly went flying; Mr Weasley had thrown himself at Mr. Malfoy, knocking him backward into a bookshelf. Dozens of heavy spellbooks came thundering down on all their heads; there was a yell of, “Get him, Dad!” from the identical redheads; Mrs. Weasley was shrieking, “No, Arthur, no!”; the crowd stampeded backward, knocking more shelves over; “Gentlemen, please — please!” cried the assistant, and then, louder than all —
“Break it up, there, gents, break it up —”
Aventurine had formed an invisible shield around the three of them and he had hastily put it away after the commotion died down, wary that others would notice. More important than that, he found it regretting that the fight barely lasted five minutes before someone came in to break the two apart.
When he saw who had pulled the two fighting men apart, his mouth almost dropped. The man was huge , probably even bigger than most people found in other worlds too. Jelena seemed to also be making the same face towards the giant, but seems like Jade already knew.
Aventurine didn’t think much of it. If Jade’s unbothered, why would he care? Plus, if they did make a mistake and it was something to be bothered about, the blame would fall solely on Jade, since both him and Jelena are just in training.
He waved the thought out of his head, turning back towards the scene. Seems like in that short second, the crowd had somehow dispersed and the group of people were now nowhere to be seen anymore.
Aventurine let out a disappointed mumble before picking himself up from where he was sitting, looking over to Jade.
“All right. What else did we need?”
Smack!
“Look at your list, boy!”
“ Ow !”
There must be a spell for making chips fall out of thin air, right? Like how I use my powers, but in a more…wizarding way? Since using THEIR powers were banned here…
When Jade cleared her throat, Aventurine forced himself to get the thoughts out of his head before turning to her. They were seated in an expensive open-hood car, making the wind slap softly onto his face as they drove leisurely through the streets of London.
"We're almost there. Nervous?"
"Ha, let's just get this stupid thing over with." Came Aventurine's annoyed voice, instigating a laugh out of Jade
When they reached King’s Cross, she helped them put their trunks on a trolley before ushering them to walk through a wall, much to Aventurine’s discomfort. Though, it didn’t really feel like anything. It just felt like a normal day to day walk, so in the end, he didn’t mind it too much after.
After making sure they got on the correct train, she left through the wall again, saying how students and staff weren’t supposed to be taking the same train to school, and that left Aventurine and Jelena sitting awkwardly next to each other in silence.
There would be snack sellers once in a while, but after a few looks, Aventurine eventually learned that all the candy had some magic casted on them and was a complete waste of money, so he refused to buy any.
Aventurine closed his eyes, spending the rest of his train ride sleeping.
“Errr, maybe it’d be best if we start changing into our robes now,” Jelena pointed out the window. “It seems like the train’s slowing down.”
And sure enough, just as the both of them finished folding up their outer hoodies (as what people of this world called them), a voice echoed through the train: “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”
The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way towards the door and out into a tiny, dark platform. Aventurine shivered in the cold night air. Aeons, if only he still had some of his clothing layers under this stupid robe. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and he heard a familiar voice: “Firs’ years! Firs’ years over here!”
Aventurine turned over to Jelena awkwardly. So the giant was also a staff at Hogwarts. Great to know. “Er, we aren’t first year students, are we?”
“No, we're in the fourth grade. But…” Jelena scratched her cheek nervously. “This is our first year at Hogwarts.”
The two of them stood there awkwardly, staring at each other. Aventurine wanted to pull his hair out. Why didn’t Jade leave them any instructions at all!? Now they were stuck standing there, looking like complete idiots.
Until the same voice called for them.
“‘Ey, over ‘ere!” The giant called over the chattering voices of the first years. “Follow me. I got word ‘bout the two of yer. Yer a special case, eh?”
Aventurine threw on a bright smile, exchanging greetings with the man. Jelena said an awkward ‘hi’ before she hid slightly behind Aventurine.
“My name’s Aventurine,” he introduced himself, remembering to clutch onto the giant’s shirt in order to not be swept away by the crowd of rowdy students.
“The name’s Hagrid,” Hagrid said, leading the kids down a narrow path. It was so dark that even him with his extremely good night vision had to let his eyes adjust to the darkness for a while before he can make out his surroundings.
“Good name, ‘eh? Ought to thank yer mother for that!” Hagrid gave a small chuckle. No one was speaking since it was so dark, making Hagrid’s booming voice sound even louder. Aventurine held back a snort. Yeah right, he should thank his mother.
Before he could dwell on it for too long, the narrow path they had just been walking on had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched across a high mountain on the other side, its window sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers. The students let out a unanimous bout of ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s.
“No more’n four to a boat!” Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. “Except you two, o’course. Get on the same boat, will ya?” Aventurine and Jelena followed instructions, stepping into the same boat and squeezing right next to each other.
“Everyone in?” shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. “Right then — FORWARD!”
And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.
"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.
They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, Oak front door.
“Everyone here?”
Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.