Chapter 2
Tom spent the rest of his holidays in this manner, escaping from the orphanage shortly after breakfast and spending all day working at the OTTER, practising spells from his textbooks, or exploring the alley, most nights not returning until just before curfew. He earned a healthy 3 sickles an hour, and by the end of the holidays he had amassed a grand total of 104 galleons and 8 sickles, which he added to the stash in his chest, having happily doubled his starting funds and spent very little, only splashing out on another 2 pairs of robes, this time tailored instead of second hand, for 15 galleons.
When he made his way through Kings Cross station on the 1st of September, following the platform directions given to him by the professor at the start of the holidays, he had his trunk in his pocket and his wand hidden up his sleeve - he had fashioned himself a holster out of many small scraps of dragonhide he had begged from a tailor.
Tom made his way through the barrier wall, a shivery feeling passing over him as he did so, and paused on the empty platform, taking in the gleaming red steam engine with awe. As he boarded, he made his way to the last carriage, most if not all of the compartments being empty due to how early he was. He enlarged his trunk from its matchbox size, and cast a quick charm he had learnt from a book on household spells to close the curtains of the compartment. He used the locking charm on the door, and quickly changed into his school robes while he was still undisturbed. He chose a book from his collection to read on the journey, a historical textbook detailing the story of Merlin, Morgana, and other famous wixen from their time, one he had read many times over the summer, and in one simple motion levitated his trunk to the luggage rack above his head. Magic acted like a muscle, and it was one that he had exercised a lot since he had discovered its existence.
He spent the train ride undisturbed, with the exception of a red-wearing prefect (Gryffindor, his mind supplied from his memory of Hogwarts: A History) half way through, who angrily instructed him to “not lock the door, for Merlin’s sake! We need to be able to reach you quickly and easily in case of an emergency!”. Tom locked the door again when she left.
When the train reached Hogsmeade platform, a man who introduced himself only as Ogg, the groundskeeper, was holding a lantern and gathering all the first years. Tom followed the crowd, and ended up climbing into a rickety boat with a pair of blonde twins who introduced themselves as Maggie and Grace Fortescue, and a dark eyed boy who introduced himself only as Jacob.
The chattering twins were awed into silence as they rounded a bend and saw Hogwarts for the first time, and the boats floated through an ivy curtain into a cavern, from which Ogg led the large group up a staircase to a waiting chamber. It was here that Tom again laid eyes on the Professor who had delivered his letter. The man’s eyes twinkled at the eleven year olds as he smiled at them. “Welcome to Hogwarts. I am the deputy headmaster Professor Dumbledore; I teach transfiguration for students in years 1 through 5, and the alchemy elective for students in year 6 and 7. I will be leading you through your sorting, which will commence but momentarily. The four houses available to you are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. I wish luck to all of you, now please follow me.” With his little speech done, Dumbledore led the students into the great hall and towards the head table, below which sat a three-legged stool with a dirty, wrinkled hat sitting atop of it.
Whilst the students were distracted ooh-ing and ah-ing at the enchanted ceiling, which currently was showing a clear starry night, the hat cleared its throat and burst into song, to the surprise of none but the firsties. Its lengthy song first introduced itself as the ‘sorting hat’, and then extolled the virtues of all four houses. Tom paid little attention to the song, already knowing from his voracious reading that Ravenclaw was the house he wanted to go to. It suited those who seek knowledge, which was something he eagerly did; if he was going to be a wizard he wanted to know as much as he could.
He kept an ear out to listen to the others’ sortings, clapping extra hard when Fortescue, Grace and Fortescue, Margaret went to Hufflepuff, and Rees, Jacob went to Slytherin. After Jacob, it was his turn, and he approached the talking hat with some apprehension. His fears ended up being unfounded however, and he was sorted to Ravenclaw like he had hoped after a short debate with the hat on whether he should be placed in Slytherin instead.
Tom happily went to join his new house, his robes turning the blue that adorned those sitting around him, and watched the rest of the sorting. Once the last person (Yaxley, Andrew) was sorted, the headmaster, a frail looking man called Professor Dippet, stood and gave a welcome speech. “I hope all of you had a good holiday and are ready to knuckle down again on your schoolwork. I would like to remind you all that the Forbidden Forest is, in fact, forbidden, unless you are accompanied by a teacher for educational purposes. Please do endeavour not to cast spells you personally cannot reverse outside of classes, as Healer Prewett would prefer to not have to deal with the products of your schoolyard duels. Thank you, and tuck in.” With this, the doddery old man sat down, and platters of food, more than Tom had probably seen in his life, appeared on each table.
Tom spooned some boiled potatoes and what looked like baked fish onto his plate, along with a healthy portion of vegetables, and tucked in. As he did so, the people around him began introducing themselves. His housemates for the next 7 years were Colleen Edgecombe, Isolde Lovegood, Priya Patil, Leonard Crouch, and Cadman Rowle. Glancing at the other house tables, Tom noticed that there was a very uneven distribution of students in his year, with Ravenclaw having 6, Hufflepuff having 8, Gryffindor 14, and Slytherin 12.
When dinner was over, the 6th year Ravenclaw prefects led them up to the common room, which was in one of the highest towers in the castle and only accessible through a door that you had to answer a riddle to open. It seemed like a pretty good defence, intruders would hopefully be under too much defensive fire to have time to answer a riddle. Inside, the common room was furnished entirely in blue, with sky blue walls and ceilings, and furniture upholstered in a royal blue velvet. The circular walls were almost entirely covered in fitted bookcases, the only exceptions being the stairs to the dorms, the door to the multi-use project room, and the two large floor-to-ceiling windows, which would illuminate the whole room during the day, so that students could better see what they were working on.
The prefects, Roger Fawley and Irene Prince gathered the first years in front of the marble fireplace and Irene began speaking, clapping her hands to get their attention as they took in the room. “Alright firsties, welcome to Ravenclaw! I’m Irene, and this is Roger, and we’re two of your six prefects. The others are Millicent, Belinda, Julian, and Anthony, however they are all in exam years, for either their NEWTs or their OWLs, so please bother me and Roger before you bother them.”
“As you can tell, this is our common room,” Roger took over, “You are welcome to bring members of other houses here provided they can answer the entrance riddle, however they are not to go further than the common room or the project room. I will warn you, the stairs are warded against non house members - as Bea’s ex found out the hard way!” A girl with long black hair flipped Roger the bird from across the common room where she was lounging on a sofa with a book. Roger continued as if she had never done so. "Any older students who sit at this large table here -" he points at the table in question "- are open for tutoring requests, or if you prefer you can put a note on the noticeboard. Make sure to check the noticeboard at least once a week in case something important pops up. Umm am I missing anything Irene?"
"You are. Each member of Ravenclaw has a mandatory annual checkup with Healer Prewett; the dates for these are randomly assigned and you will be sent a note by owl at breakfast time on the day of your appointment to inform you what time you need to go to the hospital wing. Our Head of House is Professor Binns, he teaches History of Magic and will hand out your schedules at breakfast tomorrow. You will meet him then. Breakfast starts at 7:30am, so Roger or I will wake you up at 7 tomorrow so we can lead you down there. Curfew for years 1 through 3 is 10pm. This doesn’t mean you have to be asleep, it just means you have to be back in the common room. Now if you follow us, we will show you to your dorms.” With that, Irene turned and led the group up the stairs to the first landing, where there was a short corridor that had 3 doors on each side.
“Now,” Roger began, “usually you have to share a dorm with one other person until 5th year, but as you are such a small group, this year you have a room to yourself. Please don’t abuse this privilege, but likewise try not to stay up until 3 am studying - I can’t believe I’m saying this, but in the grand scheme of things the only exams that matter are your OWLs and NEWTs. It will not help if you get burnt out in year 1.That being said, your names are on the doors, we want lights out by midnight purely because it's the first night, and we will see you in the morning.” With that the two prefects waved to the new students and departed down the stairs, presumably to catch up with their friends.
Tom looked at his yearmates, before awkwardly muttering “well, goodnight then,” and going through the door with his name on, closest to the stairs on the left hand side. Looking around his new room, his jaw dropped. It was much larger than he would have expected to be physically possible, based on the size of the common room below, and had a large four poster bed with deep blue hangings, a wardrobe, desk, dresser, and large bookcase all seemingly made out of the same handsome wood, a small pointed window set into the thick walls with a bench underneath it, and a door at the back with a key in the lock. The walls and ceiling were painted the same shade of blue as the common room below, but Tom had the Northern Hemisphere’s constellations painted on his ceiling in shimmering gold - perhaps from a previous occupant?
Curious, Tom first went through the door, and found himself in a bathroom with multiple sinks, showers, and toilets, which he presumed he would be sharing with Leonard Crouch and Cadman Rowle, who were the only other boys in his year and house. It was plenty more spacious than what he used at the orphanage, and shared between much less people. Tom could get used to a life of luxury such as this.
Leonard Crouch came into the bathroom through his own door, evidently exploring as well. He grinned and waved at Tom, before coming closer. “So how are you finding this Hogwarts business then? My little brother Bartemius, he’s 6, he absolutely can’t wait to come here. My mother said that Professor Binns is a great teacher, he taught her when she was here and history of magic was her favourite subject.”
Tom blinked. “Well it’s great so far, I suppose. There’s a lot more magic here than Diagon Alley, even though there’s probably less people, and my room is a lot bigger than it probably should be, so I’ve already got a couple of things to research for when I’ve finished my homework. I should probably unpack some of my library at some point, it would be a shame to put the gorgeous bookcase in my room to waste. Do you enjoy it?”
Leonard grinned, “Yup! There’s a lot more going on here than at home, but I expect I’ll get used to the speed of things pretty quickly! Speaking of speed, I want to get my trunk unpacked quickly so I can write home. I’ll see you in the morning?” Tom nodded, and Leonard left with an apologetic smile.
He also returned to his room, locking the door after himself, before turning and starting to unpack his trunk. He began with his library, unearthing a biography of Newt Scamander, the famed magizoologist. If he recalled correctly - which he usually did, his memory being one of the things he prided himself on - then it contained some useful packing and unpacking spells that Scamander had used on his travels in his expanded trunk. He was right, and with only a few waves of his wand, his clothes flew out of his trunk and landed in his dresser, neatly folded; his robes hung themselves up in his wardrobe; writing supplies organised themselves on his desk; and his (legal) books landed on his bookcase. He would have to sort through them and make sure they were all ‘suitable’ for him to own, and any that weren't would have to stay in his trunk.
Comfortable in his new room, Tom climbed into his bed and drew the curtains shut, drifting off to sleep as he dreamt of the things he would hopefully learn soon.