Defense Against The Dark Arts

Frogs Don't Look Good In Pink

31st December 2021

Happy New Year for tomorrow! And also happy birthday Tom Riddle! I have nothing else to put here, enjoy the update. 

We arrive in an empty small town. It's darker now, and the sun has almost set, drawing lengthening shadows over the road and houses and casting Percy's and Dumbledore's faces in darkness.

"This is Hogsmeade, a wizarding town. It's the closest settlement to Hogwarts that we can get to", Dumbledore says.

Still gripping onto our bags, we follow him down a cobbled pavement, and out of the village towards a giant castle, which is probably Hogwarts.

It isn't a long walk, and although the view could be better, it's very peaceful. As we walk, I twirl a small slither of shadow round my hand and fingers. I've been practising shadow manipulation for ages now, and it still needs my full concentration, if I want to do complex or large tricks. It's much easier than it was, though, and I can do what I'm doing without looking, or even thinking about it.

Me and Percy walk close together, hands almost brushing. I feel hyper-aware of it when we touch and I so desperately want to grab his hand, but I don't, as Dumbledore keeps looking over his shoulder, and even if I still have my suspicions that he's gay, he's still a nasty person, and I don't want to be outed again to more strangers without it being on my terms.

We're walking through the stone corridors of a castle now, and so I stare straight ahead of me, trying hard not to acknowledge the paintings that are moving and muttering to themselves. I'm starting to get sick of all this magic. It seems like there isn't anything a wizard can't do, I start to think - which is a stupid thought. If a wizard would do everything, I would still have a holiday at camp.

When we stop outside some giant wooden doors, Percy does grab my hand, and I squeeze it in return. It sort of grounds me, and I back out of my thoughts quickly.

"When you go in", Dumbledore whispers, "Act as confidently as you can, and ignore the children. There are seats on a large table at the end where the teachers sit. Then the first years will be sorted." He quickly waves his wand, and our bags disappear from our hands. "I've just sent them to your rooms", he says.

I glance at Percy, and shrug. There isn't really anything we can do about that, so all we can do is hope he won't go through them. I have no idea what he means by sorted, but we nod, and walk in after Dumbledore.

The whispers start instantly, hisses of who are they, why are they so young, are they new teachers, I thought we already had a DADA teacher and Hey Neville I think Trevor escaped again. I'm not quite sure about the last one though.

There must be hundreds of kids, all of them sitting on four long tables with candles hovering above them. More magic.

As Dumbledore said, there is a staff table at the end, although there's only one seat on the end, next to an extremely pink toad-like lady. I widen my eyes at Percy, and nod towards the seat. He rolls his eyes, but sits down when we get to it, and I sit on the end of the table, still giving him room to see. It's definitely not what a person with magic would have done, I realise as soon as I've sat with my legs swinging down, staring at the sea of faces, but it's too late now, and I'm sure I can come up with an excuse if I need to.

Dumbledore is saying something to all the students and teachers and I quickly snap my head up to see a line of young students enter the hall and line up at the back.

They then go through the strange process of listening to a hat sing, sitting on a stool, having a hat put on their heads and it screaming gibberish to the whole hall. Once that ordeal is thankfully over, platters of food appear in front of us. I grimace at all the fatty, unhealthy foods that appear, but there isn't anything else to eat, apart from mints (Mints? Why are there mints?) So we start digging into the food that had appeared on the table, me taking a bowl of broccoli and a rice salad because it looks like the healthiest.