The Unexpected Task [H.P.]

Chapter 4 - A False Step

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A new reality washed over me as the table around me emptied, and I realized that I had no idea what was waiting for me in my Common Room, as Professor McGonagall had called it. My hands felt clammy against my skirt, and I wiped them off absentmindedly as the crowd around me thinned considerably.

Eventually, I stood on my shaky legs, and followed the last dregs of the students milling out of the Welcome Feast. Up ahead, a group of older looking Gryffindors led the way down the aisle, and I realized I lost the two boys from earlier in the crowd. I follow the group up the grand marble staircase, where we take a left down another corridor. As I walk along, the portraits on the walls move in their little vignettes, smiling, laughing and even playing card games with one another. My stomach twists in knots as I head up another staircase, and I can't rid my mind of the myriad of ways this will go.

Will they hate me? Gossip about me? Ridicule me for my subpar magical skills? Outcast me for my newness, my accent? Will they even notice I'm there?

My thoughts are cleared immediately as I trip over a step, and stumble to catch myself. I slam my free foot down on another step, but what looked like solid rock vanished beneath my weight. I feel myself collapsing on the steps before I can even react. There, I sit for a second, absolutely embarrassed, even though there's nobody else in the hallway. The older students ahead of me had practically run up these stairs while I was lost in thought. I must have missed their strategic footfalls.

I roll over, pushing myself off the stairs. The false step releases me, and I sit up to catch my breath. I dust off my knees as I try to calm myself down, and look up to find a hand in my face. Taken aback by the sudden appearance of another human, I flinch. But as I look at the face attached to the hand, I want to slam my head into the stone steps again out of embarrassment.

The boy with the glasses and messy black hair stands before me, his hand outstretched before me.

"That looked like a hard fall." He measures out, smiling at me. Against myself, I blush.

"I'm okay." I whisper, trying to be as quiet as possible. The last thing I need right now is a chat about my accent, and why he doesn't recognize me. I take a hold of the railing and pull myself up, now standing a few steps above him. He puts his hand back down by his side.

"These steps trip us up a lot more than you'd think." He assures me. From this close, I can see the outline of a thin scar on his forehead, and something in the back of my mind prickles with familiarity. I nod, scuffing the edge of my shoe on the stair, avoiding eye contact.

"McGonagall said your name was Emorie, right-" I look up as he says my name, but he's interrupted by a shout further down the stairs, and I tear my eyes away to see a flash of red coming towards us. "Oi, Harry, did you find your..." The other boy trails off when we lock eyes, and something clicked in my head that didn't before.

Could it be... no. No way. The thought flashes across my brain like a flash of lightning, quickly and electrically before I drown it out.

The boys look at each other, and the one with black hair, evidently named Harry, nods and taps a notebook I didn't see before in his left hand. The ginger one looked between the two of us and where I stood, a lopsided grin across his face and asked, "Got tripped up?" and smiles at his own joke.

My cheeks burned an even more potent shade of scarlet, and I turned to continue upstairs, finding myself unable to respond through my embarrassment. I've only been here two hours, and I've managed to make a fool of myself already.

I hear the boys' footsteps behind me, and try to ignore their conversation about the Quidditch World Cup. I thank Merlin, Circe, and even the Wizard of Oz that I didn't fall again as we finally reach a tall, arched portrait of a lady adorned with a grecian headdress. Like all of the photographs in my home, she's moving, sipping a glass of dark plum wine. When we get closer, she dramatically rolls her eyes at us, probably annoyed that we're so late.