First Day (Andrei Kessler)

Lyra looked up at the huge castle. It loomed above her in a way she somehow felt that Ilvermorny never did, somewhat intimidating. 'It's just because you aren't used to it yet.' She tells herself, pulling her trunk closer to her as she watched the large entry doors for a moment. As soon as she walked through those doors she would become a Hogwarts student. The thought made her feel so many emotions she felt as if they may knock her off her feet.

She takes a deep breath and continues through the doors, pausing to look around, stunned by the sights around her. She'd never been to any other wizarding school, and felt much like she did when she'd first arrived to Ilvermorny her first year. Fear, excitement, dread, apprehension, anxiety, wonder, amazement, all these things ran through her, one at a time and all at once, swirling inside her until she felt almost dizzy.

She kneels for a moment, patting her lap for her cat, Missy, to jump into her lap, which surprisingly she does for once. The young feline didn’t particularly enjoy sitting people’s laps. She would if you were sitting in a piece of furniture, but if you were kneeling she rarely tusted you enough to not lose you balance. She ran a hand over Missy’s soft fur, making a soft tsking sound. The poor thing must have been as anxious about being in the new place as she was.

A small rattling told her that mister Whoo-dini had woken up for one reason or another and she turned her attention away from Missy to adjust his cage’s coverings, making sure it would still seem dark in the owl’s cage, hoping he would go back to sleep. With that out of the way she let her cat one last time before gently moving her from her lap and standing, brushing cat hairs from her Ilvermorny robes. (They were all she could think would be appropriate to wear.)

She wasn’t sure where she was supposed to go, nor did she see anyone she could ask so she looked around the entrance hall slowly, studying the walls, and the moving pictures that accompanied them, leaving her things and her owl near the door, Missy trailing her. She glanced at the stairs, wondering just how many floors the castle was exactly. It seemed pretty humongous from the outside...

"Miss Fletcher," the even tone of Hogwarts' headmaster cut through the silence of the entrance hall. "Welcome to Hogwarts."

Sporting the Ravenclaw blue robes he so often favored, Andrei Kessler looked every inch the academic he was. His hair could have done with the attention of a comb, his face with that of a razor, and his glasses perched atop his nose with a bit of straightening. Truthfully, the man regretted being unable to look up to his normally impeccable standards, but Lyra Fletcher had arrived an hour earlier than the man expected. And so, given only a few minutes heads up by one of the more helpful portraits of Hogwarts he came as he was—it was rude to make others wait.

Unfortunately, when it came to Lyra Fletcher this seemed to be par for the course. Andrei received the girl's application to transfer into Hogwarts from Ilvermorny more than a few months back, but with the United States in disarray the whole process was one headache layered on top of another headache. First the paperwork was held up, then a signature or two were missing, and, to top it all off, there was the issue of transfer equivalency. So, yes, headache was the correct word; yet another example of the horrible awful no good nature of academic bureaucracy that the man so hated despite operating in day in and day out.

"I trust your trip went well?"

Sure, the headmaster had his misgivings about the process that brought the girl here so late in the school year, but he never dreamed of blaming it on the child. After all, it wasn't her fault in the slightest and it was his job to make the ex-Ilvermorny student feel at home in her new home.

[Dreadfully sorry for the wait, I have been beyond busy with life as of late.]

Her attention had turned back to the portraits, waving to them with a large grin as she studied them carefully. She was lost in her own thoughts, hardly aware enough of her surroundings to hear the footsteps approaching her. No, she didn't snap out of her own thoughts until a voice spoke up, nearly causing her to jump out of her skin as she turned to face the man she assumed to be the headmaster. She took a step towards him, straightening as well as she could, determined to put her best foot forward.

"Headmaster," she said with a respectful smile, offering him a hand to shake. "Thank you, I'm excited to be here." And she would appear as much. But though her face and voice may have spoken of excitement, she wasn't anything of the sort.

Okay, she was excited. But more at the prospect of adventure, and of getting to see Mary-Kate again than because she was going to be going to this new school. No, the idea of having to live in the castle, in this country, on this continent, well if she let herself think about it she knew it would bring tears to her eyes. And that was one thing she couldn't afford.

If there was one thing Lyra refused to be, it would be a crybaby. Crying on the first day, especially when you came in the middle of the year, marked you as such, and Lyra would never let herself be put in that category.

If she were to stop and think about it, Lyra would feel homesick already. One of her first days here and she would already feel the hole inside her where California would have belonged. She would miss the warmth, the ocean, her house, the beach, her friends, and essentially everything about her home. If she thought about it she would begin to despise this place, simply because it was not Ilvermorny, and it was not, nor would it ever be, her home.

But Lyra wouldn't let herself think about it. Because above all she needed to stay strong. She had her cell, and could message Sunny at any point. She had her almost literal lifeline to her old life, and that was all she had convinced herself she needed. Her mother needed to extend her brand, and that meant Europe. So Lyra could deal. Besides, a couple more years and she could go home if she wanted, without her parents being able to say anything about it, and without having to put on a brave face for anyone.

But for now she had to put on that mask, that wall that separated her real feelings from the ones she showed, the one that she had come to master through modeling her whole life. Her smile grew at the man's question and she nodded slowly as she went to retrieve her things from beside the door, Missy following her carefully.

"Very well, thank you. Though I will say, I never wish to travel on a muggle plane again if I can help it. Floo powder is much faster and much... well, it's more preferable."

/(No need for apologies, I completely understand <3)/

"I sympathize with you entirely on that point," Andrei flashed a good-natured smile. "Air travel does not quite agree with me either."

Taking note of the girl's luggage, foreign robes, and small retinue of animal companions, the headmaster could not help feeling his inner father flare up. What kind of parent would allow their child to come to a new school so unprepared? Buying the school robes was the least one had to do and yet they were something Ms.Fletcher lacked.

"Travel woes aside, if you follow me we can work on getting you settled in," he began to make his way into the empty great hall. "The elves will see to your belongings, so feel free to leave them by the door."

He motioned to the left of the large ornate doors before entering the great hall proper.

"This is the great hall," his long strides took him ever closer to the far side of the room where a strange black hat stood atop a stool. "You'll no doubt become well-acquainted with it in the coming months as it serves as our dining and events hall too."

He came to a stop by the hat and stool. Behind him stood the imposing line of the teacher's tables along with the delicately constructed latticework of stone and glass that allowed daylight to stream into the empty hall. In Andrei's admittedly biased opinion, the great hall was best appreciated when it was empty.

"One such event is the annual sorting of first years into one of our four houses: Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff," the man jabbed a finger at the ratty patch-ridden hat. "This hat, the sorting hat, is the centerpiece of this ceremony. It peers into the wearer's mind and is able to tease out which house you best fit in. So, in keeping with tradition, I'd like you to try this hat on for size and see where you'll be living for the foreseeable future."

Stepping to the side, Andrei allowed an unimpeded path to the hat and waited.

"Whenever you are ready, Ms.Fletcher."

She let out a small giggle as the man agreed with her on the topic. She hesitated when he told her to follow him, before he basically read her mind, addressing the exact concern she'd been worried about. She nodded, more to herself than the man and glanced at the cage holding Whoo-dini for a second before clicking her tongue at Missy for her to follow as she went after the headmaster.

The large room on the other side of the doors made her eyes widen and she looked around slowly. "Wow," she spoke in a rather hushed voice, taking in the four long tables, the high ceiling reflecting the sky, and the room in general. Her gaze turned to the hat on the stool. She'd read a variety of books in the last couple weeks and on the plane ride, and recognized the tattered thing as the sorting hat before she was even told.

Her gaze returned to him as he started explaining and she nodded along. "I read some about it, but what is the difference between the houses? Other than the names? Like, I know about the founders and everything but I don't quite remember the true values behind the four houses?"

She approached the stool carefully, picking the hat up as gently as she could and sitting down. She took a deep breath, giving herself a second before placing the hat on her own head slowly, waiting patiently to find out what house she would belong to.

"Hmmm interesting" spoke a voice in her head, causing her to jump as her hands reached to grip the edge of the chair tight in nervousness that had seemingly come out of nowhere.

"You're a tough one aren't you? A craving for power and competition... a thirst for knowledge, to understand the world around you... a soul full of curiosity and fit for adventuring with a bravery to back it up... but ultimately... a heart of loyalty and trust." The voice was in her head, she determined. Not out loud, or at least if it was it was right in her ear. Not compared to the voice that came after in that moment. "Hufflepuff!"

She let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and slipped the hat from her head with a large grin. "That's that then?"

"That's that," Andrei confirmed with a slight nod. "I wouldn't worry too much about each house's 'true values'."

The man's tone dropped as if to prevent anyone or anything—in the case of the sorting hat—from listening in.

"Truth be told, and speaking as both headmaster and the head of Ravenclaw, it isn't one's house that defines them. It's what they do in that house," his voice returned to a more normal tone as he continued. "All you have to know right now is that the Hufflepuff common room is right by the kitchens—an enviable location if ever there was one, in my opinion."

A loud snapping sound heralded the appearance of a small gangly figure by Andrei's side. With long droopy ears, a pencil-thin nose, and eyes the size of saucers, this creature could only be a house elf. Hogwarts, for better or for worse, still ran on the labor of another—some bigoted wizards might argue lesser—race.

"Ah, Miss Fletcher, this is Hendricks," the headmaster motioned to the small creature who gave a slight bow. "If you have no further questions, then he will show you to your new home."

She set the hat back in it's place on the seat as the headmaster confirmed that that was all there was to it. The whole concept of a sorting ceremony was interesting to her, the way schools were so dead set on splitting children up into different groups and houses based on their personalities or innermost desires and motivations or whatever. It seemed stupid to her, why couldn't they just all coexist? Why did there have to be all the cliques and houses and separation no matter what school you went to?

Loony said it was like that in no-maj schools too. Since the girl had been born to a no-maj she'd gone to a no-maj elementary school for the first major part of her life. She said it was the same, as if people just automatically divided into groups based on something in their brains that told them they "fit in with" certain people because of shared traits or social class or something. But that was all bull if you asked Lyra. Society was to blame, they were trained from the time they were born that certain people were better than others. But people were people, why did anyone have to be better or worse? Couldn't just be different, not for better or for worse, just different?

She filed the thoughts away for another time, focusing instead on the man's words as he spoke, listening carefully. It seemed he might have a similar opinion as she did on the subject and she smiled lightly, giving him a small nod to show she understood. "Yes sir, I think that's a good idea to live by."

Her smile grew at the mention of the kitchens and she nodded quickly in agreement. "Definitely the best place to be." She didn't bother mentioning the fact that she didn't know where the kitchens were. He was the headmaster after all, so of course he would know this information already.

Her eyes widened slightly in surprise as the house elf appeared, seemingly from out of nowhere. She didn't have house elves at home, though Cocoa and Sunny did, and she knew that her cousins did. She thought she could remember possibly seeing some at Ilvermorny, but if she had it was now long enough ago that she couldn't remember. She'd certainly never seen one so plainly in sight as this one was.

"Nice to meet you Hendricks" she greeted, extending a hand for the shorter creature to shake. "I'm Lyra." Her gaze returned to the headmaster as he continued and she shook her head. "I think that's all, thank you so much." And with that she was shown to her common rooms, she was officially a Hogwarts student, for better or for worse.