Harry Potter - OC Black x OC Potter
Cassiopeia Alhena Black hated a lot of things. Her parents, custard cream tarts and Nico James Potter. But while the Potter twins are thrown into battles with dragons, mermaids and a maze, Cassiopeia starts to re...
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{1st of September, 1994}
The Great Hall looked its usual splendid self, decorated for the start-of-term feast. Golden plates and goblets gleaned by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles, floating over the tables in midair. The four long House tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the Hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer in here.
Cassiopeia and Nathaniel walked past the Slytherins to drop Theodore off to Draco, the Ravenclaws, and the Hufflepuffs, and sat down with the rest of the Gryffindors at the far side of the Hall, next to Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost. Pearly white and semitransparent, Nick was dressed tonight in his usual doublet, but with a particularly large ruff, which served the dual purpose of looking extra-festive, and ensuring that his head didn't wobble too much on his partially severed neck.
Cassiopeia scanned the head table. Tiny little Witty, the Charms teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside Pomo, the Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over her flyaway gray hair. She was talking to Mango of the Astronomy department. On Mango's other side was the sallow-faced, hook-nosed, greasy-haired Potions master, Snivillous — Cassiopeia's least favorite person at Hogwarts. Her loathing of Snape was matched only by Snape's hatred of her.
On Snape's other side was an empty seat, which Cassiopeia guessed was Minnie. Next to it, and in the very center of the table, sat Professor Dumblewhore, the headmaster, his sweeping silver hair and beard shining in the candlelight, his magnificent deep green robes embroidered with many stars and moons. The tips of his long, thin fingers were together and he was resting his chin upon them, staring up at the ceiling through his half-moon spectacles as though lost in thought.
It was enchanted to look like the sky outside, and he had never seen it look this stormy. Black and purple clouds were swirling across it, and as another thunderclap sounded outside, a fork of lightning flashed across it.
The doors of the Great Hall opened and silence fell. Professor McGonagall was leading a long line of first years up to the top of the Hall. Nathaniel kept shooting death glares at Theodore, who couldn't control laughing at how these first years looked. They appeared to have swum across the lake rather than sailed.
All of them were shivering with a combination of cold and nerves as they filed along with the staff table and came to a halt in a line facing the rest of the school — all of them except the smallest of the lot, a boy with mousy hair, who was wrapped in what Harry recognized as Hagrid's moleskin overcoat. The coat was so big for him that it looked as though he were draped in a furry black circus tent.
His small face protruded from over the collar, looking almost painfully excited. When he had lined up with his terrified-looking peers, he caught Colin Creevey's eye, gave a double thumbs-up, and mouthed, 'I fell in the lake!' He looked positively delighted about it.
