An Eagle's Legacy

AN EAGLE'S LEGACY

CHAPTER ONE: REUNION

The fifth car on the Hogwarts express wasn't known to the legends who had graduated years before. The infamous Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger were heroes to all of the students at Hogwarts, bringing pride, yet sorrow to the Gryffindor name in their graduating. But in car five of the Hogwarts express inhabited a group of Ravenclaw students, heroes to only themselves, and unknown and unrecognized among the student body. Little did others, and even they themselves know, that legends themselves, they would become.

"Where are they?" she thought anxiously.

Dayna Wood, a newly announced fifth year, waited in train car five of the Hogwarts express, alongside a few younger Ravenclaws she wasn't well acquainted with. In her robes of silver, blue, and black, she sat alone by a window of the train, waiting alone. Glancing at her watch, she saw that her friends who she was awaiting were late.

Dayna lived with her parents and brother Oliver in a small town called Hodgetown on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. She was of intelligent nature, and seemed well placed in her house of Ravenclaw, although she originally wanted to either be a Gryffindor, like her father and brother, or a Hufflepuff, like her mother. She liked being an original first in her family after all.

Dayna was never physically alone as a child; the Wood household was always filled with friends and family, visitors and wanderers, and girls who wandered about their front yard simply to gawk at her brother (which she thought, was a silly pastime). Though people were constantly in and out of her house, none of them seemed to be interested in her, and she didn't seem interested in them either. As her parents were always occupied with the guests, and her brother with his practice with Quidditch, she often turned to books for comfort and entertainment, which developed her "ravenclaw-like" habits.

For a girl of fifteen, Dayna was fairly short. She stood a small, but strong 5 foot 3, with long brown hair and hazel eyes. Her eyes were what people found most interesting- like a mood ring, they seemed to change on occasion of mood or emotion she displayed. She was someone graced with the looks that her brother had also inherited genetically, but never seemed to care nearly as much as the typical fifteen years old did. She was always far too engaged in her books, and her studies to care. But at the moment, she was more rapt in the pondering of where her friends could be.

She turned her head so she could peer down the aisle, just to check if they were coming. Her brown eyes scanned the crowds as her long brown hair spilled over her shoulders, and swiftly swayed back behind her shoulder as she returned to her seated position. She turned to her white cat, Stella, and sighed aloud.

"hmmm" she said as she pet her cat Stella gently on her white head "I wonder where they could-"

Dayna suddenly whirled around as she heard a loud crash behind her. The sudden look of shock disappeared from her face, and was replaced by a warm smile. She pushed her long brown hair out of her face behind her ears, and picked up Stella, placed her back on the seat, and got to her feet. Laughing to herself, she walked over to the two girls, who appeared to be crushed under the weight of their heavy trunks. By first glance, Dayna could assume that one of them had dropped their trunk.

"I thought you guys would never get here" Dayna laughed.

The two girls suddenly let go of their baggage (that they had not dropped already). They smiled, laughed, and held out their arms simultaneously. Dayna ran over to join them in a group hug.

"What took you guys so long?" she asked looking back and forth from Christie's to Kes's face.

"Well" Christie began, pulling one of her red-highlighted strands behind her ear. "Miss graceful over here had a little accident over at the station getting onto the platform" Christie said in a sarcastic tone, nudging Kes in the side.

Christie Thomas, born Christiella Rosaline Thomas, stood at 5'8, towering over her friends and even some of her teachers. She lived with her brother Dean, her parents, and obnoxious younger sister Chrissy in a small cottage in walking distance from Diagon Alley. Her dark red highlights and sarcastic, almost somewhat cynical attitude gave her a personality that did not fit her birth name. Other students were intimidated by her, but her friends knew her soft, humorous side, and lived off of her bright, wide smile that she would occasionally flash on occasion. She rolled her blazing green eyes in a sarcastic-but-funny manner at her friend (who was her best, along with Dayna), but was interrupted by a protest from Kes.

"Hey" Kes muttered while a small smile crept across her face "When you're running that fast while lugging an immensely immense load of luggage with you its not easy to remember which platform..."

"so you were lugging luggage that was immensely immense?" Christie laughed back at a delirious looking Kes.

"Well-" Kes began, and then stopped. She then sighed aloud. "I give up!" and hoisted her trunk to the seat behind Dayna and her things, dropped them, and then plopped down on the seat facing Dayna.

Allison Clearwater looked, acted, and lived, nothing like her older sister, Penelope. As much as her parents tried to lead her in her model sister's footsteps, it seemed that she was born to break the chain of perfection. Allison came from a long line of Ravenclaws, including her sister, her parents, her grandparents, and all relativity that went to Hogwarts. Some even believed that the sorting hat put Allison into Ravenclaw to spare the Clearwater family some dignity and honor, but others believed that she had been sorted into Ravenclaw for a purpose.

Standing only slightly taller than Dayna, Allison was still fairly short at 5'4. Her long, dark red hair fell in ringlets nearly to her waist, framing her fairly thin, delicate body. Her pacifying, pale blue eyes seemed to be the only calm thing about her. True, Dayna and Christie were pretty, but nothing compared to Allison. Allison was constantly upbeat, and could never be drained of energy. Though at times klutzy and thoughtless, her friends found her amusing and good company. After a day of calling herself 'Kestrel', the name of a character from her favorite book, the name stuck, and to her friends she was known as "Kes."

The three friends sat down in the seats of the train, bought three Hot-Chocolates, and sat back while they laughed at Christie's re-enactment of the previous occasion, explaining the delay of the two girls' arrival.

"Well" Christie began "it all started back at the house. Kes' parents had enough of her for a summer, and made Penelope drop her off at the house- you know; they still don't trust her to use floo powder alone after last year..."

The previous summer, the three girls decided to have a reunion at Dayna's so that they could see each other before the school year (and stare in awe at Oliver while he practiced Quidditch in the back yard). Christie's parents let her go, and Christie arrived early during the day. But Kes's parents, who thought that Christie and Dayna were a 'bad influence on their dear Allison' wouldn't let her go. She had to sneak out and travel by floo powder to arrive at Dayna's, but ended up in a Muggle's house while he was in the tub, causing quite a stir with the Clearwaters, the Ministry of Magic, and the muggle himself. It took quite a load of repair spells and memory charms to get the situation back to normal.

The girls laughed and urged Christie to continue. She was the best at telling stories.

"...anyway, Penelope dropped Kes off with us, and then we were going to have a sleepover before we left this morning for the station. Kes took out some of her stuff at night that she wanted to show me, but apparently overnight they 'disappeared' ::cough:: Chrissy took them ::cough::. Anyway, it took nearly an hour in the morning to get Chrissy to 'fess that she took Kes's things, and to get her to give them back. Mum and Dad were at a conference for work, so we had to walk to the station. Given that we were already late, we had to run with our trunks to the station..."

She stopped to take a quick breath and sip her hot chocolate, and take a bite out of her chocolate frog. Seeing the childlike eagerness in Dayna and Kes's eyes, she continued the story.

"Well then, we had to run the whole way with our trunks and everything. It was a total mess- there were Muggles everywhere. I almost ran smack into one of them, myself. Anyway, we finally get to the platform, and our dear Kes here" Christie said while grabbing Kes around the shoulder in a pretend-fatherly way "ran right past the platform and stopped right at platform 10 1/3."

The girls suddenly burst into laughter, even Kes herself. Christie tried to stop laughing, but every time she tried to start up again, she burst into laughter once again. Finally, after several attempts to calm herself, Christie pulled herself upright and took a deep breath, while grinning madly, finally ceasing her uncontrollable laughter.

"...anyway, she says aloud in this matter-of-fact tone, 'Well, here we are!' and she runs with her cart SMACK into the platform!"

Once again, minutes of uncontrollable laughter.

"She was -- I was - it was so funny...- I had to help her up and-" Christie blurted out between breaths. She was laughing so hard, she was short of breath. After once again gaining control of herself, Christie continued with her story. "I had to help her up, while all these Muggles were staring at her! They were all like 'is she alright?' I had to tell them all that she was mad, you know, sick in the mind, so that they would all be comforted again. After they all went away, and she woke up again, there was only a minute left of boarding for the Hogwarts express. I rushed us both through the platform, and get this, we had to jump on the train! It had already started moving!"

"Oh come on, Christie!" Kes said, taking her turn in rolling her eyes "that's a bit of an exaggeration -- it had BARELY started moving, and the porters still helped us on the train...."

"But its so much more dramatic this way, Kes!" Christie interrupted "doesn't dramatic suit you? Anyway, you're ruining my story."

Dayna, who was beside herself in laughter interrupted Christie's last remark, said, "So that's why you were so late and that's why you were still carrying your trunks on your back?"

"Uh-huh" Kes replied, in a sighing, tired tone, still looking a bit woozy.

"Hey Kes" Dayna said, looking somewhat concerned "You alright?"

"I'm sure she's ok" Christie responded for her "when I picked her up I gave her some chocolate that I had in my pocket, and I ran and bought some muggle pain reliever thing.." She held up a bottle of Advil to show "im not sure it worked, but at least the chocolate did. And Im sure that the hot chocolate is going to help also- maybe she just needs a little sleep. "

Dayna still looked concerned, and looked to Kes "Hey Kessie, look at me" she said, grabbing her friends face to look her in the eye, to see if her pupils were dilating. They weren't, Christie assured.

"Well, if it makes you feel better" Kes said "ill go see Madam Pomfrey as soon as we get to Hogwarts, ok?"

She agreed, and the Hogwarts express rolled on. Christie began another story to cheer up the girls, about the time she and Kes snuck out of the house and ran into Diagon Alley at midnight.

Dayna was half-listening, half-dozing during her story. She could faintly hear Christie talking, when suddenly a vision clouded her mind. Dayna had been deeply into divinitation for her previous years at Hogwarts, and was on her way to mastering a high level of divinitation, especially for a student of her age. The previous year, she began to have interpretive and symbolic visions, and they grew more frequent overtime.

Her surroundings became dark, a misty gray film appearing before her eyes. Like in a picture show, she saw flashes of images before her eyes. She tried to focus to see through the mist-like barrier clouding a direct vision, and saw a woman.

The woman sat at a long wooden table, among other wizards and witches clothed in fabulous robes of ornate colors. Flashes of blue, silver, red and gold, green and bronze and a vibrant yellow filled the hall, which to Dayna, looked so very familiar.

Another woman sitting across from the one with the shining brown hair, folded neatly in a bun at the nape of her neck, lowered her fan that covered her face and spoke to her fellow diner.

"It's so lovely of you to visit, Catherine" she said, gesturing to the woman across the table "what ever inspired you to return to the castle?"

"Well" Catherine, she was called, replied, "I was traveling and the thought of not visiting seemed appalling." She said, looking around. The luminance in her eyes told that she wasn't lying, and was passionate about wherever she was. "Also, Agatha, I felt that I had some business to close, and take care of."

"Business?" questioned Agatha in return, "what...type... of business?"

"Oh Agatha" Catherine laughed "I'm sure you'd find it nothing of interest or excitement of any sort. Just old things of grandmother's..."

"You're not still clinging to that, are you?" Agatha asked her friend. "Rowena died years ago, and you're still following that silly story of hers. Honestly, Catherine, I still believe it's just a legend. Full of nonsense...."

"But Agatha, I feel that it's the least I could do for mother, rest her soul....it seemed it was all that really mattered to her anyway....It's my duty to follow up what she had already begun..."

Suddenly, the image and noises began to dim in Dayna's mind, and her vision blurred. In a whirlwind of color and motion, she returned to her seat on the train, beside her friends. After blinking her eyes several times, the image of Christie appeared before her.

"Dayna? HELLO? Are you living, my friend?" She said, looking at Dayna skeptically. "You've been dozing with your eyes open, with this psycho non-blinking look for almost ten minutes. You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, sorry I got a bit distracted" Dayna said, shaking the image from her mind, and returning to her life at present.

The train rolled onward, toward another year at Hogwarts School.