The Mystery of the New Student

Rick Jordan walked down a street in Diagon Alley. He couldn't believe his parents were making him go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He never even understood how he managed to get accepted. As far as he could tell, he had no use of magic whatsoever.

He was especially angry because he had wanted to attend Marshall Academy, the school where all of his friends were attending. He wouldn't know anybody at Hogwarts. At Marshall he had been popular. Rick had only spent a year at Marshall and by the end of his freshman year he had been the most popular guy in school.

But not anymore.

Rick didn't know a thing about magic. He was supposed to have received his letter when he was eleven, but now he was fifteen and his parents recently told him that he was a wizard. They didn't make him go to Hogwarts because he was so happy at the school he had been going to that they didn't want to take the happiness out of him. But they soon realized that they had to tell him. He had to go.

He was holding a list of supplies he would need for Hogwarts. Another thing Rick didn't like about Hogwarts was that it was a boarding school...which meant he would have to stay there all school year. He wouldn't be able to live at home with his parents, who he loved nearly to death, or hang out with his friends at all.

"Book of Spells Level 5? A wand?" Rick muttered to himself, reading the list. "There's no such thing!"

All around him there were strange-looking people walking about. They were dressed in the oddest fashion: cloaks of all shades and colors. Some carrying long sticks that looked like wands...But there's no such thing as magic! Rick tried telling himself silently. So if there's no such thing as magic then obviously, there's no such thing as wands! The people were talking and laughing as though nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Suddenly, Rick bumped into a boy about his age. He was walking with a girl who had brown hair and another boy with flaming red hair. The oddest thing about this peculiar boy was that Rick could see a scar in the middle of his forehead that looked like it was in the shape of a lightning bolt.

The boy with the lightning bolt scar had a bunch of books in his arms and they had fallen out when Rick bumped into him.

"So sorry," Rick muttered quickly, stopping to help the boy pick up the books. The boy with the red hair and the girl also bent down to gather up the books. They appeared to be this boy's friends.

"That's okay," the boy with the lightning bolt scar replied. The four stood up and stared at each other.

"Oh, I'm Rick Jordan, by the way...who are you?" Rick said, holding out his hand, expecting them to shake it.

The boy with the red hair spoke. "You mean you don't know who Harry Potter is?" he asked in awe.

Rick shook his head. "No..." Rick's eyes glanced over at the boy with the lightning bolt scar. "Is he you?"

The boy with the lightning bolt scar nodded. "Yeah...and these are my best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger...are you a wizard, too?"

Rick shrugged. "I don't know...I guess...I mean, I did get an acceptance letter to Hogwarts."

Ron stared at him. "Cool! We all go to Hogwarts. We're starting our fifth year. How about you?"

"I guess I'm starting my fifth year, too. I used to go to Marshall Academy."

"What?" Ron asked, bewildered.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Ron - don't you know anything? Marshall Academy is a very posh Muggle school."

Ron nodded. "Oh...right."

Rick cleared his throat. "Um, excuse me...but what's a Muggle?"

"Someone who doesn't have a drop of magic in their blood," Ron replied. "It's what we magical people call them."

Rick nodded. "I see," he said. "I guess that means the rest of my family and friends are, um, Muggles."

"Oh, so you're Muggle-born," Ron declared. "Well, don't feel bad. So is Hermione, here. Both her parents are Muggles. There are a lot of students who go to Hogwarts and they are from Muggle-born families."

Rick realized that the boy called Harry Potter hadn't spoken much during this conversation. He was looking at Rick with observing eyes. He wondered why Harry was so famous, according to these witches and wizards. He certainly wasn't well-known in the Muggle world.

"How about you, Harry?" Rick asked. "Are you Muggle-born?"

"Oh, me? I'm half and half. My mum was Muggle-born and my father came from a very old family of witches and wizards..." Harry's voice drifted off. He never liked talking about his parents in front of strangers. After all, they were dead.

"Was?" Rick asked.

"They're, um dead..." Harry answered.

Rick was shocked. "Oh, sorry. How did they die?"

"I really don't want to talk about that right now," Harry muttered in reply. Rick could tell that this Harry Potter wasn't too friendly. But Ron and Hermione seemed friendly enough. They decided to help Rick gather up all of his supplies and all the while Ron and Hermione were telling Rick all about the magical world.

By the time they had finished school shopping, Rick had learned everything about Hogwarts, the game of Quidditch, who to be friends with and who to avoid (one particular name that came up was Draco Malfoy), how to get onto Platform 9 ¾, and all of the many adventures Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been through during their school years.

Ron and Hermione made plans with Rick to join them at Platform 9 ¾ in King's Cross Station on September first, when school would start.

As Rick left Diagon Alley to go home, he started thinking that maybe Hogwarts wouldn't be such a bad place after all. And maybe being a wizard wasn't such a bad thing to be.