At the Edge

Chapter 1

Admissions to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Clip Clop Clip Clop ... Rheah was so bored she found herself clucking to the beat of the horses' hooves as they trotted on their way to Hogwarts. The day was cold and gloomy, as if to suit her mood. She longed to be back in Paris, relaxing on her king-sized bed. Instead Rheah was in a carriage being dragged off to the last place on earth she wanted to be at.

'Dad, remind me why we are doing this again?' Rheah asked the distinguished looking man sitting beside her. He glanced at her quickly before burying his face back in the newspaper he was reading.

'This is for your own good, darling. You will understand someday.'

As usual, the vague answer she received infuriated her even more. Oh, for god's sake! Rheah fumed to herself. Why couldn't he just give her a straight answer for once? She was not a child anymore; being sixteen years old. Thank you very much! The truth was not too much for her to bear; she was fully capable of handling it.

Looking at her sister who was sitting in front of Rheah, she made a face at their father who was apparently still engrossed in his stupid paper. Sara rolled her eyes in turn. Then both of them buried their faces in their hands to hide the laughter.

'What's so funny, girls?' Their father was eyeing them warily.

'Oh, it's nothing daddy. I'm just glad that I wouldn't have to witness any more lovey dovey moments between Rheah and Philip the prat!' Sara smirked maliciously, batting her eyelashes at Rheah.

'Piss off!'

'Language, Rheah - Philip? Who is Philip - and what does she mean by "lovey dovey" moments?' her father demanded rounding up on her; the newspaper lay forgotten on the floor.

At that moment Rheah could have easily strangled her so-called sister without giving it a second thought. Why did she have to bring that up? But Rheah already knew the answer to that question. Sara was being nosy as always, trying to make Rheah tell her about the situation.

'Philip is just a stuck-up, good-for-nothing, lying and manipulative git!' Rheah spat out angrily and regretted her words immediately. She had not intended on reacting to what Sara had said. Now their father would be suspicious. After all, he was not one of the best Aurors the magical world has seen for nothing. But lately, whenever Rheah heard Philip Pierre's name, her world became a hazy angry blur.

'Darling, is there something I should know?'

'Well ... er ... no ...'

'Yeah,' Sara said at the same time.

God! What is it with Sara sometimes? Rheah wondered. They were getting along so well just a couple of minutes ago, then she had to go and mess it all up. She was very unpredictable and dangerous and Rheah hated her for that.

'Rheah Ahmed Ali! What is the meaning of all this?' Rheah could tell from the look on her father's face that she was not going to get away with this easily, thanks to her dear evil sister.

Giving Sara the dirtiest look she could manage Rheah started in a quiet voice. 'Philip was in my potions class in Beauxbatons,' she stated emphasizing "was" and shooting her father a rather pointed look; he winced slightly before speaking up slowly.

'Rheah, I realize how hard this is going to be for you, but please do try to understand. I have to do this. This is my job. And I would be much more comfortable to have my daughters at close proximity under the protection of Albus Dumbledore.' Her father continued in an exasperated tone, 'I am very sorry, but I am doing this in order to ensure your safety as well as mine!'

As he said this he did look very sorry indeed and Rheah's anger gave away a bit. She had not meant to sound so bitter and accusing, but at least her father was distracted from the talk about Philip now.

'Daddy, we are fine with all of this. Really! In fact I'm downright excited! I can't wait to meet Mr Dumbledore and see Hogwarts. Meeting all the new students will be so much fun! What do you say, Rheah?' Sara asked her with a look that said 'say yes or I'll spill all your secrets to Dad'.

'I guess so,' she muttered before looking out the window of the carriage to avoid her sister's probing look and her dad's hopeful expression.

*

But Rheah was not fine with all the unexpected and uninvited turns her life was taking. She was not looking forward to meeting new people. After all she was hardly the social butterfly her sister was.

This change was much like the one six years ago when her family had moved to France from India. However, moving to different countries frequently was a normal occurring for her parents. Both of them were Maldivians, but it was safe to say that neither of them had actually lived there since the age of five. The magical community had no place in the Maldives where all kinds of magic were frowned upon. And so, Rheah's father had spent most of his life in England and had attended Hogwarts, while her mother had been a Beauxbatons student. The two Aurors had met up in South Africa, married and had moved to India where Rheah and Sara were born.

However, moving to a country, where Rheah hardly understood the language at the age of ten was a huge step for her on its own. On top of living in Paris, Rheah's parents had also expected her to attend school in France as well. A French school, for god's sake! It took her four solid years to adjust into life at the Beauxbatons Academy for the Magically Gifted. It was due to a lot of reasons.

First there was the small problem of Rheah not understanding anything the professors and kids talked about, as it was mostly in French. She overcame that easily enough by learning French with a personal tutor over the summer holidays for the first two years of school. The next reason was the fact that about one-sixth of the student body was racist. This exposed her to a lot of bullying by the older students, as her skin tone was darker than theirs. Though, the mystery was that when her sister started school as one year her junior none of the bullying seemed to affect Sara, and in turn the bullies seemed to like picking on Rheah more than on Sara. So, of course her parents got the idea that she was making school sound worse than it actually was. Sara did not help either by expressing her love towards the school.

Of course, Sara never had any problems fitting in anywhere. That's just her. Sometimes Rheah found herself thinking that Sara somehow managed to snag all the good genes from both of their parents, and Rheah had ended up with all the trash. Then again, she was the one who was born first. So she must have been very generous leaving all the good ones for Sara. Ha! What a Rheah thing to do. Sara was the ideal daughter for a couple of Aurors to have; she was pretty, bright, friendly and very confident. Hence she could adjust to anything that was thrown at her without moving a single hair on her pretty little head. She was always popular at Beauxbatons, even since her first year. Teachers adored her and students worshipped her. By the time she entered her third year she was already attracting the attention of numerous boys from all years.

Where was Rheah all this time? The elder sister who was supposed to set an example to Sara? Oh yeah, she was too busy trying to be invisible. All the bullying Rheah had to go through during her first year reduced her into a gutless coward who shied away from any kind of attention. She was the girl who everyone loved to ignore. The person who always surprised the teachers by her good grades as she never said a word in classes. She was the loser who did not have an ounce of self-esteem. Sara did try to bring Rheah out of her shell, and she succeeded during Rheah's fourth year. Rheah started settling in, and she made friends. Merlin, how surprised she was when she started enjoying school! Finally she came to realize that school life was too precious to waste away being a coward.

The new Rheah turned out to be quite successful. The teachers were so impressed by her new attitude that they made her a prefect in her fifth year. Her parents had also been so delighted that they actually took a few workdays off during summer break to go visit her grandparents in the Maldives. Even though she had had to live as a Muggle during that holiday, Rheah thoroughly enjoyed it.

With her newfound character, Rheah soon became an attraction to boys. She nearly had a seizure when the first boy, a seventh year asked her out. But the most memorable day of her school life turned out to be the day when Philip Pierre, the dark and mysterious, the most-popular guy in her year asked Rheah out.

It was so perfect, everyone in school agreed that they were the ideal couple. Then again, nothing in life can be perfect. Towards the end of her fifth year, one night as she was patrolling a corridor Rheah walked in on her boyfriend Philip and some other fifth year girl.

Her perfect little world came crashing down as she took in the scene before her eyes. The worst bit was that after she had dumped Philip, he did not even show any remorse. In fact, he started going out with the girl the very next day. As soon as Rheah had broken up with him people started telling her about the many times he had cheated on her. Her humiliation turned into white-hot anger, but she vowed to herself not to let any boy get to her. So she treated him as a friend, pretending that they had never been more than that. But it did work, as people respected Rheah even more for handling the betrayal so well, and Philip ended up apologizing to her. Still, she had lost her appetite for boys since that fateful night. It was too risky to let her guard down; the walls she had carefully built around herself since the age of twelve. It was Rheah who got hurt in the end.

Now, how would Rheah feel when she gets torn away from the life that she had so carefully constructed? All her efforts would be in vain. But that was exactly what her parents were doing. They had taken Rheah away from Beauxbatons at the peak of her popularity, when she had finally settled in. She could understand the fact that they cannot avoid a call from the head of the Order of ...something; their parents would not tell them about it as it was too secretive. According to the rumors she had heard in Beauxbatons the Dark Lord had risen again. But you can never be sure to believe these rumors from school, sometimes they could be as ridiculous as to suggest that werewolves and centaurs taught at Hogwarts. Only a simple-minded person would believe that.

The Dark Lord has risen again, she thought to herself as the carriage passed through a pair of magnificent wrought-iron gates. Rheah looked over at her father who was reading the paper again and felt a lump in her throat. As much as she hated her parents for ruining her happy life in France, she could not bear the thought of ever losing them. But it was a risk all of them had to take now that Lord Volde - er ... You-Know-Who has gained power. There would be causalities and even as she reassured herself that her parents would be fine, deep down Rheah could not deny the horrible truth: Aurors would be among the first casualties.

*

'Rheah ... RHEAH!' Her sister jolted her out of her thoughts rather abruptly.

'What?' Rheah snapped irritably.

'Are you okay?' Sara was looking at her with concern. 'You look - troubled,' she said quietly.

'I'm fine,' she replied a bit more lightly. Looking around, she realized that they had actually come to a stop in front of some stone steps. Mother Nature had decided to bestow upon them the comfort of rain by that time. Quickly Rheah scrambled out of the carriage to join her father and sister on their way up the stairs. The stone steps were quite slippery and as much as she tried to cover her hair against the cold rain, Rheah was sure that by the time she ran through the giant front doors into the shelter of the school she strongly resembled a drowned rat.

'Good Evening, Mr Ali. I'm Professor Minerva McGonagall, the deputy headmistress.' An elderly woman with a very strict expression on her face shook hands with their father, 'I hope you had a good trip.'

'Yes, we did actually. Didn't we, girls?' their father asked them while smiling at Professor McGonagall.

Both of them nodded in agreement. Rheah felt uncomfortable and painfully aware of her wet state under the keen eye of the professor and wished that she had put more of an effort on her clothes. After all, a pair of baggy jeans and a plain black t-shirt was hardly going to impress any of the professors. The look on Professor McGonagall's face suddenly made her feel very inferior next to her well-dressed sister who looked absolutely stunning in a navy blue pencil skirt and blazer. Brilliant!

'This is Rheah, and Sara,' our father said, pointing towards both of them. Then with a wave of his wand, he did a drying spell on them.

'Nice to meet you Professor!' her sister chirped, and Rheah just smiled weakly at her. Merlin! Why was it that she found it so difficult to speak to people sometimes?

The deputy headmistress gave them a curt smile and then turned to their father, 'Professor Dumbledore is waiting for you, sir. Follow me.' And with that, she led their father down the corridor, both girls almost running after them to keep up with their long strides.

'This place is amazing!' Sara whispered looking around with a fascinated expression on her face.

Rheah did not know whether to agree or not. Well, Hogwarts was a very impressive place: with all the portraits, countless moving staircases and suits of armors decorating the corridors ... but still Beauxbatons was far more posh and elegant than the Hogwarts castle. In fact Beauxbatons was more like a huge palace with the lush carpets, bright enormous chandeliers and intricately carved walls and doors. Oh, how Rheah was going to miss it all.

All of a sudden Professor McGonagall stopped in front of two ugly stone gargoyles.

'Acid pops!'

For a moment Rheah found herself flabbergasted at the deputy headmistress's announcement. Acid pops? What was she on about? Then to Rheah's utter surprise the stone gargoyles sprang apart to expose a doorway with a staircase.

'Gulping gargoyles!' Sara burst out; Rheah snickered at the pun while their father hid a smile.

'This way,' said the professor while stepping onto the staircase, and they followed. As soon as they got on, it started moving and they were being carried upstairs without them having to move. Even Rheah had to admit that it was cool.

Soon they were waiting in front of a large door as Professor McGonagall knocked on the door.

'Come in,' came the cheery reply.

*

In all her life she had never met a wizard who was so immensely powerful that it washed off of him in huge waves. But after meeting Professor Dumbledore, Rheah would have to say otherwise. Rheah had not known what to expect when she stepped into his office, though she had heard tales of his greatness and wisdom. Now as she stood in front of the great Albus Dumbledore, she could easily say that the tales did not do him justice. His power was unexplainable.

'Please do sit down,' he spoke while he conjured four squishy pink chairs with a dismissive wave of his hand. As Rheah sank into the comfortable chair, she looked around, fascinated with the office which was full of all kinds of strange looking gadgets and the impressive portraits of the many past headmasters of Hogwarts.

'It's a great pleasure to see you again, Albus.' Impressed to find out that their father was on first name basis with this great wizard, she raised an eyebrow at Sara. She returned Rheah's look and then nodded her head at a bird sitting near a window.

'Great Merlin! A real phoenix!'

Everyone turned to look at her. With her face heating up she stared at her feet to avoid all the stares.

'Yes, Fawkes here is a phoenix; one of my most loyal comrades,' said Professor Dumbledore. 'And what should I call you, Miss Ali?'

Rheah raised her eyes and muttered timidly, 'Rheah, sir,'

He looked at her for a while, his bright blue twinkling behind his crescent-moon shaped glasses. Everyone else was watching them interestedly.

'Miss Rheah Ali, could your tell me something about phoenixes?'

She was slightly taken aback. Was this her interview? If it was, then it was awfully easy.

'Er ... phoenixes make great pets, they are very loyal to their owner ... their tears have great healing powers ... umm ... and they can carry very heavy burdens easily. Its call is a very enchanting song,' and with more confidence Rheah went on, 'and the phoenix never dies; it has an endless series of lives. At the end of one life it simply combusts and then gets reborn from the ashes. Phoenix tail feathers are used to make wands as well.'

She finished off her rambling with a hesitant smile, wondering whether she had stated all the important points of phoenixes. For a while there was complete silence in the room as Professor Dumbledore surveyed her with an unreadable look on his face, and then ....

'Congratulations, Miss Rheah. That certainly was a very enlightening speech about phoenixes,' he said smiling brightly. 'Your OWL results are also quite impressive, having achieved "Exceeds Expectation" and higher in twelve subjects.'

Then after a pause he concluded, 'You will be a great asset to our school. I'm very pleased to welcome you into Hogwarts.'

She was stunned. There was no other word for it. Rheah looked over at her father speechlessly; he was beaming at her looking proud as ever.

'Does this mean that I'm ...?'

'Most certainly,' he replied. He then turned to her sister 'What about you, Miss Sara Ali ... did I get the name right?'

'Y-Yes,' Sara stuttered.

'Are you ready to be a new Hogwarts student?'

'Yes sir!' her sister replied instantly and Professor Dumbledore chuckled softly.

'Brilliant! Minerva, if you could please get the hat - we need to get you girls sorted before you come back to school next Monday,' Professor Dumbledore went on brightly.

What? Hat? Why would they need a hat to get sorted? Bewildered Rheah turned to look at Sara who to her dismay seemed to know what was happening. How can she know? Rheah wondered. As confused as she was, yet Rheah did not want the professors to think that she was stupid. So she tried to arrange her face into a blank expression, but not before Professor Dumbledore saw the baffled look on her face.

'To clear your doubts, Miss Rheah - the hat is enchanted to sort you into the house that would suit you the most,' he said with a smile. 'The sorting hat is never wrong in choosing the house for you. It's a very impressive magical object which was made by the founders of this school ... though it's state may fool you at first of its capabilities.' He chuckled at the look on their faces, at the sight of the downtrodden and pathetic looking hat Professor McGonagall had carried over.

'Right, which one of you wants to go first?'

'May I know the houses, sir?' Sara asked the headmaster hesitantly.

'Ah yes ... the houses,' said Professor Dumbledore, turning to Professor McGonagall. 'Minerva?'

'There are four houses in Hogwarts - Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Slytherin,' Professor McGonagall stated quickly. 'I myself am the head of Gryffindor.'

'Right ... er ... Rheah, is it okay if I go first?'

'No problem.'

To tell the truth, Rheah was feeling very nervous all of a sudden. She could not figure out why, but the sorting seemed a bit scary for her. Then again, she felt really stupid about being scared of a stupid worn-out hat.

Professor McGonagall passed the hat over to Sara, and looking very excited she put it on her head. For a while she just looked stupid, and then a gap opened in the hat and it shouted,

'GRYFFINDOR!'

'Ah, Minerva, you have a new student this year.'

Looking very pleased, Professor McGonagall passed the hat over to Rheah. Taking a deep breath she jammed the hat on her head. And then she waited. All of a sudden she heard a voice in her head, and Rheah nearly fell off the chair. Merlin! Was she going crazy?

'What is this ...? No, you have not gone nutters my child. I am a talking hat!'

Good lord!

'Right, let's see ... you are a very confused person my child. You have a thirst to prove yourself, yet you can't find the courage to do it. Tsk! Though you are quite clever ... and would go to lengths to achieve your goal - right then, Slytherin it is.' Then with a great shout, it announced.

'SLYTHERIN!'

Rheah took off the hat to see Sara and her father grinning at her. She smiled back, and then handed the hat back to Professor McGonagall. Though, she was a bit surprised to see some disappointment on her face.

'Lovely! You are going to have a new competitor as well, Minerva! Could you please inform Severus of this new addition to his house?' Professor McGonagall nodded at him and left.

When both Sara and Rheah looked lost, Professor Dumbledore added.

'Slytherin is Gryffindor's biggest rival.'

No! Now Rheah and Sara were rivals? Bloody Brilliant!

*