Something New

"Make way! Coming through!"

Silence hastily and serenely retreated to the relative safety of the library doorway. The last thing she wanted was to get in trouble with--with them.

This was wrong, and Silence knew it. She had grown up listening to stories of this school that her grandfather had helped found. Well could she remember sitting at her grandmother's feet, listening to Granny's wonderful tales of this school. She knew how her grandfather and three of his old school friends had decided, three years after their graduation, that England needed a school of witchcraft of their own rather than making English witches and wizards go to places like Iceland and Norway. She knew how the school had got it's name--it was something her grandfather's best friend used to say when something went wrong--actually, he was fond of saying "Oh, Pigzits!" but the others decided "Hogwarts" sounded better. She knew exactly how the halls had been decorated, where the classrooms had been placed, where each founder had put their houses, almost as though she travelled the halls of the school each day--indeed, even now, she could walk around the school blindfolded. She even knew about her grandfather's best friend's wish to limit learning to children of all-wizarding families, his quarrel with her grandfather, and Grandfather's friend leaving the school. All her life, she had looked forward to attending Hogwarts herself.

Grandfather retired when Silence was eight years old due to Granny's health problems. He, too, fed Silence's thirst for knowledge about his wonderful school, and continued to do so even after Granny's death.

By the time Silence was eleven, ready and old enough to start Hogwarts, only Grandfather's old school girlfriend Professor Ravenclaw was still heading it. Her best friend had fallen down the steps and died just after Grandfather left the school, and Grandfather's best friend hadn't been heard from in years. Professor Ravenclaw's best friend had the hospital wing dedicated to her, and Grandfather's best friend had supposedly left a secret chamber that none but his one true heir could open.

Silence's grandfather was very old by the time she turned eleven, even for a wizard, and nearing the end of his life. He stubbornly refused, however, to die until he was told exactly what house Silence was in, from Silence herself. His eyes were so weak by then that he had to use extremely thick glasses to be able to see even Silence, and he could not read her handwriting. So she promised to tell him what house she was in when she returned home for Christmas.

Silence loved Hogwarts, and she regretted not staying for Christmas, but she had to go see her grandfather. When she arrived at his bedside, she bubbled over with tales of classes, new friends, favourite teachers, castle decorations, and praise for the school itself. Finally, Grandfather asked her what house she was in. Proudly, she told him she was a Gryffindor.

"'Atta girl," said her grandfather in his quiet, raspy voice. "I knew you could do it."

Those were his last words. He died early the next morning. A few days after Silence returned to Hogwarts from the Christmas holidays, Professor Ravenclaw died peacefully in her sleep. Everyone agreed that Silence said it best: "All good things must come to an end."

Before she died, Professor Ravenclaw named a successor she trusted completely to run her school. The new headmaster never had time to be notified that Professor Ravenclaw had indeed passed on. A new terror seized hold of Hogwarts.

One day, as Silence and her friends Ramona, Amberina, and Fern were walking around the crystal-clear lake, Silence noticed something. A person in blood-red uniform robes was crouching in the bushes. Terrified, Silence and her friends ran back to the castle to alert the teachers.

It was too late. Durmstrang students and teachers--for that was what Silence had seen in the bushes--invaded the school, defeated every one of the defences, and conquered the school. Almost overnight, life for the Hogwarts students changed.

A variety of means were used to repress the Hogwarts students, even continuing on now. The best section of the grounds, where a beautiful park had been, was built up into a hut for the Durmstrang students. This established a Durmstrang minority at Hogwarts. Nevertheless, these Durmstrang students had the powerful support of their home school Durmstrang, so they controlled Hogwarts. They passed a series of laws they published in a book, called "Penal Laws", denying Hogwarts students their basic civil rights. The Hogwarts students were not allowed to mention the names of the founders, go home for the holidays, send letters, carry wands except in class, or become prefects, Head Boy/Head Girl, or top of the class even if they were smarter and better behaved than the Durmstrang students, which most of the Hogwarts students were.

Silence straightened her robes as the Durmstrang Prefect Patrol (DPP) passed by. She thought about what had been taken from the Hogwarts students. They had lost their rights, their park, their Quidditch teams (which Silence had been on), and their freedom. Rights and freedom gave them ideas, according to Durmstrang. The park had been the farthest point from the castle that you could go without hitting the Forbidden Forest, and the Durmstrang students refused to stay inside the Hogwarts castle. And Quidditch gave the Hogwarts students amusement and pleasure, which was the exact opposite of what Durmstrang wanted them to have. In fact, the only thing they hadn't lost was their library. There, in the quiet world of books, Silence could escape her harsh reality and exercise her one and only true freedom.