I Hate Hogwarts

"Goodbye Kiri! Have fun!"

"Be good, Kiri!"

Of course, they would end their farewells with a barely disguised warning.

'Be good!' Yeah right. 'Any trouble and you will be in the soup, young lady!' That'd be more like it.

Kiri McDonaldson dragged her trunk onto the big red steam engine, hunching her shoulders and refusing to look behind her. Ignoring the eager young students that flooded around her, she struggled to get her trunk over the bumps. Dragging it behind her, and carrying the covered cat box, she looked all the way down the corridor for a free cabin. After passing several, she took the last one.

"Ashli, what are we going to do?"

A sibilant hissing came from the box Kiri had set next to her on the russet red leather.

"Yes, yes. I don't like side-along Apparition either. You can come out, but if anyone comes in, you get back into your box. Alright? I don't need people starting rumors about me and staring at me before I even get to school."

Kiri opened the cat box, and a red-and-grey snake slithered out. Ashli was an Ashwinder, a snakey sort of thing that emerged from a magical fire that had been left unattended, and was generally regarded as a pest. Ashli had emerged from the fire in the old house in Cheshire, one night when Kiri was two years old. She had slithered her way upstairs, and when Kiri's parents found her, she was curled up next to little Kiri, between Tedda and Mister Ephelant. Of course, Kiri's mother had been hysterical, but Kiri begged to keep 'the pretty swiverer', so eventually Kiri's dad decided that since they lived in the middle of nowhere, she could have a pet. Ashli had been her best, and really, her only, friend since before she could remember.

Kiri grumbled. Here she was, going to the place she least wanted to be in the world. The only thing that could be worse was being on her way to Durmstrang.

Ashli wound around Kiri's shoulders, trying to comfort her friend. Kiri growled again, but it changed to a sigh of defeat.

"Not much I can do about it now, is there? I'll see what presents itself later. Do you want some jam?"

Kiri had discovered, about a year after Ashli first slithered her way out of the flames, that her scaly friend had an inordinate fondness of jam, treacle, honey, and just about anything sticky that came from a jar.

Kiri reached into her small backpack, which carried the things she didn't want to rummage through her trunk for, (often Ashli), and pulled out a jar of blackberry jam.

As soon as she unscrewed the lid, Ashli dove in, and came out with her face covered with purple goo. Watching her snake trying to get as much jam in her mouth as possible, and getting it almost everywhere else, Kiri smiled for the first time since her last trip to Diagon Alley.

~*~

It was dark, and Kiri was in her robes and itching to change back into her comfortable Muggle attire. She stared out the window, watching the dim shapes illuminated by the light streaming forth from the carriage windows. Tree, tree, bush, rock, stream, tree, tree, tree, grass.

They were almost there. The lights of Hogsmeade, the only all-magic village in Britain, were flashing past in the darkness. Kiri had been there a few times. They ran tours, occasionally, so her grandparents would drop her off to be 'educated' for a day.

Hogsmeade... An idea began to form in Kiri's head. She thrust it into the back of her mind to simmer, stew and develop.

The train was slowing. The noise up the corridor was growing, swelling to a dull roar.

"Great," growled Kiri.

She dragged her trunk and Ashli in her cat carrier out of the cabin. Why was it so heavy? You'd think that your own grandparents would be kind enough to cast a lightening charm on it, wouldn't you? But no. They probably thought it would be character building. And she couldn't run off if she had to struggle with every step.

Kiri had just dragged her trunk off the train, landing it with a jarring thud on the concrete, when someone came up behind her.

"You know, you can just leave it on the train. They put it in your room during the Sorting and the feast."

She spun around, but lost her footing and stumbled. The stranger reached out and steadied her.

"Whoa. You okay?" Kiri looked at the person who had surprised her. He was tallish, with black hair and a grin, and he spoke with a slight American accent.

"Hey, Kiri-"

"How do you know my name?" she demanded accusingly.

"It's on your trunk. But anyway, you aren't a first year, are you? But I haven't seen you around before. How old are you?"

"Thirteen."

"Thirteen! Why haven't you been at Hogwarts?"

"I was having private tutoring."

It was true - in part. The real reason she hadn't gone to Hogwarts before was because she ran away every time her grandparents tried to ship her off. She ran and hid, using the Muggle money she received from doing odd jobs for her few neighbors to buy food and such. Because her education was 'important to them,' they got an old family friend to keep her up to date. She did enjoy learning magic, and she wished she could do more Care of Magical Creatures, but she did not want to go to Hogwarts.

"Really?" Their conversation - Kiri felt that it was more of an interrogation - was interrupted by a huge voice and a bell, both wielded by a massive man.

"Firs' years! Firs' years to me! C'mon, c'mon, over here, firs' years!"

The black haired boy frowned.

"I wonder, do you count as a first year? You see, first years have their traditional first coming to Hogwarts, in boats over the lake. Let's go ask."

Towing a reluctant Kiri behind him, he made for the big man.

"Kiri this is Hagrid, our Groundskeeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher. Hagrid, does Kiri go in the boats? She's thirteen, but this is her first year at Hogwarts."

"Ah, yeah, I heard about 'er. Righ' Kiri, yer to come over on the boats, but ye'll go and sit at one o' the tables, and get Sorted after the feast."

"All right. Kiri, come sit with me, I'm on the Ravenclaw table. You'll see me. There's usually a metre wide gap on either side!" The boy ran off to carriages, which were pulled by what looked like winged horses.

"Making friends already, eh?"

Kiri looked up at the big man. Hagrid, she corrected herself.

"No. I don't even know his name."

Kiri was swept into a tide of small children with looks of abject terror on their pale faces. Hagrid directed them into the boats, little dinghies that looked like the type that rocked, and rolled, and capsized, in the movies. Kiri wound up with a red-headed boy and another girl. They both stared at her as she sat in the stern, determinedly not looking at them. When Kiri did nothing interesting, they began to talk to each other in muted whispers.

They stopped with sharp squeaks as the boats suddenly pulled away from the shore, gliding across the water, obviously by magic. The girl stared at the water flowing past, looking as though this was the first time she had ever seen magic. The boy was less impressed. He was staring fixedly at what appeared to be absolutely nothing.

Yet as Kiri watched, a magnificent castle appeared. A series of gasps was heard around the fleet, as others became aware of the towers and turrets.

Kiri looked around at the first years. All their attention was fixed on the castle. She twisted her head to look behind her, but lost her balance, and fell out of the boat and into the bone chilling water. After catching her breath, Kiri started to swim - away from the boats.

But something was pushing her back from underneath. A mass of tentacles appeared underneath her and dumped her back on her boat, dripping wet and very annoyed. She found her wand and muttered a drying charm, leaving her dry, but still annoyed.

Escape attempt one was a failure.