Worlds Apart

Julie shifted her weight onto her right arm, staring in a comfortably listless way at the endless hills rolling swiftly by. An opened Charms text lay forgotten on the seat next to her, exuding the crisp smell of a new book. She'd managed to read the entire prologue before abandoning her studies to the pleasures of boredom. The chance to do nothing without feeling guilty didn't come to her often, after all. At school, there was never a time when some project wasn't lurking around the corner - during her vacations, she felt almost obligated to spend the little time she had doing productively fun things - playing sports, going out, catching up on her Muggle reading. But on the train... there was nothing to do but to sit back and enjoy the ride. And that's what she intended on doing.

The cheerful burble of conversation drifted in from the next compartment; she could identify some of the voices - Fred and George Weasley, Ernie MacMillan, Cho Chang. She knew she could join them whenever she liked - it wasn't as if she was an outcast, after all... but her compartment was pleasantly cool and quiet, the only sound coming from the steady hum of magical air-conditioning. The only other occupants were a couple of timid first years, looking too cowed by her presence to even say a word. If she talked to them, she could probably have eased most of their fears, but the sky was too blue for speech, the clouds too ethereal. She drifted back into a satisfyingly somnolent state.

Life has a habit of disrupting those who have reached a certain level of happiness - and indeed, it was just at that moment that the door slid open. Julie barely glanced upwards.

"Aren't you supposed to be in the prefect's section, Anthony?"

The boy she was addressing had the courtesy to look slightly discomfited - he scratched an elbow and grinned. "I was. But we're nearly there, and I'm supposed to greet all the first years -"

"I'm not a first year."

"And tell everyone to get their robes on -"

"I already did."

"And Katie Bell wants me to tell you that she wants all the stuff you borrowed from her back."

"Fine, Goldstein. Now will you get out!" This last line was addressed to a closing door -he'd already sensed that she was in no mood for a conversation and disappeared, leaving her deprived of the righteous sense that comes out of yelling at someone for no apparent reason. Sighing, she stuffed her Charms book back into her suitcase and maneuvered herself into a slightly more upright position, as the motion of the train started to slow to a gentle halt.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Students poured from the scarlet, smoking mouth of the Hogwarts Express like boiling water from a kettle - restless and loud. Although it was early September, the air still shimmered with smothering heat. Julie sat placidly in the air-conditioned cabin, knees tucked up to her chest to allow more eager passengers access through. She was the only one there still sitting; the first-years had rushed off, and were probably even now being ferried across the lake.

A slight gap - just the mere absence of bodies - emerged and Julie half-heartedly propelled herself upwards, using a wall for leverage. Her legs were a bit unsteady from the ride but it hardly mattered, as she was immediately swept up in the next, smaller wave of the others who'd decided to wait to get off. The sea of black-robed students pressed forwards towards the automobiles and she climbed in, followed by two giggling Gryffindor girls - Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, heads inclined towards each other in a gossipy show of friendship - and a boy, probably Hufflepuff, whom she knew only by sight. He seemed even less inclined to make conversation than she did, but the wild rumors (it was really quite doubtful that any of the professors had been transfigured into toads over the course of summer) coming from the seats across from them kept the atmosphere from being uncomfortable. When the car came to a jarring halt, they split off without acknowledgment, each disappearing into their own worlds, which had only happened by coincidence to intertwine.

Julie made her way through the Entrance Hall, barely looking up. Even after the estrangement of break, this place still felt like Home, and no wonder - she'd spent a good part of her last five years, most of her conscious childhood at it. She was now nearly a proverbial "Queen of the School", one of the oldest there, but it felt more like familiarity than arrogance as she made her way into the expanses of the Great Hall. Whatever it was, it was reassuring.

The Ravenclaw table was already largely occupied, and bustling. She squeezed into a seat by the end, between Cho Chang and her friend Mandy Brocklehurst. This side of the table was generally reserved for the older students, but thanks to having an older sister, Mandy was acquainted with most of the upperclassmen.

"Did you make prefect?" Julie asked her, leaning back in her chair. "Anthony didn't tell me who else..."

Mandy raised her eyes in heavenly petition to the semblance of a sky above. "No, it was Padma - of all people! She barely even cares about school at all, and her grades aren't even close to mine..." She trailed off with a slight sigh. "I'm sure it has something to do with Professor Snape. He's hated me ever since that whole potions incident - but it's really not my fault that every single potion we made last March involved some usage of pigs or something. He's got a grudge against me... and if he fails me on my OWLs this year, I'm going to kill him!"

Julie put a hand on her shoulder. "Mands, slow down, you're getting agitated. Snape doesn't even give the exams, you know." She didn't see much sign of relief on the girl's face. Julie grinned suddenly, and shook the shoulder she was holding briefly before letting go. "Oh, stop being such a perfectionist. Look, they're starting the Sorting."

Indeed, a line of very nervous-looking first years were filing in from the Entrance Hall. At least half a dozen of them were sopping wet - one of the boats must have overturned. By this time, most of the student body had stopped their conversations to watch, but rather than silence, the air was filled with gleeful, anticipatory murmuring.

The Sorting Hat tore at the seams and burst into song. Its voice was piping and slightly off-key, like that of a drunk, but it seemed slightly more sober than it had in the past. "For our Hogwarts is in danger from external deadly foes... and we must unite inside her or we'll crumble from within, I have told you, I have warned you... let the Sorting now begin." The voice trailed off, leaving a rather ordinary-looking ugly hat, and a roomful of people, mouths slightly open, staring at it.

"Well, that was unusual," Marietta commented, swiveling slightly in her chair to watch the Sorting. "I've never seen it say anything but the usual - you know, these are your house's qualities, I'll pick the right one for you... I wonder how it knows if the school is in danger?"

"Well, it was sewn by the four greatest wizards of their time, and probably ours, too." Roger Davies, who had been talking to the male faction of his Quidditch team, leaned over to join the discussion, his fist pounding the table for unneeded emphasis.

"Well, it doesn't matter how great they were, it's the kind of spells they have -" Julie was interrupted by a wave of cheering as a new Ravenclaw was chosen - those immersed in the conversation clapped perfunctorily, and then stopped short as the girl took her seat at the other side of the table. "And they hadn't got very many spells to work with back then," she finished.

"Plus, the Founders weren't so great at all. It's just that with such lax organization, most witches and wizards didn't even know what they were. They were nobles, so they could read and write, and that automatically put them above most of the population - plus, since the spells were limited, anyone who could learn them was a certified genius..."

Food appeared out of nowhere on the table, and Roger Davies' elbow landed squarely in a bowl of warm tomato sauce. He jumped, and laughter rang briefly around him as he tried to wipe his sleeve on the table. People automatically picked up forks and knives and began to ladle their plates with food as they continued to talk. The vegetarian selections were much more extensive this year, Julie noticed. Padma must have had a talk with the House Elves.

Somehow, the food consumed on the train seemed to have escaped notice of the stomach - everyone was ravenous, and the food disappeared in what couldn't have been more than half an hour. As the meal disappeared, the Ravenclaws leaned back in their seats, conversation returning to its former intensity. There wasn't much interest generated when Dumbledore rose to start his announcements - most of the upperclassmen could have practically recited the speech along with him. But when the new professor, Umbridge, stood up to make a speech, the table went dead silent, an atmosphere that went about halfway into her speech.

"There again, progress for progress's sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering..."

"She could be a Professor of Obfuscation," Cho said quietly, shaking a strand of black hair vigorously from her face. "Honestly, she sounds just like those blokes at the Ministry..."

"Well, she is from the Ministry, isn't she?" Marietta shot her a slightly furtive look, as though she didn't think they really ought to be talking - when she noticed that no one was really paying attention, she gave up the pretense. "Mind you - she does have a point, if a limited one. I mean, progress for progress's sake is pretty narrowly defined, so it would be what? A spell to make nose hair curl, or something. I saw that once, would you believe it?"

"Necessity's the mother of invention," Mandy said, standing cautiously as Umbridge wound up her speech. "Maybe he needed to make it curl - who knows? And I rather think she's going to take the definition more liberally than you are."

"But - "

There was no break in the arguing as the group trudged upwards towards their common room. A typical evening at the Ravenclaw table.