"My apologies, my dear, I don't believe I know you."
"I'm Clare Cooper. I'm going back to school and need to buy a wand."
"Of course, a wand…" Ollivander looked her over and his gaze fell on the silver collar around her neck.
She shivered.
"There was a Clare Cooper on the books to go to Hogwarts some ten years ago…"
"That was me."
"Ah." Ollivander's voice saddened. "Such a shame." He then brightened. "Well, no time like the present, and education is the best investment we can make in ourselves… or something like that. Let's get you fitted out, shall we?"
Ten minutes later, Clare held a thirteen and a half inch yew and phoenix feather wand in her hand and brought it down in a great flash of emerald green sparks.
Ollivander's gaze slid from the wand to her and back again. "How surprising."
Early next Monday, with butterflies flitting all the way through her stomach and threatening to climb up her gullet, Clare flooed straight into the head office of Madam Goose's Home for the Magically Gifted. An old witch sat behind a desk wearing a pointed white witches hat with stars on it. "Miss Cooper, I presume?" the witch asked, peering over her glasses.
"Yes, Ma'am," she answered, looking around. The office's walls looked to be made of soft brown leather, while the floor was a massive patchwork quilt.
"Well then," the witch continued, in the same level, even tone. "allow me to welcome you to The Shoe. I hope you have a productive time here."
Clare nodded. "Thank you, Ma'am.
The witch stood up. "I am the current Madam Goose, the Headmistress, and you are a reforming criminal and a whore."
Clare faulted. "I…" "—You will act in such a manner as is befitting of a young lady of the wizarding world, and if you fail to do so, then not even Lord Slytherin's influence will help you — do you understand?"
Clare straightened. "Yes, Ma'am."
"That's, 'Yes Headmistress.'"
"Sorry, Headmistress. Yes, Headmistress"
Madam Goose stepped over to Clare, drew her wand, and tapped the silver collar around her neck. "You are now keyed into the wards. You will not try to leave until school-out time at three-thirty each day. You will make sure you have left the school by five o'clock. As one of the only students who lives off campus, you may not run errands for any of the other students. If a student asks you to buy something for them, you are to turn them down, understand?"
"Yes, Headmistress."
"Good. Class starts in ten minutes." The office door opened and an older teenager stepped through. "This is Rebecca — one of our seventh year students. She'll help you find your way. I suggest you get yourself to where you need to be."
Clare nodded again, took a last glance at the storybook style decor, and left by the office door.
So much for the warm welcome.
Rebecca turned to her and smiled. "You'll be fine. Headmistress Madam Goose can be a bit scary, but most of the staff aren't like that." Clare nodded, thanked her, and the two walked off down the equally storybook style hallway.
Clare stopped briefly at the first window they arrived at to look outside.
Rolling hills and lawn stretched out for at least a mile before hitting a sturdy looking wooden fence. Dozens of pre-teens and teenagers lounged around, dressed in typical muggle style school uniforms with flowing open robes. It looked like she was the only one dressed in the more traditional closed robes. One older teen showed off a broomstick in the middle of a large group of his friends. Another group was playing cards — another, hopscotch. It was unmistakably a school. Just like the one she'd left before she'd been dragged into hell.
"Clare?" Rebecca asked. "Ah, coming."
They carried on walking, eventually finding her classroom.
Clare claimed a desk at the back of the room after thanking Rebecca. She took her wand out of her bag and waited.
Eventually, her much younger class mates all filed into the room, many giving her strange looks. There looked to be around fifteen of them.
The teacher walked to the blackboard. The man didn't acknowledge her. She supposed he just didn't want to disrupt the class.
"Books out," the teacher said. "Please read chapter three in quiet." He couldn't have sounded less enthusiastic. Clare pulled out her book and stared going over the section that she'd already finished a few weeks back.
After thirty minutes, the teacher announced they would be going through the safety of magic, and from the many groans that sprang up all around, she supposed it wasn't the first time.
Another thirty minutes went by, in which Clare learned such pearls of wisdom as, 'never attempt a new spell without supervision,' and, 'only use ministry approved spells,' and, 'only qualified wizards are allowed to experiment with magic and even then only with ministry approval on a case-by-case basis, which none of you lot are ever going to get.'
She suppressed a yawn. It was like the man was deliberately trying to take all the excitement out of magic. How could you possibly make something like magic, dull?
The teacher then handed out a bunch of nails and told them to, 'get on with it.'
Presumably, they were trying to turn the nail into a wooden spoon — the first exercise listed in the book. She pointed her brand new wand at the nail and got to work.
By the end of the class, some thirty more minutes later, she'd managed to make the nail a bit less blunt, and changed it brown. She was quite pleased with herself. She was doing magic! She even seemed to be ahead of some of her class mates. She frowned as a thought struck here. Sure, they were eleven year olds, but weren't they supposed to have been at this for almost two months now? Surely they should be further ahead then this?
After another 'practical' class and lunch, she had wizarding culture and law class, and if she thought the practical classes was slow, it was nothing compared to this.
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