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Ilvermorny’s Arrival


“Blimey!” James whispered as the little dot in the sky he was pointing to became bigger and bigger and the shape more defined. He could scarcely believe his eyes - so much so that he grabbed onto Sirius and hissed, “Will you look at that?!”

“I am looking!” Sirius answered, equally in awe as James was.

For in the sky, where there’d once been naught but a dot amongst the clouds, was the quickly descending form of a powder blue Volkswagen bus, spiraling toward the ground. Dumbledore moved out of the way of the vehicle as it righted itself, stopping, hovering a few feet from the ground. The bus slowly lowered until its wheels touched down and Dumbledore clapped heartily. The sound of his palms hitting together was the only one that could be heard besides the rumbles and ticks of the engine as the little VW bus vibrated, and then shuddered into silence.

The door in the back of the bus opened up, and a tall, very skinny man climbed out, wearing long purple wizard robes, a small beanie of a cap with a silver tassel that hung over the side. He had round glasses - Sirius couldn’t help but to think of John Lennon at the sight of the glasses. The man was older, though not bearded, but the hair that stuck out in curls beneath the beanie was white as snow. The man hastened to Dumbledore, a grin upon his face, and he extended his palm, taking hold of Dumbledore’s own extended hand, and vigorously shaking it.

“Welcome to Hogwarts!” Dumbledore said happily.

“Great to be here finally!” said the man, still shaking Dumbledore’s hand, “Put an extendable charm on her, but there’s only so much you can do to make it comfortable and we were wicked cramped, packed in like sardines as they say! Glad to have made it to Hogwarts!” He spoke with a very distinct dialect, one which seemed to pronounce the secondary R’s softer, or possibly not at all, so that he sounded as though he’d said ‘sah-deens’ and ‘hahg-wahts’.

“You’re right,” James hissed to Sirius, “They do have funny accents.” Sirius nodded.

“That’s Randy Temple,” Remus whispered to Sirius and James, “He’s the principal of the school, which is sort of like a headmaster, I guess.”

“And he talks like that? All improper and such?” asked Peter, wrinkling his nose, clearly judging the man for it.

“They’re a lot less formal in the States,” said Remus, “My mum was like that when she got excited.” His eyes looked far off for a moment, and then he shook himself back to the present as Principal Temple moved on through the line of faculty waiting to greet him, starting with Professor McGonagall, who looked quite taken aback by the roughness of the man’s handshake.

Next out of the back of the bus was a student - a boy, who wore a dark blue robe, open at the front, with a pair of jeans that were ripped at the knee and a plain white t-shirt beneath them. He had sandy blonde hair and a smattering of freckles across his face and appeared to be about Derek Bell’s age. This, James guessed, was the Ilvermorny team captain. Sure enough, the boy held out a hand to Dumbledore and announced, “I’m Jack Scout, captain of the Ilvermorny team.” He, too, had an accent, but it was very different than Randy Temple’s had been, it was thicker and twangier.

The boys exchanged glances. “Do they all talk different?” asked James.

“There’s a lot of dialects in the States,” answered Remus.

Jack Scout was followed by a girl with frizzy-curly red hair that hung about her face as though it were spun like cotton candy, clashing horribly with her purple robes. She introduced herself as Meg Johnson, Seeker. Next was another girl, this one with platinum blonde hair that hung to her waist. She looked much nicer in the purple robes than Meg Johnson had and she smiled with perfectly straight teeth that seemed to glow they were so white. She was a chaser and her name was Dawn Gleason and half of the boys of Hogwarts were instantly in love with her.

“She’s marvelous,” whispered Sirius, eyes wide, “Merlin’s beard.”

Two boys with olive robes emerged next - the other two chasers. One was Eric Danes, whose skin was tanner than the others had been, with long black hair that he had braided down his back. The other was Richie Hart, who was pale as could be and wore shorts under his robes. Following them came another boy in a dark blue robe, Nick Shaffer, who said he was a beater on the team. Three students in bright reddish-orange robes climbed out last. They were introduced as Andy Kimball, the other beater, and two back-up players, Carlos Monteyro and Janice Higgins.

“Which house is which? I’m guessing the colors of the robes indicate the house, yeah?” whispered Sirius to Remus as various other faculty members came out of the van, “Do you know?”

Remus shook his head, indicating he didn’t know.

The entire team had made it along the Hogwarts faculty to the team Derek had selected and they were talking, shaking hands and such. Derek and Jack Scout were laughing, nodding and apparently catching up as though they were old friends. They’d kept in touch all term, writing one another owls about the tourney and their experiences as captains during such an exciting time, careful not to leak any team secrets.

There were still people getting out of the Volkswagen bus, Sirius was impressed by how many people had fit in there. Already there were nine students, and four members of faculty including the Principal, and now there were four burly-looking guys in black suits climbing out, forming a tight block around the door. Each of their faces were donned with dark black sunglasses that hid their eyes. One guy offered up his hand and another man in a brown suit and bright red tie climbed out. The four black-suits herded around him as he walked around the end of the van toward Dumbledore. Sirius noticed he wore a pin on his tie - the shape of the flag of the US, crossed by a wand spitting red, white and blue sparks.

“The President for Magic of the United States of America, Douglas K. Rushton,” announced one of the four black-suits. The man in the center stepped forward between the guards to take hold of Dumbledore’s hand. Dumbledore shook his hand and then did a sort of bow. “It is our great honor to welcome you to Hogwarts, Mr. President,” Dumbledore said thickly.

“And it is mine to accept you welcome,” the President answered. He looked up at the turrets and towers of the castle, a smile on his face, “I always wanted to go here when I was a child, you know. Ended up at Ilvermorny - mum and dad didn’t want me going abroad. But it appears to be everything I ever dreamed it would be and more.” He turned to Dumbledore, “When will Minister Jenkins be arriving?”

“Eugenia should be coming in later tonight. She had some urgent matters to deal with in London, I am afraid. She wished I would offer her sincerest apologies to you, of course, but it could not be helped.” Dumbledore answered.

“Very well,” answered President Rushton.

Dumbledore smiled, “It should give you a time to rest before meeting with her,” he said, “I should imagine you are quite weary from your journey and we’ve prepared a private room with a bed and hot meal, prepared specially by our House Elves.”

“That sounds very good,” nodded the President, and he followed as Dumbledore turned and led the way up to the castle, through the gap among the students. The black-suited guards quickly knotted themselves around the President, though, so that the boys could barely see him through their limbs and torsos as they passed by, followed by the rest of the guests - the faculty talking to various members of the Hogwarts staff, and the two All Star teams, followed by the Principal, who smiled and waved to the Hogwarts students as Argus Filch ran at his heels, rolling up the black carpet behind them.

As the houses converged on the hall, eager to follow along to see anything else they could of the visitors, Hagrid was trying to figure out how to go about moving the Volkswagen bus. Seeing as he couldn’t fit in the driver’s seat to drive it away as a muggle would, finally he simply reached in and put the vehicle in neutral and pushed it along down the little road toward the stables.




“So I found out about the robes,” said Remus, coming into the dormitory a couple hours after the Ilvermorny team had arrived. The other boys had headed up to the dormitories after the excitement was over but Remus, eager to know the answer about the visitor’s colorful robes, had gone on to the library to read as much as he could about the school. “They do signify which house the students are a part of. So blue is Horned Serpent, purple is Thunderbird, orange is for Wumpus and the Pukwudgies are Olive.”

“So how come the headmaster had purple on, too?” Sirius asked, sitting up.

“The Principal wore the color because he was in Thunderbird when he was in school,” said Remus with a shrug. “It would be like Dumbledore wearing a Gryffindor scarf or a Hufflepuff badge or something.”

James sat up, “Oh weird. What house do you suppose Dumbledore was in when he was in school?”

All three of them said a different answer - the only one not represented was, of course, Slytherin, for none of them could picture Dumbledore a Slytherin. They looked at each other in surprise. “Why do you reckon he was in Hufflepuff for?” Sirius demanded of Peter, his nose upturned.

“Because he’s kind and he’s accepting all of the different wizards into school,” Peter said, “Isn’t that was Hufflepuff does? Accepts all the students that don’t belong in other places?”

“Yeah, but Dumbledore’s not hokey like the Hufflepuffs are!” said Sirius, rolling his eyes.

Remus nodded, “He’s way too smart. He had to have been in Ravenclaw.”

“Are you calling Hufflepuffs stupid?” demanded Sirius, “My cousin was a Hufflepuff you know - the good one, I mean, Andromeda, not the crummy one, Narcissa - she’s a Slytherin and that’s right where she belongs.”

“Not stupid,” said Remus, “Just not as academically inclined. You lot saw Dumbledore’s office. All those books and instruments. He’s a genius, obviously! He’s got to be a Ravenclaw.”

Sirius shook his head, “He’s way too brave! He heard we were out there in the woods with Voldemort and what’s he do - he comes crashing out through the forest to save us! Remember? And blimey - haven’t you heard about how he defeated old Gellert Grindelwald back in the day? Nobody else could’ve done. But Dumbledore did it. He’s a ruddy hero. Of course he would’ve been a Gryffindor.” He looked over at James. “Don’t you think?”

“Yeah, probably,” James said. “Though he kind of is all of the houses, isn’t he?”

“‘Cept Slytherin,” muttered Sirius.

“Yeah, I s’pose except for Slytherin,” James shrugged. “Maybe that’s why he ended up the Headmaster.”

“Maybe,” Remus said. He looked put his books down on the desk and said, “Anyway, the mystery about Ilvermorny’s robes is solved, at least.”

James looked contemplative yet again. “Which house do you reckon is which?”

“What do you mean?” Peter asked.

“Well, you know Slytherins are evil and Gryffindors are brave and Hufflepuffs are good and Ravenclaws are smart -- you reckon it’s like that with the Ilvermorny houses, too?”

They all looked at Remus.

“Well don’t look at me, I don’t know that,” Remus said, “I just read until I found out about their robes. I don’t know what their house personalities are like.”

“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough,” James said, shrugging.

“Or you will, anyway,” Sirius said, glancing at the clock, “Aren’t you supposed to be leaving for that dinner soon?”

James looked up, “Oh, blimey - yeah! I’ve got to go. See you all later!” he hurried out of the room.

“I hope the rest of us get to meet the Ilvermorny students soon,” said Remus, “I’d like to talk to them about their culture.”

“Yeah,” Sirius said, specifically thinking of Dawn Gleason, “I’d like to talk to them about culture too…” he grinned.