Untitled Ravenclaw Story

(c)2005 by Josh Cohen. May not be reprinted, except for personal use. JK Rowling owns the Potterverse; I\'m just visiting.

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YEAR FOUR: TERRA INCOGNITA

No sex in this chapter, but if you look closely, you\'ll see the groundwork being laid for some. So to speak.

The hotel room was huge. There was a living room, there was a kitchenette, there were two bedrooms, each with their own bathroom. It was amazing. Mum and Da took one of the bedrooms and I dragged my case into the other. I didn’t know how long we’d be here, and I didn’t want to unpack just to find out we were leaving tomorrow – I doubted that, but just in case – so I just opened the suitcase and sat down at the room’s small desk with Terry’s letter.

David,

My mother’s found out what happened with the Sirius Black situation. I have to say, it doesn’t seem very promising. He was very nearly captured at Hogwarts, but he somehow managed to escape, along with that hippogriff that attacked Malfoy last year. No one has any idea where he is.

I’m sorry if I seemed kind of distant last year. Isabel and I were spending a lot of time together, but that’s over now. She’s decided that we’ll take the summer off, and then “re-evaluate our relationship” when we get back to Hogwarts. Between our relationship and my time spent worrying about Black, I guess I kind of let you and Padma get away a little.

Black is still out there somewhere. I guess I have less to worry about since he doesn’t seem to be after anyone at Hogwarts anymore. I’m still upset that I wasn’t able to help find him or catch him, but his time will come, and when he gets caught, he’ll get his Kiss.

Let me know if there’s any time where we can get together this summer. It might be fun to do paintball again, or take on the Weasleys and Luna in Quidditch. Hope your break is going well.

Terry

I drafted a longer letter in response. I told him I didn’t know how long I’d be in America, and that I understood how he was feeling with Black. I told him I understood that he’d been spending time with Isabel, and I would never hold that against him. Then I sealed the letter and went to Mum and Da’s door, which was closed.

“Um. I need to go downstairs and post something. All right?”

“That’s fine, David,” Da said through the door. “Don’t forget to take a room key with you.”

“Okay. Mind if I look around a bit while I’m here?”

“Go ahead. Be back by four so we can get dinner.”

“All right.” I checked to make sure I had my wand – I’d pulled on a light, long-sleeved shirt that I think had started life as dress clothes to cover the holster – and slid one of the room keys into my pocket before I left.

We were on the tenth floor of the hotel; I took the elevator, which was made mostly of glass, except for the floor, down to the lobby and went to the front desk. The attendant there assured me that my letter would reach England in two days.

That done, I started wandering around. The hotel had a small gift shop full of kitschy items I would never buy – not even any interesting t-shirts – as well as a large sitting area with a watercourse winding through it. The restaurant area was closed; metal shutters had been rolled down over the openings. There was a game room filled with muggle games – pool, darts, foosball, and a few stand-up video arcade machines – and several meeting rooms down a long hallway.

There was also a pool. It was half-outdoor and half-indoor; the indoor side wasn’t being used, I’m guessing because it was a nice day, so I went out the door and stopped in my tracks.

American women, witches or muggles, didn’t seem to wear much clothing when they went swimming.

And they were definitely not ashamed about it, either.

I walked slowly around the pool; there was what looked like a bar of some kind at the far end, so I made that my plausible destination. I also surreptitiously Transfigured an old piece of parchment in my back pocket into a pair of sunglasses. The spell might not last all that long – I wasn’t concentrating very hard – but I’d get at least an hour or two out of it. Enough to hide my eyes so that when I looked at the girls, they wouldn’t think I was staring.

And oh, how I wanted to stare.

I made my way to the bar and asked for a glass of water; the man tending drew it from a tap and set it on the wooden top for me. I sipped it, watching people come and go.

I didn’t even notice at first that someone had sat down next to me. But then she said, “kind of sad in a way, isn’t it?”

I removed my sunglasses and set them on the bar. “Sorry?” I faced her and quickly took stock: about three inches over five feet, not bad-looking but not really slender, good curves, decent tan, black hair, dark blue eyes – almost like Aunt Natalie’s; I felt a slight pang at that – and good cheekbones. Her face was more round than oval, her teeth straight and white, and a very wide smile. “What do you mean?”

She smiled more. “Oh, so you’re English?”

“Yes. David Goldman.” I held out my hand and she shook it; she had a hint of power, but not a lot. Less than Padma, but more than your average muggle. “And you?”

“Samantha. Samantha Branch.” She drew her hand away; I noticed that her fingers weren’t necessarily very long, but there was strength there. “What brings you here?”

“Here, to the pool? Or here, to America?”

“Either.”

Was she flirting with me? “My aunt was in… an accident, I guess you could say. We came over to visit her. We were going to come over anyway in a few weeks; just moved up our trip a bit.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Samantha said. “Will she be okay?”

“The doctors seem to think she’ll be all right, but there was a fair bit of damage to her back and her legs. They’re still out on whether or not she’ll be able to walk.”

“Oh.” I don’t think she knew what to say. “I guess at least it’s good that she’ll recover, right?”

“Yes, it is.” I glanced at Samantha again and decided to change the subject; she seemed uncomfortable. “I’ve never seen a bathing suit like that. What is it?”

“My mother calls it a ‘newzealand’.”

“What?”

“Well, I guess if the bikini comes from the Bikini Islands, and they’re small, then the New Zealand must mean something like two good-sized pieces of cloth with a narrow opening in the middle.”

I thought about this, and then started to laugh quietly. Samantha was exactly right. The suit was checked white and neon orange, and it fully covered most of her chest – her cleavage was visible, and it was quite obvious, but only a small amount of her breasts actually showed – while the bottoms were almost like a pair of shorts.

“I’m glad someone got the joke.”

“Indeed. So, why did you say this was sad before?”

“Oh, that?” She shrugged. “All these people, showing off their bodies. It’s kind of shallow.” She looked me over. “At least you don’t seem to be so obvious when you’re flirting.”

“Am I?” I put my hand to my chest in mock indignation. “I was just trying to have a nice chat with what appeared to be a nice girl. I don’t know what you were thinking.”

She grinned at me and poked me in the shoulder. “Everyone has an ulterior motive, David. Trust me.”

I shrugged back at her. “If you say so.”

We chatted for about half an hour after that; I found out she was seventeen, about to start her last year at a muggle school. “I guess I wasn’t witch enough to get accepted to a wizarding academy.” We had established before this that both of us were part of the wizarding world; the bartender, who was a full-fledged wizard making a little extra cash, had helped. “How old are you?”

“I’ll be fifteen in November.”

“You’re joking.”

“Afraid not.”

“But… but you look older than I am?”

I smiled. “Good genetics?” That had to be it; I was six feet tall, and unlikely to grow any more. If I ended up looking more like my parents, I would probably put on a little more weight, maybe get up to about two hundred pounds if I didn’t watch my diet, but for now I was still waiting to fill out a bit more. The Quidditch had helped, though.

“Wow.” Samantha took my water glass and drained it; her lips left a print on the edge of it. I wondered idly what it would be like to kiss her, and then half-scourged my subconscious – I was here to see my aunt, and she was in the hospital. I wasn’t going to think about that just now.

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“No, it’s all right,” she said. “Looks can be deceiving, I guess.” She slid off the high stool and picked up her hat – a large straw boater that she’d taken off when she’d sat down next to me. “So, see you around?”

“If you’d like to, I’d like to.” I stood up as well. “I’m in 1016, if you’d like to come by. Can’t guarantee I’ll be in; I don’t know how long we’re staying.”

“All right.”

“How long will you be in town?”

She shrugged. “At least another three weeks. My dad works for the muggle government, so we pretty much live at this hotel in the summer.”

“Must be nice.”

“We manage.” Samantha looked like she was forcing a smile. “I’ll call your room sometime.”

I nodded. “All right, then. A pleasure meeting you.” I held out my hand; she took it, and I bent over to kiss her knuckles gently. That surprised her enough to blush. “Have a lovely afternoon.”

“Um. You too.”

I watched her bottom move under her newzealand as she walked around the pool and back into the hotel. “Hey,” the bartender said.

I turned around. “Yes?”

“Good luck with that. She really could use a friend.”

“How do you know?”

He gave me a knowing look. “I’ve been working here for three years. Long enough to know that all her friends live back in Illinois, where she’s from. She gets lonely over the summer, but she’s got standards so high that no one seems to be able to live up to them.”

“What do you mean?” I picked up the sunglasses and put them in my pocket, and just in time. I felt them change back to a piece of parchment.

The bartender pointed to a tall, well-built young man leaning against the wall of the pool, in the shallow end. “That guy? Hit on her for two weeks. Went on one date. She decked him when he went in to kiss her. The next day he’d found someone else and was kissing her in the pool when Samantha came out to sit in the sun. She decked him again.”

“Decked?”

“Punched.”

“Oh.”

“So, like I said, good luck.”

I offered the bartender a weak smile. “Will you let me know if she says anything about me?”

“Maybe. We’ll find out together.”

I took my leave of him and went back up to the room.

American muggle television was about as exciting as British. In the middle of the day, on a weekday, there was nothing on but serialized programming, a few game shows, the news, and sporting events. I searched for a golf event, but there weren’t any, and eventually I muted the television on the news channel – CNN was the only one available; I would have dearly loved to watch the BBC news at least – and picked up Dawn Trader. When I finished that one, I moved onto the next book, Small Gods, by British author Terry Pratchett. Over the past few summers, I’d been reading my way through his Discworld series; this was the latest, and Da had told me it was a little different from the others.

I enjoyed it anyway.

Around three, Da came out of the room he and Mum had claimed and looked in on me. “Everything all right?”

“Fine,” I said. “You were right about the book.”

“Ah. Good.”

“Mum okay?”

He gave me a look I couldn’t quite describe, although I knew what it meant. “She’s taking this awfully hard. Natalie was supposed to be the strong one.”

“Well, I mean, she is strong, isn’t she? She did survive a lot of curses and Dark magic.”

“True, but still, your mother’s never seen Natalie in serious trouble before.” He put his hands in his pockets. “I think we’re just going to order in. If you want to take a few Galleons down to the desk and exchange them, you might as well get out and do something. I read there’s a game room downstairs?”

“I saw it.” I shrugged. “I guess I could see if there’s anything going on nearby, and maybe take a bus to see a film or something.”

Da came into my room and went over to the phone. He murmured a fairly drawn-out spell, his wand pointed at the notepad next to the phone. It shifted into a reasonable facsimilie of a cellular phone. “Take this with you if you go out. I’ll Transfigure another notepad in our room to connect with it. You won’t be able to call anyone else, but at least we’ll be able to get to you if we need you.” He reached into his pocket and dropped five Galleons on the desk. “This should get you about thirty American dollars, if I’m guessing the exchange rate correctly.”

“Thanks, Da.”

“Just make sure you’re not out too late. This is terra incognita, and I know you’ve never been to America before. Be careful.”

“I will.”

He thought for a moment, but didn’t have anything else to add. “All right. We’ll go see your aunt tomorrow after breakfast.”

“All right.”

I finished the section I was reading – Pratchett didn’t separate chapters like other authors – and folded my page to mark it. I dug through my suitcase for a pair of jeans that had a wand holster built into them and changed into those, leaving on my black t-shirt for now. I took out my money pouch, emptied it, and then pointed my wand at it. Very carefully, I Transfigured it into a basic wallet – just a billfold with two pockets. I was good enough at Transfiguration – and better than many students in my year – that I didn’t need to worry about Transfigured items changing back, so long as I really put my mind to it.

The wand went into the holster, the wallet into my pocket, and the Galleons and assorted Sickles and Knuts I’d already had into the other pocket, and I was ready to go.

The front office was too pleased to help me convert my money – they didn’t even skim a percentage off the top, which I think was a little odd – but in the end I had $38.12 American. I walked out of the hotel and looked around – just across the street, there were two fast-food restaurants. A McDonald’s and a Burger King.

I chose the Burger King simply out of deference to the fact that I came from a country with a royal family, and while the Whopper With Cheese, French Fries – chips, actually – and Coke weren’t the greatest food I’d ever had, they did fill me up enough to get by.

There was a magazine display at the entrance to the restaurant with the label “free; take one” on it, so I did. One of the magazines was an arts publication, and toward the back, I located movie listings. It appeared that a highly-anticipated American film entitled Forrest Gump was being shown as a sneak preview in several theaters around town. It seemed to be the story of a mentally-challenged man. All the reviews and buzz in the publication avoided going into more detail, but they did praise the lead actor, an American named Tom Hanks, for his portrayal, and at least two noted that he would be a shoo-in for Best Actor.

One of the other publications had a bus schedule in it, and I spent a few minutes figuring out where I had to go before leaving the restaurant with the magazines and walking a few blocks to a bus stop.

Riding a muggle bus in the capital of America was nothing like riding the Knight Bus, or even riding a double-decker bus through London. For one thing, the seats weren’t nearly as comfortable. They also didn’t make change – although many double-deckers didn’t do that either – and the people who rode the bus kept giving me odd looks.

I kept my right hand close to my pocket, near my wand, and held the publications on my lap. The city streets passed by in fits and starts as the bus paused every mile or so to take on or let off passengers. I changed buses twice and eventually ended up at a General Cinema theater.

There were quite a lot of people waiting to see this film; perhaps the arts publication had been right. I purchased my ticket and got in line, and began whiling away the time reading what appeared to be a political article in one of the other publications I’d picked up. I mentally slotted it into the “Labour” section of my mind – that’s what the policies this piece was calling for would be called if it was England, although here, they belonged to the “Democrats”. I also vaguely wondered what the American equivalent of the Daily Prophet was; it would have been nice to see if anything was happening at home.

The line eventually started to move, and we shuffled our way into the theater. We paused again near a ticket-taker’s stand, and I asked the older gentleman behind me to hold my place while I visited the snack bar. He agreed, and I returned with a small soda – the theater served Pepsi, which tasted much more metallic than the Coke at Burger King had – and a packet of Reese’s Pieces.

“Thank you,” I said to the man, and he nodded.

“So, you’re from England?”

“Yes, I am. Visiting my aunt.”

“She here?”

I shook my head. “She’s been in an accident. My father said I should get out and get my mind off things. My mum’s taking it kind of hard.”

“Sorry to hear that.” The line began moving again; I eventually handed my ticket to a spotty-faced teenager who couldn’t be more than two years older than I, even though I looked at least two years older than him. The older man and I reached the theater doors. “Nice talking to you,” he said as he moved off.

“Likewise.”

I found myself an aisle seat – given the condition of my kidneys, even with the kidney potion, it was best if I stayed within easy reach of the exit, in case I had to visit the loo – and settled in.

The theater was packed, and soon the seat next to me was filled by a middle-aged couple in fairly-nice clothing. “Just so we’re clear,” the man said, “you’re not one of those teenage kids who makes noise through the whole movie, right? Because if you are, we’ll move.”

I smiled. “No, not at all.”

The woman looked at me. “Ah, a countryman!” She had an accent that marked her from Liverpool. “Where are you from?”

“Small village. Ottery-St-Catchpole.”

“How lovely.” She held out her hand. “Gwyneth Markham.”

I took it. “David Goldman. Pleased.”

Her husband also shook my hand. “John Markham.”

“Pleased also.”

“See?” Gwyneth said, needling her husband. “I told you it’d be all right.”

As soon as the lights went down, I slid out my wand and very quietly cast a light shielding spell over the three of us. I’d heard things about Americans at films. If anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything.

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A/N: It took me a while to find a film that came out at the right time. I\'m completely vamping on the theater names and the bus system in the DC/Bethesda area. I\'ve never used it. (I\'ve taken the Metro, though, in DC.) This chapter was basically intended as a takeoff of the first day Captain Kirk and co. spent in San Francisco in Star Trek 4... right down to the terra incognita line. I just thought it might be interesting to try and view America from the point of view of a British teenage wizard.

Samantha returns in the next chapter. Don\'t worry.