Untitled Ravenclaw Story

DISCLAIMER: Obviously, JK Rowling owns the Potterverse. I\'ve just decided to step in and play around a little bit. This story is (c)2005 by Josh Cohen, and may not be reprinted, except for personal use.

AUTHOR\'S NOTE: Okay, so, Harry Potter is this famous wizard, right? But there\'s got to be other wizards out there that have their own stories. This is the story of one such wizard. His name\'s David Goldman, he\'s 11 years old, and he\'s in the same year as Harry, although he\'s in Ravenclaw.

I realize that this story may not follow all parts of canon exactly -- that\'s why I\'m glad I have you readers. If you come across a factual error, by all means e-mail me at doorock42@hotmail.com.

I realize also that David Goldman -- a character of my own creation -- may not fit perfectly into the Potterverse. But I\'ve only heard a few names come out of Ravenclaw, and on one site, there was the name of a person I\'d never seen mentioned in any of the books. So I simply replaced him with David.

I\'ve tried to write this story from the POV of a person who\'s grown up knowing, accepting, and living within the wizarding world. You\'ll have to tell me how I do.

As for the \"adult\" part... well, that\'s coming. I feel a little queasy writing about sex with first-years, or even second-years. By the time we get to third year, though, I may be able to work something in. By the end of this saga, though, there will be plenty of lemon. We\'ve just got to get to a point where David is old enough.

One other note -- since this is being written as a sort of look back at his years at Hogwarts, David seems to be more adult in his narrative tone. You have to imagine him as a twenty-something-year-old wizard, kind of ambivalent about things in general, in order to get the full effect of the story.

As always, your reviews are welcome, either here on the site or via private e-mail. If anyone reads this and would like me to beta their work... well, you know what to do by now, I\'m sure.

And now...

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PROLOGUE

All anyone talks about is the Boy Who Lived. Throughout those seven years, the only events remembered circle around him, around his friends, around his adventures.

But there were others of us present, those of us who had nothing to do with the Boy Who Lived and his exploits. I am one of those others, and this is my story.

***

YEAR ONE

“What, Goldman, not wizard enough to take me on?”

“Shut up, Malfoy.”

Draco Malfoy’s blond hair and sneering face were right in front of me. I longed to just punch him, but there were adults – professors and porters and others – watching as we stood facing each other on Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters. Malfoy’s father was talking to someone I didn’t know; my own father was chatting amiably with Penelope Clearwater and her parents.

“I knew it! You don’t know enough magic!”

I pushed apart the edges of my jacket enough to show my wand, tucked into my pocket. “Listen to me, Malfoy, because I’m only going to say this once: you do not want to spend the next seven years as my enemy. It’s best if we leave each other alone.”

Malfoy’s cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, stepped up behind him. “Or?”

I stepped closer to Malfoy, into him, forcing him to take a step back or fall down. “Remember who my father is, Malfoy. Yours may be a powerful wizard, but no Death Eater ever was able to stand up to Arthur Goldman. Do you really think he didn’t teach me a few things before school started?” I touched the tip of my wand and a slight greenish glow formed, linking the wand to my finger as I pointed at Malfoy’s chest. “Stay away. Find someone else to pick on.”

My brown eyes held his silver-gray ones for a few long moments, Crabbe and Goyle held fast to their places, until Draco\'s father called out to him. “Draco! I have something I must tell you before you leave!”

“It’s over for now, Goldman,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”

I nodded and watched him go. Crabbe and Goyle stood there dumbfounded, as if they had nothing else to do.

But then my father called me, and I turned my back on them to join him.

“Are you sure about this, David?” my father asked me. Mum hadn’t come along; she had to work. “The Israeli Magical Academy agreed to accept you, as did one of those American institutes. You could go anywhere you wanted with what’s in your head.”

“I know, Dad,” I said. “But you and Mum were both in Hogwarts, and after all the times I’ve visited, there’s nowhere else I would want to go.”

“David…”

“Dad!” I complained. “You said you wouldn’t do this. You promised.”

He shook his head. “All right then.” He handed me a small leather bag, the cord holding it closed a virulent green. “You remember how to open this?” I nodded. “Don’t forget, this is all the pocket money I’m giving you until the winter break, so don’t waste it.”

“I won’t, Dad.”

He looked at me, then set his hand on my shoulder. “All right, then. This is it.” I hugged him, and he hugged me back. “I’m proud of you, son. I love you.”

“Love you too, Dad,” I assured him. “I’ll send an owl if I need anything.”

“Send one anyway,” he said as he released me. “You know how your mum worries.”

We both rolled our eyes, and then, after a hasty wave, I boarded the Hogwarts Express.

Word must have spread about my little meeting with Malfoy; I had a cabin all to myself for several minutes until a girl with bushy hair and rather prominent buck-teeth poked her head in. “D’you mind?” I shook my head and so she pushed her way in and slid the door shut before holding out her hand. “Hermione Granger.”

I shook her hand quickly. “David Goldman.”

“Arthur Goldman’s son?”

I took a closer look at her. My hand was tingling; this one was a powerful witch. “Yes. You know my father?”

She sat down. “Not personally, of course, but I know he’s on the forefront of new spell research…”

It became easy to tune out Hermione, just nodding and applying an “mmhmm” or “yes” every now and then. I just watched the scenery roll by, thinking about nothing in particular, until a round-faced boy poked his head in and asked something about a toad. Hermione volunteered to help him, leaving me alone with my thoughts until the door slid open once more.

This time I actually smiled. “Hello, Penelope.”

Penelope Clearwater, wearing her Ravenclaw prefect’s badge, set her slim form down on the seat so recently vacated by Hermione. “How are things, David?”

I shrugged. “Fine, I guess. Met a girl named Hermione Granger, seemed to know an awful lot about a lot of things. Got a bit of a power flush to her, too.”

Penelope lifted one shoulder elegantly. “I haven’t met any of the first-years yet, except for Percy’s youngest brother.”

“Ah. Percy.”

“Oh, come on, David,” she chided, “he’s a nice boy.”

“I’m sure he is. But he’s a bit of a prat.”

Penelope thought about that for a moment. “I’ll give you that; he can be a bit uptight. But I still like him.”

“You go right on liking him.”

“I will then.” She put her feet up on the seat, leaning against the corridor wall to watch the countryside roll past. “Looking forward to Hogwarts, then?”

I nodded. “I’m hoping I get into Ravenclaw with you. Although I suppose Gryffindor or even Slytherin wouldn’t be too bad.”

“You want to get into Slytherin?”

“Of course not. But it wouldn’t be the end of the world, now would it?”

She closed her eyes and thudded her head gently against the glass pane behind her. “Oh, David, if you don’t know enough to know that Slytherin isn’t the place you want to end up, I don’t know what I can tell you. Let’s just hope for Ravenclaw, shall we?”

“If you say so.”

We ignored each other for much of the rest of the way until Penelope left the cabin to change into her robes with the other prefects. I had put mine on before we got far from London, so as to not need to mess with my trunk. When we arrived, I heard a very large voice – it was Hagrid, the gamekeeper, who I’d met on a previous visit – ordering us to follow him to a series of boats. I ended up in one with three girls – I always tended to lag behind – and they spent the whole time wondering which house they would end up in.

I didn’t let it bother me. Houses weren’t as important as everyone said they were.

“Oh, indeed, I recognize this head.”

The voice was inside of my ears; no one else could hear it. I was sitting on the stool, wearing the Sorting Hat, listening to it deliberate over where to Sort me.

“I know your father, and your mother too. I set them both in Ravenclaw, and from what I hear, they’re doing very well. But you… you have a gift for Dark Arts, which would put you with the Slytherins, and you have bravery and hard work, fitting you with Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. In fact, I rather fancy the idea of putting you with the Gryffindors; from what I hear, they’ll need all the help they can get. But then, I’ve seen who’s coming up next, and she’ll do just fine there. Perhaps I’ll just do what I think is best. I’ll set your vast intelligence in RAVENCLAW!”

The last word was audible enough for the whole room to hear; I joined the other Ravenclaws at the blue-and-gold table, passing the hat back to the dignified form of Professor McGonagall and smoothing back my short brown hair along the way. Penelope gave me a wink from several seats down, and I shrugged.

“Terry Boot,” said the boy next to me, holding out his hand. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thank you,” I said softly, shaking his hand. “Family tradition?”

Terry nodded. “My mum was in Ravenclaw. Dad went to Durmstrang, which I guess is somewhere in Eastern Europe. Still, it’s good enough for Mum, it’s good enough for me. You?”

“My parents were both Ravenclaw.”

“Really? Who?”

“Arthur Goldman and Melissa Stein.”

Terry’s mouth dropped open. “You’re that David Goldman?”

“Appears so.”

“Wicked.”

In addition to Terry, Keven Eheulhule, Anthony Goldstein, and Stephen Cornjual were to be in my year in Ravenclaw. There were five girls as well: Mandy Brocklehurst, Isabel Munglal, Padma Patil, Sally-Anne Perks, and Lisa Turpin. I found out later that my spot in Ravenclaw had only just come available – evidently, an exchange student from the Chinese Magical Cooperative, a boy named Su Le, was recalled at the last moment by his father, the Cooperative’s First Among Equals. Given some of the people who’d been chosen for Slytherin, I guess it was good that I found my place in Ravenclaw; Gryffindor had some interesting new students as well, but the moment I heard Harry Potter get Sorted into Gryffindor, I was extremely glad I wasn’t there.

My bed in the dormitory was farthest from the stone fireplace at the center of the room; it was next to the window, and Anthony, whose father had been in Ravenclaw as well, said it was the coldest. That was fine with me, though. I set my trunk at the foot of the bed and started unpacking my things – robes, trousers, shirts, ties, underthings, socks, and shoes all went into a tall dresser next to my bed; my coats and heavy clothes were put in a communal wardrobe near the dormitory’s entrance. Next to my bed, on the small nightstand, I set a tall bottle of clear blue potion and a two-ounce glass; my enchanted clock, whose alarm only I could hear; and a photograph of Mum and Dad.

The rest of my yearmates were setting up their own belongings. Anthony had a gigantic poster of Puddlemere United’s Quidditch team; Stephen seemed fastidiously-neat, arranging the items next to his bed just so; Keven – “call me Kev” – kept most of his things in his trunk, yanking them out as he needed them; and Terry, while he looked to be not quite as anal as Stephen, at least wasn’t as messy as Kev looked to be. From the door, anticlockwise, there was Terry, Stephen, Kev, myself, and then Anthony. Between Terry and Stephen’s beds was the door to the bathroom we shared – it had five toilet stalls, five sinks, five shower stalls, and a shelf of bath products all stamped with the Luvichta crest. Fine with me; we used Luvichta at home as well.

I propped up my pillows against the headboard of my bed and leaned back against them, a book open on my lap, a parchment pad and quill beside me, and my wand between the cover and the first page of the book, held securely. “Oy, Goldman!” Anthony called over. “What’re you doing, then? Classes don’t start until day-after-tomorrow!”

“I’m working on something, Goldstein,” I said mildly, not even looking up. “Not everything is schoolwork. And I’m certainly not enough of a prat to want to get an early start.”

Anthony slid off his bed and leaned over in my direction, trying to read the cover of my book. A touch to my wand and a muttered “temporo evanesco” blanked the entire piece of literature. “What, is it pornography?”

The other three boys stared at me.

“No,” I said slowly, setting the book aside as I pulled my wand out of it and slid it into my pocket. “Just something I’m working on. Is it a crime?”

“Look, mate,” Terry said, his voice reasonable, “we’re just curious. How often do any of us get to meet the son of Arthur Goldman?”

“He’s right,” Kev added. “If we wanted to be like everyone else, we’d go bother Potter, over in the Gryffindor tower. But bugger him. So he nearly got killed by the Dark Lord. So what?” I made a mental note – only Death Eaters and those who had sided with them referred to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as the Dark Lord. “Your dad has created some of the coolest spells in the past fifteen years. Stuff our folks all use.”

“Yes.” This was Stephen, who had a sharply-enunciated voice with a clear Liverpool accent. “My mother is particularly fond of the spell that allows instant letters. She says it keeps grandmother – dad’s mum – out of sight and out of mind.”

I thought about this. “All right. Fine.” I tapped my wand against the book and showed it to them. “Medicinal Potion-Making.”

Terry asked why I was reading it.

“This potion here,” and I pointed to the tall bottle on my nightstand, “is a medicine I take for my kidneys. They don’t work quite right sometimes, and this keeps them in shape.”

“Oh.” Kev looked downcast. “And here we thought it was something cool.”

“Different strokes,” I said. Then, gathering up my pad and quill, but leaving the book on the bed, I left the dorm and headed down to the common room.

For the first day, Penelope fussed over me like a mothering hen. It made sense; back home, the Clearwaters lived across the street from us, and had been friends of the family since before I was born. My mum was Penelope’s godmother. But it was before potions the second day – a class we took with the Hufflepuffs – that she finally let it rest. “David,” she said, “be careful. Snape is strict and relentless with anyone who isn’t a Slytherin.”

“I’m good enough at basic potion-making already,” I assured her. “Thank you, Pen, but I’ll be all right.”

“Suit yourself,” she said. “See you tonight.” She walked off, joined halfway down the hall by Percy Weasley, the Gryffindor prefect with whom she spent entirely too much time. I joined the rest of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs in first-year as we trooped into Snape’s dungeonlike classroom.

The first class seemed to pass quickly, though. Snape spot-quizzed a few of us – not me, but Padma, one of the girls in my house, seemed positively petrified when he asked her what kind of plant Wolf’s Bane was – and then assigned us a fairly-simple boil-curing potion for the rest of the period.

As we cleaned up our potion-making equipment, Snape crooked a finger in my direction. “Goldman, if you would remain?”

Lisa Turpin, with whom I’d been working on my potion, was shocked that I wasn’t terrified. “But…” she squeaked. “It’s Snape!”

I only shrugged. “And?”

Soon enough, everyone was gone – I didn’t have anywhere to be; Potions was the last class of the day – and I approached the desk. “Professor Snape?”

Snape was a tall man, but stooped a bit, so it was somewhat hard to tell. He had a hooked nose and lank black hair and pitch-black eyes. Everyone seemed frightened of him, and I didn’t know why. But he was just a professor, no more intimidating than McGonagall or Sinistra, and much less so than Flitwick, the Ravenclaw Head-of-House, or Sprout or Binns. If there was a professor I was wary of, it was Dumbledore, but I rarely interacted with him and didn’t plan to do much to attract his attention in the future.

“Goldman, would you happen to be the son of Arthur Goldman, the research wizard from Farkistan and Ablaminte?”

I nodded. “Only child, professor.”

“Ah.” Something flitted across Snape’s face, too quick for me to catch. “I thought so. Tell me, do you share your father’s talent for potion-making?”

Another nod. “During summers, I helped him at the lab, gathering less-harmful ingredients and such, and making simple potions for him to use in more-complex spells.”

“Ah, yes. The Goldman Technique, strengthening or changing the way a spell works through a potion drunk by the caster.”

“Yes, professor.”

“I’m well-acquainted with your father’s technique.” Snape, sitting behind his desk, laced his fingers. “Your father and I were in NEWT Potions together, and he taught me a few tricks.”

“Yes, professor.” It seemed like Snape was just going to reminisce with me, for some reason. “Professor, have I done something wrong?”

“No, no,” he assured me – I learned quickly to tell the differences in emotions he conveyed in that level, cold tone. “I just wanted to be certain. I have to say, it will be… nice… to have a minor celebrity present who at least has some fundamentals in magic.”

“Sir?”

“Potter.” He very nearly spat the name out. “I simply cannot wait to see what James Potter’s son is like.” There was flat sarcasm there.

I nodded. “I understand, sir. Is there…?”

“No, no,” Snape said. “Thank you for staying back. I shall see you again on Thursday afternoon.”

“Yes, professor. Have a good evening.”

He looked genuinely surprised at that. “Thank you, Goldman.”

Every dormitory was different at Hogwarts. The Gryffindors had a tower; the Slytherins had a surprisingly-comfortable dungeon – I’d been there once, when I was seven, on a visit with my father; the Hufflepuffs had a huge stone room, light and airy. Ravenclaw’s dormitories, though, climbed up and down the side of the castle, near the Astronomy tower but not a part of it. Our common room was in the center, connecting the two dormitory columns. It was three stories high, a large stone column of fireplaces in the center, lofts and nooks and crannies everywhere, and low-slung but comfortable couches and chairs on which to sit. After dinner, I would climb to the third floor and seek out a little-used loft – in fact, until I had appropriated it, it looked well and truly deserted – where I would be able to look down over the rest of the common area or turn on a lamp and read.

Three weeks into term, I made my way to my loft, only to find it occupied by one of my year-mates. She had dark skin and even-darker eyes; her hair was black, in a long plait down her back.

“Padma?”

“Oh!” She looked up, wiping her face with the edge of her robe. “David. I’m sorry. I’ll leave.”

“You don’t have to go,” I said, sitting on the floor, against the wall – my loft only had one couch. “I’ll be fine down here.”

“No, really…”

I noticed her eyes were slightly swollen. “Are you quite all right, Padma?”

She couldn’t decide whether or not to nod her head or shake it.

“Was there a fight between you and Parvati?” Parvati Patil was Padma’s twin sister, but she was in Gryffindor.

“How can we fight when we never see each other?”

“What?” I was genuinely confused. “She’s allowed into our common room if you bring her, and the same for you in hers. And it’s not like the school’s in a lockdown. Why can’t you see her?”

“We only see each other in classes. We can\'t talk then. We barely even get to talk at mealtimes!” Tears welled up again. “We’ve never been apart before in school, not like this. You’re not a twin, you don’t know.”

“No, I don’t,” I agreed. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s like to not have a close friend.”

She shook her head. “You’re David Goldman. Everybody wants to be your friend!”

“No, Padma, not quite.” I pulled out a note one of the Gryffindors had slipped me in the hall and handed it to her. “They want my knowledge, not my friendship. The only real friend I have at Hogwarts seems to be Penelope, the prefect, and only because I’ve known her my whole life.”

She read the note – it was from Dean Thomas, asking for some sort of spell he could use to make the players on his West Ham poster move – and passed it back. “Did you give him the spell?”

“I don’t even know how to do it. But it does exist. My dad could probably do it.”

“Oh.” She pressed her hands together between her knees. “What about Terry? You get on well enough with him.”

“I get on with him. We’re not what I’d call friends.” I peered at her, meeting her dark, red-rimmed eyes with my own – my mother called the color of my eyes “amber”, but I just called them brown, even though they were an alarmingly-light shade. “You and I could be friends, if you want.”

She sniffed. “Really?”

“Really. But you have to promise not to ask me to do spells for you unless it’s for class.”

“I promise.” She held out her hand. “Padma Patil.”

I shook it lightly. “David Goldman. Enchante.”

She smiled, and I flushed slightly, which broadened it. Then she scooted over on the couch and pointed vaguely at the other end of it. I took the invitation, curling up in the corner and pulling out my Transfiguration homework.

“I simply cannot believe this,” I grumbled to Padma. We had dragged up a chair from one of the other lofts, and she was sitting in it; I was stretched out on the couch, my Potions book over my face. “I simply cannot believe the audacity!”

“Look, it’s not my fault, David,” she said. “I didn’t let the thing in, and I didn’t tell them to go after it.”

“Nor I!” I snapped the book shut and dropped it on the floor; it made a satisfying thump against the wooden floor. “But let’s be honest with ourselves: if it hadn’t been Potter, if it had been you, and Terry and I going after the troll, we’d’ve lost the points and we’d’ve had detention!”

“David, there’s no shame in doing the right thing. We followed Penelope back to our dormitory, like Professor Dumbledore said. Professor Flitwick even congratulated us on how orderly we were.”

“Like we wouldn’t have been orderly?” I cracked my knuckles and wrists with a vengeance. “We’re Ravenclaw, Padma. We define orderly!”

She leaned forward and grabbed my wrist. “David, just let it go!”

I glared at her. “Snape was right about him.”

“Snape?” She dropped my hand. Like most of the non-Slytherins in Hogwarts, she regarded the potions master with no small amount of fear. “What do you mean, Snape?”

“Professor Snape. He told me that Potter was getting favorable treatment.”

“Snape talks to you?”

I nodded. “You know how good I am at potions. I seem to have impressed him. But more than that, I think he and my dad have some history. I’m just trying to figure it out.”

“You could always ask.”

“I could. But that’s private.”

She chuckled a little. “No, I mean, ask your dad.”

“Like I said, that’s private.”

“Suit yourself.” She reached into her bag and pulled out her own potions book. “So, are you going to walk me through the Shrinking Solution?”

I favored Padma with a smile. “Maybe.”

***

Update (3/25/05)
I now have a beta. Her name is Divine Angel, and she is helping me make sure the British aspects of the story are followed. So thanks to her. This chapter is in the process of being Beta\'d.