At the second day of my end of the year exams I woke up to a owl hooting outside my window, it had a envelope clutched in its claw. I opened the window for it letting it inside, conjured a bowl and filled it with water with the help of agumenti charm and placed it at the table besides my bed. It deposited the Envelope besides the bowl drank some water and moved out of the window.
The envelope itself was pretty plain and just had the name of Headmaster Dippet. Opening it I peeked inside there was a small folded parchment in side. Taking it out of the envelope I unfolded it and started reading.
'Mr. Starborn,
I Armando Dippet am writing this note to invite you for a discussion about where you will be staying in summer. It was brought to my attention by my Deputy headmaster, Prof. Beery that allowing you an orphan pure blood could lead to potential risk towards your safety as those who were after your parents may target you, that said rest of the discussion will be face to face after all the first year exams have been concluded.
May Merlin bless you.
Headmaster of Hogwarts,
Armando Dippet.'
I was surprised to say the least about this, but didn't think much of it and placed the letter back in the envelope and deposited the envelope in a drawer of my desk. After that I got ready for my day ahead. Then I went to the Great Hall for breakfast. Where my friends were not present yet, they were probably still asleep.
When I had almost finished my breakfast I saw them walk in, their eyes searching. They both met my eyes and sighed in relief. Walking towards me and taking their seat besides me, first one to speak was Eleanor, "Thank Merlin you are here I didn't notice you in the common room and when I asked Edgar who came to common room after a while about you. He said that you were not in your room as he had checked there, he actually arrived in the common room first you see, shocking but yeah, and not seeing you there prompted him to check your room." We both chuckled at her narration of events.
I nodded after a while of laughter and said, "I was feeling a bit famished so I had arrived at the Great Hall without waiting for you guys, and as you can see I am almost done with my breakfast, you both should eat fast too as there isn't much time before the start of our second exam" they both nodded and started placing the food in their plates.
I waited for them to finish while reading one of the books they have brought with them for fun. After 20 minutes they were done too and we moved out of the Great Hall and stood out for the professors to set up the Great Hall for the next exam which is going to be history of magic. Today there will be two of them a written in history of magic and charms with written and practical both.
After a while we were called inside and just like the previous day we were handed quills and ink pots. The question paper itself was pretty short with a few questions but the questions were pretty broad ended and required at least a few paragraphs to answer fully. I went on answering everything asked with precision and was able to complete in 40 minutes just 20 before the maximum time. The amount of parchment filled was almost comical compared to the level of question parchment but I wanted to give my best so I did.
After submitting my parchment of answers and sitting about for the remaining time we were handed another question parchment for our charms exam. Which compared to the previous two, was pretty much a park walk for me. I was done and ready to move on to the practical part of this exam as well. Moving to the side chamber of the Great Hall I nocked the door asking for permission to enter.
"Come in." came the voice of Prof. Beery from inside. I stepped into the room and there was professor Beery sitting at the desk with a pineapple before him in the desk.
He looked at me and said, "Ah, Mr. Starborn, I see you have arrived earlier as expected, Prof. Dumbledore said you were early in his exam and he even suggested that you would come early in today's practical too. Well if you are as confident as he said you seemed to be yesterday I won't ask you, if you are ready. Just make this pineapple tap dance with any spell of you choosing. I expect high performance from you according to the bar you have set for yourself amongst us professors."
I nodded along with his words and said, "I'll start now professor." Drawing my wand out I focused for a bit and with one wave of my wand and with no words spoken the pineapple was in the air tap dancing on it self. He looked at it and said, "Well done Mr. Starborn, now I want you to explain how you have done this." Towards the end his gaze was on me.
"I first wove a Tarantallegra spell when I brought up my wand to wave it and in the wave of the wand I wove a levitation charm and at the end of it all I layered the spells into each other which gave us this result." I spoke with a confident face and firm voice.
"Spell layering, silent casting and minimal wand movement on top of that, all of them things you would have to learn if you were a 7th year student. If this were a NEWT exam this would have easily worth an acceptable at least, but seeing as you are in your first year still I would give you and outstanding+ anything less would be a dark mark on my self consciousness." He spoke all of that with an impressed look on his face. "Now go on this practical is over for you. You didn't disappoint." He said that with a small smile.
I thanked him and went out of the room to the corridor out of the Great Hall. There I waited for my friends as yesterday. They were out well before the deadline. We discussed our expected score and the final looked like this, Henry EE, Edgar O, Eleanor EE+, Elizabeth A+ and at last me O+, they were not surprised with my score, Edgar even said that if I couldn't get O+ all other will no doubt fail. We laughed at that, and were off to enjoy the rest of our day, this time though we chose to sit at the astronomy tower.
The rest of the day was just spent loitering about here and there with the more than half of the end of the year exam done we were not in a hurry to study more. The last being potions the easiest for us and other less important subjects we were mostly free for now. My mind wandered many times to the upcoming discussion about my stay, but each time I forced my self to not focus on it.
The next day after a series of written exams for Astronomy and muggle Studies followed by a herbology practical, in which we had to handle Devil's snare plant after which we did a quick lunch. It was finally time for potions Practical. We were called one by one to make a pretty easy potion for boils cure, which compared to all other exams was the easiest to do. We were all done with it by the afternoon with all the end of the year exams.
As I was chilling with my friends by the Quidditch pitch, a small airplane made of parchment came flying to me, it unfolded it self showing a note written in it. I read it and was almost about to laugh but somehow controlled my self. It read.
'Marcus Starborn, this is you headmaster, come to my office of the discussion. The password is DRACONIS.'
Just this, but what was funny was the mode by which it came to me a parchment charmed to fly in its airplane form. This was probably the idea of Dumbledore. I informed my friends about and started waking towards the Headmaster's office.
It was in the 7th floor at the end of the corridor. I stood in front of the gargoyle and spoke the password, "DRACONIS" with a rumble a staircase descended, stepping on it I waited for it to go back up. At the top there was a sturdy door. I nocked at it.
NOCK NOCK!
"Come in" said an aged voice of Prof. Dippet. I entered the office and first thing I noticed the light atmosphere in the room, the walls were of Ocean Blue colour with a bit of lighter colours mixed in it, then I noticed the people in the room, there was Headmaster Dippet, deputy headmaster Beery and my transfiguration professor Dumbledore.
I greeted them all one by one, "Good evening Headmaster, Professor Beery, professor Dumbledore." All the while nodding at each of them. Headmaster spoke first, "What a well mannered child, good evening Mr. Starborn, come sit." He smiled at me gently.
Professor Beery just nodded at me and spoke a short good evening, Professor Dumbledore though beamed at me and said, "Good evening, Marcus." Enthusiastically.
I smiled at him and said, "The airplane was your idea, right Professor?" with a amused smile. He laughed at it and said, "I knew you would notice, I got that idea watching other children at your orphanage as they played with those origami constructs." I laughed back at him.
Then headmaster spoke, "Now listen Marcus dear, we can't allow you to go back to the orphanage, your coming here was reported by Daily prophet you see, it caused a stir among the pure blood, you being alive meant the Starborn will survive this tragedy too, but while this is celebrated by many, many also wish to see you dead, I know this could be too much for you to worry about but my professors have assured me that you are matured enough to sort it out your self but a little help from us will be a must." He smiled a bit apologetically.
I nodded in understanding, " I get what your are trying to say Headmaster but worry not for me I would take care of my self, with a little bit of help from you no doubt." His smiled turned into one of relieved.
"Well you understanding this much assures me of you maturity. Now the reason I can't allow you to go back to the orphanage on top of being your safety is also a law named pureblood protection act, according to it any last surviving member of a pureblood family if they are underage should be given a residence in the Hogsmead village free of cost from there discovery to the age at which they are officially an adult, that is till the age of 17. You will be provided all the necessary items along with the residence but you will have to take care of it yourself. And do not worry about the orphanage we have already sorted out things with them they know that you have been adopted and just wished for you to have a healthy and fulfilling life ahead." He said with a smile.
"I am delighted to have the residence itself being provided and am more than confident to take care of myself from my meals to the cleaning of my residence. I also thank you for informing the caretakers of the orphanage about this." I said giving a pleased smile to them, which prompted them to give me a encouraging look.
"Well seeing as this is sorted out you can go now and enjoy the rest of your days in the first year left, but do not cause any trouble." I smiled at them and thanked them all and moved out of the office to re-join my friends they didn't ask me anything knowing it was personal. For the rest of the days we lazed about and explored the castle together, I made sure we didn't cause any trouble, and with this my first year at Hogwarts was completed.