The Topaz Awakening

The sky outside was fading from blue to black as we approached Hogwarts. Hermione shifted from foot to foot with nerves. I stood stoic.

The Hogwarts express screeched to a halt at Hogsmede platform, and first years were ushered towards my dear friend Hagrid, a hard figure to miss even in the pouring rain. Like cattle we were herded towards the lake, it's expanse of inky blackness stretched as far as our eyes could see, our brand new shoes, polished and shined traipsed through the thick mud towards the water's edge.

It wasn't long before everyone bar Hermione and I were gawping up at the grand sight Hogwarts made, towering over us 11 year olds like a prison. Perhaps Hermione was too nervous to notice the beauty of the warm glow surrounding Hogwarts. Although I like to think she, like myself, was simply too caught up in feeling the magic surrounding the building to even look at it's exterior.

Hogwarts hummed with presence, with life. The magic was neither male nor female but regardless it felt older than time. I thought for a moment I felt a hand softly brush against my cheek, but then I was jolted back to reality by the boats hitting shore.

Hermione and I got dragged along by the crowd, I barely had time to will my clothes clean and dry before we were lined up at the front of the great hall single file, like lambs queuing for our own execution.

Whilst I waited for my turn at the sorting hat, a stupid piece of animated cloth,( I still hate it, even now, for what it did to me), I examined the vast ceiling. Impossible rain clouds raged with a nonexistent storm, above the dry safe heads of hundreds of magical beings. My interested was peaked when I heard Hermione's name called.

She stumbled up to the hat, muttering under her breath. Her already pale face was now a deathly shade of white, as if she believed it would be a trial by fire or a battle to the death. She had just reached the last step onto the small raised platform when i saw her falter, her ankle twisting. Without thinking I forced my magic forward, reaching forward my hand as if she were only a few inches away I gestured as if I would grab her shoulder and pull her back. I knew she would have felt my hand on her, saving her from embarrassment.

Hermione paused, but only momentarily, as much as she was nervous she was also clearly excited about beginning her future here. She glanced round, I felt her linger on my face for a second, but my eyes had already returned to the enchanted ceiling.

The hat was silent on her head, for a painful minute you would have been able to hear a pin drop in the great hall. Then with it's warm booming voice the hat announced 'RAVENCLAW'.

Hermione beamed. Her smile so wide I thought it would never end, and marched to the table on the far right of the hall, almost dancing with glee.

Soon it was my turn, the silence fell once more over the hall before I had even moved from my place. I saw the teachers turn from murmured conversations to examine me closely. My skin crawled under Dumbledore's gaze.

I sat on the stool, as every other child had, and placed the hat on my head. Almost immediately I could feel it's probes of magic try to squirm their way into my head. I yanked the hat off with a yelp. You probably won't understand what it's like to have someone try to read your mind through defences, but imagine the worst earache you've ever had. Multiply it by ten, and then imagine inside your brain it's self not your ears. That dull ache and ringing that you just want to claw out.

McGonagall an old witch, who looked frail but acted like the Lion of her Houses crest, marched up to see what the problem was, but before she reached me the hat whispered something to me.

'Let go' It said gently, all trace of warmth gone.

I stared for a second, wondering if I had imagined it.

'Let your barriers down' it urged me.

The barriers around my mind were tight as always, wound like a coil ready to spring. Letting them go for just a few minutes seemed like such a good idea, sitting in the great hall, at the heart of Hogwarts life, feeling for the first time like I belonged.

I returned the hat to my head and McGonagall warily backed away. I slowly began to unravel my defences, and I felt the sorting hat worm its way deeper into my consciousness.

It took me a while to realise I was no longer in control. Anyone who has been in anyway bound for a long time will know how amazing it feels to finally be free. The sorting hat starting sending images into my head, searching for the ones that triggers the greatest responses, as it must have done with every other child.

But as I said I was no longer in control. The sorting hat had started something awful, the barriers I kept on my magic were beginning to break apart. Part of my brain screamed and raged, trying to regain control of an already runaway train. The other part was in a blissful state, my magic rose up around me. I was floating literally above the platform, hands raised to the ceiling feeling the magic of the castle reach out to meet mine.

My magic howled around me, glad to be free at last. Unaware the hat continued flashing images into my brain. Finally one got a reaction. A picture of the sky. But not just the sky all the feelings associated with it.

It's measureless expanse of emptiness. It's complete lack of emotion. It's indiscernible sense of freedom.

My magic continued to flow out of me, a river after all damns had been broken, and now it had a dream. Freedom.

Sparks began to form at my finger tips, I span round and round and a ghostly wind surrounded me. The funny thing was is I wasn't even scared, even that small part of me that just a moment ago had be urging me to regain control had silenced. All I could hear was the roaring of waves. Distantly I heard yelling and rushing about. But no-one could touch me, I was beyond even time, even the physical realm.

Suddenly there it was again. That sudden longing to be free. My magic was angry now. Why had it been restrained for so long?

The winds around me formed a voice and howled at me.

'GIVE ME LIBERATION OR GIVE ME DEATH' but the words were torn from my own lips. I could no longer feel my body, I was just a rolling expanse of sensations, and the fabulous power of my magic.

Liberation.

Liberation.

Liberation.

My magic cried out.

Then almost as suddenly as it started, my magic began to recede, waves gentler now, ebbing back into me like the tide.

I felt it whisper to me one last time ' give me liberation, or give me death'. It was a request, not a demand this time.

My armed burned as the last of my unrestrained power left its mark on me. I glanced down as my body slammed into the platform, and saw on my arm a stark black brand in curvasive script against my pale flesh. The words ' without freedom we are already dead'.

I heard the hat call ' RAVENCLAW' but it's voice sounded like it was a million miles away.

I saw anger in old watery pale eyes looking into my own, before all I knew was darkness.