The silence seems as though it has been there for centuries, though if you were to stop and think about it, you would find it only three years at the most.

The young man still stands upon the stage, leaning on his staff, staring as though into eternity. He continues to breath at regular intervals.

In the dim light, you think you can make out his features. He seems older, as he surely must now be a man of twenty-one.

The room is quiet, has been quiet all this time. Nobody has spoken a word, nor made to leave, nor attempted to attract the attention of the young man.

Then, there is a sound. A beautiful, glorious sound, for anything that shatters that terrible silence must surely be such.

It is the sound of coughing.

The young man has begun to cough with such force as to unbalance him. Indeed, were it not for the staff clenched firmly in his hands, he would surely fall over.

After a few moments, however, he has righted himself, standing tall once more, gazing about the room with a look of regret and sadness in his eyes.

And then he speaks, and what he says is this.

"My Lords, ladies and gentlemen, I must offer you my most sincere apologies. I have been quite distracted as of late by matters of little relevance to your own lives and immense importance to my own, though that is little excuse. Allow me to make it up to you now, as we observe the young Lord Certadan's first day."

Wednesday 2nd September, 1992 (9:00AM)

Middle Courtyard

The courtyard was bustling with students, all on their way to their first class of the day, whatever that might be. It is little wonder, then, that nobody noticed the Elf and the boy where moments ago none had been. Mortimer, for his part, felt mildly ill. The experience had been an unusual one, particularly for someone used to walking through a portal rather than simply not being somewhere one second and being there the next.

In any case, he soon recovered and was directed by his new Valet towards Classroom 1B, where Transfiguration was taught. Grimoire tucked securely under his arm, he headed off and Inquell disappeared, presumably returning to the Lair.

The class was quiet as he entered the room. At first, Mortimer assumed that this was due to his own presence. It seemed to him that it would be understandably difficult to speak when faced with someone you had last seen astride a Dragon.

As it transpired, however, not everything revolved around the young Lord, a fact he realised a moment later when he noticed that the tabby cat he had seen behind the desk at the head of the classroom as he had approached the door was no longer a tabby cat at all.

It was, in fact, Professor McGonagall, stern as she had been the night before and ready to teach her class.

And so, Mortimer took a seat next to Miss Lovegoo… Luna, set down the Grimoire upon the table in front of him and opened it to the chapter on Transfiguration.

"Welcome, First-Years, to your very first class. My name is Professor McGonagall and I am the Head of Gryffindor House, as well as Professor of Transfiguration. Now, who can tell me what Transfiguration is?"

A row of hands shot up. McGonagall deliberated for half a moment before pointing at a boy. "Yes, Mr. Ripley?"

"Transfiguration is the branch of magic that deals with the alteration of the form or appearance of an object."

"Very good, Mr. Ripley. Five points to Ravenclaw."

And so things went on in this way, with the Professor lecturing on the nature of Transfiguration, asking the occasional question of a student and awarding House points as necessary. It was, as it turned out, a remarkably interesting subject. Mortimer had been taught the basic principles of Synthesis by his Uncle Vexen and had even performed it once or twice, with the aid of the Castle's resident Moogle, but this was something entirely different. Synthesis required raw materials, but they at the least had to be the right materials. With Transfiguration, all that appeared to be required was the skill to perform the molecular rearrangement and one need never run out of components ever again, or at least, that was how he had understood it.

At noon, they broke for lunch, which was held in the Great Hall. Despite having been there only the night before for his Sorting, Mortimer had left immediately afterwards and consequently had no idea which way he was going, which meant that he had little choice but to follow Miss Luna through the corridors.

In due course, they arrived and took seats next to each other at what Mortimer could only assume to be the Ravenclaw House table. The night before, the Hall had been quiet, almost reverent in its silence at the Sorting. Now, the Hall was a bustle of noise and chatter, the like of which he was wholly unused to, living as he did with twelve men, two women and a horde of mostly silent Lesser Nobodies.

It was a little disconcerting to begin with and, were it not for the company he was in, he felt he might rather have been back in the Lair, sat with a good book and forgetting to eat. Instead, he sat where he was, found himself some bacon sandwiches and focused on making an attempt at social interaction with the young woman on his left.

"So, Miss..." She stopped him before he could continue. "My name is Luna, Mortimer. Just Luna."

He sighed and swept his hair back with his hand. It was a nervous tic of sorts and of course entirely pointless now that there was no possibility of his ponytail escaping its bonds. "Very well. I'll try to remember, Luna."

Her small smile made his head swim. Deep in the back of his mind, he could hear a chuckle. He ignored it and soldiered on.

"So, Luna. Tell me about yourself. Where are you from?"

"Oh, Daddy and I live in a tower just outside a village in Devon. What about you?" Mortimer opened his mouth to answer, stopped and realised two things. Firstly, he couldn't exactly tell her where he actually lived, since such things were to be kept secret. Xemnas had been very firm on that point. On no account was he to tell anyone the true nature of the cosmos or the location of the World That Never Was. Mortimer somewhat doubted that the people of Earth would even be able to reach them, but you didn't go against the Superior without a damned good reason. It simply wasn't done.

Secondly, it occurred to him that he did not actually know where Devon was, where his family had lived or where he himself had been born.

Luckily, at that precise moment, Inquell appeared in a slight mist and took a knee before his mildly surprised liege. "Good afternoon, my Lord. I wished to see if there was anything you required before taking my own midday meal."

"You may rise, Inquell." The young Elf (Mortimer presumed he was young, knowing enough people with silver hair to know that you couldn't judge entirely by appearances) rose to his feet, ignored the strange looks he was getting and instead smiled and inclined his head at Mortimer. "My Lord. Have you need of anything?"

"Actually, yes. Where am I from?" The Elf looked momentarily confused by this question, though he quickly composed himself. "Forgive me, my Lord. I forget that you have been away for quite some time. The Noble and Most Ancient House of Certadan has its ancestral seat of Stone House in the city of London in England.

"It was originally built in the 7th Century by your illustrious ancestor Theodosius' adoptive father, a Scottish stonemason of impeccable skill by the name of Sternworth. It was passed to Theodosius after his death and has remained in your family ever since. I am given to understand that roughly half of your forebears have been born within its walls, as indeed the majority of mine have been.
"As to the other half, your family has kept a relatively modest home in the village of Hogsmeade since the 10th Century, where you were born on October 31st, 1979."

"That's quite a lot of information for one answer, Inquell."

"My apologies, my Lord. I felt it best to provide as much as possible so as to save time in the future." Mortimer found himself unable to find fault with such logic as this and so instead he asked another question.

"Would you care to join us for lunch?" At this, Inquell actually looked flustered. "I… I… Thank you, my Lord." Somewhat awkwardly, he sat down at his liege's side and immediately began trying to cut up his bacon sandwiches.

"Inquell?"

"Yes, my Lord?"

"Stop that." The Elf had the good grace to look sheepish. "Of course, my Lord."

Mortimer suddenly remembered that he had been talking to someone before Inquell had arrived and turned to face the girl in question. "Oh, I'm sorry! Allow me to make introductions. Miss Luna Lovegood, this is Inquell, son of Famulus. He is apparently my Elven valet."

"Free-Elven, my Lord."

"Of course. Inquell, son of Famulus, this is Miss Luna Lovegood of Ravenclaw House. We met yesterday when she missed the train and I and Atramenta decided to offer her a lift." Luna simply smiled (Again with the head-swimming thought Mortimer) and extended her hand, which Inquell took. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Inquell. I've never met a Free-Elven valet before."

Inquell gave her hand a light kiss, returned it to her and said "I should be very surprised if you had, Miss Lovegood. To my knowledge, my father and I are the only ones there are. My grandmother is still alive, of course, but she has long since retired after the death of my Lord Certadan's esteemed grandfather."

And so things went on in this way, with the three of them conversing on a number of subjects, most of them of little consequence until the bell rang to signal the end of lunch, obliging Mortimer and Luna to head to Charms and Inquell to return to the Lair, with instructions to unpack and shelve the books in the proper order and to ask the Headmaster to see what might be done to increase the comfort of the floor of the main chamber.

In order to reach Classroom 2E, the pair had to traverse the Grand Staircase. This turned out to be quite the novelty to Mortimer and the reason for this was twofold.

First, aside from a few areas, the Castle That Never Was was almost entirely lacking in stairs, given that all inhabitants (bar one) were capable of using the Corridors of Darkness to make their way about.

Second, the stairs leading from floor to floor had a tendency to move. Almost entirely at random.

As Luna explained to him while they waited for a particularly stubborn flight to drift downwards so that they could reach the Third Floor, they had first been conceived by Rowena Ravenclaw herself, apparently as a means of teaching students that sometimes, on exceedingly rare occasion, one couldn't think their way out of a situation.

All you could do was wait until an opportunity presented itself, and that could take some time. Wit beyond measure may be Man's greatest treasure, but patience was a virtue that many failed to grasp.

In due course, the flight of stairs landed in the required spot and they made their way up it. From there, it was a short walk to Classroom 2E and their very first Charms lesson.

Professor Flitwick was just entering the room from what Mortimer could only assume were his private chambers when they took their seats, side by side.

He was a diminutive man, about the size of Mr. Frithkin (though Mortimer would have to see the two of them together to confirm that), garbed in robes of green and a hat that sat lopsidedly on his head. He was bearded and impressively so, though nowhere near so much as his Great-Grandcestor. That went without saying. He had a kind look in his eyes, the sort of look that made you instinctively want to trust a person.

He made his way up a large stack of books, straightened his robes and began to speak.

"Good afternoon, class. My name is Professor Filius Flitwick and I am Head of Ravenclaw House, as well as Professor of Charms. Now, who can tell me what Charms are? Ah! Ms. Exposita?"

The girl in question lowered her hand and said (somewhat unsurely) "Professor, Charms are spells that give additional qualities to an object, or alter existing ones."

The little old man smiled at her. "Quite correct. Ten points to Ravenclaw." The girl beamed and so things went on in this way for the next hour, with the good Professor posing questions, giving answers and awarding points as needed.

Near the end of class, he had them take out their wands and practice wrist movements, in particular the 'swish-and-flick'. He wasn't entirely certain how this might be accomplished in Mortimer's case, but Mortimer himself didn't seem to mind merely observing for the time being.

Transfiguration had been interesting. Charms on the other hand was fascinating. At least, that's how he'd found it. His first day wasn't even over yet and the Grimoire had already gained a wealth of new information on the subject.

When he returned to the Lair, he was going to pore over it until he couldn't keep his eyes open, Mortimer was sure of it.

Of course, all good things must eventually come to an end and before long, the bell sounded to signal the final class of the day.

A quick perusal of his timetable told him that he would be heading down to the dungeons, for his first Potions class with a Professor Severus Snape.

Well, he sounds like a lovely chap thought Mortimer to himself. I'm sure we'll get along splendidly.