Hi, my name is Curlz. This story started after a dream that I had two years ago after watching Goblet of Fire. I originally posted this on Dissendium and got pretty far. This story starts out in the third year and is basically, as the title explains, the story that the books didn't tell. I try to incorporate as much canon as I can without interfering too much. As I said, this story is a two year work-in-progress. This is a story of a girl named Raven. I wish I could tell you more but then I would take the fun out of reading the story.
Enjoy and be kind! Please.
And I guess I should throw in here that JK's characters belong to her. I do not own them.
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The Story You Haven't Heard
Chapter 1
The inn and pub at the Leaky Cauldron had been especially busy the week before term began at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Many parents and students passed through the pub to make the journey to King’s Cross station a little easier, especially if they lived far away and didn’t want to use the Floo Network. Sometimes they would just stop by for some tea before returning home.
Up the creaky stairs, down the long, narrow corridor, a housekeeper stepped out of one of the rooms. She was fairly tall with long auburn hair, tied into a messy ponytail. Her pale complexion didn’t hide her fatigue, and her rolling eyes didn’t hide her frustration with the manner in which the rooms were kept during their occupation.
The woman stepped up to a door, her last room of the day. This was either going to be easy or quite hard. The guest had been staying at the inn for a week and never let anyone inside. The guest, a young girl, would leave for a couple of hours in the day, but would request no cleaning. Anytime the housekeeper knocked, the guest would open the door, hand the housekeeper two towels and ask for two more. Although the housekeeper hoped that the routine wouldn’t change this particular day, she was curious to know how the room was being kept up. She always wondered how much work she was going to have to do once the guest left.
The housekeeper knocked on the door and heard shuffling of footsteps on the other side. As usual, the girl opened the door and gave the housekeeper two towels and asked for two more. As the transaction was being made, the housekeeper stretched her neck over the young girls head to get an idea of the order of the room. The young guest noticed this and immediately grabbed the towels from the housekeeper’s hands and slammed the door.
“You’re welcome,” said the housekeeper sarcastically.
The housekeeper knew very little about the girl staying in that room. She knew she was around fifteen and getting ready to start her first year at Hogwarts. She grew up with her father in the United States and now lives with her uncle. The maid found it particularly odd that this girl arrived with no adult supervision and has had no visitors all week. The maid tried to press Tom, the barkeeper at the Leaky Cauldron, for information but Tom would offer none.
The housekeeper arrived downstairs and put the dirty towels in the basket.
“Melinda,” said Tom to the housekeeper, “have you finished your duties for the day?”
“I have. But that girl was awfully rude to me. Snatched the towels right out of my hand and slammed the door on me.”
“She’s a sweet girl. What did you do?”
“I only tried to stake out the room to see how disorderly it had become. It was nothing that would cause her to have that reaction.”
“I think your curiosity got the better of you,” Tom smiled and helped Melinda lift the basket on a counter. “You just leave her be until tomorrow. She’ll be gone then.”
Melinda rolled her eyes and prepared the linens for washing.
“I’ll need your help with dinner service tonight,” said Tom. “We are going to have a full house. The Weasley family will be joining us.”
“Oh, I hope those twins don’t try anything funny. It took me weeks to get the tables in their room off the ceiling the last time they were here.”
Meanwhile, upstairs, the young girl sat in a chair reading a book. Occasionally, she would look out the window and get lost in the sky. But her eyes would always turn to her half-packed trunk and her bed which was strewn with clothes. She debated as to whether or not she should finish packing. “I don’t have time in the morning, but I can’t stand doing it now.”
After a few moments, she finally got up and started folding her clothes. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”
Just then, there was another knock on her door. She slammed the shirt she was holding, down onto her trunk out of frustration. Thinking it was the housekeeper, she marched to the door and threw it open.
“Oh, Harry,” she said quite relieved, “I though you were that nosey maid. Come in.”
Harry was a young man that she had met while staying at the Leaky Cauldron. They hung out a little here and there, mainly trying to keep each other company. He seemed shocked that she didn’t know who he was, apparently she was supposed to. At first she thought that it seemed arrogant of him to assume she knew who he was, but after careful explanation from him, she realized why.
Apparently, this boy survived an attack from the dark wizard, Voldemort. Voldemort had killed his parents and then tried to kill him. He miraculously survived and became somewhat of a celebrity, something he never felt real comfortable with. She was actually quite shocked that she had never heard his story before.
Harry came in and only took a few steps into her room. “Hi Raven. How are you?”
“Okay. Just doing some packing and preparing for school. What are you up to?”
“I was heading out to Diagon Alley to see if I might be able to find my friends. Maybe you can come with me and meet them.
Raven looked over at her unpacked trunk. “I really have a lot to do before tomorrow. Besides, I‘ve spent enough time and money in Diagon Alley. I hope you don’t mind but I think I’m just going to stay here and get some stuff done.”
“Are you sure? I mean, you won’t get bored hanging around here all day?”
“I’ll be fine. As you can see, I am nowhere near packed. I need to think about that before I do anything else today.”
“That’s fine. I’ll catch you later, then.”
“Bye and have fun!”
Harry left and Raven locked the door behind him. She plopped onto her bed and sat momentarily thinking about school. She really didn’t want to go. She never had a formal wizarding education. Her father taught her everything. Once he died and she was sent to live with her uncle, she was forced to attend Hogwarts. At first that seemed like no big deal, until it was decided she would start out as a third year, instead of fifth. It was explained to her and it had something to do with the lack of preparation for some kind of test that fifth years take. People never clearly explained it to her, they just told her how it was going to be. No matter how she looked at it, she was going to be the oldest third year ever, and she felt embarrassed.
Later that day, Raven finally finished her packing and started rummaging around the room to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. She happened to glance out the window and noticed the sun had already begun to set. Her stomach started to rumble with hunger. The day was starting to escape her. She decided it was time to go downstairs and eat some dinner.
“I wonder where she is?” asked Harry.
“Who?” asked his friend Ron.
“Raven, she’s this girl that’s been staying here for the last week. She’s nice, although I don’t know hardly anything about her.”
“You’ve had all week to talk to her and you don’t know anything about her?” inquired his other friend Hermione.
“She keeps a lot to herself.” Harry took a drink of his pumpkin juice. “She didn’t even know who I was.”
“How is that possible?” asked Ron. “Everyone knows you.”
“Well she didn’t.” Melinda, the housekeeper, brought the three young wizards their food. “She was raised in the States by her father. And by talking to her, you would never know she was raised there by her accent. However, she’s not like any witch you’ll see here. She’s different.”
“What do you mean ‘different’?” Ron looked at Hermione confused.
“I can’t really explain it. She just doesn’t look like a witch. She looks like-”
Mid-sentence, Harry looked toward the stairs and saw Raven coming down. She didn’t look like any other young witch the three had ever seen. She had long, black hair with blue and red highlights. Her fair skin brought out her dark blue eyes, which almost seemed to peer into the depths of a person’s soul. Her attire is what really got the three’s attention. She was wearing baggy black pants, and a pale blue t-shirt which had the word “freak” in bold black letters. She had a way of making the room take notice without doing anything. Most of the Leaky Cauldron stared at her in silence. Not only was she beautiful but no one could tell if she was a witch or a muggle who lost her way.
“-a muggle,” Harry finished.
Raven walked over to the table where Harry was seated. “Hi Harry. Sorry I’m late. Time got away from me.”
Raven sat next to Harry and waved at Tom to bring her some dinner.
“That’s okay. We only just got our food. Raven, these are my friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.”
Raven shook their hands. It’s nice to finally meet you. Harry has told me so much about you.”
Harry pointed to another table, “The young girl with the red hair is Ron’s sister Ginny and the guy sitting next to her is Percy, Ron’s brother. He’s going to be Head Boy at Hogwarts this year.”
Raven only shook her head. She had no clue what that meant.
“Sitting in the corner,” Harry continued, “looking as though they are plotting something are Ron’s twin brothers Fred and George. If there is a prank at school, it’s likely they were behind it.”
Raven looked over at the corner where the twins were seated. One of the twins, she couldn’t tell who was which, was looking at her. The other one realized this and nudged him to get his attention. Raven smiled softly and turned back to her new friends.
“So, Raven, Harry has told us so little about you. Where are you from?” asked Hermione.
“I was born here but raised in the States.” Tom placed a plate of food in front of Raven.
“You’re starting Hogwarts this year?” Hermione asked again.
“Yes. To answer your next question, I should be a fifth year. And to answer your next question, I will start out as a third year. As a follow-up answer, I don’t know why, I just am.”
“Hermione, what’s with the interrogation?” asked Ron. “Let the girl eat.”
“It’s okay, Ron. She’s just inquisitive. I’m new and it’s natural to be curious.” Raven gave Hermione a reassuring smile.
“How can they make you start out school in a year younger than your own?” Hermione inquired.
“Something about an owl,” Raven shrugged, “or a test about an owl. I don‘t know.”
Ron, Harry and Hermione laughed. “Sorry, we’re not laughing at you. It’s called the Ordinary Wizarding Levels examination or O.W.L.’s. It’s a test you take in your fifth year.” Hermione explained.
“Oh, I guess that would explain everything.” Raven shrugged it off. “They wanted me to have years to prepare for it. Guess it’s pretty important.”
Hermione explained more about the O.W.L.’s but Raven really didn’t give the appearance that she cared any. The four continued to talk more, Hermione still attempting to get more information out of Raven. Harry, Ron and Hermione couldn’t understand why she wasn’t divulging much about herself.
“Well, it’s getting late and I have to get some sleep.” Raven got up from the table and gathered her dishes. “I’ll see you all in the morning. It was good meeting all of you.”
Harry, Ron and Hermione watched as Raven took her dishes over to Tom. She looked at the three friends and gave a small smile. Raven then looked over to the corner where the twins were still seated. The one twin looked back at her and when their eyes met, they both smiled broadly. As she went out of sight the three friends looked dumbfounded.
The curious twin, George, walked over to the trio. “Who was she?”
Ron looked over at his two friends, who still didn’t know exactly what to say. “We have no idea.”
Chapter 2