The Spirit Room
 

The door swings open to reveal a dank and dusty room which has clearly been vacant for years. White sheets cover the furniture, cobwebs fill every nook, cranny, corner, and everything in between. A layer of dust permeates every aspect of the room. For some reason, all you can do is stand and stare inside.

Though the door swung open easily, a strange barrier prohibits the living from entering this room. The barrier was put in place by Marcella Riddle the term after her unfortunate demise and protected the peace and quiet of the ghosts still residing at Hogwarts. The room has laid quietly in the years since the young Hogwarts ghosts reattained their bodies.


For more details on the former residents of this room, please read Hogwarts, A History, chapters term 5 to term 7).

Teegan wasn't sure how she managed to keep from crying as she walked through Hogwarts, not knowing where she was going, but could care less at the moment. She had just received a letter from her sister Kat whom was really upset over the issues she was having with her husband. She had also told Teegan that her two little kids missed her something bad and had wanted her to come home to Greece right that moment. Normally Teegan was the strong anchor for Kat, but in a different country, hundreds of miles away, she couldn't help it but be torn down. She now felt guilty for agreeing to come to London for a year, even though it was Kat who had forced her to come, it was for her to get away from all the unneeded stress.

Teegan pushed the door open to an unmarked room that was vacant and tried entereing it, but for some unknown reason she couldn't. Instead of trying to force herself in the room again, she stood there for a few moments and stared inside to the dusty room. She let out a deep breath, willing to let the tears spill over her cheeks now. She could tell by the this vacant and cob web infested room that no one used the room and she wouldn't be interrupted with her break down.

Teegan immediately turned away from both the voice and the room so that neither would be able to see her face. She sniffed a couple of times and took a deep breath, letting her long blonde hair drape around her face.

She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out of it. Instead of trying to say something again she wrapped her arms around herself trying to get her tears to stop flowing before she would even think of turning around.

A familiar sound of soft paws hitting the stone floor came to her ears as Crash! her red fur covered kitten pranced his way up to her laid across her feet. She bit her lip and closed her eyes, hoping that that the owner of the voice had turned and left from where she was at.

Jude furrowed his brow as the girl turned away from him more. And then he saw this little cat come and lay on her feet. How strange.

He cleared his throat and walked to the girl cautiously.

"Excuse me miss. But is there any way I can help you?"

Teegan cleared her throat ready to say something this time. But what? As far as she knew he was a complete stranger and she wasn't going to let her whole life story out to him. She barely did that to her 'best friends' back home in Greece.

She brought a hand up to her face to wipe her face clean as the tears finally ceased flowing down her cheeks. She let her hair hang around her face, just in case whoever it was wanted to look at her, though she still had her back to them. "Do you have parents?" she asked very quietly, almost inaudible. She spoke slow through her thick Greek accent, knowing the answer. Everyone, EVERYONE had parents.

Jude heard the girl speak and had to pause to try and comprehend what she had said.

"Parents?" the boy repeated as he shoved his hands into his pockets for lack of knowing what else to do with them.

"I have a father that's alive." he explained in a gentle voice. "But I hardly see him when I'm home because he travels so much for his job."

Jude didn't even want to think about his mother.

"What about you?"

Teegan raised her head up, letting her hair fall back into place where it should be. She looked at the end of the corridor wall biting her lip. So he only had a father. A father he didn't see often. She ignored his question. "Siblings?" she asked next barely able to spit the word out as she looked down to see Crash! stretched out on her feet.

She brought her hands back up to her face wiping her face clean once again just to make sure there wasn't anything on it in case she decided to turn around...or not. She didn't want to be seen with tear streaks down her face.

Jude frowned when the girl didn't reply to him.

"Uhm, no. I'm an only child." he replied wondering if she would even answer the question if he asked him.

The boy decided to step a little closer and asked, "What is your name?"

Teegan gave a small sigh. There was a good and positive for being an only child. Parents didn't ship you off to live with the other. Bad, you had no one there for you when your parents weren't there with you.

She let out a deep breath and bent down and picked up Crash! He was slowly growing, a little odd, seeing how long she had the kitten and he still wasn't growing very big yet. She held the kitten close to her chest before turning slowly around.

"Teegan." She answered softly. She looked the boy, wondering if he was going to ask her any more questions. She bit her lip and shook her head making her bangs fall out of her eyes. "And you?" She asked back quietly.

"My name is Jude." he said giving the girl a polite smile as she seemed to still be in a really sad mood. He watched her hold her cat and smiled brighter, glad for the girl to have a small companion to keep her company.

'Maybe I'll buy one soon.' he thought before speaking once more.

"You have a really cute kitten." the boy said trying to give her a compliment to hopefully cheer her up.

And he confirmed it himself. He was indeed a stranger to her. She looked down at the floor, embarrassed to be caught in such an emotional state. But at least it wasn't someone she knew well. Right? But she was new to Hogwarts so everyone was basically strangers to her. Even the small amount of people she had met already. She classified them as stranger still.

But she could see that Jude was making an effort to be nice to her. So she should do the same right? "Thank you." she responded lightly. She paused for a moment. "I'm sorry you had to see me like this." she told him slowly, though not really caring if he understood her words through her thick Greek accent.

'I'm sorry you had to see me like this.'

"Hey don't you worry about it Teegan." Jude said stepping closer and putting his hand on the girl's elbow. He cleared his throat and dropped his hand to his side once again.

"If you'd like me to, I could be your friend." he added quietly with a soft smile. "And then I could listen to any problems that you might be having."

Teegan looked up at Jude, wondering what in the world would make this boy continue to stand there and even offer to be her friend to talk when most boys would run away from the problem when they saw a girl crying.

She gave him a small smile and nod of the head, though not sure what that meant. "Sounds good." She told wondering if he could keep up with her accent or not.

Jude smiled back to the girl as she actually smiled for once.

"Teegan, if I may ask, where are you from?" he asked noting her accent. The boy had been able to mask his thick Australian one by catching on to a British accent, like the ones he heard in Muggle London near his flat.

But he was incredibly curious of where the girl was from.

Teegan bit her lip, "Kavala, Greece." She answered raising an eyebrow in disappointment, she had thought earlier that day she was starting lose her accent but apparently she wasn't. "Do you know how long cats take to grow larger?" she asked him, attempting to change the subject, she wanted to find out the cause for this kitten to still being so small though he was several months old.

Jude shook his head at her question. "A year maybe? I'm not sure, I've never owned a cat before." he explained with a small sigh.

"What year are you?" the boy questioned, trying to find out more of her, and not talking about random questions like cat size.

"Well, he's nearly a year old, and he's the same size as when I got him." she told him speaking slow so he could digest her words through the accent. The accent always threw people off guard. "And, I own a lot of cats, I just thought that maybe cats from London were different." She told him giving a small chuckle.

"Seventh year." she responded as she scratched the top of Crash!'s head. She gave him a kudo point for being able to successfully advert her random change of the subject question and get back onto the friend-making process. "And you?" she asked back.

Jude shrugged his shoulders, still not knowing how to answer about her cat situation since the only sort of pet that he had had growing up was a few fish that he had won at a carnival.

"I am a fifth year." the boy replied pointing to his chest for no apparent reason. "Both big testing years wouldn't you say?"

"Testing years?" Teegan asked, did they test here like in Greece? She put Crash! back down on the floor only to watch him prance off down the corridor and disappear around a corner out of sight. "You really don't have to stay and chat with me." Teegan told him slowly as she rubbed the corner of her eyes. She was still very surprised that Jude was still talking to her even though she had stopped crying.

"O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s" Jude replied with a furrowed brow. Did she not know of the tests that wizarding students took at Hogwarts?

"I like chatting with you." the boy said in a kind tone with a smile to match. He knew how hard it was for someone to leave home suddenly and to come into a new place, to make new friends and to start a new life. He didn't want to her feel alone.

Teegan thought about it for a moment, then she remembered Chloe talking about Nasty Exhaustingly Wizardry Tests and then something about Ordinary Wizarding Levels or something. "Nasty Exhaustingly Wizardry Tests and Ordinary Wizarding Levels, right?" she asked slowly, "We don't take those in Greece, we take final exams and then commercial exams which are huge exams and you have to score just the right score to move up a level." She explained to him walking over to the wall and sliding down slowly to sit on the floor. And once again, she was just a little confused over how things worked here versus Greece.

Ehhh.....Savvy didn't like this place. It was creepy and rather gross. There were cobwebs everywhere which didn't help anything because she was kind of scared of spiders.

Gulp.

She still felt kind of attracted to this room though, she kind of wanted to be here. It was different and creepy, something she never had seen before so minus the cobwebs she kind of liked it.

Seeing the door to the spirit room open, Aiden walked over to see who in the world was examining it for so long. And, alas, it was Savannah Conrad. Although he was still mad that she had tried to break up two of his friends, he still couldn't resist scaring the blonde. "BOOOO!" He yelled, giving her a shove from behind. heh heh. It was the spirit room, after all.

Hearing the door creak open, Savannah got a little tense. she was just making up stuff though, no one else would want to come in this old scary room, no one who was a chicken anyway. Hehe.....

"AHHHH !!!"Savannah jumped while screaming, her arms flailed in the air and she turned dramatically to see....Aiden.

"That's not funny, Aiden !"She said, hitting him with her purse like she had done a few days. First shaving her cats gorgeous fur and then scaring her ? She didn't deserve this. Her heart was still pounding. That was soooo not cool.