Chapter 3: An Unexpected Explanation

Steeling myself up for meeting him did nothing to prepare me for or help how I felt when he was finally standing before me. I stiffened as he crossed the threshold - not even two steps in, and I could already feel the powerful aura surrounding this man. This man had power beyond anything I had ever seen before, or was likely to ever see again… though, you wouldn’t tell that from first glance.

He didn’t quite look like Michael Gambon, or Richard Harris either - rather, he seemed to be a strange combination of the two, with the longer hair and beard of the first two movies’ Dumbledore, and a spring in his step, not unlike Gambon appeared to have. He stood at nearly six feet tall, I thought, as he was at least a head taller than myself. His robes were a deep purple that shimmered like the night sky when he moved, and his half-moon glasses rested low on his long, crooked nose. His clear blue eyes sparkled kindly, and with just a hint of mischief hiding beneath their surface. He smiled, a little crooked like his nose, but with nothing but kindness and… amusement? My eyes widened.

Oh god, I’ve been standing here staring like a creep!

“Calm yourself, Miss McIntosh, after what Arthur has told me, I can understand your shock.” Professor Dumbledore spoke in a soft, lightly teasing tone, snapping me out of my daze.

“Sorry, sir,” I replied, bowing my head slightly, “it’s still just a lot to… take in.” He chuckled.

“Yes, I figured as much,” he replied before gesturing to the couches behind me, “Shall we continue this discussion in the sitting room? Molly? Arthur?” Mr. and Mrs. Weasley moved around us, leading myself and Dumbledore back into the living - sorry, sitting room. I sat myself back down on the loveseat, the Weasleys across on the couch, and the three of us turned slightly to face the puffy, patchwork armchair that the Hogwarts Headmaster had seated himself in. He sank down into the cushion, and I had to stifle my giggles as he began bouncing slightly in his seat.

“Well, this is certainly a very comfortable chair,” he mused, “I must get myself one for my office at the school; my current chair is far too stiff - not good my back, you see.” He sat himself back up, and folded his hands on his knees, facing me. “Now, Miss McIntosh-” He was interrupted by a loud banging sound from outside, and all our heads shot to the window, where we could see a flash of red hair duck down below the sill. Mrs. Weasley nearly growled.

“Excuse me, Professor,” she said, standing up and heading out into the garden. We watched as she marched over to the other side of the window, grabbing the twins by the ears and dragging them away, her lecturing of their actions muffled by the walls of the house. Mr. Weasley and I turned back to face Dumbledore, who was smiling at their antics.

“You were saying, sir?” I asked, my nerves returning as I twirled a piece of pink hair around my finger. He turned back to us.

“Yes, Miss McIntosh, Arthur tells me arrived with a bag, yes?” I nodded. “Have you checked what is inside it yet?” Shaking my head, he gestured for me to proceed. I looked to the bag sitting on the coffee table in front of me. It seemed harmless enough - white and black, with a drawstring on the top and a zipper pocket in the front. I reached out, taking the bag in my hands. Being extremely cautious, I pulled the biggest pocket open as far as it would go, peeked inside…

...and saw the bottom of the bag.

“There’s nothing in it,” I whispered, frowning as I looked closer to make sure I didn’t miss a slip of paper or something, but didn’t see anything. Is this some kind of joke?

“Are you certain of that?” I looked up to see Dumbledore staring at me, his eyebrows raised, “Have you tried... reaching inside?” I looked back to the bag - there is no way something could be hiding in that tiny little thing! - but slowly reached my hand in anyway, and waited to touch the bottom.

But I didn’t feel the bottom of the bag. Instead, I felt my jaw drop open as my arm continued down until the bag was up to my shoulder, feeling around for whatever might be hiding in its depths. The undetectable extension charm!

My fingers grasped onto what felt like a handle, and I began pulling the mystery item up and out into the open. The handle turned out to be connected to a - rather large - off-white trunk, which plopped heavily into my lap. Looking up to see Mr. Weasley and Dumbledore still watching me, I opened the latch and lifted the lid.

The inside of the truck looked as if my closet had puked all over it; nearly all of the clothes I currently owned were folded neatly into stacks and separated by both tops and bottoms as well as by season. Carefully lifting a corner of one stack, I could see multiple pairs of shoes resting on the bottom of the trunk. In between two different pairs was a small box - my old jewelry box that I’d had for years.

“It’s...my clothes,” I said, staring back up at Dumbledore. He nodded once, glancing back to the bag at my side.

“And is there anything else in the bag?” I shrugged, closing the lid on the trunk and gently dropped in on the floor in front of me. I picked up the bag again, sticking my arm in as far as I could to reach for anything else that might be hiding. Feeling nothing, I retracted my arm and looked at the bag again.

The zipper… I opened the tiny pocket - which, thankfully, wasn’t enchanted - and pulled out an old, ornate key and a folded piece of paper.

“That looks like a Gringotts key…” Mr. Weasley said, holding his hand out as I passed the key to him before unfolding the paper, “D’you suppose it opens one of the vaults?”

“Yup,” I replied, staring down at the paper in my hands. I turned the paper around to face them. It read, in scrawling cursive:

Vault 256

“Ah, well that explains it then,” Mr. Weasley and I both looked to Dumbledore, ”It seems that whoever it was you saw that night has meant for you to not only come here, but for you to stay as well. It would certainly explain what I saw in the book before my arrival here today.” I frowned, confused.

“Book?” I echoed.

“Yes, the book with all of Hogwarts’ students - past, present, and future,” he replied, not skipping a beat, “We have a magic quill that writes down each magical child’s name at birth, at least those that would be going to Hogwarts. I was checking it in order to help Professor McGonagall begin writing letters for the upcoming first years, and saw your name on the list: Miss Rosaline Clara McIntosh, age 14.” I felt my eyebrows raise up into my hairline, and I was sure that my eyes were bulging out of my skull.

“Me?” He nodded. “I’m in the book? Then that would mean I-I’m...that I’m-”

“A witch,” he finished, smiling at me. All of the air in my lungs suddenly disappeared. I’m a witch...But how? Why?

“But sir,” I argued, “that doesn’t make any sense! How could I possibly be a witch?”

“Well, have you ever done something…out of the ordinary? Something you couldn’t quite explain?” A memory flashed in my mind of a younger me and my twin sister, where we had been trying to take some before-dinner cookies Rugrats-style, and I slipped and began falling, only to land softly on the ground with the cookie jar in my hands. Then another memory, this one more recent, of glaring at Violet’s at-the-time boyfriend while he flirted with another girl in biology, only for the frog they were dissecting to suddenly explode in their faces.

How else can you explain that? I looked back up at the man before me, finally convinced.

Mr. Weasley and Professor Dumbledore continued speaking as the elder wizard began making his way out the door. Our conversation had lasted nearly another hour after my revelation, discussing the plan for me for the upcoming school year:

I will be introduced at the start-of-term feast as a transfer from the American wizarding school right before the first years enter the Great Hall, and will be sorted into my own house. Until then, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley have offered for me to stay with them, sharing a room with Ginny while we wait for our Hogwarts letters. After that, we will head to Diagon Alley to check out this vault that apparently was set up for me.

Mrs. Weasley had come in some time ago, ushering the boys back upstairs before handing me a blue beanie - the beanie I had apparently dropped during my fall into their yard. I fiddled with it in my hand, not putting it on since it was now too hot to do so; I hadn’t realised in my arrival or the time after that it was now July, and not the chilly, wet February we had been having in Georgia. I had already had to roll up the legs of my pants up just under my knees and remove my sweatshirt, tying it around my waist.

Well, at least I’ll actually be able to see snow when it does get cold around here…

“Well, I had best be off,” Dumbledore stated as he walked out the threshold, turning back to smile at myself and the Weasleys, “It was lovely meeting you, Miss McIntosh.”

“You too, sir,” I replied, waving slightly.

“Your letters should be arriving within the week, and remember: we await your owl no later than the end of July.” With that, he turned about on his heel, and with a resounding crack!, he was gone.