Chapter two
The Day Before
Over the next couple of days were filled with scrambling. Visits to Diagon Alley for their school supplies and last minute things to be done in Atlantis.
It was the day before all the students were to arrive and everything was ready. When receiving their school letter, all of them, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Aeryn and Draco, were formally requested to attend a special meeting September 30th, at three in the afternoon.
They had no clue as to what the meeting was all about, but they knew Luna and Ginny were notified to come as well. They tried to ask questions, but no one was answering them.
Their letters stated that they were required to first meet in Atlantis's entrance hall, where a number of fireplaces were located for the floo system and that they had to wear their school cloaks. While all of theirs were black, Aeryn's was a sort of a dull dark purple, (a/n: I can't exactly explain the color that well, I made a cloak last Halloween and it was white, so when I dyed it black it turned out like this wicked shade purple.)
People started flooing in at around two thirty. At first it was other Hogwarts students, like Hannah Abbot and Ernie MacMillan as well as Pansy Parkinson and other Prefects. In fact it didn't even occur to any of them that they were Prefects. Soon other people dressed in royal blue cloaks from Beauxbatons, and emerald green cloaks from Durmstrang. Eventually the sea of cloaks grew as people in sand colored, grey, red, brown, aquamarine and a shade of a deep orange came through the fire place. The last people that came through the floo were those that matched Aeryn.
Upon arriving, Aeryn immediately went over with the rest of the gang behind her. The first was a guy who was tall, had light brown hair and eyes that light up upon seeing Aeryn. Harry noted the awkward moment between the two and Draco's immediate gesture of lacing his fingers with hers.
"Aeryn," the boy simply said in greeting.
"Xander," she replied back, "You remember Draco, don't you?" the light in the boys eyes immediately left as he silently shot daggers at the ferret.
"How could I forget?" Harry made a mental note to ask about it later.
"Would you look who rolled around in her grave and decided to give life another try," said a voice from behind the boy. As Xander moved to find a better spot in the room there standing was a girl with straight brown hair with highlighted streaks and bright blue eyes.
Aeryn smiled, "Terra! It's so good to see you." They greeted each other with a warm embrace, "but you do know I didn't exactly have a grave."
"No, technically you were cremated. But it's good to see alive," Terra looked around, "so this is the Lost City of Atlantis. Any idea of why we were all called here?"
"Not a clue," Aeryn said then was interrupted by an `ahem' by Draco, "You remember Draco?"
"Of course, it's good to see you as well."
"Same here," Draco replied, "Any idea of what is up with Romano?"
"Xander? He's been like that all last year, all of us in our year had the unfortunate experience of attending Salem."
"Why unfortunate?" Hermione piped in.
Aeryn slapped her head, "Forgive me, Terra this is Hermione, Ron and the one with expression `please don't look at my scar' is my brother Harry. Everyone this is one of my best friends Terra Brooks."
"Very funny," Harry said.
"And to answer your question," Aeryn continued, "Holic and Salem are like Gryffindor and Slytherin with the whole feud thing."
"Which one is which?" Ron asked.
"You don't think a school with the name Salem is going to be anything like Slytherin do you."
"So expect to see school rivalry?" Hermione said.
"I hope not."
"May I have you attention please," during the conversation they failed to notice some of the headmasters enter. "Will you kindly separate into you represented school and one at a time, enter though these doors, once inside merely request to go to the Great Hall and then find a seat."
"Well if they wanted us in the Great Hall they could have told us and we wouldn't have to have come here," Ron muttered.
Every single one of the Professors was there in the Great Hall. Even though they were separated by schools, Aeryn and Terra managed to sit over to where Harry and the others were.
Dumbledore stood before them, being the oldest and wisest of them all, "I welcome you all. I'm sure you are probably wondering why you have been called a day early, and I assure you all will be explained. Tragedy has befallen each and every one of us over this past summer. I for one am grateful for something such as Atlantis to aid us at this time. Many of us were amazed to find that Atlantis seemed to be made like a school. But enough of my rambling. Each Headmaster or Headmistress will call upon two from their own school, if your name is called please come up to the front."
In some random order two people were called forth, the last schools left were Hogwarts and Holic.
"Hermione Granger," Dumbledore called out, "and Harry Potter."
Harry still had no clue as to what this was all about as he and Hermione got up from where they were sitting, although Hermione had a knowing smiled on her face. The last were to be called as Professor Elizabeth Cogsworth stood.
"Alexander Romano and Aeryn Potter," she said. As the twenty students stood before the rest of the Prefect, each were handed a pin.
"As you can tell, each one of you has been selected to be Head Boy or Girl. With this comes great responsibility, don't misuse it. You may go sit down now," Professor Dumbledore said, "Now many of you may wonder how everything is going to work. I'm sure some of you had houses in your school and we will do the same thing. Your school will be your house, over the year you will gain and lose points. Of course, many of you might not know that we even have our own Quidditch pitch, so try-outs will be required.
"We have called you all here today so that tomorrow when you arrive with the other students, you won't be totally clueless about where everything is."
"Professor, perhaps Miss Potter can give them all a tour since she seems to know more about the lay of the land with that ring around her neck," Professor Jameson, the Headmaster for the Outback Underground said. Aeryn was subconsciously playing with the ring/key that hung around her neck by a chain.
"Good idea, Miss Potter what do you say?"
"I'd be glad to," Aeryn relied, "I sure you Professors have enough to do as it is." And with that the Professors took their leave. Aeryn walked back up to the front to address everyone, "Well, I guess we can start of with any questions you might have before we start the grand tour."
"How is it we are able to understand each other?" said a Japanese girl.
"I'm not exactly sure, but it seems we are able to hear everyone speck in our native tongue. To me, I hear you speak English, and you probably hear me as though I speak Japanese. Unfortunately it only works for common tongues, so if you were to hear someone speak an ancient language; say like Parseltongue, you would not be able to understand it."
"How do you know it won't work for Parseltongue?" someone asked.
"Because it's been tried. Next question."
"How did you find Atlantis?"
"Lot of research and some guided help. We figured out in was beneath the Bermuda Triangle."
"What about muggles?"
"What about them, this place is loaded with distraction charms of the sorts, no matter what, they will never see a huge giant city floating in the Atlantic, not even with those thing the have in space,"
"Satellites?"
"Is that what their called? But yes just the same."
"How do you know so much about this place? Is it because you were dead?" someone else asked. Aeryn gritted her teeth at that remark; she wondered when a question like that would pop up.
"No, it's not because I was dead. We haven't figured it out exactly, but my brother and I are direct decedents of the ones who created Atlantis, the First. Being a couple minutes older then my brother, I am the natural heir of the key that accesses control over the city. Any one can use the key, but I was chosen to guard it. With my being in possession of the key, it has given my some knowledge of the workings of the city.
"Now the doors you entered to get to the Great Hall are like apperating elevators, the go anywhere where there is a station, simply tell it where you want to go and it will take you. But for now we will walk, if you will follow me we will check out the dormitories."
They walked down some corridors; some gasps could be heard as they passed by massive windows that looked upon lower levels.
"Now the Headmasters and Professors originally thought that we should still remain separated in dormitories, each school having their own. But there was one problem; there are only nine dormitories, one for the Professors, one for Head students and a dormitory for each year." Aeryn showed the group the student dormitories except the Head student dormitories; she would save that for the Head Students only.
After some well thought out exploring the Quidditch Pitch, the Library, a large swimming area for luxury swimming and some of the class rooms the students flooed back home except the Head Students, Ron, Draco and Terra. The Head Students Dormitories consisted of twenty bedrooms, where everyone got their own bathroom, a common room designed for enough space for everyone to study.
After everyone else went though the floo, save for Terra who was going to floo with Aeryn the next day to keep an eye on the rest of the Holic students while they traveled here, they went back to the Head common room.
"Ok, I'm usually not the type of girl to ask questions," Hermione said, "but I've been dying to ask you all afternoon. What was that all about with this Alexander Romano?"
"I knew that had to be the topic of discussion sometime soon. Well contrary to popular belief, Draco is not the first person I've dated, although he is my first boyfriend. Xander and I went out a couple of times during our fifth year."
"Don't forget the part where Professor Wyndam and his father practically betrothed the two of you," Terra added.
"Yeah, that's the part I want to forget."
"So what happened?" Harry asked.
"Christmas came and I went home, packed a bag and told Frank and Patricia I was staying a Draco's for Christmas. There I realized that Draco meant more to me then my best friend." Aeryn said.
"Yeah, then you got chucked out by my father when he discovered that we weren't exactly have study sessions." Draco said.
"Well his first clue should have been when we said we were working on our chemistry, I mean potions." By this time Aeryn face had turned red. "In the end I told Xander that I would feel more comfortable if we didn't stay together. And from the vibes I got from him today, I'd say he's still not over me."
"Hey, I was wondering where you all were," James said as he and Lily came in the common room, "Not interrupting anything are we."
"Not at all," Hermione said.
"Professor Snape wants to see you two," Lily said to Hermione and Aeryn, "Something about Peeves in the Potions Lab where you two were working earlier."
Both Aeryn and Hermione shoot out of their seat, "That bugger," Aeryn started to curse, "I swear if he's done anything to that potion I'll kill him."
"Why they let him in here with the rest of the ghosts is beyond me," Hermione said.
"We'll be back in a bit," Aeryn said as she and Hermione quickly walked out of the room.
"Wait for me," Terra called after them.
"So what is the potion that those two are working on," Lily swore she would get the answer out of them soon.
"We can't say," Harry said, "But you'll know soon enough."
~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~
Sorry I haven't updated anything in a while, I've kinda had a little writers block on everything I was writing, including my newest story, `When Fate Comes Knocking' which I will work on before I get chapter three started for this story. I did have the inspiration last night to write and I wrote the very last chapter of this story, and NO I am not going to show it to you!! LOL!!
Well Please Please Review, I love to hear what you have to say!
And the whole ring/key idea I give myself total credit for that, because I have a thumb ring just like the way I described it and I wear in around my neck on a chain.
And the title `Shades of Grey' as you can see from the other stories the title has some meaning to the story, and the only clue I will give you for now is that the `grey' part is quite literal.
TTFN
Sk8erWitch
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