Professor Padma Patil

Professor Padma Patil

The late sun was boiling hot, and Riana was soon sweltering under the thin, linen peasant top she wore. Furthermore, the books in her arms were growing heavier with each tedious step down the dusty alley, and her bony back ached from the weight of the money purse.

This is stupid! Riana thought angrily, as she stalked stiffly along. I can't possibly get all this shopping done in one day.

As she was preparing to launch into a mental tirade against the weather, authority, and life in general ... Riana then realized that she didn't have to finish all of her shopping in one day. A smirk lit her sharp features with a rather insane glow. She was here for at least another week, and, as for authority figures, well ... there wasn't anyone to tell her where to go or when to do things. Her eyes sparked as she realized what her life was now: Complete and total independence and she loved it!

*

If Riana Carrington had been able to see herself as passing people saw her, she would have been pleased at her appearance and the vibe she exuded. What the other patrons of Diagon Alley saw was this: an excessively thin girl with raven hair and an air of dignity, but also of arrogance, strolling along with an armload of books, her money purse swinging by her side, aristocratic nose and chin jutted out in front, welcoming challenges. Her slanted grey eyes were full of a determination one seldom sees in an eleven-year-old.

Oh, yes, she would have been satisfied. But, alas, she could not see herself, and she only felt the growing impatience and self-hatred she got whenever her stomach betrayed her and begged to be fed as it was doing at this very moment.

For by this time, Riana had become very hungry, and, instead of continuing her shopping, she marched straight back to the wall that led into the Leaky Cauldron and sat down, parcels flung beside her, supporting her tired feet, some behind her back propping her up. She reclined, with her arms folded and her eyes cold and flinty as slits of steel; she waited for someone with a wand, someone who could get her back into the pub. How she hated this vile dependency on others! Once she was a proper witch, once she had a wand, then she wouldn't have to admit to any weakness! Then ... she would be in control.

*

It was some time later, however, before another person showed up to tap the wall with their wand. The tall, tawny-skinned, coal black-haired witch, who did so, had her own arms heavy laden with various herbs and bizarre animal ingredients.

Riana stared up at the woman curiously, studying the parcels clasped to the chest of the dignified witch. A paragraph outlined explicitly in Why I Didn't Die When the Augurey Cried had mentioned the components of a potion, and Riana surmised that these purchases held lovingly in the witch's embrace were for one of those precise, intriguing concoctions.

As Riana sat, still as a stone, not moving a muscle, watching the statuesque figure before her; the woman glanced down at her and raised a kohl-smudged eyebrow. She seemed to be appraising Riana, and whatever defiance there was in Riana's eyes did not go unnoticed by her for she gave a small, secret smile, and gestured with her herb-burdened arms to the doorway, giving way to Riana and her parcels.

"Thank you ... ma'am," Riana finally decided, feeling that 'Miss' was too trivial for such a goddess-like woman. Walking ahead of the woman into the Leaky Cauldron, Riana sensed an insane urge to turn and trail after woman who had such command, such presence. Surely she was someone important, and a part of Riana seemed to instinctively realize that she would get along better in this new world of magic by knowing such people.

However, seizing control of her emotions, as she had learned to do as yet another method of control, Riana decided that it would be best to simply take her books and robes to her room, and then come downstairs for a bite. One bite, she promised herself. That's all. One bite can't hurt.

Thus, Riana reasoned with herself as she entered the Leaky Cauldron ahead of the elegant witch, crossed the expansive room, and clunked tiredly up the rickety wooden staircase back to room number eight, her emaciated frame hugging her day's purchases to her chest.

*

Once free of her baggage from her day spent shopping, Riana stood in front of the cracked mirror and sighed. This is my last glimpse of being skinny today, she told the gaunt reflection. Now I'm going to have to feed you; I'm sorry. She felt a catch in her throat as she looked at herself, seeing, not a painfully thin girl, but another being ... the polar opposite of the real Riana.

She frowned, forehead furrowed, lips pressed tightly together, blinking furiously to prevent the pathetic tears that threatened to fall. Abruptly, she pivoted, strode out of the room and turned left, tramping down the dusty, shadowed corridor and stepping gingerly down the wobbly staircase.

Riana stepped into the bar, feeling much more in control, and noticed that the beautiful woman was sitting at a table, her potion ingredients laying on the surface beside her, talking earnestly to an elderly wizard in a waistcoat with prominent eyes who was very bald and very fat. She was showing him something in a leather-bound tome, and her face was lit up with an enthusiasm mirrored in the wizard's own expression as he let out a jolly laugh, the bristles of his walrus-like mustache quivering with amusement. Riana edged closer, ignoring Tom's curious look from over the bar, trying to see what book interested them so. There they sat, heads pressed close together as they poured over the book. When Riana saw the title, she nearly laughed, which was a very unusual action for her. The beautiful woman and corpulent man's rapt attention was dedicated solely to Magical Drafts and Potions.

Riana felt another grin almost reach her lips, but stopped it before the smile could thaw her icy exterior. She hastened away from the couple, fearing that she would be caught spying on them.

Approaching the bar, she asked Tom (I'm sorry. I have to, she whispered to the distorted, confused image of herself) for a croissant and something cool to drink. Tom's weathered face creased into the familiar, slightly befuddled, toothless grin, and he ambled out the door behind the bar, emerging seconds later with, not one, but two croissants lathered in hot, melted butter and a bottle of something. This something was butterscotch in color and, in fact, tasted like butterscotch with a slight nip, as Riana later discovered with pleasure. She ate the food with relish and had her first sip of butterbeer, amazed and ashamed that anything could taste so wonderful. She glanced up at Tom, who was ignoring her effectively and polishing yet another round of drinking glasses.

"Tom?" She spoke the one-syllable name hesitantly, her slanted eyes wide as she endeavored to swallow a flaky bite of butter-coated croissant. He turned toward her, eyebrows raised, ancient hands poised over the rim of a glass beaker. Riana swallowed again, the lump of croissant finally sliding down her rather dry throat.

"Tom, who is that woman? The one talking to the fat man," she gestured, "over there." Riana raised her thin black eyebrows and fixed Tom with a penetrating grey stare. He looked over at the dark woman and the portly man and then back at Riana.

"That," he said, "is Professor Padma Patil, your Potions mistress at Hogwarts. And that man," he nodded in the couple's direction, "is Horace Slughorn, former Potions master at Hogwarts. Those two come here often to discuss potion-making and what-not." Here, Tom cut off his short speech and turned away, apparently deciding that this was all that Riana needed to know.

Riana continued staring at Tom's hunched back for a few moments, amazed yet again that he would dare to be so blunt and short with her. Her lip curled proudly, and she determined that she didn't care, and then turned her cold, grey gaze back to the laughing couple. Somehow the news that the woman was a professor did not surprise her, and she was rather proud of the fact that she had noticed the woman's command and assurance with such a short glimpse of her earlier. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry seemed even more exciting, and September the first had never seemed further away.

She turned back to the bar and sipped the rest of her butterbeer, sharp elbow propped on the counter, holding the bottle, feeling the warmth of butterscotch seeping into her belly. The balmy beverage was soothing her, calming her, rocking her to sleep.

No! she thought, suddenly sitting upright. I decide when I want to go to bed. And it certainly isn't here! But, despite her mental rebellion, Riana yawned widely and felt her bottle clunk to the bar loudly. And ... I think, another yawn, that now is the time ... to go to ... sleep.

Raising one skeletal hand to her eyes, Riana rubbed the lids covering the silver irises and, reaching into her purple drawstring purse, removed a few bronze Knuts and laid them on the bar.

She slid off the stool and slithered back to the stairs, nearly tripping on the uneven floorboards as she did so. The nourishing food felt heavy in her small stomach, and she found it very difficult to climb the stairs and continue down the dim hallway to her room.

However, though she was nearly dead with fatigue, Riana did reach the door, and without even stopping to brush her teeth or comb her hair, much less remove her skirt, peasant shirt, and boots, she fell onto the soft, musty bed and passed into a deep, dreamless slumber.