If you were to go down Fifteenth Street and take a right at the drug store, you would end up driving down a rather strange road called, ‘Couch Ave’. And if you kept going down Couch Ave, you would see rather ordinary looking houses with ordinary muggles all going about their ordinary lives, all clearly unbothered by the rather strange road name.
At the end of Couch Ave., you would be forced to turn right yet again onto another strange street named, ‘Doubtful Ct.’ where the same scene once again awaits you on either side of the road. Not only do the people on Doubtful Ct. not seem very doubtful, but they seem very busy. The houses lining the road all appear normal but not too fancy looking. Dull browns and greens are the choices for the colors of the siding and shutters, with the occasional sunny yellow or plain white for someone who was obviously feeling rather adventurous.
But as you come to the end of Doubtful Ct. you notice a house that not only is painted in a bright blue with orange shutters matching in equal vividness, but the lawn is so green and perfectly cut that it almost seems fake. Small lawn gnomes border the walk up to the open front door, while flamingoes who are as large as the gnomes are small, decorate the front lawn as scattered and randomly placed patches of pink to the far away eye. A garden is visible through the white picket fence in the backyard, seemingly just as perfect as the grass out front and a small swing set that appears to be slightly rusty from lack of use swings idly in the breeze in the background. This is the home of Noah Wipple.
Noah Wipple was a strange boy to all the people who were with him through Elementary school. His father was a lawyer who spent most of his time in his office downstairs, buried in paper work and muttering to himself about things he shouldn’t forget or something he was looking for, which was usually a pen. Not only did Noah’s father rarely sleep but he never had a pen with him, which was something he always seemed to need. He had dark black hair and circles under his golden eyes from sleep loss and his thin lips never smiled.
His mother was an environmental activist who would weekly chain herself to trees or go out with boating parties to try and save some poor animal. Her frizzy brown hair and sparkling green eyes seemed to be full of life and joy, contrasting deeply with Noah’s father’s features, but he had seen his mother make his father smile twice in his life and therefore he was sure they loved each other.
The first was in the picture he had of the day he was born. His mother was holding him tight to her chest, sweat plastering her usually frizzy hair to her forehead and neck as his father stood beside her, beaming down proudly with a bright smile on his face. Noah’s mother had given him that picture on his ninth birthday and after he had admired it a moment, she had flipped it over to point at the back and whisper in his ear, “Look, baby, see? It says, ‘Love Mom and Daddy,’ and we do love you, baby.”
The second time had been when he was seven years old and his mother had gotten in a skiing accident. Apparently the story behind her multiple injuries had been so funny that his father had burst out laughing after she had called him on the phone to tell him she was in the hospital.
Noah was more like his father. He had the untamed, frizzy brown mess like his mother’s hair and even had her bright green eyes that people told him sparkled with the same life and joy, but he watched the world instead of partaking in it. He, like his father, was a realist who thought things over and studied people from afar instead of jumping in with the same enthusiasm that his mother seemed to possess. Conversation did not come easily to him, though he could debate all day without even having to think.
After he had tried public school and seen how the other children looked at him and his rather strange mannerisms of muttering to himself as his father did, he had chosen books over society as his new found friends. Both of his parents had been proud to see that he thirsted for knowledge so openly and both had provided him with books on every topic you could think of. His mother had helped him understand the world, starting with environmental issues and growing in time to talk with him about social issues as well. Noah’s father let him borrow his books on previous cases, government and law and order.
He would stay up late into the night pouring over the new information he had found, with only a small night light to help him read since his mother didn’t like him staying up past his bed time, and soon after a few years of reading by small lamp-light, Noah was forced to get glasses, making him officially the class nerd. His shaggy, wild brown hair hung down past his eyes brows and he was constantly forced to push it aside to slid his glasses further up his nose from leaning over his books so much.
So when summer came it was his eternal heaven. Not only did it free him from the burdens of being so rudely interrupted by his fellow classmates and teachers, but summer brought with it the chance to travel with his mother and venture into the office with his father on some lucky occasions. That was until the summer he turned eleven.
That summer was the first summer that Noah had begun to feel antsy. Not only could his usual books not seem to satisfy him but it was as if he knew something was going to happen. It wasn’t as if he suddenly longed for friends or even had begun craving attention from the opposite sex. No, he had simply known something was going to happen. He checked the window for any visitors habitually and without thinking, he would run to answer the phone before anyone could get to it and most of all he watched the mail. There was something about the mailbox that suddenly had him drawn to it like a moth towards light and if the letter hadn’t arrived that day, Noah was sure he would have gone insane.
It was the twenty-fourth of June at eleven thirty a.m when he heard something fluttering above the chimney. They had never had any trouble with birds and so naturally, Noah being in quite a state from his boredom went to check it out. The moment he had entered the living room, the fluttering had stopped. A sudden silence had filled the air and the only sound to be heard was the ticking of the clock on the mantle. Noah hadn’t moved for a moment, but had simply eyed the fire place before him before turning to leave. At that moment the fluttering had started up again. Spinning around, he had rushed forward and stuck his head inside the fireplace, looking up into the unending black of the chimney in time to see something white flying toward his head.
Ducking out with a slight curse under his breath, Noah had watched as a letter landed gracefully and without half the force it had appeared to be moving at onto his living room floor, somehow managing to miss the ashes. It had been a letter with his name and address on it, looking quit normal except for the seal upon it.
“Hogwarts; School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” he had read aloud as his heart beat rapidly in his chest and his fingers fumbled to open it hastily. Inside was a letter explaining what Noah was sure to be a practical joke as he read what appeared to be an invitation for him to join a school that dealt with magic?
Scoffing slightly, Noah had tossed the letter aside and tried to forget about it, but as the days progressed he had found himself keeping the letter in his pocket and taking it out at random moments to read over and over. Somehow the important looking seal and fancy gold lettering told him that this might be more than a joke and maybe it was actually real, and so a week later Noah found himself sitting at the kitchen table with his parents during dinner, fumbling nervously with the napkin in his lap and trying to figure out how to tell them what he had received.
“Mum,” he began after another awkward moment of silence had passed, during which his father had been poring over a new text book and his mother was telling him to eat his vegetables.
At the sound of her name, she glanced at him with a warm smile and said kindly, “No, Noah. I’m sorry but you’ve gone far too long without your nutrition while I’ve been gone this week and you have to eat the broccoli. No, but’s.”
“No, mum,” he said with a sigh and mentally wondered how many times she was going to interrupt him tonight before he could get to the point. “I don’t mind eating the vegetables. I just wanted to ask, erm… tell you something.”
“Did you hear that, Kip?” she asked her husband suddenly and poked him in the arm to try and draw his attention away from the book.
“Hmm?” he mumbled, slowly looking away from the page he was on to glance around at the both of them over his own pair of glasses, reminding Noah of himself as he did so.
“Our son just said he doesn’t mind eating the vegetables!” She poked him again on the arm as a gesture that he was suppose to show some sort of enthusiasm at these words and grinned around the table. “Isn’t that great?”
“Yes, honey,” he mumbled in a slightly bored tone and glanced at Noah for a moment before returning to the book in front of him.
“Mum,” Noah whined slightly and set down his fork to fiddle with the napkin in his lap again, staring at it instead of his parents. “I really need to talk to you about something!” He looked up again in time to see his mother nodding but obviously not really listening as she continued to beam at him, still enthralled over the fact the her little boy enjoyed eating his healthy greens. Rolling his eyes, Noah sighed and started again. “I’ve been asked to join a new school.”
This not only got his mother’s attention but his father’s attention as well.
“Private?” his mother asked with a smile.
“Expensive?” his father asked with an obvious frown.
“Erm… yes, it’s pretty private but I don’t think it’ll be expensive.” Noah had forgotten that his father might worry about the price and he still wasn’t sure himself where he was supposed to get the supplies he needed.
“Oh?” he heard his father ask and blinked to see his parents still watching him. “And how does a private school manage not to be expensive? I would really like to know. Do you have the papers with you?”
Noah gaped slightly for a moment, as he had not expected to get this far in the conversation in one night and stammering slightly, he reached into his pocket to try and retrieve the letter that was worn and crumpled from being read and refolded so many times over the past few days. Handing it over to his father’s waiting hand, Noah watched as he readjusted his glasses and his mother leaned over his shoulder to read as well.
A few moments passed, during which Noah squirmed in his seat and thought about all the lines he had practiced in his head and how worthless they were to him now as both his parents sat reading the letter he never expected to give them. Then, suddenly, his father cleared his throat and calmly handed the paper back to Noah, taking off his glasses as he always did when he was about to say something important and glancing side-ways at his mother. Neither were speaking which made Noah feel even more antsy and anxious.
“Do you believe this letter, son?” His father’s deep voice broke into his thoughts and he glanced up to lock eyes with his deep golden ones. All he could do was nod slowly. “Have you investigated this? It could be a prank, you know.”
“I thought of that, father but I don’t think it is.”
“And you’re willing to give up your normal education to learn about something like this?”
“What education, father?” Noah asked and even laughed a little as he said it. “I know more than any of my past teacher’s combined. I want to learn something new.” He was almost surprised with himself and how confident he sounded during those last sentences and obviously his father heard that confidence as well because he looked at Noah with something close to pride in his eyes and smiled for the third time in the little boy’s life.
“Then I guess you’re going to this… Hogwarts, aren’t you?”
Noah opened his mouth to speak but a sob from his mother stopped him. Both young men turned to look at the woman beside them and she looked up from blowing her nose to offer a smile. Noah gave her a questioning look and she rolled her eyes, saying simply, “Oh, just eat your vegetables.”