James
It sucks when you have to part with your broom for an entire year, just because the school thinks that first-years can’t fly as well as the students from other years.
Especially when you’re an absolutely brilliant flier (and I am not being cocky or anything, because that’s what a few people have been telling me) and are likely to help Gryffindor win the Quidditch Cup.
This is exactly what I tell Mum as I sit on my bed, clutching my Cleansweep Two close to me.
She looks at me, shakes her head, and says, “Talk about arrogant.”
I agree vehemently. “My point exactly! Those people are so conceited, they think the youngest students can’t fly at all””
“I was,” Mum interrupts, reaching over and tweaking my nose, “talking about you.”
“Me?” I ask, leaping up from my bed. “Mum, I am a brilliant flier. You said so yourself!”
Mum gives a long-suffering sigh, but there is an unwilling grin on her face. “James, I think you really need a lesson on being less… boastful. It’s perfectly all right when other people praise you for your abilities, but it is definitely not okay to go around praising yourself.”
I ponder on what she says for a while, then say, “But it’s all part of my charm, isn’t it?” and add a smile for good measure.
“Charm? Ha, I wish!” she says, ruffling my hair. “Don’t go around boasting like that. It’s unseemly for a young gentleman such as yourself.”
“All right,” I relent. “But I still don’t get why first-years can’t bring along their brooms.”
Mum adds one last scarf to my trunk, and then snaps it shut. “It’s because there might be a Muggleborn in your dorm, who doesn’t know a single thing about flying, and then he might steal your broom because he wants a taste, and ends up hurting himself.”
“Well, it serves him right for stealing my broom!” I say. “Besides, flying is so easy, I don’t believe anyone can’t fly properly””
“What,” Mum says, looking sternly at me, “did I say about being stuck-up?”
I cross my arms. “Fine.”
“It’s your last day here, why don’t you go out and fly?” she suggests. “Come in at about five, though, we’ve invited the Spinnets over for dinner.”
I trudge slowly out of my room, broom in hand, and nose high up in the air, as if I cannot care less about her suggestion. But after I check that she is out of sight, I race down the hallways and out into the open garden and kick off from the ground.
The sky rushes down to meet me, and as the wind tousles my hair, I feel free.
Sirius
It is the last night at home before I officially leave for Hogwarts, and I cannot be happier. My trunk has been packed weeks ago, and I’ve been spending a lot of my time shut up in my room practising simple spells with my wand.
In recent days, Regulus keeps coming into my room and going through my trunk, flipping open my textbooks and swishing my wand. He has broken my window and set fire to my carpet so far. The broken glass I have mended, but I had to use my wizard’s hat to put out the fire.
Today he is staying put in my room most of the time, because he says that in a few hours I’ll be gone forever. Honestly! The way he talks, it’s as if I’m going to meet my death. Sheesh.
Kreacher comes into the room without knocking, as usual.
“What do you want?” I ask him shortly, not wanting to lose my temper on our last night in the same house. He is Kreacher, after all.
Who am I kidding? No, the reason why I don’t want to lose my temper is because Mother might find out and I might get spanked the day before I go to Hogwarts for the first time of my entire life. Glamorous to attend school on the first day with finger markings on your buttock, I think not. Even though they won’t be seen, they’ll probably feel sore when I sit. Thanks, but I’ll go without.
Kreacher ignores me, and looks at Regulus, who is, once again, twiddling my wand. “Your Uncle Cygnus, Aunt Druella, and your cousins have arrived,” he tells Regulus. Regulus drops the wand, hops off the bed and races out of the room faster than a Gringotts cart.
Family love. How very touching.
I turn to glare at Kreacher. “Anything else?” I ask. He ignores me again, and leaves the room.
Somewhere from downstairs, I hear the muffled, lively chatter of my parents, uncle, aunt, Regulus, and my cousins, Andromeda, Bellatrix, and Narcissa. Andromeda’s voice floats up from the hall. “Where is Sirius?”
I walk towards the hall as slowly as I can. When I enter, I flash a bright smile at everyone and greet them.
“There’s the new Hogwarts student!” Uncle Cygnus says. He walks up to me and shakes my hand. “And how do you feel about going to Hogwarts tomorrow?”
His breath smells of tobacco, as usual. It is not a pleasant smell, and I have to stop myself from wrinkling my nose.
“Excited,” I say, trying to appear indifferent.
“Ah, cool and collected, our Sirius,” Andromeda says, smiling. She’s eighteen this year, and she’s my favourite cousin. I grin at her.
Mother smiles at me. It’s meant to look benign, but unfortunately, when she is smiling at me, she can’t pull off the kindly look. “Narcissa will be in her Fifth Year, too, so she can take good care of you,” she tells me, her arm around Narcissa.
“She’s been made a prefect,” Aunt Druella tells everyone proudly. Narcissa attempts to look demure and humble, but her smug smile says it all.
“Congratulations,” Father says, smiling like he never usually does. “I expect the same from you, Sirius. You’re always so sloppy and lazy…”
Bellatrix speaks up for the first time. “Oh, I’m sure Sirius will surprise us all.” It doesn’t sound like a compliment. I give her a look, and she shoots a smirk at me.
“Let’s hope he does,” Father says, and starts talking about his work. The adults join in enthusiastically.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demand, turning to my cousin.
“Well, isn’t it true?” Bellatrix asks, her gaze hard and cold. “You’re the black sheep of the family, Sirius” you’ll never do us proud.” And as Mother asks her a question, she turns and smiles at her, all beautiful and demure again.
Andromeda overhears. She comes over and wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Do you want to go for a walk outside?” she asks. I jerk my head in a non-committal answer. She steers me outside of Grimmauld Place, where the cool air of the night washes over us. Once we are out of hearing range, she says, “Don’t listen to Bella, Sirius. She’s just being her usual catty self.”
“No, it’s true,” I say. “It’s true that I’ll never do my family proud. But I don’t mind, actually.”
And suddenly, I realise that it’s true. I don’t mind at all.
In fact, disgracing them, I find, is my dearest wish.
Lily
We are standing on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and Petunia is still angry with me. We have arrived here by car. Petunia, Severus, Mrs Snape, and I were sitting in the backseat, and Petunia has barely even talked to me on the way here.
I have absolutely no idea why my sister is so sullen today though. But this is my last chance to make things all right with her, as I’m not going to be seeing her until Christmas break. So I step up to her and begin tentatively, “Petunia?”
She ignores me. I try again, louder this time, “Tuney!”
She shakes her head as if trying to ward off an irritable fly. “What?”
“Don’t be mad at me,” I say. She doesn’t reply. “Look, Tuney, whatever I did”” The letter that I’m not supposed to read, forbidden to read seems to be back in my hands, and once again I feel as though I’m shriveling up with guilt.
Petunia turns away from me, as if she knows exactly what I have done when Severus and I were snooping around in her room the other day.
I swallow.
“Tuney, I” *I’m sorry, Tuney, I’m sorry! Listen”” I catch Petunia’s hand and hold on tightly to it, and Petunia tries to pull away. “Maybe once I’m there” no, listen, Tuney! Maybe once I’m there, I’ll be able to go to Professor Dumbledore and persuade him to change his mind!”
Petunia stops tugging her hand away from me for a moment, and stares at me. Usually I’m able to read the expression in her eyes, but today she’s kept them emotionally blank. Then she resumes her tugging. “I don’t- want- to- go!” she says, and successfully relinquishes my grip. “You think I want to go to some stupid castle and learn to be a- a-”
She pauses, looking around the platform, where our parents, Severus and Mrs Snape are standing a few feet away. She is apparently not able to find a description. I bite my lip. Taking her hand again, I am about to plead my case again when Petunia continues.
“-you think I want to be a- a freak?”
Shocked, I slacken my grasp and hot tears prick the backs of my eyes. Petunia takes this opportunity to snatch her hand away. She looks triumphant, glad that she has found the correct adjective.
“I’m not a freak,” I say, all too aware that my voice is shaking. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“That’s where you’re going. A special school for freaks,” says Petunia with vindictive pleasure. “You and that Snape boy… weirdos, that’s what you two are. It’s good you’re being separated from normal people. It’s for our safety.”
Petunia is my sister. My protector. My best friend since my birth. She has laughed with me, cried with me, comforted me, and supported me. We’ve fought loads of times, but within five minutes we’d make up and laugh and play as though nothing’s happened. Petunia’s always been there for me.
Today, as we stand on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, she has turned against me.
With every word she has spoken, it’s as if a dagger is poking holes in my heart. It’s painful. And then suddenly hurt has become rage, and I want to hurt Petunia as much as she’s hurt me.
“You didn’t think it was such a freak’s school when you wrote to the Headmaster and begged him to take you.”
And I watch with a kind of spiteful pleasure as Petunia flushes.
“Beg?” she says, and her voice is higher than usual. “I didn’t beg!”
I feel cruel, but I deliver my next sentence anyway. “I saw his reply. It was very kind.”
Petunia now looks horrified. “You shouldn’t have read”” she whispers. “That was my private” how could you-?”
Suddenly guilt fills me, and I involuntarily throw a glance at Severus. Petunia follows my gaze and gasps.
“That boy found it! You and that boy have been sneaking in my room!”
Stung, I leap to my own defense. “No” not sneaking” Severus saw the envelope, and he couldn’t believe a Muggle could have contacted Hogwarts, that’s all! He says there must be wizards working undercover in the postal service who take care of””
The blood drains out of Petunia’s face very quickly. This is a sure sign of her fury. “Apparently wizards poke their noses in everywhere!” she snarls, and then spits, “Freak!” before flouncing off to our parents, leaving me quite alone and in the middle of a crowd of strangers.
I wipe my eyes on the back of my hand and look up to see Severus, staring rather concernedly at me from Mrs Snape’s side. Anger rushes through me as I remember that he’s the one who made Petunia so angry at me. I pointedly ignore him and walk to my parents.
“I want to go home now,” Petunia is snapping at them.
“But we have to see Lily off, don’t we?” Dad tells her.
Petunia doesn’t say anything, clearly not wanting to explain about the letter Dumbledore wrote to her. She presses her lips together and throws me a scathing look. Mum looks at me and her eyes seem to question, “What’s going on?”
I shake my head briefly, and muster a small smile. Mum quickly changes the subject. “So, Lily, you’re going to be away from us until Christmas. I bet you can’t wait, hmm?”
I feel worse when I am reminded of the fact. No Dad, no Mum, and no Petunia. “No,” I say, and my voice wavers. “I can wait.”
Mum bends down and hugs me. “Oh, honey,” she says, her voice thick. “We’ll miss you, too. Write to us often, Eileen told us that there’re school owls for students to use.”
I almost start sobbing there and then. “I’ll write. Every week. Perhaps everyday.”
“We’ll think of you every minute,” Dad says, hugging me now. “Now, we better go load up your trunk, and we can talk a little more before you have to go.”
A guard in red livery helps us with it, while I carry Nightfall in a basket. Severus is right behind me with his own trunk, but I refuse to even look at him. He’s somewhat the cause of my argument with Petunia. When I return to the platform, I hug and kiss Dad and Mum, and then turn to Petunia. On occasions when I go off for a period of time, like a school trip, she would hug and kiss me goodbye. Today, however, she is pointedly looking at the ceiling.
“ ’Bye, Petunia,” I say, wanting to hug her and tell her how sorry I am, but my pride does not allow it.
She nods coldly. “See you Christmas,” she says in a detached kind of voice.
Mum opens her mouth to scold Petunia, but I make her stop. “It’s kind of my fault,” I mutter. It makes me feel worse when Mum doesn’t scold me. I suppose it due to the fact that I’ll be gone until the end of the year.
“Well, write a moving apology to her soon,” Mum suggests. “She’ll forgive you.”
The guards whistle, signaling that the train is about to leave. She hugs me once more and I dash to the train before the door closes. Staring out of the window pane and waving to my parents, I sincerely hope that Mum is right, and Petunia will forgive me, because I cannot imagine a life in which Petunia and I aren’t best friends.
I can’t, and I won’t.
Remus
I have just said goodbye to my parents. I won’t be seeing them till Christmas. That is assuming if my secret doesn’t get found out before then.
I’m excited, but scared, too. Scared that someone will take a look at me and know from my tenseness that something’s different about me, and investigate and find out about my being a werewolf. Scared that I’ll be sorted into Slytherin, and be a disappointment to my parents. Scared that I won’t be able to make any friends, because I haven’t lived in an area with many children my age around, and the only friend I’d ever made there had been forbidden by his mother to play with me when she’d found that there’s something strange about me.
My fears aren’t unfounded, though, at least, not the last one. It’s been at least a minute since we’ve pulled away from King’s Cross Station, and I’ve still not found a compartment to sit it, and am dragging my trunk with me all around the train, looking for an empty compartment.
I pause outside a half-empty compartment. Three boys are already in it, along with one red-haired girl, who doesn’t seem to be acquainted with them. She’s sitting right at the corner, by the window, whereas the three boys are chatting to one another by the door. I raise a hand to knock on the door, but then hesitate. What if they tell me to go away? I think I will just die of humiliation. However, the bespectacled boy catches my eye, and motions me to join them. Taken aback, but pleasantly surprised, I slide the door open, and the two boys greet me boisterously.
“Finding a seat?” the bespectacled boy says. He is rather small, with messy black hair that sticks up at the back. His hairdo might look unkempt on anyone else, but he has an imperious air about him that suggests he is an emperor in his own home.
I nod, grinning.
“Sit down here, then,” another boy says, indicating the seat opposite himself and next to the bespectacled boy. He looks about thirteen, and, with his dark hair and grey eyes, is extremely handsome in a haughty sort of way. I think I’m a little afraid of him. I place my trunk in the baggage compartment above us, and sit down meekly.
The last boy, who has sandy hair and is sitting beside the haughty-looking boy, grins and me and says, “I’m Kelvin, this’s James, and he’s Sirius. We’re all first years.”
“Remus Lupin,” I offer. “I’m a first year, too.”
“We were just talking about Quidditch,” Sirius says. “What’s your favourite team?” he asks suddenly.
“Me?” I say, slightly alarmed. “Oh, I don’t know, the Tornadoes, I guess.”
“Ha!” Sirius says delightedly to James and Kelvin. “I told you the Tutshill Tornadoes rule.”
“They might rule,” James says, “but the Ballycastle Bats are the best!”
“No, they’re not!” Sirius says. Turning to me, he says, “Remus, you and I will prove James and Kelvin wrong!”
Just then, the compartment door slides open, and another boy, with lank, greasy hair and who is already in his Hogwarts robes, strides in.
He walks over to the girl by the window, and starts talking to her, but before I catch a word, Sirius calls me back to attention, and help him counter argue James and Kelvin’s argument.
We discuss some of the best players the teams have had in centuries, and then we lapse into a short silence, during which we hear the newcomer say, “You’d better be in Slytherin.” I look around in their direction in surprise; usually Slytherin’s the last house anyone would want to be in.
**“Slytherin?”
It is James who speaks. His voice is contemptuous for the first time since I’ve been in the compartment.
“Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?” he turns to Sirius, arching an eyebrow.
Sirius doesn’t smile. “My whole family have been in Slytherin.”
I feel surprised; Sirius doesn’t seem like the type with a Slytherin background, he seems nice enough. James is obviously as staggered as I am.
“Blimey,” he says, “and I thought you seemed all right!”
Sirius breaks into a rebellious grin. “Maybe I’ll break the tradition,” he says, and I hear the hopeful tone in his voice. “Where are you heading, if you’ve got the choice?” he asks James.
The answer seems to be instinctive; James lifts his hand, as if brandishing an invisible sword. “ ‘Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!’ Like my dad.”
The boy with the red-haired girl makes a noise in his throat. James rounds on him.
“Got a problem with that?” he asks in a deceivingly angelic voice, but the look he throws at the boy is one of great dislike.
“No,” the boy says, sneering. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy””
“Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” Sirius cuts in. James laugh. I look at Kelvin and we both shift uncomfortably. It has only been less than half an hour, and already I am in the middle of an imminent fight.
The red-haired girl doesn’t seem to find it funny as well. She sits up, rather red in the face, and looks at both James and Sirius with a less-than-friendly look on her face. “Come on, Severus, let’s find another compartment.” She gets up, clutching a basket, and stalks out of the compartment.
“Oooooooo…” Sirius says, and together on cue he and James repeat after the girl, copying her lofty voice. When the boy” Severus” walks past us, James sticks his foot out to trip him, but is unsuccessful. I am secretly thankful for that.
“See ya, Snivellus!” James calls after the boy, and together he and Sirius hoot with laughter. Kelvin and I laugh nervously. I feel like I’ve just run a long marathon; I can’t imagine what would’ve happened to me if we’d ended up dueling and hauled off to the Headmaster’s office once we’d reached Hogwarts.
“So, how about that spectacular catch of the Snitch made by Roderick Plumpton in 1921?” Sirius says; it’s as if Severus has never come in and the girl has never been in the compartment at all. Within milliseconds we have resumed our argument about which Quidditch team is the best, and I forget about what has happened just moments ago.
Peter
“Firs’-years! Firs’-years over here!”
A loud booming voice sounds, and I look around for the source. There is a very, very large man near the edge of the platform.
“Let’s go, then,” Stewart Kavanagh, my new friend, says, and we follow the crowd towards the huge man. When we reach the man, I realise that I barely come up to his mid-thighs.
“Who is he?” I ask Stewart in awe.
“That’s Hagrid, the gamekeeper,” Stewart explains. “My dad told me he’s very nice.”
I eye the pockets of Hagrid’s cloak. They seem to be moving. With what, I do not know. Deciding to keep a safe distance from his cloak, I take a step back, and manage to tread on someone’s toe. I turn around, uttering an apology hurriedly.
“Ouch!” the boy yells, and accompanies that exclamation of pain with something much stronger. “Watch where you’re stepping, you idiot!”
“Severus!” the girl standing beside him says reproachfully. “He’s already apologised.”
Severus turns to me and warns, “Don’t do it again.”
I nod hurriedly. “I won’t, of course I won’t,” I assure him, before retreating a few steps and bumping into Hagrid, from whom I had been trying to distance myself. I turn around, apologising, and realise that I’m facing one of the pockets. A squeak emits from it, and I freeze.
“It’s a dormouse,” Hagrid’s booming voice tells me kindly. I look up, and see that he’s smiling at me. I smile back hesitantly.
“All righ’ there, everyone?” he calls to the crowd of first years now surrounding him. “Righ’, I’m Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. Follow me, everyone, we’ll be makin’ the trip to Hogwarts on boats, across the lake.”
Two dark-haired boys near me chorus, “Brilliant!” Hagrid grins at them through his wild beard.
“Mind yeh don’t fall in, though,” he says. The two boys grin back, and we start walking towards the lake.
“If we fall in, what’ll happen?” the girl behind me asks her fierce companion, the boy Severus, in an undertone.
“If you’re lucky, some underwater creature will rescue you,” Severus tells her.
“Won’t Hagrid help us?” the girl persists, sounding nervous.
Severus snorts. “That half-giant? No, my mother says he’s an oaf. Doesn’t know anything worth knowing.”
“That’s not very nice!” a chorus of voices say loudly and fiercely. I jump, and look around. Stewart, the two dark-haired boys and one of their companions, a boy with light-brown hair, are glaring at Severus.
“Would you mind being kinder to others?” the boy with the light-brown hair says. His tone is mild, but his eyes flash in the dim lighting. “Just because he’s not entirely human it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have brains, you know?”
“Yeah, Snivellus,” says the dark-haired boy with spectacles. “And in one special case, the brainless one is a human.” His tone leaves no doubt that he means Severus himself.
Severus looks at the girl for help, but she shakes her head almost imperceptibly, her eyes telling him that she too thinks that he might have gone too far.
By this time we’ve created a jam, and Hagrid stops. “Everything okay back there?” he calls.
“Yeah, fine,” the other dark-haired boy calls back, and he looks at Severus, as if daring him to object.
“Do that one more time, and my fist’ll be in your mouth before you know it,” Stewart snarls. Then he nudges me, says, “C’mon,” and we turn around to continue our journey to the lake, jogging down the path to catch up to Hagrid.
The road is steep and narrow, and extremely dark. If not for the fact that I am sandwiched between Stewart and another girl I do not know, I would have had a panic attack already. Severus and his friend are arguing in fierce whispers, but no one else is talking apart from the occasional nervous outbreak of giggling. Finally, after an eternity, Hagrid says, “Yeh’ll be getting yer first glimpse of the castle soon.”
We crane our necks, trying to be the first one to sight the legendary Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Suddenly the path opens to the edge of the lake, a beautiful black surface of the water. Reflections of the little sparkling stars dot the water. And on the other side, right at the peak of a high mountain, is an immense castle with its windows glowing a welcoming yellow in the midst of darkness.
“It’s brilliant,” I whisper in awe to Stewart, who seems too amazed to speak.
“All righ’, everyone, get into the boats here,” Hagrid says, gesturing to a fleet of small boats floating in the lake by the shore. “No more than four to one boat!”
Stewart and I get into a boat, accompanied, to my displeasure, and to his, apparently, by Severus and his companion. Severus is scowling deeply at me, and the girl is smiling apologetically at me. I smile back nervously and turn away.
“Everyone in?” Hagrid yells. He is sitting in a boat by himself. “All right” FORWARD!”
At once the boats set off, gliding silently across the lake. I stare up at the castle, trailing my hand in the inky lake. It is only when I feel something moving close to my fingers that I pull my hand out in a hurry. As we near the cliff, the castle looms nearer and nearer, until it completely dwarves us. As the first boats reach the cliff, Hagrid calls for us to duck. We pass through an opening in the cliff hidden by the hanging ivy, and were carried along a dark tunnel. I’ve never liked dark places, much less enclosed dark places. I begin to feel a little dizzy from fear, but luckily we soon reach a sort of underground harbour, and I thankfully climb out of the boat onto rocks and pebbles. We follow Hagrid up a passageway in the rock, and at last reach open air, right next to the castle. We walk up a staircase and gather around a huge oak door. As Hagrid looks around to ensure that none of us are lagging, I am attacked by a bad case of nerves. To my left, Stewart is anxiously smoothing down the front of his robes in a bid to neaten himself. I copy him, not wanting to look like an utter mess.
Hagrid knocks on the door, and butterflies take flight in my stomach. My knees buckle under me, and Stewart helps to steady me. “It’ll be all right,” he says, although it seems more like he’s telling that to himself. “There’s nothing you can do about it, so don’t be nervous.”
And he’s right. Whether Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin, I don’t have a choice. So I muster up the last reserves of my courage, trying to stand steadfast as the oak door swings open and reveals a tall witch in emerald robes.
A/N
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling, The Prince’s Tale, page 536, UK edition
** Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling, The Prince’s Tale, page 538, UK edition
Here's the second chapter! I hope I've given Remus enough chance to air his opinions, and I hope I've managed to keep everyone in character. I'd really love for you guys to give me comments and reviews, even if you utterly detest this story, because we as authors need to know what readers think of our story. :D