Ted, Katrina, and Lily Evans stood staring at the barrier between platforms nine and ten at King’s Cross Station. From their expressions, one would guess that they expected it to disappear under their gaze. To tell the truth, they half did.
“Er, Lily, do you know how exactly we’re supposed to get to this Platform Nine and Three Quarters?” Mr. Evans asked his daughter for about the twelfth time.
“No Dad, it didn’t say anything in the letter,” Lily explained for about the twelfth time.
Lily noticed that a couple with a child her age was standing some feet away, whispering and occasionally looking her way. She had barely enough time to take in that the two adults were a little elderly and the boy good looking, with untidy black hair, hazel eyes and glasses. The gentleman stepped up to her and said, with the air of one asking a password, “Who is Albus Dumbledore?”
Lily responded promptly. “Albus Dumbledore; Order of Merlin, First Class; Grand Sorcerer; Chief Warlock; Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards; and Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Why?”
All three of the people were taken aback, and Lily wondered if she had said the wrong thing. Then the boy’s father (or grandfather, or whoever he was) smiled broadly.
“Thought you might’ve been, from the way you were staring down the barrier. That’s not how you get through, you know.”
“Might’ve been what? Get through where? And who are you?” Lily asked, blushing at her rudeness. It was the boy who answered her questions while their parents moved off to talk.
“Get through the barrier to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. We’re the Potters. I’m James, and these are my parents. And are you or are you not,” he arched one eyebrow without shifting his gaze at Lily, “a Muggle-born witch?”
“Yes, I am,” said Lily, not exactly sure if this was an insult. “Is there a problem with that?”
“Not to me, but I think you’ll find it’s not that way with some others,” James answered. “Well, it seems as if our parents are having a good time,” he said, raising his voice so that both sets of parents would be sure to hear, “as we miss the Hogwarts Express.”
Both mothers blushed and both fathers yelled, “You have fifteen minutes!” at the same time. Lily and James grinned at each other.
“Parents,” he sighed, “are ever so predictable.”
Lily couldn’t help but see the truth in this.
“So how do you get onto the platform?” she asked. James waggled a finger at her.
“That is a closely guarded secret. If I tell you, I’d have to kill you.”
He laughed as Lily blanched. “Only joking. You just walk straight through the barrier and voila! You’re there!”
Doubt was etched in every feature of Lily’s face, which was as James thought, extraordinarily pretty.
“Seriously, that’s how you do it,” he assured her. “Watch and learn.”
He strode over to his parents (Lily couldn’t help but notice that his walk was a bit like a strut), and then led them over to the barrier. He winked at Lily before breaking into a run, pushing his trolley faster and faster…and then he was gone. He and his parents had vanished completely through, it could only be assumed, the barrier. Lily drew a deep breath and walked over to her parents.
“I’m going to have a go,” she said bravely. Her parents nodded and said perhaps they should stay where they were in case only witches and wizards could get through. Lily nodded, gritted her teeth and ran at the brick barrier (which, by the way, looked very solid). Just when she knew she was about to crash into the divider and was cursing herself for taking the advice of a boy she hardly knew, the station around her melted away and was replaced by a notably different station, one which had one platform, Nine and Three Quarters.
Her eyes widened as she saw hundreds of people in robes of varying colors milling around the train. The train itself was nice, as trains went. It was bright scarlet and shiny, with the words Hogwarts Express emblazoned on the side.
“Told you, didn’t I?” said James from right next to her. Lily hadn’t even noticed him. “D’you want to get a compartment with me? It’s best if you sit with someone, otherwise who knows who’ll come in.”
“And you think you can protect me from whoever attempts to come in?” Lily asked, smiling slightly.
“Oh yeah,” James said in an offhand way. “Come on, all the good ones will have gone if we don’t hurry.”
Although she never would have admitted it to James, Lily was happy to be included with the word we. She thought she may just have found her first friend at Hogwarts.
“Is it all right if a couple of my mates sit wit us?” James asked Lily anxiously. “Only I already promised them I’d sit with them…”
“It’s fine,” Lily said hurriedly. She pushed her thick red hair out of her eyes and surveyed the platform outside. After a few minutes of silence, the compartment door slid open.
“Hey, Sirius!” James greeted the boy standing in the door. But Sirius’s eyes did not even flick to his friend. They were fixed intently on Lily. A second passed and Sirius let out a low whistle.
“That’s Jamesie, first day of school and he already has a girl!”
James and Lily both blushed furiously. Sirius, apparently happy with his handiwork, sat down next to James and the two immediately began catching up. Lily didn’t pay attention to most of it, and it was only when James roared with laughter that she turned her attention to the boys.
“”and then my mum, you know how she is, she drew herself up like this,” Sirius’s back immediately straightened as if a ramrod had taken the place of his spine and wrinkled his nose distastefully, “and she says, “ ‘Who has passed wind in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black?’ And then Regulus and Andromeda and I all blame it on Kreacher at the same time””
At this point, the hilarity of his story overcame Sirius and he succumbed to fits of laughter just like his friend. Occasionally he could choke out words like “dungbomb,” “Kreacher,” and “grounded.” Lily guessed that it would have been a highly amusing tale had she any knowledge of wizarding life. When James asked her how her summer had been, she replied, “All right, if you can say being called a freak by your own sister is all right.”
She then recounted the story of Petunia and the flying sock. The boys laughed just as hard as they had with Sirius’s dungbomb story.
“Inventive,” said Sirius after he regained control of his vocal cords. “Dirty socks, why didn’t we think of that?” he added to James, who shrugged and stared at Lily with new admiration.
“That sister of yours sounds like a right git,” James said more seriously. “Pity, pity.”
“What’s a pity?” Lily asked. James gave a theatrical sigh.
“That you can’t hex her until you’re seventeen,” he said regretfully.
“Why ever not?” Lily asked, looking crestfallen.
Sirius laughed. “Because you have to go to a nice big hearing about underage sorcery if you do,” he explained. Lily muttered a few choice words. Sirius whistled again.
“You are full of surprises, aren’t you?” he said. “How’d you learn those?”
“I went to public school,” Lily answered, already embarrassed at her outburst. She explained to them what that was, and they seemed appalled that people would shove her into a locker simply because she would fit. She saw James lean over and whisper something in Sirius’s ear.
“Not yet,” Sirius replied. “We don’t even know her that well.”
Mystified, Lily was about to ask what they were talking about when the door to their compartment was opened yet again.
“Mind if my friend sits with us?” said a pale, sandy haired boy that James and Sirius obviously recognized.
“Not at all, mate, not at all,” James said grandly, squishing over a bit to make room.
“Thanks,” said a small, somewhat pudgy boy that Lily had just noticed. “I’m Peter Pettigrew.”
Peter sat beside the pale boy, who introduced himself as Remus Lupin.
“Right,” Sirius said, rubbing his hands together. “This train ride is long, and I’m not going to waste it. We have to focus.”
“Anything off the trolley, dears?”
Sirius appeared to be grappling with himself. Finally he gave in, buying enough Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, Chocolate Frogs, and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans for the whole compartment. It was only after demolishing about half the supply that anyone remembered that they had a purpose. Sirius took from his trunk a list of classes, who taught them, and what made each of the teachers mad.
“My dear cousin Andromeda was kind enough to draw this list up for me,” Sirius said, flourishing the piece of parchment. “‘Teachers and What Makes the Tick’, a study of Hogwarts educators and the distraction methods that work best on them.” Sirius wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. “Kind of her, lending a hand to younger generations of troublemakers. Let’s see…
Time passes quickly when you’re plotting and eating sugary snacks, as the five of them soon found out. Before they knew it, the train had stopped and they were getting out.
“Firs’ years! Firs’ years, this way!” called a large man. Lily, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter followed a mass of students their age to a small fleet of boats on the edge of a large lake.
“No more ’n four ter a boat,” the man instructed them, taking a boat all to himself. Lily left the boys and sat with three other girls in a different boat. No one spoke as the boat lurched forward of its own accord, moving noiselessly across the glassy surface of the water.
A short time later, the giant said, pointing at a shape rising in the distance, “There’s yer firs’ view o’ Hogwarts.”
Every one of the first years gasped. As they had moved closer, the shape had been defined as a breathtaking castle, complete with towers and turrets. Many large windows were lighted with flickering lights.
“It’s beautiful,” breathed a girl in Lily’s boat.
Lily agreed. She had never seen anything half so majestic as this in her life! Hogwarts looked more like an ancient palace than a school.
The miniature boats docked on the other side of the lake and their guide, who told them to call him Hagrid, led them up to the castle and into a huge hall.
“The firs’ years, Professor McGonagall,” Hagrid said to a strict looking lady in emerald robes.
“Thank you, Hagrid,” Professor McGonagall said in an authoritative tone. Hagrid nodded at her and shuffled out of the hall.
“You will soon be walking through those doors and get Sorted into one of four Houses,” she said without preamble once students had finished wringing water out of their robes and hair, “Ravenclaw””
“A bunch of nerds,” Sirius muttered.
“”Hufflepuff””
“Well...'Dromeda makes it okay.”
“”Gryffindor””
“That’s me.”
“”or Slytherin.”
“It’d make my mum happy. There goes that.”
“Points will be awarded to your House when you answer a question correctly, win a Quidditch match, or do something that pleases your teachers. Points will be deducted for any bad behavior. At the end of the year, the House with the most points wins the House Cup. I fully expect that each of you will be good additions to the student body and represent your Houses well. The Sorting Ceremony will begin now, please follow me.”
The first years walked after her through the double doors at the end of the room and into another, bigger, hall. Five long tables were arranged inside it; four for students and one for teachers. Professor McGonagall led them through the middle of the hall, past older students craning their necks to get a good look at “this year’s batch”, and up to a stool and an old, patched hat sitting in front of the staff table. When the new students were lined up in front of it, the hat did an extraordinary thing. A large rip near its brim widened, formed and unmistakable mouth, and it began to sing.
Lily kept staring at the hat even after it was done singing. She felt herself join in the tumultuous applause coming from the older witches and wizards, as if it was perfectly normal for a hat to sing. Professor McGonagall then took a place beside the stool.
“When I call your name, please come forward and place the hat on your head. Abercrombie, Stephen!”
A small boy stumbled forward and put the hat on. It was so big that it slipped over his nose, but he didn’t seem to care. The rip widened again, and…
“HUFFLEPUFF!”
Stephen Abercrombie took the hat off and tottered off to join his housemates, who were clapping enthusiastically.
“Albernathy, Rose!”
“RAVENCLAW!”
So it proceeded, nervous-looking boys and girls jammed on the hat and were divided into one of the four Houses.
“Black, Sirius!”
Sirius sauntered up to the hat and put it on at a jaunty angle. The hat deliberated with him longer than with anyone else. Finally, it roared:
“GRYFFINDOR!”
There was a shocked silence after this pronouncement, then a thundering of applause that Sirius acknowledged with a wave of his hand and a grin. The names and faces flew by, indistinguishable, until…
“Evans, Lily!”
Lily walked forward, concentrating all her efforts on not tripping or otherwise making a fool of herself. She fixed the hat over her fiery curls and jumped almost instantly. The hat had spoken!
“Ah,” it said. “You have a fine brain, quite a lot of bravery, and do I detect stubbornness? What could be right for you?”
“I want to be in Gryffindor,” thought Lily with all her strength.
“No need to shout, I’m right here in your head. I don’t suppose you’d like Slytherin?”
“Are you joking?” Lily asked the hat.
“Yes,” it admitted. “Better be GRYFFINDOR!”
Lily sighed in relief, took off the hat and joined her fellow Gryffindors.
“Well done!” Sirius told her, a sly grin on his face. “It’ll make plotting a lot easier if we’re all in Gryffindor. I’m not worried about James; his entire family’s been in Gryffindor for ages, but you and Remus and Peter I didn’t know about.”
“We’ll find a way even if they’re not,” she assured him. Sirius winked.
“You think the right way, Evans,” he said.
“Glad to hear it.”
She and Sirius paid attention only when they knew who was being Sorted. All the rest of the time, Sirius pointed out people he knew.
“That,” he said, his upper lip curling in a sneer, “is my cousin Bellatrix.”
Lily looked where Sirius was pointing and saw a Slytherin girl with heavily lidded eyes. She was very pretty, but in a sinister sort of way, and she somehow emanated evil, even though she was only in third year.
“Oh look, Remus is getting Sorted,” Lily said, pointing to the front. The hat hesitated on his head, but only for a moment.
“GRYFFINDOR!”
“Brilliant!” cried Sirius.
After Remus came Peter, who also joined the Gryffindors. James was next, and he had barely shoved the hat on his head before it yelled, “GRYFFINDOR!”
“That’s everyone important,” said Sirius as James sat down next to him and stared hungrily at his empty plate.
Soon the last person (Zephyr, Elizabeth!) had been Sorted (SLYTHERIN!), and Albus Dumbledore stood up.
“Oh, please, no,” James groaned, his stomach groaning with him. “Not a speech…”
Professor Dumbledore appeared to understand this mentality. “I know you will not understand a single word of my well prepared oration when your stomachs are making more noise than I am.”
“Hear, hear!” Sirius and James said together. Dumbledore winked at them.
“So without further ado, let us set to our excellent feast. Tuck in!”
At the words, the golden platters before them became full to bursting with food. The boys all exchanged looks, then without reservation began to shovel down as much food as they could reach. Lily spared a second to roll her eyes at them before doing likewise, but obviously with much less food.
That night, all the Gryffindor girls were too tired to introduce themselves, or talk at all, for that matter, so they made an unspoken agreement to do so in the morning.
Lily was the first one awake the next day, but as happens with sleepovers, the rest woke within minutes. Lily spoke first.
“Hi, I’m Lily Evans, I’m Muggle-born, and I have one older sister who is a downright git. Who’s next?”
“I am,” said a girl who had been in Lily’s boat. “I’m Arya Knightley, I’m half-blood and I have one younger brother named John that I love to tease.”
“Brilliant,” said a girl with curly blond hair, giving Arya an appreciative smile. “I’m Kathleen McFarley, I’m also Muggle-born, and I have three brothers, all older, all Muggles.”
A silence followed in which everyone turned to stare at the last girl. In a hoarse whisper, she said, “You want to know my name?”
“Yeah, that’d be nice,” Arya said.
“Know then that if you repeat it to anyone, I will hex you into obliviation.”
“I for one am not about to take that risk,” Lily said. “Let’s hear it.”
“My name,” the girl said, closing her eyes in horror, “is Prunaprismia McKinnon. But call me Mia, or else.”
“Who would name their kid that?” Kathleen asked, shaking her head. “It’s like abuse!”
“My parents thought it was a ‘nice, pure-blood name’,” Mia spat in disgust. “I ask you! Apparently after they took care of my birth certificate and stuff they realized that it was a horrible thing to do.”
All three of the other girls were at this point debating whether or not to say, “Sucks to be you!” No one said it.
“How about some breakfast?” Arya suggested. “And Lily, I saw you with some boys! Care to introduce us?”
“Sure,” Lily shrugged. “Least I can do.”
The mention of boys seemed to cheer Mia up. She played with her light brown hair for almost twenty minutes, before deciding it looked best down. Then the four of them walked down to the Great Hall, three of them thinking of how best to impress the boys, and one thinking of how best to prank History of Magic.
Thanks for the Memories by tiger_lily821
Chapter Notes: Hello again everyone! Disclaimer is the same (although I wish it weren't...) The reviews made my day, this is my first fanfic! I have an English test today, so please make my day again! It needs it!!