September 1st, 1971
Remus has never really left the house much, even before he was bit. There had been complications during his birth that led to his parents being constantly paranoid of him going out and getting sick. That paranoia shifted away from sickness, as one could imagine.
As Remus walks with his mother into King’s Cross Station, arms linked and his trolley being pulled behind them, he can’t help but admire the architecture around him. He loves all the arches incorporated anywhere possible, even the windows.
Normally he would’ve found it embarrassing to walk arm in arm with his mother, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell her no right now. Not after she’s worked so hard these last few months, adapting to parenting and running a home all on her own. Remus wanted to be as easy and compliant as he could possibly be for her, and if that meant something as small as letting her link their arms as she walked him to the train for his first day at school then so be it.
“How do we get to the platform on the ticket, Mam?” Remus looks over at her, he’s rather tall for an eleven year old. Hope isn’t a very short woman, about average, but Remus already stands just above her shoulder at his full height, “I didn’t think Platform 9 ¾ was a thing.”
“Lyall told me about it around the time we met. He said you’ve gotta walk at the pillar between 9 and 10,” she tells him. Over the course of the last month or so, she’s stopped referring to him as “your father” when talking about him with Remus, instead calling him by name. Lyall. Remus, of course doesn’t mention to her that he’s noticed, “Not to worry, cariad, I’ll do it with you, ready?”
As they approach the aforementioned pillar, Remus takes a deep breath and nods. Together, they pick up the pace towards it, not quite running, Remus is too achy for that. The next full is only a few days away after all. He closes his eyes and expects to collide with solid brick. When he opens his eyes, he’s met with the sight of a whole other train station.
The train itself is painted a brilliant red color with the words “Hogwarts Express” on the front of the steam engine. Remus looks around to see countless families all dressed in floor length robes that he’s only ever seen when his father had a meeting at work. A lot of the other kids his age were in the middle of very tearful goodbyes. One boy across the platform is wrapped in a bear hug that he seems to want no part of while his mother cries in a language Remus doesn’t recognise.
Remus is pulled from his thoughts by his mother unlinking her arm from his, her hands coming up to hold his face. “I will miss you, cariad,” she says.
“I’ll miss you too, Mam,” he replies, giving her a small smile in an attempt to comfort as she begins to tear up.
“I’m sorry,” she removes a hand from his face to wipe her own tears, “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.”
He smiles at her and takes both her hands in his, “It’s okay, Mam, I’ll miss you too.”
She immediately takes back her hands and wraps him in a tight hug that Remus has no issue reciprocating.
After a minute or so she pulls back and holds him at arm’s length, one hand playing with his hair, “Remember what the letter said, yeah? After you get settled you find that Minerva Mc-Whatever woman-”
“McGonagall”
“-and she’ll take you to meet the flower lady-”
“Madame Poppy Pomfrey”
“-and they’ll tell you what to do on sunday.”
“I know, Mam, I will.”
“And you’ll write me as much as possible.”
“Yes, Mam.”
As if on cue, the train whistle sounds, indicating the train will depart soon. Hope lets go of Remus and swats at him, shooing him away. “Get the hell out of here before you make me cry more,” she tells him.
Remus chuckles in return. “Bye, Mam! See you at Christmas!” he calls behind him.
“Just get the hell out of here you scoundrel!” she exclaims with a smile on her face.
As Remus walks off towards the train he spots a girl that looks his age. Her long black hair is cascading halfway down her back as she hugs a little boy that looks almost exactly like her. What Remus assumes to be their parents, due to how alike they look to their kids, are paying no mind to the children, opting to mingle with the other posh looking adults as the little boy cried in the girl’s arms.
Peter had been on Platform 9 ¾ before when his sister attended Hogwarts, but that was ages ago. She was a Hufflepuff. Peter assumes he’ll either follow in her footsteps or get sorted into Ravenclaw like his mum. He doesn’t know what house his dad was in. Mum doesn’t like to talk about him much.
Despite it having been years since Peter has stepped foot on the platform, it looks exactly how he remembers. He even remembers all the crying. Though in his memories, the tears did not come from his best friend’s mother.
Peter’s goodbyes to his mum and sister had been long over but James was still trapped in Effie’s arms, crying to him in Hindi while Monty tried to coax her into letting him go.
It’s quite the scene. They’re drawing more attention than the Blacks, which is really saying something. They can silence a room just by entering. But now, as Peter looks around, more eyes are on the Potters than Orion and Walburga. It makes Peter nervous just existing near them. He wants to just get on the train and hide from it all but he can’t just leave James like that.
Eventually, the whistle blows and Enid speaks up. “Come on, Effie, let the poor boy go. ‘E’s gonna be late if you keep ‘im like that,” she says.
“Oh you’re right,” Effie whines as she wipes some tears from her face, finally letting go of James, “The house is going to be so empty without my baby boy.”
“Mum, it’s just school, I’m not dying!” James protests.
“Even still,” Monty chimes in, “you call us through the mirror as soon as you’re settled, understood?”
“And write us everyday!” Effie looks as though she’s trying not to cry again. Peter’s grateful his mum and sister aren’t this hysterical. In fact, they look like they want to have left five minutes ago.
Finally, James frees himself from his mother’s grasp and he rushes to get on the train with Peter, waving to their families as the Hogwarts Express pulls out of the station.
Lily had no idea what was going on. She was struggling to adjust to all the strange new things around her. Her first trip to Diagon Alley was overwhelming to say the least. Platform 9 ¾ was still a large culture shock, but not as bad as Diagon Alley.
She was supposed to be happy. She’s starting a whole new chapter of her life. She doesn’t feel happy. She feels rather empty. Petunia wouldn’t even look at her on the platform.
“Pay her no mind,” Grammy’s voice rings in Lily’s mind, “you just worry about starting your new school.”
Lily had waved goodbye to the five of them from the window as the train pulled away. Petunia still wouldn’t look her way. Lily walks down the hallway, peering into compartments, looking for an empty one. There weren’t any. She waited too long to get on the train. She comes across a compartment with two kids that looked her age. One’s a boy, she can’t tell if the other one is a boy or a girl. They look like they’re in the middle of a debate so Lily passes them by. The next compartment only has one person in it so she decides to open the door.
“Do you mind if I join you?” she asks, “I can’t find any empty compartments.”
The other person, a boy her age with black hair that fell in his eyes, looks her up and down. “I suppose,” he replies slowly.
Lily grins at him and takes the seat across from him. “Thank you,” she says, “I’m Lily.”
The boy hesitates for a few moments, as if debating whether or not he wants to engage in conversation before he answers, “Severus.”
Regulus had to be pried from Sirius’ arms in order to get them to separate when the whistle blew. Sirius didn’t bother crowding the windows to wave goodbye. He knew Orion and Walburga left with Regulus the moment he stepped foot on the train.
Sirius roams the hallway, finds one of the last empty compartments and lounges across one of the benches. He watches as the scenery outside fades from city to countryside.
After a few minutes of blissful silence, the door slides open. Sirius looks over to see a boy in muggle jeans and a jumper with mousy brown hair. His upper lip has a scar stretching towards the corner of his nose. There was another one above his left eyebrow, barely visible through his hair but Sirius notices anyway.
“Sorry, everywhere else is full, do you mind?” The boy asks. He has a nice voice. Sirius wouldn’t mind being friends with this boy. He’s almost certain he isn’t pureblood, but how would his parents know if he did befriend this boy?
“No, I don’t,” Sirius replies, “come sit”
“Cheers,” the boy says.
“I’m Sirius”
“Serious about what?”
“What? No, like the star.”
“What star?”
Sirius is reconsidering that thought about befriending this boy. Is he stupid? Definitely not pureblood.
“Are you daft?” Sirius asks incredulously.
“Are you?” the boy retorts, “Do you know how english works?”
Sirius’ head is starting to hurt from this conversation. He looks at the boy as if he just said he’s secretly Princess Diana.
“...What?”
“What?" the boy responds in a heartbeat.
Sirius shakes his head, deciding to leave it at that and move on.
“...So what’s your name then?” he asks.
“I’m Remus.”
That just frustrates Sirius.
“How can you make fun of my name when you’ve got one like Remus?!”
Sirius watches as the puzzle pieces click together in the other boy’s, Remus’, head.
“...Your name is Serious?!”
“Yes?!”
“...How do you spell that?”
“S-i-r-i-u-s.”
“Oh, like the star.”
“...You’re gonna make me go grey before I’m thirteen.” Either that or tear my own hair out, Sirius thinks.
Before Remus can respond, the compartment door slides open again. On the other side is a bespectacled boy with a pudgy blonde boy close behind him. Thanks to the extensive studying of pureblood families forced upon him all his life, Sirius assumed they must be a Potter and a Pettigrew.
The Potter boy was the one to speak, Pettigrew looked terrified at the thought of intruding, “Hi, I’m James, this is Peter. Could we join you both?”
Sirius considered for a moment, “My parents would go mad if they knew I was socializing blood traitors.” He grins, “Come on in!”
This was enough for James to grin in return and take a seat next to Remus. Peter had a mild look of fear as he sat next to Sirius, he must recognize Sirius, but Remus looked confused. Sirius had barely spent five minutes with this boy but he could already tell that the next thing to come out of Remus’ mouth was going to cause a headache inducing conversation.
“What’s a blood traitor?” Remus asks.
“So you are an idiot,” Sirius retorts.
Remus glares at him as James chimes in, “What’s your name? Are you a half blood? Or a muggleborn?”
“I’m Remus and I don’t know what either of those are.”
“Oh. Well, are your parents magic?”
“Just Dad.”
“So you’re a half blood!” James exclaims as if he’s just met Mary Poppins.
Remus’ expression shifts to one of deep thought, “So, based on that, I assume a Muggle is a non-magical person, meaning a muggleborn would be born to muggles. What’s it called if someone is born to two magical parents?”
“That’s a pureblood,” Peter squeaks, “That’s what the three of us are. It’s really just the most ancient pureblood houses that use the term ‘blood traitor.’ It’s someone that has gone against pureblood nature like socializing or courting someone with muggle blood.”
“So,” Remus starts, turning to Sirius, “wouldn’t that make you a blood traitor? Since you’re willingly associating yourself with me?”
Sirius didn’t think about that. He opens his mouth to reply but ends up pursing his lips, not sure how to respond to that.
He’s saved from the embarrassment by James, the lovely boy. “What’s your name anyway?”
“James-” Sirius watches as Peter makes an exasperated expression. Sirius is pretty sure he made that face at Remus not ten minutes ago. He realizes James must be to Peter what Remus is to Sirius.
Sirius turns to James, “I’m Sirius.”
He watches as shock and something akin to excitement crosses James’ face. “Sirius? Like Sirius Black?!”
Remus looks at Sirius with disappointment and disgust. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re some kind of snobby celebrity,” he borderline whines.
“He’s the heir to the most ancient and noble pureblood house in Britain!” James exclaims.
“So what?” Remus replies, “His family is all magic so suddenly he’s the fifth Beatle? He’s just a kid like the rest of us.”
Remus’ words struck something in Sirius. No one had ever said something like that about him. All his life he had been put on display, been treated like he could do no wrong, like he was the most important person in the room. It has its benefits, Sirius loves attention, but he doesn’t always enjoy it. This half blood boy, Remus, is like a breath of fresh air. Sirius didn’t know it yet, but this would stick with him for the rest of his life.