Young

It had been raining the night before. Murky puddles laid spread across the pavement and car lights glistened in the downpour. It was a shame that the weather had to be so miserable on the first day of school, but maybe things would get better through the day.

Before he had left, his Mum had reminded him to behave well. What a silly thing to say! Of course James would behave. He always did. Well, most of the time anyway. James was a good kid for the most part, but he just had the tendency to get ahead of himself at times. He could be too eager or too chatty which often landed him in trouble. Plus, if things didn’t seem right, he was perfectly fine with calling people out on it. He wasn’t scared and usually, nor was Peter.

Speaking of, Peter stood on the opposite side of the road, umbrella in hand and waving wildly. The two had planned to meet up to walk together for at least the first day. If they fell out of tune afterwards, that was that but they wanted to stick together to begin with.

Jame gave a small wave back and looked around for cars. None.

“Hey mate! Gosh, that suits you better tha— well, better than me I guess,” Peter laughed placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder and shifting the umbrella over so they could share. James gave a small smile. The nerves were getting to him more now. Things felt too real being with Peter, both in the uniform and bags on their shoulders.

“Come on. Better get movin’,” James mumbled pushing Peter forwards. They certainly didn’t want to be late on their first day.

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Lily was already by the school stood with Hestia, Charity and Marlene. The three girls seemed quite excited about the day but as he approached, James could see the worry on their faces. All the other kids around seemed bubbly and happy in their groups. Some were riding on their bikes, some were stood around on their phones and some were just talking like James’ friends.

“Oh my gosh! Hi, hi. Oh my— are you nervous? Gosh, isn’t this exciting,” Lily asked bouncing on her feet and shaking her hands. Peter nodded keenly along to her words.

“Yes yes! Gosh, isn’t this cool? Aren’t we cool?” Peter had a wide smile on his face which was seemed only slightly larger than Lily’s if that was even possible.

Lily and Peter continued to cheerily chat about what the year would have in store for them and Charity watched on with a small smile playing on her lips.

“How are you feeling?” James asked the three girls who each turned to look at him slowly.

“Just fine,” Marlene muttered in response before turning back to looking at whatever it was she had been looking at before. Hestia shrugged.

“Nervous. Pretty nervous. You?” James shrugged back.

“About the same.” Hestia nodded and turned to talk with Marlene.

“I’m pretty alright. I know at least one boy in my form and he’s a good friend. I’ll introduce you at break, yeah?” Charity said. James nodded. It was good she knew someone who wasn’t from Fawnhill. Everyone there had been close given that they were all stuck in a class since the age of three, but people hardly crossed groups. There were the kids who played football, the girl girls, James and his friends and then Wilhelm. Marlene was one of the only people, apart from Alice Fortescue, who would go between groups and was friends with most people. It was nice to see Marlene talking with others especially after what happened in year three.

“There he is now! I’ll see you—hey!” Charity pulled at Lily’s shoulder making her and Peter turn to listen. “I’ll see you at break or maybe a bit before if possible, yeah?” Charity smiled at them all before people started saying and waving her goodbye as she turned and left to meet her friend.

Just as James turned to talk with Hestia some more, what sounded like a whisper of a lady’s voice cut through the chatter and people began to walk towards the gate.

“Come on! Come through!” James thought he heard her say. Glancing over, he noticed a fairly old looking lady with a long, dark green dress.

“We better make a move then, eh?” Peter said with a slightly smaller yet more worried smile on his face. James tried to mimic him but he as fairly sure he failed.

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A few weeks prior, everyone had been sent a letter stating their house and their form group. Unfortunately for James, he hadn’t been put into a form with any of his friends, but he shared a house with Lily, Marlene and Peter apparently. He wasn’t too sure, but he’d heard that Alice was in the same house as him too. At least they would be together in that regard.

For now though, he was by himself looking for his form room. They had been given a map on their way through the gate and he had the room number he needed written on his hand but he was fairly certain he had gone the wrong way. Every corridor seemed to look the same in his panic and the more he looked, the more panicked he became. The beige brick walls and the colourful posters all seemed to meld together into a weird, brown tone and ground twisted and twirled in the corner of his eyes.

“You alright there?” a voice cut through. Looking around, James spotted a boy with short, curly brown hair with a blue tie stood behind him with an awkwardly outstretched hand.

“Hm? Oh yeah, yeah,” James replied shaking his head. The corridor began to stretch apart, the walls returning to their previous beige and the posters standing out more with their shapes and slogans popping.

“You look lost.”

“Oh, well, I am a bit.”

“Oh. Me too.” They both stood there in silence for a few moments longer. The boy seemed to have a smile creeping upon his face but James couldn’t tell if it was growing, shrinking or staying the same size. It was odd. This boy seemed odd. Well, no weirder than his friends. His tie was secured to his shirt with a safety pin and he had a couple of rings on his fingers. He mustn’t have been past many teachers or he’d have taken them off by now.

Before James could even react, the boy had grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him off down the corridor.

“What form are you? What house?” the boy asked cheerily.

“I— well, I’m in… K-P-R? Their form?”

“Oh! Me too! We can go together then.” James couldn’t quite see the boy’s face anymore but he could hear the smile in his voice. It was actually quite impressive to James. Just moments ago he had been upset, lost and confused and now he was smiling and talking to this new boy who had found him.

“What’s your name as well by the way? You never said.” James couldn’t keep calling him “the boy” forever.

“Benjy Fenwick. And you?”

“James Potter.”

“Awesome! Are we friends?” James smiled to himself. Benjy was lovely.

“If that’s alright with you.” Benjy turned back to look at James with the widest grin James and ever seen, even wider than Lily and Peter this morning.

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James and Benjy found the room they needed and saw the name “Mr K Prescott” written on a poster on the door. Benjy peeked through the window and nodded to James.

“There’s people there. I think we’ve found it,” he said before knocking on the door twice and nudging it open enough to poke his head through.

“May I help you?” the man, presumably Mr Prescott, asked.

“Yeah…me and my friend got a bit lost lookin’ for our form. Is this it?” James watched as his head bobbed past the doorframe to look around the room a bit more.

“Well, come in. Bring your friend in with you. Let’s see if this is where you should be…what’s your name?”

“Benjy Fenwick.”

“And your friend?” Benjy turned back to look at James as he came through the door and he leant in to whisper, “Tell him your name.”

“James Potter,” James said meekly. Mr Prescott seemed like quite a tall man even though he was hunched over his desk on his laptop. His classroom certainly had a comfortable atmosphere with lots of posters on the wall talking about different literary techniques and different Shakespeare characters.

“Yes, yes. You too should be here, take a seat. I thought I recognised a Fenwick,” he laughed. It was slightly awkward, but James could tell he was trying hard to be kind to them both and get this interruption out of the way for the rest of the class.

“Well, where were we…” Mr Prescott continued standing up straight from his desk and drumming his hands on his thighs as James and Benjy made their way to two available seats right next to each other. Benjy sat down beside a girl who he waved at and smiled and James sat at the end of a row and placed his bag beside the table leg.

“This is Emma. Emma Vanity,” Benjy said nudging James’ elbow, “We went to the same primary school.” James nodded and smiled hello. Emma gave a small smile back before turning to pay attention to whatever Mr Prescott was talking about.

This wasn’t too bad. He’d made it to his form and made a friend in the process. He wasn’t alone. This wasn’t too bad. He was still shivering slightly with nerves but this wasn’t too bad. This really wasn’t all that bad.

Time passed with them sitting in the form room and alternating between chatting amongst themselves and getting to know each other, listening to Mr Prescott and writing down little quizzes and facts. It was actually a lot of fun and James had hardly realised so much time had passed until the bell rang and Mr Prescott announced it was break time.

“I’ll meet you all just outside the library which you can find on your map. Until then, bye bye! Enjoy your break!” Just as he said it, people began clambering out of their seats and grabbing their bags in order to get out of the room first. An eruption of chatter filled the room along with excited giggles and the scraping of chairs against table legs. James, Benjy and Emma took their time leaving, waiting for the rush to die down first.

“We know our way out, don’t we?” Benjy laughed to James. James smiled but Emma didn’t seem to get the joke.

Together, the three walked through the corridors and out into a fairly shaded area with plenty of trees. There weren’t any benches but people seemed to be making their own picnic blankets out of their blazers.

“Should we settle here or go somewhere else? This place is quite nice…” Emma said and Benjy nodded along before turning to James.

“What d’you think?” James stopped to think. He had said he would meet with Charity and the others at break time, but they never actually agreed on a place to meet and they hardly knew their way around. How could James even find them?

“Actually, I did promise my friends I’d meet them at break,” James said slowly. He really didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings and to his surprise, Benjy didn’t even flinch.

“Oh cool! Can we come with you? We were gonna meet Emmeline too,” Emma smiled to him. She could tell that James felt bad. James knew it. James smiled back at her.

“Sure. I don’t really know where to find them though.”

“Don’t worry about it. We don’t know where Emmeline is either. We can search together,” Benjy said as he draped an arm round James’ shoulders and pulled him off with Emma following next to them.

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“James! James!” James heard a boy yell and he turned around slightly to look. He didn’t recognise the voice but was willing to check either way. As he turned, he saw a boy with blonde curly hair and glasses running towards him with a wide, toothy grin plastered onto his face. Peter.

“Pete!” he shouted back and ran to meet him, wriggling out from Benjy’s arm.

“Gosh, mate, made new friends already? Gosh,” Peter panted clearly out of breath from legging it down a path. James, Benjy and Emma had made their way out from the shaded area a few moments ago and had instead opted to walk to a path towards what they could only assume was a basketball court.

“Yeah, yeah. Oh, this Benjy,” James gestured to Benjy who waved to Peter and Peter waved back, “and this is Emma.” Emma flashed a smile and Peter waved.

“Well, do you want to come with me? Lily and Charity sent me to look for you?”

“Oh, yeah sure,” James said turning around to look at Benjy and Emma.

“Can we come too?” Emma asked and Peter nodded. Together, the four of them walked back through the shady area and through the long corridor that Benjy and James had ran through earlier all the way out to a small courtyard with a couple of benches and a large willow tree in the centre. It was beautiful with small daisies scattered across the ground growing beside dandelions and small birds fluttering past.

Just beneath the willow tree sat Lily, Marlene, Charity and another boy that James didn’t recognise. Lily spotted the four as they approached and beamed.

“Oh hello! How’ve you been?” Lily asked as they made themselves comfortable on the grass. Peter ran around to sit in what James assumed was his original space where he leant on the tree and sat between Lily and Marlene.

“Good, good. Well, I got a bit lost on my way to form,” James chuckled.

“And I see you’ve made some friends?”

Benjy and Emma introduced themselves to the group and Charity’s friend, Edmund, introduced himself as well. They all spoke amongst themselves about what their forms were like and what they had done and what they had been told. Lily and Charity knew most of the group’s information about the school and told the others about the house system. Gryffindor was red, Hufflepuff was yellow, Ravenclaw was blue and Slytherin was green. Each house was lead by one teacher who people could go to if they needed help or to report something and they would look after them. The colour of someone’s tie was also equivalent to what house they were in. James had a red tie so he took that to mean he was in Gryffindor along with Peter, Marlene and Lily.

“We’ll have an assembly before lunch. They’ll probably tell you about it then,” Lily shrugged as the bell rang and everyone got up. Surprisingly, James and his friends were the only people in the little courtyard.

“Library, right?” James asked turning to Emma. She nodded and with that, they left for form time.

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The whole form were waiting outside the library by the time James, Emma and Benjy arrived. Emma walked slightly ahead with Benjy whilst James dawdled behind. He enjoyed their company and it was nice of them to include him even though they’d only known each other for less than four hours.

A small pool of guilt was gathering in the bottom of James’ stomach though the more he heard them talk about Emmeline. They’d said before that they planned on meeting her but instead they had stayed with James and his friends. James hoped she had other people to stay with and that she hadn’t spent the fifteen minutes by herself. That would be awful.

Mr Prescott was walking towards the library and fiddling with his lanyard just as they got there.

“Ah, yes, hello!” he said cheerily with a smile. James hadn’t spent much time with him yet but he could already tell that he liked him. He was welcoming and friendly and he seemed passionate about his job which was a quality not many teachers at Fawnhill had shared with him.

Mr Prescott quietened everyone down and explained that they would go to form for an hour before they made their way down to the assembly hall before lunch. A short murmur rang through everyone as they thought of what it could be about before Mr Prescott clapped his hands and told everyone to follow him and with that, people began to move.