Famous
The Covenshires arrived at the station early for once. Aylie had her trunk packed and in the hallway before 8 o’clock that morning. When her younger brother Max was dragging his feet coming to breakfast, his hair sticking up and still in his Tutshill Tornadoes pajamas, Aylie had yelled at him. “You are not making us late today! We’ll drag you to King’s Cross in your pajamas if we have to, but we’re getting there on time!”
Her mother had scolded her for yelling, but Aylie’s words had the desired effect on Max. By nine-thirty, everyone was dressed and ready to go. The Covenshires enjoyed a leisurely drive from Godric’s Hollow to King’s Cross station.
Once they were all on the platform, her father took Aylie’s trunk from her and stashed it on the scarlet train. Aylie’s older sister Tess was right behind him with her own trunk. Their mother was looking teary-eyed, which only made Aylie irritated. She broke away from her family and wandered a little down the platform, looking for her friend Vicky.
Instead, out of the crowd came one of Tess’ friends, Pauline Langlet, wearing a grey beret and a wide, flowing green scarf the exact same shade as her eyes. Pauline opened her arms and swept Aylie into a warm embrace. “Oh my gosh, Aylie! You’re eleven, now! You finally get to come with us to Hogwarts!”
“Hello. Yes, I do. You look smashing, by the way, like always.”
“Oh, thank you, sweetie. You look adorable yourself. You are going to be the queen of your little dormitory.”
Tess came over to them, and the older girls embraced. They were quickly joined by Morwena Felwich, and the MacDougal sisters, Rhiannon and Shona. Morwena’s long grey wool coat was still buttoned up, but Aylie noticed very fashionable black boots on her feet. Rhiannon wore black slacks and shoes under her coat. She was looking more and more like a boy every day.
Aylie got a hug from Morwena, and two more from Rhiannon and Shona. Like Aylie, Shona was in her school uniform already. Her orange hair was piled up on the top of her head. “See you around, okay?” said Shona. “Good luck with sorting!”
Aylie wandered farther away from Tess’ friends, and finally spotted her friend Vicky – pale face, blue eyes, long red hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Vicky smirked at Aylie and said, “You’re famous, Ayles.”
Aylie blushed and laughed. “I’m not famous! My sister is just super popular. Your family is famous.”
Vicky rolled her eyes. “My uncles are famous. My aunt is famous. My parents are famous-adjacent.”
Aylie looked passed Vicky to Vicky’s parents. Her father was tall and handsome, and her mother, with shiny blond hair and smooth pale cheeks, was magazine model beautiful. Several boys came up to Vicky’s dad and shook his hand.
“They look famous enough to me,” said Aylie.
A few young boys ran by, playing some game, obvious to the crowds and the nearby train. A tall boy, sporting a silver P badge on his cloak, scolded them and sent them back to their parents.
The little boys held no interest for these young girls, however. It was the tall, older boys who held their gaze. There were so many of them! Square-jawed, confident, strutting walks, shaking hands with other boys and giving hugs to the girls.
The tallest, most handsome of these older boys, looking dapper in a grey coat and a yellow and black scarf, stopped in mid-stride and looked at Aylie and Vicky. He smiled, and, in a voice that was much deeper than the last time Aylie had heard it, said, “Is that Aylie Covenshire?”
Aylie blushed and grinned. “Yes. Hello.”
The boy set a hand briefly on her shoulder. “Do you remember me?”
“I do.” Aylie’s voice squeaked as she spoke. “We went caroling that one time with my sister’s friends.”
“Indeed. And now here you are, heading to Hogwarts for the first time. How exciting!”
She let out a high-pitched giggle and then said, “This is my friend, Vicky.”
The boy stuck out his hand, and Vicky boldly shook it. “Philip Harkenborough, at your service,” he said.
“Are you a prefect?” asked Vicky.
“No, but I’m as good as one,” said Philip. “If you need anything at all, ask, and I will help you, or find someone who can.”
Philip moved on, towards Tess and her friends. Vicky rolled her eyes again and said, “See, Ayles? You’re way more famous than I am.”
Aylie and Vicky were not the only ones to notice Philip. Many of the Hogwarts witches had harbored secret crushes on the soft-spoken, polite boy from Hufflepuff, the dashing Seeker with his sports car of a broom. Now that his voice had deepened and he was taller even than his friends Liam and Michael, they positively swooned over him. As Lara had long ago predicted it would, Philip’s time had come.
No one was less aware of his change in status, however, than Philip himself. Despite his obvious growth and maturity, in his mind he was still the thin and sickly boy he had been at eleven. It was one thing to speak confidently to a couple of young First Year witches. It was quite another to walk into a group of his peers and greet the girl he loved above all others. He steeled his nerves and walked towards them.
Rhiannon was the first to notice him. She gave Philip a firm hug. “Ready for NEWT classes?” she asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Morwena greeted him next. “Philip. How wonderful to see you.”
“Yes. You as well. I heard you had a busy summer.”
“I did have a busy summer. And, I expect that this year will be quite busy, too.”
“I hear you’ve been elected Prefect Coordinator. Congratulations.”
“Thank you. I’ve already asked Wren to partner with me. I suppose you knew that, too.”
“I did. It’s a good decision.”
“Thank you.”
Tess gave him a quick hug and said, “I saw you talking to Aylie.”
“Yes. She remembered me.”
“Of course, she did. She was so excited when you caught the Snitch last year, even though it meant we lost the game. She let everyone know that she knew you and that you had always been kind to her.”
Now, he was gazing into Pauline’s sparkling green eyes. He felt his throat tighten, and all words left his mind.
“Hullo, Hark,” she said. “How was your summer?”
“Um, fine thanks. Yours?”
“Oh, I had some fun,” she said. “But I miss you guys! I miss doing magic!”
Philip wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked, how he hoped to work with her on school projects and get to know her better, how he wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her. Instead, he gazed stupidly ahead and nodded.
And then she was gone, off to talk to someone else.
It was eleven o’clock. The students boarded the train. Aylie got a weepy hug from her mother, which thoroughly embarrassed her. Her only consolation was that Vicky got a similar hug from her mother. The pair found some other First Year girls to sit with, and they were soon chatting happily away.
After a quick lunch, Jim and Q made their way up to one of the front compartments for Prefect Orientation. Waiting for them was Morwena Felwich and Liam Wren. When all the new prefects had assembled, Morwena began. “Good afternoon, everyone. I am Prefect Coordinator this year. I asked my colleague Wren to say a few words to you as well. First, there’s a little activity I would like you to do, something that I personally found very helpful when I did it last year. I want all of you to look around the room and “bury the hatchet,” as we say. There are some here that you may not be on terribly good terms with. But it is important as prefects that we work together. When you are in your capacity as a prefect, you need to be working as a team, without any of inter-House rivalries and jealousies getting in the way. So please, go around the room and greet your fellow prefects.”
Before Q or James could do or say anything at all, Gurpreet Kaur came up to Q and shook her hand. Gurpreet’s long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her eyes were dark brown, and her eyelashes were long and curled. Leaning close and speaking softly, Gurpreet said, “I must say, Claire, I’ve admired you from a far for all these years. You’re so confident in yourself. I’m so glad you’re a prefect like me. I hope we get to work together.”
“Thanks.” Q was taken aback. She had not said more than a few words to Gurpreet in the last four years. The two shared a quick hug.
Morwena beamed with pride at the exchange between the two girls. “This is precisely what we were hoping to accomplish. Don’t you agree, Wren?”
“Absolutely,” said Liam.
Morwena went over the rules that the prefects were expected to enforce. When she got to the part about “over-amorous couples,” she looked pointedly at Liam, who said, “I must admit, I can be a rather bad example o’ that.” The others laughed.
“Now,” continued Morwena, “I know there was an unfortunate incident between the Slytherins and the Gryffindors at the end of last term. The Slytherins certainly have their share of the blame for it. But we really must put that sort of thing behind us. We need to work together as an effective team.”
“We’re still competitors,” said Liam. “We compete for House points and on the Quidditch pitch. But as prefects, we’re on the same team.”
“To that end,” said Morwena, “in the spirit of Inter-House cooperation, we are sending you out, two and two, a boy and a girl, Slytherins with Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs with Ravenclaws.”
This meant Jim was paired with Gurpreet. “There’s a certain Slytherin boy I’d like to check in with,” said Jim. “He needs to know who his new prefects are.”
“I think that would be a splendid idea,” said Morwena. “The two of you should go there straight away.”
With some guidance from his wand, Jim and Gurpreet found the compartment where Reginald Dennison and his crew were sitting. Jim knocked once and then slid the door open.
“This compartment’s full!” shouted Dennison. He was sitting in the middle of the bench, between Jason Carter and Freddy Jones. Aiden Thompson and Terrell Reese were sitting opposite.
“I’m not here to sit with you, Dennison,” said Jim, coldly.
“What do you want, then?” Dennison noticed the badges and said, “Oh, you’re prefects, now. Harassing me, before we even get to school?”
“I thought you’d like to know who your prefects are,” said Jim. “Well, here’s two for starters – me, and my friend Gurpreet of Gryffindor. We’re not harassing you – not yet, anyways – but we’ve got our eye on you.”
“You should show a little more deference,” snapped Gurpreet, “after the crap you pulled at the end of last term!”
Dennison gave Gurpreet a look of revulsion. Jim stepped up and pushed a finger into Dennison’s chest. “Keep your racist thoughts in your head!” said Jim. The two boys glared at one another. Dennison was the first to look away. “I cannot wait to bust you for something,” said Jim. The two prefects backed out of the compartment and into the corridor.
“Sorry about that,” said Jim. “That look he gave you made my blood boil.”
“It’s happened before. It’s nice when someone steps up and says something.” She beamed up at Jim. “I love the way you and David treat Claire. You’ve been so sweet and supportive of her.”
“Yeah,” said Jim. “I’ve got a little sister. Dave has a big sister and a little sister. And, Q has a little brother. So, Q just slid into the role as sister for us. She bosses us around, makes sure our ties are straight and our hair is combed. Makes sure we have quills and parchment.”
Gurpreet laughed at this. “Claire – Q – has a brother?”
“Not at Hogwarts. Neither is my little sister.”
“Not …? Oh.”
“Slytherin House is tough enough without that kind of thing getting around. We keep it buttoned up, show a united front. We take care of each other.”
“You know? One of those boys in there with Dennison? I think he was in the party this summer, looking for the book!”
“He was. Aiden Thompson. His sister is a prefect for Ravenclaw.”
“But what if he tells Dennison what we were up to?”
“He’ll probably have to tell the punk something. Don’t worry about it. He’s one of us. Thompson’s our spy.”
Gurpreet, thinking he was joking, laughed and asked, “Your Severus Snape?”
“Exactly. And Umberto’s the spy master. ‘Berto has spies everywhere. Very little happens at Hogwarts without him knowing about it.”
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
“Did you hear the rumour last year, that Avery Nott of Gryffindor was two-timing his girlfriend, seeing a Ravenclaw girl on the side?”
“Avery was furious about that! He swore it wasn’t true.”
“We knew it wasn’t. We had Avery and Brynn under surveillance. The meetings between them were completely innocuous, related to a class assignment. A Potions project, I think it was. They were study partners.”
“You were watching them?”
“We watch all the interesting pairs. Then, we traced the rumour back to its source. We know who started it and why.”
“Who did it?”
Jim shook his head. “Not important. It won’t happen again. The individual in question was …chastised. Morwena and Umberto are keen to keep the peace between Slytherin and Gryffindor this year. That’s why Morwena paired us up. That’s why we’re keeping Dennison on a tight leash. Nothing like that postgame brawl will happen this year.”
“That’s good.”
“Is there anyone you wanted to check on? As a prefect? Patrick Wren, maybe?”
“Patrick Wren. Yes, that is an excellent idea.”
Gurpreet and Jim spent the day patrolling the train cars and talking. Afterwards, they repeatedly requested to go on patrols together. By the end of the second week of school, they were officially a couple.
It was not the first time a Gryffindor girl was swept off her feet by a sophisticated, debonair Slytherin boy. Such partners are all the more alluring because they are seemingly off-limits.
Aiden Thompson was the only one who noticed – Gurpreet had begun to fall for Jim after Jim had defended her against Dennison’s racism. Love had undone the evil that Dennison had attempted. The Doom of Guishar was at work.