Chapter 3
“I heard Harry Potter was in this compartment”, Draco Malfoy came in after a few hours, his nose high in the air. He was pale, with high cheekbones and stormy grey eyes, his platinum hair neatly styled, “These are Crabb and Goyle, and I am Malfoy, Draco Malfoy. And what do I see here? Hanging out with a muggleborn, a half blood and a blood traitor? You could do better, Potter”
“What did you call me?!”, Ron shot up, fists in the air. Crabb -or was it Goyle? The two chubby wizards looked extremely alike, even having the same cross eyed look to them- stepped in front of Malfoy, protecting him.
“A blood traitor, of course. Hand me down robes and red hair, you must be a weasley and what was it again that my father said about Weasleys? Oh right, piss poor, uncultured and the worst kind of blood traitor that there is”, he turned to Harry, his hand outstretched, “You will learn soon that some wizarding families are better than others. I could help you tell the right crowd from the wrong”
“I can tell who’s the wrong sort all by myself”, Harry said coldly. He didn’t know what a blood traitor was but he knew it was a bad term, just by context and Malfoy had also called them piss poor and uncultured, which were terms he did know.
“Tch- whatever, come, Crabb, Goyle, we are leaving”, Malfoy turned around and walked away, followed by his goons.
“The malfoy’s are just about one of the darkest families there is”, explained Ron, “they were followers of You know who back when he was still around. They are stupid rich and campaign in the wizengamot, throwing money at their problems and hoping they go away. I’m sure his daddy has taught him plenty of dark curses already”
“Yeah, our aunt has had to deal with him quite a few times, she has nothing good to say about him”, Susan nodded, “They know a lot of shady stuff he has got going, imagine all the shady stuff we don’t know about yet…”
“I don’t like him”, Harry shook his head, that guy was giving him the creeps.
To try and cheer the people up, Fabian asked, “You wanna see a spell I learned? It goes something like this-”
“Hello, have any of you seen a toad? Neville has lost his- oh, are we doing magic, well then let’s see”, Hermione came walking by. She was a short, buck teethed girl with bushy hair, even wilder than Harry’s. She looked- well, not a lot like her actor counterpart. Emma Watson was beautiful and she was- well, just plain. Without the buck teeth and the bushy hair, she would probably be a six or seven, unlike Emma, who was a solid nine, maybe an eight if you are critical.
“Well, okay, it goes something like this… Colovaria”, he pointed his wand at Ron’s rat, scabbers, who instantly turned hot pink, quite startling the animagus.
“Whoa, I didn’t see that charm in the books. Where did you learn it?”, Hermione asked.
“Some old books and a lot of trial and error”, he lied. He couldn’t very much tell her that he read about it in the books about their world. It was in some ways kinda true, he did do a lot of trial and error to get the wand movements right.
“What old books?”, Hermione asked, inching closer.
“Some books that my dad had lying around, I think it was the standard book of spells four- maybe five? I didn’t memorise its name and my dad took it away from me anyways, said it was too advanced for a first year”, Fabian huffed, still keeping up the charade.
“Can you teach me? Oh, by the way, I’m Hermione Granger”
“Ron Weasley”
“Susan Bones”
“Fabian Bones”
“Harry Potter”
When she heard that last name, her eyes instantly snapped to his scar. Her interest in learning the spell was forgotten, “Blimey, are you really? Of course, I’ve read about you, you are in the recent history of the wizarding world, the rise and fall of the dark arts and a few more books. Of course, if it was me, I would’ve read up on everything about me”
“Don’t you have a toad to find?” Ron asked, he didn’t like her, she was too condescending for his tastes.
“Right!”, she shot up, running out of the compartment, “I’ll see you later”
“Loony, that one”, Ron muttered.
“She is… intense”, Fabian nodded. Reading about her and actually meeting her were two different things. If he didn’t know about her true character, he would’ve disliked her too, especially as a kid but he knew what was deeper beneath her.
“Erm- could you… turn scabbers normal again?”, Ron looked at his dyed pink rat, who was desperately trying to rub off the color.
“Oh, yeah, finite”, Scabbers turned normal color again and soon relaxed.
“I think we should change into our robes now”, Fabian suggested. Susan was already in her hogwarts robes, whilst Ron was in day robes and Fabian and Harry were in muggle clothes, “if you could step out for a moment, Susan?”
“Erm- yes, of course”, Susan walked out and closed the door. It didn’t take long for the three of them to get changed. There was definitely a quality difference to be seen between the three. Ron’s robes were hand me downs, worm out and more gray than black. Harry’s robes were new but ordinary, whilst Fabian’s robes were of greater quality. His father had spared no expense. Everything Fabian owned was of the best quality, his father wanted him to have everything that he -as a squib- could only dream about. It wasn’t long before the train arrived in Hogsmeade station. Hagrid was gathering up all the first years and they walked over to the boats.
There, they could see Hogwarts for the first time. It was awe inspiring to say the least, bigger than life, with winding towers and surrounded by mountains on all sides. They slowly sailed over the black lake, seeing tentacles brushing against the water surface. The moon reflected off it, showering the entire lake in dim light.
They walked up the stairs towards Hogwarts proper. It was a lot of stairs and they all were out of breath when they arrived on top. Thankfully, the walk to the entrance hall, which was big enough to contain about six normal houses. McGonagall was already waiting for them.
She was a stern looking witch with black hair neatly pulled into a bun and half moon glasses on her nose. She was a lot younger than her film counterpart and she radiated confidence.
“Thank you Hagrid”, the half giant walked past her, into the great hall, “Young soon to be students, I am Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress of Hogwarts and head of Gryffindor house. You will be sorted into the houses shortly. They are Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin. Whilst you are at Hogwarts, your house is your family. You will lose points for your house if you break rules and earn them for exceptional achievements. By the end of the year, the house with the most points will win the house cup. Now, let’s get you sorted”, she led them into the great hall, past the long tables, housing hundreds of students and to the stool, where the sorting hat sat. It began singing but Fabian was distracted and didn’t listen to him, instead looking at the professors. There were two witches he didn’t recognise, Professor Flitwick, the part goblin charms professor, Quirrel, the possessed teacher who had a turban tightly wrapped around his head, nervously talking with Snape, who was a gaunt looking man with a hook nose and greasy, long hair, then there was Dumbledore, the old wizard in colorful robes, overlooking the students on his throne like chair, then there was Sprout, the plump witch happily drinking from her goblet a red liquid, maybe wine? The disfigured Care of magical creatures professor, Kettleburn was next, with a mechanical arm and only having one eye, looking out from his greying hair. Besides him sat Hagrid, the half giant having shaggy brown hair and small, black eyes that shone with mirth.
“Bones, Fabian”, McGonagall called out, snapping him from his observation, to move to be sorted.
The hat was placed on his head and a voice, high pitched and ancient, whispered into his ears, “Well, well, well, you are a bit older than the others… you come here with certain preconceptions, ideas of where you want to be sorted”
“Please gryffindor, please gryffindor”, he whispered back.
“Gryffindor, eh? Are you sure you don’t want to be in Ravenclaw? No? Well, then, better be”, he shouted out the last part, “GRYFFINDOR!!!”