Tag, You're It

Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone

Without a dream in my heart

Without a love of my own.

“Wake up!” Walburga opened her eyes slowly and saw her mother drawing back the curtains.

“We will leave in an hour”, her mother added to the wakeup call and left the room.

Walburga immediately remembered that today was the day she would finally leave for Hogwarts. A new life was waiting for her.

Eagerly she jumped out of her bed and put on the white blouse and the black skirt she found on the chair in her room, assuming that Kreacher, their house elf, had put it there. All of her things were already packed, also Kreacher’s work. She quickly pulled a small bag out from underneath her bed, packed with some trousers and sweaters. Stuff Alphard had brought her sometimes since he knew how much she hated the formal dress code, their parents expected of them. Another thing she had added into her bag were the few records she owned. Bill Haley, Ray Charles, Frankie Laine. Alphard had managed to get her some records of them. Music was probably her favourite form of escapism but listening to it had brought her countless bruises. Her parents, mainly her mother, were strictly against this new music called Rock N’ Roll. Walburga though found it more than interesting. Through some muggle newspapers she sometimes got, she knew everything there was to know about it and she was mostly intrigued by the idea of kids rebelling against their parents. Something she fantasized about many times. And maybe, just maybe, she would actually manage to do the same as Alphard and leave this house.

She quickly glanced inside her bag to make sure everything’s there and then walked into the big dining room where Kreacher had placed some breakfast for her. Walburga sat down but she didn’t touch her food. She was way too excited and pretty positive that she would throw every bite back up.

“Hogwarts can be grateful that we still send our children there. This school’s only getting worse and worse”, her father spoke up while his face was hidden behind the daily prophet.

“Whatever you do, don’t end up in Gryffindor”, he added.

Walburga only managed to nod. What if she ended up in Gryffindor? She hadn’t really thought about that opportunity before but now that her father mentioned it, she couldn’t help but worry. Just the thought about what her parents would do to her was enough to make her feel nauseous.

She took a sip of the tea, standing Infront of her, hoping the sickness in her stomach would go away with some warmth.

An hour later she found herself on the platform 9 3/4 . She was already familiar with it since she had been there every time Alphard left for Hogwarts. Walburga’s gaze wiped over the platform, looking for the familiar face of her older brother but there was no sign of him. This was supposed to be his last year in school. He loved Hogwarts so she couldn’t imagine he wouldn’t go. While she continued to look for him, she could see other families staring at them. Like the muggles would stare at Royality.

The most Ancient and Nobel House of Black.

Everyone knew them. Purebloods, Halfbloods and it usually didn’t take long until Mudbloods found out about them too. The Daily Prophet loved the Black family and would never miss an opportunity to write about them.

Walburga shifted her gaze to the train which just arrived in the platform. ‘Hogwarts Express’ was written on it in big golden letters.

The people around her started to hug their children and she could hear loving words from some parents while Walburga only got a nod from her father and a lecture from her mother to better get into Slytherin or she would be burned from the family tree. Cygnus was the only one who seemed to actually care that she would be gone for a few months and hugged her tightly.

“Promise me you’ll write sometimes”, he mumbled against her shoulder.

“Of course,”, she slowly pulled away and gave him a small smile.

She felt bad for leaving him behind, alone with their parents. But she knew that he was their favourite child so she hoped they wouldn’t be too horrible while she was gone and couldn’t protect him.

Walburga looked at her family one last time and then entered the train. Most of the people here seemed to already know each other. She glanced into some cabins but the maturity of them were already full while others were obviously wating for their friends. As she reached the last bit of the waggon, she finally found one with only two people in it. She opened the door and as the two looked at her, her eyes widened. Infront of her sat the boy and the girl who she had bumped into in Knockturn Alley. Merlin. She could still hear her father’s words about them. Filth and blood traitors. There wasn’t any other room left so she had to already ignore the first advice their parents had given her, staying away from them.

“Uh, could I sit here? The other cabins are all full and I-“

“Come in”, the girl interrupted her, probably not caring about Walburga’s explanation.

She entered and sat down on the bench next to the boy, making sure to leave a bigger gap.

“I’m Euphemia Braithewaite, by the way”, the girl introduced herself and smiles politely.

“And I’m Lyall Lupin”, the boy mumbled while he ate something that seemed to be a chocolate bar.

“Walburga Black”, she said, not really interested in having a conversation with them.

“Almost pissed my pants the other day. Your mother’s scary”, Lupin said, with an amused smirk on his face.

“She’s not, just strict”, Walburga replied, feeling the need to defend her mother. She obviously didn’t particularly like her mother but who did this git think he was, insulting her family when they’ve only known each other for probably three minutes if you ignore the encounter in Knockturn Alley.

He just shrugged, concentrated on the bar again.

“So, I assume you would like to end up in Slytherin?”, Braithwaite said and Walburga just nodded shortly. She still didn’t really feel like having a conversation with them. Her parents obviously would not find out about it but it was still a strange feeling for her to not have to be scared of disobeying them and they made more than clear that they absolutely didn’t want any connection to these families.

“I really want to get into Gryffindor or maybe Ravenclaw”, she proceeds to talk while Walburga almost rolled her eyes. How could someone just ignore all the signs of someone obviously not wanting to talk to them?

“As long as it’s not Slytherin”, Lupin added.

“Not all of them are bad. My brother, Alphard. He’s nice”, they both looked at her at the same time, probably neither of them expected her to say something.

“Do Black’s even know the definition of the word ‘nice’ ?” the boy raised an eyebrow.

“Lyall!”, Euphemia shot her friend a glare.

“What? My father always says they are the most arrogant pricks he has ever seen”, Lyall shrugged like he did before.

Walburga didn’t say anything. She started to develop a strong tendency to dislike him. She knew that he was right. Most of her family were arrogant pricks but not Alphard. And Cygnus wasn’t that bad either.

“I think we should just stop talking about families right now”, Euphemia was clearly embarrassed about how Lyall spoke.

For the next half an hour nobody really talked a lot. Euphemia and Lyall exchanged a few words about Hogwarts while Walburga just stared out of the window, intrigued by the landscape outside.

“What subject are you most looking forward to?” Walburga almost flinched as the voice of Euphemia interrupted her thoughts “I’m sorry, I just don’t like silence”

Great. Another attempt to talk but this time Walburga decided to go along with it.

“I don’t know, maybe Herbology”, she studied the girls face while she replied. Her dark brown eyes and the freckles made her face almost seem perfect. But the curly, long hair were probably the most noticeable thing about her.

“Oh yes but I’m really looking forward to Astronomy. I read every book I could find about it”, her eyes lit up.

“Studying a bunch of stars? Doesn’t sound that interesting”, Walburga definitely didn’t really care about Astronomy, especially because her families’ names mostly came from that.

“I was always fascinated by it. The thought about being so small, so unimportant in the universe is kind of soothing”, it was more than clear that Euphemia lived for this topic.

“Come on, don’t bore us with this bollocks”, Lyall looked up from the book he had started to read a few minutes ago.

Euphemia immediately got quiet, embarrassed about the fact that she got too caught up in the topic. Walburga felt a pang of sympathy for her and spoke up, “My parents named me after an asteroid. Well, many people in my family are named after anything flying around up there. They are kind of obsessed with that”

“I think I would name my child after something like that too”, the light in her eyes immediately came back and she went on and on, talking about her passion. Walburga actually listened and from time to time she spoke up, slowly starting to enjoy the conversation.