Mary
Mary tugs her trunk to the nearest compartment as the train starts moving. It’s empty - Mary’s glad about that. She’s not normally scared of meeting people. On most days, she loves it. But not today.
She flops down and sighs, looking around at the dark wood walls and the upholstered seats. They’re nice - not dusty at all. She wonders whether there’s magic to do things like that: cleaning, dusting, washing. Suddenly, she wishes that she had opened up her textbooks before the end of summer.
“Heya!”
Mary turns toward the cheerful voice, and sees another girl standing in the doorway to the compartment.
“Hi?”
The girl pushes in, dragging her trunk behind her. She flops down on the seat opposite Mary, shaking her dirty blond hair around her face and giving a sideways grin. “Oof, we had to rush to get ’ere on time. We were all packed up and ready to leave, and then me and mum realised that I’d left my Quidditch gloves behind, and we couldn’t find them for ages. Turns out they were tucked behind a curtain in the den.”
“Um,” Mary says. She thinks this might be how her mother feels when Mary talks a mile a minute at her.
The girl abruptly slaps her forehead, scrunching up her face. “God, I’m daft - I always let everything out at once.” She extends a hand out, smiling that crooked smile again. “I’m Marlene McKinnon. What’s your name?”
Mary laughs a little and shakes Marlene’s hand. “I’m Mary MacDonald.”
“Two Mac’s in the same compartment! Well, very nearly, in any case. Where’re you from?”
“London?” Mary replies, unsure which “where” Marlene means.
“That’s amazing! I only know all the people from home, really. Cornwall. I’ve been to London, though, obviously. Wouldn’t be ’ere if I ’adn’t, would I?” She laughs, slouching back against the seat.
Mary begins to feel like maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
They talk for ages, after that. Marlene talks even faster than Mary does - about what living in London is like, and about the school houses, and lots and lots about a sport called Quidditch.
After a little while, a woman wheels a cart past the compartment with all kinds of sweets - none of which Mary has ever heard of.
“Oooh!” Says Marlene. “We should get Pepper Imps, they’re my favourite! What’s yours?”
“Flying saucers,” Mary replies without thinking, and then freezes, feeling the floor drop out from under her.
Marlene looks at her curiously. “I don’t think I’ve ’eard of those before, what’re they like?”
“Er,” says Mary. She supposes it’d come up eventually anyway. Might as well be now. “They’re a - a not-magic sweet.”
“A muggle one?” Marlene asks, frowning slightly. “Where do you get them?”
“I’m,” Mary tries to remember the word Professor McGonagall used, “I’m muggleborn?”
“Oh!” Marlene says brightly, “My Granfer was muggleborn! He taught me ’ow to use a telephone!”
Mary doesn’t feel entirely at ease at that, but decides to take Marlene’s returned smile as a good sign.
They end up buying all sorts of magical sweets from the trolley, and Mary tries them all, even the ones that scare her.
When they arrive at the station - Hogsmeade, Marlene said the village was called - the platform is somehow even more crowded than the one in King’s Cross, the older students not giving a second thought to the first years trying to navigate the jungle of luggage and people and pets. It’s dusk and the cloaks flapping around them look like dark shadows. Marlene said that someone would get their trunks off the train for them, but Mary feels empty-handed without it, like she’s on an alien planet wearing a space suit in her strange new robes she’s never really even tried on before.
She hears someone calling out for first years across the platform. The light is held way up above the man’s head, and his voice is loud. When they get close, she can see just how tall he is, and his bushy beard. He smiles down at the students that gather around him. The platform seems much less intimidating once Mary and Marlene have stepped into the wash of golden light the man’s lamp casts.
“Where’re we going?” Marlene asks the man loudly, bouncing slightly on her toes.
“You’ll just ’ave to find out,” the man says, winking at her.
It turns out they’re going to a lake. Mary hasn’t seen a lake before - she’s seen Greenwich pond, and the Thames, of course, but never this great expanse of water stretching out, the lights flickering from the small boats distorted on its surface. Mary does not appreciate the way the boat rocks back and forth, or the fact that the two boys on the boat with her and Marlene keep leaning out over the edge. She feels vaguely sick.
“D’you mind?” she mutters as one of the boys bumps into her. Marlene notices, gives a quick scan of Mary’s pained expression, and pipes up to.
“Yeah, James, stop that, will you?”
He turns to her, surprised, “Why?”
“You’re making me feel seasick.” Marlene looks absolutely fine, but Mary mutters a thanks to her under her breath as James and the other boy settle down.
Up ahead, there’s a loud splash, and people’s voices echo, suddenly raised.
“Ooh, has someone fallen in?” The boy with dark hair falling past his chin says excitedly, bouncing up and causing the boat to sway again. “I heard someone does, every year.”
Mary shudders at the thought.
Someone had fallen in, as they discover when they arrive at a dark boathouse. A girl with long braids who holds herself in a regal posture, and manages to dry her own clothes. Just pulls out her wand and makes steam fly off her robes until you couldn’t tell they were ever wet. Mary glances over at Marlene, and sees her staring in awe - which makes Mary feel a bit better, given she knows exactly zero spells of any kind.
She nudges Marlene. “Any idea how you do that?”
“No,” Marlene says, practically gawking after the dark-haired girl as they begin to make their way up towards the shadowed castle. “I mean, my dad’s done it a few times when we were out in the rain, but I’ve no clue ’ow it’s done.”
“I want to learn,” Mary decides out loud. “That’ll be the first spell I try to learn.”
Years later, Mary will still remember being able to feel the magic in the air all around her, the moment she sets foot inside Hogwarts. The carved wood bannisters on the stairs seem to seep it from their polished grain, and every creak of a floorboard under her feet feels like a whispered spell.
They gather together on the huge, sweeping staircase, and Mary feels a sense of relief when she sees the familiar face of McGonagall looking down on them. They’re led into the Great Hall, which, upon their arrival, becomes quiet and still. Mary almost finds herself holding her breath.
McGonagall explains that the hat will choose which house they go into, but Mary is barely listening - her gaze is focused on the starry sky above them. She’s never seen anything quite that beautiful. The pattern is so much richer than it is in London; she can see stars she swears she’s never seen before.
The first person Mary recognises is the boy from her boat - Sirius Black, apparently. He seems different as he walks up to the hat, almost nervous. Professor McGonagall sets the hat on his head, and he shuts his eyes. It doesn’t take very long, and the hat announces, “Gryffindor!” The Gryffindor table begins to stutter into clapping, and Mary watches something that looks like fear flash over Black’s face before he gives a slight shake, grins widely, and practically skips his way over to the red and gold table.
The names continue to pass, getting closer and closer to Mary’s. They enter the M’s and Mary straightens her spine, determined.
“Mary MacDonald.”
Marlene gives her a smile as she begins to shuffle through the clustered first-years. Mary feels very on display as she takes her seat on the wooden stool, and Professor McGonagall puts the hat onto Mary’s head. The sounds of the hall seem to fade out slightly, and Mary hears a small voice, slightly grumpy, in her ear.
“Let’s see. What have you got in here?”
She frowns, wondering if the hat was really talking to her, and if anyone else could hear.
“No, don’t be dim, no one else can hear. You didn’t hear all the others, did you?”
That’s good, then.
“Well, this seems perfectly clear to me. You would be surprised how often it isn’t clear at all. You’ve got determination, that’s for sure.” The voice seems to take a breath, and then, loudly, “Gryffindor!”
It’s lifted off her head, and Mary stands, hearing that same gold and red table burst out in cheers. She takes a seat a little ways down from Black, across from a girl with red hair who seems to be taking great interest in her plate, her hands on either side of her head, over her ears.
Mary watches for Marlene to be sorted - she trips over her own feet as she makes her way to the stool, crossing her fingers tightly. The hat doesn’t take much time at all to decide where she goes, and Mary joins the rest of her new house in clapping loudly for Marlene, who practically skips over to the table.
The names finish, and the food appears on the table. Mary wonders who makes it, or if it’s just made out of thin air. It’s very good - rich and hearty. Afterwards, two of the older students - prefects - lead them up through the castle to their dormitory. There’s so much for Mary to take in; staircases shift and turn, paintings laugh and move and follow them through the halls, and Marlene chatters into Mary’s ear the whole time explaining it all.
In the dormitory, they learn the names of the other two girls - a girl with loosely curled brown hair named Emma, and the red-haired girl who had sat across from Mary at dinner. Lily. She only quietly murmurs her name when Marlene asks, and then clambers into her four-poster bed and half-closes the curtains.
They consume so many sweets that Mary feels jittery, and stay up past ten-thirty, even though they have classes the next morning. Mary falls asleep with her curtains still open; having them closed feels unfamiliar and oppressive, like she can’t breathe.