1. Begin Again
James woke up at 5:30 on September 1st 1971, too excited to sleep anymore he ran into his parents room to wake them.
“Mum,” James said, shaking his mom's shoulder.
“James Potter it better not be before 7 am,” she threatened, stirring awake.
“It’s 5:30, please can we wake up? I want to be at the station at 8,” James said in his cute pleading way.
“Son the train doesn’t leave until 9, why on earth do you want to get there so early,” Fleamont called from the other side of the bed.
“So I can get the best compartment for me and Marly of course,” he replied excitedly.
Effie rolled her eyes while Fleamont chuckled at his son's ridiculousness, “Well I suppose we’re already up, go finish packing your trunk I’ll have Lucee start on breakfast,” she said getting out of bed. James smiled,and bounded excitedly down the hall to finish packing his things.
After shoving some waffles in his face, lugging his trunk, and his owl, Rink, down the stairs. James was ready to go. He did try one more time to convince his parents to let him bring his broom to which he was told again that, “if it's that much of an issue for you feel free to take it up with your godmother.” James of course would not be bringing this issue up with his godmother as she somewhat terrified him and was about to be his teacher and hopefully his head of house. With that settled James said goodbye to his house elf and long time friend, Lucee, looked around his home one last time and stepped through the fireplace parting ways with Potter Manor until Christmas. It wasn’t as though James wasn’t a tiny bit sad to be leaving the life he had known all of his eleven years thus far, but he was overjoyed to finally be attending Hogwarts. He had grown up hearing stories of the castle from his parents, his best friend, Marly’s, brother Danny who had just graduated, and of course the other kids he socialized with at the pirates and networking events his parents so frequently dragged him off to. Though in recent years he had noticed a downtick in these types of gatherings.
When they arrived on the platform at 8:00 on the dot, James, ever punctual, was amazed. The Hogwarts Express glistened in the light and James watched witches and wizards of all kinds lugging their children’s trunks and owls much the way his parents were. He saw kids of all ages, chatting with parents, hugging friends, and climbing aboard the express, he could feel the magic all around him. When he turned to his parents he was practically beaming.
“This is amazing,” he said. His mom looked like she might cry and his dad opened his mouth to say something but they were quickly interrupted.
“Effie, Flea” someone called, James looked to see Marlene's older brother Danny approaching them while Marly lugged her trunk behind him. The McKinnon siblings approached, greeting James’ parents with hugs. James and Marlene immediately jumped into conversation discussing the same topics they had all summer, what house they wanted to be in, Gryffindor obviously, who else they knew in their year, and what classes they were most excited for, flying of course and decidely not transfiguration. James overheard his dad and Danny discussing some situation that kept Marly’s dad, Richard McKinnon, head of the Auror office at work this morning, something to do with a marker and peoples skin James thinks.
They stand chatting for a little while watching as more people begin filling the platform, when James feels something ram right into his side, knocking him over.
“I am so so sorry,” a voice explains quickly as he stands up. He looks and sees a red haired girl about his age picking up her trunk that had fallen off the cart she hit him with. Her parents, he figures, are dressed in jeans instead of wizards robes come running over to make sure everything is okay.
“Lily, you need to watch where you’re going,” the girl’s mother says, helping her pick up her trunk. The mother turns to James’ parents, “I am so sorry,” she says.
“Oh nonsense, James here has caused his share of far worse accidents than that,” Effie says easily.
The mother smiles, “I’m Violet,” she says, holding out a hand.
Effie takes it and the adults begin to exchange pleasantries. Leaving the kids to mingle alone, James turns to the girl, Lily, who is standing by her trunk, her face looking incredibly flushed from embarrassment.
“Lily right,” he asks her to which she nods making eye contact. James looks at her again and a new feeling spreads through him, she’s pretty? No that can’t be it, girls are weird, well except his mom and Marly but they’re family so it’s different. James pushes this aside and continues on with his conversation. “I’m James, that’s Marlene,” he says gesturing to Marly, “also don’t feel bad about knocking me over my mom’s right one time I broke her antique glass vase which was way worse,” he says.
Lily looks at him more fully and smiles, and James feels the new feeling again. His face turns red as he looks at her, he can’t exactly explain why but he quickly looks away.
“He’s right you know, he’s a menace,” Marlene says. Lily chuckles and begins telling her own story that James doesn’t hear because he is too busy grappling with the fact that her hair is Gryffindor red, huh, he thinks, he’s never noticed a girl's hair before. He quickly shifts his gaze to Marly who’s hair is just that, hair, it's blonde but there's nothing special about it. Maybe it’s because he’s never seen a girl with red hair before.
“Kids,” his dad calls, snapping him out of his thoughts, “You should get on the train soon.” The kids nod and turn to say goodbye to their parents. James hugs his mom, then his dad, Marlene hugs her brother then James’ parents before his mom looks at them both.
“I want you two to promise me you’ll be nice to Lily, at school you’ll meet a lot of people like her, from Muggle families. I want you to be nice to them, ok, they’re no different than you or me, got it,” Effie says sternly. James and Marlene nod, having both learned about muggleborn wizards when they were younger, James doesn’t get the big deal, if you can do magic you’re a wizard, there should be no debate about it. “Well off you pop,” Effie says with a final kiss to each of their foreheads. And just like that the moment James has fantasized about for years is here. He takes a breath before grabbing his trunk and facing the train that is going to whisk him away to the best years of his life.
Trunks in hard the three kids make their way onto the express, James was right to get there early as most of the compartments are still empty, the majority of students still lingering on the platform. They find a compartment in the middle of the train with a perfect view of where their parents are standing. They load their stuff in and sit down just as the compartment door reopens, “Lily, I’ve been looking for you, where were you,” A boy with the greasiest hair James has ever seen says.
“Oh sorry, Sev, I got distracted, this is James and Marlene would you like to join us,” she asks. The boy looks at them then asks Lily if he can talk with her outside. She shoots James and Marlene an apologetic glance before stepping out of the compartment.
“I thought your mum said she was a muggleborn, how does she know someone,” Marlene asks.
“I don’t know, maybe they are both muggleborns,” James suggests just before Lily opens the door again.
“I’m really sorry you guys but Sev is my friend from home and he has another compartment he wants me to sit in, so I’ll see you guys at school yeah,” she says. James for the second time that day, feels another new feeling, like anger and sadness mixed into one and before he thinks about it the words are out of his mouth.
“Why didn’t captain greasy want to sit with us?” A shocked look spreads across Lily’s face as she abruptly turns out of the compartment and down the hallway.
Marlene looks at James quizzically for a second before she bursts out laughing as James does the same thing. They sit and chat and laugh for a while slowly watching the train fill up. Marlene does eventually point out how what James said, while funny, wasn’t that nice and suggests he apologizes. James a mix of butt hurt over Lily's friend not wanting to sit with them and the new feeling he can’t quite figure out yet reluctantly agrees.
Soon there’s a knock on the compartment door as a skinny boy with sandy brown hair peers in, “Do you two mind if I sit here everywhere else seems full,” he asks.
“Of course not,” Marlene says at the exact moment James says “come in”. The boy smiles and steps into the compartment sitting next to James.
“I’m Remus,” he says James and Marlene introduce themselves quickly and begin talking all about school with their new compartment mate. Remus, James observes, is very shy but seems nice enough and even cracked a few jokes. He wants to be in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw- though for the life of him James cannot fathom why. Not that there's anything wrong with Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, anything beats Slytherin, but who wouldn’t want to be a part of the greatest house in the world. They discuss quidditch. Remus is apparently a fan of the Chudley Cannons, an odd choice but James can respect it. Soon the final whistle blows and the train prepares to leave the station.
Two more first years join their little compartment pretty quickly after that, a girl with long dark hair named Dorcas who is somewhat quiet but retells in great detail the struggle her family faced while trying to get her owl in its cage earlier, and a quiet blonde haired American boy named Aaron.
James, having never met a wizard from America before, is fascinated by Aaron and asks him all about the country. He learns that yes there is quidditch there, and no they don’t wear robes all the time, and yes they have chocolate frogs, but no they don’t have Bertie Botts. The group of five spends much of the train ride in the same fashion talking about anything and everything related to their world, loading up on sweets from the trolley, and anxiously guessing which house they will all end up in. James is so happy surrounded by his new friends, he already can’t wait to write to his parents to tell them all about it. It’s just as incredible as he had hoped and he hasn’t even seen the castle yet.
----
Lily has already had a day, she thinks to herself as she walks through the still somewhat empty train. From her sister's refusal to accompany her to the station this morning claiming she had a migraine and had to stay in bed, to the confusing platform merging and the nice red-haired witch who’d shown her how to get through, Holly her name was or was it Dolly, something like that Lily thinks. Then came the crash with James and that horrid comment he’d made about Severus. Honestly he’d seemed so nice before that, at least his friend didn’t say anything, maybe Lily could still be friends with her, she thought. Even in the wizarding world boys are idiots, Lily decided, well except for Sev and her dad of course.
So now here she was following Sev through the train to the compartment he wanted to sit in. She was only half listening to him as prattled on about the other boy in the compartment being from a “good family,” whatever that meant. Apparently Sev had overheard the other kids on the platform talking about this boy whom Sev was determined to befriend. Lily thought the whole thing very forced, shouldn’t they just make friends the natural way? But she already had too much of a day to complain.
They finally reached the compartment, towards the back of the train and Sev knocked, “Mind if we join you, it's filling up fast towards the front,” he asked. The boy with black hair that was on the longer side simply nodded and Severus and Lily took their seats on the opposite side from him.
“I’m Severus,” Sev said introducing himself
“Sirius,” the other boy said, looking Sev up and down. Lily was unsure what he was doing but then he turned his attention to her.
“I'm Lily," she said with a smile which Sirius returned.
“So what house do you reckon you’ll be in,” Sirius asked them.
Lily was beyond confused and turned to Severus but he was already talking, “I’m thinking either Gryffindor or Slytherin the other two really are irrelevant, how about you,” he asked.
“Probably Slytherin, my whole family is,” he said. Lily noticed he didn’t sound particularly excited about this prospect but she had no clue what they were even talking about so who was she to judge.
“I’m sorry, what's a house,” she asked, looking mostly at Severus.
“You don’t know,” a shocked Sirius exclaimed.
“No I’m,” She stops for a second trying to think of the word. She remembers the professor explaining it to her family, what she was. Though the professor had assured her this wouldn’t make a difference on her time at school, not being from a wizarding family that is.
“She’s not from around here,” Severus answers for her just as the word comes to her mind.
“Muggleborn,” she says as the word she was searching for comes back to her. Sirius’ face does a weird thing; he forms a little oh with his mouth staring at Lily, almost as if she wasn’t speaking English. He then turns to Sev and raises his eyebrows at him.
“Oh,” he says simply. Lily picks up on something in his look, which is fixed on her, but she’s not sure what. She can feel the awkwardness set in when there’s a knock at the door diverting her attention. A girl with thick curly hair stood outside her hands full with her trunk and owl and Lily got up to help her in.
“You don’t mind if I join you do you,” The girl asks kindly. Lily shakes her head, and the girl comes into the compartment taking a seat next to Lily.
‘I’m Mary,” she says.
“Lily, do you know what house you want to be in,” Lily asks having just learned what a house is herself. Mary looks confused, and Lily is just about to explain when the train horn blows, Lily turns her head out the window quickly, Mary doing the same thing, as they wave goodbye to their families. A rush of emotions runs through Lily as she watches her parents disappear on the platform, her entire life is gone she thinks fleetingly. Sure she’ll write to her parents, and see them over holidays, but everything she has ever known, her school, her town, her family, is gone. She can’t be sad about that now though, certainly not in front of kids she’s just met, and besides she gets to do magic, her and Sev have been looking forward to this day for years. A smile finds her way onto her face as she turns back to Mary.
Mary looks sad too, Lily thinks but as they make eye contact a smile spreads across Mary’s face and Lily has the sense she has a new friend.
“What were you saying about houses?” Mary asks.