Trains and Castles
“We lived long together…”
September 1, 1971
Severus had been looking forward to this day for the entirety of his meager life to date. The day was made all the brighter by the fact that the boy was accompanied by his best friend. Lily, whose beams and fiery hair were like a beacon that shone next to the miserable looking boy. He had never accounted for having a friend on his first day, of course, but the boy was more than happy to be surprised for once.
Lily was worth it.
As was seeing her face light up at the sight of the sign that read “9 ¾.” Next to his friend, the Muggle sister was eyeing the platform sullenly. She looked entirely unhappy to be present—and likely wouldn’t have come if allowed. Severus could very well see the possibility that she was being forced there, to say goodbye to her dear sister. Lily noticed, too. Her light dimmed slightly, and she regarded her sister sadly. She didn’t say anything at first, however, and Severus was grateful. The less he had to hear Petunia’s grating shrills, the better.
His harried mother wiped back his hair with tears in her eyes and Severus uncomfortably waved her off. “I’ll be fine, Mum. I’ve gotta help Lily get settled in. I’ll see you over the holidays.”
Eileen didn’t seem to want to leave, but took the hint and shrunk away, disappearing into the crowd. Severus was thankful. He loved his mother, but her soft touches had become unfamiliar over the years, as he slowly became more unaccustomed to friendly touch.
When he turned back, Lily was in the midst of hugging her parents heartfeltly.
“Goodbye sweetheart,” they were saying, petting Lily’s beautiful hair and patting her on the back. Then, Lily turned to Petunia, who stuck her nose into the air. Their mother looked on sternly, and prompted, “Petunia, why don’t you say goodbye to your sister?”
Petunia said nothing, giving Lily a light glare. Seeing this, Severus turned his own glare onto her, bristling like a wet cat. Behind Petunia, the Evans sighed and turned to grab Lily’s luggage. While they were occupied, Petunia inched away slightly. Lily moved towards her and pleaded, “Please, Tuney.” She put her hand lightly on her sister’s arm, who jerked it away. “I’m sorry, Tuney, I’m sorry! Listen—” she caught the blonde’s hand and held tight to it, even though Petunia tried to pull it away. “Maybe once I’m there—no, listen, Tuney! Maybe once I’m there, I’ll be able to go to Professor Dumbledore and persuade him to change his mind!”
“I don’t want—to—go!” Petunia exclaimed, wrenching her hand out of her sister’s grasp. “You think I want to go to some stupid castle and learn to be a—a—”
Her pale eyes roved over the platform, over the cats mewling in their owners’ arms, over the owls fluttering and hooting at each other in cages, over the students, some already in their long black robes, loading trunks onto the scarlet steam engine or else greeting one another with glad cries after a summer apart.
“—you think I want to be a—a freak?”
Lily looked like she had been slapped. Severus didn’t feel much better. Petunia’s words had been like a punch to the gut. He had always been the little freak in town. Lily didn’t deserve the same reputation. Lily was bright, beautiful, and innocent. Lily was as far from a freak as one could get. Severus stomped forward, about ready to say any number of nasty things his furious mind could work up, but was stopped by Lily’s tear filled rebuttal, “I’m not a freak. That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“That’s where you’re going,” Petunia finished, sounding more sure of herself as she folded her arms across her chest. “A special school for freaks. You and that Snape boy…weirdos, that’s what you two are. It’s good you’re being separated from normal people. It’s for our safety.”
Severus had heard enough. He moved away slightly, the fury bubbling over within him, forming a frothing potion of anger and retribution. Petunia had no right to say those words to his Lily. No one had the right to cause the pain that shone in her green eyes, not even him. His eyes cast about the platform, trying to refocus as he stewed in his righteous anger for his best friend. The black orbs landed on where an eleven year old boy was chasing what looked like a little sister with a toad. Every now and then, he would catch her and attempt to shove the toad down the back of her dress, eliciting shrieks and screams.
Petunia would have hated if Lily had gotten a toad. Just imagining the personal affront the girl would have taken brought a smile to Severus’s lips even as an idea began to form in his head. He knew a great charm that would torment the girl on the way home—it was one of the few he’d read in his first-year-level jinx book that was time delayed. This meant that the shrieking wouldn’t be immediate, but Petunia would still be miserable for what she had said to Lily.
The boy pulled out his relatively new wand, carefully pointed it at Petunia’s feet, and whispered to himself, “Orbis configula.”
He felt a rush of magic and triumph wash over him as the spell enacted. The boy straightened and readjusted his grip on his trunk, stowing his wand in his robes. He was just about to turn away to see if he could find seats for him and Lily while the girl argued with her sister, when he made eye contact with a boy. A boy who was smirking at him knowingly, as though he had seen everything. He had black hair that fell in waves and piercing grey eyes.
Behind him was a slightly smaller boy that was obviously his brother, looking between the two of them with concerned eyes. Severus himself was concerned about the fact that he had a witness. He’d much rather slink away and forget this had happened. But then, the boy was making his way over with trunk and brother in tow.
“What spell was that, then?” the boy asked in lieu of a greeting. Severus found this slightly rude and more than a little presumptuous.
“What spell?” Severus asked, sticking his nose in the air.
The boy stared at him like he was stupid. Severus sighed. Still, he was too proud of his accomplishment to completely ignore this boy, so in the end he grinned wryly and conspiratorially leaned over and whispered, “Orbis configula.”
The boy laughed. It was loud and sudden. “What’d the crone do, then?”
Severus shrugged.
“Not much of a talker, are you?” the boy asked, once more leaning towards the ruder side of friendly. Severus sniffed. “All right, then. I’ll just go find another prankster to befriend.”
Severus shrugged. The boy, looking slightly put off, wandered away. His brother gave Severus one last look. There was curiosity glittering in his silver eyes. Then, he muttered, “I should go find Mum and Dad,” and wandered off in the opposite direction of his brother.
Severus turned back to Lily, eager to forget his awkward fumblings with others his age. Only, when he turned around, Lily and her family were no longer there. The boy sighed. His eyes scanned the platform once more.
He caught sight of the boy who had spoken to him. He seemed to have found another boy—they had their heads bent collusively. He caught sight of the boy who had been chasing his sister as well—now he was hugging his parents goodbye. But he didn’t catch another glimpse of the Evans. He supposed, with Petunia’s less than pleasant demeanor, Lily’s parents had decided it would be best to get their goodbyes over with. Still, he watched a while longer just to be safe.
When he had determined that he would indeed not be finding the Evans, and the clock had nearly struck eleven, Severus finally gave his trunk one last hoist and headed towards the train. Then, he was going through the compartments, looking for a familiar head of red hair. The train gave a lurch under his feet and by the time he had found her, it had begun to leave the station.
Lily was in a compartment with two others. Unlike the others, who Severus determined to be rowdy boys from a single half-glance, Lily was sitting curled in a ball, determinedly facing the window. He saw her give a halfhearted wave out the window, but could not tell from his vantage point who she was waving to or whether they had responded in kind. Severus slid the door open and slipped in, pulling his trunk to a stop once inside. Hurriedly, he stowed it on the racks above, and then sat himself on the seat opposite his only friend.
At the movement, Lily glanced up, but quickly turned back to the window. Her eyes were red, as though she had been crying. Fury clenched the boy’s insides once more, and he felt a vicious satisfaction at the fact that he had at least gotten even before leaving.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said in a constricted voice.
“Why not?”
“Tuney h-hates me. Because we saw that letter from Dumbledore.”
So, Petunia hated her. That wasn’t terribly new. Sure, Petunia typically didn’t act outright hateful, but she had been inching in that direction for years now. Either way, the girl was deeply unpleasant and hurtful to nearly everyone.
“So what?” he asked, though he immediately regretted it when she threw him a look of deep dislike. He didn’t understand why his words would illicit this response, though. He would never understand why his friend insisted on being kind to those who certainly did not deserve it.
“So, she’s my sister!” the girl exclaimed quietly.
“She’s only a—” He caught himself quickly; Lily, too busy trying to wipe her eyes, either did not notice or pretended not to hear him.
“But we’re going!” the boy exclaimed placatingly, unable to suppress the exhilaration in his voice. “This is it! We’re off to Hogwarts!”
She nodded, mopping her eyes, but in spite of herself, she half smiled.
“You’d better be in Slytherin,” Severus smiled, encouraged that she had brightened a little.
“Slytherin?”
One of the boys in the compartment, who had shown no further interest in either of them up to that point, looked around at the word. Severus, who had been previously occupied when he had entered the compartment, finally looked at them. The boy that had spoken had black hair, which stuck up in every direction, hazel eyes, and round glasses. His friend, however, was very familiar. It was the boy from the platform, who was looking for a prankster friend.
“Who wants to be in Slytherin? I’d leave, wouldn’t you?” the one with the glasses asked the boy lounging on the seats opposite him.
Platform-boy did not smile. Instead, he replied solemnly, “My whole family has been in Slytherin.”
“Blimey,” Glasses said, “and I thought you seemed all right!”
Grey-eyes grinned.
“Maybe I’ll break the tradition. Where are you heading, if you have the choice?”
“Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!’ Like my dad,” his friend replied, lifting an invisible sword. Severus snorted. “Got a problem with that?”
“No,” Severus muttered, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy—”
“Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” Grey-eyes interjected, blinking his lashes mischievously.
He and glasses both roared with laughter. Lily visibly bristled at the jab. Severus could tell she was furious, and could practically see the steam rising from her hair as she sat up, looking between the two boys with dislike.
“Come on, Severus, let’s find another compartment.”
“Ooooooo…” The boys tried to imitate her lofty voice; Glasses tried to trip Severus as he passed.
“See ya, Snivellus!” a voice called as the compartment door slammed.
Once they were out in the relative silence of the corridor, Severus came to several conclusions. Conclusion the first: Grey-eyes was in desperate need of attention and had certainly found it in Glasses. Conclusion the second: Grey-eyes might not have been so bad if Severus had befriended him, if a bit loud. Conclusion the third: he was quite glad he had not befriended said boy. It was evident that he was willing to burn bridges as long as he gained a friend. And Glasses was certainly not the type of friend Severus would envy him having. Obviously, Grey-eyes had poor judgement.
As they went to find another compartment, Severus found his thoughts echoing Glasses’ earlier sentiments: “And I thought he might have been a bit all right.”
Meanwhile, Petunia Evan’s shoes slowly began leaking frog eggs.
We lived long together a life filled,
if you will, with flowers.
September 1, 1991
Persephone Potter paced up and down the length of platforms nine and ten. Leave it to the one person who was helping her to forget to tell her how to get to the platform her train was due to leave from. 9 ¾. Her uncle had taken one look at the number, scoffed, and determined to be as difficult as possible. The girl was halfway convinced the man had only brought her to begin with so that when he dropped her off at half past ten he could smile nastily and say, “Well, there you are, girl. Platform nine—platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don’t seem to have built it yet, do they?”
Which he did do, as a matter of fact.
She had tried to devise a way to ask where her platform was without asking the number specifically (knowing what sort of reaction that garnered out of people like Uncle Vernon) but it was no use. The conductors didn’t even seem to be aware of a train leaving at eleven.
Which left her here, ten minutes ‘til eleven, pacing frantically and trying to figure out what she was supposed to do if she missed it. Luckily, it never came to that. At that moment a group of people walked past, just behind her, and she caught a few words of what they were saying.
“— packed with Muggles, of course —”
Persephone swung round, her nostrils flaring and her eyes widening. Her long black hair followed like a curtain in a breeze. She thought she probably looked like an irate owl, swiveling frantically the way she was. Her own owl, which she had named Hedwig, likely agreed with her, going off of the extremely judgmental look she was garnering from the beast.
The girl took a deep breath and forced herself to focus. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Persephone’s in front of him—and they had an owl.
Heart hammering, the girl pushed her cart after them. They stopped and so did she, just near enough to hear what they were saying.
“Now, what’s the platform number?” said the boys’ mother.
“Nine and three-quarters!” piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand, “Mum, can’t I go…”
“You’re not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first.”
What looked like the oldest boy marched toward platforms nine and ten. Persephone watched, careful not to blink in case she missed it—but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.
“Fred, you next,” the plump woman said.
“I’m not Fred, I’m George,” said the boy. “Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can’t you tell I’m George?”
“Sorry, George, dear.”
“Only joking, I am Fred,” said the boy, and off he went. His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he had gone—but how had he done it? Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier he was almost there — and then, quite suddenly, he wasn’t anywhere.
There was nothing else for it.
“Excuse me,” Persephone said to the plump woman.
“Hello, dear,” she said. “First time at Hogwarts? Ron’s new, too.”
She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. The boy looked like he hadn’t quite grown into his limbs yet. He was tall, thin, and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose. He was nothing like the posh, gloomy boy she had met in Madam Malkin’s. The girl decided she liked that.
“Yes,” Persephone nodded. “The thing is—the thing is, I don’t know how to—”
“How to get onto the platform?” she said kindly, and the girl nodded once more.
“Not to worry,” the woman said. “All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don’t stop and don’t be scared you’ll crash into it, that’s very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you’re nervous. Go on, go now before Ron.”
“Er—okay,” the girl assented.
She pushed her trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.
She started to walk toward it. People jostled her on their way to platforms nine and ten. Persephone walked more quickly. She was going to smash right into that barrier and then she’d be in trouble—leaning forward on her cart, she broke into a heavy run. Her heart leaping into her throat, the girl closed her eyes and when a smash didn’t immediately greet her, she carefully peeked them open.
She had run through the barrier as though it were the mist that clung to the edges of the platform. A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts’ Express, eleven o’clock. Behind was a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it.
She had done it.
Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.
The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. Persephone pushed her cart off down the platform in search of an empty seat. The girl wove her way through the crowd until she found an empty compartment near the end of the train. She put Hedwig inside first and then started to shove and heave her trunk toward the train door. She tried to lift it up the steps but could hardly raise one end. Twice she dropped it painfully on her foot.
“Want a hand?” It was one of the red-haired twins she’d followed through the barrier.
“Yes, please,” the girl panted, wiping her hair out of her eyes.
“Oy, Fred! C’mere and help!”
With the twins’ help, Persephone’s trunk was at last tucked away in a corner of the compartment.
“Thanks,” the girl smiled hesitantly, wiping her hair back once more.
“What’s that?” said one of the twins suddenly, pointing at Persephone’s lightning scar. The girl froze.
“Blimey,” said the other twin. “Are you —?”
“She is,” said the first twin. “Aren’t you?” he added to the girl.
“What?” she asked, starting to get a bit lost.
“Persephone Potter.” chorused the twins.
“Oh, her,” Persephone remarked. “I mean, yes, I am.”
The two boys gawked at her, and Persephone felt a dull flush creep up her cheeks. Then, to her relief, a voice came floating in through the train’s open door.
“Fred? George? Are you there?”
“Coming, Mum.”
With a last look at Persephone, the twins hopped off the train.
The girl watched them go. As she did so, she sat down next to the window where, half hidden, she could watch the red-haired family on the platform and hear what they were saying. Their mother had just taken out her handkerchief and was trying to catch the youngest boy so she could rub something off his nose.
All in all, Persephone gathered that these people were having what were likely normal family interactions. Persephone stared at them as if they were aliens as they good naturedly teased each other (mostly the twins) and scolded each other (mostly the mother). The oldest boy showed up, said a bit, and then wandered off. Then, the mother rounded on the twins.
“Now, you two—this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you’ve—you’ve blown up a toilet or—”
“Blown up a toilet? We’ve never blown up a toilet.”
“Great idea though, thanks, Mum.”
“It’s not funny. And look after Ron.”
“Don’t worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us.”
“Shut up,” said Ron again. He was almost as tall as the twins already and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.
“Hey, Mum, guess what? Guess who we just met on the train?”
Persephone leaned back quickly so they couldn’t see her looking.
“You know that black-haired girl who was near us in the station? Know who she is?”
“Who?”
“Persephone Potter!”
Persephone heard the little girl’s voice.
“Oh, Mum, can I go on the train and say hello? Mum, oh please…”
“You’ve already seen her, Ginny, and the poor girl isn’t something you goggle at in a zoo. Is she really, Fred? How do you know?”
“Asked her. Saw her scar. It’s really there—like lightning.”
“Poor dear—no wonder she was alone, I wondered. She was ever so polite when she asked how to get onto the platform.”
“Never mind that, do you think she remembers what You-Know-Who looks like?”
Their mother suddenly became very stern.
“I forbid you to ask her, Fred. No, don’t you dare. As though she needs reminding of that on her first day at school.”
“All right, keep your hair on.”
A whistle sounded.
“Hurry up!” their mother said, and the three boys clambered onto the train. They leaned out of the window for her to kiss them good-bye, and their younger sister began to cry.
“Don’t worry, Ginny, we’ll send you loads of owls.”
“We’ll send you a Hogwarts’ toilet seat.”
“George!”
“Only joking, Mum.”
The train began to move. Persephone saw the boys’ mother waving and their sister, half laughing, half crying, running to keep up with the train until it gathered too much speed, then she fell back and waved. Persephone watched the red-head girl and her mother disappear as the train rounded the corner. Houses flashed past the window. Persephone felt a great leap of excitement. She didn’t know what she was going to, but it had to be better than what she was leaving behind.
The door of the compartment slid open, and the youngest redheaded boy came in.
“Anyone sitting there?” he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Persephone. “Everywhere else is full.”
The girl shook her head and the boy sat down.
“Where are your brothers?” she asked him. His mouth drew into the slightest of frowns as he shrugged. He then looked quickly out of the window, as though feeling a bit awkward. Persephone saw he still had a black mark on his nose.
“Hey, Ron.”
The twins were back.
“Listen, we’re going down the middle of the train—Lee Jordan’s got a giant tarantula down there.”
“Right,” mumbled Ron.
“Persephone,” said the other twin, “did we introduce ourselves? Fred and George Weasley. And this is Ron, our brother. See you later, then.”
“Bye,” said Persephone and Ron. The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.
“Are you really Persephone Potter?” Ron blurted out.
Persephone nodded.
“Oh—well, I thought it might be one of Fred and George’s jokes,” said Ron. “And have you really got—you know…”
He pointed at the girl’s forehead. She pulled back her hair, which when parted on the side draped limply across her forehead, to show the lightning scar. Ron stared.
“So that’s where You-Know-Who —?”
“Yes,” the girl replied, “but I can’t remember it.”
“Nothing?” Ron asked eagerly.
“Well—I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else.”
“Wow,” said Ron. He sat and stared at Persephone for a few moments, then, as though he had suddenly realized what he was doing, he looked quickly out of the window again.
“Are all your family magic?” asked Persephone, who found Ron just as interesting as Ron found her.
“Er—Yes, I think so,” said Ron. “I think Mum’s got a second cousin who’s an accountant, but we never talk about him.”
“So, you must know loads of magic already.”
The Weasleys were clearly one of those old wizarding families the pale boy in Diagon Alley had talked about.
“I heard you went to live with Muggles,” said Ron. “What are they like?”
The girl shrugged uncomfortably. The boy just kept looking at her. She tacked on, “Wish I’d had three wizard brothers.”
That did the trick. It seemed brothers were a good topic to distract him.
“Five,” he corrected. For some reason, he was looking gloomy. “I’m the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I’ve got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left — Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy’s a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks, and everyone thinks they’re really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it’s no big deal, because they did it first. I’ve even got Percy’s old rat.”
Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat gray rat, which was asleep.
“His name’s Scabbers and he’s useless, he hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they wanted—Well, I got Scabbers.”
Ron’s ears went pink. He seemed to think he’d said too much, because he went back to staring out of the window. The girl turned to do the same. The train carried them out of London and then, past fields full of cows and sheep. They were quiet for a time, watching the fields and lanes flick past.
Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, “Anything off the cart, dears?”
Persephone, who hadn’t had any breakfast, leapt to her feet, but Ron’s ears went pink again and he muttered that he’d brought sandwiches. Persephone went out into the corridor.
She had never had any money for candy with the Dursleys, and now that she had pockets rattling with gold and silver she was ready to buy as many Mars Bars as she could carry — but the woman didn’t have Mars Bars. What she did have were Bettie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs. Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things the girl had never seen in her life. Not wanting to miss anything, she got some of everything and paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.
Ron stared as Persephone brought it all back in to the compartment and tipped it onto an empty seat.
“Hungry, are you?”
“Starving,” said Persephone, taking a large bite out of a pumpkin pasty.
Ron had taken out a lumpy package and unwrapped it. There were four sandwiches inside. He pulled one of them apart and said, “She always forgets I don’t like corned beef..”
“Swap you for one of these,” the girl offered, holding up a pasty. “Go on —”
“You don’t want this, it’s all dry,” said Ron. “She hasn’t got much time,” he added quickly, “you know, with five of us.”
“Go on, have a pasty,” insisted Persephone, who had never had anything to share before or, indeed, anyone to share it with. It was a nice feeling, sitting there with Ron, eating their way through all her pasties, cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten).
“What are these?” the girl asked Ron, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs. “They’re not really frogs, are they?” She was starting to feel that nothing would surprise her.
“No,” said Ron. “But see what the card is. I’m missing Agrippa.”
“What?”
“Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know—Chocolate Frogs have cards inside them, you know, to collect—famous witches and wizards. I’ve got about five hundred, but I haven’t got Agrippa or Ptolemy.”
The girl unwrapped her Chocolate Frog and picked up the card. It showed a man’s face. He wore half-moon glasses, had a long, crooked nose, and flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache.
Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore.
“So, this is Dumbledore!” Persephone proclaimed.
“Don’t tell me you’d never heard of Dumbledore!” said Ron. “Can I have a frog? I might get Agrippa—thanks—”
“Well of course I’ve heard of him,” the girl corrected. “His name was all over the entrance letter.” Not to mention Hagrid seemed quite fond of the man. “But I’ve never seen him.”
Curiously, Persephone turned over the card and read:
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS
Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.
Persephone turned the card back over and saw, to her surprise, that Dumbledore’s face had disappeared.
“He’s gone!”
“Well, you can’t expect him to hang around all day,” said Ron. “He’ll be back. No, I’ve got Morgana again and I’ve got about six of her… do you want it? You can start collecting.”
Ron’s eyes strayed to the pile of Chocolate Frogs waiting to be unwrapped.
“Help yourself,” the girl said with an indicative wave of her hand. “But in, you know, the Muggle world, people just stay put in photos.”
“Do they? What, they don’t move at all?” Ron sounded amazed. “Weird!”
Persephone stared as Dumbledore sidled back into the picture on his card and gave her a small smile.
Ron was more interested in eating the frogs than looking at the Famous Witches and Wizards cards, but Persephone couldn’t keep her eyes off them. Soon she had not only Dumbledore and Morgana, but Hengist of Woodcroft, Alberic Grunnion, Circe, Paracelsus, and Merlin. She finally tore his eyes away from the Druidess Cliodna, who was scratching her nose, to open a bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.
“You want to be careful with those,” Ron warned the girl. “When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor — you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a boogie flavored one once.”
Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a corner.
“Bleaaargh — see? Sprouts.”
They had a good time eating Every Flavor Beans. Persephone got toast, coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, sardine, and was even brave enough to nibble the end off a funny gray one Ron wouldn’t touch, which turned out to be pepper.
The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills. Around this time, there was a knock on the door of their compartment and the round-faced boy from platform nine and three-quarters came in. He looked tearful.
“Sorry,” he said, “but have you seen a toad at all?”
When they shook their heads, he wailed, “I’ve lost him! He keeps getting away from me!”
“He’ll turn up,” the girl attempted to suggest consolingly.
“Yes,” said the boy miserably. “Well, if you see him…”
He left.
“Don’t know why he’s so bothered,” said Ron. “If I’d brought a toad I’d lose it as quick as I could.” The girl thought about how that remark had been rather mean, but the boy continued before she had so much as opened her mouth to say so. “Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can’t talk.”
The rat was still snoozing on Ron’s lap. “He might have died, and you wouldn’t know the difference,” said Ron in disgust. “I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn’t work. I’ll show you, look…”
He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very pale colored wand. “Anyway —”
He had just raised his wand when the compartment door slid open again. The toadless boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes. Once again, this was someone Persephone recognized. This time, from Flourish and Blotts.
“Has anyone seen a toad? Neville’s lost one,” she said. Her eyes scanned the apartment and suddenly her countenance lightened, and she exclaimed, “Persephone!”
Beside her, Ron slowly lowered his wand and regarded Persephone suspiciously. The girl in question shrugged at him and then aimed a hesitant smile at Hermione, who still stood imposingly in their doorway.
“You didn’t tell me you were famous!” Hermione continued to gush, seeming happy to have found the girl. Persephone shrugged awkwardly. “I read all about you after I went home. You’re in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century—did you know?”
Persephone shook her head.
“Oh, well, I would have read all about me if I was you,” Hermione continued matter-of-factly.
“Excuse me, who are you?” Ron cut in suddenly.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the girl in their doorway babbled. “My name’s Hermione Granger. I met Persephone weeks ago. And you are?”
“Ron Weasley,” the redhead returned, seeming a little put out at Hermione’s presence. Hermione didn’t seem to notice.
“Do either of you know what house you’ll be in?” the brunette queried. “I’ve been asking around, and I hope I’m in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn’t be too bad…Anyway, we’d better go and look for Neville’s toad. Did you say if you’ve seen him?”
“We haven’t,” Ron said firmly.
“Oh, well, you two had better change, you know, I expect we’ll be there soon.”
And she left, taking the toadless boy with her.
“Whatever house I’m in, I hope she’s not in it,” said Ron. He threw his wand back into his trunk.
“What house are your brothers in?” asked Persephone.
“Gryffindor,” said Ron. Gloom seemed to be settling on him again. “Mum and Dad were in it, too. I don’t know what they’ll say if I’m not. I don’t suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin.”
“That’s the house Vol-, I mean, You-Know-Who was in?”
“Yeah,” said Ron. He flopped back into his seat, looking depressed.
“So, what do your oldest brothers do now that they’ve left, anyway?”
The girl was wondering what a witch or wizard did once they’d finished school.
“Charlie’s in Romania studying dragons, and Bill’s in Africa doing something for Gringotts,” said Ron. “Did you hear about Gringotts? It’s been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don’t suppose you get that with the Muggles — someone tried to rob a high security vault.”
Persephone stared.
“Really? What happened to them?”
“Nothing, that’s why it’s such big news. They haven’t been caught. My dad says it must’ve been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they don’t think they took anything, that’s what’s odd. ’Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who’s behind it.”
The girl turned this news over in his mind. She was starting to get a prickle of fear every time You-Know-Who was mentioned. She supposed this was all part of entering the magical world, but it had been a lot more comfortable saying “Voldemort” without worrying.
As if sensing her brooding, the two remained silent for a short while after that. The girl had just been trying to figure out how to broach a new topic of conversation when the compartment door slid open yet again. She was almost relieved at the interruption—she didn’t have near enough experience making friends—but then she saw who had arrived, and it wasn’t Neville the toadless boy, or Hermione Granger this time.
Three boys entered, and Persephone recognized the middle one at once: it was the pale boy from Madam Malkin’s robe shop. He was looking at her with a lot more interest than he’d shown back in Diagon Alley.
“Is it true?” he asked. “They’re saying all down the train that Persephone Potter’s in this compartment. So, it’s you, is it?”
“Yes,” the girl grouched. She glanced at the other boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards.
“Oh, this is Crabbe, and this is Goyle,” said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where the girl was looking. “And my name’s Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.”
Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger. Draco Malfoy looked at him. “Think my name’s funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford.”
He turned back to Persephone. “You’ll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.”
He held out his hand to shake hers, but she didn’t take it.
“I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks,” she said coolly.
Draco Malfoy didn’t go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks.
“I’d be careful if I were you, Potter,” he said slowly. “Unless you’re a bit politer you’ll go the same way as your parents. They didn’t know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it’ll rub off on you.”
Both Persephone and Ron stood up.
“Say that again,” Ron said, his face as red as his hair.
“Oh, you’re going to fight us, are you?” Malfoy sneered.
Persephone wasn’t keen on direct confrontation. She really had just been unable to sit and listen to this boy talk about her parents like that. “Unless you get out now,” Ron snapped in her stead. She glanced at him, surprised that he was sticking up for her choice in company in such a way.
“But we don’t feel like leaving, do we, boys? We’ve eaten all our food and you still seem to have some.”
Goyle reached toward the Chocolate Frogs next to Ron — Ron leapt forward, but before he’d so much as touched Goyle, Goyle let out a horrible yell. Scabbers the rat was hanging off his finger, sharp little teeth sunk deep into Goyle’s knuckle —Crabbe and Malfoy backed away as Goyle swung Scabbers round and round, howling, and when Scabbers finally flew off and hit the window, all three of them disappeared at once. Perhaps they thought there were more rats lurking among the sweets, or perhaps they’d heard footsteps, because a second later, Hermione Granger had come in.
“What has been going on?” she said, looking at the sweets all over the floor and Ron picking up Scabbers by his tail.
“I think he’s been knocked out,” Ron said to Persephone, ignoring Hermione. He looked closer at Scabbers. “No — I don’t believe it — he’s gone back to sleep.”
And so, he had.
“You’ve met Malfoy before?”
Persephone explained about their meeting in Diagon Alley.
“I’ve heard of his family,” said Ron darkly. “They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they’d been bewitched. My dad doesn’t believe it. He says Malfoy’s father didn’t need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side.” He turned to Hermione. “Can we help you with something?”
“You’d better hurry up and put your robes on, I’ve just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we’re nearly there. You haven’t been fighting, have you? You’ll be in trouble before we even get there!”
“Scabbers has been fighting, not us,” said Ron, scowling at her. Then, he glanced over at Persephone. The two regarded each other uncomfortably, wondering who should leave so they both could change.
“I can show you the bathroom, Persephone,” Hermione offered from the doorway. Persephone let out a huff of relief, grabbed her robes from her satchel, and made her way to follow the other girl.
“Thanks,” she said once they were in the corridor.
“Of course!” Hermione exclaimed as she guided the darker of the two through the carriage. Persephone glanced out a window as they passed by. It was getting dark. She could see mountains and forests under a deep purple sky. The train did seem to be slowing down.
Hermione showed her to a bathroom, where she pulled off her jacket and pulled on the long black robes. When she returned to the corridor, Hermione was waiting for her, scuffing her shoes on the floor absentmindedly. Just then, a voice echoed through the train: “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”
Persephone’s stomach lurched with nerves as doors began sliding open and people began crowding in the corridor. The girls saw and waved over Ron, who looked a bit pale under his freckles. His robes were a bit short on him—you could see his sneakers underneath them.
The train continued to slow and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Persephone shivered in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and the girl heard a familiar voice: “Firs’ years! Firs’ years over here! All right there, Persephone?”
Hagrid’s big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads.
“C’mon, follow me — any more firs’ years? Mind yer step, now! Firs’ years follow me!”
Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Persephone thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice.
“Yeh’ll get yer firs’ sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec,” Hagrid called over his shoulder, “jus’ round this bend here.”
The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers. Something in Persephone’s chest clenched as she looked at it. It seemed unreal, but she could feel deep down in her bones that this was the moment she would look back on for years as the focal point of her new life.
“No more’n four to a boat!” Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Persephone, Hermione, and Ron were followed into their boat by Neville, who managed to look gloomy and awed all at once.
“Everyone in?” shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. “Right then — FORWARD!”
And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.
“Heads down!” yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.
“Oy, you there! Is this your toad?” said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.
“Trevor!” cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid’s lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle. They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door. “Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?”
Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door. The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Persephone’s first thought was that this was not someone to cross.
“The firs’ years, Professor McGonagall,” said Hagrid.
“Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.”
She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursleys’ house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.
They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Persephone could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right — the rest of the school must already be here—but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.
“Welcome to Hogwarts,” said Professor McGonagall. “The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.
“The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history, and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.
“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.”
Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville’s cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on Ron’s smudged nose. Persephone needlessly patted her hair—it was already hanging quite limp due to all the patting she had done earlier.
“I shall return when we are ready for you,” said Professor McGonagall. “Please wait quietly.”
She left the chamber. Persephone, in an attempt to stop touching the top of her hair, grabbed a lock and began twisting and untwisting it around a finger. “How exactly do they sort us into houses?” she leant over to ask Ron.
“Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking.”
The girl’s heart gave a horrible jolt. A test? In front of the whole school? She very dearly hoped this wasn’t the case—it wasn’t like she knew anything yet. She had read through her books while waiting for term to start, but hadn’t had a chance to practice anything. She clutched her holly wand nervously. Surely, the staff would know that most of the kids here wouldn’t be prepared for a test.
She glanced furtively around and saw that everyone else looked terrified, too. No one was talking much except Hermione, who was whispering very fast about all the spells she’d learned and wondering which one she’d need. Persephone found some of them quite fascinating, but her (tentative) friend’s anxious rambling set her teeth on edge. Persephone didn’t think she had ever been this nervous before. Not even that time when she’d had to take a school report home to the Dursleys saying that she’d somehow turned her teacher’s wig blue. She kept her eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, Professor McGonagall would come back and lead her to her doom.
“Move along now,” said a sharp voice, interrupting Hermione’s rambling and Persephone’s spiraling thoughts. “The Sorting Ceremony’s about to start.”
As if summoned, Professor McGonagall had returned. “Now, form a line,” the woman told the first years, “and follow me.”
So that
I was cheered when I came first to know…
Unbeknownst to the girl, within the great double doors of the hall sat a very important man. He was not important in the sense that he had invented something great. But he was significant in the way that could only impact the very fate of this small world within the world. He sat at a table at the very top of the Great Hall, staring disapprovingly down at the hordes of children that sat below with piercing eyes. They were black like Hagrid’s, but unlike Hagrid’s there was an emptiness that threatened to swallow everything they locked on—like a twin pair of black holes.
The man’s name was Severus Snape, and he was brooding.
He had been dreading this day for years, for he knew that this was the day that Persephone Potter—the existing proof of all of his failures—was to begin attending this thrice-accursed-school. And, unfortunately for him, his eyes found her immediately when Professor McGonagall led in the eleven-year-olds.
She was tiny—smaller than all of her future classmates, even. Severus tried not to analyze her, tried not to look at her at all, but found himself thinking about how she was much smaller than Lily and James had ever been. The man distinctly remembered the girl’s father being painfully average in every way, including height. Lily had been anything but average—she had been willowy, nearly tall for a girl. But this girl was small and spindly. She seemed to lack the average amount of baby fat that most eleven-year-olds still carried.
But he found it hard to dwell on this fact, because his eyes kept being drawn back to the girl’s face. Like the rest of her, the face was a little bit narrower than Lily’s, but everything else was painfully her. She had the soft, curving jaw; the small, round nose; the pale, pink skin; and the painfully green eyes of her mother. The eyes were slightly darker in color, but there was no mistaking whose they were. It was like a small reincarnation of Lily Evans graced the halls of Hogwarts once more. But then, there was the ruining factor. The thing that took Severus’s clenched heart and twisted it, was the black hair she no doubt inherited from Potter.
Underneath the table, Severus’s hands clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white, and his nails dug into his palm.
Pain, grief, and utmost loathing had crashed over him like a tidal wave that was so strong he might have thought the world itself was ending. This was it—this was his retribution for everything he had ever done wrong in his life. The tiny ghost of Lily Evans come to haunt him, with Potter’s cursed hair. As the waif drifted along with the crowd of first years, all Severus wanted to do was crawl under the table and die.
Unfortunately, he had made a vow to protect this Lily-Potter-ghost.
The man watched the girl approach with such intensity, that he might have accidentally burned a hole straight through her and would not even have noticed. He was beyond grateful when Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years, drawing his attention from the girl and to the pointed wizard’s hat that sat atop the stool in question.
There wasn’t much that stood out about the cretins that were being sorted (apart from the obvious, glaring disaster that Severus was absolutely not thinking about). One after another came up and were sorted to, “HUFFLEPUFF! HUFFLEPUFF! RAVENCLAW!” as usual. There was Granger, Hermione (who he definitely hadn’t noticed was standing inordinately close to the Potter-creature) and he could already tell she would be a boorish pain in class when she ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.
There was the Longbottom offspring, who seemed to be a nervous wreck. He fell over on his way to the stool, and then he ran off still wearing it, having to jog back amid gales of laughter. He had personally never had anything against the Longbottoms, so he felt somewhat sorry for them that their son had turned out to be such a disappointment in their absence.
Then, of course, there was Severus’ godson. The boy went to Slytherin as expected, with all of the swagger and smugness as though he knew he had been born for his role.
The insolent brat.
And then, it was the one he dreaded most that stood out next.
“Potter, Persephone!”
An unexpected (probably completely expected) wave of resentment rushed over him once more as the girl meekly wandered forward and whispers broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall. The girl had not yet been seated for her Sorting, and she instantly garnered the attention of everyone present. He couldn’t help but think of James Potter, who had garnered whispers and giggles of girls he passed at the height of his Quidditch career.
Severus’ nails were probably drawing blood from his palm by this point—not that he would have noticed. He was trapped in spirals of, “Why me,” and “of course another Perfect Potter is famous,” and “This will certainly make protecting her all the more difficult.” At that last thought, the man was drowning so deeply that he very much thought that the Potter-creature was probably doing it on purpose just to torture him—well, obviously that would make no sense, but obviously the Fates were torturing him very purposefully by having him vowed to protect an arrogant creature that gained the attention of everyone present, whether for good or for ill.
He was stewing so deeply, that when he suddenly realized the Potter-creature was still seated under the hat after a minute, it was though a bucket of ice had been dropped over his head, jerking him back to reality. The man hadn’t been paying attention, because surely Persephone Potter, progeny of James “I am a gift to society” Potter and the bravest woman he had ever known would be a shoo-in for Gryffindor. When he, quite suddenly, realized that she had not yet been placed there, he found himself more than a little bit disturbed (and very slightly intrigued, though he would never stoop so low as to admit such a thing to himself).
A minute later, the Potter-creature had not moved, other than idly swinging her crossed ankles as she sat. Another minute and Severus began to grow just a little worried. Why wasn’t she going to Gryffindor? Surely Potter was incapable of spawning anything that could go to Ravenclaw, so that was out. Perhaps she would go to Hufflepuff…?
Four minutes in, the man was gritting his teeth so tightly that he felt shooting pains that began in his jaw and shot up his skull. Surely, surely the wretched girl wouldn’t go into Slytherin…right? Neither Lily nor James had a single Slytherin bone in their bodies. No, surely she was bound for Gryffindor or Hufflepuff—surely Fate couldn’t be that cruel.
After five minutes of Persephone Potter being Sorted, Severus could just picture it—the girl, a Slytherin, existing only to torture him for seven years straight as he had to advise her, keep her out of mischief, keep her from ruining Slytherin’s chances at the House Cup. Seven years that he had to look up and see Lily’s green eyes glittering at him from the Slytherin table—something that would surely cause unending amounts of pain for the coming years. The thought alone was enough to give him nightmares.
And then, the Sorting Hat’s brim twitched, and it shouted, “GRYFFINDOR!”
There were flowers also in hell.
Of course, Severus thought bitterly as the girl walked shakily towards the Gryffindor table. The Potter-creature had been destined for the house the moment she set foot within this castle. Obviously, the stall was just a ploy to cause him torment and needless worry.
So, why did he still feel the smallest twinge of disappointment?
We lived long together
a life filled,
if you will,
with flowers. So that
I was cheered
when I came first to know
that there were flowers also
in hell.