Secret Light

Walburga Black pushed the girl out of the magical cab – soundproof curtains that still let light pass on every window, enough space inside for a center table with refreshments, the magical branch of Beardmore specialized in catering to high-class witches and wizards – while her husband ordered the driver to wait for them to come back.

Adhara Black – eleven years old, almost twelve – had a very pale complexion, long and silky black hair held in a single left-side french plait, and her mother's silver eyes. She was what you'd call a beautiful girl, even for one of her age.

She was also going to Hogwarts this year.

She turned back to the cab, her eyes stopping on her father and younger brother – but not without taking in the opportunity to look at an unknown part of muggle London. The people were dressed in different clothes than the muggles she'd seen through the windows of Grimmauld Place, with more diversity – Grimmauld Place was a rich neighborhood, after all.

It was weird, and yet.

Adhara thought of the clothes she was currently wearing. Her dark robes were rimmed with silver, but could otherwise pass for some fancy muggle dress, she believed – and even if they could not, the point of buying high-end wizarding clothes from shops like Twilfitt and Tattings was that spells and enchantments were expertly weaved in the fabric, making it less likely that muggles would notice anything wrong with your attire as long as you didn't draw attention to yourself, amongst other features.

She liked those clothes, of course.

Then again, those girls wearing pants and high boots looked great too, and it would be much easier to run through the Hogwarts grounds during the week-ends in those.

Mother would object, of course. But Adhara could, perhaps, find a way anyway. She had several months away from Mother, right now, and even if the cousins – and basically all the pureblood slytherin gossips – would most likely keep an eye on her during the year, well.

Narcissa and Andromeda weren't going to watch her all the time.

“Adhara.”

The girl blinked and turned around, already on her mother's heels. No point in getting her cross right now.

“Yes, Mother.”

“Come. There is no point in staying in the middle of all those...”

Adhara cut her off before the witch could say more – maybe it would have been mudbloods, or muggles, or filthy beings, or even peasants. Perhaps strangers. It wasn't like the Blacks were constantly insulting everyone they considered improper, after all – but Adhara wasn't interested in knowing if her mother would do it today or not.

“Of course, Mother.”

She stole a glance at her little brother – Regulus wouldn't start Hogwarts before next year, but the boy had come to see her off anyway. He wasn't looking at anything else than their mother – the surrounding muggles, weird and different and interesting as they were, might as well be entirely absent of King's Cross today, as far as he was concerned.

“Mom, where are Andromeda and Narcissa?”

Good question, that. The older cousins should have been here already, they'd said they would be.

Adhara got along with Andromeda well, and she didn't mind Narcissa, they even had some nice talks occasionally. Bellatrix she was wary of – not that she couldn't recognize the echo, the silent note of ruthlessness she could feel in her own soul, in Mother and both her grandfathers, in everyone in the family, really, but she couldn't deny that sometimes the eldest daughter of her uncle Cygnus just looked like she understood what none of those who weren't firstborn Blacks could.

Good thing, overall, that Bella had left Hogwarts already. All of Adhara and Regulus' cousins were older, so they wouldn't be in the same year anyway, but still.

Adhara didn't care much for most of Bellatrix' favorite subjects of conversation – blood purity that, blood traitor this, and damn those people who didn't know their proper place, et caetera. She might, maybe, appreciate talks of dueling with her older cousin, if she didn't know what exactly the woman meant by those.

How she ever used those skills.

Walburga Black sniffed at the question, her sharp eyes leaving her daughter to roam over her son – Regulus, at least, she could read. The boy was almost everything the Blacks could have wished for in an heir – except that his sister would always be more ruthless and more powerful than him.

Sometimes the witch wondered how it would be if Adhara hadn't been the twin to survive until birth, if Sirius had been the one to live – a twinless twin of the House of Black, a firstborn, an heir to the Black legacy. Perhaps the boy would have been better inspired than the girl – perhaps Walburga wouldn't need to watch out for problematic opinions coming out of nowhere, as if she and Orion hadn't raised their daughter right.

But no, Adhara was Adhara and not Sirius, and that meant that unless something terrible happened, Regulus would be the one to bear the title of Lord Black one day, which was probably for the better. At least Regulus listened to what his mother told him, and he didn't try to prove her wrong at every corner. The questions he asked were logical and appropriate, unlike Adhara's – those seemed to imply that her parents were wrong and blind to it on a regular basis.

Yes, Regulus would be a much better head for the House of Black than Adhara, that much was certain. They could have wrangled a way for her to inherit the position, of course, that was what the Linelock ritual was for, after all – to ensure that the longevity of the House of Black, its name, its blood and its magic, would remain in spite of a witch being at the head of the bloodline.

They'd started talking about it, with Arcturus and Walburga's father Pollux, when Adhara was born – yet another girl, and in the main line this time. Still no Heir in the latest generation. On top of being a firstborn, Adhara was also a twinless twin – if no boy had been born after her, they would have proceeded with the ritual, that much was certain.

It hurt, of course, to see her daughter taking a path Walburga couldn't in good conscience approve of. She didn't want to lose the girl, and the truth was, she was apprehensive of the next months – away from her family, mixed up with all kinds of witches and wizards who might put weird, dangerous ideas in her head.

Of course, Adhara would go to Slytherin – like them all, but also because she was a Slytherin, cunning and certain of what she wanted – so at least that would reduce the filth she'd be exposed to.

Of course she would go to Slytherin – even if sometimes Adhara spoke of what was right and what wasn't, even if sometimes she thought too much on subjects which should be obvious to anyone of her standing and education, even if sometimes she stood up for her brother in ways that told of a complete lack of fear and unwavering loyalty.

Of course she'd go to Slytherin – all those characters traits weren't bad, per se, and Walburga knew that, as long as they didn't overshadow the more important aspects of a Black's personality: knowing who they were, and stopping at nothing to keep what was theirs.

Of course Adhara was her parents' daughter.

Of course.

Just like Regulus would be, next year – because that was who they were.

Walburga's son was still waiting for an answer, and she could see that Orion had handled Adhara's trunk. They started making their way into the train station.

“The girls are most likely already on the platform. Who would want to wait out here, amongst those people?”

Regulus was confused for a moment, then remembered when they'd taken the train to Spain two years ago from Platform 2 ½ – the magical platforms were distinct from the muggle ones, and muggles couldn't access them. So that meant you didn't have to mingle with muggles, uh, right.

For the first time since they'd arrived at King's Cross, the ten-year-old boy looked around him, at the people – the muggles – hurrying all over the place. There were so many of them, and they looked so different, so weird, so...

Regulus shook his head and looked away – back at Mom, at Father who was pushing Adhara's trolley inside the train station with a discrete spell.

His mother looked at her husband, Adhara's letter in her hand.

“It's platform 9 ¾ again, they finished the renovations in July.”

Father scoffed.

“There wouldn't have been a need to renovate if Scamander hadn't tried to take a loghrath on the Hogwarts Express! Honestly! Anyone with half a brain would have known that couldn't have ended well. I hear the headmaster had an alternate mode of transportation for the man's visit, but no, he'd missed it and thought, well, there's a perfectly usable train here!”

Regulus bit his lip, as his parents kept criticizing Newton Scamander on their way to platforms 9 and 10. Adhara and him had heard all about how the magizoologist had been invited by the Care of Magical Creatures professor to show a rare magical creature he'd been studying to the students two years ago, and the ensuing damage to Platform 9 ¾ had the students using Platform 9 ¼ for seventeen months instead. Father knew someone who worked at the Department of Magical Transportation, and apparently switching train rails when those were hidden from the muggle world was a complicated affair involving hiring a dimensional mage to look at and twist the current enchantments without destroying them.

Regulus wasn't quite certain what all that meant – dimensional magic wasn't a specialty he knew much about at ten years old – but he was certain he didn't want to hear it all again.

He was more interested in – and worried by – the fact that his older sister was leaving for Hogwarts and he wouldn't see her until the winter holidays, so he whispered at her:

“Adhara.”

The girl at first didn't seem to have heard him, her eyes glued on the approaching barrier hiding Platform 9 ¾, but after a second she looked at her brother.

“Regulus?”

“...You'll write, right?”

She gave him a crooked grin, and ruffled his hair just before starting into a run. He barely got to hear her answer when she disappeared behind the magical barrier hiding Platform 9 ¾.

“Of course! You can wait for a letter tomorrow morning, even!”

What Adhara didn't say was that she wasn't certain she'd write much to anyone else. Any kind of conversation with Mother became dangerous ground by the simple virtue of it happening, and she didn't have a lot to tell her dad that she knew he'd want to hear.

She emerged from the barrier into a busy platform, and her eyes skimmed right over the familiar – and unfamiliar – faces milling about and waiting for eleven o'clock, to fall right on a bright scarlet steam engine. Andromeda had told her how the compartments were just slightly bigger than they ought to, how there were more compartments in one carriage than you'd think possible looking from outside the train – because they were wizards, and wizards played with size for breakfast.

One, two, three... Adhara could see 12 cars behind the steam engine.

Before she could continue her observation of the famed Hogwarts Express – she'd seen pictures before, of course, but it just wasn't the same thing – Orion Black appeared by his daughter's side. They were soon joined by his wife and son.

A witch recognized Walburga, who pursed her lips and took Regulus with her as they went over to greet the Crabbes – Thomas Crabbe was his wife's cousin, and their daughter was entering her sixth year in Slytherin, if he remembered correctly – and Orion took the opportunity to talk with his daughter.

“Adhara.”

The girl didn't answer right away – her eyes gleaming silver as she started looking over the crowd, no doubt looking for other first years. Except Orion doubted the identity of those she was looking for, and maybe he should start with that.

Adhara finally looked over, her face vaguely guarded – but less so than when she had to talk with her mother. Which was both a good thing – for Orion – and very much a bad thing in general.

“Dad?”

Orion took an instant to think through his words.

“You... will make new friends, this year. I trust you'll try to keep the friendships you made up till now?”

The children Orion and Walburga had deemed proper for their daughter to know before Hogwarts, purebloods of varying backgrounds and some halfbloods from influential families. Orion wasn't necessarily against Adhara broadening her horizons – but that didn't mean she shouldn't cherish the relationships she already had, those who would, no matter what, prove worth the time.

The girl, of course, scowled.

“I am not becoming Yaxley's friend.”

Orion had been expecting that one, actually. Adhara and Morgan Yaxley had not seen eye to eye since the day the other girl had tried putting a meaningless fault on Regulus' back.

“Good thing, then, that I only spoke of the friendships you've already formed. There are other children amongst our social circle than Morgan Yaxley, I believe. Philippa Rosier, of course, and if I'm not mistaken, Carlotta de Medici and Catherine Burke are starting their first year. Or Annelise Parkinson, too. Esta Goldhorn comes from a lesser family, but everyone thinks she's headed for Slytherin like her father.”

There were a few other girls from pureblooded families, but those were less likely to get into Slytherin. Orion wasn't actually certain of their exact age – Antioch McKinnon's youngest child, perhaps, but that family was all over the place when it came to Sorting; there were also McLeod's daughter and Sykes' second child, but they weren't from slytherin-dominant families, and that brought another kind of questions entirely.

Orion wasn't blind – his daughter had most of a Slytherin's qualities, and yet. Having qualities from one House didn't necessarily mean this House was the most likely to be called. No one belonged in only one Hogwarts House – the point was that you belonged more to one than the others.

Orion himself couldn't deny caring about what he thought to be right, or about loyalty. He spent a lot of time searching for knowledge, too. He might have lived through getting Sorted into Ravenclaw, had that happened, and he could find common ground with some Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs. The fact that he had belonged in Slytherin more than in any other House didn't mean he had none of the others Houses in him.

Walburga, he thought with a wince, would have made a spectacular Gryffindor, with her disregard for weakness and her tendency to act on her beliefs – that wasn't something he'd ever say to his wife out loud, of course. She was cunning enough – and bullheaded enough – to make him pay such a comment before he could even see it coming.

Their daughter, as it was, took too much after her mother on that point. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff – maybe not Ravenclaw, for her interest in academics depended purely on how useful the information could be to her, and that was slytherin to the core – were an option for Adhara, and Orion didn't know how he'd deal with that if it ever happened.

It wasn't so much that he despised any House other than Slytherin – his mother was a Hufflepuff, and the Blacks had their occasional Ravenclaw thrown into the mix. His first cousin once removed, Dorea, for example, or Phineas Nigellus' sister Elladora. The qualities of those other Houses weren't, per se, problematic.

No, the problem was that Adhara might get ideas from the people there, ways of acting that would turn into habits from exposure, and then...

Adhara, Orion noticed, was watching him, waiting for more.

“Take care of your friendships, Adhara. They might be the only reason you'll find help, one day.”

Of course, the Black fortune would probably help, too. But Slytherins could easily get offended by being ignored, and might withdraw their help at the most important moment because of it, because someone offered them an opportunity for both revenge and benefits.

“And some friends can bring me more help than others, alright, I get it. But I'm still not becoming friends with Yaxley. She doesn't even know what the word means, anyway.”

That was, perhaps, a bit harsh to say about an eleven-year-old girl, but from what Orion had seen of Morgan Yaxley, not entirely inaccurate. Friends, of course, weren't the only important part of life, but an eleven-year-old girl who thought every past offense would be forgiven the moment something slightly beneficial for both parties happened was a bit... unnerving. Especially when said child had the galls to get offended that you wouldn't forget the times she did offend you.

Orion gave his daughter a tight smile as he noticed Cygnus and his two younger daughters a bit further ahead.

“Your cousins are there. Stay with them on the train.”

Adhara gave him a look that said she doubted anything would happen on the Hogwarts Express, or at least not anything worth worrying about. She was probably right – not even seventh years could truly frighten Orion's daughter – but if she didn't have to fight to prove it, that would be for the better. Having two older Slytherins standing behind her might help with that.

She'd likely stay with them anyway, since she did get along with Narcissa and Andromeda.

Adhara saluted the two girls – sixth and seventh years, they would be busy with studying and NEWTs and muggleborn duty for Andromeda, and therefore unlikely to keep a watchful eye over her all year long – and her older cousin waved back, while Narcissa nodded at her.

Adhara and her dad made their way to the rest of their family. Her mother and brother noticed them moving, said goodbye to the Crabbes and came over too.

The girl made a face that looked remarkably like a smile when her uncle commented on the rabble making it difficult to find each other – as if it would be easier if all the five hundreds or so families to come this day were pureblooded instead of mixed company.

The funny look Andromeda gave her right after her not-a-smile made it likely that she'd been spotted, but Adhara didn't really care. Andromeda was the least tedious to talk to when you disagreed with anyone in the family.

Cygnus took a watch out of his pocket while eyeing the crowd warily.

“Twenty past ten. Better to get you girls on the train, if you want an empty compartment. Last-minute people should arrive soon, and then it'll be a nightmare.”

Andromeda hopped onto the train steps and asked Adhara's father to make his daughter's trunk hover up to her. When the trunk got within grabbing distance, she took hold of a handle on her side.

“Adhara, get the bottom, we're starting with yours.”

The little girl – little compared to her older cousin, to the size of her own trunk – did as she was told and helped Andromeda maneuver the trunk into the train.

“Why aren't you just levitating it? You're seventeen now, right? You can use magic whenever you want.”

The older girl laughed, in between looking over her shoulder not to collide with other students.

“Have you seen how narrow the corridor is? It's difficult to levitate something in a perfectly straight line, you know. Most people only manage to keep whatever they're making float in the line of their wand, which means they are always making small movements. I'm not bumping the trunks into everything, thanks.”

Andromeda opened the door to a compartment, saw two children were already inside, and excused herself. Considering her cousins Evan and Philippa would likely join them, at least for the first hours, they needed an empty compartment – you could put up to eight first years in one compartment, maybe six seventh years, but that was crowded, and you might be missing space for everyone's trunks.

The third compartment was the right one. Andromeda told Adhara to stop, opened the door with her elbow, and started turning. Her young cousin's trunk was just narrow enough to take the turn without scraping against the door. Clearly, trunks sellers knew what they were doing when the client was a child of Hogwarts age.

Once the girl's trunk was safely stored overhead, Andromeda rearranged her hair and added:

“Also, if you're using a levitation charm to move your things in front of you, you can't see if there's someone in the way. Bad idea, really. Last year, two older boys did it at the same time, their respective trunks collided and it took forty minutes to sort it out.”

Adhara made a face. Obviously being able to use magic all the time didn't help everything, but she just wanted to start using it at all...

On purpose, that was. Not just giving Bellatrix a nosebleed without meaning to because she was harassing Regulus.

Andromeda pushed the window open and waved at their parents. Adhara leaned over too – her younger brother came to stand under the window, and they somehow manage to touch each other's hand.

“Don't be too bored without me, Regulus.”

The boy's eyes started glistening then – Adhara, surprised, added quickly:

“I mean, you like Kreacher, right? And Mom will probably take you to see Perseus and Juniper and Clinton, so it's not like you'll be completely alone all the time.”

There were others, too, but Adhara didn't like them all that much, and didn't want to remind Regulus of those other children and have him think she approved. Of course, Perseus Carrow's older sister was a problem too – but she was too old to care about ten-year-old little Regulus Black, or even about Adhara herself. Her brother should be safe enough.

Regulus sniffed, and the forming tears didn't leave in eyes – neither to roll down the boy's cheeks, nor to disappear entirely.

“You'll write?”

“I already told you I would.”

“Alright...”

“Adhara.”

Their mother was standing just behind her son – and their dad was coming over, too. A quick glance to the left revealed that Uncle Cygnus was still where Adhara had left him, and Andromeda and Narcissa were dealing with their own trunks.

Adhara looked back at her parents.

“Yes?”

Her mother was looking her right in the eyes.

“Behave correctly, and I trust you will do well in your studies. And please, do write sometimes before coming home for Christmas, will you?”

A small smile fought to appear on the girl's face, but she kept it down. She had planned to write about a letter a month to her parents, anyway, though she wasn't planning on much more than that.

“I'm not completely remiss in my daughterly duties, you know, Mother.”

The witch squinted dangerously – knowing she was being lightly mocked, but unable to pinpoint one exact word to blame her daughter for, and perhaps unwilling to get angry for so little when they weren't going to see each other for months.

“...See that you do.”

Adhara's father put a hand on his wife's shoulder, and added:

“Do be careful, too.”

Careful of what, he didn't precise. He could have meant over her acquaintances, of other children, about her studies, or even during the flight lessons.

...In fact, the flight lessons were, perhaps, a more serious contender for that warning than expected. Everyone always told her she flew dangerously well – like someone who enjoys doing dangerous stunts, to the ever-growing worry of everyone around them.

Still, her acquaintances seemed like a safer bet.

Narcissa pushed open the compartment's door, and Adhara took the opportunity to turn away from her parents by helping her cousin to get her trunk in the nets over the seats.

Five minutes later, the adults were leaving – the train wasn't gone yet, but there was no point waiting around now that the children were all set up, was there? Adhara watched her younger brother turn one last time to look at her, as the crowd was growing in numbers.

Andromeda squinted at the hundreds of heads and trunks milling about.

“...Is that Philippa?”

Narcissa joined her sister and cousin at the window.

“I see Evan, so it's likely her. And look, here are Uncle Anthems and Aunt Meliane.”

A family with ashy hair moved out of the way, and Adhara caught a glimpse of the youngest child of the Rosier family. Felix was perhaps three, and looked incongruously small next to his relatives and the general bustle of the platform. It was probably the first time the toddler saw so many people in the same place, too.

Adhara groaned.

Meliane Rosier, née Malfoy – of course the woman's eldest sibling, Abraxas, was right on her heels with his own son.

Narcissa's voice had a decidedly joyous tilt as she added:

“Do you know Lucius is a prefect, Adhara? If something happens at school, tell him about it, he'll know what to do. Or at least to whom you should talk.”

Andromeda laughed – and Adhara didn't have to respond.

“I think you already told her three times during the holidays, Cissa. And, you may have mentioned it a couple of times last year, when Malfoy got his badge.”

Multiply that by about four, and Andromeda's understatement would be true. The Black cousins had spent ten days near Antibes, in France, at the end of July, and Adhara was well past hearing about Lucius Malfoy this and Lucius Malfoy that.

Last year hadn't held half as many Malfoy-shaped comments, and the girl regretted it now. She went back to sit, away from the window – uninterested in gawking over Malfoy Jr like her cousin had taken to doing.

Andromeda, herself, found her sister's infatuation amusing. She wasn't certain of what had happened to push Narcissa into actively making her attraction clear to Lucius Malfoy – she had other things to do than spy on the younger years, and Malfoy wasn't exactly her favorite housemate – but her younger sister had shifted approaches a few months ago, and wasn't content quietly setting foundations for a relationship anymore.

Philippa and Evan spotted them through the crowd, and Andromeda waved at them.

“So, Cissa... A particular reason for your more... ah, aggressive... manners and attempts at getting Malfoy's attention?”

Her younger sister refrained from scowling – but Andromeda knew her too well, and she knew what that scrunched-up nose meant.

“I already have his attention, Andromeda.”

A side glance at Narcissa, and the girl was squinting at the crowd, as if someone would emerge and steal away Lucius Malfoy's interest in the next moments.

“What I need is his unwavering focus. Him and Rabastan have started spending more time together, and I'm almost certain that little stalker is planning to ask Lucius out to Hogsmeade or something. I have a rival now, I can't take things slowly!”

Andromeda winced. Her sister's words were perhaps a bit harsh, but she wasn't entirely wrong. Rabastan Lestrange's quiet demeanor could be a bit... unsettling at times, and she hadn't forgotten his eyes on Malfoy during Bellatrix' engagement party last month.

Still.

“Lucius is an only child, and the first and only heir to the House of Malfoy. They aren't going to let him end up with Rabastan, and even if they did, he cares too much about blood and familial duty to let himself end up with Rabastan, unable to have an heir of his own.”

Andromeda didn't see the appeal of familial duty and blood, herself, but to each their own.

Narcissa scoffed, and went to sit primly next to Adhara – who couldn't care less about Lucius Malfoy's love life but would remember the ins and outs of that conversation in ten years anyway.

Andromeda had never seen her sister look so mulish.

“If that were true... Alas, Lucius is one of those in-between children, and Rabastan is only a second son, so they could still have a family without putting the House of Malfoy in danger, with a Linelock ritual. No, I have to show him I'm clearly available and willing, and the better choice altogether.”

Andromeda hadn't known that about Malfoy – mostly because asking people you barely knew about their genitals was neither polite nor of interest – but since Cissa did, it meant Malfoy had told her – and therefore felt close enough to her.

Her sister had more than a fighting chance for Lucius Malfoy's affection, then.

In-between children were rare – about one percent of the entire wizarding population, perhaps, and Andromeda idly wondered if muggles had them, too – born more of a girl or a boy, but not entirely.

A very old treatment existed, to be dispensed upon birth, to ensure that the child's body would grow up correctly, and to correct whatever wasn't completely male or female – but the potion and ritual corrected both aspects, which meant that in-between children would be fully developed by adulthood, on both accounts. Lucius Malfoy was a man, there was no doubt of that, but he could both father a child and bear one, if he was indeed one of the in-between children.

Ah, well. That was Narcissa's problem, not Andromeda. She wasn't the one trying to woo someone who also had the attention of Rabastan Lestrange.

“Good luck to you, I suppose?”

Adhara chose that exact moment to stand up – both of the sisters looked at their younger cousin curiously.

“I'm going to the toilets.”

“There's one at the end of each carriage.”

The girl nodded sharply at Andromeda's volunteered information, and escaped from the compartment, unwilling to hear more about Narcissa and Malfoy and Lestrange's love-triangle-to-be. She didn't get why older kids could obsess about such things for hours.

Adhara took her sweet time going to the loo – letting an older girl go first, too, everything not to return quite yet to her cousins.

...She liked Andromeda and Narcissa, as much as you could like family, she supposed – in that it didn't matter, in the end, if you liked them or not, because they were blood and that was it. But they both were teenagers, and teenagers were weird, from what Adhara had gathered so far. Even Bellatrix had become weird during the last years – and Bellatrix was complicated to begin with.

More children were getting on the train, as the time of departure grew nearer. Adhara drifted from one carriage to another – swiftly evading Morgan Yaxley as the girl had her back turned – until almost everyone was seated in a compartment.

The Hogwarts Express started moving at last, and the girl thought she might have to go back to her cousins – and their cousins, and perhaps Lucius Malfoy too, if Narcissa had managed to entice him into their compartment.

She reached the right carriage a dozen minutes later, but stopped just before entering the compartment they'd chosen about one hour before. The door to the previous compartment wasn't well closed, and she could hear...

“Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave. Wouldn't you?”

Adhara blinked.

That was a first-year conversation, to be sure. A bit harsh about her family's traditional House – but honestly, she couldn't blame whoever had just said that, considering what she'd heard said about Hufflepuff House right under her grandmother Melania's nose, at family reunions at Black Manor. Slytherins weren't always very welcoming, and a number of them were unpleasant, if not all.

Adhara didn't know what she would have answered to such a statement, personally – but the prospect of fellow first-years who weren't her cousins' cousin kept her from walking the last steps to what might as well be her family's compartment for this ride to Hogwarts.

A girl answered with a sniff, reminiscent of Narcissa:

“That's alright, I wouldn't want you there either, if that's going to be your attitude.”

Adhara pushed the door open a bit more – but inside, no one paid her any attention.

Two girls – one a bit older, perhaps a second year – and two boys were sitting in the compartment.

One of the boys Adhara recognized, without really putting a name on him – he had wild dark hair and round glasses, and seemed to have just been thorn out of boredom by whatever had created this conversation. The other boy was scrawny, with greasy hair and a big nose, and he glared at the aforementioned boy with glasses, who seemed to have spoken the words Adhara had first overheard. The oldest girl was very skinny, and a green-and-silver tie was pocking out of her coat's left pocket, hidden from view of the glasses-wearing boy – probably the one who'd spoken. The last girl had fiery dark red hair, and looked a bit like the older girl, in a way where you couldn't quite point out what was the same, but you thought, perhaps, they might be related.

That girl looked a bit cautious about the topic, like she disagreed with the boy with glasses, but not quite – like she had an idea of what he was going on about, but she didn't like his way of saying it.

The older girl took out a small diary and stopped looking at the younger children.

“That being said, Lily, you don't want to go to Slytherin. It's difficult for me, it'll be for you too.”

There the boy with glasses frowned, as if he'd just realized something – and Adhara could guess what, if the two were really sisters, if she was right and they were both muggleborns – but the scrawny boy spoke up before he could do more than open his mouth.

“She'd be with m... with us!”

The older girl snorted, eyes still stuck in her diary.

“Still not a good idea.”

The red-haired girl – Lily, right? – bit at her lower lip.

“I... I want to stay with you two, though.”

“You really don't want to, if you're muggleborn. They hate people like you there!”

A charged silence followed the glasses-wearing boy's statement.

Adhara winced – here, that was out in the open, but maybe it wasn't the best way to put it, not completely accurate either. But even if it was more complicated than that, there were more blood purists in Slytherin than in any other House, and that was one of the reasons Adhara herself wasn't very enthused at the prospect of ending up there like the rest of her family.

The scrawny boy looked more frustrated with each word out of the other boy's mouth.

“Don't talk to her like that! And where are you planning on being Sorted, you, uh? Just so that we can make sure not to end up in the same House!!!”

Adhara wasn't certain where that accusation and that dislike came from – but the intended recipient of those just squinted, as riled up as the scrawny boy.

“Gryffindor, like my dad and mom! Everyone there cares about doing the right thing, and we're not afraid of standing up for it either!”

The scrawny boy made a disparaging noise, and Adhara couldn't say he wasn't getting on her nerves too. Perhaps the boy with glasses hadn't been very nice all along – but that one wasn't trying either.

“Yeah, too bad Gryffindors never stop to think about anything else, uh?”

The glasses-wearing boy jumped onto his feet, and Lily seemed about to throw herself between them both, convinced someone was going to throw a punch or a spell soon.

“Well, here's me thinking and doing the right thing: getting the hell away from you before I get your stupidity and your Slytherin-loving manners!”

The boy shoved his way out of the compartment – blinking a moment at Adhara, whom he hadn't noticed standing there – with a last word:

“See you never, Snivellus!”

And he was gone.

Adhara found herself stared at by the three other occupants of the compartment, who'd finally realized she was here.

The older girl eyed her from behind her diary.

“...What do you want?”

“I was going to ask if they were first years too, but I'm not sure I want to get in the middle of that.”

The scrawny boy tensed, still glaring at the door – at the way out the other boy had used, but also, incidentally, at Adhara herself.

She didn't think she liked him much, all things considered.

“What?!? It's his fault, he started it! Trying to scare Lily out of Slytherin like it's his place to say where anyone should go!”

Adhara snorted.

“Yeah? And then you purposefully insulted Gryffindor, knowing full well that his entire family went there because he'd just said so. I fail to see how that's not both your fault. Anyway, I'm leaving. Lily, and whatever your name is, I'll see you around, I guess? My family is in the next compartment over, must be wondering where I disappeared off to.”

Not that she hadn't done her best to disappear for a while, but, you know. Family could be tedious – and apparently, so could be friends and rivals. Relationships in general, then.