the first day
"You just run through that barrier," Michael said. Marlene looked at the barrier. It didn't look like you could run through it easily. But the blond-haired girl had grown up with enough magic around her to know that it wasn't impossible to do things like running through walls. So after she saw her brother disappearing in the stone wall, she took a deep breath and ran.
Platform 9 ¾ was busy, even more so than the muggle platforms. Everyone was running around with stuff like trunks and owls. Children were kissing and hugging their parents, or talking to the friends they'd already made. Marlene knew no one, her brother had left to claim a compartment with his friends. She also felt a bit out of place, because everyone was either already wearing their uniform, or was dressed very casual. Marlene's mother made Marlene wear a quite formal dress and pigtails, which she hated.
A hand tapped her shoulder. Marlene turned around and saw a kind, familiar face. "Dorcas!" "Hey, do you want to go seek an empty train compartment with me?" "Sure!" Marlene answered. Dorcas took her hand and together they walked to the red train. Marlene felt way more comfortable now she wasn't alone anymore.
It was hard to find an empty compartment, because most of them were already occupied with people looking older than Marlene and Dorcas. In one compartment sat a red-haired girl who looked about their age, but just as Dorcas was about to open the door a moody looking boy with black hair pushed her away and shot her a dirty look, before opening the door himself. Dorcas looked a bit upset by this, so Marlene wrapped an arm around her shoulder, smiled and said: "Come on." Dorcas smiled back at her and they continued searching for a place to sit.
Finally, the girls found a compartment without any people in it. They sat down next to each other and began chatting for a bit. Dorcas was a half-blood witch, she had grown up in a muggle neighbourhood but her dad had taught her a bit about magic. Marlene, who grew up with magic all around her, had many questions about muggles. Dorcas responded to them with answers but also questions of her own.
After a while, a girl opened the door. Marlene thought she looked annoyingly pretty, like an eleven-year-old model or something. Her skin was tan, but her eyes were blue and shining, which was probably a quite rare combination. She wore her hair in a perfect ponytail and she was already wearing her uniform. Marlene disliked the girl immediately, and judging from the girl's expression it wasn't one-sided.
Dorcas seemed oblivious to it and happily introduced herself and Marlene to her. The girl sat down in front of Dorcas and said: " Hi, I'm Mary Macdonald. You seem a lot nicer than the guy I just met, Severus. You might have seen him, he was sitting with a red-haired girl. She's really nice by the way, it's a shame her friend was so rude." Mary was about to start another sentence, when Marlene interrupted her: "Do you ever stop talking?" "It's fine Marlene," Dorcas said. Then to Mary: "Yeah, we've kind of met that boy, he wasn't very nice."
Mary and Dorcas continued chatting. Marlene got really bored by it and decided to leave to change into her uniform. On her way back she saw an old woman walking with a trolley with candy. She stopped by a bunch of boys Marlene's age, who bought a lot of candy and practically attacked the trolley. Marlene shook her head and moved on.
When she got back to her own compartment she saw Dorcas and Mary through the window. Mary was talking again and Dorcas was laughing hard. Marlene felt a bit jealous of Mary. She really liked Dorcas and didn't want a girl she didn't even like to come in between their new friendship.
Suddenly Dorcas noticed her standing behind the glass. She smiled and waved at Marlene, who smiled back and came in. "I got you a chocolate frog!" Dorcas said. Marlene gratefully took the candy. "Thank you!" she said. "Dorcas, I think we're almost there!" Mary exclaimed. Marlene was a bit annoyed at first, because Mary ignored her, but as soon as she saw the big castle rising up behind the hills, she forgot about that completely.
Slowly, the train stopped. Dorcas smiled widely at Mary and Marlene. "Let's go," she said. She looked exactly how Marlene felt, nervous but very excited. Marlene stood up. "Yes, let's go!
Marlene and Mary both grabbed one of Dorcas' hands. Together the three of them practically ran out of the train. Outside, they were rushed to a little boat by a huge bearded man. They saw groups of older students climbing in carriages. Marlene tapped Dorcas’ shoulder. “Hey, doesn’t it look like the carriages are pulled by themselves?” Dorcas agreed: “That’s so cool, it must be magic!” She then whispered something to Mary, probably about the carriages because she immediately turned to look at them. For a brief moment Marlene felt jealous again, but that feeling quickly passed because she was too fascinated by all the magic surrounding them.
The bearded man climbed into a boat as well. In most boats there were sitting three or four first-year students, but the man barely even fitted in one on his own. “Follow me!” he yelled. So they did. Marlene and Dorcas rowed their boat, while Mary sat behind them looking even more fascinated than Marlene felt. Then she realised that Mary was muggleborn and hadn’t grown up with magic like Marlene had.
Marlene had never rowed a boat before, so she was a bit stressed about keeping up with the big man in front of their little parade of boats. Dorcas probably knew what she was doing, she looked so calm. Marlene had noticed that the curly-haired girl was a very calm person by nature and it reassured her quite a lot to be around Dorcas.
The girls looked around and saw a lot of amazed faces. The towers of Hogwarts were slowly rising up behind the clouds. In the boat next to them Marlene saw the four boys she had seen in the train before. Now she had the rowing under control, she could take a closer look at them.
Two of the boys already looked like they were best friends. One of them almost looked like royalty, with shining black hair and an elegant face. The other had tan skin, very messy black hair and glasses that looked like they were about to fall off his face. He looked very stupid in Marlene’s opinion.
The third boy was a bit quieter, but laughed along with the jokes that were made. His hair was almost as light as Marlene’s, he was a bit chubby and had bright red cheeks. He was holding his hand in the water and smiling, until the fourth boy said something that made him stop immediately.
That fourth boy was mostly sitting quietly in the corner. He had a few scars on his face and gave off a bit of a mysterious vibe, so Marlene was not sure what to think of him. While the other kids looked so happy and amazed by everything, this boy didn’t seem to care much. But then Marlene took another look at him and saw he had a sparkle in his eyes and a little smile on his lips.
Marlene got caught up in watching the boys so much she didn’t realise they were almost at Hogwarts. When she saw the castle her stomach exploded with nerves. Luckily Dorcas grabbed her hand again after they got on the land. Hand in hand the girls walked after the big man, who then introduced himself als Hagrid. Mary jumped around the two girls, talking even more than usual, but Marlene couldn’t bring herself to care.
The inside of the school was even a hundred times more fascinating than the outside. The group walked through all of the halls pretty quickly, but tried to take their surroundings in as good as they could. Finally they reached a big door. It swung open by itself and revealed a really big hall filled with students and teachers.
Every single person in the hall was staring at the group of eleven-year-old kids standing in the doorway. The older students were sitting at long tables, dressed in black and either red, blue, yellow or green. Marlene knew those were the colours the different houses wore. At the end of the hall was a fifth table where the teachers were sitting. An old man in the middle, Marlene knew his name was Dumbledore, stood up. He introduced himself as the headmaster of Hogwarts and told the new students they would be sorted in one of the four houses. Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff or Slytherin.
After he had finished talking, the first student was called to the back of the hall. Sirius Black was his name. It turned out to be the royalty-like boy Marlene had seen in the boat next to her. But in the boats he had looked confident, a bit arrogant even. Now he just looked really scared. Marlene didn’t even feel nervous anymore. She was just very curious about the whole sorting thing.
Dumbledore put a hat on Sirius’ head. Immediately, the hat began to talk. For a minute, it looked like Sirius was going to be put in Slytherin, but then the hat yelled: “Gryffindor!” Everyone in the hall looked shocked and Marlene didn’t have a clue why. The other Gryffindors began to cheer, while the Slytherins were booing.
A few other students were placed in Ravenclaw, Slytherin or Hufflepuff. The redhead Marlene had seen in the train, Lily, was sorted into Gryffindor, as well as the quiet scarred boy, Remus, who had been in the same boat as Sirius. Lily smiled at her greasy-haired friend, who looked even more grumpy than in the train and didn’t smile back.
Then it was Mary’s turn. Marlene felt Dorcas gripping her hand tightly. She was nervous for her brown-haired friend, while Marlene didn’t really care. Mary was sorted into Gryffindor as well, and immediately began to talk to Lily.
“Dorcas Meadowes,” Dumbledore said loudly. As Dorcas was walking to the headmaster Marlene found herself already missing the girl's hand in hers. She was very nervous for her friend. After the sorting hat had sorted the curly-haired girl into Gryffindor as well, Dorcas ran to the red table and hugged Mary. Marlene didn’t have time to be jealous, it was her turn to get sorted now.
Marlene hoped she would be a Gryffindor, she would love to be around Dorcas a lot and some of the other students looked really nice too. On the other hand, she would also have to share a dorm with Mary for seven long years.
The sorting hat thought for a bit. Marlene could hear it talking: “Slytherin? No, she’s way too kind. Maybe Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. No wait, Gryffindor!” Marlene jumped up and went to hug Dorcas. Both of them were really happy and Marlene decided just to ignore Mary as much as possible.
The other two boys from Sirius’ and Remus’ boat were both sorted into Gryffindor as well. Lily’s friend was a Slytherin. He looked really happy, but Lily looked quite upset. After the last student, a girl named Emmeline Vance, went to sit at the blue table, Dumbledore gave another speech. At the end of it, food appeared on the tables and the feast could begin!
During the feast Marlene learned a bit about her new classmates, the other seven new Gryffindors. At first Sirius was being very sad, and dramatic in Marlene’s opinion. He looked like he was about to cry and kept saying things like: “My family’s gonna kill me.” But why would they do that, Marlene thought, surely no parents would kill their child for something simple like this.
Most of the other kids were busy trying to comfort Sirius. Even Mary was being really nice to him. Nicer than to Dorcas even. Maybe because she was a pretty girl and Sirius was a pretty boy. Were people already thinking about that?
After a while, Marlene was really annoyed by everyone, especially Mary, worrying over Sirius. She decided to just look around the hall a bit. At the table next to her, covered in blue, sat her brother Michael. He looked busy with his friends and a girl sitting next to him. Then Marlene saw Lily, who seemed to be looking at someone at a different table as well, her friend at the Slytherin table. “Have you guys been friends for long?” Marlene asked, not because she cared in the slightest about the angry-looking boy, but because Lily looked nice and she really wanted to talk to someone. Lily then began to tell her about Severus, who was apparently ‘way nicer than he looked’, which Marlene didn’t really believe. The girls continued to chat for a while and eventually some of their new classmates joined in on the conversation.
After the feast the newest members of the Gryffindor house had to follow two prefects named Arthur and Molly to their rooms. It was a weird journey, because all of the staircases were moving. Molly and Arthur didn’t even seem to care, but the first-years, especially those who had grown up without magic, were either amazed or very scared about falling down. Finally, they reached a painting of a woman singing very loudly. Marlene covered her ears, which did not only block out the sound of the terrible singing, but also the password the prefects told her.
The common room was covered in all sorts of red decorations. There were already a few students, looking about a year older than them, sitting near the fireplace. One of them was a girl with light-blond hair, wearing a blue scarf. Apparently Molly noticed her too, because she said: “Lestrange, back to your own house.” “Lestrange…” Sirius mumbled, but Marlene had no idea why he said that. While the Ravenclaw girl, Lestrange, was leaving Arthur told the two other kids who were still sitting by the fireplace to ‘give the new kids a good example on their first day’. Molly added: “So that means NOT sneaking in students from other houses.”
Then everyone went off to their own bedroom, which meant that Marlene was sharing with Dorcas, Lily and sadly with Mary as well. The latter exchanged a brief look with Marlene, before they walked to beds on opposite sides of the room. Dorcas seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, before putting her suitcase on the bed next to Marlene’s, which the blonde was very happy with of course. Lily was the last to enter, but she seemed alright with the bed between Dorcas’ and Mary’s.
The girls put their pyjamas on and went to bed pretty quickly, being exhausted by the whole day. Just as everyone was about to fall asleep, Mary began talking about how sad Sirius was and how sorry she felt for him. Dorcas and Lily agreed with her, but also said they really wanted to sleep. Marlene was naturally very happy with that, because she was very tired and still annoyed by both Mary and Sirius. Luckily, everyone was quiet and fast asleep for the rest of the night.