Chapter 1
“Pandora, stand straight!” her mother hissed in her ear. Years of training instantly responded, and Pandora felt her body bend into the perfect shape of finery and etiquette.
Her mother let out a satisfied huff, and Pandora accepted it as praise and tried to keep up the posture as she continued to walk through the crowd towards the looming scarlet train. It was hard to keep her mind focussed on this objective as so much was going on around her, so instead of trying to ignore the noise around her, she leant into it; listening to how her feet slapped against the hard floor of the station. She kept this up for a few more paces, but then as the crowd began to thicker this became too difficult. The noise drowned out by the multitude of children screaming and crying out in laugher that surrounding her. She watched as they freely ran to and from their friends and families.
“How disgraceful,” her father said, his voice ringing out through the crowd, and many of the groups turned to look at him.
Pandora followed her father’s eyeline to figure out what had displeased him, and found he was looking at where a boy with high cheekbones had just pulled free from a tall stern looking man’s grip to run to another boy, who had messy dark hair and a pair of round glasses perched on his long nose. Pandora watched as the two boys laughed when they reached one another – the perfect picture of joy.
She then turned and looked back at the group the boy had ran from. The man, the boy’s father, looked disgruntled, but was clearly trying to play it off.
In contrast, the woman stood beside him, the boy’s mother, openly glared at the two boys, muttering something Pandora could not hear. She had hold of a boy’s hand, grasping it tightly, as she pulled him along, far away from where the other two boys were standing. The boy looked terrified, paler even than usual, as Pandora kept her gaze on him. Regulus Black.
The Blacks made up a part of her family’s important social circles, and consequently, Pandora had regularly seen the two boys during the times children had been permitted at various gatherings. She had always been jealous of Regulus, and his brother Sirius, during these times. Always together, so unlike how she and her siblings were. Her sister commonly kept out of the picture, and Lucius, vicious and mean, made it clear he was never going to be the one looking out for her, unlike the way Sirius stood defiantly in front of Regulus whenever their father or mother was around. But he was alone now, trapped between his mother and father, whilst Sirius had run off. It hurt Pandora’s head to think about, it was never as it had been. She hadn’t known things like that could change. Would this mean Lucius would suddenly start to be kind to her when they got to Hogwarts?
“He is rather reckless, isn’t he?” Lucius said, a mad grin on his face as he looked pointedly at Sirius and then at Pandora. “I would hope there will be no such behaviour coming from any new Malfoys at Hogwarts this year”.
“Pandora isn’t going to be a Gryffindor and keep such bad company. So don’t be putting such ridiculous ideas in her head Lucius,” their mother said, as she mirrored Regulus’ mother, by grasping Pandora’s wrist with her gloved fingers. Two girls who looked closer to Lucius’ age, seventeen, laughed as they walked past, and Pandora looked at them with wide eyes, until they turned away.
“Well, if she wants to go far, she should seriously consider joining us in Slytherin, especially with things as they are,” Lucius said.
“Pandora will not be a Malfoy forever Lucius, so you should shift your concern elsewhere. Need I remind you that I was a Ravenclaw,” their mother replied.
“Yes, of course, mother. Well, I’m off to the perfects meeting,” Lucius said in a drawling tone, implying he was done with the conversation before he swept himself off, disappearing onto the train.
“Shouldn’t you go and greet the Blacks?” Pandora’s mother said to her father.
“I suppose,” he replied, and wandered off. Pandora took a quick glance at Regulus again, but the boy didn’t notice. He was too busy watching where his brother now had his arm around the neck off a tall, scarred boy and was singing obnoxiously.
“Pandora,” her mother hissed, and Pandora looked up. “Keep walking but listen. I know what I just said to your brother, and I will not have some silly little schoolboy dictate to me on modern politics, but he is right. You should think twice before allowing for the hat to sort you anywhere else but Slytherin. There is a war. Look at what has happened to the Black boy. You cannot shame us in the same way”.
Pandora thought of Sirius running and laughing only minutes before, like so many of the children that surrounded her. She could feel where her mother’s nails were grasping onto her own wrist.
“Yes mother,” she said, but inside she was only calculating four different lives for herself on wherever the hat decided to place her.
*
The air inside of the train’s carriage was cool, a pleasurable contrast to the late summer heat from outside. Pandora was unsure how she had managed to find a carriage that was empty, but she wasn’t going to complain. The words that her mother had left her with were plaguing her mind, and she was just glad that Lucius had not tried to have her sit with him in his carriage, before the notion of the war became too real.
Instead, she tried to imagine what Hogwarts could be like. What the novelty of being able to do as she pleased in the castle would be like. In truth, she was excited for it all. It had been like a hard boiled sweet on her tongue all summer, sweet and hidden away, keeping her going until the real thing all at once seemed to be here in front of her. She wondered what it would be like to have been able to show this excitement in her home at the Manor. What it would be like to be one of the children who ran shrieking on the platform. She thought, would she be able to act like that at Hogwarts? And then more glumly, would she be able to act like that if she put herself in Slytherin with Lucius always observing and reporting back on her behaviour?
She sat thinking all of this as the London streets outside the window turned to countryside. Then, suddenly the door to her carriage was pushed open, and Regulus Black stormed in.
He drew back startled once he realised the carriage wasn’t empty.
“Oh, sorry,” he said gruffly, turning to leave. His eyes were rimmed red.
“Don’t go,” she said. “You can sit here.”
Regulus looked like he was about to argue, but then quickly turned and sat down opposite Pandora.
“You’ve been crying,” she said bluntly after a few minutes.
“No, I haven’t,” he quickly said back.
“Yes, you have. Your eyes are all red”.
“Well so what if I have. What are you going to do? Tell all your friends?” he said harshly, using his hands to gesture at the carriage that was empty expect for the two of them.
Pandora laughed at that.
“It’s not funny,” Regulus said, though he didn’t look as upset as he had before – in fact, he looked slightly smug at the idea he had managed to make her laugh, so Pandora continued to do so.
“When I make them, I will”, she said.
“What?” Regulus replied.
“When I make some friends, I can tell them about how Regulus Black stormed into my carriage and denied he had been crying”. Regulus rolled his eyes.
“What makes you so sure you’re going to make friends?”
“Everybody does at Hogwarts. Mother and Father are always going on about the friends they had, and I mean you’ve been at some of the gatherings too, they’re all still friends even now that they’ve been left for years. Plus, Lucius is always going on about this person and that person when he’s back for the holidays”.
“They’re not friends. They’re allies,” Regulus said. He was looking at Pandora like she was an idiot.
“What?”
“They don’t like each other really, it’s all about the war. About whom you can be seen with. Who is best to be seen with.”
“Oh, Regulus please, don’t talk about the stupid war. You sound like an adult.”
“Well, you sound like a baby,” he replied, and she laughed again, but she didn’t feel as sure in the act as she did before.
“Do you really think that’s true? That some people don’t make friends?” she said, “Sirius did”.
“Well, maybe, but Sirius spend two months trapped in the attic this summer because he did,” Regulus muttered, his head swinging down as he said it.
Pandora was shocked. She had heard her parents speak about the Blacks strict parental techniques, sometimes to her as a threat if she got too loud or asked too many questions, but she had always thought of them as make-believe. That in the Black household that maybe the Black children were being told the same about her parents to keep them quiet and diligent. But then, she also thought, about how her mother would never have been allowed to marry into the Black family, and the time when she had been about eight and snuck down to the kitchens at the Manor, during a Christmas party, because she was hungry, and she had seen Sirius already down. One trouser leg pulled up as he itched at the patterned thin long scrabs that were lined up on the back of his leg. But then she also thought of how he had ran to that other boy on the platform.
“He’s not trapped now though, is he? He’s going to be with them, and its ages until Christmas!” Pandora said eventfully.
Regulus sighed.
“I guess,” he said, “Maybe, we should just avoid blood-traitor Gryffindors then”.
“Not all Gryffindors are blood-traitors you know, and anyway not all blood-traitors are bad,” Pandora replied, thinking of all the events she had read about in the books from the Manor’s library. Plenty of Gryffindors popped up in what were deemed significant and celebrated roles, and she thought of the distant aunt and cousins her mother sometimes hushedly had taken her to when she was little. She knew her mother thought she had forgotten about it, but she never had.
“You’re not meant to say things like that out loud,” Regulus muttered, as he stared out of the window, picking at a slight bit of fluff that was coming out of the carriage seat he was sitting on.
Pandora was just about to answer when the carriage door opened again, and this time it was Sirius. He was with a short plump boy who looked a bit green around the gills.
“Reggie,” Sirius said softly, and then with a quick dirty glance at Pandora, “Come back and sit with us”.
Regulus had quickly turned back to the window after he had seen it was Sirius coming, but Pandora noticed that his hand on the stuffing had tightened considerably, pulling it taut.
“It’s okay Sirius,” he said. “You can go be with your friends. I don’t mind”.
Sirius let out a sigh.
“Listen Pete’s feeling a bit sick, so we’re going to have a wander up and down the train if you want to come? Just the two of us. Then mother will never find out you sat with a half-blood and a blood-traitor. You go for a walk, and somehow me and my pure-blood friend also happen to be walking in the same place, all is good. Nobody can go informing her then”.
Pandora realised the way Sirius openly suggested this in front of her meant he didn’t see her as a threat. She wasn’t sure if this fact delighted or annoyed her.
Regulus turned to look at her when he replied.
“I can’t,” he said, “Pandora will be by herself then”. Pandora was just about to say she didn’t mind, that she actually enjoyed her own company, when Sirius got there first, pushing himself fully into the carriage and sitting in the seat besides Pandora – opposite Regulus.
“Reggie, you don’t have to keep this sort of company now, you can be friends with whoever you want to me!”
Pandora cocked her head, looking at Sirius now. It was strange how much he and Regulus looked alike she thought. You didn’t notice it from afar, they both carried themselves so differently. But, here up close with them both on opposite sides of the carriage it was like looking at one boy and his reflection.
“Why don’t you go and sit with Lucius and Cissy?” Sirius said unkindly to her.
“I don’t want to sit with Lucius,” Pandora replied simply.
Sirius rolled his eyes, and turned to look at Regulus, but Regulus had gone back to looking out of the window.
“Fine! See you at the sorting!” he said, jumping to his feet, and then he was gone.
Regulus looked close to tears again.
“You can cry again, if you want,” Pandora said, a few seconds after the carriage door had slammed back onto itself.
Regulus looked at her, his face full of thunder, until he suddenly gave her a watery smile.
“You’re weird”, he sighed, and she turned to look out the window again, watching the clouds as they crept closer to the castle.