The Train
Adhara and Sirius Black were turning eleven tomorrow. But instead of preparing to celebrate, they were sitting on a small sofa in front of their mother, Walburga, whilst she paced before them, lecturing them on the importance of ‘upholding family honour and purity’. Adhara watched her mother attentively, her posture perfect and straight, whereas Sirius was slouched with splayed legs, gazing boredly up at his imperious mother.
He ought to be paying more attention. It’s his fault we are here, Adhara thought. Kreacher, their measly house elf had caught Sirius throwing paper aeroplanes made of Adhara’s abandoned sketches out the window. Ordinarily, only Sirius would be punished for this, except Kreacher had unfolded the aeroplanes, and seen the sketches of a muggle family at the park near the house. In Grimmauld Place this was considered incriminating evidence of being a blood-traitor, and obviously that was completely inexcusable behavior for the Black children. Adhara knew that she wasn’t a dirty muggle-lover, but she couldn’t help draw the family, they had looked so happy. She had wanted to capture that happiness for herself.
Sirius, however, had recently become rather stubborn that he could never be wrong, and that making paper planes out of failed drawings was a completely sensible and honourable thing to do. Walburga strongly disagreed. His attitude had gotten Adhara and Sirius to where they were, in the library, with matching red marks on their cheeks. After Walburga’s lecture had ended, the pair had been sent up to their rooms without an evening meal. After a few hours of staring blankly out her bedroom window thinking about the next day, and the letter that would arrive, Adhara decided she was bored. Cautiously poking her head out the door, she snuck out into the dark corridor and tip-toed to her twin brother’s room.
She knew both Regulus and Sirius would be in there, so she silently opened the door. She peeked in to see her younger brother asleep on the bed, lightly snoring, and Sirius perching on the edge of his desk chair, folding a square piece of paper. He was absorbed in the origami, so she snuck behind him and grabbed his shoulders roughly, whisper- shouting, “BOO!” in his ear. Sirius spun around with wide eyes, his heart thumping in his narrow chest. “Adhara! You scared me!” He hissed. Cackling quietly, Adhara turned and sat at the foot of his bed. “ Awwww, poor Siri-poo”, She said, sticking out her bottom lip in a frown. “Anyway, once you’ve stopped being a wuss, are you excited for tomorrow?” She asked nosily.
Sirius’ brow crinkled, and she could see the cogs in his brain turning, trying to remember the significance of the next day. Of course he knew it was their birthday, but that only meant a new set of scratchy dress robes and an expensive piece of jewellery for each of them. 3, 2, annddd 1, She thought. “Oh yeah! I forgot about that! We’re getting our Hogwarts letter!” He slapped his palm to his forehead. “How could I have forgotten! I’ve been excited all week!” Adhara rolled her eyes back, “Shhh! You’ll wake up Reg!” They both peered around at the small boy curled up, still sleeping. He could sleep through an earthquake and not even stir, she thought, looking lovingly at the boy.
“What’s he going to do without us?” Sirius whispered, staring up at the ceiling with tears welling up in his grey eyes. It was something both of them had thought about a lot the past few months, but never really discussed. Regulus was only small, and not very brave, he wouldn’t be able to withstand the pressure they all had to endure from their parents. Ordinarily, Regulus was kind of just ignored by Walburga and Orion, as he was the youngest, and a male, so he was neither the heir or needing to become a perfect housewife.
Even when he did do something ‘wrong’, Sirus would either divert Walburga’s attention by doing something worse, or Adhara would tell her mother Kreacher had knocked her portrait whilst cleaning or something similarly tragic like that. By himself Regulus would be scared and alone, with no one to comfort him. The thought of this was almost too much for Adhara, but she made her way over to Sirius and hugged him. His shoulder-length, curly black hair tickled her small nose as she whispered in his ear. “It’s ok. He’ll be ok. We aren’t leaving for nearly a year yet, and besides, he will join us after our first year.” Sirius hugged her tightly and buried his head in her shoulder, blinking back his tears.
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It was September 1st, and Sirius and Adhara were being dragged through Kings’ Cross station by their wrists. Orion had a hold of Sirius and Kreacher was struggling with his trunk and owl cage, and Walburga’s sharp nails were firmly clamped onto Adhara’s wrists. Both Orion and Walburga were standing tall, with their noses stuck in the air, looking far too alike for Adhara’s liking. She knew they were cousins, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be reminded of it.
They finally reached the wall, and passed through, onto platform 9 ¾, where a magnificent red train sat waiting for the young witches and wizards to board. The pair were dragged into a secluded corner of the bustling platform, where they were spun around to face their mothers stern face. “Now, you remember the rules we went through at home?” She hissed, “You better stick to them. Or there will be trouble. BIG trouble. Remember I know what you’re doing. Especially you.” She narrowed her cold eyes at Sirius, and straightened. Orion placed a hand on each of the twins shoulders, and lead them forward to where their Uncle Cygnus and Aunt Druella stood with their two children. There used to be three, but the eldest Andromeda, had been disowned after marrying a muggle-born named Ted Tonks straight after she had left school the year before. It had been a huge embarrassment.
Both the twins despised Bellatrix, but only Sirius was obvious about it. Narcissa, the youngest, wasn’t so bad, but she listened to her parents too much for the twins to particularly like her. Walburga and Druella stiffly nodded to each other, they had never gotten along, as Walburga didn’t believe Druella was good or pure enough to have the Black name. Cygnus and Orion were merrily chatting though, occasionally pausing to glare at muggle-borns or half-bloods that passed too close. The train was due to leave in a few minutes so the family all strutted over, their house elves behind with all the luggage, and started to say goodbye. Walburga leant down and kissed Adhara’s forehead, almost gently.
She peered down her nose at Sirius, and abruptly spun around to speak to Bellatrix. Adhara glanced at Sirius, who looked like he was about to either start laughing or crying. She wondered which it was, and she suspected he didn’t know which it was either. After they had gotten on the train, Narcissa and Bellatrix went to sit with their friends, leaving Sirius and Adhara alone. They were both surprised the two would ignore their parent’s directs instructions, and it made them doubt their mother’s absolute power at Hogwarts.
“Come on, let’s go find a carriage.” Sirius said, and the pair began to weave through older students, finally finding an almost-empty carriage near the back. There was only a tiny boy in there, his feet up on the seat, and a book nearly as big as his chest resting on his legs. “This one looks good. He must be a first year, so he won’t kick us out or anything.” Sirius remarked, and turned to slide the carriage door open.
The boy looked up with big greenish-brown eyes, looking scared out his wits. His hands were hidden in the sleeves of the huge woollen jumper he wore, as he looked at Sirius. He had barely noticed Adhara when she asked politely, “Could we please sit in here? We couldn’t find an empty place anywhere else.” The boy nodded quickly, redness creeping up his neck to his freckled face. Adhara went to sit down opposite the boy, but Sirius didn’t move. He was still standing, staring into space. Or rather, staring at the boy with the book. They had locked eyes, and it seemed neither could look away. Adhara awkwardly coughed, and the boy’s head snapped back to his book, his whole face, including his ears now a shade of tomato-red.
Sirius blinked and looked over at Adhara. He looked confused and dazed as went to sit next to Adhara. She looked between them and decided she had to break the tension that had somehow built in the air. “So, I’m Adhara Black, what’s your name?”
“Oh, um, I’m Remus. Lupin.” He muttered quietly, the blush still not quite disappearing from his face. He had quite a strong Welsh accent. Adhara looked expectantly over at Sirius, but he was unusually quiet, staring down at his lap, and fiddling with his brand new wand. She sighed, and said “This is Sirius. He’s usually a loud-mouthed arsehole.” When she saw that wasn’t getting a rise out of him, she huffed and turned back to Remus. “Lupin? Is your father the one who wrote some of those werewolf registration laws back in the 60s?” She asked, curious.
“Yep. That’s him.” He said, looking distinctly uncomfortable suddenly.
“And Remus. As in Remus and Romulus?” She asked, deciding the boy was just nervous, and she should change the subject. “Yeah. My mother loves old mythology.” He said quietly.
“So do I! What’s her favourite myth?” The conversation went on like that for a while, but Sirius stayed silent.
After a while, a prefect popped their head in the door. “Hi, sorry, are you lot first years? Do you have room for one more?” She asked. Without waiting for a reply she gently pushed a small red-headed girl into the carriage. “Here you are, love. I’m sure these three will be your friends.” Without another word, she rushed out the door, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder and hurrying off.
Adhara looked over at the girl, who stared back with wide green eyes that were filled with tears. Seeing the girl nearly crying made Adhara feel bad, so she invited her to the seat next to her. “I’m Adhara Black, and this is my brother Sirius and he’s Remus,” Adhara introduced the boys, who were both staring at Lily like she was an alien, “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Lily.” She whispered shyly, “Evans.”
“I’ve not heard of your family before. Where are you from?” Adhara said, her brow crinkling slightly.
“Cokesworth. None of my family are magic, which is probably why you haven’t heard of us.”
“You’re a muggle-born?!” Adhara exclaimed, scrunching up her nose. This brought immediate disgust and disdain to Adhara, but she saw Lily’s eyes start to well up again, and decided after this train ride they would never have to speak again, and her mother would never know, and it wasn’t like Lily was going to get into Slytherin, so it didn’t really matter if she tried to be nice for now. “Sorry, that sounded rude of me,” she apologized, “I’ve just never met one of you before.”
Relief flooded Lily’s features, and she said, “Really? Professor Mcgonagall said there are quite a few that go to Hogwarts.” Adhara felt her disgust for Lily start to ebb away quickly. She seemed really nice, and completely normal, not like she stole anyone’s magic at all.
“I think there are, I’m not sure. Anyway, what house do you want to be in?” Adhara replied.
“Oh, Sev told me about them. He said he wants to be in Slytherin, so I wouldn’t mind being in that with him, but I don’t really mind. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff seem quite nice too, though.”
“Yeah they’re ok. I will be in Slytherin though, definitely. What about you Remus?”
“My dad wants me to be in Gryffindor, but I wouldn’t mind Ravenclaw, honestly,”
“What house would you like to be in, Sirius?” Lily asked quietly. “I don’t know. Whatever the hat puts me in, I guess.” He shrugged, looking down at his wand again. An awkward silence filled the carriage again, until Adhara began another conversation on what classes they were most excited for.