Cass tightened her grip on the luggage trolly as she pushed through the mass of students and parents and shrieking cages and tried to look brave. She wasn't scared, she told herself. She was fearless. She was ready. And she certainly wasn't going to let her new classmates see her lip tremble as she hugged her mother for the final time.
"Be brave, sweetie." Her mother said as she tucked her daughter's dark curls behind her ear. Cass nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She had never been away from home before, not even for one night.
"And remember," Cass drew back to gaze up at her mother's face, shining with tears. "No matter what anyone tells you, Gryffindor will be the best house for having you in it."
"But what if I'm not in Gryffindor, mum?" Cass asked the forbidden question as she was buffeted by a group of third years barging towards the Hogwarts Express. A cloud of steam from the gleaming red train's engine was blown onto the platform, shrouding everything in grey and white. Cass instinctively held onto her mother's robes.
"Cassidy Starkwell. Your mother and father were in Gryffindor, and so were their parents, and their grandparents. You have Gryffindor in your veins, sweetie. Don't you worry."
Her mother leaned down to straighten Cass's collar and plant a wet kiss on her cheek. She opened her mouth to reply when a high whistle filled the platform and made Cass jump.
"Time to go, sweetie." Her mother kissed the top of Cass's head on final time and pushed her towards the gleaming train. All along the carriage students were leaning out the windows, calling and waving to their families and to each other. More people pushed and shoved in the doorway, a sea of writhing bodies. The sounds of screeching owls and crying first years pounded on Cass's eardrums, dizzying her as she stumbled forward holding her trunk with one hand and her cage with the other. Cass was small for her age, and as she struggled forward she found it easy to slip under arms and around legs, heaving her heavy trunk after her. When she reached the door and stepped up she turned to wave one final time, but there was no sign of her mother. She scanned the unfamiliar faces of the crowd for her mother's dark eyes, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Taking a deep breath and reminding herself to be brave, Cass let the crowd sweep her inside, away from everything that was familiar to her.
Cass found herself in a carriage full of older students. Without their uniform, it was impossible to tell which houses they were from. One boy, stockily built with curly brown hair, heaved Cass's trunk up onto the rack for her. She gave him a nervous smile, clutching her cage to her chest.
"First year?" He asked, eyebrows raised.
She nodded.
"Know the feeling." He laughed, and Cass found herself relaxing slightly. "You can sit by me if you want." The boy said as he flopped onto the bench beside a black-haired girl. "Angelina and I can give you some first year advice." He winked and patted the seat beside him. Cass smiled then, and hopped up to the bench. Inside the cage, her cat meowed plaintively.
"My name's Oliver." The boy said.
Cass reached into the cage to stroke her cat, Taffy. "I'm Cass." She said, feeling more confident by the minute.
"Know what house you're hoping for?" The girl, Angelina, leaned across to peer at her with dark eyes. Cass swallowed, and shrugged. She had decided that she liked Oliver and Angelina. Not all students would be kind to a first year like her.
"My family were all in Gryffindor." She replied.
Oliver grinned. "That's our house. Best there is, if you ask me."
Cass shivered. She could almost hear her mother in the back of her mind, agreeing. "Best house there is." Her mother always said. "I was in Gryffindor, and so were my parents, and their parents before them. We have good blood, Cass, and I know you'll make us proud."
"Oliver." Angelina hissed. "What if she's not in Gryffindor? Don't scare her."
Oliver narrowed his eyes, looking Cass up and down. "She's a Gryffindor." He said finally. "Gut feeling."
Angelina snorted, but inside, Cass felt her nerves flutter. She certainly hoped so.
Oliver and Angelina were the only people Cass knew at Hogwarts, and when a giant, hairy man called out for the first years to follow him, she wanted to clutch onto them. But of course she didn't. That was a cowardly thing to do, and Cass was not cowardly. She bravely stepped forward, feeling strange without the heavy trunk and Taffy's cage weighing her down- but she had been told to leave them on the train. Her new robes fluttered around her ankles as she let herself be carried along by the tide of first years, and as she looked around at all her new classmates, some excited, some anxious, she realised for the first time that she wasn't the only one in an alien world.
"Crabb? Crabb!" A thin boy with white-blonde hair hissed beside Cass's elbow. She was standing on tip-toe, trying to see the lake over the heads of the other first years. Her heart had fluttered when she heard the massive man say that they would be travelling in boats. Not with fear, but excitement. The excitement of a new adventure.
"Crabb!" The boy beside her called, scanning the faces of the crowd. "Where is he?" The boy stepped back, still gazing around, and knocked right into Cass.
She staggered back, and would have fallen had he not reached out and caught her by the front of her robes.
"Thanks." She muttered, just as he said "Sorry."
"Right, come on, you three. Inta the boat." Cass looked up, craning her neck in order to do so, to see the big man standing above them, gesturing with hands the size of saucers for her to climb into the next little boat. She glanced sideways at the white-haired boy, who shrugged.
"Can't find my friend anyway. Guess you're with us."
The two boys in Cass's boat were complete opposites. The white-haired boy was thin and sleekly built, with a narrow face and intelligent eyes, while the other- Goyle, had he called him?- was big and burly with buzzed black hair and beetle eyes set too close together.
The white-haired boy grinned at Cass across the boat. "I'm Draco." He said. "Draco Malfoy."
"Cass Starkwell." She replied.
"Goyle, would you stop picking your nose?" Draco hissed. He grinned slightly at Cass, and she laughed silently into her hand as Goyle turned a dark shade of beetroot.
"Ignore him." Draco said, rolling his eyes. "He's part troll."
This made Cass laugh even harder, and Goyle go even redder.
"But don't worry, he's not the man-eating type."
Cass grinned.
"Any idea what house you'll be in?" Draco leaned back, making the boat rock.
Cass shrugged. "My mother wants me to be in Gryffindor, like her."
Draco narrowed his eyes. "So what house do you want to be in?"
Cass blinked. Never, in all her eleven years of existence, had she been asked her own opinion. It had always been assumed for her that she would be in Gryffindor, that she would follow in her parent's footsteps and they had followed in theirs. And yet, what house did she want to be in?
She shook her head to clear it. Gryffinor, of course. She wanted to be in Gryffindor.
"I suppose…" She trailed off. "Well, anything as long as it's not Hufflepuff."
Draco snorted loudly. "I think we just went from acquaintances to friends."
Cass returned his grin. "I've never had one of those before." She said quietly.
"What, an acquaintance?" He raised his eyebrows skeptically.
Cass grinned into her lap. "A friend." She replied, and felt Draco Malfoy beam.
"Well, at least you're making friends with the right sort of people."
"The right sort?" Cass repeated, looking up.
"Yeah." He nodded. "Because when I make a friend, it's a friend for life. There's no getting out of it, even you're put in Gryffindor. "
Cass raised one eyebrow, a talent she was inordinately proud of. "You don't like Gryffindor?"
He shrugged. "Well I'm planning on getting put in Slytherin, so traditionally, Gryffindors are my rivals. But I don't believe in that. People are people, right?"
Cass gazed out over the lake, the lights from the castle glittering on the water. "Right."