DISCLAIMER: Well… the dialogue's mine! That's a start, right? Soon, I shall be making millions! You know the drill – everything you recognize is JKR's, everything you don't, I wrote or stole from unsuspecting people talking on their cell phones.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A forever thank you to my brilliant beta, Alvira, without whom this fic would be a lot less cohesive, and a lot more poorly spelled.

Chapter 1: Looking Forward to Hogwarts

Sirius Black looked around the nearly empty Platform Nine and Three Quarters, feeling anything but excited. The bright red steam engine that would take him to his first year at Hogwarts sat still and silent on the tracks, its engines not yet ignited for the coming journey. A man in white overalls was applying a judicious coat of wax to the outside of the train so that it reflected the grey platform and, in the centre of the platform, the small huddle of Sirius's family. Unwilling to dress in Muggle clothing and walk among the Muggles crowding King's Cross Station, the Blacks had arranged a private Portkey for the occasion. Therefore, they'd been forced to come an hour and a half early so that they wouldn't land on anyone upon arrival. Sirius's spirits had sunk as soon as he'd seen that the only people on the platform were his parents, his brother Regulus, and himself.

Glancing down at him, Sirius's father said, "The Malfoys should be arriving soon."

Sirius looked away. This wasn't the first time he'd got the impression that his father could read his mind, and he found the idea entirely unpleasant, as though even his thoughts were Black family property. The impending arrival of the Malfoys was similarly unappealing, and made him feel even lonelier than he had a moment before.

The Malfoys, who were slightly higher in social rank than the Blacks, had a long tradition of limiting their progeny to a single son in every generation. In Sirius's generation, that son was Lucius Malfoy, a tall, slim, blonde boy who was beginning his seventh year at Hogwarts. Sirius had seen Lucius often at parties at Malfoy Manor, and at the Blacks' own estate, and disliked him heartily. Cold, stiff, and arrogant, Lucius Malfoy had made his distaste for Sirius evident upon their first meeting, when, left in Lucius's charge at a party, he'd allowed Sirius's cousins to lock him into a cupboard and leave him alone. Three-year-old Sirius had immediately taken matters into his own hands, and determined to kick the door of the cupboard off its hinges. He was eventually successful, and limped off to find his cousins, blood dripping down his right calf. It was at this point that he was discovered by his eldest cousin, Andromeda, who'd shrieked, taken him by the hand, sought out her sisters, and given them a sound verbal lashing. Bellatrix had paused in her dismemberment of a squirming doll to stare at Ani insolently, and Narcissa hadn't even looked up. Lucius had escaped being told off, as he wasn't a member of the family, and a Malfoy besides. Andromeda had taken charge of Sirius for the rest of the night, but before they left the room, Lucius had leaned over and hissed in Sirius's ear, "Tell-tale."

Though Lucius had only been ten years old at the time, and had always been polite to Sirius since, Sirius had never forgiven him. Knowing he had a long train-ride with Lucius to look forward to, Sirius found himself dreading the trip to Hogwarts more than ever.

He was so busy thinking about this that he nearly forgot that his cousins would be arriving shortly, too. Sure enough, Sirius's uncle Castor and his cousins Bellatrix and Narcissa appeared nearby a moment later, all hanging onto to their Portkey: a sharp, silver dagger, which Uncle Castor quickly tucked away inside his robes.

"Castor." Sirius's father nodded solemnly in greeting to his younger brother.

"Lynol." Uncle Castor returned the nod and shook his brother's hand. Uncle Castor was broader and shorter than Sirius's father, and his hair had not yet started to grey. They had the same eyes, however; dark and cold, and heavy-lidded, spaced far apart on their heads, with short, scarce lashes.

Sirius's mother greeted Castor next, presenting him with one of her long, thin hands to be kissed. When the adults had finished saying hello, Uncle Castor turned to his daughters, who were standing to his left and back a pace, waiting for his signal. At his look, they stepped forward, and curtsied in unison. Sirius and Regulus bowed.

"But where is Octavia?" Sirius's mother asked, after a brief nod to her nieces.

"Ill, I'm afraid," Castor said. "She sends her best to you all, however, and luck to Sirius, who I'm sure will make us proud."

Sirius bowed again, almost unconsciously. He was hardly paying attention to the dance of etiquette going on around him. Its steps were so deeply ingrained in his psyche that he could follow them in his sleep.

As the adults began talking about nothing interesting, Sirius looked at his cousins, who were both already in their school robes, the silver and green Slytherin insignias embroidered on the right sides of their chests.

Bellatrix and Narcissa were roughly the same height, both tall, like their mother. Narcissa had her mother's blond hair, which was plaited and wrapped around her head. Bellatrix had her father's black hair and heavily lidded eyes, and her mother's straight, regal nose.

Both girls, Sirius supposed, were pretty, but Sirius felt that neither Narcissa nor Bellatrix were anywhere near as pretty as their elder sister, Andromeda, who had left Hogwarts the year before, and who had generally boycotted Black family functions ever since. Sirius missed her terribly; she was the only one in his family who had any sense of humour or showed him any affection. When he'd been younger, she would tell him about Hogwarts: the castle, and her classes, and her friends.

"You'll love it there, Sirius," she used to tell him, away from the ears of their family. "You'll make fantastic friends, and you'll be able to get away from this lot."

For years, Sirius had looked forward to Hogwarts with a kind of desperate longing. Andromeda had been so happy there; she'd been in Ravenclaw House, and she'd been a prefect, and popular, and the head of the photography club.

The family had only been a little disappointed that Ani hadn't been in Slytherin. After all, Ravenclaws were at least really clever. Sirius had hoped for a while that he'd be there, too, but as he'd grown older, he'd learned better. He was the eldest male in his generation, which meant that after his father and uncle died, he would be Head of the Black Family, and no one who had ever held that title had been in any house but Slytherin, which meant that, unlike Ani had said, Sirius wouldn't be able to get away from his family at Hogwarts. He'd be with Bellatrix and Narcissa, and Lucius Malfoy, and all the other suck-up, arrogant, intensely proper and boring inhabitants of Slytherin House and his entire social class.

The only light Sirius could see was that Bellatrix would be graduating in three years, and Narcissa was much more weak-willed than her sister, and would do whatever Sirius told her. Despite her being his senior by two years, he was the future Head of the Black Family, and that demanded a certain amount of respect. And even better: due to the rank of the Black family, Sirius would be head of the entire Slytherin House as soon as Lucius graduated at the end of this year. He imagined himself lounging in front of the fire in the Slytherin Common Room, having ice creams brought to him by adoring younger students, while the elder students sat at a table nearby, doing his homework.

This cheered him up a bit, so that when Lucius Malfoy and his parents arrived a moment later, his mood was only dampened a little. There was another round of polite greetings, and Sirius was forced to bow several more times. When everyone was finished, Sirius's mother clapped her hands together briskly, two times.

"Kreacher!" she said imperiously. Kreacher, Sirius's family's house elf, appeared instantly and silently at her side. Sirius stiffened in surprise and displeasure. He hadn't even realized that Kreacher had come with them, and had been lurking out of sight, the way house elves in general, and Kreacher in particular, seemed always to do.

"Take these trunks and owls onto the train and stow them in a compartment," Mrs Black commanded. Kreacher moved forward to do her bidding, but Mrs Malfoy stepped in front of Lucius's trunk.

"Thank you, Michaela," she said, her voice cold, "But we can provide for Lucius on our own." There was a tense silence. Mrs Malfoy clapped her hands, her own house elf appeared, and was directed to put Lucius's trunk in a compartment with the others. The house elves and the trunks disappeared. The silence continued, until Mrs Malfoy said, "Ghastly weather, isn't it?" to which Sirius's mother quickly agreed, and polite conversation began again.

Witnessing his mother's mistake and Mrs Malfoy's brush-off, Sirius felt any cheerfulness vanish from him, along with the image of himself eating ice creams in the Slytherin Common Room. He might be the future Head of the Black Family, but he would never be free of the cold, elitist society he'd been born into.

The Hogwarts Express roared into life as its engines were ignited and it sat chugging on the tracks. As if on cue, wizard families began trickling through the barrier from the Muggle station outside. Lucius turned to Sirius.

"Looking forward to Hogwarts?" he asked.

Sirius shrugged.

"Oh, come now," Lucius drawled, smirking at Sirius's rudeness. "It's not as bad as all that. I hear you have good marks in primary school." His smirk broadened. Sirius didn't respond. "Bellatrix," Lucius turned to her. "Your cousin doesn't seem very excited about Hogwarts."

"His head's been filled with all manner of rubbish by dear Andromeda," Bellatrix responded, keeping a careful eye on Sirius's mother, who always flew into a fit at any mention of Ani's name, ever since she'd announced she was dating a Mudblood. "Once he gets there and sees that Slytherin is nothing to be nervous about-"
"I am not nervous," Sirius snapped.

"He speaks!" Lucius said, putting a hand over his heart and pretending to be shocked. Narcissa laughed. Lucius, clearly enjoying her response, turned to Regulus. "What about you, Regulus? Will you miss your big brother?"

Regulus glanced at Sirius and shrugged.

"You've taught your brother your bad manners, Black," Lucius said mildly.

"Not at all," Sirius said, feeling his face heat up, "Regulus has very good manners. He just felt that staying silent was more polite than saying he won't miss me at all."

Lucius smiled at Sirius. "Sibling rivalry? I'm glad I never had younger brothers." He sneered at Regulus, then turned to Bellatrix and Narcissa. "Sisters seem much better."

Narcissa looked flattered by his attention, but Bellatrix, after giving Lucius a thin smile, looked away.

"More Mudblood scum," she hissed, straightening up, her eyes focused somewhere across the platform. With her eyes wide like that and her nose in the air, Sirius thought that she looked like some sort of big cat that had scented fresh blood in the jungle. The others followed her gaze.

On the other side of the platform, a slim girl with red hair and rather bizarre clothing was being helped onto the train by an older man who was dressed as a Muggle. Muggle clothes aside, the man was clearly a wizard, as they were the only sort who could get onto the platform.

The wizard seemed a friendly sort of person, with light hair and a big smile. He shook the Mudblood's hand, and she climbed into the train. Sirius looked back at Bellatrix. Compared with his cousin, the ginger-haired girl looked like the most helpless thing in the world.

"Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers," Lucius said grimly. "The whole platform's overrun with them." Bellatrix and Lucius began consorting in low voices, and Sirius turned away. They weren't saying anything he hadn't heard a dozen times before.

Sirius looked down at Regulus, but his brother wouldn't meet his eyes. Sirius hoped that Regulus hadn't been upset by what Lucius had said about younger brothers. Sirius had only been trying to make Lucius leave Regulus alone, but he seemed to have made it worse.

"Regulus," Sirius whispered. Regulus looked up, expression stony. "Want to come look round the train with me?" Regulus hesitated, then nodded.

Sirius straightened up. "Father, may I be excused to find our compartment on the train?"

"Yes, Sirius," his father replied, before returning to conversation with Mr Malfoy.

"Come on," Sirius said, setting off towards the train. He heard Regulus hurrying after him. Looking back, he saw Lucius still engrossed in conversation with Bellatrix, Narcissa hovering on the edge of their conversation. The adults seemed not to notice that Regulus was gone.

The brothers climbed the metal steps onto the train and wandered down the centre aisle of the first car, poking their heads into compartments, looking for Sirius's trunk and brand new Eagle owl, Apollo.

"So, Reg," Sirius grinned down at his younger brother, "Will you miss me?"

"Yes," Regulus answered, shrugging. "It'll be nice to have Mother and Father's attention to myself, though."

Sirius made a face. "Really? Be careful what you wish for, Reg. I wouldn't want to be in your place."

"Well, you're not," Regulus snapped, face darkening. "And you never were. And don't call me 'Reg'!"

"Alright, Reg, calm down," Sirius said, alarmed. "I didn't mean to upset you."

Regulus scowled and they were silent as they continued to check compartments.

Sirius cast a sidelong glance at his younger brother. There was something odd about Regulus, and always had been. Sirius had suspected for a long time that Regulus might have inherited their mother's illness, though he had never voiced his suspicion. Sometimes, he wondered if he, Sirius, had inherited her illness, as well, whenever he caught himself doing something strange and nonsensical, like lying for no reason, or hiding things that he didn't especially care for. Regulus did those sorts of things all the time, especially when it was likely he'd be caught at it. Regulus was always punished severely for such misbehaviour, which never seemed to deter him from doing it again at first opportunity.

Sirius, thinking that Regulus shared his enjoyment of the thrill of breaking rules, had tried to bring his brother into his own escapades of sneaking into their neighbours' yards and stealing things from windowsills and back gardens, but these diversions never interested Regulus much. After a while, Sirius decided that Regulus simply liked getting caught, a tendency Sirius found unexplainable and a bit frightening.

If he were to be completely honest with himself, Sirius had to admit that he was rather worried about leaving his younger brother alone with their parents. When he was home, Sirius often tried to take the blame for Regulus's misbehaviour, if only because he hated seeing their mother beating Regulus around the head until he was cross-eyed. Mother would beat Sirius, too, but never as badly.

"Here it is, Sirius," Regulus said at last, standing in front of an open compartment door. Sirius stood behind his younger brother and looked in over his head. The luggage racks in the compartment were nearly full with four large trunks, stacked end to end. Apollo and the other owls were not there, but Kreacher was, standing under the compartment window, looking out at the rapidly growing crowd on Platform Nine and Three Quarters. When he heard the boys enter, Kreacher turned around and bowed.

"Further orders, young masters?" he asked, voice expressionless. Sirius's lip curled. He didn't need to look out the window to know what Kreacher had been staring at; the elf was obsessed with Sirius's mother. Personally, Sirius found Kreacher spooky, and knew Regulus didn't care much for him either.

"Yeah," Sirius snapped, "Get lost."

Kreacher didn't move.

"Where's Apollo?" Regulus wondered aloud, looking around at the trunks.

"The owls are in the pet car," Kreacher said. "Further orders from the Master or Mistress?" he asked.

"Mother said you're to return to the house," Sirius said, crossing his arms.

"No she didn't," Regulus argued immediately. Sirius glared at him, and Regulus looked at his feet.

"Well, she would have done, if she'd thought of it," Sirius said, looking at Kreacher. "And either way, you have to do as I say, and I say go home."

Kreacher stared at Sirius for a moment, then bowed and was gone.

"Mother won't be happy with you," Regulus said morosely, pressing his hand into a seat cushion.

"She won't know," Sirius replied, looking around the compartment. "He'll only tell her what she asks, and she won't notice he's gone." He looked out the window at the platform, and saw that his parents' group had been joined by another family.

"Brilliant!" he exclaimed. "Esmerelda's here!" Sirius turned from the window and hurried out of the compartment, leaving Regulus to follow after him.

Esmerelda Blake was one of the few people Sirius had ever met and liked. Her family were wealthy and pureblood, and in the same social circle as his parents and the Malfoys. Though in recent years the Blakes had all been in Slytherin, it had not always been that way. Many of them were in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw as late as the 1700s, and there was even the rumour of a Hufflepuff around 1590, but Sirius didn't think that was true.

Esmerelda, though not very exciting, was willing to laugh at Narcissa and Bellatrix's airs every so often, and was one of the only young society witches who wasn't in love Lucius Malfoy.

"Sorry! Pardon me! Sorry!" Sirius said as he jostled people and trunks on the crowded platform, hurrying towards his family. He arrived at last, panting, at Esmerelda's side. "Hello!" he said brightly. Mrs Malfoy gave him a disapproving glance, and Sirius's own mother gave him a look that could curdle milk.

"Hello," Esmerelda said after a pause, her expression mirroring Mrs Malfoy's. Sirius's smile faltered as Esmerelda turned to his cousins.

"What were you saying, Narcissa?" she asked.

Lucius, watching Sirius, smirked. Sirius felt his face grow hot, but was distracted by Regulus's arrival. Regulus appeared at his mother's side as silently as Kreacher had done earlier, avoiding Sirius's eyes. Sirius felt annoyed. What was wrong with everyone?

"Perhaps the children should get on the train," Mr Malfoy announced. The other adults murmured their ascent.

"Let me help you with your trunk, Esmerelda," Mrs Black said. "Kreacher," she called, clapping her hands. Nothing happened. She clapped her hands again, with the same result. Mrs Black's cheeks went pink. Regulus looked at Sirius and away again.

"Don't worry, Mother," Sirius said quickly, "I'll carry Esmerelda's trunk."

"Let me help you with that, Sirius," Lucius said, giving Sirius a malevolent grin. "Goodbye Mother, Father," Lucius said with a quick bow to his mother and handshake for his father.

He bent down to lift one end of Esmerelda's trunk, smirking along its length at Sirius, who lifted the other end. Lucius straightened up as they carried the trunk towards the train, so that it was tilted down towards Sirius, who was shorter, making his load much heavier. Face red and arms straining, Sirius steered them towards their compartment, where they loaded the trunk into the luggage rack.

"See you," Lucius said, striding towards the door of the compartment. "I'm visiting some friends at the end of the train, if Bellatrix asks." Lucius vanished among the students now thronging the aisle of the train. Sirius pushed his way back to the platform and found his parents again. Bellatrix, Narcissa, and Esmerelda were already gone, and the Malfoys had disappeared as well. Sirius shook his father and uncle's hands and bowed to his mother.

"Do well in your studies, Sirius," his father said. "Make us proud of you."

"Bye, Reg," Sirius said softly to his younger brother, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Good luck, yeah? See you at Christmas."

"Goodbye, Sirius," Regulus said, "Do well in your studies."

Sirius turned away from his family, and walked towards the Hogwarts Express.

Remus Lupin leaned back against the red cloth of his seat next to the window, letting his eyes slide to the crowded platform beyond. He caught sight of his mother, who was standing towards the back of the mass of families and trunks, craning her neck, her scanning the length of the train, trying to find Remus through the windows. Remus raised a hand and waved, and his mum caught sight of him and, with a broad smile, waved back. Remus waved to his mother for another moment before the ache in his chest began to build up and he looked away, pretending to rummage in an imaginary suitcase by his feet. He was thrilled to have a place at Hogwarts, but that didn't mean it was easy to leave his mum, or his dad who, as a Muggle, was stuck on the other side of the gateway to Platform 9 3/4.

Remus was fumbling with his shoelaces when he heard someone enter his compartment. He looked up to see a short boy, who, like Remus, was already dressed in his Hogwarts robes but, unlike Remus, was not smudged with soot from the fireplace at the Leaky Cauldron, where Remus and his parents had arrived several hours earlier. Although he was clean, the boy was far from tidy; his black hair stuck up at odd angles all over his head, his gold, wire-rimmed glasses were slightly askew, and his robes were wrinkled around the neck, as though he'd been tugging at them.

"Hello," the boy said, with a grin as crooked as his glasses. "Mind if we sit here?"

Remus couldn't tell whom "we" included; the only person he could see was the black-haired boy in front of him. Perhaps he was using the royal "we", which, judging by the way he carried himself, despite his messy hair and wrinkled robes, would not be totally out of place.

"N-not at all." Remus stumbled over his words, going red.

Instead of sitting down, the boy retreated to the compartment doorway and stuck his head into the corridor. "Oi! In here, you lot!" he called, and before Remus had a chance to worry about who "you lot" would be, a group of children (first years, if their solid-black robes were any indication) appeared, looking excited and pleased to see the black-haired boy.

"Oh, well done, James – I couldn't find a single compartment that wasn't full up!" said a short boy with freckles and bright green eyes.

"I would have got on the train on time if Mum didn't insist on taking a million photos," said a short girl with curly brown hair.

"She can't have been as bad as my mum," declared James. "She had to take a photo of me in every single room of our house."

"In your house, that'd take a year!" exclaimed another boy, admiration and envy clear in his voice.

"Are we all going to fit in here?" asked a rather pretty girl with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes.

"Of course," James told her, sitting down across from Remus as if to demonstrate his point. The other four immediately followed his example and found seats. Remus found himself next to the strawberry blonde.

"Well, James, are you going to continue to be rude, or will you introduce us to your new friend?" the girl with curly hair asked, nodding towards Remus.

"I was getting there!" said James, although he clearly hadn't been. "This is…"

"Remus Lupin," Remus supplied.

"This is Remus Lupin," James announced, as though he had known all along. "An old friend of mine – raised like brothers, the pair of us. We were separated very young, by an episode with a kelpie and a tea trolley – well, you can guess what happened. Now, fate has brought us back together, as I'd so often hoped it would." He grinned at Remus, who felt a bit overwhelmed.

The curly-haired girl snorted. "Right, James." She turned to Remus. "Ignore that one," she advised him, gesturing at James. "Not worth bothering with."

James's friends, however, clearly though that he was well worth bothering with. Remus had noticed how they'd all waited for him to sit before they had, and how they all shot frequent glances in his direction, as if looking for cues. James seemed mostly oblivious to the attention, or, rather, he handled it with the practiced ease of one who had experienced it his whole life.

"I'm Char Wexford, since this git isn't going to introduce us," the curly-haired girl told him.

"I was getting there," James repeated with a grin.

"That's James Potter," Charlotte said, indicating him. "Marc Abercrombie," the boy with green eyes, "Eddie Cornwall," the tall boy who had been jealous of James, "and Cecily Himple," Char finished, nodding to the pretty girl sitting next to Remus.

"It's nice to meet you. Er… so, you all know each other already, clearly?" Remus asked, feeling more alone than he had done before the others came in.

"Yeah, we went to primary school together," James said, pulling a face at Char and elbowing Eddie at the same time. "St. George's – you'll have heard of it, I expect?"

"Er, yes. It's meant to be quite good, isn't it?" Remus asked. He had heard the words "St. George's Primary School" spoken in bitter, disappointed whispers from his parents' room when they thought he was asleep. Like all primary schools, it was primarily Muggle, but St. George's was so popular among working wizarding parents that it was the closest thing to a wizarding primary school that existed. Remus had, of course, been home schooled. Werewolves didn't go to school. Except Hogwarts, Remus reminded himself, feeling a bit better. He was going to Hogwarts.

James gave him a slightly patronizing smile. "Yes, it's quite good," he said.

"Where did you go to school?" Cecily asked.

"I didn't," Remus told her. "That is, I was taught at home. By my mother." For a moment, Remus thought that might be the end of it. After all, home schooling was the most common form of early education for wizards. James, however, seemed unable to keep quiet.

"So you've never been to school before? You must be nervous about Hogwarts, then," said James.

Char snorted. "Nice, James."

"What?" James said, shrugging off Char's mild reprimand. "Are you nervous?" he asked Remus.

"A bit," Remus said. He wasn't sure he liked James very much.

"Your parents went to Hogwarts, of course?" Marc asked.

"My mother did," Remus answered, wishing they would talk about something other than school.

"What house was she in?" Eddie asked.

"Ravenclaw."

Eddie's eyes lit up for a moment before he looked sideways at James. "Oh. I want Gryffindor."

James rewarded him with an approving nod. "It's the best house. Dumbledore himself was one." James glanced at Remus and seemed to remember his manners. "Ravenclaw is good, too, though," he amended, a faint pink tinge appearing on his cheeks. Remus smiled politely and settled himself in for what was promising to be a long train ride.

It was not quite what she had expected, Lily Evans admitted to herself as she struggled through the crowded aisle of the train. Just like any ordinary train, really, except full of children, rather than adults.

"Lily! In here!"

Lily looked up to see the pale face and gesturing arm of Katie Davison further down the car. Squeezing past several older students, Lily made her way to Katie's compartment.

"There's your trunk," Katie said, pointing to the luggage rack. Some prefects got it up there, I've no idea how." She smiled. "Listen, do you mind if I hop off the train and say goodbye to my parents?"

"No, no – go ahead," said Lily.

Katie smiled. "Be right back."

Katie disappeared back into the aisle outside and Lily sat down in a seat by the window with a heavy sigh. She looked out onto the platform and could just make out Mr and Mrs Davison standing further down the train, speaking with another man in robes, who was crossing off a list. After a moment, Katie's pale head appeared in their midst, and her parents broke off talking to the man to hug and kiss their daughter.

Lily looked away, feeling her eyes sting. It didn't seem fair that her parents and sister weren't allowed on the platform, just because they weren't wizards. She longed for them to be here with her, to see the train, to see the proof of where she was going, that her letter had been real. They had been to Diagon Alley with her, when she had gone to Muggle-born Orientation in August, but something about seeing the huge, red Hogwarts Express made the wizarding world so much more real in her eyes. She thought her mother would like to see it, as she had seemed so nervous about sending her youngest daughter through a wall to go away to somewhere she had never seen or heard of before this summer. Mr Davison, the Orientation leader, had recommended that they all buy a copy of Hogwarts: A History while in Diagon Alley, to understand more about where they were going and what they would do there. Gryffindor was the house for people who were the bravest, and Lily couldn't think of anyone braver than her mum when she had hugged Lily tightly, and sent her towards the wall with Mr Davison.

Mr Davison was very nice, and Katie was, as well. After Mr Davison had brought her through the barrier today, he had introduced her to his daughter, who was also a first year. Katie seemed shy, but very friendly, and reminded Lily of her friend Alicia from primary school, which was a comforting thought.

"Hello," Katie said from the doorway of the compartment. Lily looked up and smiled.

"Are you excited?" Katie asked in a rather adult sort of voice. She seemed to have taken over the task of looking after Lily from her father.

"Yes, very," said Lily, "and very, very, very nervous."

"Me too," Katie agreed, her formal attitude lessening. "I know that everyone starts off new and all, and that everyone else has been alright leaving home, but somehow it just seems like…" she trailed off with a shrug and a rueful half-smile.

"Like you'll be the one exception?" Lily supplied.

"Yes! That's it exactly," Katie said, smiling at her. "You feel it, too?"

Lily nodded. "I'm so worried I'll be homesick, or be really behind in my schoolwork, or not make friends. It must be really nice for you; already knowing other students before you even get there." Lily tried not to sound too jealous.

"It is nice to know you have someone to sit with on the train," Katie allowed, "but not all first years know other students; the only reason I've got any friends is that my Dad's co-workers have kids the same age as me. And once we get there, there's every chance none of my friends will be in the same house as me. The classes are the same way. There are some things Muggle-borns won't know, but they're so basic that they won't matter for long. Don't worry; you won't be behind. And you've already got someone to sit with on the train."

Lily grinned. "Thanks."

"Katie?"

Lily looked up and saw several girls standing in the doorway.

"Liz! Jo! Susan! Come in!" Katie beckoned the three girls into the compartment, sliding over in her seat to make room.

The girls disappeared back into the hall and returned almost immediately, dragging their trunks behind them. Lily and Katie stood to help.

"Ta," grinned one of the girls as Lily helped her shove her trunk under the seat.

"Lily, these are Liz Rookwood, Jo Munnery, and Susan Watson. This is Lily Evans."

"Hello," Lily said, smiling at them.

"Hello," they grinned back.

They all sat back down. Lily sat next to Jo, the girl who had thanked her for helping with her trunk.

"Did you hear about Mina Bellows?" Susan demanded as soon as they had taken their seats. The other girls shook their heads, Lily along with them, as she had certainly not heard about Mina Bellows, having no idea who she was.

"Didn't get a Hogwarts letter," Susan announced with the air of someone bearing dire news. The others gasped.

"Didn't get a Hogwarts letter?" Katie echoed in shock. "But – she had that posh tutor and everything…"

"Doesn't matter who her tutor was," sneered Liz, twirling a lock of brown hair around her finger. "You can be brilliant at maths and things, and still not have strong magic. Look at the Muggles – they've got all sorts of mathematicians among them, but not enough magic to fill a thimble."

"And her mum told my dad that she was hopeless in Magical Theory, not to mention Basic Potions," added Jo, with a roll of her brown eyes.

"She's not a…?" Katie let the question trail off. The others seemed to understand, and they all looked to Susan, who shook her head.

"Her parents took her for testing at St. Mungo's, and they came back negative."

"Oh, that doesn't really work," Jo scoffed.

"What will she do?" Lily asked, wondering what a witch or wizard did when they didn't get into Hogwarts. Were they forbidden to do magic?

"Go to some other magic school, I expect," Liz said with a shrug, still twirling her hair. "There are all sorts of them all over Britain and Europe. Hogwarts isn't the only one; just the best."

"So, you're Muggle-born?" asked Jo.

"Yeah," Lily told her.

"Oh, that's wicked – what's it like?" Susan asked, widening her blue eyes.

"Er… I dunno… like living without magic?" Lily tried, unsure how to sum up her lifestyle in a concise manner.

"Honestly, Susan," Liz said, rolling her eyes.

"Susan loves Muggles," Katie explained with a smile.

"My dad works in the Muggle Liaison department at the Ministry," Susan explained. "With Katie's dad. So, you have all sorts of Muggle things at your house, I expect. Like cars, stoves, refridgernaters…"

Lily grinned. She had been worried about not fitting in, but already she had met someone who was as interested in her as she was in the magical world.

"Well, we have one stove, no car, and one refrigerator. Other than that, I'd say we live a lot like you do."

Liz snorted, looking as though she didn't think so.

Just then, the train's whistle sounded, and it began to move forward on the tracks. The other girls climbed up onto their seats to hang out of the windows to wave and call to their parents. Lily hung back at first, until Katie looked over her shoulder and beckoned her forward.

"Lily, Mum and Dad want to say goodbye to you, too!"

Surprised, Lily climbed up onto the seat next to Katie and poked her head gingerly out of the window.

"Goodbye, Lily – good luck!" called Mr Davison, Mrs Davison waving at his side.

"Thanks, Mr Davison," Lily called back, feeling very touched that he had thought of her. It made her feel a bit better about her own parents not being there.

The platform was moving away, the waving parents getting smaller and smaller in the distance. The girls pulled their heads back inside and closed the windows just as the train left the station and entered rainy London. Lily felt quite a shock seeing it still there as she had left it only minutes ago. If she squinted, she fancied she could make out the black cab that had brought her and her family to King's Cross. It was part of her old life, and the Hogwarts Express, carrying her rapidly away from all that, was part of the new.

Sirius slouched in his seat next to the window, staring at a grey, rainy London outside. Esmerelda was sitting next to him, but she could have not been there at all for all she good she was doing Sirius. She had lost even the comparative charm Sirius had once seen in her, and was hanging on Narcissa and Bellatrix's every superficial word. At the moment, all of those words were about Lucius Malfoy, who was still absent.

"Honestly, Narcissa," Bellatrix was saying in a bored tone, "I wish you would stop whinging. Lucius Malfoy does not hate you."

"Well, he certainly doesn't like me as much as he likes you," Narcissa retorted, sulking. "He completely ignored me on the platform, and you know I fancy him, and you did nothing to help-"

"There are slightly more pressing matters on my mind, Narcissa," Bellatrix said, her voice dangerously low. Sirius glanced up. If Narcissa pressed the issue further, it might be good to watch, but, disappointingly, Narcissa recognized Bellatrix's tones as well as Sirius himself, and fell silent.

"Besides," Bellatrix began again in her uninterested drawl as soon as she was satisfied that Narcissa was cowed, "I think Lucius likes you very much. Don't you think so, Esmerelda?"

"Oh – yes!" Esmerelda said quickly, looking elated to have been addressed at all. Sirius was so miserable he couldn't even roll his eyes. If this was what he'd be living with for the next seven years, he'd rather not go to Hogwarts at all.

Sirius heard the compartment door slide open. Expecting it to be Lucius, Sirius didn't even bother to turn around, but when a voice spoke from the corridor, it was not in Lucius's drawling tones.

"Is there any room in this compartment?" a low, strained sort of voice asked. Sirius looked over immediately and saw a thin boy with sallow skin, lank, black hair, and a disproportionately large, hooked nose.

"Not for a Snape," Narcissa snapped, standing up.

The boy flinched as though he had been slapped. Lips white and eyes on the floor, he closed the compartment door and they could hear him shuffling off, dragging his heavy trunk.

Narcissa immediately launched into a loud rant about the boy, which must have carried into the corridor outside. "Can you believe his nerve?" she stormed, "Asking to sit with us, as though he had any right! We're Blacks, for Heaven's sake! Hasn't he even read Nature's Nobility?"

"That was unnecessarily cruel, Narcissa," Bellatrix said, although she looked pleased. "We purebloods must band together now, regardless of social rank. That's a lesson you must endeavour to learn this year. Always remember, 'Money won't make a Mudblood clean,'" she quoted, reciting an adage that she, Narcissa, and Sirius, had learned at their mothers' knees. "It follows that a lack of money won't make a pureblood dirty. Although it certainly makes them less appealing, I'll grant you that."

Narcissa gave a grudging nod in acceptance of her sister's remonstration, and the compartment fell silent.

Sirius went back to glaring out the window. In his opinion, Narcissa had been a complete cow. If the boy was a Snape, then he had certainly read the large and odious Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy; all of the oldest families were chronicled there, and all the children of those families were forced to study it extensively. But how could Narcissa possibly expect the boy to recognize members of those families on sight? There were no photographs in Nature's Nobility, it was far too boring to have pictures, and Sirius would never have glanced at it if he hadn't been forced to do so.

From what he'd learned in the book, he knew that Snape had acted above his station, but Narcissa didn't have to be so cruel. Sirius decided to search the boy out once they'd arrived at Hogwarts and befriend him. Judging by Snape's family, he'd almost certainly be in Slytherin, though a lot of them went into Ravenclaw, too. It would be nice to have a friend that hadn't been educated in the elitist society of people like the Blacks and the Malfoys, and perhaps he'd even get a rise out of his mother for "making friends below his station", something she had warned Sirius against since he'd begun primary school.

Glad to have something to look forward to, Sirius leaned his head against the cold glass pane of the window and tried to go to sleep.

Peter Pettigrew had never had a worse day. Well, there was the day when he'd lost his mother in the market. And the day when his older brother had pushed him into the pond at Aunt Martha's farm. And the day when his older sister had given him an Acid Pop, saying it was green apple.

But today was shaping up to be pretty bad, too. They had been late to King's Cross, for starters, which of course everyone blamed on him, even though Jackie and Evan had both forgotten things, as well. Just because he had been the last one to realize he'd forgotten something, they all thought that it was his fault that they'd had to jump on the train just as it had begun moving.

"I'm late for my prefect meeting!" Jackie had snapped, swishing off down the corridor. "Well done, Peter!"

"Well don't look at me," Evan had said, walking away. "I'm meeting Amanda. Find some other first years to sit with."

Peter had wandered around the first car, knocking on compartments, but hadn't been able to find a single first year. Some older girls had offered him a seat, but he had turned them down. What was he meant to say to a pack of third year girls? Jackie, the only one of his sisters he could remember being that age, had been mental at thirteen. The last thing he needed was to wander into a lair of Jackies.

Despite his desire to avoid this situation, Peter had ended up doing just that. About forty-five minutes into the train ride, Peter had almost collided with his sister. She'd rolled her eyes and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, hauling him off to another compartment.

"You can sit with my mates and me, Pete," she'd said, not unkindly. "You know most of them, anyway."

He'd been propelled into a seat next to Elspeth and Helen, Jackie's best mates from Ravenclaw. They had fussed over him for a bit, straightening his robes and asking him which house he wanted (to which he had replied truthfully, "Dunno"), before they were distracted by the apparently interrelated subjects of schoolwork and boys. The way the three of them could carry on a conversation together was beyond Peter, who lost the thread of what they were saying almost immediately.

Now he was leaning back in his seat, trying to ignore the girls, and wishing he could remember where he'd left his trunk. He'd give anything for a scrap of parchment and a quill so he could do some sketching, and maybe even do a proper portrait of Elspeth, who had a pleasantly symmetrical face. Elspeth would probably like that, but Jackie wouldn't be impressed. None of Peter's family was very impressed by his drawings, except his mother and his second oldest brother, Marshall. They were both Hufflepuffs, and valued the amount of work Peter put into his drawings. Everyone else in the family thought it was just a hobby he shouldn't spend so much time on. Jackie and Evan, Peter's only siblings still at Hogwarts, both felt Peter's time would be better spent studying. His marks in primary school had been well below those of any of his seven older siblings, and though he'd tried to explain that he really was doing his best, this didn't convince anyone. They couldn't understand that the things that came easily to them didn't come to Peter the same way. Besides, what was the point, when anything he did would only be an echo of one of his older siblings? His family had two Head Boys, one Head Girl, five prefects, and four Quidditch Captains. All of his siblings had gotten good marks. This mattered a lot, especially to Jackie and Evan, and Peter's father. His older siblings had all landed jobs in the ministry, and were so busy that they never came home, except sometimes for Christmas. Peter wanted to do something to impress them. He thought that getting really good marks at Hogwarts might do the trick, but no one really expected Peter to do well anyway, and if he did, it was no big deal, because his older siblings had already done well first. Of course, the drawback of going away from home was that, if he ever did do anything impressive, his father wouldn't be around to see it.

Feeling unhappy and anxious, Peter closed his eyes and willed himself to fall asleep. Things were just easier when he didn't have to think about them.