Chapter 1
The letter sits, as it does every year, unopened on my desk. It's mostly covered by a huge old textbook that probably should not be allowed to leave the Bodleian, one yellowed corner poking out. It's been about two weeks since the letter had arrived, and it had had a nice first week moving about downstairs before making its way up, to remind me of my imminent return to reality. It really is no wonder that it 'accidentally' has remained hidden by textbooks, clothes and assorted rubbish for the past few days, a sort of last-ditch attempt to shelter myself from the truth.
I realise then that I was standing in my knickers staring at the one corner peeking out at me, and how crazy that would seem to someone else. I shake my head dramatically and slide into my jeans – burnt orange skinnies. Lovely. Rummaging in a precarious pile of clothes (clean, thank you very much) on the floor, I tip it over onto the littering of pages and force myself to think about the pros and cons of learning German over Spanish as I pick cat hairs from my favourite white lace t-shirt. Pro: sounds cooler. Con: less useful. Pro: Beer trumps wine every time (not that I know, hem hem, underage). Do NOT, under any circumstances, think about what is happening today. Con: There are literally no other cons, German is the way to go. Don't think about how it's the toe in the water of another frustrating year of purgatory. Pro: able to read so many original versions of research papers and stuff. Wait, scientists wrote in Latin for most of history. Shit. School won't be that bad, I've survived this far with the independent study, and I'd done well in my GCSEs without regular school, hadn't I? Pro for Latin: super sophisticated. Con: bit pretentious, perhaps? Pro: Dude, Latin. Come on.
What am I talking about? All I actually get from school is more questions than answers, second hand drama and ridiculous amounts of noise. Con: would literally be able to speak it to six people in the world, total. How is there so much noise? It's a bloody huge place, but somehow there are literally only a handful of places without noise pollution. Pro: Richer understanding of English and language as a whole. There's a huge added risk with frequenting Hogwart's most isolated places where lusty teenage morons are concerned. Con: who on earth would teach me Latin? Ugh, lusty teenage morons are in the top five of my list of most hated types of teenage morons.
I pull the shirt over my head and start to search for my brogues – lovely brown leatherette ones, like the kind John Green wears. I must make sure no one ever finds out that my fashion sense has three main influences: John Green (vlogbrother), Ted Moseby (character) and Carrie Hope Fletcher (it's-way-past-my-bedtime/actress). I also must stop coveting red cowboy boots. Absolutely under no circumstances can I go from nerdy teenage witch and wannabe mathematician to nerdy teenage witch and wannabe mathematician in red cowboy boots. I'll have to scrap the Latin idea, it would make the cowboy boots situation even worse (I know I will eventually get them, but I can pretend that I won't and be perfectly happy in that delusion but I know it isn't true).
Wait now, Arabic. Pro: Super useful, pretty writing. I have one shoe on and tied when I halt my search for the other momentarily to slip into my tweed jacket. I'm practising for when I'm a professor. What university will accept me? Can I put weird magic school on an application? Probably not. There must be some kind of code for it, though, or I could say I was home-schooled. Pro: would aid me in getting a job in MI5, MI6 or the army. No, I couldn't join the army, I'd ruin my cowboy boots in the desert. Stupid cowboy boots, messing up my plans. Fuck you very much, boots.
I swallow my pills and pocket the letter as I chuck the necessary items into my satchel, ranting about those bloody boots. They would know about them if I became a secret agent. That's the sort of embarrassing thing that comes out in background checks. Well, at least I have plenty of time to develop an interest in BDSM. Who am I kidding? The boots would still be infinitely more embarrassing than sexual kink. I don't use infinities lightly, you know. They're almost as big a pain in my hole as those FUCKING BOOTS.
Right, calm. At least few people in school would get the boots reference, and that would certainly add to my mysterious persona. Apparently once you dress like a crazy professor crossed with Grace Kelly (with Doc Martins. I feel like Grace Kelly would approve, somehow) you immediately become seen as odd. Perhaps it's Grace Kelly and Gene Kelly? That makes sense. He's probably where I get my awesome taste in brogues and blazers.
I practically skip down the stairs, because I'm clearly Gene Kelly reborn. I like him way too much. I need tap dancing lessons. Perhaps tap through Arabic? Not something that's offered, probably, but I certainly won't find classes for them, together or separately, at Hogwarts. It is definitely not a balanced education. Bane of my bloody existence.
My Dad makes his usual bad joke about wearing oxfords in Cambridge (I will NEVER call my brogues oxfords. I like brogues so much more, plus I, by default, hate Oxford for being more famous than lovely old Cambridge). I pretty much ignore him and shove the cat out the window while focusing intently on the awesome dance on the desk in Singin' In The Rain. Plonking myself down on the kitchen table, I bite down on an apple as I begrudgingly take the letter out. I look at it for a moment, considering the contrast between it and the other most important letter I had received over the summer, which is stuck proudly to the fridge. I wonder if my OWL results will replace my GCSE ones or will I just try my best to forget about them, like the rest of my Hogwarts letters.
My mother arrives in at that point and berates me for my breakfast. I don't bother explaining that eating whole raw fruit and vegetables is just so much easier, and the rarity of my being in the house means that we don't usually have the ingredients required to make good vegan breakfasts. Ah veganism. The greatest excuse for laziness I have yet to come across. Kate crashes into the room halfway through Mum's rant and throws bits of her breakfast at me as she picks at it. I ask her if a pig died just to be thrown at a nearby vegetablist. She retorts in kind and calls me a dork, which is fair enough, but it starts Dad off on a rant about us using Americanisms. It takes a huge amount of effort not to use 'dude' or 'awesome' around him, but that fleeting moment of satisfaction upon hearing the Queen's English adulterated in such a ridiculous manor isn't worth the rant.
It is a testament that Kate doesn't begin to rant about the history of the work 'dork'. She, like me and our other siblings, knows what she wants to be, though the shock that it isn't science almost killed the lot of us. Linguistics is, obviously, preferable to literature, or, heaven forbid, drama or fine art. I never asked for tap dancing lessons for a reason. Kate, subsequently, thinks herself less nerdy than the rest of us, because P versus NP doesn't give her a massive intellectual erection. The rest of us just fail to understand her satisfaction and sense of superiority over this fact. It probably helps prove her point.
The rest of us are science people. We live in Cambridge for a reason; my parents are academics. Dad is a geneticist, which is fairly soft core, since Mum's a mathematician, my brother Mark is doing post grad in quantum physics and the twins are undergrad in theoretical physics. Dorian (I know, great name ruined by Fifty Shades – it doesn't matter that he's called Christian, the surname Grey has now, by default, ruined Dorian for me. I'm glad Oscar Wilde didn't live to see me draw links between his work and porn) has a very unoriginal set of A-levels to sit this year (Maths, physics, chemistry, biology and psychology) and fully intends to study neuroscience, which is the most preferable in biological fields. I come next, Eve, as it must have seemed to my parents as though boys were all they were getting, and they were rightfully optimistic about proceeding children. I fully plan on full maths, though I thoroughly enjoy physics. I'm still the most nerdy, though, because I collect comic books and fancy stand ups more than actors and can talk my way through any episode of an embarrassing number of old sitcoms. Kate likes to annoy me by calling me a hipster, because I like old TV, old films and old youtubers. I like to tell her to go fuck herself. This once happened at some party thing in Peterhouse, my Mum's college, and I nearly gave an old Don a heart attack. He pretty much had a full on panic aneurism when he turned around and I was there, in my docs and a sex pistols t-shirt (It was that kind of day). That was the summer I had purple hair, too. We mustn't forget that.
Kate's only a year younger than me, which means she was an accident, because two years gap is standard fare for my parents. I admire their great aptitude for planning. I like to mention this to her when she annoys me. The standard reply is that I was such a disappointment that they decided to try again sooner. We are quite good friends, which is nice. I put that down to the existence of Damien, because if Kate were the youngest she would be an absolute nightmare. Damien is three years younger than Kate, which goes along with the original plan (Kate is the hitch). He turned eleven and didn't get a letter, which was a great relief to everyone, because it isn't a secret how much I hate the whole thing.
I finally open the letter, carefully peel the wax seal away in one and slide out the contents. That would have been fine, but the train ticket got stuck in the envelope and upon reaching in to get it, I stab my finger on something, leaving a red blot on the envelope. This annoys me so much that it takes me a moment to wonder what had pricked me. I upturn the envelope and a small silver badge falls out.
I stare at it, my finger in my mouth, like a moron, for a very long time.
"Eve," Kate is standing right behind me and I jump, causing the papers that had been in my lap to fall to the floor. She picks them up for me before continuing. "What are you doing?"
"I'm staring at the badge like a moron," I tell her. Accuracy is quite important to me.
"Um, why?"
"Because of the logical conundrum it presents. It means some idiot made me prefect." Kate found this hilariously funny but both parents made loud, approving noises.
I spend the brief exchange with Dorian, in which he expressed his dissatisfaction with being left on baby sitter duty, and the majority of the car journey to London watching a series of horrific and gruesome scenarios flash before my eyes, all possible outcomes of me being a prefect. Kate brings me from my thoughts by slapping me sharply across the face while we were stuck in traffic about fifteen minutes from the Leaky Cauldron, and I spend the subsequent twenty five minutes (ugh, traffic. Welcome to the list of things that have annoyed me today. Meet boots and lusty teenage morons) going over my letter and book list. That time is really spent despairing some more. Prefect. Perfect.
The first hour in Diagon Alley is uneventful. It's a routine we have perfected at this point; my family gaze around them and I trudge with a stormy face, pulling them to where we need to go. Then, in Madam Malkin's we run into Scorpius and his parents, which is fun, as I love him to bits and my parents don't have a clue what to say to wizards, plus they've been reading up on their wizarding history and they sort of know the Malfoy family history, so they are absolutely terrified. I realise that it sounds a bit insensitive, but when you've been involved in a conversation between Draco Malfoy, Scorpius and Albus Potter, you lose all respect for the Malfoy name. I think the innuendo world record must be held by Draco. I sort of want him to adopt me.
Scorpius and I then ditch our parents to find Kate, who had wandered into a junk shop. I make several mocking attempts to set Scorpius up with Kate. He didn't find it amusing, mostly because he fancies Rose so much it makes me want to cry, and I'm not even directly involved. It makes me glad not to be in their year, because not only do I get to play the age card, but I also get to avoid the sincere feelings. My year is all emotionless snogging and vague half-crushes, which, to be fair, usually end in emotionless snogging. Scorpius and Rose are so cute it would probably make me gouge my own eyes out if I was around it all day, every day. As it is, I mostly see them apart. I'm that kind of friend; the one you seek out and speak to one-on-one, but who doesn't really participate in groups.
He tells me about his summer, doesn't mention Rose directly and glosses over his week spent at the Potter household. If being best friends with Albus Potter is anything, it's exhausting. I know because I notice that sort of thing, plus Al himself is exhausted by Albus Potter, and they are the same person, sort of. Well, there's Albus, adorable and hilarious, and the there's Albus Severus Potter, son of Harry Potter and perfection personified. It's the being of Albus Severus Potter that takes up all of Al's time and energy. That's why Scorpius is so overwhelmed by the momentous task that is being Al's best friend; there are two layers to everything that happens, and if you aren't me (I have a weird knack), it takes a lot of effort to catch it all.
Scorpius also skirts over going to visit his grandmother, because he's ashamed that he sort of likes her. She used to be a Death Eater, so he thinks that he should hate her. He doesn't say any of this, but I see it, because I'm looking, because I like and respect Scorpius. When I like and respect people, I do what I can for them, and for that to happen I have to know what's going on. Scorpius also doesn't mention her because he knows she would disapprove of him being friends with me, in all my muggleborn magic-hating glory. He knows that I know this, so he doesn't bring it up, which he doesn't know has exactly the same effect of bringing it up. At least this way he doesn't think I'm uncomfortable, which I'm not, but he wouldn't understand that I think it's okay for his grandmother to think I'm a bad influence on him. I am definitely a bad influence on him, with my violent and revolutionary muggle ideas. He didn't find The Ramones by himself, I'll tell you that much.
He finishes telling me about Al's exploits and asks me about my summer, which I summarise in one sentence – exams, studying and binge watching tv – before breaking the prefect news. Good friend that he is, he laughs his way between Fortescue's and Amaneusis Quills, and good friend that I am, I don't tell him about the ice cream on his nose as revenge.
"You okay to be going back?" Hit the fucking nail on the fucking head right there, didn't he? I stop my refreshingly external rant about how pens are better than quills because I had forgotten how blunt little Scorpy can be.
"I… It's okay, I suppose. It just seems sort of pointless." He rolls his eyes.
"And that is what makes a good prefect; Contempt for the institution, the education and the entire universe."
"I'm beginning to consider demoting you on the friendship scale, Scorpy."
"Please, you wouldn't. I up the sex appeal of your friend group by about seventy per cent. You like balance, so you'd have to drop several not-good-looking people too. Plus you're a pervert, so you would never ever do that to me." That's fucking hilarious, because:
1. My friends are the most ridiculously good looking group of people you can imagine. It's not even novel any more.
2. Scorpius is so in love I no longer can see him as attractive. I know that he is, I just don't see it. At all.
3. I am pretty asexual. I mean, I can acknowledge attractiveness, but only if I'm paying attention properly (read: rarely). I do fancy people, but it's based on personality and literally only happens with people I don't know, so mostly fictional characters and stand ups.
I let that slide because he didn't make a fuss of being called Scorpy, and laugh. I continue to laugh until I walk straight into someone in the doorway of Rosa Lee's teashop. That someone, it transpires, was a pretty grumpy James Potter, who curses at me and stomps off. He's weird that way; I know that he is sometimes happy, because I have seen him smile and laugh around school, but whenever he's by himself – which is when I properly pay attention to people – he is in a foul mood. Maybe it's me. It probably isn't; in my experience, it rarely is. People are too stuck in their own heads to let the presence of strangers affect them that much. I make note to observe him when I see him. It's pretty inconvenient that my friendships with a handful of Weasleys and Al make me want to look out for the rest of them a bit.
Scorpius and I have some tea and chat about the upcoming school year – he still has no plan to make a move on Rose. That's mainly what I gathered. In fact, he tells me as much so many times that I think he might be freaking out about it. I tell him the truth – they are fourteen. They have so much time. It's going to be fine.
On the way to Flourish and Blott's he tells me that usually, James Potter is pretty cool and makes lots of sex jokes, so I would like him. I doubt this, somehow, but I don't tell Scorpius this. He sometimes gets concerned for me because I don't have many friends in my own year. I almost tell him that my third shell of friends is almost entirely made up of fifth years, as well as my first shell, but I don't because me ordering my friends like electrons in my atom is weird, and he won't get it. I also don't have the heart to tell him he's second shell. I don't tell him that I am currently a noble gas (in terms of electrons. Krypton. I'm so weird. Jesus.) and that is nice and stable. I don't want to be an alkali metal because they are unstable, which is bad. I don't say any of this because I am crazy and I don't want him to think I will murder him. I wouldn't do that, it's illogical, and I like him.
We find our parents – mine hidden behind stacks of magical theory books, as I had expected, Scorpius's picking out his schoolbooks. We hug and part, and I don't see any other particularly familiar faces all day, save for James Potter in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, clearly still in a strop. I have to stop Kate from chatting up a random sixth year, and then I have to drag her away from Eeylop's Owl Emporium. She likes to criticize my choice to get a cat rather than an owl. She doesn't seem to grasp that once I finish at Hogwarts, I'll be back in the muggle world permanently, and an owl might be difficult to maintain.
She thinks I'm mental because she would love to be a witch. She would have been brilliant, too. She would have been a Gryffindor, I just know it, and she would have been best friends with Rose Weasley. I'm good at judging these things.
I quite like Diagon Alley, considering it's part of the magical world. It's absolutely crazy and head-wreaking but it's like some temperamental creature on the verge of mental breakdown; always changing, always surprising and barely together. I ponder that in the car home for as long as possible, before I start the dreaded countdown again. Four days and fifteen hours until the Hogwarts Express leaves. I watch twelve episodes of Supernatural in a row in an attempt to drown it out.