A/N: This story is meant not to interfere with the events taking place in JK Rowling's books, but instead during and beside them. Harry and his friends, and not so friends…(het-hem Malfoy), will appear regularly in the seven stories of Dade, Morgan, Elizabeth, and Abigail because they are classmates. The quartette are the unnoticed bunch of unlikely heroes, because all the spotlight goes to our celebrity Harry. Thanks for reading and please review :::Jo:::
It was chilly at platform 9 and ¾ at King's Cross Station on this first of September. Students were piling in the train, kissing their parents goodbye, and most of all anticipating the new year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The train pulled away with a billow of smoke from the stack and a toot of the horn. Mom's cried, dad's waved, and children found places to get comfy on the ride to school. Rumor had it that Harry Potter, the Harry Potter, was on this train for his first year at Hogwarts and everyone wanted to know if it was true and if it was they wanted to see him; except one girl.
Presently she sat staring blankly out the window, one arm propped up on the armrest chin in hand, absolutely bored. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, chin length cropped black hair, icy blue eyes set in a round bronze face. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and hoped she'd fill out…she hated being skinny, all knees and elbows. She had heard of Harry Potter, everybody had, but she didn't care as children whispered frantically about him all around her.
They had only been on the train five minutes before her isolation was disturbed. A bitter, mocking voice, attempting to sound pleasant interrupted her thoughts, "You're the American, the only American accepter to Hogwarts this year?"
Her eyes lifted and she saw a boy, her age, pale (almost glowing) white skin, matching blonde hair, and a pasty face.
She nodded, "Yes."
"Abigail Alcott?"
"Yes," she nodded sharply, "and you are…"
"Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."
"Hmmm," she hummed with a shrug and turned to look back out the window.
He didn't take her disinterest in him for an answer, so he went on, "You're dad is Isaac Alcott right? He was in my father's class and house when they were children."
"Sounds about right," she didn't look up to Malfoy, she simply answered to the window. Abigail decided against telling him that her father had said Lucius Malfoy was a blundering idiot, and was only good for someone to point the blame on. She didn't want to make any enemies just yet, for Draco might prove to have some use to her…though she wasn't sure just what that might be.
"Well, Crabbe, Goyle, and me were going to go see if it's true that Potter's on this train, care to come along?" He asked.
She looked back up to him, batted her eyelashes, and presented him with the most pseudo grin she could muster up, "Um, no."
"My father's told me all about your family," Malfoy continued, "you should be with your own kind, pure bloods."
Abigail directed her attention back to the window. "Tell me how it goes," she told him dryly.
Malfoy drew his head back, shocked he'd been rejected for a second time. "Suit yourself," he grumbled.
Abigail smiled at her reflection as she heard Malfoy and his troupe march off; she'd watched his face contort in a disgusted frown when she blatantly turned him down. He wanted her to be part of his group, she decided. 'He'd have to be part of my group,' she thought. She had rejected and surprised him all at once, and she nodded, she'd displayed herself perfectly, she couldn't have asked for a better response. "Hogwarts is going to be fun," she said airily to no one in particular.
Draco Malfoy pushed through the mingling students that lined the hall toward the rear of the train.
"'S'cuse you," said one dark haired girl, whom Malfoy had nearly ran over.
"Perhaps it's you who should mind where you stand," Malfoy sniffed.
She lifted a fist to nail the haughty boy in the jaw but a hand came down over hers and pulled her back.
"Now, now, Morgan wouldn't want to get expelled before we even make it to Hogwarts. Let him pass," it was an average looking boy with a smile squeezed on his round cheeks.
Malfoy merely raised an eyebrow at the pair and passed them with a sneer.
Morgan swung, her brown eyes flaring with anger, "Dade! What did you do that for? I could have taken him!" Morgan's Irish accented voice came out hot and irritated, but cooled as her words continued.
Dade Alexander let her hand go and chuckled, "I want to at least make it to Hogwarts, and find out what house I'm in before you go getting us kicked out."
Morgan drew back and looked up to him, "Aye and that prank you pulled-"
"Stop it, both of you, I could hear you all the way back in the cabin," A small voice matching the small girl it belonged to appeared from behind a door. Two pale blue eyes, a ghostly white face, and platinum hair belonged to the tiny voice too. She looked between the pair.
"Oh man Elizabeth! You should have seen it," Dade shot her a lopsided smile, his voice exuded excitement, "Morgan almost got in a fight. She could have taken him."
"Him?" The girl stepped out into the hall alongside her friends.
Morgan presented a skeptical glare at Dade but nodded happily at Elizabeth, "Aye, him…a boy. But somebody, I'm not sayin' who, but somebody stopped me."
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes and nodded, "Well why don't you two come back in here and sit down…and try and behave yourselves."
"He started it," Morgan told Elizabeth defended her near brawl with Draco Malfoy.
"I find that hard to believe," Elizabeth smiled muttering something about an Irish temper, and nodded to the cabin for them to come in, and both did.
The trip was relatively quiet. On occasion a short stumpy witch would pass by with a trolley full of goodies, and one of the three would buy something and share it with the rest.
Morgan Gallagher picked up an Every Flavor Bean and popped it in her mouth as she asked, "So where'd you guys come from?"
"I live on the outskirts of London," Dade Alexander answered. "I come from wizarding parents. My dad works from a branch of the Ministry of Magic, so does my mum. My mum went to Hogwarts, but my dad didn't."
Both glanced over to Elizabeth Fox, who looked up to the other two. She cleared her throat softly, her voice still came out quietly a habit the other two had become accustom to, "Wizarding family too. Also an England native, my mum and dad went to Hogwarts…both Ravenclaws."
Morgan frowned, "Kelly Ireland, that's where I live…but both my parents are…uh…Muggles, isn't it?"
Both nodded, and Dade spoke, "Muggles, that's right."
"Oh look," Elizabeth waved them over to the window and pointed, "Look, I can see it."
"Wow," Dade and Morgan cooed in quiet awe.
The trio didn't remember getting from the train, across the lake, to the castle, or even when their escort changed to a tall angled lady, with a tight bun and a sharp face. Now the group of first years stood in a small room off from the Great Hall.
"Pst," Dade nodded to Morgan and Elizabeth, then he bobbed his head to his left shoulder, "look."
Both girls peered past Dade to a scrawny boy, with glasses, and disheveled hair. Elizabeth gasped, softly enough that no one heard her but Morgan who was squeezed close to her.
"Is that Harry?" Morgan asked.
Dade nodded, and Morgan turned back to him unable to take her eyes from his profile.
Somehow aware that he was being watched, Harry Potter looked over to the trio. Morgan sucked up a breath and jerked her head forward so quickly that her long dark brown hair swooped over her shoulder and smacked her in the face. Dade just chuckled and waved at Harry, who gave Dade a shy smile and a nervous wave back.
Then the lady began to speak, "Welcome to Hogwarts…" but her words began to trail from the group's mind as she spoke of a sorting-something-or-other and they should smarten up.
"How do I smarten up in a matter of minutes?" Morgan asked.
"I could show you," Dade offered.
"No thanks, your kind of smartenin' isn't what Professor McGonagall had in mind," Morgan told him.
"If you weren't smart enough you wouldn't be here now," Elizabeth told her.
"That's debatable," A high voice barked at them.
The three turned to see a skinny girl with black hair and daring blue eyes, she smiled mockingly. "I hear you're a mudblood, mudbloods don't belong here…you were right in the first place."
"And who might you be?" Dade asked.
"You're the American, right?" Elizabeth asked. "The Alcott girl."
"Abigail Alcott, that's right." She sneered.
"Get lost," Dade growled, "Morgan's going to prove to be just as good as you, wait and see."
"We'll just have to see about that, now won't we," Abigail turned her nose up and began to head off.
"Don't listen to her Morgan," Dade turned to see Morgan not hearing anything he was saying as several ghosts floated past, Morgan had gone a deathly shade of pale nearly matching Elizabeth's fair skin as she stared, paralyzed, watching the hovering men float on by.
Professor McGonagall returned and led the first year students out into the Great Hall in a neat line. Atop a stool, McGonagall sat a pointed hat that had seen its share of wear over the days. The students watched in awe as the hat began to sing a merrily little tune. As the hat went on many students awed over the ceiling in the Great Hall which shone bright with twinkling stars as though it opened right into the outdoors.
