I don't own anything from any franchise, series, fandom- or whatever. Prepare for various plot-bunnies to be made fun of, and a few explanations at some of the sketchy bits and pieces from the original series. Also, the beginning is weak as anything- for the potential reader I would ask you give me a chance and read 'til the end of the Chapter. We'll see what ya'll think, also (*cough*toencouragereviews*cough*) give me a line of dialogue that you think should be worked into to end of the next chapter, if you think it should be written of course.
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Stowed possessions creaked and complained with a jolting irritability as Leah crossed the miniature divide between two of the many concrete slabs that made up the platform of King's Cross Station. The small black rubber seal between the two entities caused the trolley that the young boy was currently supervising jolted on the upraised ground level.
In complaint- a positively unamused 'mew,' from the grey cat (affectionately named Rainy) that sat astride the trolley momentarily grabbed the attention of Leah.
"Walking is an option," he rebutted, meeting the shallowly slitted irises of his pet. He knew that they were supposed to grow dilate depending on the level of light in their environment, but he could have sworn that the cat could do it by will to indicate their mood.
Shaking his head, Leah turned on his heel and continued through the surging tide of human bodies, having lost his momentum somewhat he persevered onwards, his mental model of the Station around him still not alerting him that he would be approaching the ¾ destination he wanted of Platform Nine, he guessed himself to have been moving through Platform Seven now, he'd know he was there when he saw his parents anyway.
Riding the wave of yet another surge of the crowd from one of the trains -an experienced commuter knew how to use the pulses of intention from these new arrivals to speed their own transit- Leah coasted to a stop next to a bench that lacked one of the expected greeters to be there.
"Mornin' Dad, where is Mum?" Marcus Alexander Valenti looked up to meet his adoptive son's questioning gaze.
"Angeline is getting our tickets," the elder male said, gesturing towards a cue of people where Leah could faintly make out his mother's hair.
The experienced actor's eyes read Leah's face like a book- given the length of time he had known him, this was only appropriate.
"Last chance Leah, there is nothing stopping us from just walking away." The subject of the statement merely smiled and shook his head. "No, nothing."
Leah sighed slightly as he spoke, his eyes fixated on one lone pillar, the numerous people walking past it. What would it take to push someone through? Not much, although Leah suspected that there would be protections surrounding it.
Once his Hogwarts acceptance letter had registered his intent of acceptance, it had triggered...something, and returned to 'home base' as his mother had later joked about it.
The Hogwarts Professor had made his appearance relatively soon after that, a loud crack of the air being violently rented apart had substituted quite nicely for a door knock from their back lawn (which was hardly the direction people generally entered from anyway).
A brief demonstration had been enough to bring both his parents on board with the rough picture of things, as Leah had been somewhat rescinding in alerting them to a letter delivered by Owl, and disappearing into thin air they met the proposal with some disagreement first.
However, as the man made reference to various oddities that had been seen in Leah's relatively brief life-time. Apparently an institution widely known as 'The Ministry' took care of the majority of supervision of magical spikes in areas they had monitored. These documents had been procured from something the Professor identified as a 'Pocket' which seemed to consistent of shrinking and expanding itself to near ignorable size, to something comparable to a basketball. The exact internal workings remained a mystery, but the man had pulled the sheets of parchment from within the sphere and replaced them once they'd served their purpose and been scanned by Leah and his parents.
What had been the information that had continued to prompt Leah's concern was a thing that hadn't been mentioned, only hinted at by the Professor (whom had given his surname to Leah, but was totally unable to recall at this moment, only the gender and rough appearance had been maintained by his memory).
Loss of control. Initially this hadn't been a problem from what Leah could infer, the exact wording being akin to "in recent years we have seen a rise in incidents from students who have received but denied invitations from schooling institutions who are over their majority," these 'incidents' had not been elaborated on, but from previous snippets of the conversation they were "spikes of magical integration with reality that caused a tangible effect," as far as Leah could piece together.
He had animated a few pictures, blown up the odd pen, but mostly these were things he himself knew about. He'd confirmed the nature of these incidences to his parents upon their relation from the Professor.
The Professor had also mentioned that power grew not only with experience, but also age. Which made sense in some ways, but it also meant that if a moment of uncontrolled emotion came upon him- Leah could potentially do far more then pop a few pens. A gas main? A generator? Someone's head? All these thoughts had barraged him with worries and concerns.
There was nothing quite as tormenting as the 'what-if' game. So he had lied to his Father, saying there was nothing. Nothing substantiated anyway finding himself in the present, Leah turned his head to see his mother approaching with all the speed of someone who has spied something they would like to reach.
"Leah! I'm glad Mum remembered where the Station was, she hasn't been out this way for quite some time." In the time when his two parents had been touring, Leah had stayed his his grandparents while they had been finishing up their performances, both of who were actors in a roaming troupe. Well, actors was a broad term, music performances were also part of their resume.
Externally, Leah chucked brokenly.
"She had some issues, apparently Northbridge isn't what it once was so we accidentally took a short cut." It also helped that his grandmother was something of an aggressive driver, and if you didn't like to be tail gated, you typically got out of her lane.
Something of his dry amusement might have filtered into his expression, if Angeline's hidden grin was anything to account for.
"Say," proposed Marcus, as he pointed out a particular mob of people in the crowd. "don't they look like the fella who visited us the day before? Out of place."
An infection of red was rushing across the crowd, all of them apparently hurrying towards Platform Nine.
"Whoof," murmured Angeline, "for all their show-boating you wouldn't think someone could slip into a pillar of solid stone so stealthily." Murmurs of agreement drifted over from the male portion of the camp. From there they spent some time allocating suspicion onto new arrivals, as the morning slipped onwards their ratio of correction to incorrect guesses grew steadily in the favour of the former.
Glancing down at his watch, Leah took in the time. There were only a few minutes remaining for people to board and strangely only a silence had found roost amongst them. The family as a whole, were far too used to being together, or close enough to get within contact without going to particular effort.
This would be something of a change for all of them.
"Guess I should go and stow my luggage," interjected Leah into the silence as he made to stand, hoping to keep emotional procession to a minimum. Which was out of line with the agenda of his parents, both of whom smothered him (thankfully briefly) in an affectionate hug.
"You know what you are, who you represent. You are Edma Ruh, the stage is yours." "Remember that we love you." Said both his father and mother respectively, each having their own piece to convey.
"I will, and both of you: stay safe. Look after Rain for me." Apparently the cat now decided to make itself known, which had prompted the statement as he transferred the cage over to his parents belongings.
Standing up, Leah shoved his trolley into motion again- moving with steady intent towards the third pillar from the left of Platform Nine, waving one hand over his shoulder as he went.
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Finding an empty compartment had been relatively easy, there wasn't really that much in the way that stood out about the train on first inspection. Until you got into the compartments to be greeted by a spacious room with a crackling fire, wide couches and a small table that spanned the length of these arrangements.
All in all, you couldn't argue with the accommodation given to you in the slightest. There was ample room for baggage to go beneath the table and the furniture itself. Honestly, stretching himself out on one of the sofas, Leah pondered the capabilities of people- truly for the first time he asked himself as to why this was so easily procurable for, what were essentially, highschool students.
Did it indicate a surplus in society or was this meant for a specific brand of person? The general feeling had been that Hogwarts was fairly elite in terms of schooling. Did a high quality school get first shout on the first draft of people? Something to remember for future discussions.
And something that was promptly forgotten as the door slid open, the only contrasting feature to remind the occupant that they were not sitting in a fancy Victorian era lounge room.
"-to ourselves," was the snippet of conversation that Leah cut off as he turned to face the two new arrivals, the book between his hands sliding shut as he slipped it out of sight.
"Hi," prompted Leah, who was currently in a staring match with a toad that sat in the boy's hand, a slimmer figure behind the somewhat fuller boy spoke up.
"Go on Neville, everywhere else seems to be infested." At this encouragement, Neville stepped through the door, followed soon thereafter by a girl of middling height and blonde, with freestyles to boot.
Neville looked something like you expected the name to, dark hair, strong features (even if they were somewhat clouded by baby fat) and he had a timid demeanour. He was the kid who cried 'pick on me' to those opportunistic people who haunted the school-yard.
"Your toad dislikes me," remaked Leah as he maintained eye-contact with the mentioned animal.
"Oh I don't know about that, I'd say the reverse myself. I'm Neville of the House of Longbottom." There was a note of resided formality from the boy, so Leah suspected it wasn't out of pride that the boy touted his family name.
"I'm Leah." said he without much in the way of dressing it up.
"Hannah Abbott," was the somewhat muffled response from the girl, who was currently stowing her luggage on the opposite side to where Leah sat.
Hannah righted herself, and then leaned over the table wand slipping out of the sleeve with a practised flick as she did so. "Err-," this seemed like one of those things that was probably fairly natural to those who practised it often, but wasn't really on the forefront of the mind of someone who wasn't terribly focused on such matters.
"Gimme a sec, I'll grab it." Scooting down beneath the immediate line of sight, Leah grabbed his wand from it's place in his bag – on top of his school robs. As per standard tourist information leaflets advised, Leah had picked up a book on social customs for Magi. The typical greeting was a tap on of wand tips. Unfortunately, it was just one of those things that you didn't remember.
Lightly clicking the tips of their wands together, Leah repeated it with Neville, who despite his looks made the drawing of the wand appear even more fluid and natural then Hannah. It wasn't quite slight of hand quality, but it certainly looked very impressive.
"Is that a Trainer," remarked Hannah distastefully as she regarded the pure white wood. While it was phrased like a question, it certainly was not one. The wand was quite obviously 'a Trainer' to those who had experience with such matters.
Testers were basic imprints, bleached peach wood with a core of some-some-odd-creature's-hair-that-Leah-couldn't-r emember-but-knew-it-was-Demi-something. The specific length tended to vary, and was generally determined by the build of the person. Beyond that, each one was identical.
In response, Leah nodded, while taking the course of the conversation off himself.
"And you have proper ones because...?" To which there was some hesitation on the other half of the table before they answered. Although Leah suspected that it was more due to lack of knowledge then unwillingness to actually divest information.
Neville (somewhat predictably) answered cautiously, as he seemed generally more informed then Hannah. "The specifics aren't shared to outsiders, but this wand belonged to my Uncle who had a similar temperament to me." Neville laid the wand on the table, although his fingers still rested on the shaft. "Custom made wands are costly, and need large amounts of time to make one. Some of people will make them during their school years if they have the galleons, but most won't have one to begin with."
Most was not all in Leah's experience, very rarely was it all. "If you have one of these custom made wands?" Leah asked curiously, eyeing his white stick.
"Supposed to give a cleaner connection to magic," replied Neville dully. "second only to Wandless."
Which made sense in some ways, and not so much in others. "If it's cleaner, why doesn't everyone do Wandless from the start?" It was a fairly simple question, but Leah would take live.
"Dangerous," said Hannah. "my Auntie had a case where one boy set his blood on fire when he tried to levitate a book without a wand." Which did cause something of a reaction from Leah, who blinked twice.
"The Professors do this in the Orientation Course," provided Neville, who could see that Leah had been considered the reasons he hadn't been told about this before. "and most muggleborns don't really have access to magic books or anything of the like. It's fairly case by case." Leah nodded in understanding, it would have been somewhat unfair to give people more time then others to get to terms with the material.
From there on out the conversation slowly grew a tad bit more relaxed and open. Personal histories, and the like were opened up for conversation. Slowly, each of them shared more and more of their lives. Neville came from an old Pureblood line that had been hit badly when Lord Voldermort took it upon himself to wage war on the rest of the world.
How exactly his family had lost standing wasn't really covered, but the topic brought something of Hannah's own notice. Her father -Peter Abbott- had been an Auror (the law enforcement corps of magical society) had been part of the resistance before she was born.
Unfortunately, it seemed that being an ordinary person meant rather little in face of being a Lord. Whenever he took to the battlefield, "the sky rained blood and scorched the earth with damned agony," according to what Hannah had heard- a recount that Neville supported.
There seemed to be a bit of variation in what he was actually called however, Neville named him as Voldermort initially, but Hannah called him 'he-who-must-not-be-named,' or 'you-know-who', when he asked after the reason – Neville responded.
"I'm a pureblood, while Hannah is a halfblood. Lord Voldermort placed a taboo on his name. If it is spoken by anyone with non-pure heritage, it alerts the closest affiliated family that their liege has been offended."
To which Leah blinked somewhat stupidly- the sheer enormity of the act defied imagination. "It cemented You-Know-Who's reputation as a Lord of Magic," said Hannah simply. There wasn't really any official appointment by the sound of it.
"How to you become a Lord?" Asked Leah interestedly. Sounded like it had a fair bit of merit to it. "You just need to be recognised as a living wonder of magic" said Hannah simply.
Fairly open entry by the sound of it.
"How many Lords are there?" Leah asked again, finding this stream of conversation quite intriguing.
"Well, Lord Merlyn recently departed so..." Neville made a mental juggling act as he considered. "About nine or so," he finally answered.
"Their names?" Asked Leah pressed. "The Lords and Ladies, Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Lords Dumbledore, Voldermort, Flannel and Ladies Morgana, Flannel."
Leah nodded, some of those names made sense- others less so.
"Isn't Lord Dumbledore our headmaster?" To which there was resounding agreement, something the two natives seemed fairly pleased about.
"He's very popular, the most involved of the Lords by some way." Leah digested this information, there seemed to be a fair amount of reverence for these Lords and Ladies.
"If they are all so powerful, why didn't they stop Lord Voldermort-" but it was too late. The damage had been done even as Leah clapped a hand over his mouth as a hissing of a snake rent the hair. But it was more ethereal, and just beyond the range of detection.
"Well," said Neville as he leaned back- looking somewhat worried now. "five galleons says that Malfoy shows his face."
Hannah shook her blond locks amusedly. "No bet."
Lean groaned and slid a few inches under the table, his face bearing a look of internal annoyance. "Who is Malfoy?" He sounded rather unpleasant from what the other two had shared.
Although, this was apparently something of an unnecessary question as the compartment promptly slid open to show a black haired boy, long noble locks falling either side of his face before being tied back in a ponytail. He had high, imperious features and a slight upwards tilt to his nose.
From the looks on Neville's and Hannah's faces, this wasn't Malfoy.
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