Hello there! This is my first fanfic and I hope you'll enjoy it. As mentioned in the summary, this is a review/PM powered story, all suggestions are welcome and I don't mind constructive criticism, so fire away! This will probably be published in French soon, so for you lot struggling with Google translate, just wait a bit longer.
The enormous building was overwhelming by its size as much as by its wide array of travellers, ranging from tired commuters to whole families waving their kin off to far-out, undiscovered academic lands. Harry, was standing there, the Dursleys having just departed for the hospital. He felt abandoned, his uncle's quick departure and last comment sinking into him when he realised that there was, in fact, no platform nine and three-quarters. Even so, the events surrounding the appearance of his overweight cousin's new appendage still made the young boy snigger, uplifting his spirits that had up to then been pretty low.
His mood slowly sank down to its previous level while he searched platform nine, and his encounter with the police officer did nothing to lighten it. His cheeks still burning from the embarrassment, he turned around and headed the other way, hoping to not attract attention to himself as he had already.
He started to panic slightly when he checked the time on the big mural clock set between platform eight and nine. The Dursleys were gone, and even if he found a payphone they probably wouldn't bother to come all the way back up to London to pick him up.
It was then that he set eyes on a group of people, who, even surrounded by hundreds of brilliantly coloured travellers, stuck out like a sore thumb in the crowd. It was obviously a large family, composed mainly of very bright redheads, the only exception being a boy about his age with a shock of white detaching very neatly from the rest. On closer examination, the boy seemed to be the only one to be wearing acceptable muggle clothes : a yellow and black tracksuit, a white headband, and various badges gave him a "cool" finishing touch. Apart from that, they were obviously wizards. The owl sitting on top of the dangerously stacked luggage carrier could not lie.
"Is this your first time over, little boy?"
Harry was startled out of his reverie by the person who had obviously been leading the family group, a short woman who was now staring at Hedwig.
"Oohhh... What a lovely owl! Still, no time to chit-chat, we need to get through the gate before the train leaves. You go after Ronald, there's a good boy."
A muffled "Mum!" was heard from the white-haired boy, quickly covered by the sniggers of two gangly twins, one of which was now holding the so-called Ronald in a friendly headlock, ruffling his hair.
"Come on! We're already running late! Fred, George, stop that this instant!"
The twins stopped at their mothers orders, and obediently lined up behind her. Closing her eyes, she then started to do something which amazed Harry in every sense. Her legs were carrying her and the luggage trolley straight towards a solid brick wall, several feet away. Harry got ready to shout out and prevent the inevitable, when she all of a sudden disappeared behind a crowd of tourists drifting that way. No crash was heard, so he assumed that the inevitable, had, by some miracle, been averted. Although, to his puzzlement, when the crowd cleared, no red hair was to be seen.
A young girl and her older, bespectacled brother went next. Harry kept his eyes open, but couldn't believe them when they disappeared, just before making contact with the pillar.
"It's best if you keep your eyes shut and run as fast as you can, that way you don't have to think about the impact."
One of the twins had addressed him, and he was about to thank him for his advice, but both of them tore off at high speed.
He was left with the last boy, who he noticed, now that they were closer, had blood red eyes.
"I'll let you go first, to make sure that you get through OK." He said, flashing Harry a grin that was filled with sharp, shark-ish teeth. Harry gulped and nodded, doing as he was told. His eyes squeezed shut, he started at a steady walk, cracking open his eyes to see whether he was headed in the right direction. He accelerated. His heart was in his mouth. All his doubts came crashing down on him in that moment of intense stress : will he be able to get through the wall? What if, unlike the others, he crashed into it, his belongings scattered everywhere? What if he didn't find his place in the magic world? What if he got to Hogwarts, and was instantly thrown out due to lack of magic? Will he be able to follow the intense and unfamiliar magical studies?
Hedwig let out a small hoot, causing him to open his eyes. They were inches from the wall. Without noticing it, he had started sprinting, and had built up too much momentum to stop.
Before he could blink, Harry emerged into an enormous hall identical to the one he had just left. He slowed down, regaining some control over his luggage trolley. He spotted from afar the redheads, who waved at him.
"With all this ruckus, we didn't even get to ask you your name!"
Harry was about to answer the twin, but Ronald collided with him. He was apparently not as quick to decrease his momentum as him. This distracted everybody, they were now more or less concentrated on helping Harry with his heavy trunk, which had toppled.
"No need to put it back on the trolley, just bring it directly into the train. Are you hurt? Let me rearrange your hair! It's all messy. "
Before he could stop her, the kind witch started flattening his hair against his skull. In the process, she uncovered his scar. She stopped, startled for a few seconds, before smiling at him and straightening his jacket.
"There we go, all tidy now!"
Fred and George had observed the whole scene in silence, as well as their little sister. They all took a little longer to recover from the shock than their mother, but the two boys soon started whispering among themselves, large smiles plastered on their faces. The little girl, who had from the beginning seemed rather shy, had promptly turned a shade of beetroot.
"Ginny, come and help me with this trunk!"
The mother had obviously seen her daughter's embarrassment and had come to her rescue, with some help from the newly formed task. The twins were still murmuring though.
"Do you think that he is..?"
"Of course it's him, dummy! Who else would have..."
"And may I ask you what you two are doing when you should be helping mother out?"
The eldest brother, the one that was wearing spectacles, was towering over them with his two inch advantage of thicker shoe soles.
"Oh, so this is perfect, prefect Percy!"
Harry saw an official-looking badge adorning the young man's chest, confirming his position.
"I wonder, George, whether our older brother may have received a certain shiny badge this summer, allowing him to reach the summit of prefection, oops, sorry! Perfection!
"l do wonder the same thing, Fred, I wonder exactly the same thing..."
Percy's ears had turned bright red at the tips, and his face was a mask of distaste. He turned back to the train, where all the bags and most of the students had already boarded.
Harry rushed past the mother of the kind wizard family, who was rubbing a moist handkerchief to her youngest son's nose.
"Dear, stop wriggling, I can't get it off otherwise!"
Ronald finally evaded her grasp, and entered the train behind Harry. They walked down the nearly empty corridors, trying to find an empty cabin. They made their way to the head of the train, and having found nowhere, turned back. They encountered the twins near where they started searching, and they waved at Harry and their younger brother.
"You'd better find a window quickly Ron, or else mum will send you a Howler for not having waved at her!"
Harry's eyes went from the twins to Ron, who's expression became one of pure terror, then relaxed into a shark-toothed grin once he understood the joke.
"Very funny, guys, but I need to find somewhere to put this trunk first. And by the way, my name is Soul."
The door was slammed shut before any replies could be uttered, and they trudged on their quest to find a seat.
Finally, after having gone down the whole train, they found the only carriage that could hold them. A single person was present, but they were rolled up in a corner of one of the benches closer to the door and were fast asleep. They made their way into the cramped space and helped each other out with lifting their luggage to the racks above their heads. A stray lock of hair fell in front of Harry's eyes, which he pushed back.
"Soul" caught the gesture out of the corner of his eye, before staring at Harry's forehead full-on.
"You're... Harry Potter?" Ron's voice contained so much amazement that Harry couldn't stop himself from smiling.
"Yes?" he said tentatively, sitting down while he did so.
"Wow! Honoured to meet you, I'm Ronald "Soul" Weasley, but just call me Soul, most people do." He said, his face slightly scrunched in irritation.
He extended a hand, that Harry shook. A brief silence installed itself, before being broken by the sharp whistle of the departing train. Ron, or Soul, was triggered by this and slammed the window open, sticking half his body out in the process. Harry followed suit and waved likewise to Misses Weasley. He heard a faint shouting, something concerning toilet seats, amongst the incredibly loud din of family members parting. He dismissed it as a figment of his imagination, and retreated into the cabin once the crowd had disappeared from view.
"So...is all your family wizards?" Harry asked, the curiosity eating away his normal politeness.
"Oh, um, yeah? We have been for generations, although we do have an accountant on my mum's side that we don't talk about much..."
A new silence ensued. "Soul" kept glancing up from the window to rest on Harry's scar.
"Umm... Do you remember anything ? From You-know-who, I mean?"
Harry was confused by the question, until he remembered who he was talking about.
"Oh, you mean Vold..."
"Shh! Don't say it!"
Ron's face was panic-stricken, and he was flaying his arms around.
"Ok, You-know-who, then. Well, the only thing I do remember is a flash of green light and intense pain, but I don't remember his face."
"Oh, well..."
Ron seemed slightly disappointed.
"Hey, how come you call yourself "Soul"? And sorry to ask, but is that your normal hair colour? I mean, the rest of your family has red hair."
"Now, the reason my hair is white and my eyes red is simply because I am albino." "Soul" replied with visible pride showing on his face. "It's genetic, you know, my brother Wes has the same thing, and I think that second cousin of dad's has it too..." His face scrunched up in concentration while trying to remember the relative in question. A black mark was still visible on the right side of his nose.
"And how about the name? Is it a nickname?" Harry was now fully concentrated on the boy in front of him, his intimidating shark-toothed smile now forgotten.
"It is a nickname, given to me by Wes, before he went off studying dragons. He gave himself that name as well, because he likes Western music. I actually prefer Jazz, but we both thought that that sounded like a girl's name, you know? Jasmine."
"So wizards listen to Muggle music as well?"
"Not really. You see, my father is a great Muggle enthusiast, and he brings things back from work that come from the Muggle world, and totters around with them in the garage. We even have a car! Anyway, When I was really little and Wes was still pretty young, dad brought back this phonograph thing with a vinyl on it. He managed to set it up and made it work with magic. It was then that my brother fell in love with music. He would go down to the local Muggle village and listen to the radios through open windows in summer. He once even worked up the courage to walk into a shop and handle Muggle money to get this old vinyl. By then my brother considered that I was old enough to appreciate the music he played with him, and I discovered that I had the same love of it as he did. We then started getting interested in the other aspects of Muggle culture, to my dad's great enthusiasm. I think that we beat him on certain aspects of that knowledge, do you think I look like I come from a wizarding family when you see me dressed as a Muggle?"
Harry agreed that his style did resemble that of a slightly eccentric, but otherwise normal, Muggle. They then started talking music, Harry quickly realising that Soul's tastes were a little dated. They slowly started veering off the subject, Harry's interest in magic clearly needing to be sated. Soul was halfway through explaining how cushioning spells for brooms worked, when there was a light tap on the glass of the sliding door, before it was opened by a lady pushing a trolley.
"Any of you want something to eat, dears?"
Harry realised that it was approaching lunchtime, his stomach agreeing with him loudly. Having never tasted wizard food and having a bag filled with the money left over from Diagon Alley, he proceeded to spend at least part of it on the mountain of food spilling out of the overfilled trolley.
"And how about you two? Do you want anything?" the lady asked, a kind smile on her face.
"I'm okay, I've got sandwiches." Soul said mournfully, pulling out a small aluminium-wrapped package.
They both glanced to the corner where the third occupant of the carriage was still sleeping. All the commotion hadn't woken them up, they were still fast asleep, strangely coloured strands of hair covering their face.
" I think it's better to leave them be," Harry said, before quietly thanking the smiling lady and closing the door.
" Mum always forgets I don't like corned beef," Soul said sadly, the wrapping making a foily noise when separated from the sandwiches.
"Here, help me get through these instead, I don't think I can manage by myself. And besides, I need you to explain to me what all of them are, in case I unwrap something wrong or something stupid like that."
Harry pulled out a selection of sweets, and he and Soul started going through them, the latter explaining the principles behind magic frog cards and such. They sampled all the foods they came across, which left the poor, innocent corned beef sandwiches forgotten in a corner of the table.
Some time had passed already and they were slowly digesting their "meal". They had left a few of the sweets for the last person in the carriage, so that they didn't feel left out when they woke up, if they did at all, that is. For one, they already had their robe on, even though it seemed on the limit of what could be accepted as a school uniform. They had also experienced Soul's very loud yells when his pet rat, Scabbers, had engulfed a great portion of a rare magic frog card that he hadn't previously found. All in all, they didn't seem to want to be disturbed.
A great bang flew through the cabin when two redheads and a guy with square glasses flung the door open.
"Hey, Ronnie-Wonnie, we just wanted to pass by to see if you were okay, and so that you can meet Kirik's pet tarantula!"
"Yeah, her name's Arachne! Don't you think she's cute?"
Kirik had a large shoebox with holes in the top to let the animal breathe. He placed it on the table, and started to lift the cover off. Soul had, at first, reddened rather dramatically when the twins had shouted out his embarrassing nickname. But at the mention of the spider, his face had drained of colour faster than Uncle Vernon's, at the reception of Harry's first Hogwarts letter. He was impressed at this feat.
None of the boys seemed to notice this though. The lid was fully removed, at which point Soul had clearly started hyperventilating.
" No guys, this is going too far."
Kirik had finally realised that something was wrong and had exited with his strange pet, throwing Soul a worried glance as he did.
" Aww, come on, he needs to get over it!" George yelled, going after his friend.
Soul had calmed his breathing and was now concentrated on forming a sentence.
" Not...funny...Fred..."
" We're just trying to help you, you know. You should be grateful."
With this last huff, he exited into the hallway. A lot of students were milling around, including prefects who were trying to maintain at least a little order.
" Ron! Are you OK? I saw those two idiots walk past with Kirik and his spider, I thought they were coming from here..."
The eldest of the Weasley clan who was still attending school came in, his indeed very shiny prefect badge gleaming in the sunlight.
" Percy..: my...name...is...Soul...! And... I'll...be...fine..." Soul chocked out, before going back to regaining his "cool" composure.
"If you say so..."
Percy went back to yelling at some students who were blocking the hallway. Harry sighed and got up to slide the door shut again, before going back to Soul.
"Please... Never mention that again."
Harry made the "zip" motion before sitting back down again. It didn't bother him that Soul had a phobia: we all have our weaknesses after all.
"Thanks."
They sat in there for a while, before Harry started clearing away the empty wrappers and the remaining sweets. More and more noise was coming from the corridors, students getting more and more agitated as the day went on. Soon, a girl with greasy pigtails and large green eyes opened the door, much to the surprise of the two boys, neither of them having met her before.
"Hello there! I'm just going around the carriages to remind you to put your school uniform on before we get to the station," she said, a smile on her face and in her eyes.
"Aren't the prefects supposed to do that?" Soul snapped at her, visibly annoyed. She did seem to be only their age after all, nowhere old enough to be a prefect.
The girl looked slightly flustered, her smile wavering.
"I'm just trying to help them out! They have so much to do already, and..."
"That isn't a reason to walk in on us like that! And you shouldn't take authority like that! Just go away!"
Visibly hurt, the girl slammed the door, leaving them to change.
"You were a bit harsh on her just then..."
Harry had spoken up to this friend, who was now pulling a robe out of the small backpack he had thought to bring along with his trunk. He didn't look at Harry, fully concentrated on his task.
He let him be: he had realised that he regretted his action, and had only acted so because he was still nervous after the spider incident. Sighing, he stood up on the table in the middle of the cabin to open his trunk without having to pull it off the rack it was sitting on. They changed, before sitting back down again. Gazing out the window, Harry watched the countryside as they approached their destination.
"Sorry about earlier on."
"That's OK. Just don't take your anger out on people who have nothing to do with it, please."
They slowly started up the conversation where they had left it. The sun was now at the far side of the sky, its rays coming in horizontally, washing the small cabin in bright orange and red. It was very comfortable, Harry thought, his head resting against the warm glass, Soul's quiet rambling filling his ears.
The door flew open.
A boy dressed in a brand new set of robes, personalised at the neck with a silver skull-shaped pin, strode into the carriage. Three stripes of white marred the raven black of his hair. Close on his heels strode two girls, one of them seemingly a year or more older than the other, who was the same age as everybody else present.
The boy's eyes were an astonishing colour, gold, but they had the world-weary look of a person with too much of an easy life. They lit up, though, when they alighted on Harry.
"Ah, the famed Harry Potter! Glad to meet you, my name is Draco Malfoy, but I preferred to be called 'Kid' by my closest friends. Do you wish to access that group?"
His demeanour was overly uptight, and Harry didn't take the extended hand that he presented him.
" I don't..."
"Hey, three stripes! Do you mind not barging in on us like that? We've had too many of those today, thank you very much!" Soul yelled, cutting off Harry's sentence.
A slight red tinge coloured the flawless white of the boy's cheeks. The smaller girl sniggered, before being shushed by the person who was obviously her elder sister.
"I see... You have already sympathised with the wrong kind of people. A Weasley, am I correct?"
He continued before they had the chance to respond.
"Not easy to figure out, thanks to the hair, although the clothes might have been an indication."
They all looked at the wrist of Soul's robe. It was a little too short and the cuff was rubbed to the point of being threadbare. He quickly shoved his hand out of sight, his ears glowing pink.
"Well, you're always welcome if he disappoints you..." he sighed.
"GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I TEAR YOUR HEAD OFF, MALFOY!"
"You see? Always the ones to resort to violence first. Anyway, let's get going girls, we've got things to attend to..."
He turned around, and started striding out of the carriage. He stopped short when he laid eyes on the third occupant of the cabin, still peacefully sleeping the trip away.
"Well, well. It seems like I've finally found my lost possession. Liz, Patty, please bring it back to the cabin, I've got better things to do."
With that, he strode out, leaving the girls behind.
"Wait! What are you..."
The tall, older girl was standing with an aggressive stance in front of Harry, who had just uttered those few words. Patty, giggling, yanked the sleeping person out of their seat, causing them to yelp and fall to the floor. Picking them up and dragging them by the collar with surprising strength, she exited the cabin, Liz following on her tail, giving the two boys the 'I'm watching you' sign, both fingers stabbing at them threateningly. Without further discussion, Harry and Soul got up and followed the group. The corridors were now clear, all students having retired to their cabins to change.
"Let them go!"
"What are you doing, you have no right to..."
Liz had reacted at lightening speed, drawing her wand with one hand while slamming the tallest of the two boys, Soul, against the wall. She was pointing it at his face, paralysing everybody with fright.
"Do not question us. We are perfectly in our right here, so get back to your cabin before anything messy happens. Understand?"
The threat had been uttered in a cool voice, making the girl sound all the more dangerous. Soul had recovered from his stupor, though, and was visibly oblivious to the danger that he was in. Harry tried signalling him from behind, shaking his head and waving his hands furiously. He knew all too well this kind of person.
"What do you mean? You just dragged that kid off while they were taking a nap! He was in the same cabin as us for the whole trip!"
"Soul, no!"
Harry's cry was so full of fear for his friend that he actually did stop his protests, instead staring furiously at the blonde. Harry prepared for the worse when the girl raised her pine-coloured wand, seemingly ready to strike, but instead she smirked and let her prey fall to the floor.
"Alright, then. Suit yourself, do you really want to know what's going on? You can ask Kid in person if you wish. Heck, you can even ask a prefect, they would have all been informed by now. Still, do remember this : it would probably do you and the, uh, person implicated more harm than good. Am I understood?"
Harry was terrified of this person : she had the demeanour and the looks of your typical female bully, but cruel intelligence sparked in her eyes. When he thought of it, the other two people whom she went about with were just as chilling in their own way.
They didn't know what to say. With a last smirk, she whipped her hair in their faces and strode off after her sister, who had disappeared into one of the cabins along the long corridor.
Harry caught Soul's arm as he was about to go after her.
"Please, don't. I think that what she said was at least partly true, just let it drop, please."
Soul sighed before returning to the cabin, Harry following him in. The sun had now completely set, it's last rays dying on the horizon.
They hadn't been sitting for fifteen minutes before the shrill shriek of the train's whistle cut through air. Night had settled onto the small station, and as students pilled out of the carriages, they huddled in their thick cloaks. Vapour was rising out of the train's spout as much as from the student's mouths, making Harry's glasses fog up. He managed to clean them with a fold of his robe, before settling them back down on his nose. As soon as he did so, he glanced at the surrounding countryside, and gasped. There, standing tall and proud upon a jutting cliff, illuminated by countless lights, stood the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"I am meant to be here." Harry said, and for the first time, he thought he might be alright after all.
Please point out any typos or other horrible mistakes for me if you spot any, it will be greatly appreciated. I have proofread this hundreds of times, but I can't be sure that it's clean. And does anybody know how to do those lines?