Warning: This story is completely AU. Every character written or mentioned is original. All I'm using is Hogwarts/the magical world.
There were three of them. If it had just been Karen – the tall one with brown wire-like hair and buck teeth – then Letti probably would have been okay. She could outrun her. She'd done it before - even if it had just been down the street back to her house. That part didn't count. Letti just knew that she could, because Karen might be tall, but Letti was small enough to squeeze under hedges sometimes. However it wasn't just Karen all by herself. Her two friends were with her.
"Give it back. It's mine. I made it!" Letti cried, trying to pretend that she wasn't scared, despite Karen being about a head taller than her.
They were in the park and it was a sunny Sunday afternoon. Letti's dad was meant to be watching her, except he was buried in a book, not paying attention. Besides, she wasn't going to be a wimp and squeal on Karen and her friends.
Letti had been sitting on the grass by a large patch of daisies, quite happily singing to herself and making a daisy chain – the longest one she'd ever made and she was proud of it. However once Karen saw her she had marched right over and snatched the flowers off Letti's leg and dangled it up in the air, too high for Letti to reach. She tried to jump, only to watch Karen lift her arm up higher and laugh. Her two friends were laughing as well.
"I said give it back!" Letti yelled again hopelessly.
"It's not yours anymore." taunted Karen. "It's mine!"
"But you didn't make it. I did!" Her cheeks flushed red with anger. "If you don't give it back I'll- I'll…" she struggled to think of a threat good enough to get Karen to give her her daisy chain back. "I'll tell my dad and he'll tell your mum!"
"Ohhh." The girls chorused. "Little Letti's gunna tell on me!" Karen snorted, like she did when she laughed too hard. "My mum doesn't care what your dad has to say. She just thinks he's stupid. She says that you're going to grow up wrong because you don't have a-,"
"SHUT UP!" Letti screamed, trying to snatch for the daisy chain and missing.
Karen simply giggled, but suddenly she stopped. Her eyes widened in horror as the daisy chain removed it's self from her fingers. It seemed to be floating in mid-air.
"Oh my gosh, Karen, what did you do?" screeched one of the girls as the other gasped.
"I didn't do anything!" Karen shot back, not taking her eyes of the floating daisy chain.
Letti saw her chance, and snatched the daisy chain before running off as fast as she could across the field.
"Get her!" cried Karen, who was pelting after her.
Knowing she didn't have long till the three girls caught her up, Letti slipped the flowers into the pocket of her skirt. In less than a minute Karen pushed her over. She landed on the grass with a thump. Her eyes stung with tears, but she blinked them back. Karen slipped her hand into Letti's skirt pocket and pulled out the chain, not even handling it delicately, crushing all the daisies. Letti rolled over onto her back, getting covered in grass cuttings, unable to stop Karen from ripping her daisy chain into little pieces. Karen grinned, showing all her wonky teeth, and then stood up and walked off to join her friends again, looking back every few seconds to see Letti staring at her.
Letti sat up and looked down at the remains of her daisy chain on the grass. It was beyond repair. She would have to make another one. Trying not to cry, she picked up the daisies. However the longer she looked at them, the less damaged they seemed to be. And soon she wasn't staring at a ripped up daisy chain. She was staring at some freshly picked daisies lying on the grass. Even when some of them had been purple before, they looked perfect and lovely. The stems had joined back again and the daisy chain was once again joined, only this time into a perfect circle.
No longer wanting to cry, Letti happily placed the chain of daisies on her head and stood up, brushing herself off. Her friends were never going to believe her.
X x X
Not many years later, Letti was walking down the platform nine and three quarters towards the Hogwarts express, trying to resist shooting her hand out towards her father's. To say she was nervous about leaving to go to Hogwarts was an understatement.
All of her friends were not like her. They were muggles, going to secondary school, whereas she was going to study… magic. She had her wand and all her books as well as robes, potions ingredients, parchment, quills and ink. Also, in a brand new cage neatly perched on top of her trunk (which barred her initials: L.W) was a sleeping Barn Owl.
Letti stopped, looking around at all the other students. Some were going to be in the same year as her, but most of them were older than her. She felt really out of place, a nervousness that she had been trying to ignore before she came, but was now hitting her full force. It hadn't really occurred to her how lonely she would be at boarding school. Letti knew that she would be leaving all her other friends at the end of her old school because they were all going to different secondary schools. However, unlike them, she would not be able to come home every night to her dad. Unless she made friends, which was something she wasn't very good at doing, then she would be alone. It was bad enough that she knew nothing of magic, seeing that she was 'muggle born', or at least that was what the witch at Flourish and Blots had told her father.
Sensing her anxiety, her father placed a hand on her shoulder. "Letti…" he started.
Letti cut him off as she let go of the trolley, her eyes shining with tears. She turned around and wrapped her arms around his neck, tightly. "I don't want to go." She choked.
"Oh, Letti." Her dad sighed, leaning down and hugging her back, before slowly pulling away so they were face to face. "Yes, you do. You are a very, very talented, my girl. And this school will help you learn extraordinary things - many things that many people wouldn't even dream of."
"What if I'm not any good?" she asked. "What if I don't make any friends? What if they hate me…"
"You'll be fine." He told her.
"Write to me." said Letti, rubbing one of her eyes.
"Every day if you want me to."
"Not every day." Letti said quickly, not wanting to be babied. The others would definitely laugh at her if she got letters from him all the time. "Just every other day."
He smiled. "Ok."
He gave her another tight hug and a kiss on the cheek, before helping her with her trunk and owl onto the train. There wasn't any time to go and find a compartment so Letti just waved out the window, slowly watching at he got smaller and smaller. In a matter of seconds the train left the platform and she couldn't see him anymore. She lingered at the door for a second before pulling her trunk down the train, past the other students who were running past excitedly.
After passing a couple of carriages with no luck of an empty compartment, she knew her hopes were too high. They would all be full by now, however she remembered passing one with a single person sitting inside so she doubled back. Swallowing her nervousness, she opened the door.
The boy with sandy coloured hair flinched and looked up, alarmed like he had been asleep.
"Sorry," she apologised. "Can I sit here? Everywhere else is full."
"Go ahead." He replied, and then went back to staring out the window.
Letti tried to lift up her things, but couldn't because she wasn't quite tall enough and her trunk was heavy. After a few minutes the boy stood up.
"I'll do it." He said impatiently.
Letti moved aside, just glad that she had help. He was a fair few inches taller than her and managed to lift her trunk with ease. The sleeves of his hoodie were pulled up slightly as he reached up, revealing large yellow-green bruises. Letti saw them but quickly looked away. The boy noticed she had seen them but didn't say anything, going back to sit down pulling the sleeves back over his wrists, studying her face.
She didn't ask, somehow sensing that it was something she shouldn't ask about. It wasn't her business and she was certain that if she did ask, he wouldn't explain it, nor would he want to be her friend. She wanted to make a friend. "Thanks for helping me." she said. "I'm Leticya West, but everyone calls me Letti."
The boy was still looking at her, almost surprised. Was he expecting her to ask about the bruises? "Harvey." He said shortly, and then added. "Locke." He looked out the window.
"Are you a first year?" Letti asked quickly, trying to keep the conversation going, for fear that if they stopped talking then they might not talk again and she didn't think that she could bare having the whole journey to Hogwarts School of Whitchcraft and Wizardry in silence.
"Yeah." answered Harvey.
She breathed a sigh of relief. This meant that she wasn't going to be alone. "Me too."
"That's cool, I suppose." he said. "What house do you want to be in?"
Letti panicked. She had no idea what the houses were. Obviously he had some kind of knowledge about Hogwarts and she didn't. "Er…" she stammered. "I don't know. What are they?"
Harvey smiled slightly. "You're muggle born aren't you?"
It wasn't mean or taunting, which made Letti happy. He didn't sound like he was going to make fun of her because she didn't know anything. She nodded.
"That's ok." He replied. "There are four houses – Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Huffelpuff and Gryffindor. You have to try on the hat when we get there – that's what sorting is, and then it puts you in the house you belong. Slytherins are ambitious, Ravenclaws are smart, Gryffindors are brave and I don't remember what Huffelpuffs are, though. I think they're good finders or something."
Letti laughed nervously. "But I don't think I'm any of those."
He shrugged. "You've got to belong somewhere."
"I suppose so." She said. "What house do you want to be in?"
"Maybe Slytherin would be good. Or Huffelpuff – their dormitory is near the kitchens apparently."
Letti smiled.
"So, you've never heard of Quidditch, then?"
Once Letti had shaken her head, Harvey instantly started to explain everything about the game. He also talked about Hogwarts and what he knew about it – the feasts and the headmaster, though he didn't know any of the other teachers. He talked about some of the subjects as well, including Divination and Defence against the Dark Arts, along with Charms and Herbology.
As time wore on both of them got some sweets from the trolley going around the train. Harvey got some Bertie Bots Every Flavour Beans, and Letti got some chocolate frogs. She had some crisps in her trunk that her dad had given her as well as a sandwich so she ate that. Harvey didn't really have anything so she gave him a Pumpkin Pasty and the wizard cards that came with her chocolate frogs. The fact that the pictures moved were freaky but cool at the same time and it did make her jump that the frogs were real frogs. She kept the Merlin card, though.
In the afternoon Letti got out her iPod to listen to some music, which Harvey thought was incredibly weird. She'd read in 'Hogwarts: A History' that it wouldn't work at Hogwarts, but it would be nice for the train ride.
"Wow!" said a male voice in awe from the doorway of Harvey and Letti's compartment. "Is that what I think it is?"
Letti looked up, suddenly realising that he was talking to her. "What?" she asked, confused, taking out one of the ear phones.
"That." The boy nodded at the iPod. "An mp3 player isn't it?" He was in his school robes already, and he had quite large, thick, black framed glasses and a mess of black hair.
She smiled. "No, it's an iPod."
"So you're muggle born then?" he asked eagerly. "I'm Colin. Colin Reynolds." He walked in and held out a hand for her to shake. She shook it. Colin glanced at Harvey, who didn't seem to want to get involved. "Hi." He said.
Harvey smiled weakly.
"I'm Letti West, and that's Harvey Locke." said Letti.
Colin sat down next to her. "Can I see?" he asked.
"Um, sure." She replied, letting him look at the thing. "It plays music, and you can look at pictures and videos and stuff."
Colin examined the iPod, trying to work out how to scroll. "Wow…" he said, genuinely impressed. Letti beamed, glad that maybe being a muggle born would be something good, since Harvey had been happy to explain things and Colin was finding her iPod really interesting.
"So you're from a family of wizard's?" Letti asked, although she had already assumed it.
"Yeah, but I find muggle stuff really fascinating." said Colin.
Suddenly the music was turned up to practically full volume, making Letti jump. "Ow!" she cried, ripping the ear phone out of her ear.
"I'm sorry!" said Colin quickly as Letti took back her iPod to turn it down.
"That was the volume settings." She said, though not that upset with him.
He peered at her. "If having it that loud makes your ears hurt, then why do muggles make the volume go that high?" he asked.
"I…" Letti paused in thought. "I don't know. I've never really thought about it."
Colin didn't ask to look at the iPod again.
Letti looked at Harvey, wondering why he had kept so quiet, and he said he was going to get changed into his robes so he left.
"So," continued Colin when Harvey had gone, "Your parents are muggles… what do they do?"
"Well, my dad's a writer."
"Really?" Colin's face lit up. "What does he write about?"
"Just stories about, well… muggles." Letti grinned. "They're really good. You can borrow one if you like."
"That would be great! Thanks!"
"I'll have to find them in my trunk, though. They're probably at the bottom."
"Can I borrow them when we get to Hogwarts, then?"
"Yeah." Letti nodded.
Colin heard some rustling from above them and he looked up to see Letti's Barn owl. "Oh you have an owl? So do I. A speckled one. I called her Maryland."
Letti tilted her head to the side. "Maryland?" she asked.
"Yeah." He nodded enthusiastically. "It's this type of muggle cookies. They're really nice."
Letti laughed. "Oh, yeah I love those."
"So what's your owl called?"
"Segnis." said Letti.
"We should be there soon, you should probably get changed." said Colin, standing up.
"See you around." she said, watching him leave.
So she'd made two friends already – well, she saw them as friends. The only thing was that neither of them were girls and the dorms would undoubtedly be separated into girls and boys, that is, if they were even in the same house as her. She didn't know what houses Colin or Harvey would be in. Maybe if she was lucky they would be in the same house as her so she wouldn't be alone.
It was starting to get dark and the lamps came on. Harvey came back so Letti disappeared to the toilets to get changed. When she came back it was even darker than before. Soon enough the train began to slow down and it pulled into the station. The start of the year at Hogwarts was about to begin.
Hope you enjoyed that!
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