Written for The Most Horrible Competition Ever (Round 1) over on the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum.
Prompts used: pineapple, crimson, genre: friendship
"Dad, I'm nervous..."
The short girl with shoulder length curly, dark blonde looked up at her father, her brown eyes filled with worry as she clutched the handle of the silver cage with a brown owl contained within.
"Sarah, there's nothing to be nervous about. You'll be fine at Hogwarts. You'll do well there in all your subjects, I'm sure of it." Neville knelt down and looked her in the eye, patting her shoulder reassuringly.
"That's not what I'm worried about. I'm sure that I can hold down the fort in that regard, but what will it be like making friends?" Sarah insisted, adjusting her wire-framed, oval-shaped glasses a tick Neville noticed that she always did when she was nervous.
"You already have many friends!" Neville pointed out.
"Friends that I don't have because of you or Mum!" Sarah exclaimed. "I like Lily well enough but she's still a couple years older than me and I don't think I'll be in Gryffindor like her or you. Plus her parents are Matthew's godparents as well..." Sarah said. "Then the Scamander twins are only because of Luna, the MacMillan twins are my godsiblings, so... All the 'friends' I do have are because of you and mum. Not friends that I really made on my own..."
"Ah." Neville nodded in understanding.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her mother, Hannah, chasing down a boy with wavy, blonde hair similar to her own and blue eyes, who was also currently shrieking like a maniac.
Neville glanced at the scene and sighed. "I'll go help your mother catch your brother soon, but right now... you."
He put his hands on both shoulders.
"You... want to make friends on your own merits, that's right?" he asked her.
Sarah nodded.
"I remember my own years at Hogwarts. I started off with no friends at all. I was this awkward, chubby little child with no confidence whatsoever that could barely remember his school work- to the point that it pretty much became a running gag. You, on the other hand..." he smiled.
"You're smart, you're usually quite confident and calm and you're bloody gorgeous compared to me- you must get that from your Mum." Neville tapped her on the nose and she giggled.
"Dad, stop. You only used to do that when I was little!" Sarah laughed.
"You're still little to me!" Neville did it again, drawing another giggle from his daughter. "Besides, no matter how old you get, you'll always be my little princess. And..." he looked around, as if trying to find out if someone was eavesdropping on them. "...don't tell your mother or brother this, but you're my favourite child."
Sarah laughed. "Of course!"
It was Neville's turn to laugh. "There's my girl. Now, a bit of advice... if you see someone maybe looking a little lonely on the train or at school, try talking to them. If you see someone being bullied and no one else is standing up for them... Don't be the one to ignore their plight. If they reject you for 'humiliating' them... then so be it. But don't just let it go and then wonder what could have happened. Please... just try. I don't want your Hogwarts life to start off like mine did..." a hint of sadness passed though his eyes at that moment and having spotted it, Sarah hugged her father tightly.
"I love you so much, Daddy..." Sarah smiled when he hugged her back.
The train whistle blew just then and they broke apart their hug, only to see a very tired looking Hannah with Matthew under her arm.
"Well, there's one thing I won't miss..." Sarah thought.
"Got him," Hannah breathed tiredly. "you'd think he'd have gotten over this by now. He's bloody seven, not two!"
"I'm never going to grow up!" Matthew insisted.
Neville and Hannah sighed.
"Aright, love. Let's help you get on the train and be on your way to Hogwarts!" Hannah exclaimed cheerfully, despite her obvious tiredness.
She drew her wand out of seemingly nowhere and levitated Sarah's trunk on the train.
"Send me a letter as soon as you can. I want to hear all about your first impressions of Hogwarts!" Hannah beamed.
"Maggie won't have long to wait then!" Sarah beamed as she looked at the owl, who hooted loudly at the sound of her name.
"Go on. Get up there, then." Neville hugged her.
"I know that you were nervous about making friends, Sarah, but... maybe it could be the smallest, unexpected thing that makes you your first friend. That's how it was for me and my best friend... and all these years later, we're still friends." Hannah gave her a quick peck on the cheek and shooed her into the train good-naturedly.
As Sarah walked down the train, looking for an empty compartment to stow her trunk, she came across a rather interesting scene.
"Get back here, you little twerp! You'll pay for that!" the voice of what sounded like one of the older male student bellowed down the cabin.
"I said I was sorry!"
A short boy with light brown hair with bangs that partially hid his widened, terrified eyes, ran down the cabin (rather quickly for such a chubby boy that was also dragging along a trunk behind him), screaming for dear life.
A much bigger boy came pelting down the cabin after him, wand raised, a stain on the front of his robes and looking as if the fires of hell burnt in his eyes.
"Benedict, stop it!"
Another girl, around her age, ran after the older boy, her black hair coming loose from the bun she had it in as she did.
Just as they were about to pass her area of the cabin, one compartment door suddenly slid open and a feminine voice shouted something that sounded like a foreign language (that wasn't Latin).
A beam of crimson light shot out of the compartment, hitting the older boy.
His arms and legs immediately turned into long, slimy octopus tentacles, making him lose his balance and fall to the floor.
When the younger boy realised that the older boy had stopped chasing him, he turned around to see the incredible sight of the octo-bully.
The other girl who had been chasing the older boy came up as well and as soon as she saw his state, burst out into a fit of laughter.
"Oh Benedict, that was hilarious! Now you literally are as slimy as the Slytherin stereotype!" she cackled. "Honestly, you're an embarrassment to Slytherin House and if I end up elsewhere when I'm sorted, I wouldn't be unhappy if it meant spending less time around you..."
"Shut up and help me up, Anna!" Benedict snarled from his position on the floor, oozing slime from his tentacles.
"I don't think I would, even if I could. I don't even know what that spell was..." Anna smirked as others around them laughed at Benedict's predicament as well.
"What's happening over here?"
The students parted as some other older students came bustling down the corridor.
Sarah noted that Rose and Hugo Weasley, Albus and Lily Potter, as well as some of their cousins were amongst those who came to see what the ruckus was.
"Oh, somebody Transfigured this unfortunate Benedict fellow into something akin to an octopus, is all..." Sarah answered, shrugging.
"Who?" Rose asked.
"That would be me."
A girl with long, brown hair tied in two low ponytails by little black bows stepped out of the compartment.
"You?" Benedict scoffed. "No way!"
"Actually, yes..."
When the girl spoke again, Sarah realised that the girl had an accent that sounded vaguely Eastern European... or perhaps Russian.
"I will reverse the spell... if you apologise to that poor boy." the girl glanced over at the boy he'd been chasing.
"No!" Benedict snarled.
"Very well."
The girl stepped back into her own compartment nonchalantly.
The boy Benedict had been chasing eyed the Benedictopus nervously as he inched past it and went into the compartment his feminine saviour had gone back into.
"Yeah... You're not really the greatest company. I think I'd rather spend time with those two..." Anna stepped casually past him and entered that compartment as well.
Scorpius Malfoy came upon the scene just then, took in the sight of the Benedictopus and sighed.
"Come on. Let's try to figure this out..." he pulled his wand from within a sleeve and wordlessly levitated his fellow Slytherin to another part of the train.
"Well," Lily greeted her after some of the crowd had dispersed. "that makes for an interesting start of your first Hogwarts Express ride, doesn't it?"
Sarah could only nod.
"Oh well. See you around!" she waved as she left.
Glancing around at her various options for compartment as the whistle sounded once again to signal that the train would soon be moving, she glanced at the door of the compartment that the girl who'd spelled Benedict had come from.
As if sensing her indecision, the door was flung open and the girl poked her head out.
Spotting her, the girl beckoned to her.
"Well, then, come on! Don't want to still be standing out there with your luggage when the train moves off, do you?"
Sarah looked down at Maggie nervously.
"Might as well," she spoke to the bird. "I suppose there could be worse people to share a compartment with..."
"Come!" the girl stepped out of the compartment to help her with the luggage and between the two of them, plus some help from the boy and Anna, they got it all put away just seconds before they felt the train start to move off.
"So... Hello everyone?" Sarah said awkwardly as she found herself seated next to the chubby, brown-haired boy.
He was the only other one there who looked as awkward as she felt.
"Hi!" Anna beamed. "Why don't we all introduce ourselves? Can't be spending several hours in a compartment together and not know each other's names, right? My name's Anna Higgs."
"Sarah Longbottom. My dad is the Herbology professor. That's going to make for many awkward moments over the next five years..." Sarah shuddered at the very thought.
"I'm Ivan. Ivan Smith." the brown-haired boy stammered nervously.
"My name is Katya. Katya Netchayeva. I was actually born here, but I lived in Russia from when I was two until I was about eight, plus my parents still speak the language at home, so that is what explains my accent, I suppose." Katya shrugged.
"Ooh, Russian?" Ivan's eyes lit up. "I've been trying to teach myself how to speak it! Is it hard to learn?"
"I would say that English is harder to learn for a Russian person than it would be for you as a native English speaker to learn Russian. The issue is debatable, but that is just my opinion." Katya shrugged.
"So... what did you do to piss my charming older brother off, Ivan?" Anna queried.
"I... accidentally spilled some pineapple juice on him. I had the bottle stashed in the side pocket of my rucksack and the cover was loose somehow and I didn't realise..." Ivan spoke quietly.
"That was a bit of an overreaction, wasn't it?" Sarah raised an eyebrow. "I mean, it could have been solved by a simple cleaning charm, couldn't it?"
"My bother... brother... is the king of overreactions." Anna answered simply, as if that was enough to explain it all.
Soon enough, the conversation drifted from that, to their immediate family members (Katya and Ivan were only children, Anna only had Benedict for a sibling) and onwards to what Houses they hoped to be Sorted into.
"My Mum was a Hufflepuff and Dad was a Gryffindor. I don't think I'm cut out for Gryffindor though..." Sarah said. "Perhaps my Mum's House or even Ravenclaw would be a better fit for me..."
Ivan looked pensive for a moment. "Mother never went to Hogwarts and Father was a Hufflepuff in school, so... maybe I'll be one too. I'd be happy as long as they let me into the school in the first place..."
"Both my parents attended Koldovstoretz. I don't know as much about the Houses as you all would. Still, I do know a little... and I do not care where I go." Katya shrugged.
"My parents and brother are Slytherins, but as long as he's there, I'd rather go anywhere else." Anna scowled.
The conversation drifted off as the train got further and further away from London and Sarah found herself drifting to sleep.
"They're all nice. Ivan and Anna went to Ravenclaw and Katya joined me in Hufflepuff. I think we all found our right fit." Sarah sat in the Hufflepuff Common Room, penning a letter to her mother after her first day of classes.
"Though... Mum, I remember what you said at the train station. Dad too. Ivan especially looks like he could use a friend. He's so shy and timid... it's early stages, but I think we... all four of us could be friends. Maybe I could make friends with more people, but I think the four of us will do for now. Little by little after all and I know I won't be able to be friends with everyone."
"It really was the smallest, unexpected thing that brought us together! Ivan's clumsiness spilling juice all over Anna's brother led to all of this!"
Sarah giggled to herself as she finished up the letter and sealed it.