Okay, redone, so read it, enjoy it, REVIEW it. Many thanks.
By the way, the characters that you recognize all belong to J.K. Rowling, not me. If you recognize any that I've made up, you're seeing things.
Chapter One
Amara
The train station at King's Cross was always crowded on the first of September. Amara didn't know if it was like that all the time because she only ever came to the station on that day, the first of September.
She didn't like crowds. It was part of the reason that everyone at Hogwarts always thought her 'antisocial'. She didn't like the nickname and it wasn't true, but she didn't bother arguing about it.
She started pushing her trolley a little faster through the press of people, searching for platforms nine and ten. Just as they came into view above the heads of muggles rushing past, Amara heard her mother behind her, calling for her to slow down.
She slowed and stopped, turning around to see the middle-aged woman come weaving through the crowd to reach her.
"Thank you, dear." she said, stopping beside her daughter and taking a few gulps of air, "Which platform is it?"
"The same one it has always been, Mother." she said shortly.
She thought about asking her mother to go, telling her that she could get there herself, but decided against it. Her assurances would not have any sway over Mrs. Bentley's decision, and she didn't want to seem more belligerent than she had been the last few weeks. Her mother wouldn't want to come on the platform with her anyway, not since her father had-; she stopped herself before finishing the thought. What was important was that her mother would leave her at the brick barrier, and she could find a place on the train by herself.
"Platform 9 ¾." she said instead, her voice assuming the automatic quality it always did when she found herself in a conversation that she knew she wasn't going to win merely because of someone else's obstinacy.
Her mother cast her a sidelong look of exasperation, but said nothing. She knew that there was nothing she could say at this point that would satisfy her willful daughter.
They had had many disagreements like this in the past two months. Ever since they had moved last year, the relationship between mother and daughter had been strained. Amara had thought that there had been no reason for them to leave the only home they had ever lived in, but her mother had wanted them in a new neighbourhood, where people didn't know about the strange disappearance of Mr. Bentley, Amara's father. "It is the only safe thing to do." she'd said.
They began walking towards the platform again. Amara tried to imagine herself in a compartment on the train, alone, to avoid the wall of silence between her and her mother. She glanced once at her mother, wondering if she was not imagining the same thing, wishing she had left Amara at the doors and gone back to work in the experimental charms department.
Amara continued watching her mother for a moment, other thoughts pushing into her mind, ones that had been haunting her since her last semester at Hogwarts.
Amara thought that her mother was an exceedingly beautiful witch, and always had. Mrs. Bentley looked like she had walked out of a fashion magazine. She was tall and graceful, with long, dark blond hair that she wore in a high bun on her head, only so that it would look grand when she let it down. She had bright blue eyes, and the talent of looking interested by whatever you said, even if she thought it was nonsense.
This had never bothered Amara, who looked much more like her father. She was tall, and thin, but she didn't look willowy, only slightly unhealthy. She had plain brown eyes, so light that people had been moved to ask if they'd somehow faded. It wasn't particularly flattering, only noticeable. And her dark brown hair added an odd clash to them. Her hair was long enough to fall below her shoulders, but she didn't let it get any longer, and normally wore it pulled back in a ponytail or braid. Her mother often insisted that if she would do something with it, she would be much more agreeable.
Before her fifth year at Hogwarts, Amara couldn't have cared less how she looked. She was slightly proud of how she had kept herself together while her friends began flirting and dating. But that had changed during a Hogsmeade visit in her fifth year.
His name was Brian Johnson, and he was a fifth year Gryffindor, who happened to be visiting the Three Broomsticks at the same time as Amara.
She'd seen him before, in her Herbology class, and he had always been very polite to her, but today was the the first time they had engaged in a conversation.
He had been extremely pleasant, and they had already agreed to meet in the castle over the next few days, before the subject of houses came between them. That was the first time that Brian Johnson learned that Amara Bentley was a Slytherin, and for some reason it unnerved him.
That was when the comments about her appearance emerged, and that, Amara vowed, was the last time she had anything to do with boys until she was forty years old. Brian had been insulted that he had enjoyed the company of a Slytherin, and had made several remarks to his classmates about Amara's disregard for her looks because she was 'easy', and didn't care what kind of boys fell for her.
Amara and her mother stopped in front of the barrier between platforms nine and ten. The muggles still going about their daily business rushed past, none of them bothering to spare a glance at the two women stopped in front of the solid brick barrier.
"Well, I'll see you in a couple of months, Mum." Amara said, carefully avoiding her mother's eyes.
"Yes, have a good term dear. I'll have the house in a little more order when you get back. Write to me this year, won't you?"
"Yes, certainly. Goodbye, Mother." she said, and hugged her mother swiftly, before turning and shoving her trolley at the wall.
Mrs. Bentley watched as both cart and dark hair vanished into the wall. Little did she know how much her daughter would go through before she would see her again.
A/N: So? Not too painful...? Hope that I did the sentence breaks correctly and everything.