I wrote this story for two purposes, for myself to fangirl as I read/wrote it and also for my best friend for life, Rachel's birthday. If you're wondering if she is the Rachel in the story, yes she is. Names have been changed though so good luck figuring out who we are. Anyways, I hope you enjoy reading it as much I enjoyed writing it. I spent I believe about 4+ months on it and I'm uploading this with the rest of the chapters at midnight for her birthday. If you have already read my previous work, Before We Go, this is a side story to A part in that story. If you haven't read BWG, I highly reccomend it to my Jily lovers. Please review and please enjoy. All of these ideas stem from my bffl, but bulk is dedicated to the amazing J.K. Rowling. Thank you and proceed to fangirl my SIRIUS/OC lovers!
XOXO, L
Chapter 1: First Day
"Now you have your trunk, your robes, your wand and then Cash, right darling?" Lena Angotti asked her eleven year-old daughter with deep, worry lines creasing her face. Steam had begun to fill the small platform and chattering surrounded the family of four. Last minute hugs and goodbyes and "be safe" messages were pounding Rachel Angotti's ears.
She rolled her hazel eyes and assured her mother she had everything she needed before boarding the Hogwarts Express. "Yes mum, I have it all. Don't worry, it's going to be fine! Do you actually think I packed the night before school started or something?" Rachel's eyes twinkled.
"You did, darling. Don't think I didn't see you stuff random clothes and knick-knacks in your trunk, last night. The only thing you've been working on for weeks was the monogram on the front of your baggage! Honestly, Rachel, two whole months for an 'R,'" said Lena, exasperated with her daughter's proclivity to doodle and draw. Rachel had drawers full with markers and pens to use for her drawings and random designs. Lena often wondered where they all came from.
The Angottis had lived in England for about six years after emigrating from Italy. Both of Rachel's parents had gone to Hogwarts, but it wasn't until they met back home until they fell in love. Rick Angotti was an International Ministry Ambassador who traveled all over the world for magical negotiations and trades. Lena was once on the National Italian Quidditch Team as a very talented chaser. Her technique was always spotless, not a muscle out of place. She and Rick settled down in Florence when she decided to retire her broom for a baby. Realizing their children had no experience with English after she had Rachel, the family of four packed their bags for London.
Lena glanced at her husband. "I just want to be sure we don't need to send anything in the post. Dock's getting old these days; his feathers only carry him so far," she explained to her youngest. Dock was their brown and somewhat dim owl. The Angottis bought him the same day Rachel was born. Rachel sighed at her mother's worried tone. Lena may have passed down her facial structure to her daughter, but she also inherited her father's carefree spirit and excitement. She just wanted to board the train and find new friends to start adventures with.
"That owl is as good as dead, mum. We need to be humane and just put it down," said Christian Angotti as he stared off into space. He was three years older than Rachel and was tasked by his mother with making sure Rachel's transition at Hogwarts went smoothly. Christian had a history of tormenting his sister and taking advantage of her constantly. Rachel expected Christian to abandon her the second he got on the train to go find his friends and flirt with girls much too pretty for him. He was tall for thirteen, but cocky. He had his parents dark, almost black, hair and deep, thin eyes. The time Rachel spent without him at home during the year were her best times yet. Sure, dinners alone with her parents were a bore at times and she did miss her brother's ability to joke about anything, but being tormented had been straining on her imagination.
"Christian! That owl is family! It's bad luck to even say something like that!" Lena shouted in a horrified voice. Her thick hair was twisted back in a clip and her long fingers clutched Rachel's arm, as if never planning on letting her go. The weeks leading up to September first consisted of shopping and reassurances for Rachel. Soon the anxiety turned to excitement and the girl had laid in bed at night simply shaking in anticipation for the day.
"Dad, what if I'm in Slytherin?" Rachel's small voice asked when she looked up at her father. He gave her a warm smile and replied, "Darling, there is nothing wrong with being in Slytherin. Look at your brother, he's in Slytherin and doing just fine."
Christian smirked at his sister and spat, "Slytherin's the best goddamn house there is. You would be lucky to be in it." Lena clucked her tongue and her dark eyes went wide. She grabbed her son's shoulder, her long nails digging in his skin and whispered menacingly in his ear, "If you ever speak like that again I will send you off to Durmstrang, Christian Joseph." Christian shot her a dirty looked and turned towards the crowds, shutting out his family. Irritability and lack of respect was nothing new for Christian. While Christian being sorted into Slytherin was a shock for Rick and Lena, they supported their son nonetheless.
"Rachel, you belong in the House you will be put into. You don't have to be a Gryffindor like your father or a Ravenclaw like me. Just learn everything you can and stay in line. One letter about you misbehaving and I will march you right home," Lena explained to her youngest. The woman's eyes softened and she pulled Rachel into a hug. "Just be careful. Enjoy every minute because once it's over, it's over." Rachel pulled out of the embrace and smiled at her parents. It was her first time being away from home and she was so exhilarated and terrified at the same time. She saw the tears in her mother's eyes and the tight smile on her father's face.
"I'll be okay. Christian will be there and I have this new wand to do me some good. I'll see you at Christmas, alright?" She hugged her father and grabbed the bag with her robes. She jumped on the train and waved to her parents, her father's arm clasped tightly on Lena's shoulder, and then turned her back to follow her brother. Christian twisted around to see Rachel following him and said, "You're on your own, R. Beat it before someone sees me with a nerdy first year." And he then charged into a compartment.
Rachel looked around and could see the other compartments filling up. She began to feel a tight pull in her chest and began searching for an open seat. She was running up and down the halls poking her head in each set of seats before smashing into another figure. Her forehead smacked into his and she fell back onto the ground.
"Hey! Watch it!" Yelled the boy she knocked into. His long, dark hair had been swished over his silver-grey eyes and he rubbed his forehead where they collided.
"Sorry! Um, do you happen see an open compartment?" Rachel asked, frantically looking around. She was humiliated for running into someone else and was having a small panic attack. Rachel could feel the tears brimming her eyes as the boy got to his feet and gruffly grabbed her arm to pull her up.
"Uh, I think I saw a girl's compartment about three down. Just watch it, would you?" The boy shoved past her and headed into his own compartment, shutting the door behind him. She found the open compartment and sat down next to the other first year girls. She smiled and introduced herself to the other first years and then looked out the window to search for her parents in the crowd. Parents were waving and yelling their goodbyes The train began to pull out of the station and Rachel gave up her search. She was on her way to Hogwarts.
"First years, this way please," instructed Professor McGonagall. The witch in dark purple robes led the first years into the Great Hall, walking past the tables of other students. At the front of the room was a stool and an old, raggedy hat.
"Abernathy, Daniella." Each student would be called and then sit on the stool with the hat placed on their head, after a few moments, the hat would cry out its verdict for which House the child belongs in. Rachel didn't have to wait long to be sorted.
"Angotti, Rachel." Rachel's breath hitched and then she made her way past the students and sat on the stool. Professor McGonagall put the hat on her head and she heard a voice.
"Oh, an Angotti. Your brother's mind was determined and wicked, but your's is quick and uncertain. You dream of impossibilities and desires. You would be best off in- RAVENCLAW!"
The Ravenclaw table erupted in cheers. The table of blue and bronze clapped and welcomed Rachel to sit down. She turned behind her to look for Christian, his eyes were already on her and he simply mouthed, "Dork," with a smirk. She didn't know whether he was being rude or offering an ironic joke to make her feel better. She never knew with her brother if it was a kind gesture or a torturing remark.
She rolled her eyes and for a moment was saddened that she didn't make it into her dad's house of courage and chivalry. Her thought was erased when a girl sat next to her and began to chat with her,
"Hi, I'm Cara Mulligan." She said politely in a thick Irish accent. The pair spoke in small talk for a bit before Libby began to open up. "Did you see that guy over there?" She pointed to a guy in the crowd of unsorted students. He was tall and skinny with messy hair and glasses.
"Quite fit, right? Dibs on him, if you don't mind," Cara flipped her long hair and smiled.
"Anyways, it's going to be years before this sorting is over so I thought we could chat to pass the time. My mom was a Hufflepuff and my dad's a muggle. Sister is in Gryffindor and then I guess now I'm a Ravenclaw. What a bunch, huh? God, I hope there's chicken tonight. I barely got anything on the train."
They two talked all through dinner and up to the dormitory. "Could you imagine us not being in the same dormitory? Like, you make a new best friend and then you can't even share a room? That would be the opposite of magical," Rachel expressed.
"Girls are on the left, boys on the right. Go ahead and find your rooms," instructed the prefect. She was a little stiff, but seemed okay. Her streak of purple hair gave her an edge.
The girls sprinted up the steps to find their rooms. "Here's my trunk! And my bunny! Cash, are you okay?" Rachel asked as she cooed at her rabbit. He was black with soft, velvet fur.
"Here's mine!" Cara screeched as she opened her trunk to pull out some pajama pants with monkeys on them, before slipping them on. She fell into her bed and sighed. "This is my home now. I've christened it."
Rachel laughed and started to put her clothes away in the closet above her bed frame. The Ravenclaw Dormitories were ancient just like the school. Because of the tower location, the rooms were round and each had a hearth in the center for warmth, like the Gryffindor rooms. There were about four to five beds in each dormitory and Rachel's had four. The beds were a dark royal blue with bronze pillows. At the foot of the bed were the girl's trunks and then above were two shelves and a rack for hanging clothes. Desks were pushed against the walls, already littered with their textbooks for the next day.
"Hello, I'm Carissa Edenbeck and this is Olive Click," a dark haired girl said. She was taller and as skinny as a quill with tanned skin and then the girl beside her had to be about six foot-two with ashy blonde hair and big lips.
"Hey, I'm Rachel Angotti and this is Cara Mulligan."
The next day, Rachel and the other Ravenclaws were seated in Professor Binns' classroom, waiting for him to arrive.
"I heard this class is as boring as watching paint dry," Cara commented. As Rachel nodded and continued to doodle little swirls in her parchment, a cool rush went though the room and a ghost floated through the blackboard.
"Good morning, students. I am Professor Binns, your History of Magic Teacher," explained the transparent man. He was wearing 1800s robes and looked as old as dirt.
"I was born in seventeen seventy-two and died in eighteen seventy-five at the age of one hundred and thirteen. I never married and devoted my life to history books and I have devoted my death to history lessons. Now that you know something about me, please turn your textbooks to page forty-nine and I'll tell you a little something about the history of magic."
Rachel was flipping through her pages and had dipped her quill in fresh ink, waiting for the lesson to begin. Two Gryffindor boys were chatting loudly across the room and making a huge scene in the class.
"A vampire is six and a half feet at best, basilisks are like seventy feet long on average!" The boy with messy hair and glasses from last night yelled in aggravation.
"Basilisks have literally one power, killing stuff with its eyes! If a vampire just used their heightened sense of smell, it could easily kill it without opening their eyes! Plus, basilisks are known to be dopes, probably couldn't even make its way around a room because it's so bloody gigantic!" The boy Rachel ran into on the train explained.
"A basilisk can also, oh I don't know, swallow a vampire in one gulp!"
"Why doesn't basilisk stay out of the argument and I get a vampire to bite you!"'
"Gentlemen?" Asked Professor Binns.
"Yes, sir?" The boy whom Cara called cute the night before, replied.
"James Potter, is it? Please switch seats with uh," he looked down at his class list, "Miss Angotti, if you please." Rachel's heart leaped.
"What?" Rachel whispered. Cara shot a dirty look at the two boys before cursing a profanity.
"Yes, sir," James sighed before gathering his books. Realizing she would have to move, Rachel grabbed her things and walked across the room to sit down next the boy she bumped into on the train.
"You," he said as he stared at Rachel.
"You," she replied just as coldly. She reached over and pinched his arm. He yelped and grabbed the sore spot.
"Bugger! What was that for?" He demanded. His eyes narrowing at her.
"For being a prick and having a big mouth!" She said as she began searching for the page in the book again.
He groaned before mumbling, "Bloody birds." Rachel shot him a death glare before going back to her book. The lesson droned on and on, but she was entertained by looking over and Cara who would make funny faces and mouth bad words to her. She seemed to be getting chummy with James at her desk. Sirius was either folding the edges of his textbook or would look across the room to shout over at his friends. He hummed without realizing it, the end of his quill was all chewed up, and he flipped his hair constantly. She thought he was intolerable.
His bony elbows would knock hers over and she could barely focus on her drawings because he kept singing. It sounded like a muggle song she heard once, but it could have been anything just as annoying.
The period was almost over and Professor Binns began explaining their assignment,"Please write an essay about the life of Merlin about fifteen inches due next class."
Rachel saw the boy next to he pull out a piece of parchment and begin to write his name at the top. "Sirius Black," she read. She thought his name was a bit out there and ironic. She couldn't see him being serious about anything at all, but his handwriting was impressively nice for a boy. It was in cursive and his "S" and "B" were loopy and bold while the other letters were like an after thought.
"Sirius Black," Rachel stated in an even tone, "you can't be serious?" She asked smiling, attempting to make up for her harsh pinch earlier. He glanced at his name on the parchment before smirking and looking up at her. "Oh, I am."
He chuckled to himself before waiting for her to write down her name. She was simply staring at his silvery grey eyes before he nudged her hand and looked at her quill. "Oh," she said before dipping her quill in ink and scratching out her name. She had written it over and over before, obviously, and she loved making it fancy or bold, but in that moment, it came out terribly. Her hand was shaking and her grip on the quill was all wrong.
"Rachel, huh?" He asked after reading her parchment. "Yeah," she replied, mortified at her handwriting.
Cara and James began walking over. He said something quietly to her and she laughed before Cara said, "ready to go, Rache?" Sirius looked at her and gave her a funny stare.
"Let's go, mate," James said before turning to the two boys sitting behind them.
Sirius grabbed his bag and whispered to Rachel, out of Cara's earshot, "you're a Rae, not a Rache by the way," before he winked and ran off with his mates.
Rachel was frozen for a second, no one had ever called her Rae before. Cara grabbed her arm and she was pushed back into reality, never really forgetting about Sirius Black.