DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately, I am not JK and do not own Harry Potter - I was devastated when I found out! However I do have pleasure of owning Malia, Hallie & Meg! :D This is my first fan fic so please read and review!

This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder, when the affections glow again and valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen magically along the edge of the forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn.
- Bernard DeVoto "The Hour"

Night was approaching. The sky was lit a soft violet, and the air floated thick and luminous on the pale breeze. A girl stood in the shadow of a dull grey, oppressive house, searching the sky with some unknown purpose. In the west, the first star had just appeared – it was time to make a wish.

Malia hugged her father's jacket around her shoulders and sighed. It could be said she had a lot to wish for. It had been three weeks since her father's death, and during that time she had been faced with the prospect of having to move home - to live with relatives she scarcely knew. Malia's mother had died in childbirth, and her father had raised her for all her 16 years, they had been incredibly close, and now…

The star above glittered like a tear.

She drew in a ragged breath and closing her eyes tight, focused on her wish. Malia didn't know how long she stood there, as the darkness drew in – only that after a while she released how cold she was, and that she could hardly see her hand in front of her face.

The following day she was returning to her school, Hogwarts. In truth it was a relief to be returning – in her crazy life, Hogwarts was something normal, unchanging; something she could rely on. There was one problem: she hadn't told her best friends about her father, she didn't know how to. She knew she could rely on Hallie & Meg completely, but she just didn't know how to voice her thoughts. It was much easier to just put it off – everything was happening so fast, she couldn't face adding something else to deal with.

Malia turned towards the house, apprehensive for next day

Malia POV

Great. Oh that's just great! Like my day isn't bad enough, I had to go crashing into the barrier. Not, as you're thinking, the barrier between platform nine and 10 – no, being me, even though I've been going to platform 9 and ¾ for 6 years – I still ran at the wall between platform 10 and 11, instead.

So now I'm lying on the floor, spell books and potion ingredients surrounding me. My owl, Athena, shrieking in her cage, and, like I didn't already have enough to worry about, my trunk had split open – so my underwear was on display to every Muggle at Paddington station.

"Hello?" I blinked. A boy was staring down at me, with an extremely puzzled expression on his face. I blinked again. Merlin's pants! It wasn't just any boy, it was a marauder! It wasn't just any marauder, it was REMUS LUPIN! Excuse me? Did I just hear you say 'who is Remus Lupin'? Have you yet lived? I mean he's only, a marauder – the elite rulers of our school, the closest thing to royalty Hogwarts has. He's only about the cleverest boy in our school, and one of the handsomest, and he is only the guy I've had a crush on since the third year!

"Um…hi" I yelped. Oh curses! I have been planning this moment in my head for years, how I'll say something funny, witty and frightfully intelligent and he'll realise he's in love with me and we'll ride off in the sunset. Funnily enough, I didn't picture it just like this, with him laughing at me while I was sprawled on the ground. Could it get any worse?

Oh, wait – it just did. Now I have Sirius, James and Peter (his fellow marauders) standing over me as well.

"Can we help you at all?" asks James. Isn't he just the little gentleman?

I growled at him. Yes, I did just make a marauder look taken aback and unsure. Ah well, getting hideously embarrassed obviously has some good points.

Ignoring me totally, they began picking up my spell books and ingredients and jamming them higgledy-piggledy into my trolley. Well that is, everyone except Sirius, who dived straight for my trunk and started rifling through my underwear. I guess you shouldn't expect any more from an immature, prank-playing marauder with a new girl on his arm every week (no, make that every day). Pulling out my wand (willow, nine inches, phoenix tail feather – christened Wanda by my imaginative friend Hallie) I sent a tongue-curling jinx at him; non-verbally of course, as there were Muggles all around staring at us. Luckily I could still curse him because; to a viewer the jinx is not detectable. Unluckily, that meant I couldn't do something really mean like a bat-bogey hex, which he definitely deserved.

"You're Malia, aren't you? The Ravenclaw prefect?" asked Remus. Part of me was jumping for joy he knew my name – another insanely angry he had to check. I nodded and smiled my most beautiful smile. Well if Hallie was here she'd probably say it made me look like a hag – she always says her mind – of course my other friend Meg would probably be polite and say what she thought would make me happy…

"You hang out with Vance & Bones, right?" Umm, is James a mind reader? I nodded – is it just me, or if I nod one more time will I turn into that dog from the Muggle Churchill advert?

"I sat next to Meg Bones in Potions last year, she's really nice" smiled Remus. How come my 'beautiful' smile didn't look like that?

"Why don't you three come sit in our compartment?" asked James.

"That would be great" said Remus instantly.

"Woogle wuuurr", said Sirius, as I sang my praises to the inventor of the tongue-curling jinx.

"Squeak!" said Peter – or at least that's what it sounded like. It was the first word I'd heard him speak so far. I'd always wondered why a group like the Marauders included him; he didn't seem to fit at all. Last year, Hallie, Meg & I had been discussing this and Hallie had come to the well-thought out conclusion "He is just completely loopy." Meg had reprimanded her severely of course for being cruel, but now I couldn't help but agree with her.

"Sure, I'd love that" I replied, pulling my re-stacked trolley along a little too enthusiastically. Everything fell off and my trunk split open once more with a loud bang.

This is definitely the best start to a new term ever. NOT