When they met on the train the first time maybe it was serendipity. Maybe fate was trying to bring them together from the very start. They were both scared out of their minds, Brick having learned from his wizard father that no Hufflepuffs would be tolerated in his strict household, and Scott having no idea whatsoever of what to expect, coming from a farmhouse where he lived with his grandfather. "Maybe it came from yer mam," he surmised as they sat on the porch together one hot August day. Pa was always quick to put the blame on Scott's absent mother.
The wizarding world was a wonderful, exciting place, and Hogwarts presented a brand new place for Scott, a new beginning. It wouldn't be like elementary school where he had to visit the guidance counselor every Wednesday and where the other kids didn't call him crazy behind his back.
At least, he hoped it would be.
On the Hogwarts Express, Scott had been one of the first people to arrive and board because he was terrified the train would leave without him. His grandfather said a short, appropriately manly goodbye and wandered back to simple Muggle world.
Scott sat quaking with fear, pressed into the back corner of the compartment with his knees to his chin as he stared out the window at all the people dressed in robes of all colours and pointed hats and waving wands to float luggage and other students greeting their friends and children crying. Scott didn't think he'd ever seen this many people in his entire life. He felt like he might puke.
When he first saw Brick McArthur he paid no more attention to him than anyone else, although admittedly he did find comfort in the sight of another terrified face. His father was dressed in camouflage patterned robes and laughing with a likewise dressed wizard and absently patting Brick on the head harder than necessary. Brick was dressed in plain clothes, and his face was not striking; he had a cleft chin, heavy eyebrows, a clean-cut chin, and he was pale with fear.
Scott moved on to stare at the next person who walked by.
Brick showed up next at the door of Scott's compartment, which had been peeked into and passed by as soon as anyone noticed him so many times it had been almost constant. Brick, however, saw him and cleared his throat nervously. "Can I sit with you?" He asked, biting his lip and making a visible effort to be brave.
Scott narrowed his eyes at the intruder, but Brick didn't take the hint. There was an awkward stare down, until finally Scott gave in. "OK, whatever. Just close the door behind him." It was for the best, anyway. If there was another person in the compartment no one else would want to interrupt them.
Unfortunately, Brick took Scott's allowance to mean that they were going to become friends. "I'm Brick McArthur," he said, extended his hand. Scott eyed it warily, but Pappy had always taught him to accept handshakes. It helped to judge how weak another person was. Scott allowed Brick to clasp his hand in a short, sweaty embrace. To Scott's surprise, despite Brick's obvious anxiousness his grip was sure and steady. Scott was grudgingly impressed.
Brick moved over the window and stared out at the sea of people. "My dad's there," he said, pointing to the man Scott had noticed before. "I asked him not to wear those army robes, it's so embarrassing. He insisted though. At least someone else's parent wore them too." Scott stared at the pair of wizards.
"There's a wizard army?" He asked. He hated to rely on other people for information, but he was both intrigued and terrified by the thought that wizards were ready for war.
Brick laughed. "Oh, you're a muggleborn?" Scott bristled at this apparent dismissal, but before he could respond, Brick carried on. He didn't seem to mean muggleborn as an insult, but Scott was on the defensive anyway, just in case. "No, the Ministry of Magic doesn't have an army anymore. It was disbanded in the eighties, after Voldemort was defeated by Harry Potter for the first time. But my dad still wears the robes to show that he fought for our freedom or whatever. Like I said, it's embarrassing. It just shows everyone how old he is."
Scott stared at the two wizards curiously. The both stood ramrod straight and both had visible scars on their faces. He could see that the man talking to Brick's dad was missing three fingers on one hand. He knew about Harry Potter, of course, had bought all the books about him he could find at Flourish and Blott's, but he hadn't heard about the army. It seemed like they really had been fighters, by the look of him. He thought that if his father had been in the wizard army and fought the Death Eaters he'd be proud of it, not embarrassed. Then again, fathers had always been a sore spot for him.
"Hey," Brick said suddenly, making Scott flinch. But when Scott turned to him, Brick was smiling. "You never told me your name."
"Oh," Scott scrunched up his nose. He wasn't really a friendly person. He didn't want to give Brick the wrong impression. Brick seemed like the kind of guy who would do anything to impress his dad even though he complained about him. Scott wasn't the kind of guy who liked impressing people. However, it would be useful to have a contact who knew things about the wizarding world. He shrugged. "Scott Pike."
Brick smiled happily. "What house do you think you'll be in, Scott?"
Scott bit his lip. "I don't know," he said slowly, although he was pretty much certain he would be in Slytherin. Brick seemed like a Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, both of which were known to dislike Slytherins. He didn't want to scare Brick away. It was true that no dark wizard had ever come from any house other than Slytherin; that kind of track record pretty much guaranteed a bad reputation. But Scott didn't see himself as some sort of evil, power-abusing monster. He just had strong self-preserving instincts.
It hadn't helped that his Pappy had raised him. His Pappy had somewhat questionable morals. Rather than any religion, his Pappy had given him sermons about how the truth is relative, white lies are necessary in certain situations, and authority figures should be respected to their faces and ignored behind their backs.
"You do what you can to get by," Pappy said, rocking back and forth in his creaky old chair. It's a lesson that's got deep roots in Scott's mindset.
Scott shrugs. "What house do you think you'll be in?" He asks Brick, curious.
Brick groans and puts his face in his hands. "I have to be in Gryffindor. I don't have a choice. It was my dad's house, and he was just saying to Hurley, wizard he was talking to, how shameful Hufflepuff is. He said if I was sorted into Hufflepuff I wouldn't even be invited back home in the summer. I'm not smart enough to be in Slytherin or Ravenclaw, so if I want to go home, it's got to be Gryffindor."
Scott was surprised. "You think Slytherins are smart?"
"Yeah, obviously. They're known for being devious and cunning. That means smart. Selfish, but smart. Anyway, totally not the point."
Scott made a face. "I doubt your dad's serious about not letting you come home."
Brick shook his head. "My dad's sort of…crazy, by most standards. Super strict, and obsessed with things like…training me to be a soldier and stuff. I'm not old enough to use magic outside of school right now, obviously, but he still wants me to be in top physical condition. And like you saw, he's still obsessed with the army even though it's been disbanded for like thirty years!"
Scott mulled this over for a few minutes, but all this talk of dads was making him feel uncharitable. He turned away, facing the window. The train was now moving swiftly through the countryside, chugging steadily away as cows, farmhouses and fields blurred by. It made him feel homesick. "You seem like a Gryffindor to me, anyway," he muttered, only half audibly. Brick heard it though, and grinned so wide it was worrisome.
"You really mean that? Thanks so much! You seem like a Gryffindor too!"
Scott snorted. "Yeah, right. I'm going to be in Slytherin." He continued to sulkily stare out the window, giving off his best 'stop-talking-to-me-I'm-bad-tempered' vibes. Brick was obviously painfully obtuse though, because he kept talking to Scott.
"Really? Do you like, do dark rituals then?" Scott snorted with laughter, but when he looked up he saw that Brick was serious.
"No, obviously not. I'm just…self-oriented."
"You mean selfish," Brick said, eyeing Scott judgmentally.
"No, I mean self-oriented," Scott countered peevishly, and turned his body away completely to look out the window. He was sick of this dad-impressing goody two shoes.
Luckily for Scott, or perhaps not so luckily, a girl crashed into their compartment before Brick could think of a retort. She was as square-jawed as Brick, with short hair and a frown on her face. "I've been looking for you all over!" She said, pointing at Brick with an accusing finger. She seemed angry.
"Hi, Jo," Brick said meekly. Scott could tell without even looking that Brick had been avoiding the girl on purpose. To Scott's utter dismay, Jo sat in their compartment next to Brick. She proceeded to begin talking loudly.
"I was hoping since our fathers were standing together that we could board the train together, but I turned around and you had disappeared. I had to go all over the train to find you. It was really inconsiderate of you. I see you've made a new friend already. Introduce us." She was forceful and loud and Scott immediately disliked her. She was the sort of brash, overbearing, competitive Gryffindor that represented the polar opposite of Scott's quiet, scheming personality. In this case, opposites definitely did not attract. He found Jo utterly repulsive from the first word she said.
Brick shrugged resignedly. "This is Scott Pike. Scott, this is Jo. We've known each other since we were kids. Our fathers were in the army together."
"I feel bad for you," Scott replied snidely. Brick was shocked into laughing. Jo smacked him on the arm.
"Shut up, freckle-face!" Jo snapped. "Did you hole up with a Slytherin, or what?" She asked Brick disapprovingly. Brick shrugged helplessly. "Why don't we find another compartment? I already made two friends while I was looking for you. Looks like I win again."
"I wasn't aware we were competing," Brick said stiffly. "And I'm fine here, I don't want to switch compartments."
"Fine!" Jo said, and stood up. Scott breathed a sigh of relief. "I'll just bring them here then."
Scott was horrified. When Jo left, Brick turned back to Scott.
"Sorry about her," he said.
Scott shook his head. "No, I'm really sorry for you. She seems awful. I think I would kill myself if I had to put up with her."
Brick shifted uncomfortably, his loyalty at risk. "Well, she's not that bad…I've known her a long time. She gets better once you're used to…the yelling. I don't know. She's always trying to compete with me. I don't get it."
When Jo returned, she had two first years following her who looked just as scared as Scott and Brick had been. Scott suspected Jo had basically forced them to follow her here. They probably thought they were being led to their deaths.
"This is Zoey," she said, gesturing to a girl with bright red hair and pale skin. She was pretty, but not Scott's type. "And this is Cameron," Jo gestured to a very short black kid with huge goggle-like glasses perched on his nose. As they watched he pushed them up the bridge of his nose and adjusted them slightly. Scott had him pegged for Ravenclaw before the kid could even say anything.
Jo's loud talk permeated the compartment for the next hour of the voyage. They all changed into their robes as the sun set, doing up the clasps of their plain black robes and discussing houses again. Jo and Brick had their hearts set Gryffindor, Cameron speculated that he would be in Ravenclaw, as Scott had guessed, and Zoey was unsure, though Scott was pretty sure she would be in Hufflepuff from her shy but sweet attitude. Scott didn't tell the others that he thought he would be in Slytherin. No one seemed to notice that he hadn't said anything except for Brick, who stared at him curiously, but didn't mention it.
When they got to Hogwarts the first years were herded into the magical boats, and there were no accidents, although a very, very large fish took a lot of interest in Scott and kept nudging their boat the entire way to the castle. By the time they reached the shore he was drenched in sweat and terrified. And that was before he found out he was going to be sorted in front of the entire school.
The names were called in alphabetically order, so Scott was closer to the end, and Brick was a few names ahead of him. He could see the raised podium the first years climbed up on and the stool where they sat, and he watched Zoey get sorted into Hufflepuff, Cameron get sorted into Ravenclaw and Jo get sorted into Gryffindor. When Brick was called, he took a few steps into the Great Hall, then stopped to look out at the crowd of students, which Scott couldn't see.
Whatever Brick saw terrified him so much…that he wet himself. Right there in front of the whole school, and all the teachers.
The deputy headmistress was quick to rush forward, wand waving a spell to clean the mess away, but the damage was done. Scott couldn't see the crowd, but he could hear them laughing. He felt really, really bad for Brick. Even the other first years were laughing. Scott couldn't see anything funny in the fact that Brick had basically just ruined his chances of being popular at school ever, or getting into his house of choice.
Everyone stopped laughing, stunned, when Brick was sorted into Gryffindor anyway. Scott just about had to pick his jaw up off the floor. There must have been some true Gryffindor spirit in him to warrant that.
By the time Dakota Milton had been sorted into Hufflepuff after him the chatter had just about died down. By the time Scott stepped up to the stool things seemed to be normal; or as normal as they could be at a wizarding school. Hundreds of students in black robes sat at tables lit by floating candles. Scott felt sick, but he managed to get to the stool without puking. Or wetting his pants. One thing was sure: he wouldn't be able to hang out with Brick after that episode. It would be social suicide.
He sat on the stool and tried to clear his mind, taking a deep breath as the sorting hat was placed on his head. The Sorting Hat took about five seconds of hmming before it announced for everyone to hear, "Slytherin!"
Scott could tell Brick was watching him as he walked to the green and silver table, but he wasn't sure why. When Scott looked over at the sea of gold and scarlet, he saw that Brick was sitting alone at one end, being given a wide berth by his housemates.
Scott's own housemates were eager to greet him, slapping him on the back in congratulations and welcoming him with secretive smiles as if he'd just been initiated into an exclusive club. He was feeling very wary; he was surrounded by people just as devious, dishonest and cunning as him…if not more so.
