Rose's Year One: The Beginning
Claire Williams
Primrose "Rose" Hawthorn is an eleven year old 'pure-blood' witch who is starting her first year of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Along with friends Daniel Pratt, Helena Trinket and Marcus White she is sorted into Ravenclaw house.
The reason I've wrote this is to satisfy my curiosity of what it was like for other students at Hogwarts around the time leading up to the Second Wizarding War, also I thought it would be interesting to look into more detail of how it was to be in Ravenclaw as the common room is only clearly described once and not much else is known about the lives of Ravenclaw students. Looking forward to some good and bad (constructive criticism is always helpful too) comments and ratings. Enjoy.
Claire.
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Chapter One.
The Arrival.
Primrose Hawthorn had never been this exited in all of her eleven years of being alive. She had also never been so nervous, standing on platform 9¾, gazing up at the Hogwarts Express. She was wearing her Hogwarts robes, of course as well as her red scarf and perfectly shined black leather shoes, which were making a quiet clicking noise as she shivered with a mixture of the aforementioned nervousness and the cold. She was fiddling with the green Alice-band in her hair. Primrose didn't like her name, she had been named after her great-grandmother whom she had never met, and didn't like the sound of her that much anyway. She preferred people to call her 'Rose'. Standing next to her was Eve, Rose's twin, as well as, Drew, her brother, who was in his 4th year of Hogwarts schooling. Drew wearing his Slytherin robes, proudly.
In the books she had read in her family's library, several things had been said about the Hogwarts express, one of them had been, 'the Hogwarts Express is the large ex-steam train Hogwarts students take to school, while it used to run on steam the workings were completely run by magic since the early 1960s.' another had said 'the Hogwarts Express is a grand and beautiful train, ran almost entirely on magic she takes the students of Hogwarts to and from school.' Both accounts were true, however, Rose disagreed with only one aspect of them. Looking up at the train it wasn't just large or grand, it was huge, the word gargantuan sprung to mind. Yet somehow it didn't make her much more nervous, just more excited.
The platform was filled with parents, new students and other students returning to school from the upper years. Rose's mother, Mrs Hawthorn was also there with her husband Roderick. All of the family had thick dark browny-black hair and olive skin, except Mrs Hawthorn, whose skin was chalky and pale, and while the rest of the family had hazel-green eyes her eyes were blue. Mr Hawthorn was a tall, skinny man with sharp features and strong eyebrows, which framed his green eyes, despite which; he was a handsome man, considering his age. Mrs Hawthorne also had sharp features but her pale skin and blue eyes with the black hair made her look washed out, she may have looked pretty in her youth, however. Drew looked like his father; in fact he was the spitting image, his dark hair waved so that it curved behind his ears neatly.
Adrienne and Roderick Hawthorn showed all of the signs of being a wealthy couple, their clothes, were neat and well kept, and it didn't appear that any of them had ever had to go withought anything that they needed. They looked as if they were a happy, albeit sombre, normal Wizarding family. You'd have never expected that there was another sibling at home. Rose looked at her mother, who nodded, emotionlessly.
"I still don't understand why Roddy couldn't come."
Rose said weakly, referring to her elder brother Roderick, who was named after their father. She understood why he couldn't come to Hogwarts, as he didn't have any powers, but she didn't see why this somehow enabled her parents to treat him like a failure. In all of the books she'd read on the subject of squibs, she had seen no evidence that he would have chose to have no powers, on the country he had been made to feel deeply ashamed of it.
"Primrose – "
Adrienne looked at her husband, who suddenly had a stern look on his face.
"Your brother…"
Roderick sr. looked back at his wife with his eyebrows raised expectantly. She nodded slightly and looked back at Rose. And spoke in a hushed tone to her daughter.
"Your brother is a disgrace to our family name, Rose, we can't be seen in public with…"
She paused to look back at Mr Hawthorn again, before returning her gaze to Rose.
"A – a…"
She stuttered.
"A squib, mother. If we were seen in public with a squib, we'd be the laughing stock of the Wizarding world. Well, the members of it that matter anyway. It's almost like having a filthy muggle in our family, it's humiliating."
Drew cut in.
"Drew!"
Adrienne cut in, trying to keep her son quiet so that other parents and their children on the platform wouldn't look or overhear what they were saying, be reminded that the Hawthorn family had a squib in the family.
"He's not a monster you know? He's a person too he's our family, and all of you should start acting more like it, imagine how you'd feel – ridiculed and despised by your own blood for something that isn't your fault. Have you ever once thought about Roddy's feelings?"
And with that rose strode down the platform without another word, her new tawny owl, who she had yet to name, squaring angrily as his cage fell over because of her stride. She stopped and placed it upright muttering 'sorry' at him despite the fact he was a bird. She lifted her things up onto the train on her own, still steaming as she did so, dragged her things into a compartment and sat down. She swore under her breath before looking over at the window slowly not wanting to find out what she knew she was about to. A young boy, about her age was sat in the compartment gawping at her. Rose turned scarlet.
"I am so sorry, I can leave if you want, it's just – my parents were being… sorry."
She blurted out. As the boy's gawp calmed to an amused smile, she moved her owl, getting ready to find a new compartment of her own. He shook his head, signalling at her not to.
"Don't worry."
He said though the same amused smile.
"My parents were clingy too – it's not every day you send your child to a school for witches and wizards is it?"
Rose smiled back, beginning to feel a little less embarrassed, but the embarrassing way in which she entered would take her a while to recover from.
"I guess not."
Rose said. The boy had short dirty-blonde hair, which looked messy but clean, he dark brown eyes and large ears. He was wearing a blue shirt and black trousers. He grabbed his trunk and pulled out a packet of muggle jellybeans and stared to pick out the red ones on his lap.
"Didn't want to risk the Bertie Bot's beans? I'm the same, my parents don't understand it but my brother gave me some of them once and I got one that tasted like… I don't even know…"
The boy looked confused, he ate a bean before replying.
"Berty B- What? I'm sorry… I'm new to all this magic stuff and it's kind of overwhelming."
He said laughing timidly.
"Are you…"
She asked smiling – Interested.
"Are you a muggle-born? Like a born to Non-Wizarding parents I mean."
She added, shyly. Not wanting to offend him, as he had probably already heard about people like her parents that thought they were better because of their precious Wizarding blood.
"Yes."
He said smiling.
"Yes, that's me. My parents didn't even know I was like, a wizard, until I got the letter, then they thought it was some kind of joke, but the man who delivered the letter explained to them that wizards exist and I was one. And then to top it all I accidentally set the lawn mower on fire out of shock. I still don't know a lot about it if I'm honest. "
Rose had so many things she wanted to ask him, she hadn't expected to see a muggle born so soon. Her parents were the kind of people who despised muggle-borns because they were 'polluting wizard blood' or something like that. Rose, however had always wondered why it was an issue. In fact, the way Rose saw it, was that the whole idea of 'blood purity' was much like things she had had read about human racism. Which she also thought sounded stupid.
"I… I've never met a muggle, or a muggle-born you're the first person I've met who's lived as a muggle."
She said, eagerly. But sank.
"I'm sorry if I sound weird or offensive, it's just I'm curios."
Rose stopped for a second and looked at the boy.
"It's no problem, really. I'm probably going to bombard everyone with questions, I'll probably also seem like an idiot."
He trailed of.
"My name's Daniel, by the way, Daniel Pratt."
Rose grinned at Daniel and offered her hand for him to shake.
"I'm Primrose, as in the flower, but call me Rose. Rose Hawthorn."
Daniel shook her hand, grinning.
"Lovely to meet you Rose."