A/N- QLFC, Kenmare Kestrels, Beater 1, Round 1

Main Prompt- "Four Yorkshiremen" Best dialogue? "You were lucky to have a Lake! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road." / "Cardboard Box?" / "Aye." / "You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank." Write about making a mountain out of a molehill.

Additional Prompts- 4. (word) insufferable, 9. (word) expectations, 10. (song) Sail- Awolnation, 12. (creature) Niffler

Word Count: 1862

Theo Nott arrived onto platform nine and three-quarters in tandem with the Hogwarts Express.

He had a thousand and one expectations racing through his head about his first year at the famed wizarding school. Theo was absolutely dreading it, as he dreaded most things in his life. But the fact that he would have to interact with other people was bloody terrifying. It was this overwhelming feeling of fear that made him seriously consider, for just a moment, turning around and hopping onto a different train. One of the muggle trains he and his tutor passed on their way to the invisible platform would surely take him to the ocean where he could sail away to somewhere vast and unknown and dark, to somewhere far, far away from his father.

But he was eleven years old. So he stepped onto the train to Hogwarts.

He wasn't sure how long he sat in the first empty compartment he stumbled upon, but one moment he was alone and the next there was a dark-skinned boy sitting across from him, the hustle and bustle of children saying goodbye to their parents on the platform just outside the window permeating his ears.

Theo blinked a few times, but the boy didn't disappear. He caught a brief glimpse of a mocking smile before Theo forced his gaze to go hazy once more. He wasn't ready to talk to anyone. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

The boy snorted and Theo felt his hands clench, tensing up for a danger he didn't even really understand, but nothing came. He heard the tell-tale sound of a page turning and figured the boy had returned to reading from the book in his lap. A silence settled over the carriage just as a group of girls started loading into the compartment across the hall. Theo could hear their conversation.

"… And then my dad took away my wand for the rest of the summer. It was, like, completely unfair. I was so bored I literally thought about killing myself."

"At least you were allowed to use yours for a little while, Maggie. Sometimes I really hate being muggle-born."

"Well, at least we won't have to worry about that next year once we're of age."

"A year is practically a lifetime away—"

The carriage door slammed shut, shrouding their part of the train in silence again.

"Have you ever seen a Niffler?"

The voice had an easy cadence to it, but Theo could feel his heart pounding in his chest, startled at being asked a direct question. He forced himself to answer the inquiry with a shake of his head, his eyes focused on the seat cushion beside him. He picked a loose thread in the seat self-consciously.

"Oh," said the boy, sounding distinctly disappointed. "Me neither. I was just reading about them in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and they sounded interesting. Did you know their pouches can fit a sword five times their body length? Or course, that sword could be made of tin foil for all the Niffler would know. Stupid animals, really. Their perception of value is completely skewed to whether a thing is shiny or not."

"Why are you talking to me?"

It was a strange and terrifying pride that coursed through Theo's veins after that question slipped from his mouth without hesitation or thought. It had been so long since he'd talked to anyone except the face looking back at him in the mirror, he almost thought he'd lost the ability. But the boy must have heard him because he replied.

"Who else would I talk to? All the other people on this train are insufferable," he spat in that mocking way Theo had begun to accept was just the way the boy spoke. "They have petty problems," he continued, "and doting parents, and exaggerated slights. These are the kinds of people who would look at a pile of dirt a Niffler left behind and see a mountain."

Theo furrowed his brows. Although he had never really been witness to what might be considered normal, he felt confident that those older Hogwarts girls were acting in accordance. In fact, Theo was certain it was really this boy across from him that wasn't acting as he should. He was an unusual young man, especially if he considered Theo to be the least insufferable person out of everyone on the whole train.

That wasn't right. That made no sense. Theo's father was always saying how insufferable he was.

"You don't even know me."

"I know you," the boy corrected. "And you know me."

Theo reeled at this statement, so completely stunned by the boy's certainty he couldn't breathe for a moment. They didn't know each other. Theo didn't even know the child's name.

There was a gentle graze of an index finger along the underside of Theo's jaw, and he felt his gaze swim into focus to catch a brief glimpse of the other boy's face. He quickly averted his attention. He was not ready for direct eye contact.

"Can't you see it," the boy asked, his finger still coaxing Theo's chin up. It was a light touch, so unlike the forceful way Theo's father would clasp his jaw in his large calloused grip and yank his chin up so fast it nearly cleared his head from his neck. "I knew the moment I stepped into this carriage, you know," the boy stated softly. "I saw it in your eyes. Can't you see it in mine?"

Curiosity swallowed up Theo's resolve and he looked. For the first time in his adolescent life, Theodore Nott allowed himself to meet the eyes of another person. And they were dark eyes, almost obsidian in color, evenly proportioned on either side of the boy's stark nose. They were so different from the ones Theo stared at in the mirror for countless hours every evening until they grew tired and he had to tuck himself into bed knowing the following morning would bring only more of the same. But despite the dissimilar size and shape and hue, Theo saw the way the gaze sharpened around the edges with both wariness and hope. It matched his own.

Theo's breathing evened out and the dark-skinned boy finally allowed his hand to return to his lap. Theo didn't drop his head or look away though.

"Your father… does he—"

The boy shook his head. "Never met him. But fathers don't have proprietorship over abusing their children."

Theo's breath escaped his lungs in a mournful sigh and he collapsed back into his seat. A thousand and one expectations for how this day would go and never once did he think it would turn out this well. He had dreaded this confrontation with another person so much he had almost allowed himself to live a life of solitude for the rest of his days. This morning he assumed that he would have to face a mountain, one he could never dream of climbing. He was wrong. He only needed to step over a tiny, little hill. So he did.

"I'm Theo."

"Blaise."

Theo nodded his greeting. "You saw it in my eyes?"

"It's not hard, if you know to look for it," Blaise admitted. "Like that one out there."

Theo shifted his gaze out the train window in the direction Blaise was motioning and searched the platform. The child in question wasn't difficult to find.

A boy with frantic emerald green eyes behind round eyeglasses was being ushered to and fro by numerous members of a redheaded family. He was wafer-thin under clothes that were much too large, and his unruly dark hair barely hid a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead.

Theo hummed his acknowledgement and returned his attention to Blaise. "Should we greet him?"

Blaise raised a thoughtful eyebrow. "Maybe… Maybe not. I expect the boy-who-lived will not want to make friends with a Death Eater's son."

Theo flinched, both at the mention of the boy-who-lived and at the insinuation of Nott Sr's status as a Death Eater. Words seemed to escape Theo and he simply gaped at the boy across from him for a long time.

"Sorry," Blaise apologized. "I realize I can be a bit blunt. You can blame it on my ADD."

Ignoring the strange acronym for now, Theo asked, "How do you know that that boy out there is… The Harry Potter?" Theo's mouth was dry and he could feel his hands going clammy, but he had no desire to flee this conversation. This was honestly the most interesting day Theo Nott had ever had. And that was no exaggeration.

"I saw a picture of his father once in some old archived Daily Prophets. My mother collects them. And the scar on his forehead was kind of a dead giveaway."

"And you know my father is…"

A Death Eater.

Theo couldn't voice those words aloud.

Blaise shrugged. "I only suspected. My mother considered a betrothal to your father a few years ago. I always do my research before Mother decides to remarry."

Theo considered the boy in front of him again, really looking at him. He seemed well-rounded all things considered. Blaise was definitely a different breed, but perhaps, Theo realized, that unusualness was what he was starting to like about him.

The train whistle blew, and not long after, the tracks were making a constant tut-tut-tut sound beneath Theo's feet. Neither of the boys said anything as the train traversed the country-side, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. Still, Theo broke it by asking, "Would you tell me more about Nifflers?"

Blaise's gaze, both unique and familiar, greeted Theo's and a small smile settled on the boy's lips. "Hippogriffs are much more interesting. Trust me."

Theo nodded his assent and Blaise flipped open his text book to find the section on hippogriffs.

A friendship that would last a lifetime started that September 1st day between two boys with terrible childhoods. They would grow so close they would scarcely even need to acknowledge each other's existence most days. Their friendship was an understated one, but it would stand the test of time and weather the most brutal of seventh years.

Every so often, Theo found himself stunned at how easy and natural his bond with Blaise Zabini was. He thought it would've been difficult to make friends, that his life was so vastly different from anyone else's that they couldn't possibly understand him and he couldn't possibly understand them. He was glad to be proved wrong.

And although the Sorting Hat would go on to place these two boys in Slytherin, while Harry Potter joined Gryffindor, Theo Nott and Blaise Zabini had made an unspoken pact to never make life for the young green-eyed survivor any harder than it already was. They felt a kinship with the boy-who-lived and that sense of loyalty superseded house pride.

It didn't matter to them one bit that Harry wouldn't even learn their names until their sixth year. In fact, that was just the way they wanted it.