Chapter One
"Will, going to Hogwarts makes every firstie nervous," Telli comforted, "I remember that I was," She smiled warmly at him. Telli was a second year witch at Hogwarts and Will's older sister.
"Dude, don't even worry, man, you'll have a great time," added Will's older brother Simon. Simon, a fourth year wizard, who lived in America for four years, had a weird accent, at least in Will's mind. Telli was even catching on to it, using it herself.
Even with their comforting, Will's stomach still felt like it was in his chest. The sting of bile was lingering in the back of his throat. He felt as if he had not eaten in days, while the reality of the situation was that he had eaten only a few hours before getting on the train from platform nine and three/quarters. Even the presence of his best and only friend, Carra, who was currently a first year along with Will, did nothing to help his unease.
The four of them were sitting in a private train compartments near the end of the Hogwarts express. They were watching the beautiful scenery fly by and willing the time away with idle chatting, which had died down a bit due to Carra's spontaneous nap. She and Will had stayed up all the previous night talking about how great Hogwarts was going to be and which house they would be placed in.
Will had spent the better part of two hours explaining to Carra all about the four houses. Simon had been placed in Ravenclaw for his extreme intelligence, but he stood out due to his temper with authority, and the teachers had come to the conclusion he would've done better in Slytherin. Telli was placed in Gryffindor, due to her reckless behavior and constant curiosity. When she was younger she would do things the bigger boys wouldn't dare try. Both of Will's parents were extremely witty and quite intelligent. Both were placed in Ravenclaw. Will himself was shy and avoided people, and so was Carra, so he wasn't sure exactly where they would be put.
Before Will had met Carra, he would sit alone and study hours into the night. Carra had done the same thing, and when he met her, they became instant friends. When he had found out that she had been invited to Hogwarts, Will was so excited he took her into his home and started to piffle through all of his old and crude wizard toys, shouting every known fact he could remember about the wizarding world all the while. He only stopped when Carra burst into laughter at the site, with which Will felt self conscious and silly, and stopped post haste.
Will was surprised that he wasn't as tired as Carra, but then realized he probably was. He most likely would have fallen asleep if it weren't for the butterflies eating away at his stomach. "They must really want out," He thought to himself, chuckling.
"What's so funny?" Simon asked, sitting up and taking his eyes off the landscape to look at Will.
"It's nothing…" He let his voice trail off as the train conductor came over the speaker "Three hours 'till arrival at Hogwarts."
Telli sat up quickly and looked out of the train car door.
"Oh boy! The snack cart should be here soon!" She slid open the door and glanced down the hallway, "Yup! Here it comes now!"
Simon smiled and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small pouch. He untied the top and let two gold coins and countless small bronze ones fall into his hand, watching them sparkle in the light. He had gotten a job over the summer writing a column in the daily prophet, and he loved to flaunt his hard earned gold.
"Get whatever you want, it's on me," he told them. Just then the snack cart bell rung and a smiling, dimpled lady slid open the door and asked "Anything off the cart, dears?"
After they had all chosen their snacks, they settled back down in their seats. Simon haphazardly shoved his money back into his pocket. For a while afterward they sat in silence, munching on their snacks and staring off into space. Then Will got the creeping urge to use the restroom, hurriedly dismissing himself with a wave and a mumbled "…right back."
As he closed the train car door behind him he nearly knocked over a boy who looked about his age. The boy had blond hair and a look of shock and anger on his face. He was followed by a pair of tall and ugly boys, one clutching his bleeding finger like a baby and the other looking behind him so much it seemed that he had a sort of immense twitch. None of them paid any attention to Will, an as soon as they realized they had been stopped, they started off again, walking haphazardly down the hall and almost knocking the snack cart lady over in their haste.
Will shook his head slightly and walked off in the other direction.
After finishing what he had set off to do, he walked back in the direction of his train car. Before he had gone down one full train section he was stopped by a girl that looked his age. This girl had very curly brown hair that was tied back in a sloppy pony tail. She was already dressed in her robes, and was holding a textbook under one arm.
Will's first thought was that he had never seen a weirder looking girl, perhaps ever. Closely following her was a pale looking boy with very large ears. He was somewhat hiding behind the girl, and was red in the face almost naturally, or so it seemed to Will. The sight of both of them made Will nearly laugh, but he wasn't sure why.
"Have you by any chance seen a toad? Neville here has lost one," The girl sounded exasperated as she pointed a finger to the boy behind her, and he turned a deeper shade of red, if it was possible.
"No, sorry," Will shook his head. The girl gave a sigh and stormed off. Neville followed close behind, giving Will a muttered "Thanks anyway," as he passed.
Will truly was sorry. What if the toad turned up in his trunk, getting all of his robes covered in toad juices? He shivered at the thought.
Will was mulling over the toad related illnesses his imagination had just conjured when a string of words and laughs came through an open train compartment and floated lazily into his ear.
"… knew about it. Hey, did you hear? Harry Potter's on this very train! Yeah, he's coming to Hogwarts this year! And he's so cute! Or so I hear…"
The conversation Will was listening in on drifted away as the door was closed, but not before it had sparked his imagination. Harry Potter? He was sure that he had heard the name before, but he could not remember where from. "Maybe he's famous," He thought to himself. He decided to ask the others about it when he got back, and set it aside in his mind.
Just as he opened the door to a new train section, a chocolate frog flew over his head and zoomed past, clinging to the side of the train before flying away. Will stood there for a while, not sure what to make of what he had seen. He decided to forget it for the time being and headed back to his train car, the toad fears returning to his head once again.
"That was a long trip to the bathroom, my friend," Simon gave Will a questioning look, which he shot down immediately by saying "Got held up," and left it at that, sitting down with a muffled thud.
"Hey guys," Will said after settling back in, "I've heard Harry Potter is on this train. Who is he exactly? Is he famous?"
Telli's head nearly exploded. It took her a minute to regain her voice, her face boiled into a rosy red.
"Is he famous? IS HE FAMOUS! I can't believe- You don't even- He, he-" She stopped a moment to steady herself. To Will's ultimate relief he wasn't the only one shocked by the outburst. Simon was looking at Telli like she had turned into the world's ugliest cat.
"He's only the GREATEST wizard of our time, besides Dumbledore himself." She screamed, "He's the only known survivor of you-know-who, and was only a baby at the time!"
"And I heard he had a lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead, pretty cool,"
The voice startled everyone. Will jumped so hard he fell to his knees into his pre-made pile of candy-wrappers. This voice belonged to Carra, who was now fully awake and laughing hysterically.
"When did you wake up!" Will clambered to his feet and sat back down quickly, scattering all of the wrappers as he did.
"When you went on your epic restroom trip," Carra said, still laughing slightly, obviously pleased with the turn of events. Will silently scolded himself for being tricked, even this simply. "So, why the sudden interest in this Harry Potter guy, anyway?" Carra added after her laughter subsided.
"No reason," Will shrugged. It was true enough.
"I also heard he's really cute for a firstie," Telli added.
"Oooooh, someone has a little crush, do they?" Simon teased, "And let me guess, your going to name the kids Harriet and Harry Jr.?" Simon burst into laughter.
"Shut up!" Telli hit Simon hard on the arm, causing him to shrink back, and everyone else to go silent.
Some time passed before anyone spoke again. Will was munching on some of Simon's candy (who had conveniently left it on the floor and had forgotten to eat it) when Simon screamed, "Dude! I swear, there's a chocolate frog clinging to the outside of our window!" He was pointing franticly to a spot a little lower than the windowsill.
"Seriously? Dude, I think I saw that same frog on my trip to the bathroom," Will jumped up and across Carra on his way to the window. Carra shoved him to the floor and began to straighten her light yellow sundress, ruffled by the scrambling. She saw that Will was staring at her and she hastily sat down and looked away, fidgeting with her hands.
"Weird," Will thought to himself. Just then the train conductor came over the speaker, distracting him from his thoughts. "Two hour 'till arrival at Hogwarts."
"You guys better go and get your robes on, they expect you to be in them when we get there," Simon said. He and Telli were already in there robes, but Carra was putting it off and Will had forgotten all together.
"Oh, yeah, right," Will rummaged through his trunk, pulled out his robes, and started to take off his shirt.
"Not in here, you dunce!" said Telli, shocked. "You are in the presence of ladies," she waved her hand toward Carra, who smiled sarcastically.
"Please," Will retorted, "She's seen me without a shirt plenty of times," It was true, they had gone to the pool a lot over the summers. "It's no big deal," He threw his shirt at Telli.
"Well, yes, but-" Carra spat, fumbling the words she was so desperately trying to communicate.
But Telli interrupted, "She still needs to change, and you can't see that!"
It took Will a few seconds to register what he had heard. When it did, the tip of his ears burned red and he fumbled to pick up his robes.
"Oh, right, sorry…" He got up and left the train car, slipping into his robes on the way out. He and Simon filed out into the hall and stood there, awkwardly, as they waited for the ok to re-enter the room. A few people passed them, giving them weird looks, but they deflected them by staring out at the scenery.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour or more, they were allowed back in. They settled into their respective places, and an awkward silence fell over them like a thick blanket over a small, scared child. Will felt like he should say something, but Simon cut in before he could.
"You two are going to love the boat ride. It was awesome…" His eyes glazed over as he reminisced, returning the room to silence. Again, Will tried speaking, but it was Carra's turn.
"It's getting dark," She said, staring out the window, "Does it usually take this long to get there?"
Will's words were lost in his mind, for at that moment, the train conductor came over the speaker, announcing that they had arrived. And here ends their first trip to the school of witchcraft and wizardry, that magical school called Hogwarts.