Chapter One – Veela
I don't want to be here.
The thought played over and over in my angry mind as I sat on the plush leather seats of the Hogwarts Express with my cousin Kellan and his loud, stupid mates.
I wanted to be back home. Back in Australia, where my school of magic was on the gorgeous West Australian coast, where every day was hot and the students went to the beach every day and didn't speak in posh British accents.
Here in England it was cold. The kids were weird. My cousins were weird.
Kellan and I were the same age – sixteen – but the last time I had seen him, we had been barely been two years old. His older brother Jai had been three, and their two younger brothers Rodin and Isaac I had never met. Never even Skyped or emailed; I never even knew they existed until the child protection unit back in Australia had informed me of who I would be living with if I chose to live with distant relatives instead of looking into adoption.
And no, my parents weren't dead. My father had abused my mother for several years, and it had only just come to light with the police. My dad had been arrested and my mum sent permanently to a mental institution in the heart of Melbourne, as apparently my dad had inflicted such wounds to her mind that she was unable to cope on her own anymore.
Biggest load of bullshit I ever heard, but who was I to argue with the professionals? There wasn't really much I could do about it anyway. So, I'd packed up my things and been shipped off to England in the middle of August to live with my aunt Josie and my four cousins, two of which I barely remember and the other two I had never even met.
Fun times.
Kellan was a stranger to me. When I'd arrived he'd yelled out my name excitedly and crushed me in a huge bear hug. I'd been too surprised to do anything.
He introduced me to his mates when we got on the train and found a compartment with a big group of boys, and introduced me as his 'crocodile-fighting, kangaroo-riding, barbeque fanatic cousin Kylie'.
"This is Jace," Kellan said. "Aiden, Brayden, Chase, Tom, Will, and Haru." The last one, Haru, looked very out of place. He looked to be of Japanese descent, his jet-black hair spiked up and his teeth brilliant and white. "James is usually a part of our group, but he's off doing whatever it is prefects do on the train."
"James, prefect. I can't believe it," Haru said, a slight flicker of a Japanese accent colouring his words.
"Yeah man, I thought you would have been prefect for sure, Haru, and James Quidditch Captain," Jace said, running a hand through his floppy blonde hair.
"Hey!" Kellan said. "I'm perfectly capable of being Quidditch Captain."
"I know, but just not how I thought it would have turned out," Jace said. "Like seriously, what is going through McGonagall's head? James's head has three settings: girls, Quidditch, and pranks."
"He gets straight O's," Haru shrugged.
"And so do you," Jace said.
Haru shrugged again.
Pretty soon I tuned out of the conversation; it didn't interest me very much.
I spent the majority of the eight-hour train ride reading a book. The boys didn't talk to me very much. I guess they just didn't have anything to say that might actually interest a girl.
About half an hour before we arrived, I left the compartment to go to the bathrooms to change into my robes.
Before I left I looked in the big mirror framing the wall. My long, dead-straight blonde hair hung in a loose plait down my back with a few stray strands framing my heart-shaped face. Miraculously, all through my teenage years, I had managed to not get a single pimple, and my skin remained fair and my cheeks slightly rosy. My eyes were big, a greyish-sea green with long black lashes framing them. I was the spitting image of my mother; and my aunt Josie, except Josie had long dark hair instead of long blonde hair. I don't really know how that had worked out, as they were sisters.
Leaning in closer, I decided to patch up my makeup a little bit and redid my black eyeliner on my lower waterline and brushing my lashes with black mascara. I looked fine without it but the makeup made my eyes pop, and the pale pink gloss that I swiped over my lips made them look plumper. Once I was happy with my appearance, I opened the door into the corridor and walked outside; only to hear an indignant "Ow!" as my sudden opening of the door knocked right into someone.
"Oh!" I exclaimed, quickly shutting the door and taking a step towards the person I had hit. It was a boy, around my age, maybe a bit older, with untidy brown-black hair. I couldn't see his face, as his hands were covering it, blood dripping through his fingers.
"Oh no!" I exclaimed. "Are – are you alright?"
I couldn't believe this. I wasn't even at Hogwarts yet, and I had already given some guy a bloody nose.
"You broke my bloody nose," the guy swore, and I took a step back, recoiling.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to –"
The guy removed his hands and looked up at me. "Sorry to seem rude," he said, but I barely heard him. He…he was the most beautiful thing I had everseen.
He had big almond-shaped brown eyes framed by long black lashes, a gorgeous strong jawline that was apparent even with blood streaming down his face, and the nicest, most kissable lips I had ever seen –
Woah. Hold up. I had only just met the guy, didn't even know his name and for some reason my cheeks were heating up and my heartbeat was running at a million miles an hour.
"Holy shit," I said.
"What?" he asked, bemused.
I snapped out of my trance, shaking my head and blinking a few times.
"S – Sorry," I stuttered. "Um…is your nose alright?"
"I think it actually is broken," he said. "You slammed the door pretty hard…" he laughed.
"Hang on, I know a charm…" I pulled out my wand and pointed it at his bleeding nose. "It will probably hurt a little…episky."There was a crack and the boy cried out but his nose jolted back into place and the bleeding stopped.
"Ow," he said.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you," I said, all of a sudden regretting the charm, feeling like I had hurt this beautiful blessing to the human race.
"No, no, it's okay, the pain's fading," he said. "Got any charms for cleaning up blood, by any chance?"
"Er…no," I said apologetically. Damn. I really wanted to impress this guy.
"That's okay. I'll clean it up the muggle way." The blood had seeped into his mouth and the toothy grin he gave me was soaked in red blood. "Anyway, I'm James. Sixth year. I don't think I've seen you around before?"
So this is the James Kellan and his friends had been talking about, saying he was usually a part of their group…Oh god. I couldn't help but feel pleased.
"Ah…Kylie Clancy, sixth year as well. I'm a transfer from Australia…I'm Kellan Daniels' cousin."
"Oh! So you're the famous veela girl everyone's been talking about!" James exclaimed.
The famous what?
"What?" I asked, confused.
"Kellan wrote to all his mates halfway through the summer to tell us that his veela cousin was coming to live with him and come to Hogwarts this year," he explained. "This is not the way I expected to meet you!"
"Sorry!" I felt my cheeks heating up even more. God, this was embarrassing. "Um…" I just remembered something he had said. "What's a veela?"
"You don't know what a veela is?!" he exclaimed. "Merlin, what do they teach you down under? A veela is a magical creature that takes the form of an extremely good looking boy or girl, and full veelas draw their victims in by their charm and looks and then kill them…sort of like mermaids, but on land. And when they get angry or are about to kill they turn into some sort of satanic creature with wings and fire and shit like that."
"I – I've never –"
"You're not full veela," he explained, "else you wouldn't be accepted into a school of magic and you wouldn't need a wand to project your magic. Veelas have different kinds of magic, but they don't attend wizarding schools. Kellan said his mum's a full veela, but his dad's a wizard. So that makes him half veela. I'm guessing you're the same, since you're here and just used a wand to fix my nose?"
I opened and closed my mouth, unable to formulate any kind of speech for a few moments.
"I – I never – my mum never told me any of this," I said.
He shrugged. "Probably didn't think you needed to know."
I shouldn't have expected my mother to tell me; she never even told me about puberty, and I thought I was dying when I first got my period. I'd had to find my own way back home. My parents hadn't given much in the form of guidance.
"Um…I have tissues in my bag back in Kellan's compartment, do you want some?" I asked.
"Sure!" he said, grinning his bloody grin again. "I just finished my rounds anyway."
I made sure to walk in front of him; I didn't want to be tempted to stare at the back of his head as we walked. And besides, I knew where the compartment was anyway.
When I arrived the boys had opened the curtains back up and were playing a game of Exploding Snap. When I opened the door and James and I stepped through they all yelled out, yelling "Jamesy" and "What the hell happened to you man". While James sat down to recount the broken nose story I stepped onto the seat and reached up to open my trunk. I kept the tissues in a pocket on the side along with other essentials, and I pulled them out, shut my trunk and sat down where I had been standing.
James smiled at me and I tossed the packet of tissues to him.
"Cheers Kylie," he said, and began ripping out the tissues and vigorously rubbing at his face.
"Dude, don't you have a charm for that or something?" one of the boys asked. I couldn't remember his name.
"Nah. Don't know anything. The muggle way is the best way," James replied.
"You're going to look dirty for Lily's Sorting," Kellan said.
James shrugged. "She won't notice."
For the remaining half an hour none of the boys really talked to me, and I sat by the window quietly sneaking glances at James whenever I could. What was with me? I'd literally only just met the bloke, and had immediately begun crushing hard. This had never happened before, and there had been plenty of hot guys at my school in Australia.
And I'd broken his nose before I had even learned his name.
I groaned internally. This was a great start.