Chapter 1: The Butterfly Effect

You know, they say something even as slight as the shift in wind from the gentle flap of a butterfly's wing can set off a chain reaction that transforms everything around it dramatically. Would anyone, then, have guessed that the wind within a tightly-knit group of friends would become torrential enough to toss them apart, because of the wing of a delicate girl?

We had just been chatting amicably in our compartment on the train to Hogwarts. Remus had gone to catch up with the trolley lady--James and Sirius rather didn't feel like it, and I'm not sure they entirely trusted me with everyone else's food. In any case, and I'm not sure how it started, but James and Sirius started play-wrestling. I decided to keep a keen eye out...

Okay, so I edged over to the other side, thinking that they were rather too convincing, if it was only play. But I was keeping watch, you know, to make sure there weren't any bloody noses and things. Then a rustling sound came from outside the compartment. Oh, was that a relief! I couldn't handle violence well by myself. "Remus, thank Merlin you're back, they're getting a little--"

Oh, but it wasn't Remus.

A tiny pigtailed girl poked in, a hand-woven flower garland on her head. She looked around hesitantly, before smiling sheepishly and squeaking, "Er, 'ave you got room for one more?"

James and Sirius looked at each other, frozen for a moment. But then...I knew that look. Sirius cocked his head at the girl, a smarmy smirk playing across his face. "Sorry, Byrd. I don't quite understand your chirp-chirp-chirping, but only humans can sit in here."

"I don't know if you've got the right idea, Sirius," James nodded. "She may be called Byrd, but she looks rather more like a chipmunk." To emphasize his point, he bared his teeth and puffed his cheeks out. That worried me, though--I had chubby cheeks and buck teeth, just like she did. Did they say those things about me too?

The girl put her hands on her hips. "And 'ave you a problem with animals? I should 'ope not, since I seem to be lookin' at a couple of monkeys. You could let me sit in 'ere, an' it'd be a regular zoo, don't you think?"

"Ooh," James and Sirius said in unison.

"Got you stumped, haven't I?"

James snorted. "Hardly." Turning to Sirius, he nudged him in the side and asked, "Say, isn't she friends with Mel--Melanie--Melody--that bookish girl you bug?"

"Now that you mention it, yes, she is," Sirius grinned, not giving the girl a word in edgewise. "Only the difference is Thompson never opens her gob, and Byrd here never shuts it!"

They started laughing all over themselves, and personally I thought they were treating this poor girl horribly, and I had even been mentally cheering for her rather than my friends. What had gotten into me? I didn't dare speak up against James--I didn't have anyone else to fall back on. Sirius drove his elbow into my rib, expecting me to join in with the insults. At the same time, the girl looked at me pleadingly, like a kicked puppy, just staring at me with those big brown eyes tearing up behind her thick spectacles. She was hinging on the hope I was better than them. I don't think I was, but I locked with her gaze. I just...couldn't help myself.

I think James and Sirius were saying more mean things about her, and I think I actually started to reach out to her, and then I think Remus came back with everyone's sweets and asked,"What's she doing in here?" Then she turned her face--I know that part--and she ran out. And then I think someone--James, maybe, or else Remus--asked if I was all right. I think I told him yes, whoever it was, and I think I took my Cauldron Cakes and iced pumpkin juice, and I think I ate them, but maybe I didn't even touch them the rest of the trip.

All I knew right then was that girl.

I was thirteen, and the wind was shifting.

James and Sirius and Remus were on the train to school, but I was chasing that butterfly.