Remember: smiles over scowls, please.
Disclaimer: Psh. I only wish I was cool enough to own Harry Potter.
Chapter One.
I hated that stupid train. Really, I did. Do you know what kind of pain that thing was for me? All noisy and crowded and probably full of disgusting germs as well. Oh, Merlin, I hated those germs. In first year, after I discovered how awful it was, I proclaimed that I would never go to Hogwarts again. Of course, I always ended up repeating that mantra year after year, summer after endless summer, and then when September 1st came I would get on the godforsaken train without a single word.
I scowled up at it, red and sleek and almost beautiful. My bags were making my arms ache and I felt rather like sleeping.
"Are you alright?" Joan prodded my shoulder, both obnoxious and concerned.
"I'm perfectly alright!"
No, no I was not.
But Joan was pretty and not very perceptive, so though I clearly was not alright, the best she could do was squint at my face and speculate that maybe I was lying, but not pry into it too deeply.
Besides, it was my next-to-last year. I set my shoulders and tried to feel brave. I could endure two more years of Hogwarts, then I could go do something silly with my life that most likely would not involve wizards or witches or magic of any sort—like being a book keeper. That would be nice and safe.
I boarded the train, feeling just a little bit queasy.
My head swiveled around and around, looking for familiar—preferable friendly as well—faces so that I could sit and maybe sleep on the far-too-long train ride. Before too long I began to feel like an owl.
I only had Gryffindor friends because of Marlene. Really. I had more Gryffindor than Hufflepuff friends because of her; which was probably a good thing because I didn't think that I would able to tolerate very many people like myself, no matter how nice they seemed.
My father was the one with magic in my family, a pureblood in fact, while my mother was a muggle and I liked her all the better for it. In any case, my father was always going to all of these little wizard-ly things with other wizards, and sometimes I would tag along and that's how I met Marlene. We were both quite young, and we managed to stay good friends up until Hogwarts. When she got sorted into Gryffindor and I was put into Hufflepuff, I really thought that was the end of it.
Then, being Marlene and having Marlene's various oddities, she surprised me. She insisted that I make friends with her group so I got to hanging out with them more than my own sort. Lily, Daisy, Mary, and of course, Lily's so-called dashing admirer and his lot. I could see why Lily didn't particularly fancy James—he wasn't very nice. He was rather rude, and he seemed to be unfamiliar with the term 'brushing one's hair'. Not appealing, but at least she had someone vying for her attentions.
Sirius was fairly attractive, though I preferred boys who were a might more attainable, as in, they didn't have millions of girls lining up at their door for said boy to do with them what they would. Remus was fun to talk to and a tad cute; Peter was adorable, but in a way that only made me think of bunnies, rainbows, and butterflies.
Also, having Marlene as a friend didn't really do well for my love life.
"Hey! Over here!" I instantly spun around, knocking into someone who glared at me nastily. Most likely a Slytherin, what with their foul demeanors and what not.
"Izzy!"
"Izzy, over here!
I nearly avoided running into someone else, who also glared at me, and managed to catch a glance at where my friends' heads were poking out and their arms waving at me wildly.
I hurriedly scrambled over, but my feet didn't much like to listen to me, so they twisted in on themselves and I almost fell, bumping into yet a third person, which, funnily enough, is the only thing that kept me from falling, so I straightened myself up.
"Why don't you watch where you're going, Milne?" The person barked, shoving me to the side so they could stalk past me.
By nature, I wasn't feisty, so I kept on my ever-so-merry way without so much as mumbling an insult in return, though I did make a mental note of what they looked like to avoid them in the future as they had a particularly horrid temperament.
Black hair, gray eyes, dignified posture, admirable facial features: a Black to be sure. I'd have to mention to Sirius sometime that his family really needed to see a counselor about their personality disorders. Sirius included—I think his would narcissistic, or perhaps anti-social, what with all his pranking behavior. Then again, that would also have to be James. James and Sirius suffered from the same personality disorders, how interesting.
In my mind, Slytherins were like rabbits. You couldn't leave them alone, for Merlin's sake. One minute there's only two, acting all innocent, the next minute there's about fifty and you don't know which way to turn without getting into a tangle with one. No, I was not feisty at all.
The minute I arrived at my friends' chosen area, I was bombarded by hugs and various squeals of delight, the latter of which hurt my ears and made me wish I had different friends.
"You really need to work on your letter-writing skills, Izzy," Lily said, "I only just heard from you while we were away."
I smiled sheepishly. Lily looked practically the same as I had seen her last—waist-length, sultry red curls, and bottle-glass green eyes. She was a bit more curvy, and her skin a tad paler, but other than that there wasn't anything different about her. "Sorry. I was visiting my mum's part of the family for most of the summer." I said. "If they'd seen me sending off an owl, they'd have thought I was mad." I rolled my eyes. "And you know my mum, always way too paranoid to let me try it."
Marlene smirked. "That's a shame; you would've gotten to hear all about Lily's fling with—"
Lily's cheeks flared the same color as her hair. "Marlene!" She fumed. "Not. Now." Her eyes darted right behind her and it was at that moment that I noticed the compartment was little . . . shall we say fuller than usual?
"It's great, I'm telling you. Delicious stuff. I—"
"Lily's fling with who?"
Lily ground her teeth and hissed, low and angry.
Squished rather tightly into the other side of the compartment were none other than the 'Great Marauders'. Though I was more inclined to call them the great idiots than anything else.
James was alternating his stare between Lily and Marlene. Daisy and Mary were chattering amongst themselves, completely oblivious. Remus looked uncomfortable, sandwiched between Sirius and Peter, but he was flipping absentmindedly through a book as Peter watched over his shoulder.
"Ah . . ." I swallowed nervously. "Hello James and co. Nice to be seeing you, but maybe you guys should leave? Lily here looks as though she's about to have an aneurism if you know what I mean."
Blank stares. From all of them—well, except Lily, but I didn't count her because she was busy trying to bore holes into Marlene's skull with her eyes. Being that my mother was muggle, I consistently slipped in bits of muggle-related things that my peers knew absolutely nothing about. It didn't help that I had an unabashed preference for muggle culture; I practically spoke a different language half of the time.
"It's an—"
"Was it Peasegood?" James demanded. "One of the Prewetts?"
Lily squirmed, her blush beginning to die down. "Izzy's right. Go find someone else to be a bother with, will you?"
James rolled his eyes. "C'mon, Evans, just tell me! I promise I won't hex them too badly."
"James'll find the poor bloke one way or another, so you may as well tell him now and maybe he'll show a bit of mercy." Sirius observed, grinning like a feral cat.
"Don't be such a prat, Black." Marlene said before turning on James, eyes gleaming. "It wasn't either of them; don't you think your precious Lily could do a little better than them?"
"Marlene, please!" Lily cried in embarrassment.
I sighed stared across the room. So much for my nap.