(( Author's note: The year is 1982. The wizarding world is still trying to pick itself back up and put itself together after the defeat of Voldemort. A new class of students is about to enter Hogwarts. They have, by and large, nothing to do with any students found in canonical Harry Potter universe. But they might possibly be interesting in their own right. For all they know, their destiny is to be the future of the wizarding world. They can try, anyway.
This is a transcribed roleplay, featuring very few canon characters, but if you like genfic please don't run away just because of that. It's either mostly OC's, or a crossover with a book that hasn't been published yet. Boris and Armand are intellectual property of myself and my coauthor, and so is anyone else you don't recognize. But really, this is just a lot of wish fulfillment that turned out to be not half bad. If it's your flavor, by all means, enjoy!))
The departure of the Hogwarts Express was always something of an event - parents saying tearful farewells to their children, first-years crying and clutching at their mothers or embarrassedly pushing away from hugs, people rushing around trying to sort out luggage, owls screeching, students screeching, and the occasional impatient whistle from the train drowning it all out. Inside the train, in a compartment that hadn't yet begun to fill up, none of this appeared to bother Armand le Boucher.
A serious-looking boy with short, wavy white hair and sharp orange eyes, he sat alone, nose buried in one of his schoolbooks, whistling quietly to himself. From time to time he kicked his heels against the seat. All in all, he appeared fairly calm about the imminent departure.
The chaos inherent upon the platform was the sort Boris thrived in. He was black-Irish, after all, with a temperament sanguine enough to bludgeon any sort of uneasiness on anyone's part into the ground. The boy had an ear-to-ear grin ever since he'd gotten through the solid wall- part of him was still shouting 'BRILLIANT!' at regular intervals at that- and out onto the platform that would take him to something even more grand! To think! More grand than walls that weren't actually there!
He kissed his mother good-bye, and let his father ruffle his hair uncomfortably, before hauling an almost obscene amount of luggage aboard the train. He lacked a pet, but a stuffed (and possibly formerly living) octopus had been tied by two tentacles to the top of his trunk. He'd come a little late to the platform, and the compartments had begun to fill, he waved and grinned and nodded in acquiescence at all the ones full nearly to capacity, and moved on.
It was a stroke of luck that he came across one that was empty save for one lone fair-haired boy - surely there could be no objection to his settling here.
"Hallo!" he said cheerily, blustering in through the door and heaving his trunk and sundries up onto the rack. "Mind if I settle in here? Everywhere else's mostly full up."
Armand glanced over the top of his book and raised one eyebrow, taking in the other boy in one sweeping look. He paused at the sight of the octopus and shook his head inwardly.
"Make yourself at home," he said expressionlessly, shutting his book and resettling on the seat with his feet tucked under him. He looked the other up and down again, then smiled politely.
"You seem awfully excited," he noted. "First year?"
"Rather!" exclaimed Boris, grin unfaltering. "Got my letter in August. Parents were relieved, apparently it explained quite a lot." He sat down across from Armand with a thump, still looking around with a sort of inherent gleeful wonder. A moment later, he remembered himself with a start, and held out a hand.
"Boris Hand," he said by way of introduction.
"Armand le Boucher." Armand leaned across and shook his hand firmly. "It's my first year as well, though I've been expecting my letter for some time." He smiled timidly, finding it almost impossible not to warm up to Boris. The boy radiated friendly good humour. "Father wanted to send me to Beauxbatons, where he and his father both went to school... Mother talked him down, though. I'm glad she did; I've never been to France, and I can't abide the food." He laughed.
"Oho, the Continent!" said Boris brightly. "Yeh, turns out both my grans were witches, only they never told anyone until I got my letter- wasn't that a conversation! Grandma Hand wanted to send me to- Sturm und Drang? Durmstrang? Someplace horrible-sounding. But mum couldn't abide the thought of me being so far from the Isles. So here I am, and doesn't it sound exciting! A magic castle up in Scotland where they send kids to learn to be wizards!"
He settled back to peer out the window; his parents were still standing nervously on the platform, trying to spot him, no doubt. He didn't particularly want to give them the satisfaction. At any rate, he'd likely start feeling acutely homesick if he dwelt on the fact that he was leaving too much.
"So all your family's wizards, then?" he said eagerly.
"Everyone on my father's side. Mother was muggle-born." Armand leaned back so he could look out the window. His father was talking to some business associate or other, but Armand's little sister was clinging to his hand, searching the windows nervously for Armand. He smiled and waved at her; spotting him, she perked up and waved furiously. Armand turned back to Boris.
"They didn't think I'd come up magical for the longest time, but last year I finally managed to set my aunt's best tablecloth on fire. I thought I was going to catch it, but Father was so proud." He laughed sheepishly. "My little sister, though, there's been no question she'd turn out a witch ever since she could walk. She'll be joining us next year."
Boris laughed, and followed his gaze out the window brightly. A pretty little girl with violet hair waved back to Armand; Boris started a little.
"Is her hair naturally that color?" he asked curiously.
Armand nodded, running his hand through his own hair with a touch of embarrassment.
"Things like that seem to turn up from time to time in old magical families. It's a bit rare, but not unheard of. Hellishly difficult to explain when my mother's parents came calling to see the new baby."
"How extraordinary," said Boris happily, still peering out the window, too interested at this point to care if his parents saw him. "I can imagine; Grandma Deirdre always copped mum's dark hair and eyes off as her being a selkie, seeing as all that half of the family's as Viking Irish as they come. ...Although, considering what I know now, it might not be invalid." He bounced in his seat a little. "Think of that! I might be half selkie!"
Armand smiled politely. "It's not impossible, I suppose."
He settled back in his seat, examining his watch. "We should be underway soon, I believe... it's almost time." All over the train, compartment doors were closing, and the noise in the halls slowly died down as the students found their seats and got their luggage settled.
Boris' eyebrows shot up, and he ceased his active bouncing. Indeed, the rumble of the train had started up. There was a lurch, and they started moving.
Boris' resolve broke, and he lunged for the window, hauling it open and leaning half out of it.
"Good-bye!" he shouted to his mum and dad, waving wildly. "I'll see you Christmas! Tell Helena and Edgar and H'ratio I'm sorry!" The train started moving in earnest, and he lurched, scrabbling at the edges of the window for balance as he slid quite dangerously. Armand jumped, reaching to catch his new friend by the arm.
"Careful!" he scolded, pulling him back inside the carriage. "Wouldn't that be just the way to start your year at school, with your head crushed under the train wheels... I don't think even magic could fix that."
"Whoops," said Boris sheepishly. "Thank you. I, err, got a bit carried away." His smile was warm, as he looked at Armand, rather than the almost viciously bright thing it had been for most of the day. He settled back on to the seat with a thump.
"So I've been reading ahead in the textbooks, it all sounds just about fantastic," he said, tucking his legs up and using them to prop his elbows and thereby his chin. "Apparently they decide what house you're in by a hat, but I'm not always inclined to believe everything I read. Have you any idea?"
Armand nodded. "The Sorting Hat, they call it... my mother says it's nothing to worry about, they just put it on your head and it decides which house you'll be in. There's Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw." He ticked them off on his fingers. "Apparently Ravenclaw's where the clever people go, Gryffindor is for brave people, Slytherin takes the ambitious ones, and... well, from what I can judge Hufflepuff gets the ones that are left over." He shrugged. "I hear everyone wants to get into Gryffindor for some reason, though I'm not sure why."
"Is Hufflepuff the one with the badger? Because that's where I want to go, if that's the case," said Boris, chuckling. "That's a mascot I could get behind." He frowned, struck by a thought. "But with my luck, I'll end up in Ravenclaw."
Armand laughed. "I think there are a few more factors to take into consideration than whether you like the mascot or not... you'll spend most of your time for the next seven school years with the other members of your house," he pointed out. "I don't think any of them would be all that bad... I just hope I get put in a house with people I can get along with." He bit his lip, looking a little nervous.
"Well, I'm not too fussed," said Boris, catching the other boy's nervousness, and doing his best to assuage it while he appeared to ignore it. "A house is just where you sleep, and that's something I never do if I can help it. Everybody always tells me I'm too clever for my own good, so I expect I'll land in Ravenclaw, though."
Armand nodded, smiling faintly. "I suppose you're right. Say..." He looked over, trying to change the subject. "Since you're fairly new to this, I don't suppose you've ever had a chance to play Quidditch, have you?"
"No, no indeed," said Boris, leaning forward. "I have not. What is it? It sounds like an oriental disease..."
Armand snorted. "It's the wizard sport - the only one worth playing, to ask most people. Muggle-borns don't often seem to get the hang of it very easily, but you seem like you'd be good at it. You have a lot of energy, and that's what mainly counts. It's played in the air, on broomsticks, with four balls - quite a thrilling game." His face split into a grin. "First-years aren't allowed to play, but I'm hoping to make the house team next year."
"A flying game!" Boris cried, seizing upon the important part immediately. "My god, you must teach me everything. I've dreamed of flying, even though the garbage bag parachute off the roof failed spectacularly - individual flight so common it's had a sport made of, gods beneath the earth, I feel lightheaded," he said, hands on his cheeks like an embarrassed debutante.
Despite his best intentions, Armand burst out laughing at Boris's reaction. "Oh, you're going to be a fun chap to be around for the first while," he chuckled. "Well, you need a broomstick to fly, unless you're a really powerful wizard - I'm fairly sure we get flying lessons even in the first year, even though we're not allowed to have our own broomsticks." He fished his letter and school supply list out of one pocket, scanning it briefly.
"Well, a broomstick," conceded Boris, waving a hand. "A small concession to make, I think. Flying lessons! To make for the sky like Icarus, without relying upon the temerity of wax as a binding agent, to brush the top of the atmosphere with your fingertips, oh." He wrapped his arms about himself, lost in some private fantasy. In a few moments, he shook himself briefly, and drew his own much-abused acceptance letter and book list from an inner pocket. "No, no broomsticks allowed in first years- I dismissed it as a peculiarity when I got the letter."
"What did you think... no, never mind." Armand laughed weakly and ran his hand through his hair.
"Well, mum doesn't let me run the vacuum cleaner anymore," he said pointedly, addressing the question Armand hadn't asked with a statement that could only lead to more questions.
"Well, er... is there anything else you'd like to know about the wizarding world before we get to school?" Armand sat back, spreading his arms across the top of the seat back. "I imagine this could be a bit disorienting."
"Disorienting? Hm, a little," he said, musingly. "More of a thing that constantly stretches my credibility to the limit." He paused, and ran back over his previous sentence with a skeptical shift of his eyes. He laughed. "Good night, I talk like the books I've been reading. Oh- wands! Is a wand entirely necessary for magic, do you know?" He fished in the inner pocket of his jacket, and produced his wand; long swishy and made of yew, with a golden fleck of heartstring sticking out the middle of it.
"Supposedly you can cast magic without it, but it's not as effective." Armand took out and examined his own wand - willow, with unicorn hair. "Much less controlled, as well. So, yes, for the time being, for us, wands are necessary."
He pointed it at the book he'd been reading and muttered the levitation charm, concentrating. The book wobbled a bit and rose about an inch, then fell back to the seat with a thump. Armand grinned sheepishly. "It takes a lot of practice."
"Oh, brilliant, let me try that," said Boris eagerly, and directed a levitation spell of his own at the book. There was a flash of golden light and the book shot several feet up into the air. Boris ducked, covering the back of his neck, but that didn't stop the book from thumping down on his head a moment later.
"Ow," he said. "...Control. Right. If I ever attempt wandless magic, please hit me. I don't know if I have the structural integrity to tolerate less control."
Armand grinned. "You'll get the hang of it, I imagine." He leaned over to retrieve the book. "But I think that if you do ever try wandless magic, I'll be too busy running away as fast as I possibly can to hit you."
"Then upon your head be it when I disintegrate," said Boris, grinning rakishly. He flexed his wand between his two hands, buzzing with energy despite his rather spectacular misfire.
He was about to say something more, when the snack cart interrupted, and a chubby, matronly witch asked if they wanted any candy. Boris' eyes went round as saucers, and he immediately zeroed in on the chocolate frogs.
"...Are they really frogs?" he asked. It was either that or 'are they really chocolate', but he felt that the first more accurately described his interests.
Armand, distractedly rummaging through his pockets for money, glanced up.
"No, they're just chocolate... all the same, you'll want to keep a tight hold to see they don't get away," he said. He counted through a fistful of change, holding out a few coins to the witch.
"Two pumpkin pasties, a box of Bertie Botts' Every-Flavour Beans, and a box of chocolate frogs, please," he asked.
Boris rummaged in his pockets frantically, and managed to drum up a handful of wizarding coins. He squinted back and forth from the prices on the side of the cart, to the pile in his hand, looking a bit flummoxed. Finally he plucked out the right amount and handed it over.
"One of the frogs," he said, a gleam of slightly diabolical eagerness in his eyes.
Armand returned to his seat with his spoils, pulling open the box of every-flavour beans.
"That's... a frightening look," he said cautiously as the snack cart rolled on to the next compartment. He pulled a golden-brown jelly bean out of the box and sniffed it carefully, taking a tiny bite out of the end before he put it in his mouth.
"Shush," said Boris good-naturedly, pulling a small swiss army knife from his pocket. He tore open the frog package with his teeth, and the emerging chocolate frog almost proved too swift for him. His reflexes prevailed, however, and he grasped the thing around the neck like an adder.
A few moments of fidgeting, and he swore, waving his penknife irritably. Putting the knife in his teeth, he rummaged in one of the bags he'd stored overhead, and produced a notebook, which he slammed down on his lap like a table.
"Hold this thing still, would you?" he said, removing the knife from his teeth and pressing the still-squirming confectionery toad to the notebook.
"Good lord," Armand said faintly. "What in the hells are you doing to that thing?" He'd bitten the heads off his fair share of chocolate frogs over the years, but he'd never seen one look quite so terrified.
"I'm going to dissect it," said Boris, pocketknife poised sinisterly. "Or I would, if it weren't squirming so badly. Oh, if only I had some way to hold it still, like another pair of hands-" He looked up at Armand, arching an eyebrow expectantly.
Armand sighed quietly and reached over to hold the frog still, splaying its limbs out.
"I don't know what you're expecting to find," he muttered. "It's just chocolate."
"We'll just see about that," muttered Boris, leaning over the frog and making a neat, deep incision from the throat to the base of the tail.
A spurt of something pale and viscous shot out of the cut and spattered Boris in the eye. The frog itself spasmed once, and went completely still.
Boris, quite slowly, lifted a hand to his face, and swiped what had shot out at him onto a finger. He tasted it gingerly. "White chocolate," he pronounced. "Perhaps a little marshmallow. I'll thank you for not making the obvious joke."
Armand shuddered and returned to his seat, regarding his own box of chocolate frogs with a feeling of faint nausea. He shook his head.
"Here, you can have the rest of these," he said, holding out the box. "I don't think I have the heart to eat them after watching that."
Boris waved a hand dismissively, continuing to prod at the insides of his opened frog. The results were a touch disappointing - just different shades and textures of chocolate. He sighed, and wiped first his face, then his pocketknife, on a handkerchief he produced from his sleeve. He picked the opened frog up off his notebook cover and bit into it. He looked thoughtful as he chewed.
"Well, if your constitution's as meebly as all that," he grinned, relieving Armand of his box of frogs. "I'm not above profiting from someone else's weakness." He grinned, and tore into a fresh package, having the frog between his teeth almost before it was completely opened.
"Hm," he said thoughtfully, a moment later. "I don't detect any marshmallow at all in this one."
Armand rolled his eyes and returned to the box of jelly beans.
"Why do I get the feeling I've started something I'll regret," he sighed. A moment later he grimaced, gagging, and spat a bean into his hand.
"Euch. Spinach."
Boris snickered, absentmindedly pulling a chocolate frogs' legs at opposing angles between his fingers.
"They really do mean every flavour, then, don't they?" he said.
"Yup. Want to try some?" Armand fished out a handful for himself and offered the box to Boris. "My favourite's the buttered toast flavour, but the black pepper isn't bad either."
"Absolutely," said Boris, pouring a few into his hand and popping one into his mouth indiscriminately. He blinked.
"Now that is indisputably earwax," he said. "...Which brings up some rather interesting questions, actually. How must they have developed the flavour, do you think? I can just see it, a room full of testers with a bean in one hand and a pinky finger full of earwax on the other, saying to each other 'No, no, it's not quite bilious enough, can you add in a bit more essence of stomach acid?'" He tried another. "Ah. ...That's ham. Interesting."
"I always figured they took a slightly more direct route." Armand popped another one into his mouth. "Hrm. Steak and eggs, I think. Oh, lovely, and that one's dirt." He made a face. "Sometimes I really don't know why anybody eats these."
"I couldn't tell you," said Boris, popping another into his mouth with no more reservations than he'd had before he'd tried any. "Hmm. Treacle. But I'm still eating them. Ah, is that- blood pudding?" He blinked, and tried another. "...I am encountering tastes that I cannot identify. If pressed, however, I would be forced to label this one 'camel spit.'"
Armand choked, snorting with laughter.
"And you would know this how?" he asked, holding a pale pink bean up to the light curiously.
"Pure speculation," said Boris, still chewing, as though it were a particularly recalcitrant piece of gristle. "But if the smell of camel could be made into a taste, this would be it."
He regarded the remaining beans in his hand steadily for a moment, then knocked the entire handful back. His expression went from complacent to alarmed to vaguely ill as he chewed.
"I think I'll have a lie-down," he said faintly, keeling over softly on the seat.
Armand raised an eyebrow, still munching on his own beans.
"Have fun with that," he said dryly. "I'll see if I can bring you around when we get closer to the school."
"I'll do my best to avoid your shoes if I must be sick," said Boris, raising an arm to cover his eyes, as the motion of the train rattled him into, if not sleep, at the very least a semi-hypnotically altered state of conscious.