AN: Chapter 1 of my first Harry Potter fic. Might not go anywhere, but I have a bunch of future scenes already written about the pair in this story, so we'll have to see. Review! I'd love to know what you think!
Maggie
...
It was the first day of school, the train to Hogwarts was pulling out of the station, and in the twenty third compartment on the left side of the train, one unfortunate older brother was being pestered by his sister.
"James?" Just ignore her, he thought to himself. "James?" Now she's tugging at your robes... "James?" Tug, tug, tug... "James!"
"What, Lily?" James Sirius Potter snapped at his little sister who, on account of it being her first train ride to Hogwarts, was taking great care to stay by her eldest brother's side. Lily let go of his robes and looked up at him with tear filled eyes.
"I'm scared, James," Lily whispered, leaning closer to him so none of his friends would hear. Every boy in the compartment, who, not ten seconds ago couldn't care less about the annoying eleven year old pestering James, turned their attention to the pair, all eyes on the frightened first year.
"You don't need to be scared, Lily," James said, his voice softer than before. He looked down at his younger sister and smiled reassuringly. "Come on. Let's find Hugo. He'll keep you company!"
James led Lily from the compartment and out into the hallway, waving a lame goodbye in the direction of his friends. The pair had lost Hugo, Rose, and Albus in the commotion surrounding the departure, and had yet to find them. Hugo wouldn't be far from Rose, who wouldn't be far from Albus, who would be with his other third year friends at the front of the train car.
Lily grasped James's large hand with surprising force as he pulled her through the crowds of teenagers cluttering the corridor. Everybody seemed to know who they were.
"James! Good to see you again!" a familiar looking sixth year called out. "Who's the little one?"
James pushed past. He had no time for questions. He had to get rid of his sister and get back to his friends before they did anything fun without him.
"James! How've you been?"
"Hello there, James!"
"James! How was your summer?"
He knew everyone in the corridor, first years and seventh years alike, but none of them were who he was looking for. Brown hair, black hair, green eyes, brown eyes, blonde hair, red h- wait!- blonde hair!
"Potter! In here!" James tugged his sister past more smiling friends, following the sound of the harsh, familiar voice belonging to none other than...
"Thank you so much, Scorpius," James panted, letting go of Lily and handing her off to his friend. From behind the blonde haired boy, James could see his younger brother, asleep on the seat, while Rose and Hugo bickered about something they probably wouldn't remember ten minutes from then. They sure had inherited their parents' knack for quarrelling.
"Hugo!" Lily cried, running to her cousin and wrapping him in a tight hug. Hugo looked just as relieved as Lily to see someone his age that he already knew.
"I need you to take care of Lily for me, at least until we get to school and Longbottom can take over," James said, pulling out his wallet from his back pocket and handing Scorpius a gold coin. "Buy yourself something nice."
"With one gold coin? I'm afraid the price for babysitting such a cheeky young one is a lot higher than just one coin," Scorpius said. "Three gold coins or you can take your sister back."
"Um, excuse me, but I can take care of myself," Lily protested from next to Hugo.
"Hush, Lily," James snapped at his sister. He turned back to Scorpius. "Two gold coins and a chocolate frog."
"Two gold coins, a chocolate frog, and, oh what's that? Another gold coin." Scorpius crossed his arms and looked at James with an arrogant expression on his face.
"That's more than your asking price!" James whined. He'd spent all his money on chocolate from the cart, and only had two coins left. One was resting in Scorpius's pale hand, while the other was in James's wallet, and hopefully, going to stay there.
"Three gold coins and a chocolate frog or you walk." Scorpius wasn't going to budge.
"But I don't have three coins!" James whined.
Scorpius opened his mouth to reply, but Rose cut him off. "I'll take care of Lily for you, James. Scorpius, stop cheating James out of his money, and be thankful you even got a coin," Rose chided, stepping in between the boys. "James, get back to your friends before Scorpius tries to con you out of more money you don't have."
"Thank you, Rosie," James said, smiling at his cousin. "I'll see you at dinner tonight." And with that, James bid his family farewell and walked from the compartment, ignoring Lily's upset expression about being bargained for from inside.
Now, the only thing James had to worry about was getting back to the twenty third compartment alive. It was hard enough to break through the mob of people on the way to Rose's compartment, and he had a little sister to help push a way through. Now he was all alone, and had to face the crowd without any help. He took off into a sprint, running at full speed to the back of the train car, ignoring all attempts to talk to him made by those he past, just shoving on through and desperately trying not to get his robes caught beneath their feet.
When he reached the twenty third compartment, he yanked the door open, fully expecting to see his friends sat in the same spots as before he left, but instead of finding four rowdy boys in the compartment, he found one lone girl, about his age, wearing Ravenclaw robes, reading a thick book in the seat that had once been his.
The girl looked up when she heard the door bang open. "If you're looking for Thomas and Henry, they've left," she said in a voice accented heavily from the north. Not Geordie, not Yorkshire... he'd have to hear her talk again to place it.
"Where'd they go?" James asked, partly because he was curious, partly because he wanted to figure out what accent she had.
"Skirt chasing probably," the girl said, her eyes returning to her book. "Roberta Stevens is in the compartment two over." Her accent was unmistakeable, iconic, and yet James couldn't figure out what it was.
"Roberta Stevens? The sexy Hufflepuff?" James asked.
"Pretty sure." She sounded heavily disinterested.
"Pretty, blonde, and dumb. They're with her, most definitely." James sat down across from the girl. She didn't look up.
"You're not going to join them?" the girl asked, still reading.
"Pretty, blonde, and dumb isn't exactly my type," James said, trying to get the girl to look up. It wasn't exactly a lie- he preferred intelligent, darker haired girls over the Roberta Stevens type- but it wasn't all the truth either. He would gladly join his friends in their pursuit of pretty Hufflepuffs, but he was much more interested in getting this mysterious girl in front of him to cooperate. His plan worked, and the girl peeked over the top of her book at the handsome boy in front of her.
"Really? That's surprising," she said, lowering her book into her lap. James got a good look at her face, no longer obscured by the large book she was reading. She had short dark hair that framed her suntanned face, sweet and actually quite pretty, which James wasn't expecting. What surprised James the most about the obviously very intelligent Ravenclaw in front of him, however, were her eyes. Large, dark blue, and alert like a cat's, her eyes scared even the unscareable James Potter.
"I'm James. James Potter," he said, holding out a hand. She shook it lightly.
"Claribel Evans," she replied.
"What year are you in?" James asked, letting go of her hand. She let it drop into her lap, resting on the book she was reading.
"Fifth," Claribel replied.
"I'm in fifth as well. Why haven't I seen you around before?" James said, leaning back and looking at Claribel. He did his best to look her in the eyes, but had a hard time looking into them for too long. They seemed to burn straight through him. Despite his darting eyes, James came across, to himself at least, as someone very worth spending time with; confident, strong, and handsome, nobody could question him.
"I've seen you. You just never paid me any attention. You spend most of your time with Hufflepuffs." Claribel had him there. James could see no way out of the uncomfortable situation the Ravenclaw had him in. Nobody, not even his own mother, could make James Potter uncomfortable, and yet, here he was, trapped by a beautiful Ravenclaw who seemed to take no notice to his impressive show that normally had girls kissing his feet.
Claribel also seemed to take no notice to his obvious discomfort. How had a girl he hadn't even known existed two minutes ago already know about his history with the girls of Hogwarts? "What do you see in them, anyway? They're not very nice, very stupid, and have a habit of blowing up the potions labs when they mix their perfumes with their projects."
"They're pretty." In an attempt to say as little as possible, James just made things worse for himself.
"Interesting..." Claribel returned to her book, thoroughly disgusted with the boy in front of her.
"I already told you, though. They're not my type," James leaned forward. He had to mend things with this girl, but he had no idea why. She was just some Ravenclaw girl he'd never met before. Why does it matter what she thinks of him? James asked himself this, and came to no answer. Still, he tried to fix things.
"Could have fooled me." Claribel continued to read. She was really beginning to annoy James. What about that bloody book was so interesting? James was going to find out.
"What book are you reading?" he asked, trying to change the subject.
"Moby Dick. It's a Muggle book, but it's really good," Claribel said, turning the page.
"What's it about?" James asked.
"A whale."
"Fun." James could see this conversation wasn't going to go anywhere. "What's your favourite book, then?" he asked.
"I don't have one. I read too many to pick." Totally emotionless, Claribel continued to read.
"Oh." James fell silent. "What part of England are you from?" he asked, trying to start up conversation yet again.
"Liverpool," Claribel replied, speaking the name of her town in a way only a Liverpudlian would. Of course! Where else would she be from with an accent like that?
"Oh. I should have guessed," James said, trying to break the awkward silence.
"Mhm."
"Do you have a wand?" James asked, only realizing how stupid it made him sound after it left his lips. Internally, he smacked himself. Externally, he kept his cool guy facade.
Claribel picked up on the stupidity of that question and looked up over the edge of her book. "Um, yes, I have a wand," she said hesitantly, contemplating whether or not James was worth the effort of trying to make good conversation.
"What's it made of?" he asked. A better question, but still a bit on the strange side.
"Cherry wood and dragon scales," Claribel replied, a bit more interested this time. "How about yours?"
"Elm," James said simply.
"That's it? Just elm?"
"Well, there's blackbird feathers inside, but I don't think those do much."
"Interesting. So you're Harry Potter's eldest, then?" Claribel considered it her turn to raise a point of conversation.
"Yeah. My brother Albus and my sister Lily are both at Hogwarts too. Lily's going into her first year." The way James spoke of his siblings made it obvious that he loved them very much, but an unmistakeable air of aggravation clung to his words. They could be nuisances sometimes, and Claribel didn't have to ask to know that. "Do you have any siblings?"
"I have one, yes. His name is Noah, he's in his seventh year," Claribel replied, her voice no longer so lively. "I wish I wasn't the youngest. I'd love a little sister."
"No you wouldn't," James said, happy to be getting somewhere with Claribel. "I love Lily and everything, but she's pretty annoying."
"How is she annoying? Little sisters seem so sweet and loveable," Claribel said, checking her page number on her book and closing it, a sign to James to keep talking.
"She's the gossiper of the family, to start. Anything even remotely interesting regarding coupling or romance, Lily is the first to jump on it, and she's only eleven!"
"She sounds funny!" Claribel put her book to the side and leaned forward, blue eyes ablaze with wonder. She obviously wanted a sister very badly.
"And she nags worse than my mum. First thing in the morning, 'James! Get up!' and it continues until I get my bum out of bed. During the summer. At six in the morning." James leaned forward as well, smiling widely at his discovery about Claribel.
"Well all siblings are like that. I'm sure I do that to poor Noah quite a lot," Claribel said, giggling to herself. She was cute when she giggled; her eyes lit up and a small smile spread across her face.
"I love Lily, but she can get so annoying," James said, laughing as well.
"I need to meet this girl," Claribel said, looking James dead in the eyes as she continued to giggle to herself. James internally patted himself on the back. She'd just implied that they were friends. Good enough for James.
"When we get to school, I'll see if I can introduce you two," James said. "And speaking of school, I believe we'll be getting there soon. Do you need to change?"
"I'm already in my robes," Claribel said, motioning towards the black robe she wore, where the Ravenclaw suit of arms was sewed on to the shoulder.
"Okay then. Do you want anything from the trolley?" James asked.
"No thank you."
"How far are we from school?" James asked, looking out of the window. He knew they were only a few minutes away, he recognized the scenery, but he wanted to engage Claribel in another conversation.
"Only a few minutes away," Claribel said, looking out the window too.
"Is your brother in Ravenclaw?" James asked.
"Yeah. Not for long though, he's leaving after this year," Claribel said, her eyes starting to loose some of their twinkle.
"Do you and your brother get along?" James couldn't tell from her voice.
"Sort of. I love him but he finds me annoying, I know it," she said, her voice going back to its emotionless, monotonous tone it had been when she mentioned her brother before.
"You're not annoying," James said, turning his head to look at Claribel, who was staring thoughtfully out the window, blue eyes trained on an object in the distance that James couldn't make out.
"Hm." That terse response, a simple hum in the back of Claribel's throat, was enough to signal James that the subject was closed. Her face was expressionless, her mouth no longer turned up in the small smile that had been there just seconds before. Neither of them spoke after that, James too scared to upset the obviously very upset-able girl beside him, and Claribel simply unwilling to speak.
The train came to a sudden stop just as Hogwarts became fully visible in front of the silent pair. Claribel grabbed her bag and walked to the door, as James did the same.
"After you," he said, motioning for her to walk from the compartment.
"Thank you," she mumbled, walking out and into the hallway.
James did his best to keep his eyes glued to the back of Claribel's head, but with the rush of people all running from their compartments, trying to get out of the same small door, James lost the beautiful Ravenclaw he had met on the journey to school. And once he was off the train, he tried to find her again, but she had disappeared.
Who was that blue eyes beauty James had never seen before? Why did she glaze over at the mention of her brother? And most of all, why couldn't she stand James? Well he was going to find out.