House Rivalry


I wasn't ready for this to be my last year.

It had crept up on me so suddenly and now I'm stood on Platform 9 ¾, staring up at that glorious scarlet steam train and… I just wasn't ready.

I looked around me and smiled, remembering the time Beth tried to levitate her trunk onto the overhead storage and almost killed Percy Weasley… although I'm not sure that wasn't her actual intention.

Or what about the time we convinced Peri that the reading list had been changed and she'd bought all the wrong books? I thought she'd never stop screaming.

Or what about the time Dora ran into the wrong brick wall?

I grinned, and breaking out of my reverie, looked round and spotted the latter two of my friends waving at me.

Shaking my head I waved back, pushed my way over and hugged them both sadly, then we all turned back to stare at the train again.

It was a really poignant moment.

I mean truly moving…

One of those times you stop and think - 'I'll never forget this…'

…and then a fourth voice suddenly announced:

"You guys are such losers!"

Sigh.

"Trust you to be completely unaffected," I said, reaching up to hug the towering blonde, Bethany Twycross.

"Emotions are overrated," was the careless reply as she moved to greet the others.

"How was your summer then?" I asked, heaving my trunk down the train in search of an empty compartment.

"Mummy and Daddy took us round Europe," she immediately dove in, "Paris was dull, Barcelona too hot, and I honestly thought about pushing my sister off the Eiffel Tower… maybe just strangle my brother to death…"

"Standard," I replied stowing my things into the overhead storage and flopping down onto the seat, "What about you Peri?"

"My parents and I went to Egypt! It was the most incredible experience…" she gushed, "Did you know that the Ancient Egyptian wizards used to… bla, bla, bla, bla, bla…"

So I might be adlibbing the bla's.

I'm sure it was very interesting, whatever she was saying, it's just that I've developed a very annoying defence mechanism to zone Peri out whenever she gets going on any form of educational subject.

I kind of wish I didn't,

I might have done a little better on my O.W.L's…

Suddenly I noticed there was a lull in conversation and looked up to find Peri waiting expectantly for a reaction to what she'd just said…

"Sounds awesome?" I tried.

Seemed to be an appropriate response.

Phew.

"What about you then Dora?" I sighed.

To be honest I'm always a little reluctant to hear whatever Dora's got up to during the summer.

"Oh, Mother and I knitted jumpers for all the gnomes in our garden!" she beamed back proudly.

…see?

"…of course you did…" I said, sharing a look with Beth, who then said, "Snow?"

I forget when or why, but at some point during our first year at Hogwarts everyone began calling me by my last name – Snow. I'm now so used to it that it's super weird when I go home and get called Imogen. I hate being called Imogen… oh yeah maybe that's why…

"I didn't do much, but all my brothers were home for a couple weeks, and my sister, so we got in a few great games of Quidditch!" I enthused.

They all just rolled their eyes at me.

I kind of wanted to break into a play by play account, just to annoy them, but they were already busying themselves with settling down for the long journey.

Dora was enthusiastically setting up her food hamper in pride of place beside her, then when she was satisfied it was in the perfect position, she began to hand out freshly baked pumpkin pasties to each of us.

These would be the only consumable products she would share with us for the entire academic year, and that was only because they were purposely made for us by her mother. You could see this in the slight reluctance she had of letting each one go, but she soon turned to devour her own with a look of pure ecstasy on her face.

Peri on the other hand was extracting an intimidatingly large textbook from her bag – from the cover it seemed that she was brushing up on the intricacies of canine transfiguration.

As everyone does to pass the time on a train…

And Beth with no need for an excuse to ignore people, pulled a flashy Walkman from her bag, popped her headphones in and started to read a copy of Witch Weekly.

Well.

Nice to see we were all making the most of this last milestone journey together eh?

But who was I kidding? I was happy to now wonder what compartment Oliver Wood was in…

Maybe I could casually amble down the train and have a look…?

Ask him how his summer was…

"You know," Beth said suddenly, to no one in particular, "I thought I'd lost my Walkman the other day," she hadn't even looked up from her magazine, "but then, this little voice at the back of my head just said 'but where's the music coming from Beth…?'" (TS)

I looked up and stared at her, then burst out into belly aching laughing at the sheer stupidity, "You mean like the time you thought you'd lost your phone and realised you were talking to me on it?"

Beth looked up at me in annoyance and regret and said to herself, "Why do I tell you these things…?" as I continued to laugh heartily at her expense.

A few hours passed quickly in idle chit chat, games and a visit from the trolley lady (Dora: "God I would love her job…") when all of a sudden the train came to a slow stop.

"We're not at Hogwarts yet…" Peri mused, looking out of the window for an answer.

"Weird," I replied, and got up to poke my head out of the compartment door.

I was greeted by a few other faces doing the same, but we all just shrugged at each other and returned to our seats in confusion.

It was getting pretty cold now, so I unwrapped the hoody from my waist and pulled it on over my head, but as my face broke the surface the next breath I let out froze and curled up in front of my eyes.

"What the…" I began, looking over in confusion to the others who were all looking pretty freaked out as they held themselves against the sudden cold.

This rapid drop in temperature was making me feel pretty anxious, and then that slowly turned into completely terrified… now I was beginning to feel like we were never going to get out of here alive… like we'd never make it to our last year at Hogwarts… like we'd never, ever be happy again…

And that's when I saw it.

My mouth opened in the thought of screaming.

My hand flickered towards my wand pocket.

But the horrific image of that creature was burning itself into my memory, its abilities paralysing me to my seat as it passed along the corridor…

I started to phase out… my mind clouding with the worst of my own memories…

…when a burst of silver light ignited the train.

The swirls of blackness receded.

Warmth and feeling returned to us like a big ripple of happiness.

And eventually regained the ability to shout the words…

"What the f**k?!"

I looked round incredulously at the others.

Peri was curled into herself, arms over her head in protection, quietly sobbing, so I quickly moved over to comfort her… then stopped when I clocked Dora.

She had somehow managed to pull herself up into the luggage rack where she was now curled up into a protective ball, like a hedgehog.

Frowning I turned to see if Beth had seen this.

But Beth had her eyes closed, obliviously bopping her head along with the music of her Walkman as if nothing had happened…

I slapped the back of my hand sharply against her leg and her eyes snapped open in pain.

"Hey!" she cried, ripping her earphones out.

"Did you seriously not just notice that?" I asked incredulously.

"Notice what?" she asked.

"Oh, just the sudden freak temperature drop of all your good and happy feelings being unwillingly sucked out of you by the Dementor that just passed by our compartment door," I replied, pointing.

"What?" she said, looking round wildly, "are you serious?!"

I nodded, disbelievingly.

"Oh, well, I guess I did feel a little sad, but I was listening to a sad song, so I thought maybe I was actually getting emotional about something for the first time…"

I simply stared.

"Heartless for the win!" she cried, smiling and holding her hand up for a high five.

I shrugged in defeat, and high fived her anyway.

It took a good ten minutes to coax Dora down from the luggage rack, and it was only under the threat of us emptying her entire hamper out the window that she complied.

When she got down, she let out a shriek and dived to the floor, retrieving a cauldron cake that had obviously fallen when she climbed into the luggage rack.

"It was so young…" she cried, clutching it to her chest.

I rolled my eyes and sank back down into my seat, rubbing a hand briefly up and down Peri's arm when I saw the look of fear still eminent in her eyes.

She gave a quick smile of gratitude, and settled herself down to look out of the window at the passing countryside, but she was clearly still shaken because her book remained closed beside her.

The rest of the journey was then spent absorbed in theories about the presence of the Dementor.

We were quickly directed to the right train of thought by Peri who produced a copy of the Daily Prophet, from which the sunken face of Sirius Black blinked gloomily out at us.

By the time we reached Hogsmeade station Beth was exclaiming, "maybe he's trying to get into the Chamber of Secrets?!"

"What!" I cried, "Potter killed the monster you idiot!"

"But did he…?" she interrupted, narrowing her eyes and looking around suspiciously.

At this point it was time to change and get off the train, but it didn't hinder Beth's incessant debate about Sirius Black's interest in the Chamber of Secrets.

I humoured her with nods and non-committal noises all the way up to the castle, and then the doors of the Great Hall, but there my focus was immediately lost in search of a certain Quidditch Captain at the Gryffindor table…

When I spotted him my stomach gave a familiar flip of anxious excitement… and then he caught my gaze and waved at me.

Caught off guard I lost my senses and grinned goofily in return, and then for whatever reason, I shot him a kind of over enthusiastic thumbs-up…

"Why did you give Wood a thumbs-up?" Beth asked immediately.

"I don't know…" I said, slumping my shoulders and reddening in embarrassment.

"It was hot," she continued, "he probably really wants you now. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't just jump you across the table right this second…"

"Shut up."

"Oh… he's moving… he's on the move… he… oh no, never mind, he just reached over to grab the mashed potato…"

"I hate you," I growled.

"And speaking of hate," Beth chimed, flicking her long blonde hair behind her shoulders and straightening her tie, "we're back at Hogwarts now - House rivalry has begun. I officially hate you all," and with that she sauntered off towards the Slytherin table.

I laughed and bid farewell to Peri, who proceeded to the Ravenclaw table.

Then to Dora who drifted off to join the Hufflepuffs…

And with a sad sort of joy at having returned to this familiar scene for the very last time, I headed for the Gryffindor table.

For our very last first feast.

Sad face.


AN: So if you haven't guessed, though it's the characters final year, this is actually set during the third HP book. These characters are actually loosely based off me and three of my friends, its a long story how it got started, but I basically did a one chapter for fun and now they won't let me stop. Seriously. It's been like 4-5 years, and almost 50,000 words. Someone, please, help me.

Or review!

p.s. if you see (TS) anywhere, it means that was said or happened in real life. Like a "Yeah, that happened." moment. Enjoy!