From Humble Beginnings: Chapter 1
By Knight Mara
A/N: Nothing belongs to me . . . everything recognizable is the property of J.K. Rowling. I merely dabble with words in her universe.
There was absolutely nothing remarkable about him at all.
He was of average height for an eleven year-old, with an average build that tended toward thinness, but then not noticeably so. His hair was an uninteresting light brown, and his blue eyes were a shade muted enough to make even those who best knew him forget what color they actually were. His features were neither homely nor handsome; the nose was a bit too large and the lips a bit too narrow for the usual standards of human beauty, and yet, they too, were average enough to go unnoticed. The wizarding robes he wore were modest in design and craftsmanship, and there were no eye-catching personal effects that might warrant a second look or a conversation-starting question.
Not a soul among his classmates or his friends could recall first meeting him. There were no anecdotal tales to be told by them of an encounter at King's Cross Station, that first ride aboard the Hogwarts Express, the Sorting, the feast, the first night at Hogwarts, or those first classes. He alone remembered with whom he had been for each of these, and each had been commonplace an unimpressive.
A fair, pudgy boy had stood nervously beside him without making eye contact on the train platform. Too anxious to notice anything other than the crowd of unfamiliar faces, he would never recall the fellow first-year who had helped him heave his trunk onto the train. Not that anyone ever expected Peter to remember things like that.
A muggle-born first-year witch with red hair had spent the entire train ride explaining the muggle world to a dark-haired, aristocratic-looking older girl who had tried not to appear as interested in the one-sided conversation as she had actually been. Neither Lily Evans nor Andromeda Black had paid any attention to the boy resting his head against the window and listening as the Scottish countryside rushed past.
A coldly handsome black-haired boy had muttered clever obscenities under his breath all through the Sorting Hat's rhyme about Slytherin House, grinning wickedly at the chuckles coming from those near enough (and sympathetic enough) to hear him. His cockiness masking a very deep and real fear of becoming a member of that house, he had paid more attention to the responses of the boys around him than to their faces. That had been Sirius.
A terribly skinny bespectacled boy with remarkably messy hair had practically gorged himself on the various foods littering the table, all the while gabbing on about quidditch and boasting of his latest flying achievements to anyone who would listen (or who was not sickened by his tendency to talk with his mouth full). All of his focus had been directed toward impressing two people sitting at the table: the scowling black-haired boy of the Slytherin swears, and the muggle-born red-head who seemed less than impressed the more he talked. Having neither a famous wizarding last name, nor a second X chromosome, the boy to his immediate left had been completely ignored. It would later be discovered that James always ate like a ravenous giant (and had as refined table manners as one), but he remained as skinny as ever throughout his Hogwarts years.
A nervous sixth year prefect had led them to their dormitories, instructing all the first years in the rules and procedures of Gryffindor tower and Hogwarts in general. There were far too many first years for him to remember anyone besides the Black who had been somehow sorted into his house instead of Slytherin. He had been so distrustful of the haughty Slytherin reject that he had failed to notice the boy paying more attention to the moon outside the common room window than the important instructions being given. For all his virtues, Frank Longbottom had never been keenly observant.
A shy, melancholy, dark-haired Slytherin boy had sat listening with rapt attention to Professor Slughorn's lecture on potion making. With every word the potions master spoke, the boy's waxen, sallow face began to radiate with an inner glow of hope. By time they were ready to begin their first potion, that hope had blossomed into a look of confidence so complete it had practically transformed his face. He was entirely unaware of the presence of his quiet partner (let alone the other boy's ineptitude at potions) as he was carried away by the buoyancy of that confidence, steadily doing the work of two on that first day of class. Severus Snape never even noticed when his partner did not attend the second class of the term, nor that the boy had chosen another partner upon his return.
In truth, the unremarkable boy was so good at not being noticed, not one of his classmates noticed that first disappearance, even though it occurred within the first week of school. There were no awkward questions to answer upon his return, no curious looks sent in his direction. His presence was so far below the notice of the students that there were few who spoke directly to him at all, and not a single one of them knew his name. The entirety of September and nearly all of October were spent in complete anonymity, and strange as it may seem, he would have been content to let the rest of his time at Hogwarts proceed in kind. He was used to living a solitary life, for such a life was far less complicated than the alternative, and he had spent much time cultivating his talent for existing outside the consciousness of others.
He was alone, but not lonely—unnoticed, but unconcerned.
How different his story would be if he had remained as he had been those first two months; yet transformation is the only constant in life, and there was no avoiding it, no matter how much one may wish things to remain the same.
Remus Lupin knew this all too well.