I've been writing this fic for awhile now, but never on the computer. I have several, admittedly rather worn and well-used, papers with a version of this story. I remember it for basics, although it will not be the same as that which I had handwritten. It involves a non-magic HP world, where the HP characters were either born in America, or had moved over, from England of course. The thing is, however, it's the 1930s, which means it's Great Depression Time….
Disclaimer: I started this after watching a movie on riding the rails in US history last year. I'm still on school, and do not live in England in a giant castle named Hogwarts. Does that tell you anything? No? Because it should. It should tell you that I do not own Harry Potter. In fact, my friend does, although I've got Tom and Fred….
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In a rather remote area of the Western Plains of the US, a train whistle sounded. Very few in the area who heard cared. Although, the fact that no one was really there didn't help matters.
Looking around, one would've seen a desert. Dust and dead clusters of Prairie grass covered the area, which was full of abandoned boxes and metal cans and other such litter. The boxes looked like they had been lived in at one point or another, with several being covered in filthy and torn rags that seemed to pass as curtains.
"Twooot! Twooooooooot!" went the train whistle. In the grass just outside the station, something stirred. The train proceeded to start its slow exit, gradually picking up speed the way trains do. As it did, flashes of open boxcars came into view. Before it was blocked by people.
Yes, people. For that had been what had stirred in the grass. They were for the most part teenagers, although if you looked hard enough, you could see a few adults mixed in. Outside the watching guards within the station, these people, dressed in dirty cloth rags and sacks, for all intents and purposes, proceeded to jump onboard the train, either through the open boxcar door, or by jumping onto a ladder and climbing to the roof of said boxcar. All with the ease of pro, which told any onlookers just how long they've been doing this. Which was quite awhile.
And all the while, the train chugged on, uncaring to the fact that it was picking up hitchhikers it's owners did not want.
The year was 1934 and this is what these people did. They rode the rails. All of them shared the same traits, if not the same back-story. Left homeless and destitute, they moved from city to city the only way they could, looking for jobs. But there were no jobs to be held. Not when companies were laying off more people then they were hiring, or going under entirely.
Left with no other choice, they went forward. Some determined to find a job, others resigned to their fate hopping boxcars as a living. They'd been kicked out, abandoned, or had run away, but in the end, it all was the same. They were all without anywhere to go, and hopped boxcars.
It's not like they really had much of a choice. They couldn't go home, whether because they had none to return to, or because they refused to return home without a job to help the family put a slice of bread on the table. And they couldn't leave the country either. How could they? Sneak onboard a boat?
The government had them branded illegal, and they were looked down upon quite heavily. That's why they always had jump off or hide before the train hit the next station. The big muscular bouncer guys they employed, the "Bulls" as they were known as, were very unforgiving of those they caught hiding in a boxcar they shouldn't be on.
If one were to look upon it with an unbiased eye, they would notice that the country had made them like this to start with. They were not at fault, and never could be. How could they? How could they be at fault when it was the economy's crashing that lead them to this to start with? They had been just fine where they were, for the most part, before the Great Crash in October.
The Great Crash. There was a hated phrase. And the real person, thing, at fault for those in the boxcars. The Great Crash had led to their families losing money. The Great Crash had led to they, or their parents, being laid off, losing them more money. The government was being unfair to them, really, given that it was their own economy that sent them to such a fate.
The Stock Market had collapsed. Businesses were losing money faster then a sieve lost water. Innocent people suffered the consequences. That's what led them to these trains, to these futile hopes for jobs. More importantly, what led them to jumping onto these boxcars.
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Sympathetic eyes watched as they were joined in their little boxcar by several others, who jumped on silently or with thuds and grunts. Hermione Granger hated raiding the rails like this, and wanted nothing more then to go home to her parents. But she couldn't, not when her father's clinic was floundering so badly and she needed to figure out how to bring money to the family. A family that had once been well-off, now unable to afford the barest of prisoner food. (Bread and water)
Her chocolate brown eyes watched as a small, skinny teen her age, with messy black hair and startling emerald green eyes behind broken and taped black glasses landed almost like a cat in the boxcar she was sharing with the youngest of the Weasley family and Draco Malfoy. And Amber, who claimed no last name.
Others followed the black-haired boy. A pair of twins, with looks suggesting slight Indian heritage, a pudgy boy with kind features, a boy who could only be part Irish, given his slight accent as he grunted a small curse upon landing. Among others.
They moved deeper into the dark interior of the car, so as not to be seen by those who shouldn't see them and set their sights on Hermione and her follow comrades. The black-haired boy stepped forward, obviously the brave one, and held out a grubby hand.
"Hello, my name's Harry Potter. What's yours?" he asked politely.
Taking his hand in her own grubby one, she shook it and replied, "Hermione Granger. Nice to meet you Harry."
"Likewise. Care to introduce your companions?"
"This is Draco Malfoy, and these are Fred, George, Ron and Ginny Weasley. And over there in the shadows is Amber. She claims to be an orphan." Hermione introduced. The others began introducing themselves as well.
"I'm Neville Longbottom, and this is Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas." introduced the pudgy boy, also indicating the Irishman and another brown-haired boy.
"Parvarti and Padma Patil." introduced one of the twins. Another girl with brown hair introduced herself as Lavender Brown.
As the train rolled it's way down the tracks, it was unaware of the bond being formed by the occupants of one of it's boxcars. It could care less, anyway. For the train was just a machine, a mode of transportation. And no living, thinking being was aware of the group in the boxcar save the occupants themselves. But make no mistake, a bond WAS being formed. Formed over their bad luck, and their less-then appropriate living conditions.
The train just continued on it's way. Others joined on the train, in other boxcars, and the general cycle continued as people jumped off just before the station, and joined in just as it left.
But no one noticed, for the Great Depression refused to let them. It was the way of the Great Depression, and the way of the poor in general.
And such was the way of the US in 1934.
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There. Review and tell me what you think. FYI, the basic format of this is that they will climb out of their little boxcar, and onto a boxcar roof, where they will meet up with others form the story, including some of the adults, and from there, individual chapters will serve as back stories for the characters. I have yet to figure in Dumbledore and McGonagall and their generation, including Tom, but the younger ones, like the Marauders' generation will be introduced, because they wouldn't be too old to ride the rails. I don't know about you, but I just can't see Dumbledore and McGonagall, or even Tom or Moody, jumping boxcars and running after trains, can you?
Werewolf of Suburbia