My first fan fiction I've ever embarked on writing. Feel free to jeer, smile, cry, and critique.
Chapter One
"Daemont Woodlock!"
The message sent by his father had been successfully registered into his mind. He sprung up from his seat at the bus station, where shouts and giggles were commonplace, mingling with the short, tall, fat, and thin. Earlier, he had walked into the brick wall, giving himself an intentional headache. Still rubbing his sore head, he faced his father, who he himself was facing the brick wall that lead to platform nine and three-quarters.
Daemont looked up at his father, and mumbled nonchalantly, "Well, I suppose I simply do not have an affinity for magic. I cannot even find the bloody doorway." His father eyed him with cynicism, noting how he had been caught three days ago uttering strange enunciations uniquely foreign to his father's ears, to a garden snake little larger than a rat's tail. If his own son was anything, it was that he was magically adept.
"Parseltongue," his wife called it. "It is a trait unique to those that are blessed with the gifts of Salazar Slytherin in one form or another, although I am unsure of the background behind those powers, nor the reasoning behind him acquiring it. Perhaps our child is simply a wizard prodigy, related to the great Salazar Slytherin!" The witch continued to muse about it along with her muggle husband.
Although, the fact that his son was a possible child prodigy thrust suddenly into the world of wizardry was nothing that he was taking lightly. He made sure to let Daemont know of it every waking morning leading up to the departure day to Hogwarts, where his son would spend his years of academia honing his skills and perhaps making some friends. Making friends was a skill that Daemont, in the face of all that stood before him, both needed and severely lacked.
Daemont noticed the strained expression on his father's face, and chuckled heartily. Eleven years of age, and he was already showing signs of keen awareness that was taken to be at a rather unusual level by fellow peers, teachers, and even the friends of his parents. "Well, it has been nice knowing you, father," he yelled out playfully as he pelted towards the seemingly solid brick wall with his luggage along with the cage holding his black and white cat Vyceros and a bulging backpack.
"Say goodbye to my schoolmates for me, will you? Not that the task would be undertaken with difficulty." He disappeared past muggle eyes, leaving only his father behind with a task not to be taken seriously. As a matter of fact, his father had completed the task by default; Daemont had no friends to leave behind.
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Trains. He had once taken a seat in one. He didn't like that experience. Way back when he first boarded one, there just so happened to have been a pin situated on a seat where his bottom was later put to rest on, causing intense pain as a young adolescent with five years on him. He put a small luggage bag up on the rack above his head, his backpack down by his feet, and his cat in the cage on the seat to the right of him. Contrary to his first experience with trains, there were no pins where his bottom sat, and so he rested his head on the cushion, and let his thoughts wander off into nothingness while peering out the window...
THUMP!
The door opened to reveal a girl with long rivers of chocolatey goody-goodness, featured alongside deep hazel eyes and heathy, flawless white skin. At least, that's what he observed. A group of boys calling from behind her had called her a mudblood, which was, according to his mother, a wizard or witch birthed between a muggle and a magically gifted person. She pouted in a fake and exaggerated manner to the boys that were taunting her.
Daemont mistook this pouting as literal, and said in an effort to comfort her, "Do not worry, woman of chocolate hair! I am also a mudblood." The girl looked at him peevishly. "I think I'll go some place else," she said to him with an air of arrogance. "Nobody's stopping you from going out the door," he replied in an attempt to appear apathetic while pretending not to glance in her direction with one partially shut eye.
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Having taken good notes during the allotted time in which she was with him for, the boy was a socially awkward individual who thought of himself as a rather clever individual, with a knack for figuring out other people. Girls simply know this sort of stuff.
So she chose to stay with him for the time being. Not as though she had any other choice, seeing as how the remaining train seats were all taken. The girl noticed him sitting with a cage with a cat inside, and took a seat.
As she had observed, the boy had white hair with messy bangs that flowed down just a bit below his ears on the back of his head and up to his eyes at the front. His features were further complimented by his scarlet red eyes, which he used to gaze up at her invitingly. She had with her a cage containing a lively animal making shuffling sounds.
A scream could've been heard down the train, presumably from somebody being tickled.
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Daemont dozed off into a dream, where he was in a dark and gloomy entrance hall of a castle. The candle lights lit the way towards a vast, open space characterized by a constantly shifting staircase. Where there had once been beautiful paintings set along the walls of the very large room was now replaced with screaming faces, all of whom were facing him. He had his wand with him- a twelve and a half-inch pine wood dragon heartstring core wand. A man with a black robe tinged with yellow was standing upon one of the staircases holding out his wand while mouthing out, "Avada…"
"KEDAVRA!" Daemont awoke with a start, seeing the brown-haired girl wide-eyed at the spectacle before them; the corpse of a young prefect was on the floor of their compartment, having been struck from behind by some sort of killing curse. Loud footsteps were distancing the two young budding wizards from the perceived murderer.
While nearly everybody had remained in their compartments, Daemont was the only one to go chasing after the murderer in hopes of catching him and bringing him to justice.
Running swiftly, he went after the murderer with his backpack, catching the eyes of both new students and prefects alike. He whispered under his breath an incoherent whispering, and out from now unzipped backpack came a boa constrictor, which pursued the escapee with a vengeance. The snake got to the suspect, and wrapped itself around the person's leg, squeezing it to its breaking point.
Loud, simultaneous cracks were heard, signaling the breaking of the femur, patella, tibia, and fibula bones. A man's screech was heard amongst amused and disturbed faces of the passengers on board.
The boa constrictor then left the leg of the man, now having been seen to have been cloaked, and slithered back into Daemont's backpack, with the latter boasting a face filled with amusement. A collection of prefects came towards the scene, but rather than pointing their wands at the man, they all pointed their wands at the owner of the constrictor.
A quick glance behind his back, and Daemont saw that the man whom he had helped capture was indeed a man with the same black robe tinged with yellow as was the one encountered in his dream.
As he turned his head back to face the prefects, he was hit with the sudden realization that the elder wizards were not pleased with his display of bravado, as well as his association with a snake. His actions showed bravery and skill in communicating with snakes while pursuing the assailant. Was it bravery? Or was it, on the contrary, pure, and unfiltered ambition to catch the one responsible for the murder?
Was this boy anything like the former parselmouth expert Harry Potter? Or was he, daresay, comparable to the likes of Voldemort, a parselmouth as well? Thoughts like these were running through the heads of these prefects as they searched within themselves an answer. Rather than engaging in conversation with them, Daemont simply decided to stroll away from them and back to his compartment.
When he'd gotten back, the girl was still there, asking about whether or not he was okay, to which he replied, "You should indeed be much more worried about the victim's state of health rather than mine." It was evident to her that the corpse still lying within their compartment was beginning to stain the carpet with saliva, and that she would be among the first people to ever want to observe it, let alone touch it.
"Ugh," she muttered, annoyed, as two prefects from the pack of prefects that turned their wands onto Daemont a minute ago came to the compartment, and lifted the now deceased prefect off the ground and carried him off to an unspecified location. She was just about to poke around as well.
"Thanks," the parselmouth shouted back, "it was getting a little bit gross just lyin' there with open eyelids and-." The girl with the brown hair gave him a cold stare. He stopped his would-be detailed description of the corpse, and decided against continuing.
Vyceros squirmed in her cage, and was meowing incessantly until it occurred to Daemont to slip in a treat through the bars of the confining cage. "Shhhh," he cooed, "it'll be alright, kitty. Once we get to Hogwarts, there will be plenty to gorge ourselves on!" The girl rolled her eyes.
"Oh," said Daemont, shifting his attention to her once more, "I seems as though I've forgotten where my manners were. Although, whether or not I had manners to begin with is certainly questionable, I must first tell you my name. I go by Demon Warlock, but the name's Daemont Woodlock."
She stared at him for a few seconds, took a breath, and muttered, "Yeah right."
Daemont frowned, then smiled as he continued to look at her. "So what's your name, woman of brown eyes?"
"The name's Lora. Lora Kastome." It was declared absentmindedly, as she brought out her pet, known to the world as a Northern White-faced Owl, "and for your own information, my eyes are hazel, not brown."
As she was petting and feeding it, Daemont was looking out the window; bright, with clear blue skies, and cotton clouds that fluttered lazily above them.
Suddenly, he spotted a familiar-looking individual taking an awkward hop off the train through the glass, instantaneously recognizing him as the person who was killed earlier. It dawned on him that it wasn't an awkward hop that he was doing, but that he was being thrown off the train.
A moment later, there was another loud blast, followed by piercing shrieks and loud bangs.
Lora looked at Daemont and said, "You stay put now. I'm going to check out what's going on." Daemont shifted in his seat closer to Vyceros, shuffling his backpack right by his feet.
"Alright," he said. As she left, he let his thoughts wander off yet again as Vyceros licked his fingers.
She's pretty, he thought. She's much nicer to me than any of the other girls at my old school. He sighed to himself as he slid his fingers away from his cat's reach. He unzipped his backpack, and out came the boa constrictor, slithering and hissing.
Daemont faced it and hissed back.
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Lora Kastome turned right from the compartment and strode off towards the noise. There were multitudes of people brushing against her as she budged in for a better look at the scene.
According to a Gryffindor prefect, the suspect of the murder had apparently cast the killing curse upon himself while he was in the process of being detained. One of the prefects that were put in charge of securing the man reported that the man had reacted with surprising speed and grabbed his wand from the pocket of another prefect, and murdered himself. Motivations for the man's activities were unclear, as the man appeared to have been, as one would say, massively brain-dead.
"Move along, first-years," said a male Hufflepuff prefect, whose eyes appeared to communicate to on-lookers a sense of inner harmony, in spite of the current dire situation. His tanned white skin, brown burr-cut hair, and a scar that crossed over his left eyelid gave him the appearance of a natural fighter, despite him acting as a calm, serene Hogwarts prefect at first glance.
As he turned his gaze towards the other students, another prefect called him by name. "Andrew Warren," said the Gryffindor prefect who had witnessed the suicide first-hand.
Andrew gave the Gryffindor prefect a strained smile, "Yes, Bruno?"
Bruno glared at Andrew, "It's Mr. McHickel to you. Do not address me by my first name, you inferior fifth year student. I am your superior, and as such, I shall be acknowledged as one."
They both don't seem to be the ones to get along well with each other, thought Lora, as the argument continued between the two. I'd best keep out of their way.
"Big deal! I'm a year younger than you. Hey, we're all equal in this together, okay?" Andrew stated this while facing Bruno with yet another strained smile.
Bruno was just about to shoot back a reply when another Gryffindor prefect put her hand up to his mouth. "Sorry everyone! As you can see, this is an obviously stressful situation for all of the prefects currently on-board, and as such, I would like for you all to go back into your compartments." she announced to all of the panicked and curious.
Lora lingered there for a second longer than the other students that proceeded back to their seats. Andy turned to her, and pierced through her soul with a glance filled with a brief hint of madness.
"Do you intend to hang around here any longer, or will I have to drag you out by your hair back into your compartment with you kicking and screaming like a demented brat?"
She jumped out at those words, having expected a much more gentle approach from the prefect whom earlier was the calmest one of the bunch. "No, sir. I was simply looking out for the well-being of others," she replied in an innocent tone.
He took out and pointed his wand at her forehead, clucking his tongue to the roof of his mouth as he did so. Lora stood still, as he closely examined her. His facial features softened as he knelt down in front of her and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Don't let me down," he whispered into her ear, as he slowly got up and walked off towards his own compartment.
Lora crept back into her compartment with Daemont in it, her legs shaking as she took her seat straight across from him.
The train rumbled, the cages clinking along. Choo choo! It slowed down to a crawl. They had arrived. Finally arrived.