Hugo Weasley was sitting in a carriage of the Hogwarts Express for his first time. They had just left London and were now speeding on further north. He was really excited and with him in the carriage were some of his already new friends. One of them was the daughter of Harry and Ginny Potter, Lily. It was her first year at Hogwarts too and they had of course already been best friends for years. Furthermore, there were some other boys and girls named Jack, Martin, Eloise and Kayleigh. It was for all of them the first year and an air of excitement hung in the carriage.

They were now talking about the parents and heritage, what all of them already knew and in what house they would like to be. They all had a fun time and when the trolley had just come by and all of them were happily eating their candy, Hugo suddenly remembered something.

'My dad learned me a spell already,' he told everybody in the carriage abruptly.

'Really?'

'Show us!'

'Awesome!'

'Yeah, please show it to us!'

'What sort of spell?' Lily asked curiously.

'It is a spell to turn my rat yellow,' he said mysteriously and nodded to confirm what he told them.

Jack, who was muggleborn, gazed at him with great awe. The rest just looked at him with mild curiosity. They were kind of excited and wondered whether he was telling them the truth.

'I don't think you can do that,' Kayleigh said with a clear voice.

'Why not?' Eloise asked her, looking at her in surprise.

'Because no one in their first year can do such advanced magic yet, neither muggleborn or true wizard,' she answered as if it was all crystal clear. Some of them seemed to think she might have a point, but didn't want to speak it out loud.

'We could also just let him try,' Lily intervened with a smile on her face.

There came a murmur of agreement from all the boys and Eloise.

'Thank you,' Hugo spoke as he stood up to present his rat, though with a bit of a doubtful look on his face now.

He took his wand out and pointed it at his sleeping fat brown rat. Then he stood there silent for a few seconds, like he was waiting for bravery to dawn on him to do it, but then he cleared his throat loudly. He was nearly halfway his first word, when he was interrupted.

The carriage door slid open, and in came James Potter and his three best friends, laughing.

'Hello, all you firsties!' James said.

'Oh shut up,' Lily replied annoyed.

James first looked at his little sister and then around in the carriage, as a look of surprise came onto his face when he saw Hugo holding out his wand.

'Oh, you're doing magic…let's see it then,' James said and leaned against the door apparently waiting for Hugo to start and not willing to leave before he had seen it. His best friends stood behind him, grinning at the scene.

At first, Hugo looked as if he wanted to argue with this, but he thought better of it.

'All right,' he mumbled and he cleared his throat loudly again.

Sunshine, daises, butter, mellow,

Turn this stupid fat rat yellow!

A little bit of light shot out of the end of his wand, but nothing happened to the rat at all and it simply kept on sleeping, being fat, stupid and brown.

James and his friends laughed out loud and left their carriage again, still howling with laughter.

'I think you need a little practise still,' James said as he left and then closed the carriage door.

Hugo felt his face growing hot and red. He just looked at his knees and didn't dare to look up or say something.

'I don't think that was real spell,' Lily said softly and trying hard not to smile.

'No, come on Hugo, it doesn't matter,' Jack said.

Hugo looked up at all their friendly faces and was happy they did not laugh at him.

'Thanks,' he mumbled, 'I really appreciate it. I bet my dad just made it up. Thought it was funny probably.'

'Well, let's stop about stupid spells, and play a game of wizard chess. Who wants to play with me?' Eloise asked.

'I will,' Lily answered.

Eloise got out her set of wizard chess and all of them watched a thrilling game where all of the pawns played viciously. Hugo watched the game with all of his attention and a smile on his face. He had already forgotten about his disastrous first attempt to do some magic, but nevertheless was happy that he had such great friends on his side at Hogwarts.

A/N: A few years later in his fourth year, Hugo tried this spell was again just to be sure that it really didn't work. However, this time his rat did turn very yellow, but since no one knew how to change it back, that rat remained bright yellow for the rest of its life. At least, it did get a lot of attention now for you don't see a bright yellow rat every day.