The steam engine begins pulling slowly away from the platform, gradually picking up speed in the process, as if it too, is fleeing the crime scene. My eyes gaze outside of the window; still unable to process what exactly fucking happened. A few people begin to crowd around her corpse as the black hooded figures retreat from the chaos that they have created, into the shadows and out of sight for good. I can feel the wetness dripping down my cheeks, I've never cried a day in my life but I just lost the last person I had left. I don't even know if I can return back home now, it all depends on if my friends still think I'm alive to be honest, I don't know what my mom even told them all I know is that I have no way of contacting them at this school. I turn my body with my back leaning against the window and my feet up on the bench with my arms wrapped around my knees. Knowing that my mother is dead and I watched her die will forever haunt my memory.
Niya lets out a cry, jumping off of the table and curling up beside my feet on the bench. She's fairly old, mom's apparently had her longer than she had me, so you know; Niya must be magical because there's no way a normal cat can live that long. Even just mentioning her in general, this is going to be one Hell of a first day…
The scenery outside the window is nothing but green pine trees and grassy meadows; and hills that seem to roll on and on for miles. I keep my gaze at the window, trying to count the trees along the way but quickly giving up after ten or so. My eyes then glance up into the blue sky while a few stray clouds streak by, the sun shines brightly as if it's trying to make me feel better; it seems like a very nice and sunny day overall, but all I feel on the inside is dull and depressed.
The train continues to move forward, it feels like hours have passed when in reality it was only several minutes. It's a bit of a change to a train after everything else like a car, or a plane even. I've never been on a train really, so in some way I guess all of today wasn't so bad after all… Who am I trying to fool, as far as I know I don't have any family left and nowhere to go after all of this is done.
My eyes continue to gaze out of the mesmerizing window as we blaze against the tracks at full speed, my mind running around with thoughts in my head, along with memories as well. Several minutes later my ears catch on to the sound of two sets of footprints heading down the corridor towards my cabin.
Confused, I shift my glance towards the glass door; revealing two red haired boys around my age exchanging the same grin and waving through the glass at me. They look familiar; I think they were on the platform with their siblings and that blacked hair guy.
"Can we come in?-
Coming in anyways!" Their melody and harmony voices chime through the air, almost cleaning away every bit of negative energy built up in this tiny cabin. One of them opens the door while the other slides right in and sits across the table from me, still sharing the same grin as the other. My eyes just stare blankly at them, wondering why they all of a sudden chose to sit down here; not that there's anything wrong with it, I don't mind the company one bit; it's just, why me? Niya also questions them as well, gazing up at them from the table ledge.
"Where are our manners," One began, making room for his brother as he squeezes against the window ledge, still holding my eye contact without any ease.
"I'm Fred,
And I, am George." The other one shuts the door behind him and takes a seat next to his twin brother, still smiling the same smile when they first approached me with such a high volume of happiness. Both them seem to be quite a bundle of joy really; no sarcasm either. They also seem like the type of people I'd normally be friends with, considering at my old school I knew a couple people who act on impulse and can pick up negative energy in a snap.
"Nala…" I try my best to return their smile, and their level of excitement but after what happened; I think it's going to be hard to actually mean it when I smile again. My emerald eyes are still filled with fresh tears just waiting to overflow, while they both exchange quick worried glances. Their expressions quickly vanish slightly, focusing on the tears that still trickle down my cheeks.
"Everything alright, Nala?" Fred holds my gaze surprisingly well; his aura instantly fades from happiness into concern in a matter of seconds along with George's. Instantly I can tell them apart; not from their aura considering they almost share the same, but because Fred has more of a hypnotizing stare, not to mention his posture changes when he talks to people directly. And George is more of the quiet one, less vocal in situations.
"Yeah, just, I lost someone today." My fingers quickly wipe the tears away from my eyes, Niya takes it upon herself to jump up on the table in front of them and stare questionably into George's eyes, before turning her gaze towards Fred's in a defensive manner.
They both smile once more, Fred immediately clasps his hands around mine against the table and holds my eye contact once again, and oddly enough his calming touch doesn't fail to calm me down. It's almost like he's using magic, which he probably is; considering I'm not used to any of this yet.
"You may have lost someone today,
but, you also gained someone as well." Right on cue they both finish each other's sentences, flashing me a quick grin while they both watch my reaction.
"Gained someone?" I question them, blinking furiously to keep the remaining tears away from my face and showing up ever again, I can't even think straight with all of these sudden childhood memories flooding back in with her in them.
"Us." They both smirk, Fred releases my hand from his gentle grasp, while George reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small handful of chocolates wrapped up in animal wrappers, along with a few tiny firecracker- looking things. They immediately catch my interest, I've never seen anything like these before; naturally I'm only curious, they look normal but surely they aren't, everything's been farfrom normal since I even figured out about this place.
"They're one of our prototype chocolates, we're a lacking a name for them. We were thinking something along the lines of Patronus Chocolates but, we haven't had enough people test them out to see if they're correctly charmed." Fred confesses, while George leans back in the comfy bench and stretches out a little, still staring at me with a positive emotion.
"Yeah, and what do they do exactly? Open one and find out, and then I'll show you these." George's eyes motion towards the firecracker looking tiny things, they're wrapped up colorfully in stripes that arrange in a hue of colors; if anything they look like candy wrappers.
I guess it couldn't hurt to play around, after all; they seem really nice. My eyes glance down towards the array of chocolates that are spread out before me on the table, there's a few with animals on the wrappers; a lion, hyena, coyote, and a dog all with different colored backgrounds. My fingers linger over the coyote one, the image springs to life and starts snapping and snarling at them. Niya hisses at the image, swatting her paw at it while the coyote whimpers in fear and backs off. Immediately I jolt my hand away from it and it eventually calms down and returns back to a still image, highly confused I stare them in shock and disbelief while Niya just looks confused.
They both chuckle, before realizing that I'm serious; I have no idea what is going on whatsoever and I'm highly confused as to why the images started moving.
"Try another; some of them just don't like other people touching them." Fred encourages me with his charming smile once again, I sigh deeply; before reaching out my hand again, this time my fingers linger over the lion. It seems to be working rather well, the lion doesn't snap or growl; it just stares into my eyes with a piercing affect; almost like it's a part of me or something. I pick it up carefully, and hold it in my hands. George then grabs the coyote one without hesitating one bit, along with Fred who takes the hyena and then pops them both into their mouths with a huge grin still plastered on their faces.
"Don't be shy,
eat it; it chose you." They both chew the chocolates inside their mouths while stuffing the wrappers inside their pockets. My eyes linger on the image of the lion once more before I eventually give in and pull off the wrapper; revealing the sickeningly sweet scent of something I've never smelled before at all.
It doesn't smell like regular chocolate to me, it smells really, really good actually. Without another word I place it inside my mouth, instantly it dissolves leaving a faint roar loud enough to only hear inside my head while I chew, causing me to panic a little.
"Muggle born? Or were you just raised in the Muggle world?" George's question also confuses me a little, I've never heard that term in my life. What the fuck is a Muggle?
The delicious caramel-like chocolate melts away and disappears inside my stomach. I just stare at him confused again, they both exchange another look; this time they nod their heads in unison.
"It's clear to us that you have no idea what's happening,-
at all.-
So, let us explain!" They smile brightly, Niya turns her head towards the glass door; staring out of it for a long time whereas they completely have my attention.
"A Muggle is a non magical person, a Muggleborn is someone who grew up in the Muggle World, and a Mudblood, well, don't say that;-
it's offensive." In unison, once again. It's amazing how spot on these two are; I can't imagine them being apart for too long either. They're making a lot of sense, it's just the choice of words are a little, strange. I don't get why they just say a human or something like that. I'm used to Role Playing Games so this won't take any time getting used to; plus I always played a Mage online so, I'm assuming it's the same concept. But I could have sworn when I was little all of those spells I did were just figments of my imagination unless mom, altered the memories somehow.
"I see, is there anything else I should know?" I tend not to show my personality right away, you see; some people won't take kindly to it at all. Especially people who are strict and stuck up… Boy did I have funwith those people back in my old school. The pranks I pulled and all of the shit I got into. Not to mention all of the shit I got away with, especially one of the teachers who helped me covered my tracks; I hope he still has his job.
They both look at each other, almost as if they're mentally asking each other what else there is to remind me about since I'm new to all of this in general. My eyes catch a glimpse of the outside noticing a strange castle off into the distance; which looks to be about twenty or so minutes away from where we are right now. The castle looks massive to me; despite how far away we are. I can also make out a rocky cliff that overlooks an ocean; I think. I won't know until we get there for sure; but if I were harboring illegal magic activities I'd definitely do it in a castle so I'm assuming that's the place.
"We'll leave the rest as a surprise; now, for these." George smirks once again, opening one of the wrappers and instantly colored sparks go whizzing around the closed cabin. Niya ducks under the table, terrified at what it is; me on the other hand, I can't keep my eyes off of the sparkling flames that sizzle and pop straight into the air after they're done flying around for a minute or so.
"A charmed firecracker, surely the Muggle World has firecrackers." Fred proudly states what exactly the little sparks are, George grins again while he opens another; this time it's blue sparks that sizzles around and pops right in front of my face; leaving a nice scent of burning embers behind.
I was a weird child growing up, I loved the scent of anything burning. Mind you I never tried to burn down a house or anything; unintentionally of course. I'm sure I had a few close encounters if all of those 'dreams' I so called had of me breathing fire or shooting fire from a 'broken twig' actually happened then yes; several occasions where I accidentally almost burnt our house down. Other than that I was never really a thrill seeker for flames; it was more or so around a small camp fire we had in our backyard. The scent just makes me happy on the inside, it's like my comfort food; except it's not edible.
"Yeah we have a ton of those; but they never go the way you want them to, these ones seem to know exactly where to go." I stare at them amazed by the magic affects, even though it's simple I still like it, I'm not used to it and something tells me there's far more where that all came from too.
George laughs a tiny bit; his hand cradles the remaining fireworks as he scoops them back up and stuffs them inside his other pocket while Fred smirks a tiny bit as well.
"Hence the charmed part, Nala. You have a lot to learn my friend, a lot to learn." He leans back on the bench, stretching his arms behind his head and resting it on his arms. George learns forward a little, gazing out of the glass door as if he's waiting for someone with a suddenly quiet expression and an alert sense of hearing.
"Not to worry, we'll take you under our wing; after all we need another victim." Fred winks at me jokingly; and so far I'm loving their sense of humor. It reminds me of mine and a couple of my old friends, except in a more magical, kind of way.
"Ha ha very funny, going to turn me into one of your test subjects, huh?" I sneer playfully, catching Fred off guard before he smirks once more.
"You already tried two of our products!" Fred chimes in, his eyes smile while they gaze into mine with a friendly invitation. I can tell the three of us are going to get along just fine indeed. I smile. I actually smile, none of the fake bullshit smiles I've been passing off throughout this entire conversation ever since I witnessed what I did. It's a genuine, actual smile… And well, he got me there too, that's for sure.
Without a warning, that same blonde boy who Niya practically leaped into the same cabin as him shows up against our glass door. His icy blue eyes pierce my emerald ones with a dark chill while his face is plastered with an angry snarl. He casually then walks by as if nothing ever happened and returns back to his seat, leaving me even more confused than I already am right now.
"And that my friend,
was Draco Malfoy; the spoiled brat." They sound a little irritated just mentioning his name, he must be someone not to bother with if they have this much of an impact on the twins. They both glance up at me, not surprised that I yet again, have another confused look openly on display once again.
"His father works for the Ministry of Magic- err, a big fancy place underground where magical punishments happen for breaking the law, and, I guess it's like a, government…? As the Muggle world calls it." Fred practically left George hanging a little bit on that sentence, instead of helping him finish them like he usually does. I don't blame him, government wasn't really my piece of cake in my old school so I guess it's a good thing that there isn't really mandatory classes here on it.
The castle edges closer and closer into view; only then do I realize how massive it is compared to the rest of the area it's nestled on. The jagged cliff looks like a tiny platform just for the ancient Scottish looking piece of art, not to mention it was roughly mid morning when I arrived at the London station; and it's now settling in around the late afternoon. I guess time really was going by fast. The sun sets beautifully across the water and illuminating the castle's massive size once again. It must be hard concealing such a thing in plain sight.
"I guess we arrived, see you soon,-
sooner than you think, too." The twins smile briefly once more in my direction, standing up and nodding briefly at each other before waving and walking out of the cabin and down the small corridor. Is there even a day that goes by when those two aren't happy, I really like their personalities… Hopefully I'm not too far away from them; they look about my age considering the rest of the people I've glimpsed at on this train.
The huge engine comes to a halt at the makeshift station; my eyes immediately drift to look outside of the window. There's a wooden train platform next to the mighty ocean, along with a visibly long river-like gap between the platform and the rocky steps towards the castle. I can make out a handful of people standing by the platform who look a little too old to be students; a verytall man with a shaggy, curly brown beard holding a torch and having a bloodhound by his side, a fairly aged woman wearing a green pointy hat with a matching robe and a stern expression on her face standing alongside an older man with a long grey beard and a white and blue robe, not to mention a younger man with jet black hair and a matching robe, and a greasy scowl plastered across his face with no intention of being delightful whatsoever. Yeah, it's going to be a funyear; wonderful.