Darkening skies stretched out over head, turning from the light, bright blue to an inky navy, until they were wrapped in darkness beyond the safe confines of train, where wall mounted lights had come to life of their own accord some hours previous. No one else questioned how the old fashioned lamps came into life themselves, but Lily had watched with fascination as the little flame flickered to life with no obvious fuel and begin to glow bright until there was eventually enough light in the compartment. They'd all changed into their school uniforms as well, disappearing in turn into a small toilet not far from their compartment. Lily had felt almost out of place amongst this group that so clearly knew more than she did, they were all so sure of themselves, while uncertainty ate away at her.
The train begun to slow, until eventually it came to a complete stop beside what looked to be a completely normal rural train station, made mostly of golden coloured stone. There were more large lamps flickering the station into light, not unlike the ones that currently shone in the compartments. The ones on the station illuminated the single person who stood on the station platform, only he wasn't like any other person she had ever seen. He was truly massive, the size easily of three men shoulder to shoulder and surely double the height. He was outlined by a halo of fluff, which as he moved she realised was in fact a mass of hair and a large furry coat. He was quite simply the furriest man she had ever laid eyes on.
Suddenly hundreds of students descended from the train, down onto the platform and moved alongside each other, Lily tore herself from the window and followed the people she had shared a compartment with, out into the chill of the early September night.
"Fir'st years!" The huge man bellowed over the heads of the wandering students. "Fir'st years Folla' me!" a trail of small students followed the beast of man with small beady eyes in a different direction to the other students who all seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going. Looking uncertain, Lily looked to Lainey for confirmation of some sort, the blonde girl just grinned at her and tilted her head in the direction the large man led them. They were a short walk along a tree lined path, before pausing at a small wooden dock, a line of boats awaiting them.
"Take yer sea's an' they'll take yer to th' castle" The huge man told them, and somehow, Lily found herself sitting in one of the small boats beside James, opposite Taliah.
In the darkness, the seemingly endless lake was stunning, as the half-moon reflected off each ripple in the water, looking like someone had scattered silvery glitter everywhere. Looking at the deep water at the small boat edge, Lily saw the reflection of her bright red hair beneath her, until it suddenly flicked out, and she realised she was not looking at her flection at all, but a creature down below the surface. Sitting straight up and looking ahead was then how she first saw Hogwarts. There was a moment of gratefulness towards the creature that had scared her into looking ahead of her, because what she saw was awe-inspiring.
Standing above them, was a building unlike any other she had ever seen. It wasn't just any other building, it was a castle, she'd seen pictures of them in fairy-tale books – but this was unlike any of them. They all tell of magical tales, but they were just stories, in that moment seeing the looming castle there was true magic, radiating from every line, every crack, every brick. With windows that flickered golden light, tall towers that seemed to stretch endlessly towards the moon that hovered above it, gracing it with gorgeous silvery light. It was purely magical.
"Are you ok?" James' voice sounded beside her, forcing her to tear her eyes from the majestic castle that stood before them, that they were getting ever closer to. "You look like you might cry… It's not scary… Not really, you don't need to be worried or anything."
"I'm not upset," Lily told him, her voice crackling, she realised for the first time that there were tears in her eyes. "It's beautiful… I don't think I expected this."
"I guess that makes sense, I've always known Hogwarts…" James paused a rummaged through his pockets, producing a clean but scrunched white tissue to the redhead. "My mum… She worries." He said with a slight shrug, explaining away the tissues as Lily wiped at her eyes with it, giving the boy a grateful smile. "You're a muggle, so that don't really explain it all to you, but it won't always be like this."
'Like this', did he mean completely overwhelming? Lily opened her mouth to ask, but the slight jolt of the bolt coming to a stop at the little dock distracted her, and instead she found herself clambering from the boat, aided by James, onto the shoreline. They travelled together as a large group of nervous eleven year olds towards the large castle, led by the giant of a man up a long fight of stone steps, lines by massive iron wrought lamps. And then, they were walking into large stone room, the entrance to the castle.
Bumping into the person before her, as they came to a sudden stop, Lily mumbled her apologies, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks as she did so. It was so easy to become distracted, she very nearly missed the arrival of a single woman, dressed completely in a green tartan, with a large black witch's hat atop her head, and a pair of square glasses on her nose. She could have easily been quite intimidating, if Lily hadn't already met her, over the summer to be told she was in fact a witch. There had been a softness about her when she had explained it all to the confused and yet not entirely surprised Evans Family. Now she was looking slightly more forbidding with pursed lips as green eyes swept over nervous looking faces, though as the two pair of green eyes met, Lily was sure she saw a slight twitch of the woman's lips, upwards in the shadow of a smile.
"I am Professor McGonagall," The woman started. "And I am here to lead you into the sorting ceremony, in which you will be sorted into your house. The house you are sorted into will become your home in your time here at Hogwarts, your fellow housemates, your family." She eyed each individual before her, and Lily knew she was measuring them up, what they were, who they might be… "I will be back in a moment to lead your through."
A moment felt like a lifetime, before the doors before them were thrown open, revealing to the group of students a massive hall, wooden supports held up a ceiling that was hidden behind what appeared to be the nights sky, perhaps the wooden supports held up nothing at all, Lily reasoned to herself as she looked around the room. There were two rows of table either side of them, holding hundreds of students each, the tables were decorated in different colours, silver and green, yellow and black, blue and bronze and finally gold and red. The students as these tables wore colours of the decorations, ties in the coordinating colours.
Before them was a long table with adults sitting along it, they watched with interest as the group of students Lily walked among neared the table, in front of which stood a lone small stool, an old looking hat sat atop it. Professor McGonagall appeared beside the stool, a large piece of rolled up parchment in her hands, she eyed them all once again, assessing them constantly.
"When I call your name, please come forward and take a seat on this stool, I will place the hat on your head and you will be sorted." Lily pondered what Professor McGonagall had just told them, the hat would be placed on their head and they would be sorted. Logically she couldn't think of a single way an old, battered looking hat could in any way have any effect upon what house they were placed in – what other reason would it be a part of a sorting ceremony?
"Aubrey, Giovanna," A girl with a high ballerinas bun made of silky black tresses, stepped forward, and took the first seat on the chair, she was a girl with darkish olive skin and s small stature, but she didn't look nearly as worried as Lily felt in that moment. Instead the redhead watched with amazement as the hat touched the girls head and seemingly came to life. The creases and patches seemed to come into a life of their own, creating features like any other face.
"Ah, Aubrey… Hmmm…" The hat was speaking, with a deep male voice, and Lily was now certain of her own terror. "RAVENCLAW!"
Cheers erupted from the table decorated in blue and bronze as Giovanna hoped from the stool and ran towards it, she seemed delighted by the section, a wide smile on her face as she rushed forward.
However, for Lily the rest of the ceremony passed her by in a blur, it was not until she felt someone poke he in the side that she was ripped from her own traumatising fear, to turned to look at James who was beside her, pointing towards the stool, Lily turned her attention back to that unimposing stool and Professor McGonagall who stood beside it, looking right at her. With no other option, Lily squared her shoulder, held her head high and moved towards the stool, taking a deep breath she sat down upon it and felt the weight of the hat touch down on her head.
"You're scared…" The voice said inside her head, it made her jump slightly, but she steeled herself. "How curious it is how you muggles survive the change." Lily bit her tongue, it wasn't really curious that she 'survived' the change, she'd always known that she was a little bit different, that things were always a little odd when she was around. This was really a necessity, not only for her, but for her family. As Professor McGonagall had explained, she needed to be properly trained – true, she was fascinated, but that wasn't all it was. She had to make the change, fearful of revealing anything bizarre about her and her family to the wider public – she wasn't ashamed, her parents had been accepting, her older sister not so much so, but she had to keep them safe, an untrained adult with magic was apparently unheard of, according to McGonagall. "You're a kind and loving young girl, you'd do anything for those that you love… But it's not just a kindness, it's a bravery…. A willingness to make sacrifices, to face your fears…" There was a pause inside her head, she wanted to say something, anything, but words had failed her. "Gryffindor!"
In truth, there was a little bit of guilt settling in her stomach as she took her seat at the Gryffindor table, so lavishly decorated in gold and red. In her moments of panic, she had completely missed the sorting of her peers, of those that Professor McGonagall had said would become her family. At the table she found Sirius, sat there with the most arrogant smirk across his face that she had ever seen.
"You're a Gryffindor then," Sirius remarked as she took the empty seat beside him. Lily nodded her head, looking towards the sorting ceremony wondering what was yet to come. For a reason she couldn't quite place, it felt somewhat intrusive to her to watch people being sorted, though most of the others in the room had their eyes riveted to the scene. Perhaps it was due to how personal it had felt when the hats voice had sounded in her head and read her like a book, deciding for her where she belonged, based on traits that it could seemingly see in her – ones she was not entirely sure existed in herself.
Instead, Lily turned her face back down her table, realising for the first time that it was not just her and Sirius who had taken a seat at the Gryffindor as a new student. There was a girl, a blonde little girl, well, she was actually quite tall, lanky, with a mass of blonde hair pulled into a ballerina bun atop her head. She had a pixie like face, all pointed features and high cheek bones, this was all finished with the biggest blue eyes Lily had ever seen, they were the colour of the sky on a bright day. For a moment Lily wondered how she hadn't ever seen this girl before, when bright blue orbs met her own emerald eyes.
"Hi!" The girl chirped, a smile spreading across her face as she looked at Lily, clearly she had felt Lily's stare. "I'm Bec – Rebecca, Rebecca Alton!"
"Hello," Lily responded, with much less enthusiasm then shown by the blonde girl. "I'm Lily Evans."
"And I'm Sirius Black," Sirius cut in, clearly displeased at having been left out of this clearly enthralling conversation in the first place, although it hadn't been as if he'd been talking to Bec when Lily had first arrived at the table. "We're just waiting on James now, he's a dead cert to get in Gryffindor – wonder who the rest of them will be."
They didn't have to wait long before their peers around them broke into a loud chorus of cheers as another name was called out as a Gryffindor, relief flooded Lily when she recognised Taliahs exotic features coming to sit opposite her, beside the girl named Bec. Her eyes, which were naturally nearly black in colour they were so dark, suddenly seemed alight as she took her seat, a wide smile across her face as she looked around her.
"Well Black," Taliah commented as she looked towards Sirius. "Looks like you officially made it into Gryffindor – the first Black to do so… How upset will your parents be?"
With a smirk across his face, Sirius lent to his right side, his eyes scanning across the crowd, before he paused, the smirk only growing bigger as he found what he was looking for.
"Looks like good ol' Lucie is already glaring at Cissa… I imagine a letter will be sent home tonight, probably receive a howler first thing tomorrow morning," Sirius replied, seemingly amused by the prospect – though Lily had no idea what a Howler might be, though it sounded far from pleasant, perhaps they sent wolves of some sort to punish people? Though really, she couldn't see the issue with being the first in a family to be in a certain house – they were all here for the same reason.
Only a couple of minutes after Taliah had arrived at their table, another joined them, a young boy, he was pale and small looking, with eyes the colour of amber. He looked at Lily with a small smile, before taking the seat beside her.
"Hello," Lily said to him quietly, the boy looked at her, a small smile of his own and nodded his head at her, recognition of her greeting, though he didn't look overly forthcoming, which Lily understood, she didn't feel very forthcoming herself, but heaving up all the courage she had inside her she managed to try. "I'm Lily, and you are?"
"Remus," The boy responded, timidly raising his eyes to meet Lilys, looking more relaxed as he saw the kindness in her emerald eyes. She smiled at him, nodding, uncertain what more to say as Sirius begun to bicker with Taliah over something, and the ceremony continued.
Truthfully it couldn't have taken very long, but it seemed as if it took forever. Perhaps that was just the nerves that Lily felt as she sat there at the table, wringing her hands under the dark wood and hoping people didn't see her fear. It was all so new, with so many people who seemed to know so much more than she did. It was overwhelming, she struggled against the bubbling urge to clamp her hands over her ears and snap her eyes shut, wishing all the intrusion into her once quiet life away. But she wouldn't of course, she was too stubborn, she had made the decision to come, from a mix of concern, curiosity and excitement. His had been an adventure she couldn't resist, and now, she wouldn't let the assault on her senses force her to turn her back on it, not that she was already this far in.
"Welcome!" The voice that broke her from her own thoughts, was strong and aged at the same time, with the croakiness that her grandfathers held, but a power that made her shiver. It snapped her attention towards the man who stood where the stool had been for the ceremony, and Lily realised to her embarrassment she had missed the rest of it. "I wish to keep you for only a few short moment, to welcome our newest students, please ensure you make them feel welcomes, and alas, I feel I have used my short moment, let the feast commence!"
With those words the table before Lily seemed to suddenly grow, only it hadn't grown, but a number of items had appeared atop it. Items was the wrong word, it was a mass of food, almost anything that the redhead could think of or imagine appeared along the length of the table.
"YEAH!" Sirius whooped, before diving straight into a large platter of meats, Lily watched him for a moment, before laughter bubbled from her lips and she met Taliahs eyes, before grasping her fork in hand and stabbing a large sausage, she placed it on her plate and looked at it, before cutting it open and tentatively taking a small bite – it was simply delicious, like the expensive sausages her mother used to buy for their birthday breakfast back home. "Lily, you've got to be kidding – you can't just eat one sausage!" Sirius grunted out between mouthfuls of something that was now indistinguishable. Lily nodded, spooning onto her plate a large portion of roasted potatoes and gravy and a selection of meats. "This, Lily Evans, is the good life."
Stomach full to bursting, Lily followed what she had been informed was a prefect through the corridors, the prefect was a tall girl called Bronte with chestnut hair, she spoke with a strong irish accent.
"Make sure you leave good time to get to your classes, the staircases can be temperamental, and the professor won't accept that as an excuse for being late to their lessons," Bronte commented as the group followed her up the large stone staircases. "And they like to change."
Lily wondered what this meant, when she witnessed before her eyes the stone leaving the wall and sliding towards them, Lily hadn't realised the level before her simply dropped off to the floor three levels before, but as she arched her neck to look she realised that she'd have to pay a bit more attention. Feeling slightly uncertain she pushed her foot against the stone, the steps were definitely solid, that much she was certain of. Eventually they paused before a large portrait, inside it was a woman, she was a heavy set woman, wearing elaborate robes, with brown hair pulled into a loose updo and more makeup then Lily had ever seen anyone wear.
"Evening ma'am," Bronte addressed the portrait of the woman, before turning back to the group of first years that Lily stood among. "This is the portrait of the Fat Lady, when you want to get into the common room, tell her the password, which will be supplied to you tomorrow and she will let you enter, but be aware, she'll give you a right telling off if you try and return after hours."
"As so students after hours deserve!" The woman in the portrait stated in a clipped tone. Lily knew better then to jump though, she'd noticed the portraits moving – not as in the whole frame, but the people within them! It was a bizarre thing for her to witness, but everyone else seemed quite at ease with it. Or like her, pretended to be.
"And now, to your rooms," Bronte said, ignoring the portrait and leading the group in a hole that appeared in the wall when the portrait swung open. The room that was revealed to them was simply everything that a living space should be, Lily couldn't help but smile to herself, it was a warm and welcoming room, with small groups of students already sat around, catching up from what must have seemed to them a long summer apart. "The girls' dorm is upstairs to my right, the boys' to the left, Girls I'll take you to your now. Fabian will take the boys to theirs."
There's always that awkward moment when you first meet someone, but when you're simply shut into a small dorm with five beds in it and told to 'get to know each other'.
She was relieved to recognise Lainey, Taliah and Bec, but there was also another girl. She was small and waif like, with long dark hair and small, pointed unimposing features, she had skin the colour of russet with golden tones.
"Hey you're Shacklebolt, aren't you?" Lainey asked the girl as they each stood before their own beds.
"Yeah, Cam Shacklebolt," The girl replied, a clear London accent in her voice. "And you'd be Ada-"
"Lainey, everyone calls me Lainey."
"-Lainey O'Hare, you're the quidditch players daughter, aren't you?" Cam asked, eyeing Lainey curiously.
"The one and only!" Lainey replied brightly. "And you're now stuck with me for at least the next seven years."