Looking Beyond: Chapter Two: First Meetings

Ron knew all about that had happened at the zoo; George had fallen behind to talk to a girl. But the real question was why? George –according to Fred, at least, who hardly ever left his twin's side– had never shown an interest in a female, ever, so it had to take something special for him to strike up conversation with a girl he didn't even know.

Ron resolved to find out more, seeking out the compartment that she had glared out of earlier.

Up close, she was very different than he expected.

An intricately carved cane rested beside her, but he didn't give it much thought –only later coming to realize that it was carved to subtly appear like a snake did–, focusing more on the girl.

Her hair was dark red and in loose waves, despite it being so short (barely passing her shoulders, he had to wager)with a strand spun with green and blue beads, oddly enough. Her eyes were a bright and dark green that were focused downwards on a leather-bound book on her lap, but her gaze lifted when he opened the door.

He wasn't sure what he expected, to be honest. She didn't seem much like the heroine she was glorified to be. She looked remarkably ordinary, except for the strange brace that rested on her leg.

"D-Do you mind if I join you?" he asked her a bit nervously. "All the other compartments are packed." And Ron didn't want to be the awkward one intruding on others' conversations just because he couldn't find a seat.

"I don't mind," she said, closing the book softly, "who else is going to sit here, anyways?"

Ron took this as an invitation, so he shut the door behind him and sat stiffly across from her.

"I'm Ron, Weasley," he said, hastily tacking on his last name, "by the way."

"I'm Hope," she said, electing not to add her surname, shifting a little uncomfortably, a movement that caused the fringe on her forehead to part slightly so that the lightning bolt scar was obvious.

Any further conversation was halted when the door opened once more and two identical heads popped in.

The one on the left winked at Hope who scowled in return, while the other one tried to hide his snorts. That would make Fred the one on the left and George the one the right.

"Hey Ron," Fred said, grinning widely, "listen, we're going down the middle of the train –Lee's got a giant tarantula down there."

Ron fought to not shiver at his words. Spiders…urgh…disgusting creatures. "Right," he said, his voice low and quiet, almost not heard.

Hope leaned her cheek against her fist, giving off the vaguest impression of boredom. She arched an eyebrow at Fred as if she was expecting something from him while George clapped his hands to his mouth so that he wouldn't explode into laughter.

Fred coughed nervously as he turned towards her. "Er…sorry for talking about you behind your back, Hope."

Hope accepted this apology with stride and Ron got the feeling that a lot of people talked about her behind her back.

"I had a whole pub trying to shake my hand when I went with Hagrid to get my school things," Hope said in a dry manner. "Believe me, my name is hardly something to be in awe of, and neither is my scar."

Fred and George bid them farewell and George spared the Potter a roguish wink that Ron could have sworn made her cheeks pink.

"Are they always like that?" Hope asked Ron after a moment, blinking a few times as she stared at the compartment door that they had closed after them.

"Generally," Ron groaned, "but much worse."

"Something to look forward to," Hope said with a laugh, and that laugh made her seem far more approachable than before.

The first question that sprang from his lips but that he held back was concerning You-Know-Who and her parents, that night in October in 1981, but he remembered how his mum was every year on the anniversary of his uncles Gideon and Fabian Prewett's deaths. Sometimes it was best not to ask about the dead.

"So…your whole family is magical?" Hope guessed before he could think up something else to ask.

"Er, I'm pretty sure," Ron said, screwing his face up in thought for a moment. "I think Mum's got a second cousin who's a…stock broker, I think it's called, but we never talk about him."

Hope arched an eyebrow. "Oh…" She floundered, searching for another topic when Ron took initiative.

"I heard you live with Muggles now," Ron said, looking at her in fascination. "What was that like?"

Hope rolled her eyes in aggravation. "Well, I lived in a cupboard for ten years, until the letters started coming and then they moved me to the second bedroom."

"A cupboard?" Ron was agape.

"Under the stairs," Hope clarified.

"Wait…letters?"

"Well, Vernon, my uncle (and that was using the word mildly), every time he saw the letters he would burn them, so…" Hope explained how her aunt's family had taken her and had tried to physically outrun the letters and how it didn't end very well for any of them, especially Dudley who had ended up with a pig's tail. By the end of her tale, Hope was feeling very glad that Ron had a light-hearted personality as he stifled his laughter into chuckles with great difficulty.

"Running away from letters?" he guffawed. "I wonder what they told people about their leaving so suddenly?"

"Who knows?" Hope asked with a shrug before turning the conversation towards him. "How many siblings do you have?"

"One younger sister and five older brothers," he told her, "Ginny's not old enough to come to Hogwarts yet, then there's me, then the twins, Fred and George, then Percy, Charlie, and Bill. Bill and Charlie are the only ones out of school, though." He scowled slightly. "I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill was Head Boy and Charlie was Captain of Quidditch. Now Percy's a Prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."

He showed her the rat, Scabbers, though it was quite fast asleep.

"I like old stuff," Hope told him, unconcerned by his lack of wealth, she hadn't even known that she had any money of her own until her birthday and it was still barely touched.

Ron stared at her. "You do?"

"Maybe I'm just weird," Hope considered briefly, "but I like things that my parents once had, like these." She lifted her hands to show him the two rings her fingers bore. One was so large that it had to be worn on the thumb until her fingers weren't quite as small, that one was set in gold bearing a black opal. The other rested on her ring finger like a silver snake twined around her finger with emerald eyes. "My dad left them for me."

"It must be strange that everyone knows you and your parents' names," he said instead, wanting to move away from how poor his family was.

"A bit, yeah," Hope had to admit, leaning down so that she could straighten her leg and Ron noticed how her brow creased slightly and her face contorted before smoothing out as she leaned back; he pretended not to have noticed.

"I was that girl that no one wanted to associate with," Hope told him, "Dudley, my cousin, was a menace to me for years with his gang of friends before he pushed me in front of a car and I got this." Hope tapped a finger to the black brace. "I was in the hospital for weeks…" Something flickered behind her eyes, but a second later it had gone and she released an embarrassed chuckle. "Sorry, that's kind of off track…" Ron didn't mind too much. "I don't much like being the centre of attention and all everyone's said to me is 'You look so much like your mother.'"

A scowl marred her lips as she said these words, but Ron couldn't figure out why.

Luckily, at this moment they were interrupted by the sudden arrival of the candy trolley and Hope caused a distraction by buying what appeared to be a little bit of everything (except for Drooble's Best Blowing Gum), including: Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, and Liquorice Wands.

Ron was more than happy to help her eat them, explaining what each sweet was, laughing as the two gagged their way through the Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

And Ron Weasley, who had been so worried that he wouldn't fit in or find a friend found one in Hope Potter who had feared much the same.

Hope and Ron were distracted from their good fun by a tear-faced boy with brown hair and eyes that Hope thought looked vaguely familiar.

"Sorry," he said after he opened the door following a polite knock, "but you haven't seen a toad, have you?"

"Sorry," Hope said as she and Ron shook their heads in unison.

"I've lost him!" the boy bemoaned, his voice rising to nearly a keen. "He keeps getting away from me!"

"I'm sure he isn't completely lost," Hope consoled the distraught boy. "I mean, there's only so far he could've gone."

"You're probably right," the boy said in a sombre tone, still upset over the loss of his pet. "Well, if you see him…" And then he left them on their own once more.

"Can't imagine why he'd want to keep it," Ron told Hope in an undertone as though being wary of the boy in case he was listening in. "If I'd brought a toad, I'd lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can't talk." He nodded to the rat that had still yet to show any signs of life from where it lay on Ron's lap. Hope thought it might be dead but that probably wasn't the best thing to say so she kept her mouth shut.

A second later it didn't matter.

"He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference," Ron said, glowering slightly at the rodent. "I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work."

"Pity," Hope said with a grin. "Want to give it another go?"

"Might as well," Ron said, struggling to pull his wand free from his trunk where he had stashed it in the overhead compartment with difficulty when he had first come in, dropping to the ground with a far more worn wand than Hope had ever seen in her life, but then he had said earlier that he had inherited his brother's wand, so that made a bit of sense.

"Unicorn hair's nearly poking out," he grumbled as he sat back down with the rat in one hand and the wand in the other. "Anyways—"

He raised his wand, preparing to incant the spell when they were interrupted the fourth time. Hope hid her sigh of annoyance.

It was the boy from before, obviously still without his toad if the despondent expression was any indicator. But he was not alone, he was with a girl, first year as well, Hope assumed from the standard Hogwarts tie that all first years wore until they were 'sorted' into the four Houses. Though, Hope had to wonder why she had changed so early.

She had a similar slight build to Hope's, though lacking the underfed impression, with brown bushy curls.

"Has anyone seen a toad?" she asked, or rather demanded. "Neville's lost one."

Hope took Neville to be the name of the boy.

"We've already told him we haven't seen it," Ron said in annoyance, but this did not deter her, her eyes fastening onto his wand with a manic gleam that Hope wasn't sure was a good thing.

"Oh, are you doing magic?" she asked, her tone of voice brimming with excitement. "Let's see it, then."

Hope blinked, slightly startled when the girl, being incredibly forward, sat herself on the cushion beside Hope to watch, and clearly Ron was similarly minded.

"Er–alright," he said a bit awkwardly, swallowing before opening his mouth:

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,

Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

With an incantation like that, Hope wasn't surprised that it didn't work when he waved his wand.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" the girl asked. "Well, it's not very good, is it?"

This was a bit of a rude assessment, Hope thought as Ron glanced towards her with an incredulous expression.

"I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me," she continued, seeming to not notice the looks that were being passed between the two. "Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard –I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough– I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

Hope wasn't sure she'd heard anyone talk so fast without breathing, which was probably why her words were said so fast, so that she could breathe afterwards.

"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron told her.

"Hope," Hope said, before reluctantly adding her surname when Hermione's gaze did not waver from hers. "Potter."

"Are you really?" Hermione was beaming at her now and Hope wasn't quite sure why. "I know all about you, of course –I got a few extra books. for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."

Hope blinked, startled by this information. "Really?" she said.

"Goodness, didn't you know?" Hermione asked. "I'd have found out everything I could if it was me." Hope was glad she'd only read one of the books Hermione had mentioned and it wasn't because she was in it.

"Do either of you know what House you'll be in?" Hermione continued. "I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad...Anyways, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."

She was barely out the door when Hope called out to them, making them pause.

"You might want to try the Prefects," Hope suggested, (she knew what a Prefect was and she assumed because they were older that they knew more spells), "maybe they know a spell that'll help you find your toad."

Hermione contemplated her for a moment as Neville went off in search of someone wearing a Prefect's badge.

"And I wouldn't believe everything you read," Hope added, making Hermione's lips twitch slightly before the red-head ducked her head back into the compartment, sliding the door shut and leaning back into her sear.

"Whatever House I'm in," Ron grumbled with a scowl on his face as he thrust the wand back in his trunk, sitting in a huff, "I hope she's not in it. Stupid spell –George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud."

"He does seem the type," Hope had to admit, having been subjected to several tales concerning Ron's prankster older twin brothers. "Do you know what House you'll be in?" Maybe it was different for those who had family for through the 'Sorting Ceremony' already.

"No idea," Ron told her, "you don't find out how they Sort you until you're in the Great Hall. I hope I'll be in Gryffindor, though."

"Why's that?" Hope asked.

"Well, the whole family's been in Gryffindor," Ron explained, biting the inside of his mouth. "Mum, Dad, all my brothers. I don't know what they'll say if I'm not. I don't suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin."

Ron didn't notice how her hand tightened into a fist at the mention of Slytherin.

"What'd be wrong with Slytherin?" Hope asked as casually as she could manage.

"That's the House that You-Know-Who came out of," Ron said, saying the title in a hushed voice, "they say there wasn't a witch or wizard that went bad that wasn't in Slytherin."

Hope twisted her serpent ring uncomfortably on her finger as she looked outside, the sky growing darker as time passed on.

"What do your brothers do?" Hope asked suddenly in interest, as though the thought had just occurred to her, which was very likely. She hadn't really considered what you did once you completed seven years of schooling at Hogwarts, she always figured you'd just be a witch or a wizard, depending on your gender.

"Well, Charlie's in Romania at a Dragon Reserve," Ron explained. "And Bill's in Africa working as a Curse-breaker for Gringotts."

"Ah," Hope said, though she didn't really understand, though this didn't particularly matter as Ron had jumped to another topic.

"Did you hear about Gringotts?" he asked her and she shook her head. "It's been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don't suppose you get that with the Muggles –someone tried to rob a high security vault."

That sounded like a very foolish thing to do in Hope's opinion. The only lock she tried to pick was the one that Vernon and Petunia had always put on her cupboard, bank robbing was something else entirely.

"How much trouble did they get in?" Hope asked.

"That's the funny thing," Ron said, his blue eyes sparking, "they didn't get caught! My dad says it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they don't think they took anything, that's what's odd. 'Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who's behind it."

Hope arched an eyebrow, wondering how people could still be afraid of someone that was dead, but that wasn't her business.

Ron was halfway through explaining the game of Quidditch –which involved seven players on each team, riding broomsticks, four very distinct balls, and two bats– when they were interrupted once more.

Hope was starting to find it grating every time the compartment door slid open, but she couldn't resist her mouth opening slightly in surprise at who stood beyond.

There were three boys, two appearing as though they were much too stocky for their short height, but the third, a pale boy with blonde hair and cold grey eyes, Hope recognized very well. They had run into each other in Madam Malkin's robe shop and he had sneered at her leg and cane, hardly trying to hide disdain towards her even when he had been questioning her about her parentage.

He looked her up and down as though he couldn't believe that Hope Potter was a cripple (however, this gave Hope the opportunity to jab at people she didn't like with her cane and could get away with it).

"Is it true?" he asked, his lip curling slightly as he looked over her and Hope found she didn't like the look at all. "They're saying all down the train that Hope Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"

"It must be," Hope said sarcastically, rolling her eyes with a bit more exaggeration than was necessary towards Ron who hid his sniggers. "Since I'm the only girl in the compartment."

His lips curled into an expression that was halfway between a sneer at her attitude and a smirk that he'd found out that she was indeed Hope Potter (though, it wasn't as though Hope was trying hard to hide this fact).

"This is Crabbe," the boy said gesturing first to the boy on his left and then his right, "and this is Goyle. And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."

Ron hid another laugh and Hope could understand why. This boy hardly came off as frightening as a dragon –as 'draco' did mean dragon– that he was named for was meant to be.

However, Ron's actions in turn caused Draco Malfoy to turn on him with deep loathing.

"Think my name's funny, do you?" he sneered. "No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

Ron's face and ears flamed a brilliant crimson and Hope felt angry on his behalf. Forget rude, this brat was crass with the intention to hurt. And then Draco Malfoy was focused on Hope once more and she schooled her expression carefully.

"You'll soon find out some Wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort," he said, his eyes flicking towards Ron. "I can help you there."

He held out a hand to Hope and it was only then that Hope glared.

"I'm actually sure that I won't have a problem with sorting out the good from the bad, especially when I'm looking at you," she told him coldly.

Malfoy was not impressed by her attitude, but, then again, very few were.

"I'd be careful if I were you, Potter," Malfoy warned. "Unless you're a bit politer you'll go the same way as your parents. They didn't know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it'll rub off on you."

Ron leapt to his feet in anger, but Hope did not.

"Ooh!" she said, grinning, "are you threatening me?"

"And if I was?" Malfoy retorted, though it was quite different threatening someone and having them be afraid than threatening someone and having them be humoured by the attempt.

"Well, who could really be afraid of you?" Hope asked, tilting her head slightly to the side as she pulled her cane free, shooting to forward so that it whacked against his head, sending him reeling out of the compartment before Scabbers caused a diversion by biting into Goyle's finger.

It sounded as though it was quite painful, and it took a good bit of effort before Scabbers' jaws released Goyle's finger, allowing all three boys to make a hasty getaway.

"Well," Hope said after a moment, "that was exciting."

Laughter bloomed from Ron's lips at her words.