a/n Hello, friends! This one is a bit longer than the last chapter. I would love to hear your feedback! Do you guys have a preference for longer or shorter chapters? Do you care? Also, any comments/advice concerning this chapter and/or the story as a whole is so greatly appreciated! Reviews keep me motivated! :) I hope you enjoy chapter 2! I promise the adventure aspect will eventually kick in (I so far have up to Year Three planned).

Disclaimer: I'm not cool enough to own this stuff.

Jessie felt stupid. Not only was she the only person on the whole platform to show up all by herself, but she was the only one not in wizarding robes (except for a few scattered adults standing awkwardly with their magic children and staring in awe at the sea of black fabric). And just to add bitter icing to her overcooked cake of embarrassment, Jessica Seek had thrown on a bright poca-dot shirt and sunshine yellow leggings. She glanced behind her at the solid brick wall and wondered if it was too late to disappear back through it, run after Charles, and beg him to take her home. At the very least, maybe she could sink into the brick and become the magic entryway that young witches and wizards used every September 1st and she could watch them come and go and learn and fall in love and make mistakes and no one would ever know that Jessica Seek had ever even existed.

"Do you need help with your trunk?"

Jessie jumped at the sudden voice invading her thought process and turned to the newcomer. It was a girl. She hadn't yet grown into the length of her slender limbs or the bright green eyes that blinked out at her from behind a curtain of fiery red bangs. She smiled crookedly and gestured again to Jessie's trolley.

"My dad can lift it up," she offered.

Giving the girl a shy smile and praying that she would say or do just the right thing to make a friend, Jessie replied, "Yes, please. That would be great!"

Promptly, the girl turned on her heels and yelled over the commotion of mothers and fathers crying over their children, "DAD! COME HELP ME PLEASE!" A tall, dark haired man answered her almost immediately. He strode over, trying to look strict but very obviously amused by his daughter's rowdiness.

"Lily Flower," he scolded gently, "you have feet. Use them."

The girl—Lily—smiled sweetly and pointed at Jessie without seeming to notice the other girl's uncomfortable shyness. "This is—uh, sorry. What's your name?"

"Jessica." The name came out barely more than a whisper but Lily heard it anyway.

"Jessica. This is Jessica. She needs help with her trolley."

The man immediately, as if on instinct, looked around the nearby vicinity. Jess knew he was looking for a parent or, at the very least, a guardian. She also knew he wouldn't find one. A brief flare of choking anger burned and bubbled in her chest. He should have come. Her dad should have wanted to see her off. But just as quickly she dismissed the fire. It wouldn't change anything except her happy excitement to leave for Hogwarts.

Lily's father pushed his round spectacles up the bridge of his nose and smiled down at Jessie. There was something warm and understanding in the gentleness of his expression—as if he knew exactly what it was like to be abandoned at King's Cross Station. "I'll be glad to help," he told her and lifted the trunk with practiced ease. He disappeared into the train, supposedly to put it with everyone else's baggage.

"I'm Lily, by the way. Lily Potter." She said it as if she had resigned herself to some grand reaction to the revelation, as if Jessie should have known her.

Who knows, Jessie reflected, maybe if she had been raised in the Wizarding World, she would have recognized the name. Maybe Lily Potter was a child witch actress or model for magic potions and some such. Nevertheless, Jessie added her ignorance of Lily Potter's place in the world to her growing list of reasons she didn't belong there and embarrassing lapses of understanding.

"Nice to meet you," Jessie said instead, smiling her best I-Promise-I'm-Not-Stupid smile.

Lily's face fell into one of astonishment and delight. Her eyes jumped to Jessica's clothing and Jessie shrank under her piercing gaze. "You're Muggleborn!" Lily exclaimed, half-dancing in her excitement, as if she could think of nothing better.

Jessie nodded miserably and pulled her sweater sleeves over her hands. Muggleborn. Professor McGonagall had told her that magic children were born to non-magic parents all the time and that it by no means made then lesser, weaker, or unwelcome. But if that were true, Jessie would have known to dress in her school robes. She would have known exactly which films or advertisements Lily Potter had been in. Maybe she would have successfully gotten her wand to work all those times she mumbled quiet, frantic words to it in the dead of night.

But then Lily Potter—this random, strange girl—was hugging her and saying, "Oh, God bless you! You have no idea who I am! This is wonderful!" Despite the other girl's lankiness, her grip was crushing and she was somehow able to steer Jessie's nearly-limp body into an odd little happy dance.

"Uhm sorry," Jessie asked against the other girl's shoulder, "but why is this wonderful?"

Lily let her go at once and, smiling at Jessie like she was sunshine after a whole lot of rain, she said, "Oh, don't you worry about it. You and I are gonna be very good friends for a very long time."

"We are?" Jessica said in a daze.

Lily rolled her eyes and half-scoffed, half-laughed at Jessie's ignorant confusion. "Duh."

At that moment, Lily's father rejoined the girls. He brushed his hair away from his face absently, and Jessie caught sight of a faded, jagged scar slicing across the center of his forehead, almost as if he had been cut open and roughly sewn back together. It was like lightning, brief in its visibility but terribly obvious in its existence.

"Lily," he said, "come say goodbye to your mother. Al and James are already on board."

Jessie watched silently as her companion's face flushed with queasy readiness and her eyes locked on a freckle-faced woman standing with a bushy haired lady and a man that might have been Lily's uncle. As if something in her soul was instinctually tied to Jessica, Lily grabbed the Muggleborn's hand and said, "Will you come too?"

Jess squirmed uncomfortably and looked slowly between Lily's family. The sympathetic man who seemed to understand her situation without her ever having to say a word, the laughing woman leaning against her bushy friend while they simultaneously hit her indignant brother. They all seemed so in synch, so connected, so unified by their familial bonds. Subconsciously, Jess scanned the thinning crowd, watched the students climb aboard and wave to their reluctantly departing families, and felt a deep internal ache-like a cavity-for her father, her mother . . . her Jane.

"Please."

Jessica was mercifully pulled from that line of thought by Lily's soft words and nodded minutely. Smiling a little sadly, Lily lead them to her waiting mother. Immediately, Mrs. Potter threw her arms around the child, lifting her up as if she were much younger than she was and held her in a tight, motherly grasp while tears fell unchecked down her spotted cheeks, into her daughter's hair. Lily held on as if she were desperate to memorize the feel of her mother's hug and Jess felt that old familiar cavity, screaming and crying and resisting reality with every ounce of strength.

As the train screamed a warning, Lily pulled herself away, kissed her mum's cheek, and jumped to reach her dad's neck. Mr. Potter closed his eyes, furrowed his eyebrows, and fought against the salty liquid threatening to retreat down the length of his face. He let Lily go reluctantly, as if it took every bit of will power, as if whatever had given him that peculiar scar was not nearly so painful as letting his children grow up without his daily presence.

"Bye, Mum, Dad. Bye, Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron," Lily said, swiping a little angrily at her eyes and blushing with sudden embarrassment.

Her family responded in kind as Lily and Jessica hurried to climb the short metal stairs admitting them passage onto the train. The second they were safely inside, the metal beast lurched forward, exhaled a puff of smoke, and increasingly sped down the tracks. Lily glanced out the window as they lost sight of the platform and caught one last fleeting glimpse of her father's hand, still held stiffly in the air, one final goodbye.

Jessica stared too and felt something inside of her lift, twirl, delight in her severance from the world she had known. She was on her way. Whatever trouble she dealt with at home, whatever misfortune, whatever loss no longer mattered. She was going to become a witch. A real life magic-bearer. She was speeding toward her new, uncertain life at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and felt comforted that it had to, at least, be better than everything she left behind.

"Let's go find a compartment," Lily suggested, suddenly cheery eyed and bouncing with excited butterflies. She skipped down the aisle, glancing in the rooms as she passed, and Jess couldn't help but follow in the same manner. They laughed and danced their way through the Hogwarts Express, listening to music only they heard, and every so often belting a random, unexplained lyrical sentence ("If sparrows can fly so CAN I-I-I-I! Yeah!).

Lily finally stopped before a compartment door and motioned for Jess to join her. Inside, a strawberry blonde girl sat, staring idly out the window. The green and flowery scenery reflected in her gray eyes. The inanimate fields seemed to fly through her with the intensity of human emotion. She smiled softly and fiddled absently with her uniform tie (which reminded Jess that she desperately needed to change).

Without a word passing between them, Jessica Seek and Lily Potter knew that this was their compartment, that this was their friend. As they slid the door open and stepped inside, Jess was filled with a sense of rightness, like coming home after a long day at school. She looked at Lily and the girl (who hadn't yet acknowledged their presence) and felt sure that, if soul mates existed, these two new friends were hers.

Lily helped herself to the seat directly across from the girl and Jessica shyly joined her side. Still, the girl did not falter, look up, or otherwise express any sign of recognition in her sudden company. Jess shared a look with Lily and shrugged helplessly. Maybe she had been wrong, maybe the girl didn't want any friends, maybe she had only imagined their instant connection to one another.

"Hello?" Lily said uncertainly. The girl didn't move. Frustrated, Lily waved her hand rapidly in front of the stranger's face. "I said 'HELLO!'" With a sudden intake of breath, the girl startled-as if she had truly been ignorant to their presence-and stared at the two girls, wide eyed and blinking.

"What are you?" Lily snapped. "Deaf?"

A smile teased the corners of the girl's mouth and she quickly reached into the bag resting at her feet. From within, she extracted a Muggle whiteboard on which she scribbled the following response: 'Actually, yes.'

The color drained from Lily's face as she realized the bluntness of her question, but the girl waved her off good naturedly. 'It's okay,' she wrote. 'Sorry for the confusion.'

"No, we're sorry for our assertiveness," Jess jumped in quickly. "I'm Jessica Seek and this is Lily Potter."

At the sound of the former girl's name, their new acquaintance dropped her jaw and stared blankly at the red head for a second too long before she seemed to push away her surprise. 'I'm Elizabeth Wright. You can call me Elly or Elle or Ella or Lizzie or Liz. I will literally answer to anything.'

Laughing, Jess, Lily, and Elizabeth settled in for the remainder of their trip to Hogwarts. Their discussion was filled with magic and wonder and impossible realities and as Jessie looked around their compartment, she felt-maybe for the first time since the funeral-truly happy to be alive.

Augustine stood on Platform 9 3/4 and pretended not to care as his mum said her tearful goodbyes to him and his brothers. He listened to her prattle on about how it was her Ian's last year and Thomas would be next and Oliver was actually old enough to take Hogsmeade visits and now she was sending away her baby too.

Ian smiled down at her with patient fondness and kissed her cheek. "Christmas will be here before you know it, Mum," he assured her warmly. "And we'll make sure Auggie doesn't get in too much trouble until then."

Oliver rolled his eyes at their eldest brother. "Speak for yourself," he grumbled, his overly large nose stuck high in the air. "I'm not a babysitter."

"Mind your mother," Dad snapped irritably. September 1st always put Father in a bad mood (probably because Mum dragged him out of bed and forced him to accompany them to the station).

"Mum, I just saw Travis!" Thomas pointed to the other Fifth Year student and asked, in his too-loud voice, if he could go. This, of course, set Mum into a new fit of salty crocodile tears, but she pulled her son in for one last goodbye and excused him anyway.

"Me as well," Oliver said and disappeared into the train before she could cause a scene at his departure too. He was, after all, thirteen now. He couldn't just let his mum hug him in front of everybody. Augustine rolled his eyes at the stupidity of his brothers and glanced away, uninterested, as Mum and Dad spoke to Ian about something or another.

And then he saw her. She was all alone, standing awkward and afraid, next to the magic entrance connecting their world to that of the Muggles. Instead of generic black school robes, she was in an oddly colored Muggle outfit that was just bright enough to hurt his head. With shaking fingers, she pushed a lock of curly brunet hair away from her tanned face and stared with vivid longing at the brick directly behind her.

August had always been of the opinion that girls were pretty much useless. He was faster than them, he was stronger than them, and he was funnier than them. All the little girls that came around his house during one of his parents' many parties, wore fluffy dresses and stupid braids and they didn't even like Quidditch. All they wanted to do was sit about and talk. It was gross. He just didn't see a point in them.

And yet. . . he felt himself turn toward the girl and take a step, and another, and ano-

Lily Potter ruined everything. Or maybe saved him. He wasn't sure which. But she seemed to have noticed the lonely First Year at the exact same moment August had, because she stepped in front of her and loudly offered her father's help in lifting her trunk. The other girl's face melted into a pool of relieved anxiety as she smiled politely.

"Auggie."

He turned toward his name to find his mother staring at him with her wide watery eyes. Ian was gone-probably to find that girl from Diagon Alley-and his dad stared at the Hogwarts Express with distant yearning. Their goodbye was too long and too short all at the same time. Augustine loved his mother and, despite his mature eleven years of life, he had never been very far from her or his dad. But he had dreamed of Hogwarts from his first remembrance and even as the little boy inside him resisted the necessity of leaving his mum behind, something else tugged, pulled, called him onward. And he followed it with diligent determination.

He didn't watch his parents until the train turned a corner and they were lost to him. He was really too old for such childish sentiment. Walking purposely down the aisle, he ignored the nervous turning of his stomach and the unsteady beat of his heart. Quickly, he found an empty compartment and slipped inside the safety of his own solitude where he quietly relieved his pack (which his mum definitely hadn't packed for him) of his thick limited edition Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

The peace lasted approximately five minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

Enter David.

Davey Hopkins was the son of purebloods. As such, he and Augustine had been raised side-by-side in the same world. The Hopkins family was always invited to the Thornfield house parties, as Mrs. Hopkins and August's mum were friends from their Hogwarts days. This inevitably lead to the crossing of David's and Augustine's paths from infancy. However, their relationship (a word August would use quite loosely) was shallow at best and non-existent in honest reality. While his parents hosted and his brothers socialized or attempted to flirt with their girl classmates, August sought the first possible opportunity of escape and seized it. Thus, most evenings for him were spent in his room reading books or listening to music or politely asking his favorite House Elf, Ginger, to sneak him up some food and drink.

It wasn't really that he had anything against David and the other children who were dragged by their parents to the Thornfield's rather lame adult-centered social gathering. August just preferred his own company to that of anyone else. In those short moments before he could make his great escape from the party, he observed the other children and stockpiled information for potential later use. He knew, for example, that David was socially awkward, an avid reader (mostly of fiction), and that he spouted useless pieces of knowledge no body asked for when he didn't know what else to say.

So when Augustine's compartment door slid open to reveal the blond, slightly overweight Hopkins child, August was admittedly annoyed.

"Um," Davey coughed nervously. "Can I-er-Can I sit with you? There's really no where else..."

Narrowing his eyes and wondering if there was an insult hidden somewhere between those lines, Augustine gave a single curt nod and returned immediately back to his book. David shuffled forward, his robes ruffling together as he made his clumsy entrance and sat just across from Augustine.

"What're you reading?" David asked, leaning forward to catch a peak. "Ah, Newt Scamander. He was a Hufflepuff, y'know. Lots of people think he was a Gryff but that's not true. He also married an American woman from Ilvermorny. Bit of a strange bloke, really."

August glanced up from his reading and made eye contact with his parasite for just long enough to relay his message of Please-Leave-Me-Alone. David flushed and seemed to realize his own annoying habits.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "I'm just a bit nervous. How do you think we'll be Sorted? What House do you think you'll be in? I heard the castle is actually quite dangerous and I reckon it's true. I mean, look at Harry Potter. The guy's the bloody savior of the Wizarding World and he was attacked just about every year he attended school. I-right. Sorry."

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Augustine internally reminded himself that ambition meant next to nothing without a bit of self-control and slowly lowered his book. Clearly, he wasn't going to learn much more about Hippogriffs and Thestrals with David Hopkins sitting in his compartment.

"I don't know how we will be Sorted, but I'm a Slytherin and that's where I will be. As long as McGonagall is there, we'll be safe. She fought and survived both Wizarding Wars against intolerant bigotry."

David nodded eagerly and sat forward. "I think I'd like to be a Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. I'm not really the brave or cunning sort."

"Clearly." The word slipped out before Augustine was even aware that he had thought it. Feeling rather aghast at his own daring, August did the closest thing to an apology he could possibly manage. "What Houses were your parents in?"

David didn't seem put off by Augustine's rudeness and false interest in his family heritage. He smiled and shook his head, as if he thought the other boy to be ridiculous, and said, "My mum is a Gryffindor and my dad is a Ravenclaw."

August was saved from having to think of a response by the arrival of a lady pushing the candy trolley past their room. "Can I get you something, dears?" she said in a sickly sweet voice.

Augustine and David jumped to their feet in eager unison and laughed as they tripped and shoved each other out of the way in their impatience to satisfy sudden sweet cravings. When they returned to their seats, they were burdened with every kind of rot-your-teeth-out treat. They dumped their selections on the seats and before August really knew what had happened, they were sitting together, trading undesired pieces and laughing at ugly witches and wizards on their Chocolate Frog cards ("That's you," they told each other, fighting to find the least attractive faces in the sea of heroic Harry Potters and powerful Albus Dumbledores).

Nothing brought two kids together quite like sweets.