As the train sped along Mauve discovered she found a misfit group of people. She had already known that Hogwarts was split into four houses and she assumed, as with any school that is split among the students, that there was a certain level of tension between the houses. She was correct in her assumption, but it seemed she had found one of the few exceptions.
Jeremiah was in Ravenclaw, April was in Hufflepuff and, most surprising of all, Kara was in Slytherin. From what Mauve had read from 'Hogwarts, A History' students from different houses rarely became friends. The worst of all for this fact would be the house of Slytherin, yet this group of friends fit together so well you would never assume they were from different houses.
When Mauve asked about this fact April simply said "it just works" and that was the end of that topic.
For the entire train ride the next compartment over was exceptionally loud. There were explosion sounds, laughter, yelling, and more explosion sounds. When Kara, Jeremiah, and April had left to change into their robes Mauve was at her limit. She stormed over, pulled the door open and just as Mauve was about to yell at them she was met with the oddest sight she had ever seen.
A dark skinned boy with dreadlocks was yelling with garbled speech, something pink was coming out of his mouth, and growing rapidly; Mauve was shocked to discover that it was his tongue. One red head boy was trying to calm him down, and another red head boy, the same as the other down to the last freckle, was muttering to himself while pointing his wand at the quickly growing tongue.
"What's going on here?" Mauve exclaimed. The red head trying to soothe the boy with the growing tongue explained.
"We have been working on this toffee that makes the tongue grow, but it's suppose to stop after four feet and start to shrink again."
Mauve muttered a reducing spell and pointed her wand at the poor boys tongue. Thankfully, his tongue started shrinking.
"Blimey! How'd you do that?" The boy who was trying spells stepped back and looked at Mauve, surprised.
"It's a simple spell that you should have known about before you started giving out faulty toffees!" Mauves' anger returned. "And what have you been doing over here? I'm in the next compartment over and I'm sick of hearing you all being obnoxious!" Mauve trailed off when the train started to slow down.
"What's happening? We aren't at Hogwarts yet." The boy with the now normal tongue asked.
Everyone in the compartment stayed quiet and watched the scenery outside become clearer as the train came to a stop, forcing everyone to slam down into the seats. Mauve ended up in someone's' lap, and she had just enough time to see it was one of the red heads before the lights flickered and went out, plunging them into darkness.
"Sorry" Mauve said as the leapt of the boys lap and felt for the compartment door. "Oh, this is ridiculous." Mauve muttered as she took out her wand and said "lumos". Immediately light appeared at the tip of her wand as she felt a growing dread. Behind her, she could hear the compartment door open. By the wand light she could see the boys faces: the two red heads were now much paler and the dark skinned boy now looked lightly tanned.
Mauve tried to push back her memories as she turned to face whoever, or whatever, had opened the door, but some snuck through.
Mauve was doing some schoolwork in the sanctuary of her house. Outside it was normal temperature for a summer in Pennsylvania, but to Mauve it was stifling. The door burst open and slammed against the wall. Mauve flinched even though that was a normal entrance for her mother lately. A woman stumbled into the room, laughing at an unknown joke. Zara had recently started drinking again and it seemed today was no exception. Zara had the families piercing blue eyes, but age had gotten rid of any other resemblance between the mother and daughter.
Zara stumbled, then fell flat on her face, still laughing. Mauve sighed inwardly and thought 'two more months, then I'll go back to Salem' then stood up to help her mother to her room. The best way to deal with Zara, it seemed, was to send her to her room to sleep off the alcohol. It always left Mauve wondering who the real parent was in these situations.
Mauve pulled her mother up and put her arm around Zara to help her walk. "Hey you," Zara slurred when she realized Mauve was prompting her to walk. "I heard the funniest thing at the club today, there was-" but whatever she was going to say next was lost as she fell asleep, leaving Mauve to almost fall as she tried to hold Zara's dead weight.
That memory wasn't exactly scary, but the thought that anyone could find out was terrifying to Mauve. But once, there was a time when Mauve was truly afraid for her life, and the circumstances were eerily similar to her previous memory.
A ten year old Mauve was in the living room, working on her spelling words. The door burst open and Mauve jumped, as it was the first time this had happened. A slightly younger Zara stumbled into the house, and upon spotting Mauve, started unsteadily walking towards her.
"You! It's all your fault! He wouldn't have left if you hadn't been born!" Zara was pointing furiously at Mauve, while taking slow, unsteady steps towards her. There was a scary look in Zara's eye that Mauve had never seen before. When Zara reached Mauve she reached out her hands like she was going to choke her, closer and closer until she tightened her hands- around thin air.
Mauve looked around in amazement, instead of seeing the living room around her she saw her grandmothers' room. Mauve was sitting on her grandmothers' bed and her grandmother herself was looking at her in amazement from a chair across the room.
Mauve was jolted from her memories when a body knocked into her, forcing her to fall on the floor, along with her wand. Mauve looked up and saw a boy, whose hair was gleaming from the wand light, closing the compartment door while breathing heavily.
"What's your problem?" Mauve was feeling less dread, she assumed whatever had made her feel horrible had left. She pushed herself up as the other boys in the compartment stood up also. The boy with gleaming hair turned around as the lamps turned back on and Mauve was surprised to see it was the boy from the train station with the pompous father.
"Yea Malfoy, what's the matter? Scared of a little dementor?" One of the red heads taunted 'Malfoy' and the other red head continued.
"What could you have to be scared of anyway? A broken teacup?"
Malfoys face contorted into disgust "What could you possibly know about my life Weasley? I bet you've never even seen a teacup in your life." Malfoy turned and stormed out of the compartment, to the relief of everyone.
The remaining people in the compartment looked at each other awkwardly for a moment then Mauve turned and walked back to her own compartment, where things made sense.
Even though this is so short, it was a hard for me to write for some reason. This is one of the chapters I didn't really have planned specifically, but hopefully the next chapter will be easier. Reviews are always appreciated :)
