Hello! This is my rewrite of Chapter Three – I know I am making it over double the length of what it was before, but I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise.
Alina peered out of her carriage window to see the dying sun give its final twinkle in the distance. It was a beautiful sight. Unlike the cities she was used to, there were no pale, white street lamps or glittering windows to throw the sky into an eternal daytime. Instead, there was certainty: black and white, day and night, witch and muggle.
Surrounding her was a mound of empty sweet wrappers and, in the corner of the carriage, as far away from Tom and herself as possible, a few abandoned blood-flavoured lollipops, which they had dared each other to try, but could barely stomach. Tom had quickly fallen asleep afterwards, snoozing noiselessly with his head resting against the carriage window so that it lolled about with every movement of the train. Alina threw a chocolate frog rapper at him, hitting him on the forehead with a hollow thwack and causing him to wake with a start. He stood up rapidly. The crinkling, multi-coloured papers glinting in the light as they tumbled from his lap. Alina could not help but laugh at the wide-eyed expression on his face as he attempted not to seem alarmed.
"Tom," she covered her mouth to hide the giggles, "we should probably get changed soon. From what my brother and sister told me, you're supposed to get into your uniform when you're still on the train." The sinking sun had brought her back to reality. After hours of joking loudly and dreaming up the adventures they would have, Alina once again felt that sinking, terrified feeling in the pit of her stomach. This time, however, she did not feel so alone. This time, she could also imagine all the wonderful possibilities. Her muggle friends had left her mind for the first time since the beginning of the summer holidays.
She left the carriage shortly afterwards, giving Tom time to change inside whilst she found space in one of the vacant toilets. Students had suddenly began moving hurriedly around the train, busying themselves like a colony of ants, some in billowing black robes and some still in their casual attire. Curtains were swiftly drawn within carriages after faces peeped out accusingly into the corridor, and one or two of the bolder boys were ripping off their shirts in the middle of the train, sparking both laughs and groans from their peers. Everyone seemed to be collectively holding their breaths, waiting for their first sight of Hogsmeade rolling into view, desperately attempting to hop into their school shoes before the Hogwarts Express eased itself to a stop. Slipping on her Hogwarts robes for the first time since Diagon Alley, she finally felt prepared to become a witch. She unpacked her wand from within its concealment, pulling at the lid of the box until she could hear the hiss of cardboard and it popped off satisfyingly. Slipping this thing into its holster within her robes made her feel dangerous and different. She straightened her back, and exhaled, feeling the soft, new clothing giving her gentle encouragement.
Of course, despite what she had stupidly believed, she was not the only one who felt lost on this train. All these students shared the same wide-eyed look of wonder and worry. All these students had been bought too-big robes, and had been told light-heartedly by their parents that they would "grow into them". She realised very quickly, as she was making her way back through the maze of abandoned clothing in the corridors, that she was no different from any other student in their first year. All of them would be in the same boat soon, anxious to discover which house they belonged to. Now, as she met a few of their eyes through the protective glass of the compartments, she gave them sheepish smiles.
Sliding her own compartment open again, she was met with Tom's practiced calmness. She was certain that he, too, was terrified, but he was reluctant to show this to her.
"Well…" she brushed her hands on her fresh, new robes awkwardly, struggling to think of something to say, "we'll be in the castle very soon. I bet it will be huge."
Tom nodded absent-mindedly, uninterested in the size of the castle. What would the children be like there? Would they be different from the muggles in the orphanage? What was the Wizard World really like? An awkward silence followed. Alina stood by the door, eyes glazed over, staring deep into space. Suddenly they had nothing to say to one another. Suddenly the thought of the castle and the magic they were expected to do pressed on their hearts and they could no longer engage in their casual, easy conversations.
Tom broke the silence finally. "Your family are wizards, aren't they?" when he was met with a small nod from Alina, he continued enthusiastically, "What did you do when you were younger? Tell me about it." What if the children from wizard parents were given an edge over him, being taught magic since before they could walk? What if he would look stupid in comparison with his lack of knowledge?
"There isn't really much to say about them. Well, at least I don't think there is." Alina smiled at him, moving to sit down opposite him in the carriage. She looked out the window, suddenly afraid to meet Tom's eyes. "I went to a muggle school before this. So did my brother and sister. The rest of my family thought my mother was insane when she said she was going to send us there. My family go on about this thing called blood purity. I don't really understand it, if I'm honest. Muggles are no different to us in my eyes. My mother said she put us in muggle school so we'd understand the world better."
"But what does that mean… muggle?" Tom's eyebrows had shifted, almost unnoticeably, into slight confusion.
"Oh! That's the word that we use to describe people who can't do magic. Normal people. Most of them don't know that this world exists – and they think anyone who speaks about magic is mental."
Before Tom had time to ask her any more questions, the train had hissed to a complete stop at a station labelled "Hogsmeade". Smoke once again billowed around the Hogwarts Express in abundance, making the greying man who was waiting for them seem ominous. Welcome to Hogwarts, Alina thought. She giggled. Could they possibly send a scarier man? He may have been old, but his calloused hands and bulging muscles could be seen even from her position, pressed against the window of the carriage.
Students began to pour out of the train, filling the platform with billowing black robes. The older students were speaking excitedly amongst themselves and walking casually away from the platform and further into the station. There was a slight breeze when Tom and Alina stepped outside, and goose bumps littered their skin. The large, muscular man introduced himself as Ogg gruffly explaining that he was the Hogwarts groundskeeper before coughing out "first-years follow me" in his deep, scratchy voice and disappearing further into the smoke. Realising after a few seconds that they were, in fact, first years, Tom and Alina hurried forwards, attempting to find where Ogg had disappeared to and hoping that he was not there to abduct them.
They walked for what seemed like hours, Alina's heart thumping in her chest, trying desperately to abandon her and escape the grandeur of the castle which was slowly coming into sight. She craned her neck, almost feeling the tingle of magic from inside. The warm, yellow light seemed deceptive: a piece of cheese set in a trap to lure in all the first-year mice for some sort of excruciating torture. She had read about medieval castles at school. She knew all too well that they were sights of both beauty and torture. Now here she was in front of one, lips chapped and pursed in terrified anticipation. The turrets looked back down at her with a kind of regal calmness, daring her to enter inside, to become what she was truly meant to become. She was unsure if the unmoving stone or her mother's expectations frightened her more.
Finally, they came to some dingy boats, which floated still on the glassy surface of a black lake. The clumsily made hunks of wood looked as if they could barely support one person, let alone the four wide-eyed students Ogg was ordering into each. Alina managed to press herself as closely to Tom as possible in and attempt to ensure that they would enter a boat together. As they slipped inside one as far away from Ogg as possible, it rocked dangerously, threatening to throw them into the water's eerie surface. The ripples of movement did not resonate in the lake. It was as glossy and uninviting as ever, as though nothing could penetrate its dead face – or nothing which did would ever come back up to the living.
The two girls who slipped in alongside them were wholly different and apparently not friends at all. The first was strikingly beautiful with silvery-blonde hair which cascaded down her back, almost black eyes and a sharp-pointed nose, which was turned upwards as she pretended they did not exist. The second had mousy ringlets held together in a messy pony tail and resembled a chipmunk with her rounded cheeks and protruding front teeth. She wet her lips with a large clumsy tongue and smiled at them with desperate, pleading eyes, presumably in an attempt to make the journey across the lake more bearable for herself. She stared longingly at another boat, where there were four other students speaking in animated voices. Their glances in her direction were apologetic and full of pity. They mouthed a few words to before the boats sprang to life, with Ogg at the front, and made their way towards the imposing castle.
This earned a collective swoon from, presumably, the muggle-born students and some amused, knowing smiles from those who had been warned frequently about the magic Hogwarts possessed. The blonde girl in their boat shook her head and made a tsk noise impatiently. "What do you expect?" she mumbled, "This is a magical school."
Again it was Tom who broke the silence which followed. They were about halfway along the lake when he erected himself in the boat sharply and turned to look straight into Alina's eyes. "You mentioned something earlier – blood purity? What is it?" He had grabbed onto her sleeve and was tugging, urgency written all over his handsome features
"Why does it matter so much to you?" Alina laughed to hide her alarm.
Shrugging, Tom said, "I don't know. I never did know my parents. Maybe if I know something about wizards then I will be able to find out a little bit more about them.
"I don't know Some wizards pride themselves on being wizards, I guess. They pride themselves on having an all-magical ancestry and don't want to marry people who aren't like them. They think that being magical is what makes them extraordinary. It's silly if you ask me."
"And do you think…" Tom's voice faltered, "…do you think that my parents were wizards like me? Were they extraordinary too?"
"Well," the blonde girl spoke to them for the first time. Her voice was slow, high-pitched and extremely unimpressed. "What is your name?"
"Tom. Tom Riddle"
She laughed a cruel, short laugh. "Riddle isn't a pure-blood name. You're probably just another nasty, common mudblood."
"A muggle-born." Alina piped in, eyeing the blonde girl uncomfortably, "We don't say mudblood. It's a disgusting word. She means someone whose parents were muggles."
The mousy-haired chipmunk-looking girl turned to face Alina and Tom, edging away from the blonde girl slowly. "I'm like that. My parents are just normal people. We had no clue that magic even existed before I got that letter."
Tom scowled. Were all the muggles and their children so… repulsive? He did not like the muggles back in his orphanage. He had never fit in there. Now here he was at magical school and he already felt as though he were being treated much better. His mother's name, Merope Gaunt, pressed into his skull, but he daren't ask if she was a witch. He did not want to destroy his one hope yet.
I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I loved writing it. Please keep reviewing it! Tell me how you think it is going.
AndThatsShannii x