Lily held tightly to her sketchbook as the train rounded the corner. She leaned on the edge of her seat started to roughly sketch out the edges of Hugo's face.
"Hugo, don't move," she warned. Her eyes were flicking between Hugo and the drawing on her sketchbook, " You're going to stuff me up." Hugo had been posing for ten minutes and he had already changed his pose five times. At the moment, he was sitting with his arm on the ledge of the window and his chin leaning onto it, looking "wistfully" out the window with his kitten, Morgana dozing away in the seat next to him.
His eyebrows furrowed. " Well I'm sorry that I have an itch on my foot. Do you know how hard it is to sit still with an itch on your foot?", he whined.
Lily shook her head and mockingly replied in her best French artist impression, " I am sure it eez very difficult, Monsieur Weasley. But I promize you if you stay steel for juste un moment it veel look trés beau."
Hugo stifled a laugh. "Of course, Mademoiselle Potter. I veel try very 'ard to stay as steel as I can but my chat is another story," he replied. He gestured towards the scrawny black kitten that had someone managed to scratch a small hole in the seat next to her owner.
"Honestly Jinx, can you not stay still for a single minute?" he exclaimed.
Lily stifled a laugh as she etched the last few details on to the paper, with a few flourishes of her pencil she was finally finished.
" Voila! So what do you think?", she exclaimed, turning her sketchbook around to show off a drawing of Hugo and herself sitting in the compartment looking out the window of the train with big smiles on their faces with Hedy and Jinx close to them. She had drawn a huge Hogwarts emblem over their heads and written in fancy script down the bottom: "First Train Ride".
Hugo stared at the drawing as if in deep thought. "I think it's missing something…" And with that, he took the sketchbook out of her hands and scribbled 'LLP' in loopy handwriting at the bottom of the page. "There. You've got to take some credit for your genius, Lil. Soon enough you'll be as famous as Picasso."
Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Who?"
"Picasso. The famous artist. Mum was telling Rose and I about him when she took us to the gallery over the summer," he explained.
Aunt Hermione always took Hugo and Rose to places like the museums and galleries. Even though Lily loved going to Diagon Alley with her brothers or going to the occasional Quidditch Match or even visiting Nana Molly at the Burrow, she wished she had a life outside the Wizarding World like Hugo did. Sure, Dad would make them go to the Uncle Dudley's house every so often and tell her and her brother stories of the Muggle World. But it wasn't enough… she wanted to be a part of their world. A world where no one knew her insane family and she could just live without all the fuss of being 'Harry Potter's daughter'.
Desperate to change to the subject to something she could actually hold her own against, she decided to bring the incident at the platform. "Speaking of your mum what did she want to talk to you about on the train station?"
And for a brief moment, a starling silence rang through the carriage. She had never had a quiet moment with Hugo before in her life and she wasn't sure she liked the awkwardness that hung in the air.
"Nothing much." The words dripped out of his mouth like molasses.
There was no doubt that Uncle Ron's ribbing was finally getting to him. "Huey- "
"Just drop it," he huffed, turning his head towards the window and staring stormily out the window.
Before Lily could open her mouth to say another word, a kindly old woman appeared at the door of the compartment. "Anything from the trolley, dears?", she crooned.
At that moment, the two gave each other a look of utter delight and the tension had instantly melted away with the mention of sweets. Lily gave Hugo a wicked grin, her brown eyes glinting with a mischief. " Two boxes of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, please."
"And two chocolate frogs", Hugo chimed.
The trolley-witch happily handed Lily the boxes and carried along her merry way. "Thank you," Hugo called out after her. Always the perfect gentleman.
"So, we're doing this?" he asked hesitantly with his eye glued to the top of the box.
"Of course!" she exclaimed. "Who are we to turn down a Bean-test?"
Hugh gave her a slight grin, although she was sure that she could see a sea-sick green tint appear on his face. "Alright then. First one to finish the whole box wins. Ready, set, GO."
"Gross, I got a booger one," Hugo called out.
"Earwax…", Lily cried out. As the bean went down her throat, she felt a churning sensation in her stomach. Soon enough, she found herself, the seat and the floor covered in the worst smelling thing that had ever come out of her. When she had said she wanted seconds of Mum's pancakes this morning this was definitely not what she had envisioned.
"So, I'm guessing I won by default?" Hugo chuckled.
Lily glared intensely at him. How in sweet Merlin were they going to clean this up? She could see the looks on her brothers' faces. " A detention before you even set foot into the castle, you bloody legend, Lil!" James would say before, ruffling her Al would chime in to express his disappointment before giving her a stern look that could rival Dad's.
"Blimey, Hugo. When there's a mess like this, there are no winners," a chirpy voice called from behind. They both turned around to find Claire Linkin standing at the door of the compartment in her Gryffindor robes with her shiny Prefect badge. Her hair was sunshine gold, and she had an easy smile that make you feel as if even on your worst day, everything would be alright again. It was a wonder that James hadn't fallen for her already. Then again, he was about as thick as they come.
"Bean-test?" she sighed, pulling out her wand from her robes.
Lily and Hugo nodded slowly, staring down at their feet. Claire's cool. She wouldn't rat on us. Would she?
Claire shook her head in mock disappointment before flashing them a mischievous grin. With a flick of her wand, she had made the compartment seem completely new. Even the small crevice Jinx had made had disappeared. A shocked redhead poked her head out from behind Claire nervously, gaping at the sight she had just witnessed.
"Perfect,' she grinned. Claire spun around to face the newcomer, mumbling something that made the other girl nervously smile.
"Lily, Hugo. This is Alice. Is it ok if she sits with you guys?", she said giving them both a long, hard stare that seemed to be code for 'do it or face the consequences'. Unwillingly to cross Claire, they both nodded violently, beaming at their new companion.
'Alright, you three. I've got to head off. Take good care of her," she said pushing a frightened- looking girl into the compartment and twirling out with her blonde curls swaying behind her.
Alice sat at the very edge of the seat on Lily's side, unwilling to meet the eyes of either Lily or Hugo. She nervously clutched the side of her robes as if she was nervous about losing something. Suddenly, there was a loud croak…
"D'you have a toad?", Lily exclaimed excitedly.
Alice nodded, revealing a small green creature sitting in the palm her hand. "His name's Pip. My uncle got him for me at Christmas. He said something about his toad making too many tadpoles."
Lily whipped her head over to find her cousin inching closer and closer towards the window and away from the creature. "Huey, it's just a little one. They can't hurt you."
"I'm not scared. Those things are just-"
"It's okay. I can put him back in my robes if you want. My uncle told me that it's probably better to keep him in there, just in case I lose him."
"Would you like a bean, Alice?" Hugo said weakly, reaching into his unfinished box. "Don't worry, this one is safe. It's strawberry… at least I think it is."
She gave a small smile and extended an open hand to collect the small pink jellybean. As she popped it in her mouth, her face twisted in disgust. " Salmon guts."
Hugo laughed, while munching on a Pumpkin Pastie he had brought from home. "The curse of Bertie Botts Every Flavoured Bean. I think they've never made a good tasting flavour in the history of wizards."
Lily shrugged. "We do enable them though. If we stopped investing in their product maybe they could churn out edible jellybeans?"
"You've been spending too much time around Uncle George," he teased.
She rolled her eyes. "Beats hanging around my brothers."
"I'd take James and Al over Rose any day," Hugo scoffed, and she noticed that the same slow bitter sound that she had heard earlier returned to his words.
Before she could say anything, Alice interjected. "It beats being an only child. You guys have siblings to tell you everything about how this magic stuff works, to look out for you. I have- I don't really have anyone here."
Instinctively, Lily got up from her seat and wrapped her arms around her new friend. While she had been surrounded by people her entire life, she understood what it meant to feel utterly alone.
"We're scared too…" Hugo muttered. "Trust me, knowing about magic and wizardry doesn't make us any less afraid than you are."
"But we'll get through it," she said giving Alice and Hugo a look of assurance, "Together."
In a sudden stroke of inspiration, Lily grabbed her sketchbook and a pencil and began to draw madly onto the page.
"Is she always like this?", Alice whispered to Hugo
"Always this mad? Most definitely," he chuckled, before meeting the brunt of Lily's coldest stare. " But we love her anyways."
"I reckon we'd best give you a run-down of how everything will go once we get there," Hugo stated and began to trail on all about the houses and the castle