The compartment door slid open and the youngest red-haired boy stuck his head in.
"Sorry, is anyone sitting there?" he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Mary. "Everywhere else is full."
She shook her head and the boy sat down. He was quite tall, with a long nose, and large hands and feet that he might still grow into.
"I'm Ron," he said. "Ronald Weasley, but you can call me Ron."
"I'm Mary Potter," she replied. "No nicknames."
"And you've really got…" he traced a finger over his forehead.
Mary pushed her hair aside to show the lightning scar.
"Wicked!" Ron breathed.
"I don't remember anything," said Mary, resolving the question before it was asked. "Well, sometimes I think I do, but…just dreams, you know?"
"Yeah," Ron said. "One of my family's old owls tried to fly off my shoulder once, but his talon got caught in my shirt. I was really little when it happened, so I have this recurring dream that he carries me away."
Mary laughed, but Hedwig ruffled her feathers, as though taking offense.
"Are all of your family magical?" Mary asked, finding Ron as interesting as he found her.
"I think so," replied Ron. "I have an uncle who's an accountant, but we never really hear much from him."
"So you must know tons of magic, already."
"Not really," said Ron. "I mean, there are basic spells that everyone knows, but you'll pick those up in no time. You went to live with Muggles, didn't you? What are they like?"
"Awful!" Mary exclaimed. "Not all of them, but my aunt, uncle, and cousin are. I wish I had three wizard brothers, instead."
"I have five," Ron groaned.
Mary's jaw dropped.
"I'm the sixth to go to Hogwarts. Bill and Charlie have already graduated. Bill was Head Boy, and Charlie was captain of Gryffindor's quidditch team. Percy's a Prefect, and Fred and George make everyone laugh…anything I do will be expected, because it's been done before. You never get anything new, either, with five older brothers."
"I can imagine," said Mary, recalling hand-me-downs from her massive cousin.
Ron sighed. "I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."
He reached into his overcoat and pulled out a fat, gray rat. The hair on the back of Mary's neck stood on end, but Ron assured her that it wasn't dead.
"His name is Scabbers and he's useless."
Hedwig softly trilled in Mary's ear, but she gently touched her fingers to the owl's beak. Rats may be natural prey for owls, but that didn't include a potential friend's geriatric pet.
"Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a Prefect, but they couldn't aff — I mean, I got Scabbers, instead."
A furious blush broke out across Ron's face, and he looked out the window. Mary didn't understand his embarrassment. She told him about how she'd never had money, until Hogwarts sent their Keeper of the Keys, a month ago, to tell her that she was a witch.
"Keeper of the Keys?"
"Hagrid's a sort of groundskeeper. He also takes care of Hogwarts' animals, like looking after the owlery and assisting professors with magical creatures. I can't wait to see them."
"Magical creatures," said Ron, poking the sleeping Scabbers in his lap. "He could die and you wouldn't know the difference."
Mary giggled. "He can't be as bad as all that!"
"No? Wait until you see what real magical animals can do." Ron sighed, again. "I tried to turn him yellow, yesterday, but it didn't work."
"Maybe you just need to try again," said Mary, eager to see some magic.
Ron rummaged through a pocket in his cloak and pulled out a battered-looking wand. Mary had read that some wands could contain memories, and she hoped this was one of them. Her excitement did not reassure Ron.
"Unicorn hair is nearly poking out," he muttered. "Anyway…"
As he raised his wand, the compartment door slid open. A girl stood in the doorway, a be-grieved boy trailing behind her. Compared to her, Mary decided that her own hair was downright boring. What would Aunt Petunia do if she'd had those wild, frizzy locks?
"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville has lost one," she said, her tone dripping with superiority, indicating the shy, stocky boy at her shoulder.
"We haven't seen any toads," Ron curtly replied, wand still raised.
"Oh! Are you doing magic?" The girl seated herself beside Ron, but Neville remained standing. "Well, let's see it then!" she urged.
"Um…all right." He shot Mary a look of bemusement, but continued with the spell:
"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,
Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow!"
Nothing changed. Scabbers stretched and rolled onto his side, but remained gray and fast asleep.
"Are you sure that's a real spell?" the girl asked, appraisingly. "It isn't a very good one, is it? I've tried a few basic spells just for practice, but they've all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magical, so I've memorized our course books to catch up. I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"
Ron and Mary sat silently for a moment, unsure if it was actually their turn to speak.
"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron muttered.
Taking his cue, Mary replied, "Mary Potter."
From the door, Neville gaped, but Hermione leaned forward.
"The Mary Potter? Are you really?" Mary nodded, and Hermione continued. "I know all about you, of course! I've got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and…Great Magical Events of the Twentieth Century."
"Am I?" asked Mary, feeling dazed.
"Goodness, didn't you know? I'd have found out everything I could if it was me!"
"If…" Mary breathed, but Hermione hopped to her feet and rejoined Neville-the-Toadless at the door.
"Anyway," Hermione said, "we'd better go find Neville's toad before we arrive at Hogwarts. You two had better change before we get there. You have something on your robe," she told Ron. "Did you know?"
And she left, Neville following in her wake.
"Whatever House I'm in," said Ron, "I hope she's in another one."
Mary shook her head, bewildered. "She knows more about me than I do."
Ron waved his hand. "She knows less than she thinks. My dad works for the Ministry of Magic, and he's told us what doesn't make it into her precious textbooks."
"Oh?" Mary asked. "Like what?"
Ron shrugged. "It happens in Muggle histories, too. Things aren't as clear-cut as historians would like, so they simplify the story. Sometimes they give credit to someone who wasn't there, or they remove someone entirely, and nobody can say anything, because it happened so long ago, or the right people weren't there to confirm what happened. What's the point of studying the blasted things if they're not true?"
Mary had never thought about it, before, but it made sense. What might those books say about her parents that never happened? Instead of dwelling on the unsettling topic, Mary asked, "What House are your brothers in?"
"Gryffindor," he replied, his mood growing heavier. "Mum and Dad and a bunch of our family were sorted there, too, and I don't know what they'll say if I'm not. Ravenclaw might not be so bad, but what if I get Slytherin?"
"That's the House Voldemort was in, right?"
Ron blanched.
"What?"
"You said his name!" he gasped.
"Oh, right." Mary smacked her forehead. "I'm sorry. I forgot. A month ago, I didn't even know any of this existed."
"It's all right," said Ron, regaining his composure. "You-Know-Who isn't ancient history, so it still scares a lot of us. I just assumed that you, of all people…"
"Really, I'm not trying to be brave…I just didn't know." A familiar twinge of worry washed over her. "I bet I'm going to be the worst in our class. What if none of the houses want me?"
"You'll be fine," Ron assured her. "Loads of people come from Muggle families. They learn quick enough, and they all get sorted."
"Bet I'm sorted into Hufflepuff."
"Better than Slytherin. Dad recons there isn't a family who went bad that wasn't from that House."
The two talked until a clattering in the corridor announced a new arrival. A smiling woman opened the door and asked, "Anything off the cart, dears?"
Mary, who'd barely had anything for breakfast, sprang to her feet and combed over the wares. She didn't see any familiar items, but so many new and wonderful foods. Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and individually wrapped snacks that had been made and packaged that morning. Mary quietly thanked Hagrid for teaching her about the magical currency, paying the vendor eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.
Ron stared as Mary dropped the bounty into the empty seat next to her.
"Hungry, are you?"
"Starving!" Mary replied, tearing into a pumpkin pasty. It was more wonderful than she'd imagined.
Ron had taken out a lumpy package containing four sandwiches and groaned. "She always forgets that I don't like corned beef."
"Swap you for one of these," said Mary, pushing a pasty towards him.
"Oh, you don't want this. I mean, look at it. It's all dry…"
"I'm sure it's better than it looks. You squished it when you sat down!"
Ron blushed and handed the sandwiches over, tentatively opening the pasty as Mary took a large bite of the corned beef sandwich.
"This isn't bad at all," she said, around a mouthful. The bread was a bit dry, but a drink of pumpkin juice between bites resolved that problem.
After Ron had taken a few bites of his pasty, Mary asked him about the bag of Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Beans.
"You want to be careful with those. When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor!"
Mary set them aside for later, opting instead for a chocolate frog. It was enchanted to croak, and each came with a collectible card of famous witches and wizards.
"I've got about five hundred, but I don't have Agrippa or Ptolemy," said Ron.
She handed him a chocolate frog and unwrapped one of her own. The card depicted a man with half-moon glasses, a nose that appeared to have been broken a time or two, and long, silvery hair with a flowing mustache and beard. His name was printed in a curling script under the portrait, with a description on the back of the card.
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS
Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.
"So this is Dumbledore," Mary mused.
"What, you didn't know about Dumbledore?" Ron exclaimed.
Mary gave him a blank expression that begged explanation.
"Oh, right. Raised by Muggles."
Mary looked back down at the card and gasped.
"He's gone!"
"Well, you can't expect him to just hang around all day. He'll be back." Ron looked at his own card and handed it to Mary. "Nope, it's Morgana, again. Here, you can start collecting!"
As they worked through the mountain of chocolate frogs, Mary explained that Muggle pictures don't move.
"Really? Then how do you know what was going on when the picture was taken?"
Steeling their stomachs, they moved on to the Every-Flavor Beans. Mary got toast, coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, sardine, and nibbled the end off a funny gray one Ron wouldn't touch, which turned out to be pepper. She crumbled that one over the last of their pumpkin pasties as Ron told her about his older brothers.
"Charlie's in Romania studying dragons, and Bill's in Morocco doing something for Gringotts." He paused, remembering something important. "Did you hear about Gringotts? Someone tried to rob a high security vault."
"Really? What happened?" asked Mary.
"Nothing, that's the weird part. They broke in on July 31st, but they didn't take anything. It's been all over the Daily Prophet…but I guess your family doesn't get that newspaper. Anyway, I thought you might've seen something, since you said you said you were there on that day."
Mary shook her head. "I wouldn't know what to look for if anything had been weird. That's the same day I'd learned that all of this exists."
Gringott's Wizarding Bank was owned, operated, and protected by goblins. According to Hagrid, someone would have to be mad to steal from them.
"What you need to understand about goblins," Hagrid had told her, "is that they have a different way of looking at ownership. If a human makes a gift for someone, that gift belongs to the receiver, end o' story. If the gift is goblin-made, the item still belongs to the goblin. Should anything happen to the gift's recipient, it goes back to the origin."
"Even if you paid for it?" Mary asked.
Hagrid nodded. "That's the way o' things."
"And goblins create the money that we buy things with?"
Hagrid smiled broadly and said, "You're understandin'. They take pride in their work, so it's closely regulated. If you wanna keep somethin' safe, there's no safer place than Gringott's. Save for Hogwarts, of course."
Ron shuddered. "Probably best you didn't see anything. My dad says it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get around Gringotts security, and get away. 'Course, everyone starts wondering if You-Know-Who's behind it, whenever something like this happens."
Both Mary and Ron jumped as the compartment door slid open. Half expecting Hermione or Neville-the-Toadless, Mary was surprised to see three different, rather unfriendly faces.
Two of the boys were only slightly shorter than Ron, but both were thickset where Ron was lanky, and the third was lean and very fine-featured. Mary recognized him from the day Hagrid had taken her to Diagon Alley, a magical shopping district. He was being fitted for robes at Madam Malkin's alongside Mary, but he'd hardly looked at her, even though he indifferently bragged about himself.
She didn't like how interested he seemed to find her, now.
"Is it true?" he asked. "The whole train is talking about it. They're saying Mary Potter is in this compartment. So it's you?"
"Yes," Mary replied, passing a wary glance over the boys standing behind him like body guards. Sensing Mary's discomfort, Hedwig fluffed and stretched her wings.
"Oh," the pale boy carelessly drawled. "This is Crabbe, and this is Goyle." They both stood a little straighter, like hounds who'd just heard their master speak their names. "And I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."
Ron snorted and reached for a napkin, trying to pass it off as a sneeze.
"Think my name's funny, do you?" Draco Malfoy asked. "My father's told me all about you Weasleys. Red hair, old robes, and more children than they can afford to feed."
He turned back to Mary before Ron could reply. "You'll find that some families are much better than others, Potter. I can help you avoid making friends with the wrong sort."
He held out his hand for Mary to shake, and gave her the most congenial smile that she was sure he'd spent hours practicing.
"Thanks," she said, folding her hands in her lap and looking him straight in the eye. "But I think I can tell who the wrong sort are, for myself."
A light blush tinged his cheeks as he glowered down at her. "I'd be very careful if I were you, Potter. This sort of riffraff didn't work out well for your parents, did it?"
Both Mary and Ron stood up, Scabbers scrambling into Ron's pocket and Hedwig doubling size and shrieking in brazen warning.
"EXCUSE ME!" someone shouted, pushing his way through the rabble and sitting next to Ron.
"Pardon me," his double said, more politely, seating himself beside Mary.
"You guys wanna see something cool?" came a third, pushing dreadlocks out of his face as he pulled down a meal tray and knelt before it. He placed a box on the tray and, with a mischievous grin, removed the lid. It contained the most gigantic tarantula Mary had ever seen. The three unwelcome guests yelped and scrambled out of the cabin, leaving the twins and Mary howling with laughter. The third boy held a hand up, beckoning for quiet as the sound upset his tarantula.
"What's wrong, Ron?" he asked. "She won't hurt you."
Ron had gone sheet white and broken into a sweat.
"Sorry, Lee," one of the twins said. "He's afraid of spiders."
"She isn't a spider," Lee crooned, caressing the creature's back with a forefinger. That seemed to settle her down, and Lee placed the lid back on the box.
"You're sure that isn't an acromantula?" Ron asked, wiping his brow.
His brothers and Lee snorted, as yet another visitor happened by the open door.
"What's going on in here?" It was Gemma with her purple feline scarf rumbling around her neck. "That little Malfoy kid looked fit to piss himself."
"Nothing, your Prefectship!" Lee said, innocently. "He just doesn't like tarantulas."
"He isn't the only one!" Ron squeaked.
She scrutinized the compartment and rolled her eyes. "You're supposed to be the good one, Jordan." Lee helplessly shrugged one shoulder and Gemma sighed. "Look, I already know those three are going to be in my House," she said, gesturing to the retreating trio, "so could you not cause trouble before we even get to school?"
One twin crossed his heart while the other saluted.
"Mary, child," she held her hand out, "we're almost there. Let's get to your trunk so you can change into your robes."
Mary motioned for Lee to take her vacated seat, and a voice echoed instructions through the train:
"We will be reaching Hogwarts in ten minutes' time. Please collect and deposit any rubbish in the appropriate receptacles.
Leave your luggage on the train; it will be taken to the school separately."
"I didn't know we needed to wear our robes on the first day," said Mary, following Gemma to the luggage car.
"It isn't really a requirement, but most do," said Gemma, then she dropped her voice. "The truth is, I want to give you a warning."
She opened the car door and waved Mary through. She looked around as Mary located her trunk and pulled a robe out.
"I don't know how well-versed you are in our recent history, but there are a lot of students who might not like you, especially kids in my House."
"Why? Which House?" Mary asked, though she had a feeling she could guess.
"Slytherin tends to attract a…certain type of mage," Gemma said, matter-of-factly. "I don't have time to explain, but stay close to your friends – don't give me that look; you've already made new friends, today – stay close to your friends and you should be fine."
Mary locked the trunk and Gemma led her back to the compartment in time to see Lee and the twins off.
She sat across from Ron and asked, "You ready?"
"Sure, you?"
"Yeah, me neither."