Chapter 8
September 1st, 1989-Platform 9 ¾, King's Cross Station, London, England
"You're sure you have everything?"
"Even if I had forgotten something, Uncle Remus, we're here already." Patricia held Benvolio's cage while Remus lifted her trunk onto the bright scarlet train. They put the trunk and Benvolio into a nearby empty compartment and then Remus went back down to the platform while Patricia leaned out the door. She was looking for Weasley red hair and was disappointed when she didn't spot any. "Do you think they're late?" she asked Remus, who laughed.
"According to Molly they're always late, it comes with having to shepherd seven children to the platform." He smiled. "Don't worry, Patricia, they'll be here."
Remus reached out and gave the girl a hug. "You have your wand?" he asked. She rolled her eyes and lifted her right arm to show him that she had her wand holster strapped to it with her wand nestled safely inside. Vine wood, dragon heartstring, reasonably supple and exactly twelve inches in length; her wand had taken her almost an hour to find at Ollivanders. During that trip to Diagon Alley they had also bought her potion ingredients and her Hogwarts robes that were now sitting at the top of her trunk.
Patricia lingered at the door for a bit longer before Remus told her to go to her compartment. A few moments after she got there the train's whistle blew shrilly. She looked over Benvolio's cage out of the window and just managed to glimpse the time on the station clock. There was one minute left till the departure time.
"Is anyone sitting here?" a voice asked. Patricia turned away from the window and saw a boy with dreadlocks and wearing a Beetles T-shirt standing in the doorway of the compartment. She shook her head and the boy lugged his trunk into the compartment. "I'm Lee Jordan." The boy said, thrusting his hand forwards. The name sounded familiar to her, though she wasn't sure why.
"Patricia Stimpson." she replied as she shook his hand. Benvolio hooted. "And this is Benvolio. You're a first year to, right?"
"Yup."
The whistle sounded again and the two of them were jointed back and forth as the train began to move. Lee opened the window and knelt on top of his trunk so that he could wave to his parents on the platform. Patricia peeked under his arm so that she could wave to Remus, who waved back with an odd smile on his face. He looked a bit sad but happy at the same time. She also caught sight of Arthur and Molly Weasley with Ron and Ginny, the youngest of the seven Weasley children and the only girl, standing between them.
"So," Patricia said when the train had completely left the station and Lee had sat down in the seat opposite her, "what House do you think you'll be in? You do know what the Houses are, right?" she asked quickly, remembering that he was wearing a shirt for a Muggle band.
"Of course I do!" Lee exclaimed. "My dad was in Hufflepuff."
"Sorry, it's just with your shirt I thought that you might be a Muggleborn…" Patricia trailed off as she suddenly recalled where she had seen his name before. "Oh, but your family's in British Wizarding Houses of the Twentieth Century, so you can't be a Muggleborn. My mistake."
"That's alright." There was an awkward pause for a few moments. Then Lee said, "I'd like to be in Gryffindor though. What about you?"
"My uncle was a Gryffindor but my mum was in Slytherin." Lee's eyes widened and he unknowingly leaned away from Patricia. "Not all Slyterins are evil."
"Right." Lee said, not sounding very convinced. "It's just…most of You-Know-Who's followers were Slytherins."
"My parents were murdered by Death Eaters."
"Oh. Err, sorry."
"It wasn't your fault." she said lightly. "Anyway, I favour Ravenclaw for myself. Maybe Gryffindor." Lee nodded.
The sound of someone running through the hallway came towards their compartment. The two of them looked at each other and Patricia's wand shot out of its holster and into her hand. She slid the door open just a little and was bowled over when two boys pushed their way in.
"Patty, thank Merlin!" the first boy exclaimed.
"We need your help." the second boy said.
"Don't call me Patty." she said to both of them. "And let me stand up before I hex you." She didn't actually know any hexes and the boys knew that but they still got out of her way quickly. She sat back down and put her wand away. "First of all, Lee these are Fred and George Weasley. Fred, George, this is Lee Jordan."
"Hello." said Lee, still looking shocked at the appearance of the two redheads. "What do you need help with?"
"Well Lee-"
"-our dear brother-"
"-Percy, he's a fourth year,-"
"-has got it into his head-"
"-to introduce us to some 'model students'."
"The horror!" Patricia joked. "Let me guess, you want us to hide you?"
"Please?" Fred asked. "He's going through all the compartments asking for us."
"We just barely got away." George added. "But he'll be here soon."
Lee looked back and forth between the twins. Then he opened his trunk and pulled out a shimmering white cloak. "Get under this when he gets here."
"You have an invisibility cloak?!" Patricia, Fred and George exclaimed in unison. Lee shook his head.
"It's not a real invisibility cloak. It's Demiguise fur and it's old so you'll have to stay really still…"
"Why do you even have it?" Patricia asked, eyeing the cloak skeptically.
"My dad thought I could use it for Transfiguration. Something about creating a cushion."
"Huh."
The abilities of the cloak got put to the test when they began hearing knocks coming down the train. Fred and George ducked under the cloak without a word and a few seconds later a curly-haired redheaded boy arrived at the compartment door. He knocked sharply twice and, after looking towards where the twins should have been out of the corner of her eye, Patricia slid open the door. The cloak seemed to be working, but there was a bit of wavering in the air around the seemingly empty seat. They would just have to hope that the boy didn't notice.
"Hello," the boy said at once "I'm Percy Weasley. Have you seen my brothers? Twins, red hair, first years, troublemakers. You can't miss them."
"No, I haven't seen anyone like that." Patricia said. She had never met Percy Weasley before, so she tried to speak as calmly as possible so he would be sure not to notice that she was lying. "Have you, Lee?"
"Can't say I have." Lee shrugged. "Sorry."
Percy looked disappointed. "Well," he said "if you see them send them to me will you? I'll be at the front of the train." He left and went to the compartment across the hall. When he had moved out of sight Fred and George threw off the cloak.
"Thanks guys." they sighed in unison.
"No problem." Lee said, taking the cloak back from them. He had the distinct feeling that if he didn't they'd end up using it to prank the teachers. "Do you want to play Exploding Snap?"
"Sure."
They passed the time laughing at each other and shouting when the cards exploded. Eventually the snake cart came around. Patricia bought Bernie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Lee got Licorice Wands and Chocolate Frogs and they both bought Pumpkin Pasties that all four of them ate with the peanut butter sandwiches that Mrs. Weasley had packed for the twins.
"Be careful with the Bernie Bott's." Patricia told Lee absentmindedly as she unwrapped a Chocolate Frog. "I got an earwax flavored one last time." Her Frog hopped out of its package and onto Benvolio's cage. She grabbed it with one hand and bit its head off.
"I have had Bernie Bott's before." Lee said. He took a striped brown bean out of the box and tossed the whole thing into his mouth before passing the box to George. He then started coughing and George had to pound him on the back before he could speak.
"What was it?" Fred asked.
"Wood." Lee replied weakly.
"Told you." Patricia said. She looked down at the Chocolate Frog card she had gotten. "Huh, I got Circe."
"What?!" Fred and George nearly fell out of their seats.
"She's an ultra-super rare card!" Fred explained.
"I'll trade you for Morgana and Dumbledore." George offered. Patricia smirked at him.
"No deal." She reached into the skirt pocket of her dress and pulled out her pack of tarot cards. "I'll read your cards though."
"You're a seer?" Lee asked. Patricia shook her head.
"My mum was. I don't seem to have any of her power, so I just read for fun." She tried not to think about that time a girl had pulled the Death card and died not long after. That had to be a one-time incident. She didn't really want to predict the future, not like that.
The boys were up for it but before Patricia could even take the cards out of their box there was a knock at the compartment door. They four of them looked up quickly. Lee prepared to toss his Demiguise fur cloak over the twins just in case it was Percy back again but let it drop out of his hands when he saw that the person outside the door wasn't a Weasley.
The curly-haired blond girl looked at them in confusion when they looked at her with alarm through the glass door. As soon as he had shoved the cloak away, Lee opened the door.
"Hello." the girl said, still confused. "I just wanted to let you know that we'll be arriving soon and you should change into your robes. You can just put them on over whatever you're wearing, that's what everyone does. Oh, and you can leave your trunks and owls and stuff, they'll be taken up to the school separately. "
"Thank you." Patricia said for all of them. The boys nodded.
"You're welcome." The older girl moved on to the next compartment. Fred and George stood up reluctantly.
"Our stuff is a few cars down." George said.
"We'll see you when we arrive." Fred promised. He and his brother looked at Patricia and Lee.
"Friends?" they asked.
"Friends." Lee agreed.
"No matter what Houses we end up in." Patricia added quickly. Lee looked at her out of the corner of his eye and then nodded.
"Deal!" Fred and George said. They looked up and down the hallway for Percy before darting out of the compartment.
Patricia and Lee took their school robes out of their trunks and pulled them on over their clothes. Patricia put her pack of tarot cards in the pocket of her robes and then they waited for the train to pull into the station.
"I'll see you soon, Benvolio." Patricia told her owl when the train jolted to a stop. Benvolio hooted at her and then proceeded to half-close his eyes and pretend to be asleep. Patricia knew that the snowy owl wouldn't actually fall asleep until they were back together. For his sake she hoped that sorting them into Houses and having dinner wouldn't take too long.
As soon as they arrived on the platform, Patricia and Lee were ambushed by the Weasley twins, who threw their arms over their shoulders saying, "Hello friends, long time no see!"
"Firs' years over here!" A very tall, very wide, very wild-looking man in a giant fur coat shouted while holding a lantern high in the air. "Firs' years!"
"That must be Hagrid." Fred said. The four of them pushed through the crowd of older students with the rest of the first year students towards the man.
"Hello ev'ryone!" he said when all of the first years were gathered around him. "I'm Rubeus Hagrid, the Keeper o' the Keys and Grounds o' Hogwarts. You can just call me Hagrid. If you'll just follow me I'll take you up to the castle. Come along." He turned around and began walking away from the platform, his lantern bobbing above his head. The first year students quickly followed.
They soon came to the edge of a body of water, a small lake, that was lined with many rowboats. Hagrid told them that only four people were allowed in each boat and Patricia, Lee, Fred and George quickly got into the boat nearest to them. The other first years got into groups and piled into the boats. Hagrid got a whole boat to himself and even then it sat low in the water.
"Forwards." Hagrid called and the boats began to move along the surface of the lake.
"Have you heard about the Giant Squid?" Lee asked with a sly smile.
"Of course I have." Patricia said before Fred or George could say anything. "He takes a first year boy every year and turns him into a merman to wait on his every need. The only thing that'll break the spell is a kiss from a Slytherin girl, that's why the Slytherin common room is under the lake." A boy in a boat near them who was leaning out of the boat jerked away from the water. Fred, George and Lee looked frightfully at Patricia.
"Heads down!" Hagrid shouted. Everyone ducked as they passed through the entrance to a stone cavern. Patricia peaked over the edge of the boat and saw brilliant crystal formations twinkling in the light of Hagrid's lantern.
"Please tell us you're joking." Lee begged once they had exited the cavern. Patricia smirked while she was still facing away from them.
"She's got to be kidding, right?" the twins asked nervously.
"What do you—Holy staff of Morgana." She had been turning to face them when she spoke and cut herself off when she saw the building that they were approaching, a giant shining castle with pointed towers and hundreds of bright windows.
Hogwarts.