Disclaimer: All recognizable stuff belongs to JKR
Chapter 2 – New Friends and Pureblood Rubbish
The Evans had arrived at Kings cross station and Mrs. Evans was fussing over her daughter, as she had been doing ever since Lily's Hogwarts letter had arriver.
"Now are you sure you've got everything Lily dear? You wouldn't want to leave anything important."
"Yes mum I'm sure. It's all in my trunk. Now I have to go, the train leaves in 15 minutes!" Lily herself was starting to get worried as the clock above them slowly ticked nearer to 11 o'clock. "I promise I'll write to you when I get there and I'll be fine."
"Come now Sarah dear, we need to let Lily go before she's late. Have a wonderful time Lily and make sure you do write to let us know you're OK."
Lily gave her parents a quick hug and watched as they retreated back to their car to go home. "Right" She thought looking at the ticket, "platform 9 and ¾ . . . 9 and three. Ah." Lily stopped looking straight up. There were two signs, one saying platform 9, the other 10. But no where did it say platform 9¾. Lily tried asking the ticket man but he had no idea what she was on about and it was now 10 minutes till the train left. Just as Lily was starting to panic she heard voice behind her and she saw a boy she recognised from Diagon alley carrying a trunk like hers and owl. "Great, I get stuck asking help from a spoiled brat, just typical" Lily thought as she walked up to the three people in front of her.
"Er, excuse me" She asked nervously, "Do you know where platform 9 and ¾ is?"
The people turned to face her and Lily could see the boy smirking behind his parents. Luckily his parents seemed nicer and they told Lily that all you had to was walk through the barrier between platforms 9 and 10 and you would get to 9¾. Lily muttered her thanks and turned to face what appeared to be a brick wall. The parents of the boy smiled at her and she headed for the wall, thinking she was about to crash into it but to her surprise she came out the other side and stared at a red steam engine with the words "Hogwarts Express" written on it. She was staring at it when she heard a voice behind her.
"We don't have all day you know, and I personally want to get on the train some time this century." Lily turned to see the boy from the platform smirking at her. She couldn't believe someone could be so arrogant as to assume the world revolved around him. Without waiting for her reply he simply pushed past her, almost knocking her to the ground, and went to board the train.
Deciding she really did not like that boy, and praying he wasn't in her year she boarded the train to try and find an empty compartment. Unfortunately after spending too much time trying to get onto the platform there were of course, no free compartments. She settled for one that only had one girl in who looked like she could be a first year and entered.
"Er is this seat taken?" The girl looked up from a book she was reading. Lily saw she had long black hair, dark skin and chocolate brown eyes. She smiled at Lily and gestured to the seat opposite. "Thanks" Lily smiled, "I'm Lily Evans, first year. What year are you in?"
"Really!?" The girl suddenly looked much happier. "I was starting to think I was the only one, couldn't find anyone else in the first year. I'm Mia Miyagi, as you can probably guess I'm a first year. Do you know what house you will be in?"
Lily felt much calmer now she had found someone in her year, and Mia seemed nice. Lily was about to ask what "houses" were when another nervous looking girl entered the compartment. She had dirty blonde hair, lightly tanned skin and blue eyes.
"Hi, I'm Jessica Rivers; can I sit with you guys?" Lily looked to Mia; after all she was here first.
"Sure" Mia beamed, "I'm Mia Miyagi and this is Lily Evans, are you a first year too?"
After Lily had helped Jessica store her trunk they both sat down opposite Mia.
"Yup that's me, first year. But I have got a brother in the 7th year, Adrian, he's captain of the Gryffindor Quiddich team so I guess I've got a lot to live up to."
Lily stared at both of them, they seemed to know a lot about Hogwarts already, deciding she better find out from nice people rather than look like an idiot in front of the whole school she asked, "What's Gryffindor and Quiddich?"
Both girls stared at her as though she were insane, Mia was the first to recover.
"You don't know what the houses are? You don't know what Quiddich is!? You're muggle born right?"
"Er, I think so" Lily didn't really know what a muggle was but guessed she must be one, "what exactly is a muggle born?" Both girls just stared at her again, and Lily could see Jessica suppressing a giggle.
"Wow you have a lot to learn," Mia continued "Basically a muggle is someone with no magical ability or anything to do with magic, and since you don't know a lot of stuff I'd say your parents are muggles. A muggle born is a person with non-magical parents. See? The houses are like groups at Hogwarts. You get sorted into whichever house you are most suited to. There is Gryffindor, which sounds by far the best-"
"It is" Jessica cut in "Like I said my brother goes there and he said all the cool people are in Gryffindor" Jessica smiled at Lily but she was getting more nervous by the second, she had so much to learn. She knew she wouldn't know everything but it was a shock how much other people in her year knew. Mia didn't seem to notice Lily's apprehension and continued on anyway,
"Yes, well, Gryffindor is the best, I want to get into Gryffindor, my parents were there so they expect me to get in. Then there is Ravenclaw, that's not too bad I guess, the smart people go there, well Gryffindors are smart as well, but they are braver. Hufflepuff are for the less clever people. According to my dad they are the people who are loyal but mainly they are just stupid. Lastly there is Slytherin. Trust me you don't want to go there; all the horrible bad wizards are in Slytherin. Apparently they are all slimy and cheating and basically I would rather go home than go into Slytherin." Mia drew breath and smiled at Lily. Lily smiled back thinking that this was going to be harder then she first though. Lily listened to Mia, with help from Jessica, explaining the rules of Quiddich, praying the she wasn't in Hufflepuff or Slytherin.
Meanwhile James Potter had made his way to the last carriage on the train, and had been shortly joined by a quiet boy with sandy hair, a quite pale, ill-looking complexion and blue eyes. The two boys were in a discussion about Quiddich, when the compartment door slid open to reveal the boy James had met in Diagon Alley – Sirius Black.
The boy looked as happy as he had in Diagon alley except more nervous, he looked at the occupants and started to talk, "Hi can I sit here? Everywhere else if full" Remus nodded at him and he continued, "I'm Sirius Black by the way, first year."
Remus got up to help him with his trunk and sat down offering the seat next to him. "I'm Remus Lupin, also first year, and this is James Potter-"
"We've met" James cut in coldly. "I guess you're from the 'Noble and Most Ancient House of Black' as your parents would put it." James glared at Sirius and turned to look out the window, leaving a speechless boy glaring back at him.
Remus glanced between the two boys and desperately tried to make some conversation to ease the tension, "Noble and most ancient, sounds important" but Sirius was not listening, he had known that this would happen and was going to try and do everything to stop it.
"Great, my family's reputation precedes me. For your information, James," James turned to face him "I'm not like all them with their pureblood crap. In fact I was hoping, since you seem to not like them, that we could be friends." Sirius continued, never breaking eye contact with James.
James thought about this for a second before replying, "What Quiddich team do you support?"
"The Wasps of course"
James smiled, "then I think we'll get on just fine". The boys spent the rest of the journey playing exploding snap and talking about the Wimbourne Wasps success over the summer and it was soon clear that James and Sirius would be the best of friends.
About an hour later the lunch lady came round and James was amazed by how much one boy could eat, he watched as Sirius bought just about everything on the cart and ate it in 10 minutes flat. A prefect came round and told them to change into their robes and soon the dark mountains came into view and the train had pulled into Hogsmeade station.
Silver Lily x x