Chapter 3 is here - just an investigation of the various relationships
between the Slytherin boys, and bringing in Remus Lupin - because after
reading Priestess of Avalon's big epic, I've decided that he has potential.
Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter, or any of the characters you recognize - so please don't sue me.
CHAPTER 3 - RELATIONSHIPS
Two young boys stood with complete confidence on the platform, waiting for the Hogwarts Express to arrive. The first thing one noticed about them was their unusual confidence - not the bravado of the brasher, more rowdy boys on the station, but the quiet confidence in themselves and their places in the world. It bordered on arrogance.
The second thing one noticed was the remarkable resemblance between them - for all that one was blonde, and the other black haired, their features were almost identical. If anything, the blonde haired boy was a little more masculine, a little less beautiful - the black haired boy's features were flawless, perfect in their lines and...he was beautiful. There was no other way to describe him.
A matched pair, if one thought of young boys in that way - and there were people in the world, especially in the High Clan, who did - but there was nothing about these two that even suggested that they were for sale. There was arrogance, breeding and old money in every line of their body; in their stance, in their accent and in the very way they held their heads.
They were High Clan.
****************************
As they waited, perfectly content with each other's company, holding themselves aloof from the rest of the students, they were joined by another student. Black haired as well, but skinny, short and awkward - he had the accents of the High Clan but not the bearing, he had the arrogance but not the confidence. There was no sign of any money, old or new.
What he did have was intelligence and insolence, in abundance - a razor sharp intellect and a vicious tongue, and no mask to disguise it - merely an insolent manner that was designed to keep people away and at a distance.
The two boys, brothers, were Lucius and Lucien Malfoy - and the other was Severus Snape, who was a ragged crow to these two sleek falcons. There was no overt sign that the brothers resented his intrusion into their midst - but then, they were too polite and politically aware to be so obvious - just as there was no sign that Snape resented being forced to cultivate their friendship.
He was too afraid of his father to show anything that could disrupt his plans.
They didn't speak - Snape had nothing to say, because he rarely did, and the two brothers rarely needed words to communicate. They weren't twins, but they were the closest thing to it - they'd had the same wet nurse, had grown up together, and were only six months apart - there was a bond between them stronger than the conventional blood bond between immediate family members.
The three of them stood there, an uneasy alliance of two and another, until the train came and it was time to board. In all the time they had been waiting, they had not spoken once, either to each other or to any of the other students - it was as if they had never really been there at all.
***********************************
They boarded silently, seeking and finding a compartment of their own, but no sooner had they sat down and made themselves comfortable than another boy poked his head in the compartment shyly, saw them, and hesitantly came inside.
He found himself the focus of three sets of eyes, all with an identical expression of detached curiosity, and asked, "Can I sit with you in here? It's awfully crowded, out there." The eyes, two sets of identical silver ones and a pair of jet black ones, all assessed him - his good but slightly worn robes, his easy manners - not High Clan, but still better than usual.
They exchanged glances, and then nodded silently.
He breathed a sigh of relief and sat down, rearranging his robes and frankly examining them. He didn't hold out his hand - that was not a High Clan custom.
"My name is Lupin," he said to them. "Remus Lupin. I'm in first year."
The fair-haired one, who was probably the leader, nodded in return. "Malfoy," he said easily, with confidence. "Lucius Malfoy." Remus glanced at him and nodded in greeting.
He indicated his dark haired brother. "This is my brother Lucien - but he prefers to be called Luc." They exchanged nods.
The other one, the skinny, pale one, was Severus Snape - the nod was no more than a perfunctory gesture, and the dark eyes went back to staring out the window. If it hadn't been for the amused glances the two brothers exchanged, Lupin might have been offended - but the Malfoy brothers' manners put him at ease.
They were first years, too - and while Snape stared determinedly out the window, Lucius, Luc and Remus held an easy discussion about Hogwarts, about what they had heard of the place, and what they thought it would be like. None of them had any desire to see the talk turn personal, Luc and Lucius because of High Clan reserve, and Remus because of his own secret, but there was enough to talk about without revealing each other's deepest, darkest secrets.
Eventually, about halfway into the journey, when Remus had become accustomed to their sardonic, cynical sense of humour and their peculiar insight into the world and its affairs (really, they saw the world in quite an unusual way) - Snape deigned to join the conversation.
He brought it around to Potions, and the Dark Arts, revealing a mutual interest for all of them - they all had a healthy knowledge of the Dark Arts and their powers and applications.
Here, quite unexpectedly, Lupin found three companions who had read the same books as he, who had the same interests and could converse with considerable expertise on them - and on different aspects of them. The Malfoy were manipulators - subtle connivers, they preferred undetectable poisons and precise mind control - Snape's passion was Potions, and all their forms and uses and variations. And Lupin himself preferred the practical, hands on side - he didn't mind getting his hands dirty, and his interest, unlike the others', was purely academic.
His three new friends all hungered for power - but Lupin hungered only for knowledge.
Other than that, they found in each other kindred spirits, and the journey to Hogwarts sped by in conversation and intellectual fascination.
***********************************
Hogwarts Castle was everything their parents had said it would be, and more. Majestically perched on a rising hill, with a lake and the green grounds spread out below, it seemed like a fairy castle from the stories their nurse had told them when they'd been very young and still impressionable.
But, being High Clan, they showed nothing of their reactions - it simply wasn't done.
Lupin seemed to have joined their little group, and the other High Clan boys who'd joined them later on the train - perhaps he had adopted them, or they him. But he sat beside them in the boat, gawking, quickly becoming impassive when he saw their reactions. And then laughing when he caught their eyes and saw the amusement lurking there - realizing that although nothing showed on their faces, what little they did show was all in their eyes.
They were very unlike the other boys he had met in Diagon Alley a week ago, when he had first gone to buy school supplies. James Potter and Sirius Black were Hogwarts first years, like Remus, like Snape and the two Malfoy - but they were, in every other way, completely different.
Remus supposed it was all in their upbringing - his three present companions were High Clan - the aristocratic elite of the wizarding world, the small circles of families who, between them, owned and controlled most of wizarding England. They were almost a breed apart - with their own traditions, beliefs and ways, they tended to hold themselves aloof from the rest of the world.
However, James and Sirius, from what they had told him, were from the upper middle class - an entirely different world. They were quite well to do, and their families were popular and well liked, but were nowhere near the level of the Malfoy. They were more approachable, more friendly and open - but compared to the High Clan boys, with their reserve and shadowed, cynical eyes, they were so innocent it was hard to believe they were the same age, physically at least.
Remus' eyes were shadowed, too, and not because he was High Clan - rather than politics and the Game, he had been raised on cold, hard reality that was hammered home every full moon. He knew, had known ever since the werewolf bit him as a very young child, that the world was not a fair place, and bad things did happen to even the most innocent of children.
He had felt so much older than James and Sirius, but had enjoyed basking in the warmth of their friendship, freely and generously offered - with them, he felt like he could be innocent again, that the world could be the just, fair place they believed it to be.
With the High Clan children, with their cool acceptance of reality and its implications, he felt intellectual companionship and a kind of kinship - equality, of sorts, an acceptance that, in experience at least, he was their equal. They would not make him as welcome as Sirius and James did, initially at least, because friendship was never offered freely and generously in the High Clan - and because trust was always so very hard both to earn and to give.
But they would appreciate him - even if they did look at him with assessing eyes and note every nuance of his actions and his thoughts, and then calculate how he could best fit in with their plans.
But that didn't quite sum up what he found with them - here were likeminded companions, when before he had felt so much older than everyone else - even if there would always be a subtle distinction between himself and the High Clan, even if he would never have a pedigree millennia in the making, he would always have that intellectual friendship. And maybe it might develop even farther than that.
He didn't know, but he knew that he wanted to find out.
******************************
Severus Andronicus Snape, eldest and only son of Augustus Antoninus Snape, who was one of the self-styled Lord Voldemort's greatest supporters, wondered just what he was doing here, and what he had done to deserve it.
Of course, he was a Snape - and Snapes had attended Hogwarts since the Founding - but that didn't mean that he himself had to. They didn't have nearly enough money to afford seven years at Hogwarts, the premier wizarding school in England and with fees to match - but practical considerations like that didn't matter when compared with familial pride.
Practical considerations, in House Snape, meant ambition and the success of the Dark Lord - and his father would do anything in the name of ambition and Lord Voldemort. Even ingratiate himself with the Malfoy, who wanted nothing to do with him - even command his only son to do anything possible to win the friendship of Malfoy's heirs.
How he was going to do that when Malfoy's heirs knew damned well what he was trying to do, and even why, he didn't know. There was nothing between them but mutual suspicion and an obligation - they were all three of them on their guard and very wary of anything that might give the other an advantage.
At least they were worthy opponents - the other students he had seen, with the exception of this Remus Lupin, seemed to be infantile, immature and more concerned with quidditch and the latest fashions than learning and the realities of society.
Snape could play the Game, and play it well - but he preferred the cleaner, more honest art of Potions than politics...it was the only thing his father ever taught him that he enjoyed. Potions and learning new things, new facts and magic - that was the only reason he was looking forward to Hogwarts.
He knew some of his classmates already - the Malfoy brothers, Lupin, who showed surprising knowledge and insight (perhaps it was worth watching him, just to see if he could be turned to his advantage), and his other peers in the High Clan, who were on the boat next to them.
Rayden Lestrange, his cousin Shan Andahni, and their elusive and slippery companion Brandon Avery - together, they formed a loose alliance aimed at defense against anyone who came against them, and especially against Lestrange's sadistic elder brother, who was in third year now.
Snape tolerated and was almost respectful of Lestrange, who was a very dangerous player, ruthless and elegant and Machiavellian - nothing ever discomposed him, nothing ever shook his sardonic sangfroid. He was fiercely protective of his cousin Shan, who was more open than Lestrange, but no less sharp. Snape usually had nothing to do with Shan, simply because he preferred to ignore him rather than incur Rayden's wrath any more than was necessary.
But Brandon Avery, who was Snape's cousin on his mother's side - Snape hated him, and it was returned with equal measure. Languid, jaded and perpetually world weary, he was so falsely, affectedly egocentric that it drove Snape crazy - and knowing this, Avery exaggerated his airs and affectations even further. Snape had tried to poison him, without success, more than once - but after his father's last punishment had restrained himself to hexes and curses, of which he knew legion. They constantly sharpened their wits trying to cause the other trouble, but if anyone else stepped into their quarrel...they were family, and they shared blood.
They might threaten and try to kill each other, but should anyone else try, they would find themselves facing both boys, united by common danger.
No one ever said High Clan alliances were logical.
The last boy was Dirk Courtney - scion of an ancient House, insolent and in- your-face, his manner was carefully cultivated to shock and repel, as Snape's was, but he didn't have Snape's bitterness, because his father doted on him and would never dream of causing his son harm. He was regarded as something of a weak mark, but was protected by his close friendship with Luc Malfoy, who seemed to make a habit of picking up strays and taking them under his wing.
******************************
There they were - seven High Clan boys formed into two close alliances with some loose hangers-on, and one adopted boy who was an outsider, but had the potential to be one of them, all of them on their way to Hogwarts. Among the eight eleven-year-old boys, secret agendas, plans and goals abounded - politics had started already, alliances formed and boundaries made and tested, and it was still only the first night.
It was going to be an interesting year.
****************************
A/N - I believe that the Marauder's time is far more innocent than 1980 - so if the boys seem a bit young, this is because they haven't yet fallen under Voldemort's influence. Don't worry - they'll lose all innocence soon, as soon as I decide how.
A reviewed author is an inspired one!! Tell me what you think. Read and review.
Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter, or any of the characters you recognize - so please don't sue me.
CHAPTER 3 - RELATIONSHIPS
Two young boys stood with complete confidence on the platform, waiting for the Hogwarts Express to arrive. The first thing one noticed about them was their unusual confidence - not the bravado of the brasher, more rowdy boys on the station, but the quiet confidence in themselves and their places in the world. It bordered on arrogance.
The second thing one noticed was the remarkable resemblance between them - for all that one was blonde, and the other black haired, their features were almost identical. If anything, the blonde haired boy was a little more masculine, a little less beautiful - the black haired boy's features were flawless, perfect in their lines and...he was beautiful. There was no other way to describe him.
A matched pair, if one thought of young boys in that way - and there were people in the world, especially in the High Clan, who did - but there was nothing about these two that even suggested that they were for sale. There was arrogance, breeding and old money in every line of their body; in their stance, in their accent and in the very way they held their heads.
They were High Clan.
****************************
As they waited, perfectly content with each other's company, holding themselves aloof from the rest of the students, they were joined by another student. Black haired as well, but skinny, short and awkward - he had the accents of the High Clan but not the bearing, he had the arrogance but not the confidence. There was no sign of any money, old or new.
What he did have was intelligence and insolence, in abundance - a razor sharp intellect and a vicious tongue, and no mask to disguise it - merely an insolent manner that was designed to keep people away and at a distance.
The two boys, brothers, were Lucius and Lucien Malfoy - and the other was Severus Snape, who was a ragged crow to these two sleek falcons. There was no overt sign that the brothers resented his intrusion into their midst - but then, they were too polite and politically aware to be so obvious - just as there was no sign that Snape resented being forced to cultivate their friendship.
He was too afraid of his father to show anything that could disrupt his plans.
They didn't speak - Snape had nothing to say, because he rarely did, and the two brothers rarely needed words to communicate. They weren't twins, but they were the closest thing to it - they'd had the same wet nurse, had grown up together, and were only six months apart - there was a bond between them stronger than the conventional blood bond between immediate family members.
The three of them stood there, an uneasy alliance of two and another, until the train came and it was time to board. In all the time they had been waiting, they had not spoken once, either to each other or to any of the other students - it was as if they had never really been there at all.
***********************************
They boarded silently, seeking and finding a compartment of their own, but no sooner had they sat down and made themselves comfortable than another boy poked his head in the compartment shyly, saw them, and hesitantly came inside.
He found himself the focus of three sets of eyes, all with an identical expression of detached curiosity, and asked, "Can I sit with you in here? It's awfully crowded, out there." The eyes, two sets of identical silver ones and a pair of jet black ones, all assessed him - his good but slightly worn robes, his easy manners - not High Clan, but still better than usual.
They exchanged glances, and then nodded silently.
He breathed a sigh of relief and sat down, rearranging his robes and frankly examining them. He didn't hold out his hand - that was not a High Clan custom.
"My name is Lupin," he said to them. "Remus Lupin. I'm in first year."
The fair-haired one, who was probably the leader, nodded in return. "Malfoy," he said easily, with confidence. "Lucius Malfoy." Remus glanced at him and nodded in greeting.
He indicated his dark haired brother. "This is my brother Lucien - but he prefers to be called Luc." They exchanged nods.
The other one, the skinny, pale one, was Severus Snape - the nod was no more than a perfunctory gesture, and the dark eyes went back to staring out the window. If it hadn't been for the amused glances the two brothers exchanged, Lupin might have been offended - but the Malfoy brothers' manners put him at ease.
They were first years, too - and while Snape stared determinedly out the window, Lucius, Luc and Remus held an easy discussion about Hogwarts, about what they had heard of the place, and what they thought it would be like. None of them had any desire to see the talk turn personal, Luc and Lucius because of High Clan reserve, and Remus because of his own secret, but there was enough to talk about without revealing each other's deepest, darkest secrets.
Eventually, about halfway into the journey, when Remus had become accustomed to their sardonic, cynical sense of humour and their peculiar insight into the world and its affairs (really, they saw the world in quite an unusual way) - Snape deigned to join the conversation.
He brought it around to Potions, and the Dark Arts, revealing a mutual interest for all of them - they all had a healthy knowledge of the Dark Arts and their powers and applications.
Here, quite unexpectedly, Lupin found three companions who had read the same books as he, who had the same interests and could converse with considerable expertise on them - and on different aspects of them. The Malfoy were manipulators - subtle connivers, they preferred undetectable poisons and precise mind control - Snape's passion was Potions, and all their forms and uses and variations. And Lupin himself preferred the practical, hands on side - he didn't mind getting his hands dirty, and his interest, unlike the others', was purely academic.
His three new friends all hungered for power - but Lupin hungered only for knowledge.
Other than that, they found in each other kindred spirits, and the journey to Hogwarts sped by in conversation and intellectual fascination.
***********************************
Hogwarts Castle was everything their parents had said it would be, and more. Majestically perched on a rising hill, with a lake and the green grounds spread out below, it seemed like a fairy castle from the stories their nurse had told them when they'd been very young and still impressionable.
But, being High Clan, they showed nothing of their reactions - it simply wasn't done.
Lupin seemed to have joined their little group, and the other High Clan boys who'd joined them later on the train - perhaps he had adopted them, or they him. But he sat beside them in the boat, gawking, quickly becoming impassive when he saw their reactions. And then laughing when he caught their eyes and saw the amusement lurking there - realizing that although nothing showed on their faces, what little they did show was all in their eyes.
They were very unlike the other boys he had met in Diagon Alley a week ago, when he had first gone to buy school supplies. James Potter and Sirius Black were Hogwarts first years, like Remus, like Snape and the two Malfoy - but they were, in every other way, completely different.
Remus supposed it was all in their upbringing - his three present companions were High Clan - the aristocratic elite of the wizarding world, the small circles of families who, between them, owned and controlled most of wizarding England. They were almost a breed apart - with their own traditions, beliefs and ways, they tended to hold themselves aloof from the rest of the world.
However, James and Sirius, from what they had told him, were from the upper middle class - an entirely different world. They were quite well to do, and their families were popular and well liked, but were nowhere near the level of the Malfoy. They were more approachable, more friendly and open - but compared to the High Clan boys, with their reserve and shadowed, cynical eyes, they were so innocent it was hard to believe they were the same age, physically at least.
Remus' eyes were shadowed, too, and not because he was High Clan - rather than politics and the Game, he had been raised on cold, hard reality that was hammered home every full moon. He knew, had known ever since the werewolf bit him as a very young child, that the world was not a fair place, and bad things did happen to even the most innocent of children.
He had felt so much older than James and Sirius, but had enjoyed basking in the warmth of their friendship, freely and generously offered - with them, he felt like he could be innocent again, that the world could be the just, fair place they believed it to be.
With the High Clan children, with their cool acceptance of reality and its implications, he felt intellectual companionship and a kind of kinship - equality, of sorts, an acceptance that, in experience at least, he was their equal. They would not make him as welcome as Sirius and James did, initially at least, because friendship was never offered freely and generously in the High Clan - and because trust was always so very hard both to earn and to give.
But they would appreciate him - even if they did look at him with assessing eyes and note every nuance of his actions and his thoughts, and then calculate how he could best fit in with their plans.
But that didn't quite sum up what he found with them - here were likeminded companions, when before he had felt so much older than everyone else - even if there would always be a subtle distinction between himself and the High Clan, even if he would never have a pedigree millennia in the making, he would always have that intellectual friendship. And maybe it might develop even farther than that.
He didn't know, but he knew that he wanted to find out.
******************************
Severus Andronicus Snape, eldest and only son of Augustus Antoninus Snape, who was one of the self-styled Lord Voldemort's greatest supporters, wondered just what he was doing here, and what he had done to deserve it.
Of course, he was a Snape - and Snapes had attended Hogwarts since the Founding - but that didn't mean that he himself had to. They didn't have nearly enough money to afford seven years at Hogwarts, the premier wizarding school in England and with fees to match - but practical considerations like that didn't matter when compared with familial pride.
Practical considerations, in House Snape, meant ambition and the success of the Dark Lord - and his father would do anything in the name of ambition and Lord Voldemort. Even ingratiate himself with the Malfoy, who wanted nothing to do with him - even command his only son to do anything possible to win the friendship of Malfoy's heirs.
How he was going to do that when Malfoy's heirs knew damned well what he was trying to do, and even why, he didn't know. There was nothing between them but mutual suspicion and an obligation - they were all three of them on their guard and very wary of anything that might give the other an advantage.
At least they were worthy opponents - the other students he had seen, with the exception of this Remus Lupin, seemed to be infantile, immature and more concerned with quidditch and the latest fashions than learning and the realities of society.
Snape could play the Game, and play it well - but he preferred the cleaner, more honest art of Potions than politics...it was the only thing his father ever taught him that he enjoyed. Potions and learning new things, new facts and magic - that was the only reason he was looking forward to Hogwarts.
He knew some of his classmates already - the Malfoy brothers, Lupin, who showed surprising knowledge and insight (perhaps it was worth watching him, just to see if he could be turned to his advantage), and his other peers in the High Clan, who were on the boat next to them.
Rayden Lestrange, his cousin Shan Andahni, and their elusive and slippery companion Brandon Avery - together, they formed a loose alliance aimed at defense against anyone who came against them, and especially against Lestrange's sadistic elder brother, who was in third year now.
Snape tolerated and was almost respectful of Lestrange, who was a very dangerous player, ruthless and elegant and Machiavellian - nothing ever discomposed him, nothing ever shook his sardonic sangfroid. He was fiercely protective of his cousin Shan, who was more open than Lestrange, but no less sharp. Snape usually had nothing to do with Shan, simply because he preferred to ignore him rather than incur Rayden's wrath any more than was necessary.
But Brandon Avery, who was Snape's cousin on his mother's side - Snape hated him, and it was returned with equal measure. Languid, jaded and perpetually world weary, he was so falsely, affectedly egocentric that it drove Snape crazy - and knowing this, Avery exaggerated his airs and affectations even further. Snape had tried to poison him, without success, more than once - but after his father's last punishment had restrained himself to hexes and curses, of which he knew legion. They constantly sharpened their wits trying to cause the other trouble, but if anyone else stepped into their quarrel...they were family, and they shared blood.
They might threaten and try to kill each other, but should anyone else try, they would find themselves facing both boys, united by common danger.
No one ever said High Clan alliances were logical.
The last boy was Dirk Courtney - scion of an ancient House, insolent and in- your-face, his manner was carefully cultivated to shock and repel, as Snape's was, but he didn't have Snape's bitterness, because his father doted on him and would never dream of causing his son harm. He was regarded as something of a weak mark, but was protected by his close friendship with Luc Malfoy, who seemed to make a habit of picking up strays and taking them under his wing.
******************************
There they were - seven High Clan boys formed into two close alliances with some loose hangers-on, and one adopted boy who was an outsider, but had the potential to be one of them, all of them on their way to Hogwarts. Among the eight eleven-year-old boys, secret agendas, plans and goals abounded - politics had started already, alliances formed and boundaries made and tested, and it was still only the first night.
It was going to be an interesting year.
****************************
A/N - I believe that the Marauder's time is far more innocent than 1980 - so if the boys seem a bit young, this is because they haven't yet fallen under Voldemort's influence. Don't worry - they'll lose all innocence soon, as soon as I decide how.
A reviewed author is an inspired one!! Tell me what you think. Read and review.