Title: The Life and Times of a Hogwarts Girl- The First Year

Author: RohanianRidr

Summary: See Hogwarts in the Marauder's Era through the quirky perspective of Catalina Leerstart, a girl with a flair for trouble. This is her first year. R&R!

Disclaimer: I own no one but Jonathan and the gorgeous Catalina- though I wish I had a big enough brain to dream up Harry and the crew. Or if I had enough brains… hehe.

Conscience: May I evil laugh now?

Me: Yes.

Conscience: MUAHAHAHAHA… ha-ha… he… yeah.

Me: You done now so I can get on with it?

Conscience: Yes.

Me: Okay.

………………………………………………………………………………..

I dragged my suitcase up the stairs, frantically trying to keep hold of it while trying to wave furiously at my father, who was smiling rather absentmindedly, while recovering from his "You've Grown Up So Fast" speech he's given my brother every year, and is now telling it to me.

Yeah, it's my first year. I'm almost tired of saying it, or even thinking it, since I've thought and told about it from when I got my enrollment letter to now. I remembered with a smile the way my father, my brother and I pranced around the kitchen, singing loudly when I got my letter and booklists. We were really happy I got in, though Dad said it was obvious a bright little girl like me would get in. I can't say I disagree with him.

I rolled my suitcase down the aisle, looking bright and cheery. Oh, how long I had waited for this moment, ever since I could actually understand what my father had meant by "Hogwarts", that he meant I was going to the best wizarding school in the whole wide world. I had been waiting to get on this train ever since my brother had boarded this very train for his first year, three years ago. He was a third year now.

My glasses were straight and my hair was done in twin braids for this occasion, something the whole family, all three of us, had constructed.

My mum's not here, you see. My dad keeps saying she's gone away for a while, but I know the truth now. For heaven's sake, I'm eleven! I know what he means by that. He means dead. Dead as in her candle-flame of life had been doused, her blood no longer circulates. Dead.

I stopped in the middle of the hallway, and looked at the door in front of me. End of aisle. I felt so stupid- I hadn't noticed I had been walking the whole hall. I giggled a bit, turned myself around, and came nose-to-nose with a stranger.

Several strangers, actually.

One of the boys had light blonde hair and a smirk that, if looks could kill, could easily murder you in your sleep. The two others stood on either side of him, both wide-shouldered boys, one of them cracking his fingers, the other leering at her with an incredibly wide grin. I felt the train lurch forward.

"I prefer bullying them in groups, but this one will do." The blonde-haired one said to his "cronies". The two nodded, and the one still leering was joined by the other, who didn't have a grin nearly as wide, but it was still frightening.

Notice I was looking at them the whole time, not cowering or whimpering. Leerstarts do not whimper. Well, maybe a bit, but I wasn't, I sware. I still had the time to say under my breath, "Two's a couple and three's a crowd."

The blonde boy shot a searing glare at me. "What did you say?"

I hastily changed the subject. "Are- are you Lucius Malfoy?"

"Who else?" he said, eyeing me as if to size me up. Obviously the first years he normally tortured weren't usually talking. "How'd you guess?"

"I dunno," I said, trying to not drop my cover, "I remember my brother saying something about you lot, I just can't remember what."

He sized me up again. "Ah, you're the Leerstart girl. I still remember that Gryffindor-" –he spat this word- "idiot, Jonathan, practically shouting that his sister got in last year… oh, well, no matter. More the joy of torturing you."

I suddenly remembered what John had said about Lucius's lot.

Stay away, avoid, and run away.

This was not good.

Before thinking, I pulled out my wand from my pocket and pointed it at the 4th year boys.

They laughed, one of them hysterically, who was also pointing at her pinkish-white wand. It was yew- yew looked like that sometimes, especially when it encased a unicorn mane hair.

"I bet the little sniveling brat doesn't even know what to do with it." Lucius laughed.

My face turned red. Of course I knew jinxes, Jonathan had taught a few to me. I just hadn't ever tried one. I gave a quick grin, slipped my wand into my belt, made a rude hand gesture, still grinning, and ran off down the hall, ducking through the space between Malfoy's cronies.

I heard swearing and heard a spell ricochet off the floor by my feet. I laughed. I was enjoying this moment.

I felt a hand catch my collar and pull me into a compartment, and the door clicked shut. I found myself in an airy compartment with three boys.

"'He' is a girl, James." One of the boys, with dark hair and long legs, said to another.

"Well, how could I know, she was running down the hall too fast for me to tell!" the boy that the other had talked to, James, shrugged innocently and smiled at me.

"'Ello, there, I'm Sirius Black, and this blind old bat is James Potter. We saw you running from those boys and thought you were in trouble, so we pulled you in here. Oh, by the way, the one that's hiding behind a book is Remus Lupin. He doesn't venture into the real world very much." Sirius nodded his head at the boy sitting by James, who gave him a nasty glare before returning to his book.

I nodded, panting. "Catalina… Leerstart. Nice ta… meet you."

"Forgive me for thinking you were of the opposite gender," the boy called James said, "But most 1st year girls don't make it a sport to flick off 4th year Slytherins."

I collapsed next to Sirius, staring at the ceiling. "Yeah."