Chapter Three

Talons

Nervousness gripped me on the train. I was going to see it again. You do not know how hard this was for me. I was going to come into contact with people who knew him, the love of my short, short life, and I could not talk to them about him. I had never been able to talk about him to anyone. I had mourned in silence as a small child who did not understand what I was mourning for. And there was always the chance that I would see him. I had thought about that at Diagon Alley. Even though it was impossible that he could recognise me, I was afraid of a confrontation of the "but…but I thought you were dead" variety. I suppose that was the reason I was so anxious about the scene my family were making.

The last time I was on the eleven o'clock Hogwarts Express from Kings Cross drifted into my mind. We were together by then, though there was a time when I thought we would be the last people who would be an item. He, unlike some people that I had been unfortunately involved with, did not have a problem with my heritage. Being a Slytherin, statistics meant that the circles I moved in were like this. He had left his friends, who were whispering, no doubt, "how could you, she's a Slytherin" to him, to sit with me. In these times, traditional rivalries between houses were strengthening. He had his eyes closed, sleeping, I think, and his head rested upon my shoulder. He had had a hard time with his family in intervening week and a half since we had last seen each other, and I knew something had happened. He would not tell me, though "later" he had said, and closed his eyes, burrowing his head into my neck and whispering about how he had missed me and how sleepy he was. He had not gotten much sleep. One other thing jumps up in my mind about that particular journey. Regulus Black passed our compartment, and he glanced in at us and gave us a mean, contemptuous look, full of poison and resentment. The irony of that look struck me later when I found out the events that were later to unravel, an irony of reversed roles and people not seeming to be who I thought they were.

I decided to keep away from memories and focus on the present, which consisted of me in a compartment with several other first years.

"Oh, I'm so glad I'm not the only one who's new to all this," said Hermione, a girl with bushy brown hair, evidently to me, though I hadn't been listening to the conversation. "And transfiguration looks so complicated…"

I had to try hard restrain myself from saying "Oh no, it's not", and even more so from saying "Transfiguration? Piece of piss!"

"I looked at the books," said Neville anxiously. "And none of it makes any sense to me…"

"I'm sure it'll seem better when the teacher explains it in class," I said. "You never know, it could turn out to be the easiest subject."

"I doubt it," said Su Li. "I reckon potions will be a doddle; I help with my sis all the time, she's a healer at St Mungo's… that's a magical hospital… the biggest and best in Britain."

"You see what I mean?" said Hermione, starting to panic a little. "You already know about potions…!"

Su Li laughed.

"Hermione… I don't know any potions, the ones my sister makes are far too complicated for me! I just chop herbs and things like that. I like it, it's fun."

"And I'll probably be hopeless at everything," said Neville miserably.

"Oh, come on, Neville," I said. "It can't be that bad…"

At this point Neville started telling a story about the time he'd nearly destroyed the kitchen when helping his great aunt, against his grandmother's wishes, to make a scouring potion. Before he finished, though, he let out a screech and cried out that Trevor had gone. Do not worry, Trevor was not his little brother, but a rather ugly pet toad, and we spent the next five minutes turning our compartment upside down.

"It's no use, I don't think it's, I mean he's, here," Hermione finally voiced. "Why don't you and I, Neville, ask around, and Su and Natasha can stay here in case he turns up?"

"Ok…" Neville said, a lump rising in his throat.

"Yeah, we'll keep our eyes open," said Su Li, as they disappear. When they had gone she let out a little giggle. "They are a funny pair, aren't they?"

We thankfully engaged in a conversation without Hermione Granger's neurotic crises and Neville Longbottom's self-deprecations. I listened patiently to Su Li's description of everything she had ever heard about Hogwarts, and even managed to conjure up that distant feeling I had felt some two decades earlier when I was in the same situation. She was from Edinburgh, and we soon fell to comparing our capitals, each claiming superiority in a amicable and enthusiastic manner, but, I think, by the end of the conversation we had convinced both fallen for each other's argument.

We whiled away the hours as it grew dark, and soon the train began to slow down. Neville and Hermione had come back by this time, the poor boy crestfallen from not having found his toad. I said a few kind words, and the look it inspired on his face guaranteed a soft spot in my heart for him forever. On exiting the train, good old, oversized, scruffy Hagrid called out to the first years to follow him, and in minutes we were clambering into boats. We crossed the lake in a hushed silence, all of us staring up at the castle. Su and I exchanged a thrilled look look. It was the second time I had approached the school in this manner, and it was as electrifying and dread inspiring as it had been before.

And I suppose we come to the highlight of the evening on which I had really been focusing my fears on. The sorting. I wonder, to hats have a good memory for minds? Either way it did not matter, for I would undoubtedly have the memory of the first time that I had donned that old and decrepit hat down in the depths for the horrid thing to find.

We ascended some stairs and Professor McGonagall said a few words to which I did not pay attention, and then we filed out in a single line into the Great Hall. I looked up. There were the stars. I had liked the ceiling of the Great Hall, and it was a comforting distraction to the prospect of what was to come. I cast an eye around the familiar room, the house table, still in the same positions, and their students, many of whom looked familiar to me, the children of old schoolfellows, and then the teachers' tables. Hagrid caught my attention first, being so massive, but then I saw something that made my stomach jolt. Severus Snape. I had not thought about him being here. He was going to teach me! I was going to sit there pretending that I had not called him 'Daisy', copying down notes… I wondered what he taught.

"Cornfoot, Stephan," Professor McGonagall announced, after which a boy with a mass of curly hair scurried forth.

The Sorting had started already. I waited in silence, staring straight ahead of me. Christ. He was older. He was a real adult, not just a boy, young man at a stretch, barely out of Hogwarts as I remember him last. I glanced at the other teachers. Flitwick. Good old Flitwick. And Professor Dumbledore, his hair somehow seeming even whiter than it was all those years ago.

"Entwhistle, Kevin."

A new teacher that I recognised as being a seventh year when I had first arrived at Hogwarts, she had helped me find a lesson, and introduced herself as… what was it? Sprout. Of course, as always, the last Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher I had had was not there, I did not know which one was this year's guinea pig. It could very easily be Daisy… I mean Professor Snape. He was very good at the subject. Oh what a novelty. If I was still Amy Greenwood and someone told me Professor Snape would one day teach a bunch of teenagers at Hogwarts I would have laughed and asked them to tell me another one.

"Finch-Fletchley, Justin."

F, G, H, I … J. It would not be long now. I glanced an eye over the tables, and by the looks of the students the houses were still sitting in the same places. I wondered whether I would be soon walking over to the table on the right like I had done last time I had been sorted. Somehow I did not like the idea. Life in Slytherin could be trying at times, especially when people found reasons for bitterness. I had not always been happy, but I suppose I could live with that. It was worse seeing other people unhappy. But for all I knew it could be like this in all the houses. It probably was, to some extent. And most people were happy there, and I was most of the time.

"Granger, Hermione."

The girl I had met on the train went forward. She was sorted into Gryffindor. I did not think that Gryffindor was the place for me. Whether I was brave or not was not a part of the questions. I could not enter that house considering my experiences with some of its members. I nearly got expelled on several occasions, I am sure, because of one particular group of them, and I had a hunch that the motivation behind at least one of these incidents had been that very thing. For the hundredth time in the last few months, I wondered where these people were now, what they were doing, if they had children… To think that I could have had a family of my own by now... They could have been nearly old enough for Hogwarts themselves by now. I shivered, but in the middle of the shiver I was caught by something that nearly riveted me to the spot.

"Jeeves, Natasha."

That's me, I thought.

"Jeeves, Natasha," Professor McGonagall repeated with a little more emphasis, and a little less patience.

I snapped back into normal time and scurried forward, my stomach plummeting, and jammed the hat on my head.

Don't tell, I thought with all my might, willing the hat to hear me. No need for that, came the voice of the hat, I can tell that is the last thing you want. But I won't… You've been here before, haven't you? Interesting story… So, you're a Slytherin, are you? I was right about you… then. You don't what to go back, do you? Scared yourself, last time, didn't you? Heh. Well, I'll tell you one thing; you've changed a lot since I last looked into your head. You've gained a lot from life. Or lives. Heh heh heh. I frowned and willed him to get on with it. Oo, touchy, are we? Don't hurry me, I'm thinking. Not Gryffindor…? That makes this a little easier. Not Hufflepuff. Why? Because. Which means that you're in RAVENCLAW!"

I yanked the hat off my head and staggered off to the table in the middle towards the right, the applause seeming a distant patter of rain in my head. I sat down next to the boy with curly hair, he shot me a grin and grabbed my hand.

"Stephan Cornfoot, but you can call me Steph," he said. "God, this is long, don't you think. I hope it ends ASAP."

I agreed with him, and the next name was called out. I looked over to the remaining first years lined up at the front of the Great Hall. I recognised the redheaded boy who was the brother of Fred and George, standing in line, and next to him… This was shock number two. It could have been Potter… James Potter, that is, only younger than I had ever seen him. It was like looking at a photograph of someone you knew very well that was taken before you knew him. I rubbed my eyes. So, James Potter had a son. I wondered whose it was… surely not Lily? Potter had had an infatuation with the girl since his fifth year until I last saw him, shortly after he left Hogwarts, and I could not see him ever changing that, but was not fond of him. But I would have liked to see James Potter again. I could not reminisce with him about old times, but it would be nice to see how he had changed, grown.

I do not remember much of the rest of the evening. Su Li, I was glad, joined me on the Ravenclaw table. We sang the school song and ate, and went up to the Ravenclaw tower. One thing I do remember is how pleased I was not to be down among the dungeons, and opening the window of our dormitory wide open and feeling the breeze on my face.