Disclaimer: I don't own any characters or events you may recognize from the Harry Potter books and movies. The rest, however, is MINE! MINE! ALL MINE! Mua ha ha (evil laugh)…
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Chapter 2: On the Hogwarts ExpressI met Sirius at King's Cross Station at about quarter to eleven. "Hello, mate," he said, giving me a pound on the back. Looking behind me, a mischievous grin spread on his face. "Look who's here," he whispered to me. I turned around to see three redheads, a man, and a blonde girl walking toward us. One of the redheads was Arthur, one I did not know, and the third was the girl we'd met in Diagon Alley: Lily Evans. I had to admit it to myself-I liked this girl. I smiled broadly in spite of myself when they approached us.
"Hello, boys," Arthur said. "You remember Lily, don't you?" He gestured toward her.
"How could we forget her?" Sirius said, natural charm kicking in full blast. Lily blushed a bit and smiled shyly. I scowled at my best friend.
"Nice to see you again," I said.
"You, too," she replied, meeting my gaze and blushing even more.
That was better. Sirius always got the girls' attention. Okay, not all of it, but he always caught it first. I'm not saying I'm jealous, but this was one girl who, for some reason, I definitely wanted to look at me instead of him.
"Well, let's get onto the platform, shall we?" Arthur suggested.
"Right-o. Swell idea, Arthur. I should have thought of it myself," Sirius said. We all rolled our eyes, but didn't say anything. The blonde girl, whom I assumed was Lily's sister, stared at him as if he were a lunatic. When her gaze landed on me, it was so cold I had to restrain a shiver.
"Lily, say goodbye to your family now. They won't be able to get onto the platform," Arthur said kindly. We watched as Lily received a kiss on the cheek from both her parents, and a stiff goodbye from her sister. Our new redhead friend looked close to tears as she looked back at her parents one last time before coming with us, and I had to feel for her. She was stepping into a world she knew hardly anything about, after all. However, she didn't say anything as she watched Sirius race through the barrier between platforms nine and ten.
"Just run through there like Sirius did, you can walk, if you like, and you'll be on platform 9 ¾," I told her. Arthur and I watched patiently as she nodded, took a deep breath, and pushed her trolley through to the platform. After she disappeared, Arthur and I followed.
The morning had been quite rushed. Petunia had refused to even get up for nearly an hour, and though I told my parents that if she didn't want to come to see me off, she didn't have to. They just shook their heads, saying that she was my sister and she was going to come to the train station with us. And that was that. Petunia finally got ready, complaining the whole time while Mum and I were frantically running around, repeatedly reviewing my list of things to pack to see if I'd forgotten anything. When we had everything ready at last, we had a bit of trouble getting my trunk into the back of our car. Eventually Petunia was sandwiched in front with my parents while I sat next to my trunk, finishing Hogwarts, A History for the second time. I didn't want to be the most ignorant person at the school, after all.
We finally reached King's Cross-at about ten-forty, where we met up with Arthur Weasley. We saw James Potter and Sirius Black there, as James said above, and after friendly greetings and such, they showed me how to get to the train. I had a hard time leaving my parents, but I held a forced smile and walked on through the barrier. Since that step, my life has never been the same.
The ride to Hogwarts on the scarlet Hogwarts Express was very eventful. I shared a compartment with James and Sirius, since they were the only people I knew at all. Also with us were two of their friends: Remus Lupin and Abigail Coote. I liked Remus almost immediately, with his friendly, yet quiet personality, but Abigail didn't even smile when we met…we've never gotten along well. I was introduced to several more things, such as Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, dung bombs, and Severus Snape. I'll let Sirius tell you about these.
Hello again, my friends! I get the wonderful opportunity to tell you about our train ride to school. Prepare yourself for a jolly good time!
As Lily already said, we (being Lily, James, and myself) shared a compartment with our friends Remus and Abigail. Remus was life-long friend to both James and I, and we met Abigail, a fellow Gryffindor, in our first year. Abigail was very pretty, to put it lightly. With silky blonde hair and striking blue eyes surrounded by thick, dark lashes, she couldn't help making most of the boys in the school drool whenever they saw her. She was a lot like Lily in that respect.
Why, thank you, Sirius. You're too kind.
I only speak the truth. Anyways, from the beginning Lily and Abigail were rather cold towards one another. They pretended to not hate each other so everyone else could have a good time. Not long after the train left the station, we decided to play a game we marauders invented to amuse ourselves when we didn't feel like breaking anything. It was very simple: we would put one of each kind of treat we got from the trolley on the train into a bag and mix them up. Then we would each in turn take one out. The lucky person who removed a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans would then have to pick a bean without looking. If they could eat it, including swallowing, they would get all the delectable items that were in the original bag. It was rare and fortunate to get a nice-tasting jellybean. Far more common was to get a flavor such as grass, vomit, or earwax.
In the first round, Lily got the bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. She looked positively sick when we told her the kind of flavors she might pick. It took a lot of persuading to convince her to just stick her hand in and grab one. When she finally did, in her hand was a light pink, almost white bean. James and I looked at each other with grins as we guessed the likely flavor: sardines. Fortunately, Lily did not see our devilish faces, and hesitantly put the bean in her mouth. In seconds, a look of absolute repulsion spread across her face. Soon she couldn't handle it any longer. She couldn't force herself to swallow the vile thing, so she did something desperate: she turned her head and spit it out.
Now, that would be a good story on its own, but there is more. You see, just as it flew from her mouth across the compartment, the door opened-and who should come in but Severus Snape! Oh ho! Unluckily for him, his hawk nose was right where the bean was headed. It hit him dead on, and hit him hard, sticking to his face. There was a shocked silence for an instant before all of us burst in to laughter-everyone except Lily. Our new friend was positively white, with her hands clamped tightly over her mouth and her eyes wide with horror as she looked at our fuming enemy.
Wiping his face, Snivellus (our fond nickname for him) looked-no, glared at each of us in turn. We tried to hold back our laughter at his expression. "Who," he whispered dangerously, "did that?" We almost burst into laughter again, but avoided looking at one another and managed to keep exceptionally quiet-all of us but Lily. She must have a powerful conscience, because she always fesses up when she's done something wrong. It was no different in this situation. She managed to pry her hands off her face and say quietly to her victim, "It was an accident-I'm sorry…"
"You are going to be," he replied with a sneer, taking his wand from his pocket. As soon as we saw it, our wands were out as well. James, Remus, and I were on our feet, while Abigail was lying back lazily and Lily froze in her seat. I guess it was her first time being threatened by a wizard.
Actually, it was. I guess it is surprising, though because I'd only known wizards even existed for how long?
All right, you've made your point. So, of course, it was her first time being assaulted by a magical person-to her knowledge
I'm going to be mature and not comment on that last part.
You ruin all the fun in life. Well, on with the story. Snape, that slimy coward of a serpent he is, merely sneered, pocketed his wand, and said to Lily, "You're lucky-this time." And he turned to leave-or so we thought. He took a step out of the compartment, turned again, drew something out of his pocket, threw it, and ran down the hall.
"Well that was-" James was interrupted by an explosion and a sudden horrid smell. Almost immediately all our shirts were over our noses. "He dropped a dungbomb, that snake!" James muttered.
"Honestly, boys, are you wizards or aren't you?" Lily scoffed. Before we knew it, the smell was gone, being replaced by the pleasant smell of chocolate.
Remus, always the polite one, thanked Lily, but Abigail, James and I just looked at each other, surprise evident in all our eyes. This was not normal-far from it. It was usually at least a couple days before any first year could get any result from any simple spell, and this one, the air purifier (invented by Dumbledore, our headmaster) was far from simple compared to most she would be learning. In other words, it was very impressive for a Muggle-born first year to be able to do it well. James shrugged it off and we continued playing our game-all of us but Lily. She chose to curl up in a seat by the window with a book. Eventually, we grew bored of the game and attacked our spoils. I'm going to hand the quill over to James, who was the only one to win nothing in our game.
The rest of the trip passed rather quietly, with me looking over Lily's shoulder as she read, Remus and Abigail engaged in a game of wizard's chess, and Sirius laying on the floor, transforming our candy wrappers into random objects (most of which I didn't recognize). We changed into our school robes after a while, and got ready to leave the train. Lily was visibly nervous, biting her fingernails and asking us frantically what she would have to do to get into a good house, not listening to our answers. Finally, I took her by the shoulders, shook her a little, and looked straight into her face. "Lily," I said, "Calm down. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out." She nodded her head and took my advice. After a few deep breathes, she smiled. "Thanks, James."
"Sure. I was nervous my first year, too."
"Don't worry, Lily-flower," Sirius broke in, "it doesn't hurt too much."
"What?" she said, terrified.
"Leave off, Sirius," I said and turned to Lily. "Don't pay attention to him. He's a dork. It's easy. Anyone can do it. Honest."
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