A/N: Usual disclaimer applies.

Can you tell I had problems with this chapter? I wrote some bits in Bella's POV (a snippet that I'm probably going to post on my yahoo group anyway), but, feeling that I had no more material that I really wanted to go on, decided to just end the POV-switching for now. Then I decided Bella's bit could go in anyway, just so you guys know what's going on behind the scenes to an extent, even if Antares doesn't.

Anyway, I'm (still) really glad at how many hits this is getting, of course, and honestly invite my readers to review – for the next few days, I'll be in and out of school, which means I'll have at least an hour or so to devote to answering the reviews I get. For now, I'll just leave it at a big thank you to all those who reviewed, and special shout outs for GYTawarazzle-dazzle-meSpirit White (the one I know), Shadowed RainsDiorama, and anyone else I've missed for giving me detailed reviews and asking questions, even if I (sigh) cannot answer all of them right now. Any further questions I encounter during the penning of this chapter will be at the end author note, if, indeed, I don't answer them in this chapter.

I also hereby present the award to Tokyo No Ecchi for the absolute weirdest review I've ever gotten from anyone. You, sir/madam, win the review list!

Now, on with the chapter, the title of which is pretty self-explanatory.


Chapter 5: To Hogwarts He goes

Antares jolted awake with a start, hands scrabbling for something he muzzily decided should be his new wand. The dream he'd had – frightening, positively so – faded away into his itchy pillow, as they were wont to do when he woke up full instead of hungry. He stared up into the ceiling above him, swiping crusty stuff from his eyes until they hurt, feeling excited and not, all at the same time.

For one thing, Antares thought, as he swung himself out of the bed, he was going to Hogwarts, whether it was before all the other brats (as Professor Snape had said) arrived or not, and the idea of going back there gave him that warm, tingly feeling that had made him so giddy on the train back on the day of the apprenticeship tests that he'd annoyed Snape by being unable to sit still.

But, on the other hand

Bella wouldn't be there. Just as she wasn't here, in their bed, this morning, as she should be.

Antares struggled not to let his shoulders droop as he felt his way into the bathroom, refusing to open his eyes because they hurt from being swiped at too much. If he'd really known how awkward leaving his mother behind would feel, maybe…

But no, no, no. Bella would never have stood for the idea of him not going away to Hogwarts, scholarship or no. Antares stepped uncaringly into the shower, the spray slicing through him like the cold expression in his mother's eyes sometimes could. She'd have sold herself to send him there – he knew that, sold the Black name and everything that came with it (which wasn't much), done anything. Hadn't she agreed to move into this place to keep him safe?

Idiot, idiot, idiot, Antares told himself sharply. How can she come to Hogwarts with you, anyway? It's never done.

But still –

"Boy! You'd better be awake – "

Snape's somewhat less greasy, unkempt head poked around the tiny bathroom door, which was slightly ajar. Colour flooded his pale face as a scowl of something resembling embarrassment passed across his features, before he slammed the door shut. Antares smirked to himself, a little wryly – the Professor was now so bloody particular about believing he was some sort of mad fool that would never do what he was told. So he'd conveniently forgotten to set aside some quills and parchment. So what? It was only because –

"You'd best be ready in half an hour, boy, the train leaves precisely at eleven. If your uselessness of habit causes us to miss that train, you will be unceasingly sorry." And with that, the shuffle of Snape's dressing slippers drifted through the door, and Antares knew he'd gone into his and Bella's room, probably to check for what would be the tenth time that week that Antares had packed everything he'd been told to.

Antares rolled his eyes – for all his odd, jerky generosity towards him and his mum, Severus Snape was very disbelieving of the fact that Antares was deserving of all the favours he'd slyly slipped into his life. It didn't make sense –

"Thank Merlin – all seems to be in order…" the mutter drifted through the ajar door that led into Bella and Antares' room. More bustling and shuffling of slippers could be heard as Antares turned off the shower with an awkward scrabble for his wand and a resulting set of wonky swishes that doused him with a stream of ice-cold water before the shower spray ceased to a mere trickle. "Your mother has commandeered my own bathroom, so I shall be ready to take you to King's Cross a little later than planned." Antares snorted to himself – of all the nerve, bellowing and hissing about him being late, and – "Please be sure to comb through that filthy mop you call hair – your mother shall have no time to do so for you this morning, as business at Madam Malkin's will be frantic today."

"I will," Antares settled for saying, trying not to bite too hard on his lip. Snape always treated him like he was stupid

"Have you finished in the shower, boy?" And the greasy, irritable head was poking round the door again, black eyes uncomfortably surveying Antares' thin, shabbily towelled body. Antares tried not to sneer in answer, but found it hard to keep his irritation and disgust from showing on his face. "Hmm. I see."

Snape stepped into the small bathroom abruptly, turning Antares around sharply, as if he was surveying him for some reason or other. After a bewildering examination that had the sour man peering into his eyes, the young boy could not hold back a derisive question –

"Look – if you were thinking to sell my pure young body off to vampires, getting me into Hogwarts was hardly the way to – "

"Don't be foolish, boy." Snape said, finally letting go of his slightly smarting arm, an odd look in his dark eyes. "Those burns – where did you acquire them?" The very tone of the question was insulting – as if Snape believed he'd set fire to himself, or something equally stupid, but the look on his face demanded an adequate answer.

"Always had 'em. Ever since I could remember, really," Antares offered grudgingly, fingers itching to go to his scalp. He settled for a hipbone instead, tugging the towel over his right one because Snape looked a little scandalised.

"Ah. Remind me at Hogwarts – I have a burn salve. It works in an evening, though unpleasant. Surely you don't want anyone else to see these," he gave Antares a pointed look, "scars of yours."

Antares shrugged – he'd never been very self-conscious, and it hardly mattered to him. If Professor Snape wanted to bathe him in burn salve for some silly huffy reason, he supposed he'd have to put up with it. After all, he could hardly say no when the esteemed Hogwarts professor had so obviously gotten him his scholarship and apprenticeship to the place –

"Right. Get out – I have some grooming to do." Antares did not hesitate to leave the bathroom, grabbing the comb as he did so with a sigh. He hated combing his hair.


An hour later, they were on Platform 9 and Three Quarters at King's Cross Station, and Antares had never looked at so many things in his life. He found himself saying a shy 'hi' to a sleepy-looking Professor Sinistra, who actually smiled down at him, shaking back her fascinatingly long dark hair – a little longer than Mum's – and picking tiredly at her shimmering robes. From the short, awkwardly polite exchange she and Snape had, she had been to a meeting of some kind of Guild of Astronomy, which had lasted into the early hours. The exchange was awkwardly polite because Bella stood a little way behind Severus, fidgeting in a way Antares remembered her doing at that first, tense meeting in Spinner's End, and, after Professor Sinistra stiffly acknowledged her, staring dully at her hands, causing Antares to wonder if the glamar – or whatever the charm was called – had really, really worked.

Sinistra soon said a sleepy part-farewell and trundled off to a carriage, Severus trailing stiffly behind the professor and insisting to help her with her luggage as was only proper. And then Bella had bent over him and drawn him close and begun to stroke his hair, the way she had done the on his return on the day of the apprenticeship tests.

On that very first frightening day he'd seen her in the street, and she'd absently run her hands in his dirty hair, looking, in a way, just as lost as he had been.

"Mum – " Antares found his voice cracking horribly as he tugged, a little desperately, on her sleeve. Bella took hold of his hand with her other one, still combing through his hair with her fingers.

"Ssh. No need to say a thing, Tares – you know this isn't goodbye. Not exactly."

"But mum – "

"No – I won't hear it. You'll write to me, understand? I don't care how you do it, or how your letters look. How they are smudged." Tears seemed to seep into her voice, making his own throat close and open horribly. "Promise me, Antares."

"I promise, mum." The words came out muffled, because he'd buried his face in her side. It was amazing that she would let him show such – weakness, even on the near-empty platform, but he didn't question it, simply breathing in her familiar, sweaty, sharp smell and absorbing the movements of her rough hands in his hair until she gently disengaged his arms from about her middle. "I won't disgrace – um – the name – "

"I know you won't," she assured him, a small, proud smile on her lips, brushing hair away from his face. "If you need me, all you need to do is ask Severus – discreetly, mind, but ask him nevertheless." Suddenly she was on her knees, pressing a hot, affectionate kiss to his forehead that made rebellious tears itch at his eyes, and – "I await your owl, Mr. Black."

Antares nodded, a shy smile on his face at her mockingly formal tone of voice, and all too soon, the train was whistling almost impatiently, and only another hasty kiss served as their goodbye before Severus Snape hustled him onto the train, scowling all over his big-nosed face. Bella looked very wistful as he waved goodbye, but did not move even as her proud figure grew smaller and smaller, and Antares felt sure she could no longer see him.

Then they'd rounded a corner, and Snape was hustling him through the compartments of the largely empty train, muttering something about 'suitable company'. Finally, they approached a compartment that sounded with the laughs of boys, and the determined look on the tall professor's face assured Antares of what he'd only guessed before.

"I will check on you but once on this journey, boy," he said stiffly, quietly preventing Antares' slightly shaking hand from opening the door. "Be sure to behave yourself – the boys within that carriage are both Slytherins, and will do you no injury if you simply keep to yourself and keep your mouth shut."

"What if they hex me?" Antares demanded stubbornly, refusing to enter the compartment. Snape sighed, rolling his eyes.

"I assume you will know what to do in such a case. Hit them or hex them back, if you must." And with that, Snape was gone. The only thing that stopped Antares from cursing him out loud as he and his black robes swooped out of sight through the door on the other side of the tiny corridor was the discovery that his trunk had had some sort of lightening charm put on it. So Antares hefted it with one hand, somehow balancing his wand in the other, and, after a brief struggle with the door handle, got the cumbersome door open, and stepped into the other compartment.

The curious, slightly mocking stares of two older boys met him.

"Who are you?" the smaller, thinner-looking one said suspiciously. "And what the hell are you doing here on the Express a day early?"

"I'm a new apprentice," Antares said, as coolly as he could, shutting the door and pretending to heave his trunk (as it wasn't really that heavy) into the one of the empty racks of the compartment. "I don't know why they asked me a day early."

"Name?" the bigger, more menacing one said, looking him up and down. "You can't have a house yet, if you're new."

"Antares Black." Both boys' eyes widened quite a bit, and they exchanged a glance as he sat down opposite them, jamming his wand partway into the crevice beside his seat as insolently as he could. They would ask – he couldn't afford to look like it mattered.

It turned out that he was wrong. "Antares, eh?" the bigger one said, sneering. "Nice name, that."

"Tell me yours, then, if it's so much better," Antares returned, a little shakily. Both of the boys were at least a year older than him, and probably knew way much more magic than he'd even heard of – he didn't fancy his chances if this little meeting went wrong, even if they didn't care about his name, or ask yet. But the skinnier one laughed, and leaned over, holding out a slightly grubby, worn-looking hand.

"Adrian Pucey – he's Charles Warrington the Fifth, can't blame him for sneering at your name. It's what Warringtons do, see…" his marginally friendly voice trailed off at Antares' refusal to move, and he raised an eyebrow. "Too scared to shake my hand?"

"Be stupid to shake the hand of someone older who's friends with some bloke who just made fun of my name, wouldn't it?" Antares said sarcastically, jutting out his chin, feeling sweat spring up on his palms. This was so pointless – they could so obviously torture him, and Snape would be at the other end of the bloody train, drinking Butterbeer with Sinistra and scowling at his bloody bottle –

A sly grin slid onto Adrian's face as he leant back into his chair, tucking his hands behind his head, giving a sceptical-looking Charles a pointed look.

"What did I tell you, eh Charlie? Knew he was Slytherin from the moment I saw him – "

"Yeah right – you always say they're Slytherin – "

"But I'm always right when they are, aren't I?"

"I didn't see you at Hogwarts," Antares said suspiciously, crossing his arms. "What day were you there?"

"Twenty-third, I think. Was a Friday, I'm sure of it – saw you in the corridors, but I don't think you saw me," Adrian said matter-of-factly, reopening the slightly grubby book he'd been looking into when Antares had come in.

"Obviously," Antares muttered, fidgeting when Charles – or Charlie didn't pay him attention, digging out a similar book. "Er – what are you reading?" He asked an absorbed Adrian, a bit desperately, though he knew he'd probably be unable to really –

"My old copy of Quidditch through the Ages," Adrian said, looking up at him with a little surprise. "Don't you recognise it?"

"Sort of, yeah." Antares said simply, getting up and moving over to take a look. Well, now that he looked closer, he did know the book, even if only sort of sketchily by sight. He'd never bothered to hang around the Quidditch Store on Diagon, of course – the clerks hated him for trying to snitch a Snitch years back, when he'd been relatively new to the Alley, and one had caught his eye.

"Are you trying to say you don't know what Quidditch is? Because if you knew – "

"I do," Antares cut in, peering at a blindingly illustrated picture of the Chudley Cannons. "Well, enough to know they're crap, yeah."

"Yeah," Adrian said, nodding grudgingly as he turned the page. "Team?"

"I Wander."

"Well, fuck me," Warrington said, sitting up with an excited look on his face. "A fellow Wanderer, eh, Adrian? You Magpies don't get everyone – "

" – but we do get everything – "

A heated Quidditch discussion – well, more like three boys shouting excitedly at each other – rapidly ensued, and the time passed quicker for that, for only ten minutes after an old witch came round with a snack trolley, Snape showed up, looking rather more bored than anything else, giving the chocolate-covered (well, not covered, only on his hands, and on one ear, if you were particular. Which Snape was) Antares a stern look when he remained defiantly in his seat.

"Warrington – Pucey," Snape nodded to each of them shortly, eyes snaking over to Antares' admittedly lopsided trunk in the rack beside him. "I see you've taken to Mr. Black."

"Yes sir – he's a dead cert for Slytherin, sir. Did you know?" Adrian piped up, just this side of respectful.

"As I was one of those that vouched for his apprenticeship, I would say I have quite a clear picture of his abilities, Mr. Pucey," Snape drawled insultingly, making Antares' ears burn, and his mouth tingle and desperately wish to roll off the 'Black equals Slytherin' truism, but knowing (and resenting) that he could not. "We shall see. Good day, Mr. Black." He disappeared once more, leaving Antares a seething ball of determination.

"He actually seems to like you, you know," Warrington remarked, delicately unwrapping another Chocolate Frog from the stash he'd splurged on. "That's odd – for him."

"Yeah," Antares said resentfully, trying to keep back the – "Morgana, his nose – big enough for a bat to swoop up." Adrian snorted, looking slightly guilty, as did Charlie, a nasty grin all over his larger face.

"Funny you'd say that," he said, mercilessly tearing the head off his unwrapped frog, "everyone – and I mean everyone says he looks like a bat, in that cloak."

"Vampire bat, to be precise," Adrian added sagely. Antares snorted, speaking without thinking, his mind still angrily revolving around the issue of his future House.

"Him? A Vampire? For starters, he's got waaay too much colour," he said, biting uncaringly into a Cauldron Cake as he reeled off the bits and pieces of descriptions he'd heard all over Knockturn. "And he's not edgy in sunlight – they always are, even with their fancy protective potion. They'll be sniffing and shifting a bit, you know, not necessarily staring at necks or whatever, just looking really uncomfortable. That's how you spot 'em, isn't it?"

"Ye-wha'?" Both boys goggled at him, but Adrian was the one to speak – or mumble, first. Antares was too absorbed in insulting Snape in his mind to care – the stupid bastard, telling him he didn't –

"Are you trying to tell us you know how to spot Vampires, Antares Black? Come on, you're a bloody kid – " Antares jolted a bit to attention – that was Charlie now, giving him a scornful, patronising look he really didn't like –

"Shorter than my kid sister – " Adrian added, rolling his eyes.

"So?" Antares said, suddenly realising he'd made a mistake by saying anything. "You see them all the time on Knockturn – well, not all the time, but I've definitely seen at least two – "

"You're fibbing so much you'll need a new tongue at Hogwarts," Adrian said nastily. "Let it go, Charlie, he's just trying to – "

"No, no," Charlie said, setting down the half-finished, wriggling Chocolate Frog without a thought, making Antares want to wince – he'd paid for that, and it was wriggling on the floor now – "I definitely want to hear this, Adrian. See I've been on Knockturn Alley, so I'll know if he's – "

"There's an inn," Antares cut in shortly, wanting to dig himself out of this bloody hole as fast as he possibly could, "Dragon's Breath – run by this half-Troll, Emmett. Said inn is where the Vampires go when they're on Knockturn before dark, because it's dark in Dragon's Breath."

"What branch of Knockturn?" Charlie asked, waving down Adrian's objections.

"Longer branch. It figures – the beggars never go down there. The beggars tell me never to go down there, and so does my mum – "

"Then how the hell do you know for sure that Vampires go down Dragon's Breath, eh? Riddle me that," Charles said, leaning back and looking satisfied that he'd finally –

"I went. Worst day of my bloody life."

"Why aren't you a Vampire, then?"

"Only one was at the back of the pub, see. You know when you see them, you just do. Nearly raced my legs off getting out – I was really, really lucky." Charles and Adrian snorted nearly in unison, but Antares could practically feel the belief seeping reluctantly off them. "You don't believe me, fine. But I held down three weeks of never going out and some nasty punishment for that from my mum, and I'm not likely to forget it happened, really."

Morgana, I've really got to learn how to watch my stupid tongue

"Whatever," Adrian said finally, peering out the window, brown hair falling into his eyes as he did so. "We'll be there in a bit, I think – best change soon…" Charles grunted noncommittally, but got up and began to fish around in a very handsome-looking trunk above Antares' own.

Truly, some fifteen minutes later, a bodiless voice announced that they were approaching Hogwarts, and various other dry announcements that would certainly culminate in a rather boring night for the three boys. Antares tried not to notice the difference between the other boys' relatively new robes and his own, fiercely telling himself that he'd just act like it didn't matter to him, and if it mattered to them –

The train stopped, and as Antares unloaded his things and looked round the unfamiliar, equally empty platform in disorientation, Adrian began to speak in his offhand, slightly jerky manner.

"Pity you're not coming in on the real train – they do this huge thing for the first years and everything, taking them over the lake and all that. But you'll've come in to do your tests, so I suppose it doesn't really mean much for you, does it?"

"Er – not really – " Antares said, uncertainly, wondering why they were still talking to him, after the looks they'd given his shabby robes. But Charlie was already asking him –

"Who've you met so far? Apart from Professor Snape, I mean."

"The Headmaster," Antares said bravely, avoiding having to pronounce the dratted old man's name and embarrass himself in this nervous state, "and a bird of his, I think. Oh, and Flitwick – the tiny man, and McGonagall. And – that stuttering teacher, Quirrell. Is he really teaching us Defence? 'Cos he doesn't – "

"Yeah, he's actually a bit on the useless side, Quirrell," Adrian said morosely, as Professor Snape bore down on them, having helped a considerably more perky-looking Professor Sinistra off the train. "Dunno what happened with him – he was all right till he took that trip somewhere. Albania or something."

"And he was never the same again," Charles said lowly, making his voice sound more deep and menacing than usual. "What did the lowly Quirrell meet in those forests? A set of disengaged hags' teeth? A bunch of Augury feathers? A broomstick gone wild? We shall never know…" By the time they'd been reached by a frowning Professor Snape, all three boys were laughing hard, Antares imagining Quirrell fleeing some persistent kind of animated piece of furniture.

And it wasn't until after a subdued supper in Snape's dungeon office and a heated, one-sided affair where Adrian and Charlie begged Professor Snape to let Antares sleep in their dorm – "Just once – honestly, if he doesn't make Slytherin tomorrow, there's always Obliviation…" – because it didn't make sense to send him up two flights of stairs to the spare bedrooms in the castle. After tersely Flooing the Headmaster, Snape grudgingly agreed, and the two overexcited boys manoeuvred a slightly overwhelmed Antares into their grand, wood-and-silver dorm hidden in the dungeons below.

That night, he dreamt blissfully of what was to come, little knowing how ill his future career at Hogwarts would fit his relaxed, untroubled expectations. Namely, to fit in, buckle down, maybe play some Quidditch, and make some friends.

And – he smiled sleepily to himself – steal one or two things, just for the fun of it. Yes. Hogwarts, so far, looked very good indeed.


A/N: Well, well, well! Look what we've got here – a wee bit of a short chapter. I'm intending to upload this at the same time as the next one, so there's not so much of a wait, as I obviously have lots of time to kill this weekend.

YE EDIT: Just decided not to keep you all in suspense after uploading Chapter 5. I'll see if I can grind out one more by the end of the weekend (before my exams, oh noes), so no worries on that score.