BentReeds

The Train Ride

Disclaimer: Everything save for my OC belongs to JK Rowling

Ally felt as though she had been given a fresh start as she stepped through the barrier of platform nine and three quarters. From where she stood, she could see the smoke coming off the train. The platform was packed with relatives and students, some carrying bizarre pets or wearing the most unusual muggle clothes.

Ally was relatively short and came to about five' three. She had black, glossy, wavy hair that came to her shoulders, but she normally tied it up in a bun. Her face had been rounded ever since childhood and only recently had it sharpened out... a little... Ally had soft blue eye with an understanding look in their depths. She had already changed into her Hogwarts robes before she came to the train station - over the summer it was decided she would be in Gryffindor.

By that bizarre talking hat... she thought. Well, forget about the stupid hat and focus on the new beginning that's been laid at your feet.

"Now, you're sure you'll be alright by yourself, dearie?" a soft voice said behind her.

Her mother, unlike Ally was rather tall. She had the same dark hair and eyes and was wearing a modest blue muggle dress with a floral print on it. The only difference in her face was that her mother had a sharper look.

That turns rather scary when she gets mad at you... Ally giggled under her breath.

"Oh mum, I'm fine, really! We talked about this on the ride here."

"Well, as long as you're okay with everything..." She clicked her tongue and straightened up.

Ally turned and gave her mother an affectionate hug and a peck on the cheek.

"Don't worry, I have a great feeling about this year!"

They exchanged their last goodbyes before Ally turned to load her luggage on the train. She was a bit relieved to have finally said goodbye. Don't be mistaken, she loved her mother and all but was really rather eager to start the new year.

Ally had attended Beauxbatons School for five full years in France, before her father insisted they move to the United Kingdom to keep track of his small medical practice. Her Uncle David was the owner of St. Mungo's Hospital and was on the more well off side of the family.

Ally's thoughts were interrupted when she realized that the train was about to pull out of the station and she hadn't found a seat yet. While she was thinking about all of these things, she had put her trunk away and had been standing there like an idiot daydreaming. She scrambled to the door and stuck her head out as the clock struck eleven and the train lurched into movement. She waved to her mother in the crowd and her mother smiled and waved back before disappearing in the crowd of well-wishers.

"Well... time to find that seat." she said aloud.

Ally didn't realize just how quickly seats fill up on the Hogwarts Express. She strolled down the train passing by compartments of gossiping girls and boisterous boys. None of the compartments were too appealing.

Traveling further and further back into the train she began too lose hope of ever finding a seat.

Just pick one... She told herself and she turned to the first door on the right and threw it open.

Three monstrous looking Slytherins were sitting there and looked up scowling at whoever had dared to disturb them.

"Um—er—sorry about that—well—looking for someone—Bye!" She babbled and slammed the door shut a little too loudly before proceeding to sprint to the back of the train. Doors and people whizzed by her and she bumped into someone. A whirl of black robes and red hair passed by her vision as they tumbled down.

Ally hurried to stand up and reached down to help the red head up.

"I'm so sorry—um—er—oh!—you alright?—are you—ugh!" She said in frustration.

The girl took her hand and stood up, laughing a little.

"You're kind of funny you know. I'm Lily." She stuck out her hand and Ally took it.

"Oh," Ally was still a little frazzled from all that had happened. "I'm, uh...Ally!" She shouted her name loudly as if she was excited simply to know her name.

Lily giggled again.

"Do you have a seat yet?"

"Nope."

"Do you want to sit with me?"

"Sure!" She put on a goofy over exaggerated grin that made Lily laugh.

Lily and Ally walked a little way to the farther end of the train and entered an empty compartment.

"So what house are you in, I mean, I haven't seen you around before." Lily said as Ally took a seat opposite her.

"Oh, I just transferred from Beauxbatons this summer, and I'm in Gryffindor. Dumbledore sorted me in his office when I was transferring schools."

Lilly looked at her interested.

"You saw the inside of Dumbledore's office! Wow! What did it look like?"

Ally thought for a moment.

"It had things that whirred, purred, clicked, clacked, lit up, bobbed, popped, snapped, clacked and generally seemed completely pointless."

"Sounds a lot like Dumbledore!" Lily laughed.

"He had a red and gold phoenix too."

"Wow! I heard there really hard to tame as pets! I'm so relieved you're in Gryffindor too. I was the only girl Gryffindor in our grade before you came! Normally I would be sitting with the Hufflepuffs right now, but there so noisy and gossipy." She wrinkled her nose in dislike.

"So what was Beauxbatons like?"

Ally huffed.

"A lot like what your precious Hufflepuffs sound like, the only exception is that they're all blonde clones with identical uniforms." Ally put on a fake high pitched French accent. "Oh my! I zimply cannot buy zees handbags becauz it doez not match zee hair on the person three feet away!"

Lily laughed and then said "Ew, five years of that?"

"Yeah, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun."

"Can you speak French?"

"Yeah, I picked up a lot of French at school, but my parents always spoke English at home."

"Maybe you can help me with something then. I—"

But Lily was interrupted with a bang as two boys rushed into the compartment and slammed the door behind them. Ally caught a glimpse of their robes and noticed they were in the same house.

"Potter! Black! What in the--"

Potter, as she called him, acted quickly and clamped a hand over her mouth. Lily looked really mad at his actions and started to shout into his hand, not really caring that it was muffled. The three Slytherins Ally saw earlier slid open the compartment door. The bulkiest, ugliest, and likely most stupid of them stepped forward. Ally saw his eyes flit from Lily and then to Black and Potter. His eyes rested on Potters hand over Lily's mouth.

"Protecting you filthy mudblood girlfriend, Potter?" He sneered.

"None of your business Flint, and don't call her that—that name." he retorted.

Ally had no idea what came over her but before she could stop herself she blurted.

"Personally, I find it amazing that he can say anything through those crooked teeth. And anyways, don't you think it's phenomenal that such an obviously small brain could produce words, even if it is an insult?"

Startled, the Slytherins turned to stare at her only just realizing she was in the room, while the three other Gryffindors in the room laughed uproariously. Flint had a rather peeved expression on his face.

"This isn't over, Potter," He looked over at Black "Blood Traitor."

Black raised his fist, about to hit, but Potter stopped him.

"Forget it," he said.

"Yeah, Black," Flint mocked as he slouched out of the room with his two cronies following. "Forget it."

Lily looked over at Ally once they had left.

"You really are going to have to watch that mouth of yours once we get to Hogwarts, Als."

Potter jumped in. "That was wicked!" remarked Potter as he stuck out his hand. "Did you see his face! I'm James and over there is Sirius." He nodded at the other boy standing next to her.

"Ally." She shook his hand and nodded over at Sirius.

"Hi." Sirius said.

"You in Gryffindor?" James asked.

"Yeah."

"What year?"

"My sixth."

"Us too."

He dropped into the seat next to Lily and draped his arm over Lily.

"Now, since your Lily's friend, you can finally convince her that she's been madly in love with me ever since we met."

"Oh, get over yourself James." She said shoving him away.

Ally laughed.

"So what did you do to make Flint and his henchmen to chase after you?" Lily asked.

"What did we do?" James exclaimed looking shocked. "What did we do? It's more like what they did to us. Slytherins should know by now that they're not welcome within our eyesight! Honestly, Lily we thought the reason was obvious."

"Oh, you're certainly full of yourself." Lily said and James and her continued to bicker.

Like an old married couple... She thought and giggled out loud

"What's so funny?" a voice near her ear asked.

Ally nearly jumped in surprise. She turned to face Sirius who was sitting next to her grinning.

"I was just thinking that they bicker like an old married couple."

He laughed.

"Exploding snap?"

"Exploding what?"

"Snap. It's a card game. I'll teach you. I would ask Lily and James, but they seem to be having so much fun." Lily took that particular moment when Ally and Sirius looked over to poke James in the forehead.

Ally decided to try the game and even though she wasn't good at cards, whenever she made a mistake Sirius would point it out and they would laugh.

Sirius spent the rest of the ride teaching Ally how to play. Halfway thought the ride Lily and James stopped bickering long enough for Ally to invite them to a game. While they were playing, she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching her, but whenever she looked up, no one was looking. Sometime during the train ride, two boys came around and joined their group. Their names were Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Remus reminded her of an old friend she had in France and she liked him right away.

Soon after their eighth game ended, the train slowed to a stop and everyone stood.

"Guess we're here!" said Remus cheerfully.

"Yeah." Ally suddenly grew very nervous.

They stepped off the land out into the cold train station where a crowd of students were milling around waiting for the carriages. Somehow Ally got separated from her new friends in the crowd.

Lost in a crowd Ally thought despairingly.

Great, Here I am in a train station, I have no idea where I am or where I'm going, it's freezing cold—"

"Lost?"

She turned around and stood face to face with Sirius who was wearing a mischievous grin. Well, not face to face, as mentioned before she was quite short, more like face to chest.

"Oh no, I'm not lost I just don't know where I am!" She smiled up at him.

"Got it. James and Lily are arguing in front of the carriages waiting for us," he took her hand and pulled her through the crowd. The carriages were lined up waiting expectantly for students to fill them up.

The two of them stopped a little way away from their friends. That was when she noticed that Sirius hadn't let go of her hand. Her eyes traveled up to meet his gaze. His grey eyes held hers for an intense moment before James jumped in and dragged Sirius away by the arm muttering something about girls.

Ally watched as James pulled Sirius away and they lost eye contact as he was swallowed up by the crowd.

"Come on, let's go get a carriage away from those two."

Ally and Lily climbed into the first carriage they saw and sat down.

"I can't stand how egotistical he is! He thinks that he's sooooooo great and—just—ugh!" Lily yelled in frustration.

"He did seem a bit cocky." Ally said halfheartedly, still caught up in the gaze Sirius and she had held. What was that about, it was so suspenseful... Now that she thought about it they were really nice eyes... Grey is such a nice color... Wait! What in the world am I saying...thinking...saying...um...thinking! You barely know this person!

After finishing her rant on James, Lily told Ally about the great hall and the welcome ceremony.

"The sorting hat will sort all the first years into their houses... and did I tell you about how the ceiling is enchanted to look like the sky outside? I wish there was a book that would tell about the history of Hogwarts..."

"Really? It's enchanted? Neat, we never had anything like that in France."

They slowed to a stop and Ally jumped out of the carriage.

She could only stare at the monster of a castle in front of her.

Lily giggled to her left and nudged Ally.

"Planning on staring at the castle all day and getting run over by the carriages or do you want to head to the feast?"

"Oh—um—yeah."

Ally tore her eyes away from the castle and giggled with Lily.

"Sorry, the only place I've seen as big as this was my other school, and even that wasn't half as big as Hogwarts Castle."

"Yeah, I love it here. Come on though we've got to get to the feast."

They walked through the great front gate and down into a large hallway into the great hall. Ally noticed the four long tables were each decorated in certain colors and put two and two together.

"Which table is Gryffindor?" She whispered to Lily.

"Over there," She pointed "The table in red and gold."

Lily and Ally sat down at the upper end of the table. Ally looked over at the head table and recognized Dumbledore at the head talking to another Professor.

Lily followed her gaze.

"Dumbledore... I wonder how powerful he really is. I've heard crazy stories about him."

Lily didn't get a chance to say anymore because the doors to the great hall opened and the first years entered, led by an old woman in green robes.