Many thanks if you reviewed, FF is telling me once again that the link to reviews to reply is invalid, so it's not me being rude, it's fanfiction. I appreciate every one and when it gets over this, I will reply and answer any questions, meantime I'll thank you on the top of the next chapter. Technology, eh? it has chizpurfles which plainly have some kind of influence over quanta.

Chapter 2

"I think we'll avoid explanations by letting people assume we're twins," said Lily to Petunia as they walked boldly through the barrier onto platform nine-and-three-quarters. Petunia frowned.

"But I'm the oldest, I should be looking after you and making decisions," she said.

Lily giggled.

"We know I'm the one who always chooses what to do, and we can say that you're the oldest. As I was born on your birthday we can pretend that it was just hours because you were born at midday and I was born at teatime. And it can happen like that."

"Well …."

"Tuney, if they know you're in the first year when you're a year older than everyone else, they'll ask questions, and if you think I'm naïve enough not to assume that there'll be bullies who pick on little kids, I'm not, I expect wizards have bullies too. Can you imagine Mrs. Snape as a fifth former?"

Petunia shuddered.

"Only too well," she said.

"Well then!" said Lily. "Oh look, there's Sev! He's in his school robes already!"

Severus waved and ran up. The few weeks of proper care had already done wonders for him; his hair was neatly cut and tied back into a pony tail, and his sharp features had filled out somewhat, and his skin was better than it had been on the lower class diet of northern England, consisting largely of batter as a filler. He had received a manicure at some point as well, though Lily and Petunia had no idea how big an argument that had caused, Severus being imbued somehow with the idea that it was 'sissy'. He was losing the attitudes his father had tried to beat into him, and was so full of what he had been learning, he actually beamed at Petunia, and hugged her as hard as he hugged Lily.

"You look as though being adopted by your grandfather agrees with you, Sev," said Lily.

"It's nice not to be beaten without being sure what it's for, or jinxed for being in the way," said Severus. "Grandfather beat me once, but only when he was sure I knew what it was for."

"What was it for?" Petunia asked.

"Going into the library he forbade me to go into," said Severus. "There are books in there with traps for the mind in the very writing, and others that attack you if you touch them."

"Goodness!" Lily and Petunia exchanged a glance, taken aback by such things. "I bet you won't be going in there again."

"Not until I'm old enough to know how to safeguard myself and with grandfather there to back me up," said Severus. "I'm officially starting as Severus Prince though," he added proudly.

They entered a compartment with two dark-haired boys, one neat, and one with untidy hair, but with that air of contentment that only comes with a happy family. The neat boy had clothes of the best, but his sneer was not unlike the one Severus recognised on himself as armour.

"It'd be cool to be sorted into the same House as each other," said Severus, ignoring the boys. "My family are usually Slytherin."

"Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, shouldn't you?" the messy boy said to the other.

"My whole family have been in Slytherin," said the neat, sneering boy.

"Blimey," said the messy one, "and I thought you seemed all right!"

"Do your family beat on you like Sev's?" asked Petunia.

"Thanks, Tuney, tell all my shameful secrets to strangers," said Severus. Petunia flushed.

"I'm sorry," she muttered.

"My family are pure evil," said the expensive boy. "My name is Sirius Black, scion of the Noble Family Black and I am not allowed to forget it. I think I might break tradition and pick another house than Slytherin. Where are you headed?" he addressed the messy one.

"Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart. James Potter; my family are always Gryffs."

"You are brave, Sev, for making your grandfather adopt you, to help us out," said Lily.

Severus wavered.

"My grandfather's been good to me, and he was in Slytherin," he said. "I wouldn't want to be disloyal."

James grinned suddenly, which made him an altogether much more attractive character.

"You know, Sev, mate, that's the best reason to be in a house, loyalty to someone you love. I can understand that. Tell you what! If you go into Slytherin because of your grandfather, how about we don't let it get between us?"

"All right," said Severus. "And if the hat puts Black into Slytherin whatever he wants, we can look out for each other. I guess we both know about bad family."

Sirius gave him a measuring look.

"I'm going to wish for Gryffindor," he said. "Aren't you going to introduce us to the girlfriends?"

Severus flushed.

"Petunia and Lily Evans," he said, correctly naming the older girl first, even though his inclination was to speak of Lily first.

"Evans? I don't know the name," said James.

"We're muggleborn," said Lily.

"And if the noble and whatever family Black wants to use offensive terms about them, I'll fight him," said Severus.

"Look, my family may hate mu…muggleborn, but that to me is a recommendation to like them," said Sirius. "What was your full monicker?"

"Severus Prince," said Severus.

"I thought the line had died out."

"You thought wrong," snapped Severus.

Sirius shrugged.

"My mistake; nothing to get uptight about. At least you aren't a girl and they aren't going to try to betroth us."

"I'm a half-blood anyway; my father's a muggle. Not even muggle-born."

Sirius whistled.

"So that's the source of your home troubles? Lack of compatibility?"

"Not really your business."

"No, but then if we both have rotten parents, it sort of makes it shared business. Mine are just … lousy. Controlling. More interested in my blood than me as a person."

"I guess that sucks," said Severus.

"And to think we thought that everything would be wonderful for everyone if you only had magic to make things right!" said Lily.

"It don't work like that," said Sirius. "People are people and most of them are shits."

Petunia gasped at the word.

"That's swearing!" she said.

"Sure. Don't you swear?"

"No!" said Petunia.

James grinned.

"Give the kid a break, Sirius, they look such nice precious little girls."

"Oy!" said Lily. He winked at her.

"You look pretty precious yourself," said Severus.

James laughed.

"Well, I suppose I am; only child of older parents," he said.

At that moment they were interrupted by a small boy erupting into the compartment. He was a chubby child yet somehow rat-like.

"Bullies on their way!" he gasped, and dived under the seat.

The door opened again, and a slender, sneering boy with sleek blond hair looked in. He wore a prefect badge. Severus got out his notebook and started scribbling.

"Heard there's a couple of pure bloods on the train; a Black and a Prince," he said.

"I'm Black; what of it?" said Sirius.

"And I'm Prince. What of it?" Severus spoke, heart pounding.

"Don't talk to a prefect like that! Just telling you that you'd both better be in Slytherin House, that's all. And if you see a fat little rat called Pettigrew you can punish him for me for saying I shouldn't be a prefect."

"Well he's right about that," said James. "You shouldn't be a prefect if you act like that." That tended to explain who the child they were hiding might be.

"I'm inclined to agree with him, too, actually," said Sirius. "And by the way this is my pure bred friend James Potter. We were planning on going into Gryffindor."

The pale face flushed in anger and Lucius Malfoy raised his wand. Whatever spell he cast, however, did nothing but make him yelp and clutch his wand hand with the other.

"You brats will pay for this at some point," he said venomously, and slammed out.

"What happened?" asked James.

"I put up a runic ward," said Severus, showing them the piece of paper which now smoked where his runes had charred from the effort of protecting them.

There was a long silence.

"Sev, mate, are you sure you want to be in Slytherin?" asked Sirius.

"Not having met one of its prefects," said Severus, calmly. "Pettigrew, you were brave defying him, you can come out now."

The chubby boy emerged, giving admiring glances around all of them.

"Yeah, it took courage," said Sirius. "You can join our gang if you like."

"We have a gang?" Severus raised an eyebrow.

"Sure we have a gang. At least, girls don't gang …"

"They're in or I'm not," said Severus. "Lily is a very clever witch and if we are going to band together against bullies, I don't want a nasty type like that whoever he was to be ready to hurt them. They're my friends."

"Really, Severus?" Petunia looked gratified.

"Yeah," said Severus. She had been a different girl since she could do magic too, even though her lux spells did still emit soapy bubbles.

"And if we want to fight bullies, the more the merrier," said Lily.

"All right," said James. "I'm happy with that. And we want to know how you did that." He indicated the charred paper.

"It's all in runes," said Severus. "You can do almost anything with runes, if you put enough into them. Only the surface they are on kinda determines how long they last. On paper one fairly small jinx was enough. And it was a stinging hex; I didn't know it would mirror it back, so that was more than I'd hoped. On wood it might stop a more powerful jinx, or several minor ones, and in stone it would stop a heap more, especially if you activated the runes with blood."

"That's blood magic; it's dark magic," said Sirius.

"No it isn't," said Severus. "Grandfather told me it can be dark magic if you take blood without asking. If it's your own in a protective rune, like … like Egil Skallagrimsson when he smeared his own blood into the protective rune on a poisoned cup, it's not dark."

"Oh! Well you learn something every day," said Sirius.

"My grandfather is a rune master," said Severus. "I want to be a potions master, but runes and chanting are jolly useful. You can improve potions with them too."

"You don't get to study runes until the third year and get to take electives," said Sirius. "Will you teach us?"

"Sure," said Severus. They would be unlikely to surpass him; it took effort and will to use runes properly. Lily had learned quite a lot, but Petunia got bored from having to learn other languages.

"It's jolly hard," said Petunia. "Sev showed us some stuff in the hols."

"But at least we know how to put anti-tamper runes on our trunks and kit, so nobody can sabotage them," said Lily.

Severus quickly taught this one to the other three boys, and trunks were quickly marked up with the runes, under the strict eye of Severus, correcting when the line was wrong. James and Sirus went to collect Peter Pettigrew's trunk, and came back with a second trunk and a skinny, ill-looking boy.

"Those bullies were beating on Remus Lupin here," said James intensely. "Listen you lot! If you really believe in beating bullies, will you accept him, even though he has a serious illness?"

"Of course," said Lily.

"How did you know?" cried Lupin, paling.

"Ijit! I used Scarpin's revellaspell - that's a useful one I know – to see what jinxes they'd put on you," said James. "Remus is a werewolf, and if I make my guess, that means he's going to have to be sequestered every full moon, and it'll be up to us to look after him."

"Do werewolves exist then?" asked Lily.

"Well, obviously!" said James. "They're dark creatures, you know, but I can't see a kid our age being a dark creature."

"I was bitten by Fenrir Greyback when I was five," said Remus. All those of the wizarding world shuddered, and the Evans girls exchanged looks.

"It sounds as though he's someone you've heard of," said Lily.

"Yeah, he's bad news," said James. "He's a seriously dark wizard. He likes to change form near children if he can, to cause most trouble. Does the headmaster know, Remus mate?"

Remus nodded.

"He has to know, he has set me up a place to go. It's a place called the Shrieking Shack. I get to go there right before the full moon and stay there until I get my senses back. He says there's a chap named Damocles Belby who is trying to invent a potion to help werewolves keep their brains together."

Severus' dark eyes gleamed.

"Perhaps we can make one ourselves," he said. "And use runes to help you too."

Runes had to be explained again, and Remus was thrilled. Severus saw an academic like himself in the boy, and knew he had a new friend.

"Right. We are seven, which is a jolly good arithmantic number," said James. "I vote we swear to support each other through thick and thin, and I reckon we ought to get into as much trouble as we can with jokes and japes so that we can give Remus here a bit of fun to give him some good times to combat the bad ones every month."

"Yeah," said Petunia, "And to think I thought the woman thing mummy explained was bad enough."

"It'd be easier to hide if he was a girl," said Lily. "As some girls are ill enough once a month to need to go to bed. But we can all take notes and cover for you, Remus. And actually, Tuney, as we know Remus' big secret, should we share yours?"

Petunia scowled, then nodded.

"It's Sev's tale really," said Lily.

Severus pulled a face, and explained how he was delighted to have a young witch living near him in the muggle town where his parents lived, and how Petunia was actually a year older than Lily but had not manifested magic; but that her magic was in her blood, and his grandfather had been able to bring it out with a runic tattoo."

"Crumbs!" said James. "That's powerful stuff. I'm glad you're magical too, now, Petunia."

"Thanks," said Petunia.

Severus felt slightly sorry for Peter Pettigrew who was just one of the group, and not a special friend with anyone, as Sirius and James seemed to have hit it off in a big way, and Petunia and Lily were joined at the hip. Well, he had a good family now, so he could afford to be kindly to Peter, who didn't seem to have much of a homelife either.

And then the train was pulling in to the station; they had arrived at Hogwarts!