Hogwarts Express, January 7th, 1976
Katelyn sat with Remus, James, and Sirius as they waited for their fourth friend on the Hogwarts Express. During the week or two she'd stayed at the Manor, she'd gotten to become their friend. She'd explained what she was when, on the full moon, they'd found a large white wolf playing with Remus' werewolf form. A 'wolf blood' as she'd called it; she could morph whenever she wanted, but was a forced morph during the full moon. It was mostly painless, but she retained qualities of a wolf, like her heightened senses of hearing and smell. She had explained this to them once Remus had recovered and asked after it, and they'd become even closer because of it.
She had heard of Peter Pettigrew, and they knew she was nervous to meet him. After she'd explained about her home life, what with her father abusing her-that had been obviously hard for her to admit, James could tell-and the backlash from that, she'd explained that she had trouble learning to trust new people. The only reason I trust you, she'd said as they left Potter Manor, was because you saved my life without ulterior motives. Not many people do that anymore.
James watched her slowly. They'd gone out to Diagon Alley as soon as they could for her, and she'd gotten a wand for herself. She had asked the old wandmaker to custom-make her wand, as she'd explained about some interesting qualities of her magic, and he'd agreed. It was a white ash wand, much like James' own wand, but there had been two cores-one from a mythical creature, even to magic, called the hippocampus and another from the venom of a basilisk. Both had been very potent, one of healing and the other of death, but they went well together. The wandmaker had been surprised that he hadn't needed a focus stone, and when he'd handed the wand to Katelyn, she'd very carefully taken a small knife and carved Greek and Latin words into the handle. "To ward from others," she'd explained, "so only I can use it. If others used it, it could be very bad for them. I don't want people getting hurt because they were stupid enough to try to use my wand." That had made sense to them. While the wand maker had been crafting her wand, she'd walked over to Flourish and Blotts and had ordered some of the fifth year books-in Greek. She explained that she was dyslexic, and the only language she could clearly read was Greek, as all others were either hard to translate or just simply unreadable for her.
Now she sat on a train, in a t-shirt and Muggle jeans, waiting to meet the two friends in their group she hadn't met yet. Over the break, James, Remus, and Sirius had decided to tell her of all their escapades, and make her a Marauder like them. They added her to the map, and she'd looked at it in wonder. They'd been surprised when, as she'd said the code words in Greek, the map had still responded.
"You can say those words in Greek or Latin, and it would still mean the same thing." she'd said. "When you cast a patronus, you're literally saying 'I await a guardian.' If you said the words in English, you might just get the same results."
She looked nervous, and by rights she should be. She was in Britain for the first time, about to meet two people for the first time, with people she'd barely known for two weeks. Her burns had mostly faded, only the worst still healing on her palms. She had, apparently, caught a burning wooden pillar to make sure it hadn't fallen onto both her and her siblings and held it for ten minutes while others had moved out of its range. How her hands hadn't melted they'd never know.
James looked up as the object of his affections and one of his oldest friends entered the compartment. Lily sat down opposite him, next to Remus, and Peter sat down on his other side. They chatted for a few minutes as the train started moving, before noticing Katelyn.
"Who are you? You look new." Lily asked gently.
"Katelyn Moon. I, uh, just moved here from Greece." Katelyn answered, rubbing the back of her neck in nervousness. "You're...Lily, right?"
"Yes. And this is Peter Pettigrew. Are you staying with Remus, or-"
"James, actually. I'm not going into details of how and why I got here, but he saved my life. I somehow Apparated into his yard." Katelyn confirmed. "His mom's been healing my injuries and they offered for me to stay for the Easter and summer holidays."
"Are you okay?" Lily was suddenly visibly worried.
"I'm out of the woods, for sure." Katelyn answered, relaxing slightly. "The worst are still healing, but all my injuries are otherwise healed."
"That's good. How'd you injure yourself?" Lily asked. Katelyn froze, but answered eventually.
"My house...burnt down. I caught one of the beams, and burned my hands holding it. I also burnt my legs getting out and my arms by shoving doors down."
Lily's hands went to her mouth and before anyone could say anything, she'd wrapped the Greek up in her arms. Katelyn slowly responded, hugging Lily back and placing her chin on the redhead's shoulder.
"Did anyone else survive?" Lily whispered as she hugged Katelyn.
"I don't know. I got Alex out, then everything went black after I Shadow Traveled." the girl admitted. "But if my Head of House ring came to me, I'm assuming my parents didn't."
Lily pulled back, and James watched as she cared for the teen who had just lost her family. Katelyn looked exponentially tired, as if she hadn't slept the entire time she had stayed with him. He knew she didn't sleep a lot, but if she hadn't slept the entire time she was at his place….
The rest of the train ride was uneventful, the six of them talking and finally making Katelyn laugh despite everything she'd gone through in her life.