AN: Thank your for all your reviews and sorry for the long delay. I had a very busy week and didn't find much time to write during the week.

The Journey to Hogwarts

Summer holidays at St. Catherine's Orphanage always passed very slowly but they had never dragged on as long as they did this year. I missed my new wand but it would wait for me in Hogwarts like my cauldron, the potions ingredients and almost everything else.

At least, I had the books and I almost knew them by heart by now. I didn't really understand everything in there though; especially the book about transfiguration seemed really difficult. The most disappointing book had been "A History of Magic." I had hoped for interesting information about magic but instead it barely focused on people at all. There were many pages on stuff like Goblin rebellions and which creature had been classified as what at which time. This was mildly interesting but I would have wanted to know what witches and wizards actually did in the past. Had there never been any war among them? Never any rebellion or other kind of trouble? That was the kind of thing I wanted to know about but for some reason, they didn't write about it.

Well, I'd have to wait till I was at Hogwarts to find out more.

Mandy and I had made a calendar were we crossed out every day that had passed so we could see a bit of progress and finally, September the first had arrived.

Professor McGonagall had provided us with train tickets to London. The train to Hogwarts would leave from King's Cross station at 11 am. The journey to London would take more than three hours so we had to get up very early.

We said goodbye to Aurora, Andy and everyone else the evening before. Our friends were happy for us but some of the others were a bit jealous as well. They believed that we had won a scholarship for a famous school after all. If they knew the truth, they'd probably be even more jealous. Both of us tried not to show our excitement too much, it wouldn't be nice. We hadn't really done anything special to earn our magic after all.

Mrs Richards told us to behave well and work hard, Ms Thomson told us to be good and decent while Ms Leakey simply wished us a good time.

We took an early bus to the local train station; it was full of young people going to school. A few of them made snide remarks because we came from the orphanage but neither of us really cared about this today.

The train to London was on time, something I was very glad about. I didn't want to imagine what it would be like to miss the train to Hogwarts because the Muggle train didn't get there. Would someone pick us up or would we have to go back?

We tried to sleep on the train but I didn't really manage it. I was way too excited for that. I was going to a school of magic, I was going to meet many other children with magic and everything would be completely new. I just had to imagine what it would be like as soon as I closed my eyes.

Getting to King's Cross with the Muggle underground proved easier than we had expected as well. Mandy had been to London with her family before her parents had died and she remembered how it had been. She quickly figured out which line we had to take and we arrived at King's Cross at 10. .

Mandy checked her ticket. "Well, now we have to find platform 9 ¾."

We walked towards platform nine and checked but of course, there was nothing between 9 and 10.

"It's probably hidden by magic," I said.

"Yes, but how do we get there? Too bad Professor McGonagall forgot to tell us."

We stared at the barrier separating the two platforms but nothing indicated where we had to go. I looked at my watch. Five minutes had already passed. If only we didn't miss the train.

I looked around. If everyone had to go to Hogwarts by train, there must be other magical people here. Too bad they had to hide and we couldn't recognise which ones they were.

After another five minutes, I saw a strict-looking woman accompanied by a round-faced boy. Mrs Longbottom and Neville. I sighed with relief. They could surely tell us what we had to do.

"Good morning Mrs Longbottom," I said quickly. "We've met at Diagon Alley. We're sorry but we don't know how to get to platform. Could you please tell us?"

Mrs Longbottom glanced at me through narrowed eyes. "Simply walk towards the barrier. It will let you through."

She put a hand on Neville's shoulder and steered him towards the barrier. It seemed as if she wanted to get him away from us quickly. That could have been my imagination though. Maybe she was just nervous because she was so late as well.

"She could have waited for us," Mandy said, an annoyed look at her face.

I shrugged. I had never liked her very much in the first place. It would surely be good for Neville to be away from her for a while. "We should be able to make this on our own"

We had no choice but to try it. It had looked simple enough when Neville and his grandmother had done it.

We walked towards the barrier, holding onto our trunks. The solid material came closer and closer, I was sure that my nose would touch it soon. If anyone was watching, they'd think we were stupid.

My nose didn't touch anything though and a few steps later, we stood on a new platform. A red steam engine was waiting there and everything was full of children and parents wishing them goodbye. Many of them were hugging each other; some had tears in their eyes.

I swallowed hard. Moments like this one made me remember that I had parents who had simply left me in front of an orphanage, who had never wanted me. It didn't really matter if my father had really been this wizard called Sirius Black or not, he had definitely never cared about me.

"Come on. Let's get in," Mandy said. The way her voice sounded she was probably feeling the same way.

We left the children with parents behind and boarded the train. The first carriages were completely full already but we found a compartment to ourselves at the end of the train. We put our luggage up and sat down.

A short while later, the train slowly started to move. We were grinning at each other. The journey to Hogwarts had begun. Everything else was forgotten for the moment.

After a while, we did realise that the train journey to Hogwarts wasn't very different from any other train journey though. We had talked about everything on the first part of our journey already so we decided to read. I took out "The Dark Forces, a Guide to Self-Protection" while Mandy tried her luck with "A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration."

Self-protection could always come in handy. The book didn't contain as much information as I would have liked to see though. There was a spell called "Expelliarmus" which would take the wand out of someone else's hand and a Shield Charm. I didn't know what real dark magic was like but I doubted that this could help against powerful curses and dark enchantments. It could come in useful in fights with other magical students though.

After a while, a woman who sold snacks came to our part of the train. We couldn't buy anything because we didn't have any money with us. Instead, we got out the food we had brought from the orphanage, a cheese sandwich and an apple each. Both tasted good and were probably healthier than Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. I'd still have liked to try them though.

When we had finished eating, the door to our compartment was pushed open. Two people walked in. One of them was Neville Longbottom, the other a girl with bushy hair.

"Have you seen a toad? Neville has lost his," the girl said.

"No, we haven't. I'm sorry," I said. "It hasn't been here."

Neville looked scared and disappointed. It must be awful to lose your pet on your first day at school. I didn't really understand why he was so nervous though. He was from a wizarding family and should be familiar with everything here.

A nagging feeling in the back of my mind told me that there might be a good reason to be scared of the magical world. A reason we didn't know of.

"We could try and help you find it," Mandy suggested.

Neville quickly looked at me and shook his head. "No, thank you," he muttered and the two of them went off again.

"Did I do anything wrong when we met the Longbottoms?" I asked Mandy as soon as Neville and the girl had left.

"They're behaving rather oddly, aren't they?" Mandy said. "I'm not aware of anything though. It's possible that we've broken some code of wizard etiquette of course. We've probably got much to learn."

I nodded. A book like "A Guide to Wizarding Behaviour" would come in really useful.

There were people walking down the corridor all the time but no one seemed to be very interested in us. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be glad about that or not. I would have liked to get to know a few more wizards and witches.

After a while, there was some sort of commotion outside. People were laughing rather roughly. Mandy and I shared a look. This wasn't the first time we heard something like that. It was very likely that someone was being bullied there.

"Let's go and talk a look," I said and Mandy got up after a moment of hesitation.

"I'm not sure if we can do much though," she said. "We don't even have our wands."

That was rather inconvenient of course. I would have liked to try this Expelliarmus spell but it would probably not work without a wand.

We left the compartment and quickly saw what was going on. Neville Longbottom had been cornered by three boys. The one in the middle had blond hair and a pale, pointed face; the other two were very large.

"Has Longbottom lost his toady?" the blond boy said mockingly. "Maybe someone's going to cut it up for his potion."

The other two roared with laughter.

Idiots, I thought. There was nothing funny or witty about this remark.

The blond boy drew his wand. "I've read about a nice little curse. Do you think I could practise it on you, Longbottom?"

"Leave him alone," I said walking towards the group.

The blond boy looked at me, his wand still in his hand. His two friends were drawing closer as if they were something like his bodyguards.

I wasn't too hopeful. They were much stronger and had their wands with them while we didn't. We probably wouldn't win a fight. That didn't matter though. We weren't going to let this happen without doing anything.

"And who are you? I haven't seen you before. Are you a Mudblood?"

There was a flash of anger in Neville's eyes when he heard the word. I wouldn't have needed that to know he had said something offensive. The meaning of the word "Mudblood" wasn't hard to guess.

"So Mudblood is your term for people with Muggle parents?" Mandy asked.

The boy smirked. "You've given yourself away, Mudbloods." He sighed in mock exasperation. "It's a shame what they're letting into Hogwarts nowadays."

I took a deep breath. This wasn't really surprising. Why should wizards be more tolerant than Muggles? If he decided to pick on us now, Neville might have a chance to get away. We could cope with this kind of thing; we had heard it all before.

The boy looked at me again. "Tell me little Mudblood, do you like Longbottom? Do you want to be his girlfriend?"

The boy's two cronies laughed again.

"It shouldn't be a problem. Marrying filth like you couldn't make his family sink much more deeply anymore, you know."

"Shut your mouth, Malfoy!" Neville spit at the boy. For a moment, every trace of fear was gone. His family seemed to be a very sore spot for him.

"The girl you're calling filth is actually your cousin! Not that the term isn't appropriate."

A mixture of shock, anger and disbelief was almost choking me. Being insulted by this boy was one thing but Neville? We had just tried to protect him from Malfoy and his goons. I definitely wasn't Malfoy's cousin either.

Neville looked upset by his own words already but I wasn't feeling sorry for him anymore. This had definitely been too much.

"You're mad, Longbottom," Malfoy said, staring at him. For the first time I had to agree with him.

"I do not have any unknown cousins. Enough of this. Come on boys, we'll soon be at Hogwarts."

They walked away and so did we. I considered saying something to Neville but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Something was wrong with him. It probably wasn't his fault. Maybe he actually did have some sort of mental disorder. There were some children with illnesses like that at the Orphanage but they had lived in a special wing with extra-care. I had never known how to act around them.

This might explain the odd behaviour of his grandmother too though I didn't think it was appropriate. I had no idea if there were wizarding psychiatrists; maybe the steam engine wasn't the only outdated thing in the wizarding world.

"Well, at least they stopped picking on him for now," Mandy said. "Don't look so upset. Maybe he was simply embarrassed by this situation. It's hard for boys when they need help from a girl. Andy has been quite unfriendly in such cases too."

I sighed and stayed silent. I didn't really believe that it was a simple as that but it didn't really matter, did it? I'd avoid Neville Longbottom in future. Hopefully, we'd get into different houses.

Finally, we reached our destination and could get off the train. I was glad to walk in the fresh air again; we had really spent lots of time in trains today.

"First-years, over here," a giant man shouted. I wondered if he really was a giant. It could be possible, I had read that giants were real somewhere.

Carriages were waiting for the older students. There were no horses pulling them, instead they seemed to move by themselves. Probably magic. Mandy started at those carriages with a horrified expression.

"Hey, Mandy, what's the matter?" I whispered.

"Don't you see them, these, these things?" she asked in a terrified whisper. "These things that are drawing the carriage. Zombie horses or something."

I didn't see anything and started to get worried. First Neville and now Mandy. Was there something about magic that messed with our minds? The strange things that happened around us had made me feel scared of being mad before. Now that I knew magic was real, I had stopped being scared of that but the things I had seen during the last hours made the fear return.

"Don't worry, these are Thestrals. They're quite harmless if a bit eerie," a voice said. It belonged to a girl with long black hair and brown skin.

"But, there's nothing there," I said.

"Yes, there is. We just can't see them but I know they exist. My parents told me about them. Only some people can see them, that's completely normal. Not need to worry, really."

I sighed with relief. There was still too much about magic I simply didn't know. I hoped Hogwarts had a good library where I could get all the necessary information.

"We should keep going though. We don't want to be left behind, do we? I'm Padma Patil by the way."

They hurried along, following the giant man and the other first-years. I could see Malfoy as well as Neville and the bushy-haired girl. They followed a dark path that probably led through some sort of forest. Slowly, my anxiousness lessened and my excitement returned. I'd see a real magic school very soon. It was quite natural that surprising things happened there.

When we finally saw Hogwarts, all my worries were replace with awe. Not even in my wildest dreams had I imagined such a large and magnificent castle.

And I'd be allowed to go to school there now, together with Mandy.

We reached a sort of lake and the man leading us told us that we should get into the boats, four people in each. We climbed into one boat, followed by Padma and a girl who looked almost exactly like her.

"That's my sister, Parvati," Padma said. "By the way, what house do you think you get in?"

"We don't really know much about it," Mandy admitted. "The only house we've heard of is Hufflepuff. Doesn't sound bad though. Justice and loyalty. What do the others stand for?"

"There's Ravenclaw," Padma explained. "It values intelligence and a thirst for knowledge. Gryffindor is the house of the brave. Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster has been there. The last one's Slytherin."

I tried to remember all those names.

"What is special about Slytherin?" I wanted to know. Padma hadn't mentioned anything.

"Well, blood purity is very important for the Slytherins. Their founder didn't want to teach any Muggle-borns you see. So you probably won't get there. Apart from that, their traits are ambition and cunning. Some people say Slytherin is simply the house for the evil and it's not quite wrong. Most dark witches and wizards have been Slytherins."

I was quite sure that Malfoy would end up in Slytherin. If Padma was saying the truth, we wouldn't miss out on anything if we weren't allowed to get there.

The journey over the lake had passed quickly and we climbed out of the boats and up into the school. Neville's toad was found alive and well. I was glad about that. He probably wasn't really to blame for the things he had said earlier. Maybe one of the teachers here at Hogwarts would finally get him professional help.

I didn't want to think about this anymore. There was so much to see and I tried to take everything in right away.