Chapter 5
"Off you go, dears," Marie's mother said. She gave a long hug to her daughter and then gave Nell a quick peck on the cheek. "Marie, you look after your sister. Make sure she doesn't get lost or into any trouble. And good luck, Nell."
Then their father and Andrew also offered their own hugs and quick kisses.
"C'mon, Nellie, it's almost eleven' o'clock now. Time to find our seats," Marie said, pulling at Nell's hand. Nell nodded and allowed herself to be led away towards one of the train's cars. She clambered in after Marie and followed her past countless other students and booths.
Marie finally stopped and ushered her to sit down. Nell looked around at the three of Marie's fellow Fifth Year Ravenclaw classmates. There was Penny Peren and Rachel Olsen sitting facing them and an unfamiliar boy, who Nell guessed to be Samuel Vance, by the window.
"Weren't you made a prefect? I thought you were allowed to ride in the prefects' car," Rachel said to Marie as soon as they appeared at the booth's entry.
"I am," Marie said. She finished placing her carryon bag up in the rack above their seats. "But I wouldn't want to be stuck sitting with the other Ravenclaw prefects for the whole train ride, now would I?"
Rachel and Penny burst out into girlish giggles. "Yeah, can you believe that zit-faced Keaton Kettle and stupid Juliana Tuckett got chosen as prefects, too?" Marie laughed with them.
"Oh, Nellie," Marie said, motioning to the boy by the window, "this is—"
"Samuel Vance," finished Nell.
"How did you know?"
"I'm not stupid, you know. I've seen all those letters you've been sending each other all summer."
Marie opened her big mouth to say something, but the train's final loud whistle interrupted her. The four of them all rose at once and rushed to the windows, fighting to shove their arms out the windows to flail them about and call out farewells to their families. Nell poked her head through the mass of bodies and silently peered out the window just as the train began to pick up speed.
"Good luck!" their mother and father called repeatedly while Andrew only stood there, waving goodbye in silence.
Once the train was out of sight of the platform, Marie took Nell and helped her to change into her school robes. "Best to change early on so you don't forget to later."
"Already so confident you'll be in Ravenclaw, Nellie?" Penny said when the two returned.
"No," Marie said. "But Nellie here is really clever; always reading and practicing spells and whatnot."
Nell looked down at her black hand-me-down robes and saw the Ravenclaw sigil stitched onto the front. She forced a shy smile.
A few moments later, Penny led the conversation past the subject of Nell. The four older Ravenclaws continued on talking for nearly another two-and-a-half hours, during which Nell thought mainly of Gash and how terrible it must be for him, being stuffed into the form of a bird, caged up, and having to ride along with hundreds of noisy owls in a stuffy luggage car. A plump woman wheeling past with a cart filled with candy and snacks disrupted her thoughts.
Seeing this, Marie rose. "Does anyone else want anything from the cart?" she offered.
"Oh, some Bertie Botts for me, please," Penny said.
"I'll have two Fizzing Whizzbees."
"Marie…" Nell began.
"Come along, Nellie, so you can pick out what you want," said Marie. Nell was ushered to her feet. The two caught up with the cart and got in line behind a group of Slytherins.
Marie gestured to the cart. "So, what do you want?"
Nell shook her head and whispered, "I want Beak." Beak was the stupid name she gave to Gash while he was in bird form.
It took a moment for it to register with Marie. "Oh, come on, Nellie. You haven't had that bird for more than two weeks, and now you can't seem to part with it for a few hours?"
"But—."
"No, Nellie. I'm not taking you all the way through the train just for you to get your bird. You can see Beak after we arrive at Hogwarts in three hours, and then again after dinner," Marie said sternly. "Now, pick out what candy from the cart you want me to buy for you."
When Nell failed to reply, Marie advanced straight up to the cart, muttering, "A chocolate frog it is, then."
After Marie made the purchases, she put what few coins she had left back into her pocket and began walking back to the seat.
"Which direction is the luggage car?" Nell asked her sister.
Marie paused, but decided to ignore the question and continued walking.
Nell suddenly felt a wave of anger wash up over her at being disregarded, especially when her question pertained to something as important as Gash. Her fingers twitched for her wand. She was about to whip it out of her pocket when a boy from the seat next to her suddenly spoke up.
"It's towards the front of the train—that way. But you can't get to the luggage very easily anyways. You'd have to pass the prefects' carriage first, and they're very stickler about that sort of thing," the rather plain looking boy said. "You don't have to go back and sit with that girl. You can sit with us if you'd like."
Nell contemplated going off to the luggage car, but instead accepted his offer. She stepped into the booth and looked around at all the faces. It was even more crowded here than in the box where her sister and her friends were sitting. Nell took a seat on the side where only two other people were sitting.
"We're all First Years here, you know," the talkative boy said. "Are you a Second Year? It looks like you're already in Ravenclaw. I sure hope that I get Sorted into a good House, y'know not Slytherin or Hufflepuff. M'name's Jeremy Wynn. Here next to me is Kraz Pucey and Louise Figg. There next to you is Chloe Merrythought, and, uh, Ted Lupin. What's your name?"
"My name's Nell Bennett," she replied mildly. "I'm a First Year, too. These are old robes from my sister—she's the one who's in Ravenclaw."
"Oh, that's nice." He paused a moment. "I noticed that your sister there never gave you your chocolate frog. Here, you can have mine. I don't want it. I just wanted the card, you know." He pulled it from his robe pocket and offered it to Nell. Nell politely declined.
"Are you sure that was your sister?" Louise Figg asked, nodding in the direction of Marie's booth. "You two don't look very much alike."
Nell calmly turned her head towards her. She was a scrawny girl with brownish hair and wearing a pair of stylish glasses over her dark eyes. "Yes. She's my sister, but not by blood. I was adopted when I was very young."
"Well, okay, she's in Ravenclaw, but which House do you think you'll be Sorted into?" the Louise Figg girl asked.
Nell shrugged. "My mum seems pretty convinced I'm going to be Sorted into Ravenclaw, too. That's the main reason she didn't bother removing this patch from these robes."
"Oh, well, I'm going to be Sorted into Hufflepuff for sure," said Louise. "Everyone in my family's been put into that House for generations, my dad says."
"Really? That's a shame. There's nothing really all that special about Hufflepuffs," Chloe said. "My great-grandmother was the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher a long time ago. When she was in school, she was a Ravenclaw, I think. I'm really hoping for the same too. I don't know if I'd want to face my parents ever again if I don't get into Ravenclaw..."
Kraz Pucey, the skinny boy, spoke up before Jeremy could open his mouth again. "My mum's whole family was Sorted into Slytherin. She was pureblooded and all, you know. But I don't know if I'll be put in the same House…I'm a half-blood, you see..."
"Blood doesn't matter, stupid," said Ted Lupin. "The Hat Sorts you for your personality, not your family."
"No, Pucey's right," Jeremy said in a slow and unpleasant manner. "Everyone knows that all Slytherins are sleaze-backed, self-centered blood-purists."
"Shut up!" Kraz clutched his bony knuckles and stood up in a sudden rage.
Slightly surprised, Jeremy hesitated for a moment, and then stood up to respond to the challenge. "Bring it, scumbag!" he shouted back.
"Shhh! Both of you, shut up," Louise Figg said.
Kraz inched forwards, paused, and then yielded. Just as the two retook their seats, an upperclassman stopped in front of their booth and opened the door.
"Is there a problem here?" the Gryffindor prefect said.
"No," Nell said quickly.
"Well, don't get into any trouble. We'll be arriving in two and a half hours," she said. The prefect gave one more suspicious glance at the lot of them, and then moved on. Nell closed the door again, and a prolonged pause hung in the air.
"You never knew your parents, then?" Chloe asked Nell conversationally, breaking the silence.
Nell shook her head slowly. She wasn't sure she liked where this conversation might lead to.
"Oh, Teddy here is the same. Maybe your parents died fighting off You-Know-Who just like his did."
"Is that really so, Ted?" Jeremy asked enthusiastically.
Teddy, the blonde haired boy sitting nearest the window, smiled. "They did. And my grandpa, too. I've been raised by my gran and my godfather's family ever since," he said, beaming. "And stop saying 'You-Know-Who.' He was called Voldemort. It's just a name, you know. There's no need to be scared of it."
"My uncle died during the war, too," Kraz said. "But my mum never talks about it."
"He was probably a traitorous Death Eater, like the rest of your family, Pucey," Jeremy said.
"You'd better drop it, Jere," Ted said. "Kraz looks like he's about to cry."
Kraz turned lobster red in anger and began inching his hand towards his robe's pocket.
"Go on, then, Pucey," Jeremy threatened.
"I doubt you know any spells anyways."
"I dunno," Jeremy said. "I bet he knows a few dark spells. He's a Slytherin, after all."
"Not yet, he's not," Louise said very defensively. "So, you two can just leave him alone. He doesn't have to be like the rest of his family."
She held her hard stare with the two boys for several silent seconds. Ted and Jeremy then both shrugged and directed their attentions elsewhere.
The conversations within the booth waxed and waned, morphed and changed, and droned on for another two-and-a-half hours. By the end of the train ride, Nell was thoroughly irritated by the sound of Jeremy's voice, the annoying squeak in Chloe's laughs, Ted's know-it-all tone, and Kraz's wan face.
The moment she stepped off of the train, she immediately started off towards where the students' birds and luggage were being unloaded. Nell eagerly began to hurry towards the far end of the train.
"There you are, Nellie. I was beginning to wonder where you'd gotten off to," a voice behind Nell suddenly said.
Nell rolled her eyes and turned around to face her sister. "What is it now, Marie?"
"You," Marie said, jabbing Nell harshly in the shoulder. "You went off all of the sudden. Mum told me to look after you, and I can't do that if you go wandering off."
"Well, I didn't see you looking for me. I was just a few booths down from you," said Nell.
Marie scrunched up her face, and then shoved Nell in the direction of a growing crowd of First Years not far off. "See that big man over there? That's Hagrid, and he'll be taking you to the castle across the lake in some nice boats. It'll be fun. So, off you go."
"No, not yet," Nell said defiantly as she pushed back. "I'm going to see Beak. And I thought you just said you weren't going to let me out of your sight. Trying to get rid of me again already?"
"You can see Beak once you get to your dormitory. And you can see me again after the Sorting. All of the First Years go the school by boat, anyways. You don't want to be the only one who doesn't, do you?"
Nell reluctantly went towards the half-giant Hagrid, but not before slipping a nasty face at Marie. As the crowd on the platform began to clear away and the other First Years were being led away, Nell stayed behind. She hurried towards the luggage car of the train. For a whole twelve minutes, she managed to search through countless stacks of trunks and screeching birds undetected.
"Who goes there?" she heard a rough voice say. Nell ducked to the floor and tucked in her legs. But the man had already caught sight of her and dragged her from the train car. He took a glance at her robes. "Second Year? Third Year? Get along now. The carriages to the castle have already left, I bet; you'll have to walk now. Best not be late—just follow the road. You should get there before the end of the feast."
He didn't turn back again until she began walking away. Nell considered trying to sneak back and retrieve her companion, but decided that Gash would forgive another few hours by himself.