Andromeda sipped at her tea. Ted, firm and stalwart at her side as always, hadn't even touched his cup. There were often times that she forgot how formidable a wizard he could be when pressed, and as ever, she thanked magic itself for bringing him to her. She glanced his way quickly, noting the twitching of his upper lip, the dark, cold look in his eye. Suppressing a sigh, Andromeda placed her tea back in its saucer and onto the table.
Sat across from her in a conjured chair, watching the couple quietly, was Albus Dumbledore.
They'd waited until Morgan was on the Hogwarts Express, and thus out of mind and sight, before accepting the former Headmaster's request for a visit. No doubt he wished that the girl would attend the meeting herself, but Andi wasn't feeling very forgiving, and Morgan doubtlessly would have had words to say to the man. No, it was better for everyone involved if he said what he had to say to them. She would relay it to Morgan later.
Still, it was a curious meeting. The disgraced leader of the light had come to call on them, promising that whatever needed to be spoken was of the utmost importance. For a disgraced member of 'high society' as well, she knew what he was experiencing now would be a marked change from his former glory.
He'd aged in the months following his sentencing. That he had pled guilty to the charges placed upon him had come as a surprise to all of Britain, though it had certainly sped things up. In the years prior, the few times she'd seen the man he appeared elderly, certainly, but healthy and chipper. Now, though, she began to see his centenarian years catch up. He seemed paler, wan and willowy, and the latent flare of his magic felt weaker somehow.
"I apologise," the man said quietly, finishing his tea, "for the manner in which I had James' cloak delivered to Morgan. After the trial I began to pack away my office and came upon it, and so decided to return it without mentioning myself. I feared, rightfully, that if she knew it came from me she would never accept it."
Andromeda couldn't quite hide her scoff. "She doesn't fear you, Albus. What reason would she have to be afraid? Did you place her there maliciously, knowing what she was being damned to?"
The man wilted. "Of course not. I knew Petunia as a child, and again as a young woman. She and Lily argued, obviously, as siblings are wont to do. But to treat her own kin in such a way, or to even allow it…" He rubbed at his eyes tiredly. "No, I had no suspicion whatsoever. One of my many failings."
"For which you have answered for," said Ted, finally voicing his feelings. "What's done is done, and now we can move on. So, this cloak…"
"From what I was able to glean from James' explanation, it has been in the Potter family for centuries," Dumbledore explained. He took a thin, leather-bound notebook from his robes and flicked through it. "Minerva often complained to me of the manner in which James Potter and his friends were able to escape culpability or capture during their Hogwarts years. And the headmaster portraits proved to be very illuminating."
"How so?" Andi asked.
Her reluctant curiosity spurred on a damnable twinkle in his eyes. She hated it. "Ah, I spoke to many of them at length, and for every generation of Potters at Hogwarts, there was a long line of unanswerable, inexplicable escapes from discipline. Years of witnesses attesting to the 'unnatural stealthiness of the Potters.' I attribute this to the cloak itself. It is…unlike any other of its kind."
"Invisibility cloaks don't last for decades, forget centuries," Ted argued.
"I have reason to believe that it is something rather more than simply an invisibility cloak," the man replied. He tilted his head slightly. "Did Morgan read the selection I sent along with it?"
Andi nodded slowly. "She did. The Tale of Three Brothers. I remember my father reading the story to me as a child. I had nightmares for weeks." She gave him a rueful smile. "I much preferred Babbity Rabbity."
Dumbledore sighed and removed his spectacles, cleaning them on a surprisingly normal robe in shades of grey. "After coming to the realisation that the cloak was not quite average, I spent the next year researching lineages. It took no small matter of persuasion and time, but I was able to trace the Potter line back to its inception as a magical house."
Ted raised a brow. "And?"
"In 1146, Hardwin Potter, son of Linfred of Stinchcombe, married a young woman named Iolanthe Peverell," said Dumbledore, ignoring Andromeda's knowing gasp. Instead he focused on Ted's confusion. "The House of Peverell was a very well-known family, more ancient than even the Blacks, that fled from Gaul sometime during Caesar's conquest."
"My grandfather was obsessed with them," Andi said quietly. "He said that they were practitioners of the darkest arts, that they had made a deal with death itself for their power thousands of years ago."
"The legends are myriad and varied," said Dumbledore, neither confirming or denying her words. "But I believe that the three brothers described in Beedle the Bard's tale were indeed sons of the Peverell family: Antioch, who was the first master of the wand; Cadmus, who was tragically bewitched by the stone; and Ignotus, the youngest, the cloak-bearer, whose line descended down through the centuries to Iolanthe, who married Morgan's ancestor Hardwin."
"It's a children's story," Ted snapped, barely veiling his ire. He gestured wildly as he argued. "Like Cinderella or The Little Mermaid. You can't honestly believe that Death, as more than a concept, is real."
Dumbledore stared at Ted with hard eyes for a moment. "Edward, you live in a world where daily we break the very laws of reality with little more than our willpower and belief. There is hard, tangible proof of the living soul, and therefore proof of a life after this one. Creatures beyond belief, from the mightiest dragon to the lowest flobberworm, live and breathe and die around us, whilst the mundane world sleeps on, oblivious. True prophecies, the workings of Fate, are registered not a hundred feet beneath the Minister's office. And you limit yourself to the idea of what must be, because to believe otherwise is preposterous to you?"
Andromeda hid a smirk, her amusement at seeing her husband at a loss for words palpable on her tongue, and cleared her throat. "This is very interesting, but I believe you were on the cusp of making a point?"
"Too right," said the aged wizard. "Forgive me, I find my mind drifting further and away these days. You see, the Peverell cloak was not the first of the Deathly Hallows I encountered in my life." From the sleeve of his wand he removed a long, pale wand — the wood aged and marked, with small bulbous carvings throughout the length, inscribed with runes — and sat it on the coffee table. Dumbledore released a heavy sigh and steepled his hands. "I took possession of the Elder Wand after removing it from Gellert Grindelwald's corpse in 1945. I knew him from a young age, and in our youths we had delusions of grandeur, visions of a society made by magicals, for magicals, where all of wixenkind could be safe and protected from what we believed was the radical danger of muggles. And featuring heavily in those delusions were the Hallows, and the lofty ideal of becoming Master of Death."
The silence that followed Dumbledore's admission was deafening. For years and years, every soul on earth that knew Dumbledore's name knew it for one solitary reason: that he'd been the only one capable of destroying the man that had carved a burning swathe of death across all of Europe during the war. The eyewitness accounts of their duel were both harrowing and inspiring, describing feats of magic unheard of ever before and indeed, ever since. Dumbledore had been lauded as a hero afterward, spurring his own storied, progressive career.
So, to know that, at some level, he was partially responsible for Grindelwald's crusade in the first place? That he'd had a hand in the planning of it all, even at the basest level, was anathema.
She could see, however, that Dumbledore's admission to his role in it all had taken its toll on him. The ruins of guilt lined his wizened face, and if her suspicions were correct, he'd paid a high price for doing what was needed. And so, in spite of herself, she took pity on him.
"How did he come by the wand?" she asked. Ted remained stiff and silent at her side.
"He stole it," said Dumbledore. "From Mykew Gregorovitch, the foreign wandmaker. This was well after our falling out, as it were, and he began his campaign across Europe soon after. We fought several times over the course of the war, and while Gellert had always been a fine student of magic, his power had grown so exponentially that I began to suspect he'd found the wand. I was correct."
He tapped the wand on the table with a long finger. "This is Antioch's bane, the Elder Wand. And by rights, it belongs to Morgan Potter."
"That's too much power for one person," said Andi. "If what you say is true, and this thing was created by Death itself, it's cursed. The wand has a bloody history, if the rumours are to be believed. It would paint a target on her back she would never escape from."
While Andromeda would never consider herself a student of history — to be sure, her talents had always lain more in healing magic and transfiguration — she had read and heard the tales of warlocks and sorceresses in centuries past, each wielding a wand of elder wood and thestral hair as they reaped destruction across the world. And to a one, each and every figure had died a gruesome, violent death. She would not wish such a fate upon her worst enemy, to say less of Morgan.
"You are quite correct, Andromeda," the man replied with little concern. "But if my fears are proven correct, Morgan will find herself in the line of fire regardless. The Hallows are her birthright, Andromeda, and I believe they will work wonders for her that the rest of us can only dream of, especially if gathered together. And the alternative, the only other wielder capable of harnessing their true potential… the fallout would be catastrophic."
The awestruck tone of his voice did little to settle the rapid, burgeoning terror in her gut. In a frigid, sharp tone, she demanded: "Explain."
Dumbledore's expression lost all levity, and he sat staring at the pair of them for a long, silent moment. Andromeda was no stranger to that look, nor was she a stranger to the imminent arrival of bad news — a remnant mark of her family's influence — but whatever had a man like Albus Dumbledore hesitating would be dark words, indeed.
For a moment it seemed as though the former headmaster would double down on his evasiveness, ever eager to remain solitary bedfellows with his secrets. But then, with a flick of the smaller, thinner wand in his palm, the room fell into an unnatural silence. Dumbledore leaned in closely, leaning on the edge of his seat. His eyes, a typically jovial blue, like summer sky on a cloudless day, were like chips of glacial ice.
"Tell me," the aged wizard began in a low tone, "have either of you ever heard of a horcrux?"
For anyone familiar with Bathilda Bagshot's seminal work, Hogwarts: A History, the fact that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry was unplottable — that is, charmed to be magically concealed to both tracking and mapping charms and spells — was common knowledge. There were few noted descriptions of the castle and grounds themselves, and other than a detailed list of the creatures inhabiting the forest on the castle's grounds (in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) not much was made readily available to those not studying there. This was not uncommon, as the locations and details of other magical schools worldwide were jealously kept. Morgan only knew that Beauxbâtons Academy of Magic was somewhere in southern France, and Durmstrang castle was situated in the Scandes, and even less of their offered classes, tenured staff, or how they operated. The sheer level of secrecy astounded her.
Sat alone in a compartment many miles away from Andromeda's life-changing discussion, Morgan watched as rainfall pattered against the window. Her trunk, far too heavy to lift herself, rested leaning against the wall to her side, and a few books and scattered bits of parchment sat on the seat across from her. She'd tried, around an hour in, to familiarise herself with the contents of her spellbooks for first year. When that didn't work, she'd moved onto making her quills and notes levitate around the compartment.
She was quite bored, and lonely, and the sounds of the other children shouting and laughing outside only exacerbated that feeling.
Outside the train carriage, rural Britain passed her by in a multihued blur. The scarlet engine of the Hogwarts Express had departed from King's Cross a few hours ago, and Morgan had yet to be bothered. There was something desirable there, though, in that idea — of being bothered. Her only friends were Andi, Ted, and Dora, and they were family and thus didn't quite count. She realised she wouldn't mind being press-ganged into acquaintanceship by some enterprising interloper. Oh, what she wouldn't give for a predestined meeting just about now, for some interesting stranger to barge into her compartment and command her attention.
Surreptitiously, and with enough hope that internally chided herself, she glanced toward the glass door leading into the hallway. It was empty. Morgan leaned back into her seat and sighed. In her lap sat her father's invisibility cloak.
The fine hairs on the nape of Morgan's neck prickled, as they always did when she handled the cloak. To Andi's chagrin, she'd become obsessed with the artefact over the last few months, always carrying it on her person, passing a hand through the fabric as if it were a cat on her lap.
After the chaos on her birthday, wherein she'd worn the cloak for the first time and discovered its usefulness, it was her constant companion. The silken, fluid, wholly ancient magic that poured from the cloak and into her was almost narcotic. And she sensed sometimes that it fed on her magic as well, learning her, knowing her, loving her.
It was the only thing she had of her father's, and she loved it dearly.
A pack of older girls passed by her compartment, muttering and giggling amongst themselves, and Morgan yearned. How was it done, companionship, she wondered. How did these people put themselves out there in the interest of friendship? What was the done thing? She didn't know, and found quite suddenly that the very idea of introducing herself and talking about herself and being known and seen was quite terrifying, indeed.
She'd much rather have a fateful encounter. They seemed altogether easier by far.
"This isn't a story," she said aloud to herself. Her eyes were drawn once more to the cloak. "It's not some fairy tale, where everything is predictable and glorious and things just happen. If you want friends, Morgan, you have to go out and make them yourself."
'Oh, how wise,' said the other Morgan, the one who was still beaten and bruised and brutally hateful, within her head. 'Look how you've grown. Do you think they've forgotten, dear heart? Oh no, oh no, It's in all the papers. They're afraid of you, and why shouldn't they be? Murderer.'
She shook her head wildly, forcibly willing the image of Petunia's glassy, empty eyes from her head. She didn't murder her aunt, she protected herself. Her magic lashed out because her uncle was an abusive, evil toerag and her aunt had only ever made it worse. She hadn't done anything wrong, and no one, not even herself, was going to make her believe otherwise. Instead, Morgan sat peaceably in her compartment and focused on good memories, on better times, and let the bad ones fade away.
With a deep breath, she relaxed. And then, as if bound by serendipity, the compartment door opened.
Morgan blinked. The girl standing at the door blinked right back. Neither of them spoke a word for a solid minute, during which several people passed by behind the girl and gave her odd looks. Still, she said nothing, and so Morgan took the time to memorise her. If for no other reason than because this was Morgan's first new person, and thus was important.
She was quite pretty, with light caramel-toned skin and pin-straight black hair that fell shortly to her collar. Her eyes were small, with dark grey irises that screamed of a sharp, cunning intelligence. Her nose was thin and rounded, and her lips were full and pink. She was very short, however, and that brought a queer sort of amusement to Morgan. In the interest of knowing this new girl, she smiled.
"Hi."
The girl flinched, startled but not fearful, and then flushed scarlet. "Hello. Er, do you mind if I join you? The girls the next compartment over won't stop blabbering on about Gilderoy Lockhart. Drove me mad."
Trying her very hardest to quell her enthusiasm, Morgan shifted her things off of the opposite seat and tilted her head, going for 'welcoming' rather than 'desperate'. It was a mixed success, she thought, because the girl gave her a queer look before she sat down. Morgan noticed then that she was already wearing her uniform and robes, but they weren't yet outlined in house colours. Just like hers.
"I'm Morgan," she said, rather stupidly, as if the scar running down her forehead didn't make that obvious.
The girl smiled, though, showing off straight, snow-white teeth. "I know. I'm Sue." Sue's eyes caught on the cloak in Morgan's lap. "That's pretty."
"Oh," Morgan gasped lightly, having forgotten about it somehow. She folded it up neatly and set it aside. "Thanks. It was my dad's. He wrote about it in his journal, apparently my grandfather had it before him, and his dad before that. I think it's kind of an heirloom."
Sue nodded lightly. "My family does that with wands. My sister uses one that's been in our family since the twelfth century."
"And it works well for her?" Morgan asked interestedly.
"She's never complained," Sue replied with a shrug. "I sort of broke the mould a bit. None of the heirloom wands worked for me, so we had to go to Ollivander's." She looked uneasy just at the mention of the old wandmaker, and Morgan had to agree.
"He's weird, right?" she asked quietly, with just the hint of a smirk.
"Oh, positively off his rocker," Sue said with a laugh. "But his family's been making wands since the Roman conquest, so he must be doing something right. And I was able to get this beauty."
With gusto, she whipped out a wand from her blazer, a thin stripe of dark wood that flared out at the grip, and it let out a few cerulean sparks. Sue blushed lightly from her overexcitement and fiddled with the wand. Morgan giggled at the sight, flicking her own wand from the holster on her wrist. Sue's eyes nearly popped out of her skull.
"You have a holster?" she demanded. "How'd you get it?"
"My sister," answered Morgan. "She's in auror training now, and they kitted her out. I think the quartermaster gave her an extra on purpose — they flirt, apparently. But she gave me this one." She rolled up her sleeve, exposing the curved leather on her wrist and the uneven slit that housed the expansion charm necessary for a wrist holster. "I'm not totally sure it's legal for me to use one, but —"
"Say no more," Sue interrupted. She tilted her head slightly. "I didn't know the Potters had an older kid."
Morgan grimaced. "Dora's my foster sister, technically. But the Tonks took me in, and they're lovely, and, well… They're family." She shrugged. Feeling thoroughly exposed, Morgan deliberately and tactlessly changed tack. With a cheerful clap, she asked: "So, are you looking forward to classes?"
Sue smiled, letting her segue stand, and started talking.
As it turned out, Morgan and Sue Li, as she'd revealed, had quite a lot in common. They had both struggled with lonelier childhoods, due to Sue being the youngest and the only child in her family to choose to attend Hogwarts. Sue had four older brothers and an older sister, who had all graduated already and were working in various careers, and an extremely overbearing grandmother with high expectations.
Sue wanted to be on the professional duelling circuit one day, and had the knowledge and drive to do it, or so Morgan thought. She knew all the statistics for the amateur U-14 league duellists, as well as the professional U-21 league team members. She knew their wand compositions, their styles, and their spell repertoires. She knew their nations of origin, which languages they spoke, and their training regiments. It was honestly impressive, in an intimidating kind of way.
Morgan expressed her indecisiveness over what career path to take, describing the difficulties of enchanting, as it required masteries in runes, charms, transfiguration, and potions. Ritualists were banned in Britain, as the Ministry had declared all rituals as 'Dark' magic following Voldemort's fall in '81, so she would be forced to gain that education elsewhere, as well as operate and live outside her home for as long as she did that work. Sorcery, while not illegal in the isles, was heavily frowned upon, though from Morgan's reading that belief was stemmed in what little judeo-christian habits wixen had picked up on prior to the implementation of the Statute of Secrecy.
About halfway through the trek to Hogsmeade, the trolley witch arrived to take any orders for railway fare. Morgan, feeling peckish but not quite hungry, snagged a cake and a bit of juice. Sue, however, ravaged through an entire box of Bertie Bott's, three cauldron cakes, a licorice wand, and a pack of chocolate frogs before settling down.
"Hungry, were you?" asked Morgan, still nibbling on her pumpkin pasty.
"Starved," Sue said, leaning back in her seat with a satisfied smile. "We ran late, I hardly made it on the express in time. Didn't get to eat breakfast."
Morgan hummed, watching the very beginnings of sunset over the horizon. "Should only be a few more hours. I heard the feasts are to die for."
"Cor, I hope so. Could go for a bit of roast duck. Say, how about —"
But they were interrupted by a new visitor. Standing at the door at a respectable height (for a thirteen year old), was another girl with an impressive bush of curly brown hair atop her head. She was lighter of skin than Sue, though not quite the same snow-white pallor as Morgan, and her eyes were a warm brown. Friendly, Morgan hoped.
"Pardon me," said the girl in an imperious sort of tone. "Have either of you seen a toad?" She jabbed her thumb at a boy standing behind her. "Neville here's lost his, and with so many cats and owls onboard he's rather concerned."
Morgan thought that of the three allowed familiars at Hogwarts, toads were by far the most useless, but didn't say so. It seemed quite a rude thought. Instead, she made an apologetic face. "No, I can't say I have, sorry."
Still lying on the seat with her eyes closed, Sue said, "Ask one of the older years with a cat to have it track it down."
"Or use a revealing spell," Morgan added swiftly.
The girl furrowed her brow, whether in frustration or thought Morgan couldn't say. "The revealing charm doesn't work on animals, only people. And wouldn't the older students' cats try to eat it?"
"There's more than one revealing spell," argued Sue in a detached voice. "Homenum revelio works on people, the basic revelio charm is for hidden objects and traps…"
"...and I've never heard of a cat eating a toad," said Morgan. She frowned. "Though, I suppose it's not impossible."
The boy, Neville, whimpered at that. Morgan glanced at Sue and swore she saw the girl suppress a grin. Fighting the sympathetic response to laugh herself, Morgan instead looked at the unnamed girl, who seemed to be struggling internally with something.
"I've read through our class materials twice," she said with steadily increasing volume. "I know them front to back. There's no spell for revealing creatures in any of them."
This was said in such a way that Morgan could only assume that others knowing something this girl didn't was akin to a cardinal sin. Morgan hadn't met very many people yet, her isolation in the Tonks home notwithstanding, but to her mind this girl was brimming with both impatience and frustration that made little sense to her. Or, Morgan thought, perhaps she's irritated by the act of having to search for a toad of all things.
She hummed, pilfering through her spellbooks nearby. Finding what she searched for, she opened the tome to the desired page. From there, she read aloud: "The animal revealing charm, incantation Creaturae revelio (CREE-uh-TUR-eye reh-VEL-EE-oh), is a beginner-tier charm utilised primarily by magizoologists and curse-breakers in their field work. The wand movement is as follows: with wand point tilted down at the opposing hip, begin incantation. Lift wand in a wide, outward facing curve across the chest, finishing the final syllable as the movement reaches its apex. The effect, if performed correctly, will outline all nearby non-human living creatures in a faint, violet-hued glow only visible to the caster. This effect's duration is estimated to last between seven to nine seconds."
Morgan closed the book. Feeling quite proud of herself, she glanced around and found all eyes on her. Sue, squinting from her resting place with one eye open, looked rather amused. The new girl, who had yet to introduce herself, and Neville, the toadless boy, simply stared on wordlessly. She did notice, however, that the girl's focus seemed to be on the book in Morgan's lap rather than her. Feeling ridiculously protective, she held her spellbook to her chest.
The movement struck the girl out of her reverie, and she flushed scarlet from her collar to the tips of her ears. "That's not an approved spellbook for our year."
Genuinely confused, Morgan frowned and said: "What does that matter?"Andromeda had always encouraged her to read ahead, to broaden both her knowledge and her horizons. Of course, she'd read through their course books too, and even the ones for their second and third years. But there was so much knowledge to be had, so many charms and jinxes and transmutations to learn. Why on earth would she limit herself by sticking to the required reading?
She asked this aloud, garnering and approving look from Sue and an appalled, personally insulted look from the other girl. Stuttering, she thanked Morgan profusely for her help before slamming the compartment door closed. Morgan watched the odd pair scramble away before they moved out of sight.
"There's always at least one," muttered Sue from where she lay.
Tilting her head, Morgan indulged her curiosity. "One what?"
"Absolute nutter," replied the girl, pointing out the door with her toe. "She'll be in Ravenclaw with us, and she'll probably do great on paper. Twelve OWLs, Twelve NEWTs and all, the perfect swot. But she won't bother with extracurriculars or clubs, won't go out of her way to make friends or get involved with student government. And when she graduates, she'll wonder why all these doors are closed to her."
Morgan wanted to disagree, to argue, but in her brief experience with how the magical world seemed to operate, couldn't help but agree. The girl had barged in, asked for help, argued when it came from a source she didn't know or like, and then fled when met with an opposing view. She hadn't even told them her name. Which, well, whatever, Morgan thought. It wasn't that big of a deal.
Shrugging it off, as it wasn't her problem, she gave Sue a sly look. "So, we'll be in Ravenclaw together, will we?"
Sue laughed and smiled at her. "We damn well better be. You're the only person I've met on this bloody train that I like."
Morgan felt her face stretch into a delighted grin. She'd been so worried for weeks about going to Hogwarts — afraid that she wouldn't fit in, that her history would make her a pariah. For the first time since she'd boarded the train, she fully relaxed. A warm ball of feeling settled into her chest at Sue's words, and she settled back into her seat and let that odd girl fade from her thoughts. Instead, she focused on her cloak and the girl across from her, making conversation and laughter as the scarlet engine of the Hogwarts Express sped toward the Scottish highlands.
As the downpour flooded the school grounds, drenching the castle, the boatyard, and all the first year students who drudged up the path leading up to the courtyard, Su Li (Sue to her friends) followed the winding crowd ahead. They'd entered by boat, sailing without rudder or oar across the Black Lake, curling around the grounds until the castle had come into sight.
And what a sight it was.
Sue had been told dozens of times about Hogwarts, from its secret passageways to the forest surrounding it to its history, but nothing could have prepared her for how massive it was, nor how the ambient magic of the land around itself would feel coursing through her. She and the others had felt it the moment the wards admitted them, like stepping through a void of pure energy. Entranced as she was by the sheer majesty of Hogwarts, she found her interest piqued by the girl walking by her side ever more.
She'd grown up like every other kid in Britain, raised on the story books of Morgan Potter and her valiant defeat of You-Know-Who as an infant. And, like most of those kids, she believed them to be true. After all, if she could destroy an evil wizard at fifteen months old, what couldn't she do? It'd taken an embarrassingly long time for her to realise that not every word printed on paper was fact, and even longer to understand that whatever had happened that night in 1981, Morgan had probably had little to do with it.
Then, when she was eight, the news about Morgan's abuse and the death of her aunt went across Britain, and Su was faced with the terrifying notion that nothing, not even knowledge, could be all true, all the time.
Even so, Morgan Potter remained forevermore a mystery she desperately wanted to solve. What would she be like? What kind of person would she be, after all that suffering? These were common, if sporadic, thoughts Su was faced with in her years prior to attending school.
So, when she'd opened the compartment door on the train and found the Girl-Who-Lived sitting alone, surrounded by open books and scattered parchment, she'd embraced the opportunity to get to know her with open arms.
What she'd found was a pure delight. Morgan was kind and open and curious. She'd taken the few questions Su had asked about her home life in stride, answering honestly (if not a little cagily) and without lies, and she'd shown interest in Su's home and life as well. She had lofty goals and high ambitions, and a deep, thirsting yearning for all the knowledge that Hogwarts had to offer. Su respected this, as she felt much the same even if their end goals were drastically different, and when confronted with the assumption of which house they would end up in, the answer was obvious.
Rowena would have begged to have the pair in her house, were she still alive and breathing.
Unfailing confidence in herself aside, Su followed the rather small group of prospective first years into the main hall of the castle, relishing the sudden dryness and warmth of being let in from the rain. Morgan shivered at her side and glanced about, her striking green eyes taking it all in with pure curiosity. Sue leaned in close.
"What do you think?" she asked in a low whisper.
Morgan smiled and leaned in as well. "I think we'll need a map."
A few feet away, at the head of their congregation, she heard a throat clearing.
"Welcome!" an invisible voice called out. "Oh blast it all, one moment! Obtestor!" They all watched as a small podium with attached stairs came into being, conjured from thin air, and a very small man with thin, white hair and pointed ears climbed up and smiled at them with his arm thrown wide. "Much better. Welcome, welcome, all of you, to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am Professor Filius Flitwick, Charms teacher and Deputy Headmaster. Now, in a moment I will lead you through these doors and you will be sorted into your house. They are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. All four houses have produced talented and accomplished wixen, and I am confident that each and every one of you will be a credit to your house as well."
Su glanced around at her fellow first years, noting a few unfriendly-looking students that looked to be the descendents of ogres, and inwardly disagreed. Flitwick continued.
"I will be back in a few moments, and then we'll begin."
The diminutive man climbed back down, waved his wand lazily, and the podium disappeared as quickly and quietly as it had arrived. He opened the adjoining door, allowing in both the raucous sound of the other students and the smell of fresh food, and Su found her mouth watering. She was so hungry. Morgan elbowed her in the side and grinned, having read her mind apparently, and Sue stuck her tongue out at her.
"I was surprised they even let you in." Su turned, as did Morgan, to the voice behind them. There was a boy, tall and thin and long-faced, standing there. He glanced at Su dismissively and then focused on the girl beside her. His hair was bleach-blonde and straight, slicked back thinly across his scalp. Sharp grey eyes inspected Morgan, before he sneered at them. "Of course, given how Dumbledore ran this school into the ground, I should have expected it."
Morgan gave the boy a challenging look and crossed her arms. She remained silent.
"It's unsafe," the boy continued, adopting a mocking, innocent expression. "Imagine how worried our parents must be, sending their children off to learn with a murderer?"
Su gasped, along with everyone within earshot, and clenched her fists. She felt a shocking amount of loyalty toward Morgan, sincere but new and fragile. She'd met boys like this one before, mean-spirited bullies with too high opinions of themselves, and the idea of spending the next five years in the same castle as this one was nauseating.
Haltingly, she noticed two large boys standing just at the shoulders of the blonde, two of the more unsavoury types, and realised that they were quite outnumbered. Su was, unfortunately, much shorter than the average, and physically as intimidating as a niffler. Not to mention the fact that she knew precious few offensive spells, and hadn't practised any of them.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shock of flaming red hair in the crowd, the boy it belonged to steadily moving closer and closer. But when Morgan stepped up close to the blonde boy, drawing in nearly nose-to-nose, all movement around them halted. The hall was utterly silent, as if the very castle itself held its breath.
She admittedly believed that Morgan's reaction to the insult would be…sadder. That she would be distraught if even one person considered something like that to be true. She hadn't expected anger. But the cold, hard look in her eyes was breathtaking, and when she spoke, it was like ice slipping down her spine.
"You think I'm dangerous?" Morgan asked. "That me being here makes you unsafe?"
Haltingly, suddenly realising the situation he was in, the boy glanced around. Finding no allies aside from the boys behind him, he looked back at Morgan and nodded, slowly and unsurely.
"And you thought that picking a fight was a good idea?"
Su's head reeled back at the implied threat in Morgan's words. This…was not the girl she'd just spent hours with on the train. Gone was the almost innocent light in Morgan's eyes, the clear, eager curiosity that Su had so liked. In its place was something dangerous, like she'd immediately become a different person entirely. Even her posture had changed, the girl standing tall and tense, shoulders tight, and Su's eyes flickered down and saw her palming her wand.
Could she use it, Su wondered idly, watching the coming conflict with trepidation. If this boy needled her further, what would happen? A morbid curiosity filled her mind at the question.
The blonde boy refused to answer the question, which was an answer in itself. Morgan tilted her head, judging the blonde with the motion and look, the scar across her forehead cast in shadow from the torches nearby. The boy flinched. Then she smiled, and Su came to the sudden realisation that Morgan Potter was terrifying. "Well, that's good to know. What's your name?"
The blonde boy had already begun backing away from them, but suddenly found himself barging into the redhead Su had seen making his way toward them. "Oh, he's a Malfoy," the redhead said, smiling down thinly at Morgan. "Draco Malfoy, right?"
Morgan let out a hum, the tone of it laced with sudden interest. "Like Lucius Malfoy, the Death Eater?"
"My father is innocent!" Malfoy shouted.
The redheaded boy snorted a hard laugh. "Right, and I'm the richest man in England."
It was common knowledge in England, from the lowliest paper-pushers to the titans of magic like Dumbledore, that Lucius Malfoy was as far from innocent as it was possible for a person to be. Even though the specific magic used by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was unknown, the sheer depravity of the crimes permitted by his followers was enough to curdle the stomachs of even the veteran aurors at the time. And for someone like Lucius, who had since used his purchased freedom to repeal, fight, and demonise every bit of progressive legislation since the war ended, the Imperius defense was a godsend. Sue's mother called the Malfoy family a blight on magic herself. Seeing the heir to that demented legacy tonight, she had to agree with her mum.
Malfoy whirled on the redhead and got in his face, screeching, and soon after they descended into a row, which further escalated into a brawl. By the time Flitwick returned, the two boys had fallen to the ground and were wailing on one another, screeching insults and smacking each other across the face. All the while, the other students jeered and shouted, with a few notable exceptions either attempting to break it all up, or like Morgan and herself, simply watching from the sidelines with little care.
Su glanced at her side and saw the Girl-Who-Lived watching on placidly, a satisfied little smile crossing her face. The redheaded boy landed a solid, hefty punch to Malfoy's stomach, and satisfaction gleamed in Morgan's eyes when the blonde fell to the floor.
"Proud of yourself?" she asked.
Morgan shrugged. "Why bother fighting about it when other people will do it for me?"
Su blinked, and stumbled upon the understanding that she had no idea who Morgan Potter was at all. She'd had something of an idea on the train. She was wrong. Morgan was at all times, all things — both kind and uncaring, eager and bored, unassuming and shrewd, warm and potentially very cruel. For a lot of people, Su thought, that might have set off warning bells in their heads. Certainly, several of the students were now giving the girls a wide berth. But for Su, it was the exact opposite. The thrill of mystery she'd been so obsessed with as a young girl, the candle of delight, had rekindled to a blazing inferno. She had to figure this girl out.
A cannon blast roared through the hall, halting everyone in their spots. Turning, she saw the deputy headmaster standing by the door, wand raised high. Flitwick strode forward, lines of righteous anger crossing his face, and hissed at the two boys: "Enough! Up, now, both of you."
Malfoy and the redhead rose to their feet, faces red from exertion. They were both sporting newly-forming bruises and Malfoy had a split lip. The crowd had dissembled and now watched the proceedings. The charms professor took a halting breath.
"This is…unacceptable," he said. "I will be speaking to your heads of house once you're both sorted, and they will determine the appropriate punishment for you. Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Weasley, whatever feud may exist between your families, it does not exist here on school grounds. If I hear word of further antagonism, I will not hesitate to suspend either of you. Do you understand?"
The redhead, Weasley, nodded firmly, looking quite proud of himself. "Yes, sir." Malfoy grumbled his acceptance, swiftly moving away from the watchful crowd, and sulked in the shadows.
"Alright," said Flitwick, garnering the attention back to himself. He looked rather tired, and the evening had yet to truly begin. "We're ready for you. After me!"
He strode forward, flicking his wand at the tall, oaken doors. They flew open wide, revealing a long central hall crowded with students. The noise rose to a crescendo, hundreds of conversations playing out all at once, and the first years followed. Su and Morgan walked at a sedate pace, watching the ceiling flicker with charmed rain and candlelight, and despite the earlier excitement, she felt utterly calm.
Flitwick called for the procession to stop just at the edge of the four long tables leading up to the staff area. The hall came to a sudden hush, and the candlelight grew dim and flickered. From a corner, the Charms master levitated a wooden stool capped by a bit of mangy, old fabric. He moved it to the centre of the dais and settled it down.
Stepping forward with a long roll of parchment in his hand, Flitwick spoke. "The Sorting Hat is as old as Hogwarts itself, a creation of ancient magic lost to the centuries. After the Founders laid the foundations for the school, during a time of heavy strife between the magical and non-magical worlds, the four houses were a means to employ the older students to defend and protect the younger. Those of Gryffindor were warriors, while the wixen learning under Hufflepuff became healers and support staff. Rowena Ravenclaw's acolytes studied the intricacies of ancient magics. And Slytherin's proteges ensured that no duplicitous means were used to harm Hogwarts or her charges. Today, those houses have a different, though no less important meaning. Your house will be your family; your triumphs will be theirs, as will your failures. When I call your name, you will step forward. I will place the hat on your head, and you will be sorted. Any questions?"
Silence. Flitwick glanced at the high table, where an older woman dressed in dark emerald robes and a black hat nodded back, her face stern and emotionless.
"Well then," the Charms master said, unraveling the parchment, "let's begin."