Packing to leave for school was a mix of easy and difficult. After so many times going on holiday with Mum — and also Muime, most of them — Violet had a lot of practice at it. She thought it helped that she'd never been super particular about having things? When she was little she didn't really have things, and... She didn't know, she didn't really understand why someone would have trouble packing for a trip. Just, take the things you need? Didn't seem complicated to her. Since she'd be gone for a long time, she basically just took all the clothes she liked — none of the super formal stuff, of course, but things that were comfortable to sit around in. She'd be wearing her school uniform a lot of the time, except for when they were out of classes or in the dorms or whatever. A while ago now, she got a bunch of pretty basic stuff in the size she was now (she went up one sort of recently, her ageing potions making her bigger) that she'd embroidered little designs in and attached beads to for fun, skirts and shirts and dresses and stuff, you know, whatever.

(You were supposed to wear clothes under the robes, but Violet wasn't sure why she'd bother? The robes themselves covered everything just fine, so...)

The school supplies were easy, since they'd basically just bought all of them and thrown them straight in her trunk already anyway. The stuff Mum had to order special had mostly come in by now — Violet was still missing some of the glassware, but they'd have one of the elves bring it over for her when they got the rest — and she had to put back the books she'd taken out to look through since, but that was really it. There was the writing stuff, which was something Violet could be a little picky about, but she was bringing basically all of her art supplies, which would cover the need to have things to write with/on.

For some reason, writing supplies weren't included in the list that was sent out to people — magic-raised kids would have supplies bought for them by their parents, who'd have an idea what to get, and muggleborns got told at the muggleborn shopping trip. Mum said the normal, expected stuff you were supposed to have was a set of quills of any kind, plus one plain quill without any kind of enchanting or alchemy on it; standard writing ink, black, in dip bottles; plenty of paper to keep notes on (normally cheap laid paper), and standard-sized rolls of scribal parchment for assignments. Not parchment parchment, the parchment they sold in the long rolls was actually a special kind of paper mages made with alchemically-treated flax fibres — it was sturdy, thick, and tear-resistant, copying some of the traits that made parchment better than paper, but without some of the downsides like buckling and sweating and the like. (Parchment parchment was still used for some traditional, religious, and art things, primarily in the form of illustrated books, but it was more rare these days.) Violet would be bringing all of her ink stuff — her dip pens would work just fine in place of quills, and she'd have way more than just black ink. The plain quill was for exams, so they'd know they weren't cheating, so Violet got two of those (in case the first one broke...or if a muggleborn friend needed to borrow one, she guessed). She went ahead and got a few rolls of 'parchment' for assignments, but she got a stack of muggle-made lined notebooks for notes — the paper quality wasn't great, but she'd copy anything she really wanted to keep into one of her sketchbooks.

And she was bringing her sketchbooks, of course, and a good-sized stack of proper art paper (which was actually mostly made out of flax or cotton, like 'parchment'), and her pastels and her pencils and charcoal along with her inks. (The pencils were for sketches, not for writing, and she didn't really use coloured pencils anymore.) And then there was her painting stuff too, of course. She brought her watercolours just because — Master Walter wouldn't accept a watercolour painting for her monthly project, but it would be fine for her weekly drawings (and also they were just fun to play with sometimes) — and of course her oil paints took up a fair amount of space, and then there was the canvas...

She didn't really have room in her trunk for painting canvas on top of everything else — most frames couldn't even fit in the trunk at all. But that was okay, Mum said house-elves could find her at Hogwarts just fine. They had a talk with the Potter elves about that, Violet just had to ask them for a canvas of whatever size she wanted and Cediny would make sure it got to her, good, thanks.

And then there was more art stuff in the form of embroidery and beadwork supplies, but that didn't take too much space. Her set of needles and pins and scissors and the like, some spools of thread, her box of beads, and that was all, no big deal. She actually had a lot more pins than she did before, her lacemaking book said she needed plenty of those, but pins didn't exactly take up a lot of space. By this point her trunk was getting pretty full, but it wasn't so bad, everything still fit.

Oh, and she put the kittens' toys in there too — didn't need to bring their food, the elves would feed them, Nola already sent the recipe for their stuff ahead of time. Since there was a little bit of extra space, she crammed in her space puzzles Mum got her years ago — she would re-assemble it and set up the model in her dorm room — and a couple of her puzzle games. Because puzzles were fun!

Violet spent more time than she really need to going back over it all to make sure she had everything. More than once, she'd completely unpack her trunk and go through everything, just to make sure it was all there, only to come back a few hours later and do it all over again. As much experience as she had packing her things to go places, she'd never been away from home this long before. Like, four months was a long time to plan for! It wouldn't be the end of the world if she forgot something, she could just write Mum and have it sent to her (or even just walk down to the house in Hogsmeade and floo home), but still. Violet was maybe obsessing over it more than she needed to, but she wanted to be ready, not having a thing she needed would be annoying...and also she'd feel like an idiot if she forgot something obvious...

Also, part of why she was being weird about it was just because she was nervous.

She kind of felt like she didn't want to go? So it was hard to feel like she was done, that she was ready to go, because she didn't want to go, and she just kept thinking about it in circles...

She was going to miss Mum! and Muime! And Lasairín and Damhnait and everyone, and, she didn't know...

Going on holiday for a while was fun, but she liked home — she didn't want to be gone that long.

(And she remembered, a long time ago now, that Shannon hadn't been so sure Violet would do very well at a boarding school. At the time, she'd kind of thought worrying about that was silly — especially since living with Mum still felt kind of new then, and she'd just been picked up and taken out of her old life and got on somewhere new, why should going to school be any different? — but as it got closer she felt less sure about that.)

And yeah, she was worried about it, but at least part of being super sure she had all of her things she needed packed might be because she was also excited? Because things were happening, and that was exciting! And as much as she didn't like a lot of the noble kids much, and didn't want to be away from Mum and Muime that long, she did like school...or the learning things part anyway, learning things was fun! Even if, after her lessons with Mum and Lord Arcturus, she wouldn't actually be learning much, in at least some of her classes. But still! And there'd be lots of new people too, which was also exciting (if kind of scary at the same time), and Hogwarts was pretty! and even if she wasn't learning much she'd be doing new things, and things were happening, and...

She had trouble sleeping the last couple days before she left for school, was the point, and it was hard to tell how much of that was nervousness and how much was excitement.

The morning of, Susan and Dora and Uncle Ted came over to their house for breakfast — Amelia meant to be here this morning, but something came up at the last minute, and Aunt Andi had to go to work too. (The Department of Law Enforcement and Saint Mungo's were apparently both very busy places.) Mum had gotten up early to make apple cream biscuits and a super rich mushroom-cheddar quiche, it was really good! Way more work than she normally put in for breakfast, she could have slept in for longer...

Because Violet could be thick sometimes, it didn't occur to her that Mum might be overdoing it because she was sad Violet was going off to school — the thing that tipped her off was the worried looks Muime gave her now and then, when she didn't think anyone was looking. Not really sure how to help — Violet was going to miss her too! — she just squirmed sideways into Mum's lap, a biscuit in one hand and her (mint and lemon balm) tea in the other.

She noticed Mum kept smelling her hair, which was silly! They used the same shampoo anyway — they'd had to get a second bottle just so Violet could bring it to school...

(...Mum wasn't going to get so sad she was going to start drinking again, was she? She used to do that before she took Violet, enough it'd been...kind of a problem. Violet should probably write Muime about that, later, just in case.)

Breakfast dragged on for a while, everyone sitting around the kitchen counter chatting and idly munching on biscuits. The train left later in the morning, they weren't in a rush. But they didn't want to get there late, so they'd be able to pick seats — and also Violet didn't deal super well with crowds — so they started packing up to go pretty early. There wasn't a lot to do, of course, Susan and Dora had packed their trunks before coming here — the biggest thing they had to deal with was the kittens. They still had the basket they brought the kittens home in, but Violet never actually had to put them back in it before. They might cooperate and go in by themselves if she threw treats in there, but then they might not? They could be very stubborn sometimes (they were so rambunctious, she loved them).

Instead of dealing with that, Mum just charmed them to sleep, and scooped their little fluffy limp bodies in there — oh, well, Violet guessed that worked too.

Once the kittens were packed away, sleeping little balls of fluff, trunks were shrunk down and stuck in pockets, and they left home. They had to go all the way to the King's Cross train station in London, which was a little silly, since they were actually closer to Hogwarts than London — even if you lived in Hogsmeade, you were still supposed to go down to London and take the train back up, it was tradition. (Silly tradition, but still tradition.) There were multiple hidden magical platforms at the station, and a few different ways to get there. The platforms were connected to the rest of the station, you could just walk through the hidden entrance from the muggle side. (The muggleborns would have been given directions back at the muggleborn shopping trip.) All of the platforms were connected to the floo, and they also had a hole in the wards set aside for people to apparate in and out — that also seemed silly, since if you had access to the floo or could apparate Violet kind of thought you didn't need to take trains? Whatever.

Flooing straight from the Refuge all the way to London could be a pain, especially with the water crossing close to the beginning, so Uncle Ted had planned out a route with a couple stops in it — Susan, Dora, and Uncle Ted would be taking the floo, and Mum was going to apparate Violet and Muime there. They hadn't planned on taking the floo at all — Mum knew the platform well enough to apparate there, and Violet didn't like taking the floo — but then they ran into the problem of nobody who could apparate there being able to take Susan without making her very uncomfortable. Getting stuck with the after-effects of bad Death Prophet stuff was way worse on her then being spun around in the floo, and Dora and Uncle Ted were going along in case something went wrong and she got lost.

Violet didn't think Susan was likely to get lost, she flooed over here all the time, but Amelia had rules about there always being a responsible adult around wherever Susan was going to be. Not letting her go alone was at least partly just for that reason.

(If there weren't going to be responsible adults around, Susan was actually supposed to have a bodyguard with her — her mum got very silly sometimes.)

After the three people going by floo were gone, Violet hugged both arms around Sparks and Diana's basket, Mum held onto her shoulder, and after a second of twisty squeezing blackness they were on the train platform. It looked a lot like a muggle train platform, really? but maybe bigger and nicer. The ceiling was made of little rectangular glass panels curling up in a big arch, the whole space glowing with sunlight, the floor smooth polished dark grey ceramic(?) tiles, the walls orangish-reddish brick, clean and well-maintained, all the tiles and bricks and glass smooth and even without any cracked or missing. Every ten metres or so an archway of gleaming bronze stretched up along the ceiling, over the tracks, shaped into pretty little floral twirls, a large clock hanging from right in the middle, which was pretty! kind of bright where they caught the sun, though.

Violet was still looking around when Mum gave her a gentle nudge, she twitched, started walking — they'd appeared at one end of the platform, there was a section boxed off here with painted lines on the floor, marking the hole in the wards. They had to get out of the way, in case someone else was coming in. The platform was wider than Violet was...pretty sure train platforms normally were? She didn't know, she hadn't taken the train much, mostly knew what they looked like from glimpses on the television back when she was still living with the Dursleys. There was a newsstand back there, also selling coffee and tea and pastries and sandwiches and stuff, between that and an empty corridor right along the tracks was a sitting area, armchairs and sofas. There were already people around, sitting alone reading and sipping at drinks or gathered together chatting...

And there was the train itself too. It was a red, very very red, vivid and gleaming in the sun, railings and window frames and decorations and whatever done in shiny bronze. It was an old-fashioned steam train, with the box at the front for the conductor and the big round boiler and everything, and it was huge! Way up over Violet's head, and the wheels were big, spending all her time on the magical side she kind of forgot how big muggle machines could be.

And it was a muggle machine — the carriages were made by mages, but the engine was an actual old steam engine the mages had taken and enchanted to work better. The handful of magical rail lines in the country had been laid back in the Industrial Revolution, when the muggles were putting them everywhere too, some magical engines made themselves but others bought from muggle companies or even just stolen. (It was easy to steal things and get away with it, even big things like whole trains, if you could mess with people's memories and whatever else.) There used to be more magical rail lines, but as the Floo Network got more stable and accidents became more and more rare, a lot of them were closed down, the Hogwarts Express one of only a handful that were still running. On normal days, the train ran from Sandwich in Kent aaalllll the way up to Wick, way up near the northeast tip of Scotland, but normal service was cancelled when Hogwarts students needed to get up to Hogsmeade or back down to London, a couple times a year.

Violet and Mum and Muime hung around waiting for a couple minutes, Violet looking around wide-eyed at the surprisingly big and open platform, before Susan and Dora and Uncle Ted came through the floo. (There were multiple grates set up back by the newsstand, the doors to the bathrooms back there too.) Some more people were showing up, but it was a pretty slow trickle still, mostly older kids flooing in by themselves, going past to claim spots on the train. Bit by bit, the platform started to fill up as more families came in, some by floo and others through the entrance from the station on the opposite end, slowly growing louder and louder with conversations going on all over the place...

"We should probably get going," Susan said, eventually. "It's going to start getting busy in here soon." She didn't say that it was going to get really uncomfortable for Violet in particular, but Violet got that's what she was thinking.

She pouted — fine, she guessed they could go. Besides, the kittens had woken up by now, and they'd probably be less nervous in a compartment. They walked up to the train, Susan hopping straight on, Dora pretty quick after her, her goodbyes with Uncle Ted really short. (This wasn't exactly new for them.) Violet frowned, staring at the stairs up, hugging the kittens' basket with both arms.

She carefully set the kittens' basket down, and turned around to lean into Mum, fisting her hands in her dress — Mum's arms went around her, curling over to sink her face into Violet's hair over her ear. Over the years, Violet had gotten a lot bigger, helped along by her ageing potions. She remembered, not long after Mum took her, that her head level used to be around her stomach, but now she was partway up Mum's chest, her forehead resting low on her sternum. Most of the time she didn't really pay attention to that — she didn't change her height, much, just staying wherever her ageing potions put her, only tweaking back and forth when she was doing specific things — it was a weird thing to notice...

Violet gathered her breath to speak...and then stopped, changing her mind. They decided ages ago that she was going to Hogwarts, and it was kind of late to do anything about it now? You know, she was all signed up and everything, and they couldn't go back and send her to an Ollscoil instead, they'd missed the registration window by, like, months. And they already bought her school uniforms and everything, and they were here right in front of the train about to go, it...

There was really no point in saying she didn't want to go.

She wanted to stay home! with Mum and Muime, and, she was going to miss things, with the wedding and all and stuff going on at the Refuge, and, and, she didn't know, she just didn't want to go, was all. It was very silly, but she was kind of annoyed with...whoever was part of making the decision that she was going to Hogwarts, bubbling hot in her throat, making it a little hard to breathe...

There was a prickling in her eyes, Violet squeezed them shut, took a long deep breath, frowning against Mum's chest. She wasn't going to cry like a baby who couldn't stand to be away from her mum, she was eleven...

"Take care of yourself up there, darling," Mum muttered into her hair. "Remember, I'm five minutes away if you need anything."

She meant, the time it took to call an elf, for them to get to Mum, and for Mum to apparate to the gates and walk up to Hogwarts — it was probably a little more than five minutes, but. It didn't seem super likely that Violet would really need to call her for something like that, she would probably be okay...but, her throat all tense and hard and thick, she didn't think her voice would work right now, so she just nodded against Mum's chest instead of answering out loud.

"You can go to Severus if you need help — he's not very personable, but. And try to have fun! Millicent and Olivie and Daphne will be there, and I'm sure you'll make new friends, sweet girl. And, well, you are famous, remember. I'm sure everyone will love you more than you can stand."

Pouting, Violet just hummed.

Mum's arms loosened from around her, Violet reluctantly let go of her dress. Crouching down a little, bringing her face to about Violet's level, just a couple inches away, her hands cupped Violet's cheeks, just looking at her for a moment. Her eyes were super green! Like a green colour normal people didn't have, vibrant, like, like the green of pine needles maybe. After a few seconds, she cleared her throat, her eyes flicking away for a blink. "Good luck, darling." She leaned up a little, lightly kissed Violet on the forehead, before letting go of her face and standing up, backed off a step.

Violet blinked a few times, making sure she wasn't leaking.

For her turn, Muime actually sank down to her knees, Violet throwing her arms around her neck — and then, her arms tightening around Violet's middle, Muime leaned back, Violet's feet actually leaving the ground for a second, a choked giggle squeezing through her uncooperative throat. Letting her feet plop back down to the floor, Muime said, "I'm going to miss you, sweetheart." Muime let go, leaning back onto her heels (which made Violet well taller than her), but she snagged onto Violet's hands, smiling up at her. "In fact, there's no way I can make it all the way to Christmas. How about I sneak up there some Sunday to steal you away for ice cream, or maybe to go out to a dance?"

Violet nodded, hard enough her hair swished around her shoulders. But then she froze, frowning past Muime's shoulder. She glanced up at Mum.

"Is that allowed?" Mum asked. "Yes, you can do that — I'll make sure the staff know Síomha's allowed to take you. Hell, I'll show Albus the marriage certificate, he'll get a kick out of that..."

Muime nodded, smirking to herself a little. (Like something was funny, but Violet didn't catch what it was.) "Sure, then. So I'll come out in a few weeks and we'll escape, how about that?"

"Mhm," Violet hummed, nodding.

"Is your voice not working?"

She shook her head. "Mm-mm."

"All right, well, you should get going now. You don't want to let it get too crowded in here — besides, I think Susan and Dora are waiting for you just there."

...Oh crap, they probably were. That was kind of embarrassing. Violet gave Muime another last goodbye hug quick, and then another one for Mum too. And then she stooped over to pick up the kittens' basket (the little babies mewing a little as the thing moved around them), and trotted straight over to the stairs onto the train. Without slowing down, she hopped right onto the stairs and climbed up, not glancing back — she didn't want to start crying or something.

Susan and Dora were waiting for her just inside, like Muime guessed. Thankfully, they didn't say anything about Violet being a baby, just turned and started walking down the hallway. They were talking about where on the train they wanted to sit, Dora explaining that one compartment at the front was reserved for the prefects, and certain cliques (like the quidditch teams) didn't have reserved spots, but sat in around the same spots every time anyway, so they shouldn't go there. Violet's voice still wasn't working, and she was only really half-listening, but that was fine, Susan could take care of this talk for her anyway. By the sound of it, they were going to find somewhere around the middle of the train — the front of the train normally filled up fastest, often getting kind of packed in up there, and then going back as more people showed up, so they wouldn't be in the most crowded part of the train, but there would still be people around. That sounded fine to Violet, so, whatever.

After a little bit of walking down the narrow carriage hallways Dora pointed them into a compartment — it looked nice enough, she guessed. The benches were wood and pretty red fabric, thickly padded and with high backs, luggage racks overhead, the window had curtains, like the kinds there'd be in someone's house, which was silly. Dora had them get out their trunks, she unshrunk them for them, floated them on up into the luggage racks. There we go! She was just going to get going then, let them settle in — she'd see Violet, at least, down in the Hufflepuff dorms after dinner, said with a little wink. And then Dora was leaving, the door hanging open a crack behind her.

For the first however many minutes, Violet just sat on one of the benches, the kitten basket in her lap, trying to keep breathing past the knot in her throat. Susan didn't bother her, just sat quietly — sometimes Violet had weird autistic moments (which was kind of what this was), and Susan was normally pretty good about just leaving her alone until she was feeling better. She was mostly back to normal after a little bit. Still not happy that she was going away for however long, she hadn't even gotten to Hogwarts yet and she was already homesick, but that didn't feel nearly so heavy and bleh if she, just, didn't think about it. She could cry about it when there weren't new people around!

Violet was just apologising for going quiet there — Susan brushed it off, because she was nice like that — when someone slid the door more open, sticking her head in. "Hello. Can I sit here?" It was a girl, about their age, with straw-blonde hair pulled back into a long ponytail. Through the gap in the door, Violet could see she was wearing a red and blue crosshatched skirt and a blue cardigan, muggleborn?

"Sure!" Violet chirped. "C-c-come in. Um, um, I can help with that..."

The girl dragged in her trunk, Violet drew her wand, carefully levitated it up onto the racks. Watching it float up, wide-eyed, the girl breathed. "Ooohhh... Have you started already? I was looking for hells my age."

Violet blinked at her for a second, confused — hells? While she was puzzling over that, Susan said, "No, we're first-years. You're muggleborn?"

"Yep! That's what it's called when no one else in your family has magic, right?"

"Right. Some families teach their children some magic before starting academy, we both know a little."

"Oh... That doesn't seem fair."

"It's not, no," Violet admitted, finally throwing off her confusion. It sounded like this girl talked a little funny, maybe an accent she didn't know, just try to ignore it. "Anyway, hi! I'm Violet B-B-Black."

"Sophie Roper." Um, was that Rober or Roper? Violet wasn't sure... "Are those kittens?" she asked, leaning over to peer into the basket.

"Yeah! Um, um, this one is D-Diana, the one with the little socks is Sparks."

"They're adorable!"

"I know!"

For a couple minutes, Sophie poked at the kittens through the holes in the basket, asking questions. (Obviously she didn't know what a kneazle was.) No, it probably wasn't a good idea for Violet to let them out, they might run out of the compartment and get lost! They could feed them some treats though, she just had to get them out of her trunk quick...

Sophie seemed nice! She lived way up around Middlesbrough — her family actually came down yesterday and spent the night in London to be at the station this morning — and she had a bunch of younger siblings, spent a lot of time helping out with them or the neighbours and stuff. (Violet got the feeling Sophie's family was kind of poor, their house a little small for all of them.) She was really excited about magic being real, it was kind of cute actually, her eyes going all big and wide whenever Susan or Violet did anything magic. Yeah, her hair was magic! Really all of her was magic, but she made her hair look like that because she liked the rainbow bits, and her fingernails too, see? Thanks! No, she couldn't do Sophie's for her, it wasn't that kind of magic...

(Well, she could change Sophie's hair colour and do her fingernails for her, but she shouldn't — Violet didn't know if it'd wear off.)

She did kind of talk funny? Violet didn't just mean she had a northern accent (though she did, a bit), but she messed up things that she didn't think were normal. Like, swapping out a sound, or dropping a word, and her speaking volume wavered around sometimes for some reason? It was a little odd, but Violet could mostly tell what she was saying, only getting confused about a word now and then, so that was fine. Besides, Violet's stammering problem never had gone away, so she didn't get to judge people for talking funny.

And she wasn't going to say anything about it, because Sophie was being super nice about Violet talking funny — a couple times she asked Violet to repeat something when she didn't catch it, but other than that. She had way more questions about Susan being a Seer, she didn't know Seers were a thing before.

Her grandparents had a farm, and they raised sheep! That was neat!

They were talking for a while when Millie showed up — Violet popped up to her feet to give her a hug, hi! Yes, she did have kittens, weren't they adorable? Millie was here with, um...Pansy, right, that was Pansy. Millie was just dropping by to say hi, she and Pansy were going to sit somewhere else with some of Pansy's friends. (Millie and Pansy had been friends since they were little, their dads were friends or something?) Pansy did invite Violet and Susan to come join them, if they wanted better company, giving Sophie a snooty, down-her-nose look — Susan said no thank you for them, Violet too taken aback by the rudeness to find her voice.

...She kind of forgot how stupid racist mages could be about muggleborns. They didn't come up, most of the time, when she was at the tea parties and things with the noble kids...unless someone was being mean to Tracey over her mum being one, anyway. Weirdly, people weren't mean to Violet about it, even though the story was that her parents were both muggles, meaning she was kind of technically muggleborn herself? She wasn't sure why that was, exactly. Maybe just because she was a Black in particular — and even the future Lady of the House, as far as they knew — and the Blacks were kind of a big deal? They were one of the oldest, wealthiest, most important families in Europe, so, maybe it was okay for her to be basically muggleborn, but not when it was Tracey Davis...

Though, Tracey's family were also mean about it too — maybe that made a difference, giving the kids permission like? She didn't know, the nobles and all their weird cliquish stuff were confusing...

A bit after Millie and Pansy went by, while Violet and Susan and Sophie were feeding the kittens treats through the holes in the basket cage — they were a little nervous about Sophie at first, but she had treats, so they got over it pretty quick (sweeties) — the door was slid further open again. "Hi Violet!"

"Hi Olivie!" She sprung up to her feet to give Olivie a hug, just because. On normal days, when they weren't at one of those fancy silly tea parties, Olivie normally wore a linen dress with pretty curly floral embroidery on it, but today she was in plain trousers and a shirt — those were meant to go under robes, Violet knew, she just hadn't bothered putting on the robe part yet. "Were you staying? I ca– I ca– I c-c-c– bleh, float up your tr-trrrunk for you..." Stupid mouth, talking was hard...

While Violet was doing that, Olivie gave Susan a hug too, and then she was turning to Sophie, started leaning over before suddenly hitching up. "Sorry, I don't know you, do I?"

Violet giggled — Olivie was so silly!

Introductions went around, and they were all talking, Olivie telling Sophie about the Tugwood lands, and Violet adding a little here and there too, since she'd been there a few times. She wasn't really sure how they got on that topic? Maybe, Sophie being muggleborn, and not knowing much, but Olivie wasn't really a normal magic person, because the Tugwoods were kind of odd, so explaining that, yeah. After talking about that, the door was sliding open again, and oh! it was Daphne and Tracey! Hi!

Violet got up to give them hugs too — Tracey went a little stiff and uncomfortable, oops, forgot she didn't like hugs — once they were in with their trunks she properly closed the door behind them, so people would know they were full. There was still space on the benches, they could probably fit a few more people in here, but Violet didn't want to. Too many voices going on in the limited space might start making her uncomfortable.

And pretty quickly they were talking about the Greenwood. They were probably giving Sophie a very funny idea about what the magical world was like — Violet took a moment to say that some people were normal. (Sophie looked at her like she just said something rude, but Daphne and Olivie knew they were weird.) Or, well, normal-er? Obviously they were still magic, and some things were going to be different, since they split off like three hundred years ago and have been doing their own thing ever since. But, like, Violet lived in a city, on a street with neighbours, and there were shops and cafes and things. Like a normal city, just, no cars? and more plants and animals around, usually. All of her neighbours were even Catholic...if a weird kind of magical Gaelic Catholic, but it really wasn't worth explaining that to Sophie just this second...

Oh, well, yeah, she did have two mums — she had said normal-er...

Not long after Daphne and Tracey sat down, there was a little lurch, the room seeming to rock back and forth, and then the platform outside the window started to slide over to the side. They were leaving.

For most of the train ride, nothing really much exciting happened. But then, she wouldn't have expected anything else — it was just a train ride? Things weren't supposed to happen on train rides. They just talked about stuff, people who were friends already catching up on what happened since the last time they saw each other — Violet had the biggest news, since the last time she saw Olivie and Daphne and Tracey was before the wedding — things that were going on in the country that they heard about, like the scandal around the Gringotts break-in, and also telling Sophie about, just, what things were like in the magical world. Olivie and Susan knew more about things, like, the music people were into and things like that, Violet didn't really— Oh! There were radio shows and stuff, those were fun. Violet actually brought her radio with, to have on when doing art things or embroidering or whatever, Sophie could hang around and listen in sometime if she wanted, to check it out...

(That led to questions about art things, Susan and Olivie kind of badgered Violet into getting out a sketchbook to show her.)

When the snack trolley came by, Violet bought a few different things, mostly just to be nice — they would all be new to Sophie, and Olivie and Tracey and Sophie all didn't have any pocket money on them. She hardly even touched any of the things she bought, leaving them for everyone else. A lot of magical sweets were...kind of weird and gross? Fizzing Whizzbees were okay, she guessed — they were basically just sherbert lemons (in different flavours, none of which was actually lemon), except they sizzled on your tongue, kind of like fizzy pop? — and Cauldron Cakes were good! A little moist chocolate cupcake, sort of, with a cream filling. The frosting on top and the filling were dyed a, like, poisonous green colour, but that was just the style, you know, making it look like it was a potion in the cauldron, see? No, it tasted normal...just mint, she guessed...

Violet remembered that one of the people who came to her primary school when she accidentally changed in front of everyone ages ago brought her lunch, including a Cauldron Cake — it was the first time she ever had chocolate, she was pretty sure. She'd only had a few since, she didn't really have pre-packaged sweets very much? Most of the time Mum made the things they had at home herself, which, her baking was mostly better than store-bought things anyway. Maybe not if you went to a proper bakery, but the mass-produced, packaged things like Cauldron Cakes, yeah, Mum's were better.

She was trying not to think about that, and just quietly ate her Cauldron Cake, because if she thought about it too much she'd probably start feeling homesick again.

Violet buying everyone snacks led into talking about money — because Sophie didn't have to worry about paying her back or anything, it was fine! — which led to explaining that, yeah, magical Britain had nobility, and they were still actually ruled by the aristocracy. Not just Violet, all of them were nobility? A lot of their classmates would be — Hogwarts was the nice school in magical Britain, all the students would be noble and/or rich kids, and then also muggleborns, who Hogwarts took for complicated political reasons. Susan was even the head of her family, she literally had a seat on magic parliament and everything, it was very silly.

(They didn't mention that Violet did too, because that she was Harry Potter was still a secret for a few more hours. Violet was pretty sure she and Susan would be the only ones in the whole school? A few other families also got hit really hard in the war, but no one else so badly a little kid ended up with the title, she didn't think.)

Daphne was explaining a little bit about how Houses worked, and yeah, it was complicated, when the door slid open again. For a second, Violet's face sank into a pout, but she forced herself to stop — it was Draco. He was dressed all smart, a lot like they'd taken one of Uncle Lucius's suits (a little old-fashioned, like something out of the 20s or so) and shrunk it down to fit him, which was silly, they were just taking a train. There were two boys behind him, Violet didn't know them, they were tall! Draco glanced around the compartment for a second, before he spotted her. "Ah, Violet. Hello, cousin," he said with a little nod.

"Hello. Who are you friends? I d-don't think we, we, we've met."

"Oh, right. This is Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe," he said, waving to one and then the other. Were they friends? Draco seemed kind of...uninterested, introducing them, and they hardly even reacted at all, barely seeming to pay attention...

That was a little confusing, but no good reason for Violet to be impolite. Waving over at them, she said, "Hi Gr-Gr-G– Hi Vincent, hi G-G-Garr– Greg-g— I'm sorry! That, that, that name is hhhard for me, t-today."

Gregory — he was the taller of the two boys, and thick in a muscley way (kind of a lot for someone who was only eleven), with watery blue eyes — gave her a thin little smile, muttered, "It's okay."

"Well, hi anyway. I'm Violet B-B-Black, it's nice to meet you!"

Both of them blinked at her, looking kind of surprised — which was silly, she was just being polite!

"Did you need something, Draco?" Daphne asked after a couple seconds of silence, neither of the big boys seeming to know what to do and Draco turned look up at them.

"Of course, excuse me, Daphne, Susan." He didn't directly say hello to anyone else, and he gave Sophie a funny look, but didn't say anything. "Have you seen Harry Potter, by any chance?"

(Violet tried not to smile too obviously.)

"Harry..." Olivie blinked, her head tilting. "Oh yeah, he would be in our year, wouldn't he? I forgot."

Tracey let out a little huff, Daphne said, "You forgot? How did you forget? The Potters are all over the papers every Ysbrydnos." Hallowe'en, she meant, that's what it was called in Cambrian.

"I don't know, I guess I just didn't think of it? My parents aren't really into the story, like some people. Do you know for sure he's going to Hogwarts?" Olivie asked Draco. "Nobody's heard from him in ages, he could be out of the country for all we know..."

Draco made a little annoyed scowl. "Dumbledore has the Potter trusteeship — he wouldn't send Potter anywhere else. My father's on the Board of Governors, you know, he says Lord James put him down when he was still an infant. He should be here, somewhere."

"Oh. Well, I haven't seen him, but I got here early. Daphne?"

"We didn't see him either, but we weren't really looking. Why do you want to find him, anyway? I'd think he wouldn't want to be bothered."

"My father said I should introduce myself," Draco admitted, sounding a little awkward about it, his shoes scuffing against the carpet as he shifted in place. "Wherever they've been keeping him, he won't have met anyone. Father thought I should help him find proper company."

Her voice low and slow, Susan said, "That's nice of you, Malfoy, but I'm sure Potter can manage to make friends all on his own."

(Again, Violet had to try not to smile.)

Draco shrugged, his face going a little pink. "Of course, I just... Well, we wouldn't want him to be left alone, now that he's returning to Britain, you know? But if none of you have seen him, I should keep looking."

"It is nice of you want to be friendly," Violet said, trying not to smirk at him. She wasn't lying (because she couldn't), it was kind of nice of him to want Harry Potter to feel welcome, even if he was mostly just doing it because Uncle Lucius told him to. "G-G-Good luck!"

"If you find him, can you come back and tell me if he's cute? I bet he's cute."

The girls burst into giggles the second after Draco closed the door, but Violet was pretty sure that had little to do with Harry Potter maybe being cute and mostly over the pained, uncomfortable look Draco gave Olivie before leaving without another word. That was pretty funny.

(Draco was going to be so annoyed when he found out Violet had been Harry Potter this whole time.)

Once he was gone, Sophie asked who Harry Potter was, which Violet guessed was the obvious thing to do. The explanation was kind of complicated, because the other girls started just talking about that Hallowe'en, but then they had to go back to talk about the Dark Lord and the war and stuff. And that was a little fuzzy and difficult to talk about, because they didn't really know much — it mostly all happened before they were born — and also it was kind of a sensitive topic for some of them? Both of Susan's parents and Tracey's dad were all killed in the war, so. (Both of their dads had been in the Order of the Phoenix, like Violet's birth parents.) That whole thing about the Death Eaters and everything was also awkward to explain, because Sophie didn't know anything about any of this, and she was muggleborn — the other girls had to explain that the magic racism stuff was a thing, while also making it clear at the same time that they all thought it was stupid, they were all from good guy families in this compartment, they'd even lost family fighting on the right side, it's okay...oh yeah, some people were super mean, though, like Pansy earlier, and you should probably be careful around Draco too...

And that Hallowe'en itself was...a thing. Violet knew that there were always, like, memorials and stuff around that day, but she mostly ignored that? The stuff about her birth parents made her feel...not great, to read. She meant, they were dead, she never got to know them, and... She didn't know. And a lot of the stuff was kind of weird and fake? The stuff in the papers always made James sound really good and heroic and stuff, when Mum said he'd actually been a bit of a slacker and prankster (though very serious about his family), and made Lily seem really soft and mumsy and, like, a perfect goody-goody person? when Mum said she'd actually been whip-smart and sarcastic and super into researching dark magic (if mostly so she could do healing properly). So, not only did it suck to be reminded that her parents had died when she was a baby, getting her sent to the Dursleys (and she preferred to just never think about that part of her life at all), but also it was all made up, which was annoying for other reasons.

It did annoy Violet when people, just, lied about things, and not even for any good reason! But there wasn't anything she could do about that, so...

(Sometimes, Violet thought the world would be a better place if everyone's magic stopped them from lying, like hers.)

But, telling Sophie about that Hallowe'en meant the girls had to try to explain how, and why, and that quickly got into some very uncomfortable stuff. One theory people had was that Violet — that is, Harry Potter, who was Violet, they didn't mean to talk about her but they still were — was just special extra super magic somehow? That Violet was so special that when the Dark Lord tried to kill her he just...blew up, for reasons. That story was very silly, and nobody in their compartment here actually believed that. They were (mostly) from more conservative, religious families — the common theory with them was that Violet had been saved by divine intervention.

Which, that was uncomfortable, because Mum said it was...kind of true? maybe? Ages ago, when Mum first told her about all this, she said that Lily made a trade of her life for Violet's; what she hadn't explained at the time was what she'd done the trading with. What was meant by 'god' or 'divine' with this stuff was kind of complicated, and Mum couldn't say exactly what Lily had done, since she hadn't been there, but, yeah, see, it was impossible to block the Green Death, so the thing Lily must have done was a ritual to ask for help from a literal god, because they didn't have to follow the rules, that was the thing that made sense.

And that was...weird. Violet didn't know how to feel about the idea that she'd been saved from the Dark Lord as a baby by actual, real-life divine intervention. That seemed...too big?

It mostly wasn't something she thought about at all — Gaels didn't care about the Boy Who Lived thing as much, and she spent most of her time around them — but it did get a little awkward at times, like when Samhain came around, and a bit more often recently because...well, Muime had warned her that her family believed that version of the story too. (Most religious people did, apparently.) Muime said that they believed Violet had been protected by Bríd, because protecting children was what Bríd did — including Muime herself, apparently ever since she started coming over more she'd been doing special things for Bríd every time her holiday came around to thank her for saving Violet. Which was a little weird to think about, but luckily Muime had never asked her to do it with her, because she'd probably be too awkward and ruin it...

It wasn't so bad with the Gaels, at least. With the way their stuff worked, that Bríd came to save her didn't make Violet special — it made Lily special, because when she'd asked Bríd for help she'd answered. Violet was only important as far as Bríd had protected her, so people shouldn't try to hurt her (because that would basically be trying to undo what Bríd did), but they thought Lily was, like...almost a saint, she guessed? Like that. Mum said there were some people who actually prayed to Lily, which was weird, but Lily did sound pretty cool, and trading her life for Violet's was super brave of her, so she kind of understood that. Especially if you believed in heaven and saints and stuff.

Mum also said there were other people who prayed to Violet, which made her super super super uncomfortable.

The girls mostly weren't talking about the people who believed Violet was, like, an actual demigod or whatever, but she still didn't like this conversation. After a little bit it was making her feel so uncomfortable that she excused herself and walked out into the hallway. She went by the toilet quick — she didn't really badly need to go, but getting a moment of quiet in private to calm down was a good idea — and after that she decided to wander around the train and say hi to people. She got the idea from Draco, sort of, but she had a better idea: she was going to walk around the train and find all the muggleborns in her year, and welcome them to the magical world all nice! Besides, they wouldn't know any... Well, no, they would know each other, because of the muggleborn shopping trip, but they wouldn't know most of their class, and that just seemed like the nice thing to do? Yes.

(Besides, she didn't feel like going back to her compartment yet, in case they were still talking about Harry Potter.)

She thought she found everyone? It wasn't hard, she just went down the hallway, tipped on her toes to peek through windows into doors, looking for people who seemed young enough to be a first-year and were in muggle-style clothes. She did get stopped sometimes, people she already knew from craft school and/or silly noble kid tea parties, older kids asking if she was looking for someone or commenting on her hair. Some of them even asked if she was Violet Black — nobles gossipped, and her birthday party had had so many people, so a lot of people had heard about her and knew she was a metamorph — would stop to talk a little bit with this person or that. But she didn't linger too long (excusing herself faster if that part of the train happened to be noisy), she had people to say hi to!

She found Sùjuān at one point, immediately babbling at her in Chinese, and oh no, she forgot everything she learned already! She still remembered how to say Sùjuān's name though! That counted for something!

Like half of the muggleborns were in a compartment together, with Tony and Áirneas, who she already knew from craft school, and also Ron Weasley, who she hadn't met yet. Was that Weasley like Cedrella Weasley? It was! that was Ron's grandmother! Yeah, Aunt Cedrella was Violet's mum's cousin — they met a couple times, at Lord Arcturus's funeral and Violet's birthday — so that meant Violet and Ron were cousins too! Hi!

Ron's face went very red when Violet bent over to give him a hug, which was silly — cousins got hugs, obviously.

In the compartment with her new cousin Ron and Tony and Áirneas were Kevin and Seamus and Dean. Kevin was super tall and thin, and also really quiet, and he seemed nice! Seamus and Dean were both really loud, like, bouncy and talkative boys, the way some people could get? Violet tried to say hi to Seamus (orange-haired and freckled, always smiling, he seemed nice!) in Gaelic, but he just blinked at her, taken aback — he did respond, a little awkwardly, and also in a funny accent? He was from Ireland, but she forgot muggles mostly didn't speak Gaelic anymore, oops...

Dean had a sketchbook! When Violet noticed, partway through being introduced to everyone, she plopped down on the bench next to him, asked to see... Oh, these were pretty good! (Not really, but she could say it without her magic stopping her by thinking they were pretty good for a normal person, who didn't get special art lessons — way better than she'd been before, but Master Walter would give her such a look if she brought him work like this.) Violet did art too! She was supposed to do a bunch of drawings and stuff, for her tutor, find things around the Castle, maybe they should do it together sometimes! She expected her limitless enthusiasm (as Mum put it) to make him kind of shy, but he didn't start blushing like Ron did with the hugging — though, could you tell when black people were blushing? she didn't actually know, she didn't know very many... — but he did go a little quieter than before, maybe a little awkward? Violet wasn't sure why, but he agreed that might be fun, so yeah, they would do that!

She found most of the other muggleborns were also in a compartment together, with a couple second-years — one of the second-years was also a muggleborn, and apparently they were trying to welcome the new muggleborns, that was nice of them! The second-years were Chelsea (the muggleborn) and Oz and Evan and Gladwin, Chelsea and Oz were in Hufflepuff and Evan and Gladwin were in Ravenclaw. Evan Tugwood, was that like— That was the same Tugwood! he was Olivie's cousin! Olivie was one of her best friends, hi! Yeah, she was that Violet Black (Gladwin asked), and yeah, she was a metamorph (Oz asked)! See, fwoosh, making her hair go all bright blue...

Anyway, the first-years were Amanda and Justin and Sally-Anne. Amanda and Sally-Anne were both super shy, and didn't talk much, though they did think Violet being able to change her hair like that was very cool, had questions about that. Justin was kind of posh? He had the fancy accent and everything, and told her which school he had been set to go to before magic stuff happened like she was supposed to know what it was? (It did sound vaguely familiar, like a name she might have heard before, but she didn't remember where from.) Her feeling was that he was a bit stuck-up, but not in a mean Draco-like way, he seemed nice!

Violet didn't stay in that compartment as long — it was more crowded than the boys', it wasn't super uncomfortable but she still decided to leave pretty quick. In the rest of her searching (interrupted saying hi to other people), she only found one more muggleborn...well, two, but one was a second-year. One compartment was kind of funny, because there were five people? just silently reading and not talking to each other at all? Which was silly! But Violet guessed if they were shy bookwormish people, maybe they were more comfortable reading next to each other and not actually talking, she didn't know...

Anyway, the girl she found here was called Hermione, and she had really big curly fluffy hair. She was actually kind of big to begin with — both in that she was tall for their age, and also a little fat — but her hair made her look even bigger, it was funny! (Not laughing funny, and Violet wouldn't laugh at her anyway, just saying.) A second girl looked up when Violet said she was saying hello to muggleborns — Shannon was a second-year Ravenclaw, and was super super shy, started blushing just from Violet saying her hi! nice to meet you! but she guessed some people were just like that. But all these kids were trying to read, so once she was done saying hello she left again.

By that point, she was pretty sure she'd found all the muggleborns already anyway, but also they were getting close to the end of the train ride — it was time for Violet to go back and change into her uniform. The other girls must have had the same idea, when she got back the door was actually locked, she had to knock to be let in. There wasn't a lot of space in the compartment, so, Susan or Daphne would levitate down a pair of trunks, those two girls would change into their robes quick, Susan and Daphne would swap those out for a second pair of trunks. Tracey and Olivie were the only ones to get changed yet, while Susan and Daphne took their turn Violet babbled off a little bit about all the people she met, she thought she'd met everyone in their class now? She wasn't sure...

Sophie wasn't super confident about how robes worked, Violet asked for permission before helping her with the ties — see, it goes like this...

Not very long after that, a jolt ran through the train, and she felt it start to slow down. It was getting into the evening now, they were coasting through a forested valley, long shadows thrown by the sun, the trees close enough they couldn't see much. But then they were out of the trees, and the train slowly pulled up to a station. With another little jolt, the train lurched to a halt, and they'd arrived.

Violet was almost vibrating with excitement, bouncing on her toes. She still didn't really want to be here, but things were happening, it was exciting...

Cutting it a little early, but I decided I didn't need to narrate through getting off the train and the boat ride and everything. Next time we'll be jumping straight into the Sorting.

For anyone who missed it, there's been a Discord server for like a year now — invite link is on my AO3 profile, you can find a link to my AO3 profile on my profile here.

Okay then, that's all, bye.