lilacsigil (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lilacsigil) wrote2014-06-15 12:41 pm
lilacsigil) wrote2014-06-15 12:41 pm
Entry tags:
- big bang,
- fic,
- gen,
- harry potter,
- x-men
Fic: The Getting of Magic (X-Men First Class/Harry Potter fusion) Chapter 2
Back to Chapter 1
Erik was very pleased to have been allowed to travel on his own. He'd walked halfway across Europe without help and had fought against adults for food and survival: it had been very strange to then treated as a child and coddled. That didn't mean he hadn't preferred being in Ireland to being in the war-torn cities of Germany and France, of course. He'd always vaguely thought of Ireland as a place of famine, but Brendan and Diarmuid, the elderly couple that Dumbledore had left him with, had fed him constantly, milk and bread and potatoes and greens, until his bones no longer hurt. They'd taught him English, even though they spoke Irish to each other, their teaching augmented by spells from a huge and shabby book with beautifully illustrated pages. Erik loved that book, despite hardly understanding a word of it: the outside was drab, but every page was a cavalcade of colours and life and magic.
He even had a wand now, made for him by an elderly monk who lived in a hollow tree. Erik had thought this rather eccentric, even for this new world of wizards, until he was invited inside. It turned out to be a small but comfortable home and workspace in there which couldn't possibly have fitted in the tree. Still, Erik had undertaken enough magical travel by then to avoid assuming that they were in the same place just because they had walked through a door. Another family, with several children, had just been leaving, a red-haired boy a few years younger than Erik proudly clutching his new wand and talking about how he was going to play Quidditch at Hogwarts. Brendan had given Erik a look, but Erik didn't speak to the boy and nobody forced him to.
"A feather shaft of Haroeris's falcon," the old monk said, instead of a greeting.
"This is Erik," Brendan had told the man. "Albus Dumbledore has sent us to buy him a wand."
"And blackthorn," he continued, as if Brendan hadn't spoken. The old man moved suddenly, and Erik jumped backwards, his hands curling into fists. The monk didn't touch him, merely running his fingers through the air about a foot away from Erik, as if he was finding Erik's shape in the air. "Yes, blackthorn. I have nothing ready. Return in a week."
Erik was disturbed to find that he was shivering. He wasn't cold, he wasn't scared. He hadn't given his body permission to do that. He followed Brendan outside where Diarmuid was waiting and the sunlight seemed to push away the strange feeling.
"Come on, lad," Diarmuid said. "Better head home, get some dinner into you."
Erik was fairly sure they made up extra meals just for him – breakfast and morning tea, lunch and dinner, tea and supper seemed a bit much – but he was so pleased to have his body under his control that he wasn't to questioning it. Really, it was hard to question anything the two old men said: they were gentle and grandfatherly and never startled him as everyone else did. Erik was still looking forward to leaving, though. He knew that he was a burden on them, no matter how often they said otherwise, and that he reminded them of the two blue-eyed grandchildren they had lost in the war. He would much rather be with someone grand and impermeable like Dumbledore, someone he couldn't imagine being murdered.
Brendan and Diarmuid had waved him off that morning, Brendan pretending not to cry as he gave Erik the Floo powder to take him to London.
"Remember that you're a good boy with a good heart, Erik," Diarmuid had said. "People will think otherwise, but you must remember who you are."
Erik didn't understand why Diarmuid would say that, but he nodded anyway, his throat strangely dry, and stepped into the fire to be taken away.
As promised, the Floo took him directly to King's Cross Station, in central London. He quickly moved away from the fireplace in the disused waiting room, as he had been instructed, his small suitcase of books and robes pulling heavily at his arm. A moment later, a middle-aged man and two brown-haired children came through after him, and Erik shuffled further away.
"Tanya? Larry? You both have your trunks?"
"Yes, Dad!" the children chorused, holding up small bags tied to their wrists. The bags certainly didn't seem big enough to hold trunks, but Erik supposed there was some magic involved.
The man turned to Erik. "You're off to Hogwarts, lad? I hope we didn't interrupt your family Flooing in!"
"I'm by myself," Erik replied.
"Oh, Muggle-born, are you? Come on, then, we'll show you to Platform 9 ¾. I'm Bolivar Trask, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, in the Animagus Registry, and these are my children Tanya and Larry. They're both starting this year."
Erik didn't like the sound of Magical Law Enforcement. "Oh, I'm waiting for a friend, first. Thank you."
"Of course, of course," Mr Trask agreed, and herded the children towards the door.
"Bye! See you on the train!" Tanya called out, and Larry waved.
Erik hadn't thought of that: they'd be stuck with each other for at least the length of a train ride, and possibly longer if they ended up in the same House. He'd better shore up his story by finding a plausible friend to board the train with him. He didn't want to get lost, either, and the instructions on finding the platform were rather vague: Brendan and Diarmuid had both attended Hogwarts long before there had been a Hogwarts Express. Picking up his case, Erik quietly followed the Trasks along a corridor and down a flight of stairs, but immediately lost them in a big, crowded concourse. He climbed up the stairs a little way – surely there would be other wizards around if all the children had to go to the one school – and watched for people behaving eccentrically. It had bothered him at first, that Brendan and Diarmuid dressed so oddly, wore lots of gaudy jewellery and openly lived together, but after a while he realised that none of the people who cared could hurt them. While he accepted Diarmuid's explanation that most wizards weren't troubled by homosexuality, apart from a few who believed wizards should have many children as possible, Erik had seen how quickly tolerance could turn into mass murder. If there weren't many wizards or witches who married their own sex, then they needed to be careful. One thing comforted him, and that was that at least the Muggles in their town couldn't possibly hurt them. That ruled out a huge percentage of the population and, when Erik was fully trained in the use of magic, they would not be able to hurt him, either. It didn't mean he wouldn't be wary of other wizards.
The Trasks were nowhere to be seen, but Erik did see a woman with a tall silver turban threading her way through the crowd, so he followed her. As he got closer, he saw that she was pulling a boy along with her. Erik assessed his age as about eleven, which Dumbledore had said was the youngest age possible to start at Hogwarts, and he was pulling a large trunk behind him on a little cart.
"But Mum! I don't want to go!"
"Telford, you'll have a perfectly nice time once you're there. I said the same thing at your age. And frankly, I'm sick of you Apparating into the kitchen whenever you're cranky."
Erik congratulated himself: that was definitely a wizard family on the way to Hogwarts. Dumbledore had explained to him that it was common for children around that age to start manifesting magic when distressed or surprised, which is why they needed to be educated to use their magic properly. When Erik had asked why he had produced so little magic, given the circumstances, Dumbledore had sighed, and suggested that starvation had left Erik's body had been too weak to do very much. This made sense to Erik – both as an explanation and as a strategy against Muggle-born wizard children like himself – especially as the Nazis had had wizards working alongside them.
Telford and his mother had suddenly vanished, and Erik cursed his wandering mind. He was standing near the entrance to Platform 10, now, and could see Platform 9, but there was no Platform 9 ¾ in sight. This must be some kind of test, or perhaps a secret door that he couldn't yet see. Other children seemed to be here with their parents; on the other hand, Mr Trask seemed to assume that Muggle-born children would be here alone. Erik sidled across to the wall between Platforms 9 and 10 and stood just to the side of the metal barrier, keeping an eye out for more wizards.
The next to appear were an Asian couple and a little girl, the father wheeling a trunk behind him. They were dressed perfectly normally and gave no outward indication of being wizards at all. Erik hadn't seen any Asian people since he was a little boy, but he didn't stare: he didn't want to attract attention. They walked up to the barrier and didn't stop, though the girl briefly stumbled and was steadied by her mother. Before Erik could move forward to see exactly what had happened, they had vanished. It seemed, from his viewing angle, that they had vanished into the wall.
He moved aside a little, trying not to get in the way of the people streaming past to Platform 10, hoping to find a better view of the next group through.
"Excuse me, but are you all right?" A small, brown-haired boy approached him, trailed by a large red-headed boy and a cheerful little girl with unusual bright purple hair. "Are you trying to find the platform?"
Erik quickly assessed him as a wizard. Apart from being with the girl with the strange hair, he had a wand tucked into his sleeve and wore an over-sized signet ring with an X on it, the kind of jewellery that would be entirely inappropriate on a regular young boy, but seemed popular with wizards.
"Yes. My directions aren't very clear."
"Oh, well, mine aren't either, but we were staying in London last night and we happened to run into a few older students. They explained it all to us. I'm Charles Xavier, by the way." He thrust out his hand and Erik shook it, slightly bemused.
"Erik Lehnsherr."
"Good to meet you! This is my sister Raven – Raven, do switch your hair back – and my step-brother Cain. They're American, I'm English but I've been living in America for a few years."
Cain nodded brusquely, but Erik noted that Cain was carefully sizing him up. That was all right: Erik understood that kind of mind. He let a few teeth show and stared Cain squarely in the eye, letting him know he wouldn't be cowed, and Cain dropped eye contact first. Good. He had the message.
Charles and Raven were arguing. "No, Charles, my hair can be any colour I like! You heard that old lady, she thought I had a funny wig!"
"The school rules require us not to draw the attention of Muggles or perform any magic outside of school! I told you that!"
"It's not magic! It's just who I am!" Raven sulked, but her hair rippled into long blonde locks.
"That's amazing!" Erik stared at her in genuine delight. "Is it only your hair you can change?"
Raven grinned widely. "No, I can change everything, except that stupid Charles doesn't like it."
Charles rolled his eyes and took her hand. "Come on, let's go to the platform then you can change however you want."
"Okay!" She reached out to Erik, though it took him a moment to realise what she was doing. "We met up with a prefect from Ravenclaw – that's one of the Houses – and he said the best way through is to shut your eyes and march on in."
"All right." Erik hefted his suitcase and grabbed her hand. Cain loomed behind him, but Erik could feel exactly where he was and had no urge to turn around.
"Close your eyes!" Charles commanded, and Erik did, feeling the tug as Raven pulled him forward. After a few steps – which must surely put them inside the brick wall – he opened his eyes. They were at the end of a railway platform filled with people, including the woman in the silver turban and the Asian family he'd seen before. Glancing behind him, there wasn't a brick wall but a wrought iron archway. He frowned: the metal archway didn't feel right. Before he could examine it more closely, a guard in long navy robes waved at them.
"Move along, children, move along. Don't loiter in the doorway!"
"Drat," Charles said, "Cain didn't make it through. I'll go back for him. Erik, would you keep an eye on Raven for a moment? She's very good, but she does wander off sometimes."
"Of course," Erik answered, even more confused as to why someone would ask a stranger to stay with a little girl.
Charles ducked through the archway, and Raven kept hold of Erik's hand.
"Cain's a bit dumb sometimes. He probably opened his eyes even though Filius said not to."
"Filius? That's the prefect you met?"
Raven rolled her eyes. "Yes, Charles is all moony over him, it's terrible. Charles wants to be in Ravenclaw, now."
"I know there's four houses…" Erik had heard a few stories from Brendan and Diarmuid, but they had been at Hogwarts so long ago that he had no idea what had changed.
"Oh, yes, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Slytherin and Hufflepuff. Our mom was in Slytherin, but I want to be in Gryffindor, maybe, or Hufflepuff."
"Does it actually make any difference?"
Raven nodded her head seriously. Her skin was turning somewhat blue around her hairline. "They're all quite different, because they're meant to bring out different characteristics. Like, Ravenclaw is for people who like studying, and Gryffindor is for people who are brave, and Hufflepuffs like sticking together, and Slytherin is for smart people. You know, smart like clever around people, not smart like reading books."
"Oh. They all sound like they have their advantages. Do you know your face is turning blue?"
Raven giggled and her face rippled back to pink, her eyes gleaming yellow for a moment. "That's what happens when I forget what shape I'm holding. I can look like anyone, really, but people get worried if you copy them."
"Could you copy me?"
Raven shrugged. "Well, maybe a small version of you, otherwise I might rip my dress. This is a new dress, you know. Sometimes I create my own clothes but this is an actual dress in case Scotland is too cold for me."
"I wouldn't want you to ruin your clothes." Erik smiled encouragingly. He really wanted to know what she could do.
Raven's skin rippled and a moment later, she was a small facsimile of Erik in a pretty green dress.
"That's amazing! You don't need a wand to do it?"
Raven grinned with Erik's face. "Ow, you have a big grin. I only bought my wand yesterday! It's got a unicorn hair in it, same as Charles'! But the shapeshifting is because I'm a metamorphmagi. I could always do this. We're very rare!"
"Young lady!" came a loud voice from across the platform. It was a tall, saturnine man with a forked beard, dressed in dramatic black robes with red trim. He looked exactly like the picture of an alchemist in a book Erik had read as a child, and Erik schooled his face not to show his amusement.
"Me?" Raven asked in a small voice. She immediately switched to the pink-cheeked girl with golden hair.
Erik stepped in front of her. "Is there any problem, sir?"
"No, not at all. I merely haven't seen metamorphmagi outside of my own family in forty years. What's your name, young lady?"
She stepped out beside Erik, sticking out her chin. "Raven Darkholme, sir."
"Ah, one of Albus' Americans. That's a very interesting name you have, Raven. I am Professor Arcturus Black, and I would be very interested in talking to you later, at school. My great-aunt was a metamorphmagus – perhaps we can compare stories. Good day!" He hurried off towards the far end of the platform where several boys seemed to be wrestling a large owl with limited success, and Raven breathed a sigh of relief.
"He was nice! Do you think his great-aunt is still alive?"
"He said 'was', so unless being a metamorphmagus is something that wears off, probably not."
"Oh."
"Just keep walking, we're nearly to the wall!" Charles' exasperated voice rang out behind them. Both Erik and Raven turned, to see Charles dragged a recalcitrant Cain along by his arms, his tie strapped around Cain's head as a blindfold.
The moment they got through the arch, Charles let go. "There!"
Cain ripped the blindfold from his face and stared around like he'd never seen such a thing as a magical portal. Erik's estimation of Cain was dropping by the moment.
"First call for boarding! Hogwarts Express!" came a man's amplified voice – it must be a spell, because Erik could see the platform guard saying the words and he certainly didn't have a megaphone – and everyone started to bustle towards the train.
"If we want to sit together, we'd better hurry!" Charles said, and took hold of Raven again, pushing her towards the train. Cain and Erik followed, joining the long queue of students at the doors. Many of the older students were in school uniform already, making it easy to pick out the First Years – who, as Dumbledore had said, ranged considerably in age and size – who were mostly with their parents and not in uniform. Erik had his uniform in his case, but he had no school tie yet. Glancing around, he could see four different coloured ties on students: those must be for the four houses, as every student was wearing a badge to match, and a few of the oldest students had fancy versions of the badge.
A very small student – no taller than four feet, though obviously one of the older students by his shaving rash – approached them.
"Hello, Charles! I see you all made it safely."
Charles beamed, and Raven stuck her tongue out, turned away slightly so only Erik could see.
"Yes, thank you for your excellent directions, Filius." He turned to Erik. "This is Filius Flitwick, Ravenclaw Prefect. He's the one I was telling you about. Filius, this is Erik Lehnsherr."
"Very pleased to meet you," Filius said politely, shaking Erik's hand. "Now, remember, when it gets to the Sorting, wish very hard for Ravenclaw!"
He hurried off to separate a First Year from a crying parent, with the help of a sallow-faced girl with a green and silver tie and a Prefect's badge.
Charles was still beaming until Raven poked him in the ribs with one pointy finger. "Wake up, Charles, we're getting on the train now."
They hurried up the steps and Erik nearly dropped his suitcase in relief when the train was nothing like he'd been secretly imagining. Instead of bare boards and a dreadful stench, there were beautiful compartments with leather seats, highly polished brass fittings and a plush red carpet. He paused to let out a breath and someone pushed him from behind.. He spun around, elbows flying.
"Stop pushing," he snapped.
A skinny, olive-complexioned girl with glossy black hair glared at him. "Someone thinks he's important."
"I don't like being pushed."
"Hurry up, Selene!" someone called from behind her.
"Then maybe you shouldn't stand around crying in corridors."
"I'm not crying!" Erik shouted, blinking hard and realising that, in fact, she was right. Even if there were no tears on his cheeks, his eyes were full and he hadn't even realised. He hastily glanced around but couldn't see Charles and his siblings in the crush so, he dragged his case into the nearest compartment.
Two boys, both black, were the only two in the compartment.
"Come in, these seats aren't taken!" smiled the skinny one, in a broad London accent.
"Thanks," Erik muttered, and flopped down opposite them.
"Well, finally someone wants to sit with us!" The solid boy sounded very grumpy, and had an extremely peculiar accent that Erik had never heard before.
The skinny boy burst out laughing at Erik's expression. "I'm Armando Muñoz, and this is Lucas Bishop. He's come all the way from Australia!"
"Erik Lehnsherr, pleased to meet you." Erik shook their hands. "I've come from Ireland. Much closer than Australia."
Armando smiled at him. "I'm from about five miles away, so this will be the furthest I've ever been away."
"You weren't evacuated in the war?" Lucas asked. "I thought all the London kids got sent away."
Armando shook his head. "My mum didn't think it was safe for me. Not so many black lads in London, even less in the countryside. And there were plenty what didn't go. Besides, my mum cast a few spells on the flat so we didn't get blown up."
"She couldn't have cast them on other flats?" Erik asked. His good mood of earlier had evaporated completely.
"She did, yeah, but each time took about a week. Protection spells are hard. Got our whole block done by the end of the war!" Armando seemed entirely immune to Erik's sarcasm. "She had to work on one for my dad's ship, too."
"Your dad's a sailor?" Lucas asked, with interest. "I had to take a ship from Perth to Cape Town."
"Yeah! He's from Puerto Rico, and he's in the merchant marine. My mum's from London, and she went to Hogwarts, so she wanted me to go there. They don't have so many schools in the Caribbean, they get apprenticed."
"That sounds good," Erik replied, thinking how peaceful it had been in Ireland with Brendan and Diarmuid.
"Yeah, sometimes. My Nan, she grew up in Jamaica, and she liked it a lot, and said maybe I should head over there. But my dad got apprenticed with some daft old bloke who didn't teach him anything, so he was dead against it."
"That's what they do in Australia, too, with my mum's people," Lucas agreed. "Not apprenticing, really, but all the boys go off with an elder and he teaches them. My dad's white, though, from England, and he wanted me to at to Hogwarts like him."
Lucas looked quite tense, despite his casual telling, and Erik was fairly sure there must be more to it than that, to send a boy to the other side of the world.
The last of the students were boarding the train now, and the Trask siblings walked past the compartment. They both waved cheerfully to Erik, but walked on. They were followed by the small Asian girl who Erik had seen with her parents, who hurried into their compartment.
"Can I sit here? Is that okay? I don't know the rules, I'm sorry, I just got here."
"Please, sit down!" Armando waved his arm expansively, king of the compartment.
"Oh, thank you! I'm Suzanne Chan, and we just got here from Hong Kong last night, and there was a big mix-up with the Portkey and, oh, I thought I wasn't going to make it!"
The three boys introduced themselves as the train jerked into motion, and Suzanne made a polite little bow to them.
"So, Erik from Ireland, Armando from London, Lucas from Australia. Thank you for letting me sit here! I'm an only child and my mum wouldn't let go, and it's been a long trip!"
"My dad's been to Hong Kong," Armando supplied, helpfully.
"Your dad's been everywhere." Lucas grinned and Armando grinned back at him.
Two hours later, Armando had taught them all to play Spiral Whist – Erik having vetoed Exploding Snap – and Armando was winning the lion's share of the humbugs that they were using as bets. Since he'd supplied the sweets in the first place, and several had been eaten along the way, Erik had to admit this seemed fair.
Just as Suzanne played trumps on top of the spiral staircase of cards hovering over their makeshift table, there was a knock at the compartment door. Three older students were there, two boys and a girl; the girl wore a Prefect's badge.
Suzanne slid the door open and the three students crowded in. One of the boys and the girl, who were both wearing blue and bronze ties, looked very alike. The other boy had a green and silver tie.
"You're Erik Lehnsherr?" the boy with the blue tie asked. "We're the Jewish Students Association."
"The whole association is the three of you?" Erik replied, startled.
The boy in the green tie laughed. "No, no, just the heads of it. I'm Carmen Rosanoff, and these two are Samuel and Chava Prydeman." He had a mild German accent, although the other two didn't. It made Erik feel a little queasy, and he pushed the feeling down ruthlessly.
Chava, the Prefect, smiled. "There used to be quite a few of us at the school who came to Britain with the Kindertransport, but we were the youngest of that group and now we're in Seventh Year."
"There's Arnold," Carmen said, "He's in Sixth Year."
"Okay, apart from Arnold, we were the youngest. There's a few students in every year level, but just two of you starting this year, you and Gabrielle Haller."
"We'll talk to you more at school, but we wanted to introduce ourselves and let you know we're here in case you need anything. Do you keep Kosher?" Samuel asked.
Erik shook his head, unsure of how to respond to this outpouring of kindness.
"You're easily taken care of, then! There's going to be a Rabbi at Hogwarts this year – the Astronomy teacher – who's come over from Tripoli. I haven't met him yet."
Chava took her brother's arm. "Let's find him then. These kids have a game going and it looks like the stakes are high."
Armando laughed and offered her his bag of humbugs. She took one and hustled the other students out the door.
"I wonder if there's an association for Chinese students?" Suzanne mused.
"Maybe you should start one!" Armando thoughtfully ate a humbug. "Erik, it's your turn."
Erik blinked and checked his cards. He had a terrible hand, but Spiral Whist allowed more opportunities than the regular kind. With a quick check to see he wasn't shaking, he reached out and inserted a three of clubs into the spiral.
They saw Chava a few hours later, walking down the corridors with another Prefect and reminding everyone to change into school uniform, but the boys didn't show up again, for which Erik was very glad. He had felt very exposed in front of them, and in front of the other First Years, having them go on and on about being a Jew: Armando, Lucas or Suzanne didn't seem troubled, but they were hardly the only people at the school. Nonetheless, he didn't feel too bad overall. A man with a sparkling gold leg had come by pushing a giant cart full of food and everyone bought delicious meaty sandwiches and pumpkin pasties and cocoa – Brendan had given Erik some money to buy something to eat, so he didn't have to pretend he wasn't hungry. Now, as the train pulled into Hogwarts, he could face the new place with the right clothes and a full belly.
As the train pulled to a halt, an amplified voice rang through the train. "We are now arriving at Hogwarts. All students please leave luggage on the train: it will be transported to Hogwarts separately. First Year students please assemble at the north end of the platform."
"That's us!" Armando said unnecessarily, sounding nervous for the first time.
"I hope we're all in the same house!" Suzanne added.
Lucas shook his head. "We'll still be sharing classes, won't we? You shouldn't worry."
"The girls' dormitories are probably separate anyway," she sighed.
They all followed the stream of students out of the train, everyone blurring together in their dark robes and the evening gloom. It was considerably chillier than London had been, but that made sense, considering that they had been travelling due north all day. Erik wasn't quite sure where they were but he had no trouble telling north, and directed the others towards that end of the platform.
A tall, haggard-faced man in a long grey coat was calling out to the students. "First Years this-a-way! First Years!" There was an enormous teenage boy – surely ten or eleven feet tall – standing next to him counting off students as they went by him.
"Seven, eight, nine, ten, there you go!" the ruddy-faced boy boomed as he ushered Erik and the others past him to wait with a few other students at the end of the platform. The boy Erik had seen with the woman in the silver turban was there already, along with an Asian boy and girl.
"Are they Chinese?" he whispered to Suzanne, but she shook her head and kept her distance.
Charles and Raven were counted in and gave Erik a friendly wave, which he briefly returned – he was a little annoyed they hadn't waited for him on the train – and the girl who had pushed Erik was there, too. Cain tagged along behind Charles, of course. There seemed to be slightly more boys than girls, but Erik didn't find it hard to pick the other Jewish student, Gabrielle. She was small and dark-haired, and had the same constant awareness of her surroundings that Erik himself had. She'd spotted him, too, but she made no approach, simply choosing to wait quietly near the edge of the group.
More and more students were counted into their group until the gigantic boy counted "Thirty! That's it, Mr Ogg!" He thumped the last student on the back – fortunately he was a tall, fat boy almost Cain's size who managed not to collapse under the enthusiastic blow – and stepped aside to allow Mr Ogg to speak to them.
"Thank you, Hagrid. First Years, follow me for your first glimpse of Hogwarts." He walked off briskly down a dirt path, without checking to see if anyone went after him. Hagrid made a shooing motion at the students and they all hurried along. Erik stuck close to the middle of the group, but he could hear Charles talking to Hagrid.
"Hello, Mr Hagrid, I'm Charles Xavier!"
The enormous boy laughed. "Don't call me Mister, just Hagrid! I'm the assistant groundskeeper. No need to be fancy. Now, Mr Pringle's the one you'd better be polite to."
"He's your boss?"
"Mr Ogg's my boss, there, nice fellow. Mr Pringle's the caretaker. Work with him too, sometimes. He gave me a caning or two when I was a student here and sometimes I reckon he'd like to do it again!"
"Oh, I see." Charles sounded rather crestfallen, as if he'd expected everyone to be his friend. "Well, I'll make sure to be polite to him, then."
"Ah, you seem like a nice young bloke, not the type to cause trouble. No illegal pets, nothing like that."
Erik would have asked him about the illegal pets, but Charles was defending his honour, instead.
"Oh, no, I don't have any pets at all."
Before Hagrid could reply, they reached the lakeshore. Erik was looking at the cluster of small boats there when he heard cheers and gasps from other students and glanced up to see what was affecting them. Across the lake stood an enormous castle, all turrets and sparkling lights. If that was Hogwarts, it was considerably larger and more isolated than Erik had anticipated. Still, wizards had lots of ways to travel, so he should really have thought that they could put a castle anywhere they wanted.
"Right, you've had a gawk, into the boats!" Mr Ogg shouted, obviously having done this many times before. "Four to a boat, please!"
Erik ended up with Suzanne, the fat boy Hagrid had backslapped, and a tall, skinny boy with heavy glasses. As soon as the four of them were in the boat, it began to sail smoothly across the lake.
"I'm Suzanne, this is Erik, what are your names?"
Erik was rather glad that Suzanne was there to break the ice.
"Fred Dukes," the fat boy muttered. "You ever seen a place like that before?"
"I've seen pictures of it – my mother went here." Suzanne nodded firmly. "Are you Muggle-born?"
"What?"
"Are your parents wizards?"
Fred understood. "Nope. My dad was in the Army but he's gone back to the bakery now. My mum used to sew parachutes, but I suppose they don't need those anymore."
"What's your name?" Suzanne asked the skinny boy, who hadn't said a word and seemed utterly terrified to be addressed.
"Hank McCoy." He was an American – maybe one of "Albus' Americans" that Professor Black had mentioned. "My parents aren't wizards either."
A yell came from another boat, Mr Ogg's voice. "Don't stick your hand in the water, you silly girl, there's a giant squid in there!"
Erik stared dubiously at the lake, but before he'd had time to worry about how to fight off a squid, the boats all glided into a large cave and beached on a sandy shore. Dumbledore was standing there, a glowing light hovering above his head. Erik relaxed a little. It had been months since he'd last seen Dumbledore but he looked as strong and fearless as ever.
"Welcome to Hogwarts!" he called out. "Come along!"
They followed him up a steep passageway to open air and soft grass in the shadow of the castle wall. Dumbledore waited for them all to catch up, then threw open an enormous oak door, leading them all into a small chamber. Erik could hear the murmur of many voices and the shuffling of feet and furniture from behind another door, and held himself very still, determined not to appear nervous. Most of the rest of the students looked worried enough to make up for it, though a few like Suzanne and Charles were excited.
"Again, welcome!" Professor Dumbledore beamed. "Lovely to see such a delightful crop of new students. Now, in a few minutes the start-of-term banquet will start, but before that can begin, you'll all need to be Sorted in Houses. Your House will be like your family as long as you are at Hogwarts – you will all have classes together, share a dormitory, and, best of all, gain or lose points for your House. How is that best of all, you might ask? Your victories, no matter how minor, may gain points while your misdemeanours will lose them."
Erik thought that didn't sound like much of a system of punishment. Maybe it just meant that the stakes were low. He hoped so.
"At the end of the year, the House with the most points will win the House Cup. Ravenclaw have won for the last two years, and Slytherin before that, so I want all of the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs to do their very best this year. Especially the Gryffindors – that's my house!"
A few students laughed nervously.
"I see you're not in the mood for my little jokes. No matter! I'll pop through to the Great Hall and see if they're ready for you."
He went through the door – Mr Ogg and Hagrid had already gone – and all the students shuffled about anxiously.
"Does anyone know what being Sorted involved?" Charles asked, his voice clear and steady.
"My cousin Tom says you have to fight a dragon," said a freckle-faced Irish boy dubiously – Erik recognised him from the wand tree in Ireland.
The dark-haired girl who had bumped into Erik waved dismissively. "Don't be silly. They put a magic hat on your head and it reads your mind to see what would be best for you."
Everyone was considerably more nervous after that, and even Erik couldn't quite make himself stand still.
Dumbledore opened the doors and a rush of sound burst through. "All ready! Alphabetical order by surname, order of the Headmaster! I prefer a more ad hoc method myself, but what can you do?" He waved his wand and all the students were suddenly airborne, floating gently into place in line. Erik had a great urge to be sick, but he was a champion at controlling that particular feeling. He was twelfth in line, between a small, sturdy girl and a skinny blond boy who kept hiccupping. Lucas was second, behind a tall, stately girl with her hair in a tight bun.
Dumbledore led them through the doors to a deafening round of applause from an entire room full of students. Erik could have sworn that the train couldn't have held that many, but he must remember that regular spatial reasoning didn't really apply to wizards. The Great Hall was a tremendous room, largely filled by five long tables. Four of them ran parallel to each other down the room and each was full of students wearing ties and badges of the same colour: red and gold, blue and bronze, green and silver, yellow and black. The fifth table, for the teachers, was on a slightly raised platform. Erik spotted the Rabbi immediately: he was a small, unprepossessing man in his thirties with a scruffy beard and large glasses, sitting by a balding man who kept almost knocking over his wine with his trailing sleeves.
Two prefects – Chava Prydeman and Filius Flitwick – placed a stool in front of the line of first years, and Dumbledore put a dirty old pointed hat on the top. It was much patched and terribly frayed around the edges. Erik had absolutely no idea what was going on or why everyone was staring at it. The room had gone quiet as if they expected something to happen. Then, of all things, a rip near the brim of the hat opened like a mouth and the hat began to sing.
"You may not expect much of me,
And think I'm just old hat,
But I have four brains in my cap,
And none of you match that!
Now all of you fought death and ruin
To join us here today,
So listen close, children of war,
To what I have to say.
Four Houses wait for my commands
I'll sort you into each,
But only in true unity
Can we dare hope for peace.
Brave Hufflepuff, she knew this well
So some of you I'll choose
For compassion and for comradeship
That all of us must use.
Shrewd Slytherin would plan ahead
For days both bright and dim,
His clever schemes need cunning minds,
Some students follow him.
Then Ravenclaw: her students bright,
For knowledge always yearning,
Are those who read the signs of fate
And from history take learning.
And last, the bold knight Gryffindor,
War making his ranks thin,
His students fight for honour, friends,
And never once give in.
Through all these virtues we may thrive,
But which brings out your best?
Well, sit down here and put me on,
And I will do the rest!"
The rest of the Hall burst into applause, but Erik was glad he wasn't the only First Year staring at the Sorting Hat with his mouth hanging open. He was very relieved that he wasn't first in line, and rather worried by the idea of a hat with four brains: if a hat could have a mind, what else could? He cast his eyes around the hall and noticed that there appeared to be no ceiling, just the clear night sky, bright and close. That made no sense: if there was no roof, the room wouldn't be so warm, and the candles would be flickering instead of burning steady.
"It's enchanted to look like the sky," the girl in front of him hissed, in a Scottish accent.
"Why would you do that?"
"They must find it pretty! I'd much rather have a nice solid roof, myself."
Erik laughed, trying to keep an edge of hysteria out of it.
She turned slightly, still keeping an eye on the Sorting Hat. "There's a book called 'Hogwarts: A History' that tells you all kinds of useful things. It's not on the reading list but there's supposed to be an enormous library here. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be in Ravenclaw, so I hope there'll be lots of time to spend in the library!"
Erik nodded. He had no idea how you could guess which House you might be in, but books meaning Ravenclaw seemed to be considered a pretty clear equivalence.
The first girl in the line was taken over to the stool by Dumbledore.
"I shouldn't be first! I should be under R, not A!"
"Please take a seat, Miss Al-Reraph, and it will all be finished soon."
Dumbledore plopped the hat on her head, hiding her face entirely, and Erik had the feeling that she and the hat were in close communion. A few moments later, the mouth-like tear opened again to declare,
"SLYTHERIN!"
The table with the students in green and silver ties erupted in cheers and Miss Al-Reraph hurried over there to be given a seat at their long table, people applauding and congratulating her.
Erik barely had time to wonder if this behaviour was peculiar to Slytherin, when Lucas took his seat.
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
The yellow and black table was just as effusive, and even more so when the Irish boy Erik had met also joined that house.
Suzanne Chan was next, sent to Gryffindor, then Raven to Hufflepuff. There was another Hufflepuff and Slytherin before the first Ravenclaw, a dark-haired girl with glasses and a ponytail. The Ravenclaws, despite their academic reputation, cheered as loudly as everyone else had.
The other Jewish student, Gabrielle, was sent to Gryffindor, and the Scottish girl, as she had predicted, to Ravenclaw. Then it was Erik's turn.
He felt a little shaky as Dumbledore directed him to sit, and the hat – while not as ridiculously oversized on him as some of the younger First Years – was still enough to cover his eyes. He tried to push the brim up, but then the Sorting Hat spoke, right in his mind.
"Hello, Erik! Well, you're a tricky one, aren't you?"
"Why am I tricky? Erik snapped. "And get out of my head."
"Ah, but it's your head that's in me. You want power, don't you, but knowledge and family as well."
"Who wouldn't?"
"You might be surprised! Still, you desire that power to destroy evil and set things right, not for its own sake. A little arrogant, yes, but that's never been a setback in…GRYFFINDOR!"
The Hat's voice was deafening from inside it, and Erik staggered over to the red and gold table in a daze. People were cheering and slapping him on the back, but he was very glad when he was pushed to a seat beside Suzanne and Gabrielle. A few moments later the hiccupping boy who had been behind him in the queue joined them in Gryffindor, then Erik lost track a bit in all the noise, until Armando plopped down next to him with a delighted grin.
"Erik! I can't believe we got the same House!" he yelled over the noise of a fair-haired girl being Sorted into Hufflepuff.
Erik felt sick again, and angry like he wanted to punch someone. It was crowded and hot, and he couldn't take this any longer, but he forced himself to sit still, breathing shallowly. He glanced over at the other students, and they were all clapping and cheering, except for Gabrielle whose expression was glazed and flat. Erik tugged at the sleeve of a chubby red-haired girl who had a Prefect's badge.
"Excuse me, where are the toilets?"
Erik must have given away more than he thought, because the girl smiled kindly and tapped her wand on his hand. There was suddenly a little map drawn there, and he wanted to vomit all the more. Instead, he grabbed Gabrielle's arm and hurried out of the hall – the Gryffindor table was right at the end, luckily – out into the cool darkness of the corridors.
"Where are we going?" Gabrielle whispered, which still sounded awfully loud after the Great Hall.
"Nowhere. You look sick."
"So do you. I didn't like them Sorting people." She forced his hand open with her hard little fingers and saw the map. "Did that girl draw on you?"
Erik nodded. "I said I needed the toilet. Were you in a camp?"
"Yes. You too?"
"Yes. The Jewish Student Association told me you were the other Jewish First Year."
"And now we're both in the same house. Great." She started walking away from the Great Hall.
"Where are you going?"
"To the lav, silly. Otherwise they'll think there's something wrong with me when I need to go again later."
Erik followed her immediately. Running out of the Great Hall was bad enough – better than hitting someone – and he certainly didn't want to start a reputation for being weird. Though, really, with oarless boats and floating cards and school houses chosen on your personality by a psychic talking hat, he wasn't sure what would be considered "weird".
He was glad that he did because, a few minutes later when the male Gryffindor Prefect – who was chubby and red-haired like the female Prefect – came to check on them, he and Gabrielle had washed their hands and were on the way down, as if nothing here was wrong.
On to Chapter 3
Erik was very pleased to have been allowed to travel on his own. He'd walked halfway across Europe without help and had fought against adults for food and survival: it had been very strange to then treated as a child and coddled. That didn't mean he hadn't preferred being in Ireland to being in the war-torn cities of Germany and France, of course. He'd always vaguely thought of Ireland as a place of famine, but Brendan and Diarmuid, the elderly couple that Dumbledore had left him with, had fed him constantly, milk and bread and potatoes and greens, until his bones no longer hurt. They'd taught him English, even though they spoke Irish to each other, their teaching augmented by spells from a huge and shabby book with beautifully illustrated pages. Erik loved that book, despite hardly understanding a word of it: the outside was drab, but every page was a cavalcade of colours and life and magic.
He even had a wand now, made for him by an elderly monk who lived in a hollow tree. Erik had thought this rather eccentric, even for this new world of wizards, until he was invited inside. It turned out to be a small but comfortable home and workspace in there which couldn't possibly have fitted in the tree. Still, Erik had undertaken enough magical travel by then to avoid assuming that they were in the same place just because they had walked through a door. Another family, with several children, had just been leaving, a red-haired boy a few years younger than Erik proudly clutching his new wand and talking about how he was going to play Quidditch at Hogwarts. Brendan had given Erik a look, but Erik didn't speak to the boy and nobody forced him to.
"A feather shaft of Haroeris's falcon," the old monk said, instead of a greeting.
"This is Erik," Brendan had told the man. "Albus Dumbledore has sent us to buy him a wand."
"And blackthorn," he continued, as if Brendan hadn't spoken. The old man moved suddenly, and Erik jumped backwards, his hands curling into fists. The monk didn't touch him, merely running his fingers through the air about a foot away from Erik, as if he was finding Erik's shape in the air. "Yes, blackthorn. I have nothing ready. Return in a week."
Erik was disturbed to find that he was shivering. He wasn't cold, he wasn't scared. He hadn't given his body permission to do that. He followed Brendan outside where Diarmuid was waiting and the sunlight seemed to push away the strange feeling.
"Come on, lad," Diarmuid said. "Better head home, get some dinner into you."
Erik was fairly sure they made up extra meals just for him – breakfast and morning tea, lunch and dinner, tea and supper seemed a bit much – but he was so pleased to have his body under his control that he wasn't to questioning it. Really, it was hard to question anything the two old men said: they were gentle and grandfatherly and never startled him as everyone else did. Erik was still looking forward to leaving, though. He knew that he was a burden on them, no matter how often they said otherwise, and that he reminded them of the two blue-eyed grandchildren they had lost in the war. He would much rather be with someone grand and impermeable like Dumbledore, someone he couldn't imagine being murdered.
Brendan and Diarmuid had waved him off that morning, Brendan pretending not to cry as he gave Erik the Floo powder to take him to London.
"Remember that you're a good boy with a good heart, Erik," Diarmuid had said. "People will think otherwise, but you must remember who you are."
Erik didn't understand why Diarmuid would say that, but he nodded anyway, his throat strangely dry, and stepped into the fire to be taken away.
As promised, the Floo took him directly to King's Cross Station, in central London. He quickly moved away from the fireplace in the disused waiting room, as he had been instructed, his small suitcase of books and robes pulling heavily at his arm. A moment later, a middle-aged man and two brown-haired children came through after him, and Erik shuffled further away.
"Tanya? Larry? You both have your trunks?"
"Yes, Dad!" the children chorused, holding up small bags tied to their wrists. The bags certainly didn't seem big enough to hold trunks, but Erik supposed there was some magic involved.
The man turned to Erik. "You're off to Hogwarts, lad? I hope we didn't interrupt your family Flooing in!"
"I'm by myself," Erik replied.
"Oh, Muggle-born, are you? Come on, then, we'll show you to Platform 9 ¾. I'm Bolivar Trask, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, in the Animagus Registry, and these are my children Tanya and Larry. They're both starting this year."
Erik didn't like the sound of Magical Law Enforcement. "Oh, I'm waiting for a friend, first. Thank you."
"Of course, of course," Mr Trask agreed, and herded the children towards the door.
"Bye! See you on the train!" Tanya called out, and Larry waved.
Erik hadn't thought of that: they'd be stuck with each other for at least the length of a train ride, and possibly longer if they ended up in the same House. He'd better shore up his story by finding a plausible friend to board the train with him. He didn't want to get lost, either, and the instructions on finding the platform were rather vague: Brendan and Diarmuid had both attended Hogwarts long before there had been a Hogwarts Express. Picking up his case, Erik quietly followed the Trasks along a corridor and down a flight of stairs, but immediately lost them in a big, crowded concourse. He climbed up the stairs a little way – surely there would be other wizards around if all the children had to go to the one school – and watched for people behaving eccentrically. It had bothered him at first, that Brendan and Diarmuid dressed so oddly, wore lots of gaudy jewellery and openly lived together, but after a while he realised that none of the people who cared could hurt them. While he accepted Diarmuid's explanation that most wizards weren't troubled by homosexuality, apart from a few who believed wizards should have many children as possible, Erik had seen how quickly tolerance could turn into mass murder. If there weren't many wizards or witches who married their own sex, then they needed to be careful. One thing comforted him, and that was that at least the Muggles in their town couldn't possibly hurt them. That ruled out a huge percentage of the population and, when Erik was fully trained in the use of magic, they would not be able to hurt him, either. It didn't mean he wouldn't be wary of other wizards.
The Trasks were nowhere to be seen, but Erik did see a woman with a tall silver turban threading her way through the crowd, so he followed her. As he got closer, he saw that she was pulling a boy along with her. Erik assessed his age as about eleven, which Dumbledore had said was the youngest age possible to start at Hogwarts, and he was pulling a large trunk behind him on a little cart.
"But Mum! I don't want to go!"
"Telford, you'll have a perfectly nice time once you're there. I said the same thing at your age. And frankly, I'm sick of you Apparating into the kitchen whenever you're cranky."
Erik congratulated himself: that was definitely a wizard family on the way to Hogwarts. Dumbledore had explained to him that it was common for children around that age to start manifesting magic when distressed or surprised, which is why they needed to be educated to use their magic properly. When Erik had asked why he had produced so little magic, given the circumstances, Dumbledore had sighed, and suggested that starvation had left Erik's body had been too weak to do very much. This made sense to Erik – both as an explanation and as a strategy against Muggle-born wizard children like himself – especially as the Nazis had had wizards working alongside them.
Telford and his mother had suddenly vanished, and Erik cursed his wandering mind. He was standing near the entrance to Platform 10, now, and could see Platform 9, but there was no Platform 9 ¾ in sight. This must be some kind of test, or perhaps a secret door that he couldn't yet see. Other children seemed to be here with their parents; on the other hand, Mr Trask seemed to assume that Muggle-born children would be here alone. Erik sidled across to the wall between Platforms 9 and 10 and stood just to the side of the metal barrier, keeping an eye out for more wizards.
The next to appear were an Asian couple and a little girl, the father wheeling a trunk behind him. They were dressed perfectly normally and gave no outward indication of being wizards at all. Erik hadn't seen any Asian people since he was a little boy, but he didn't stare: he didn't want to attract attention. They walked up to the barrier and didn't stop, though the girl briefly stumbled and was steadied by her mother. Before Erik could move forward to see exactly what had happened, they had vanished. It seemed, from his viewing angle, that they had vanished into the wall.
He moved aside a little, trying not to get in the way of the people streaming past to Platform 10, hoping to find a better view of the next group through.
"Excuse me, but are you all right?" A small, brown-haired boy approached him, trailed by a large red-headed boy and a cheerful little girl with unusual bright purple hair. "Are you trying to find the platform?"
Erik quickly assessed him as a wizard. Apart from being with the girl with the strange hair, he had a wand tucked into his sleeve and wore an over-sized signet ring with an X on it, the kind of jewellery that would be entirely inappropriate on a regular young boy, but seemed popular with wizards.
"Yes. My directions aren't very clear."
"Oh, well, mine aren't either, but we were staying in London last night and we happened to run into a few older students. They explained it all to us. I'm Charles Xavier, by the way." He thrust out his hand and Erik shook it, slightly bemused.
"Erik Lehnsherr."
"Good to meet you! This is my sister Raven – Raven, do switch your hair back – and my step-brother Cain. They're American, I'm English but I've been living in America for a few years."
Cain nodded brusquely, but Erik noted that Cain was carefully sizing him up. That was all right: Erik understood that kind of mind. He let a few teeth show and stared Cain squarely in the eye, letting him know he wouldn't be cowed, and Cain dropped eye contact first. Good. He had the message.
Charles and Raven were arguing. "No, Charles, my hair can be any colour I like! You heard that old lady, she thought I had a funny wig!"
"The school rules require us not to draw the attention of Muggles or perform any magic outside of school! I told you that!"
"It's not magic! It's just who I am!" Raven sulked, but her hair rippled into long blonde locks.
"That's amazing!" Erik stared at her in genuine delight. "Is it only your hair you can change?"
Raven grinned widely. "No, I can change everything, except that stupid Charles doesn't like it."
Charles rolled his eyes and took her hand. "Come on, let's go to the platform then you can change however you want."
"Okay!" She reached out to Erik, though it took him a moment to realise what she was doing. "We met up with a prefect from Ravenclaw – that's one of the Houses – and he said the best way through is to shut your eyes and march on in."
"All right." Erik hefted his suitcase and grabbed her hand. Cain loomed behind him, but Erik could feel exactly where he was and had no urge to turn around.
"Close your eyes!" Charles commanded, and Erik did, feeling the tug as Raven pulled him forward. After a few steps – which must surely put them inside the brick wall – he opened his eyes. They were at the end of a railway platform filled with people, including the woman in the silver turban and the Asian family he'd seen before. Glancing behind him, there wasn't a brick wall but a wrought iron archway. He frowned: the metal archway didn't feel right. Before he could examine it more closely, a guard in long navy robes waved at them.
"Move along, children, move along. Don't loiter in the doorway!"
"Drat," Charles said, "Cain didn't make it through. I'll go back for him. Erik, would you keep an eye on Raven for a moment? She's very good, but she does wander off sometimes."
"Of course," Erik answered, even more confused as to why someone would ask a stranger to stay with a little girl.
Charles ducked through the archway, and Raven kept hold of Erik's hand.
"Cain's a bit dumb sometimes. He probably opened his eyes even though Filius said not to."
"Filius? That's the prefect you met?"
Raven rolled her eyes. "Yes, Charles is all moony over him, it's terrible. Charles wants to be in Ravenclaw, now."
"I know there's four houses…" Erik had heard a few stories from Brendan and Diarmuid, but they had been at Hogwarts so long ago that he had no idea what had changed.
"Oh, yes, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Slytherin and Hufflepuff. Our mom was in Slytherin, but I want to be in Gryffindor, maybe, or Hufflepuff."
"Does it actually make any difference?"
Raven nodded her head seriously. Her skin was turning somewhat blue around her hairline. "They're all quite different, because they're meant to bring out different characteristics. Like, Ravenclaw is for people who like studying, and Gryffindor is for people who are brave, and Hufflepuffs like sticking together, and Slytherin is for smart people. You know, smart like clever around people, not smart like reading books."
"Oh. They all sound like they have their advantages. Do you know your face is turning blue?"
Raven giggled and her face rippled back to pink, her eyes gleaming yellow for a moment. "That's what happens when I forget what shape I'm holding. I can look like anyone, really, but people get worried if you copy them."
"Could you copy me?"
Raven shrugged. "Well, maybe a small version of you, otherwise I might rip my dress. This is a new dress, you know. Sometimes I create my own clothes but this is an actual dress in case Scotland is too cold for me."
"I wouldn't want you to ruin your clothes." Erik smiled encouragingly. He really wanted to know what she could do.
Raven's skin rippled and a moment later, she was a small facsimile of Erik in a pretty green dress.
"That's amazing! You don't need a wand to do it?"
Raven grinned with Erik's face. "Ow, you have a big grin. I only bought my wand yesterday! It's got a unicorn hair in it, same as Charles'! But the shapeshifting is because I'm a metamorphmagi. I could always do this. We're very rare!"
"Young lady!" came a loud voice from across the platform. It was a tall, saturnine man with a forked beard, dressed in dramatic black robes with red trim. He looked exactly like the picture of an alchemist in a book Erik had read as a child, and Erik schooled his face not to show his amusement.
"Me?" Raven asked in a small voice. She immediately switched to the pink-cheeked girl with golden hair.
Erik stepped in front of her. "Is there any problem, sir?"
"No, not at all. I merely haven't seen metamorphmagi outside of my own family in forty years. What's your name, young lady?"
She stepped out beside Erik, sticking out her chin. "Raven Darkholme, sir."
"Ah, one of Albus' Americans. That's a very interesting name you have, Raven. I am Professor Arcturus Black, and I would be very interested in talking to you later, at school. My great-aunt was a metamorphmagus – perhaps we can compare stories. Good day!" He hurried off towards the far end of the platform where several boys seemed to be wrestling a large owl with limited success, and Raven breathed a sigh of relief.
"He was nice! Do you think his great-aunt is still alive?"
"He said 'was', so unless being a metamorphmagus is something that wears off, probably not."
"Oh."
"Just keep walking, we're nearly to the wall!" Charles' exasperated voice rang out behind them. Both Erik and Raven turned, to see Charles dragged a recalcitrant Cain along by his arms, his tie strapped around Cain's head as a blindfold.
The moment they got through the arch, Charles let go. "There!"
Cain ripped the blindfold from his face and stared around like he'd never seen such a thing as a magical portal. Erik's estimation of Cain was dropping by the moment.
"First call for boarding! Hogwarts Express!" came a man's amplified voice – it must be a spell, because Erik could see the platform guard saying the words and he certainly didn't have a megaphone – and everyone started to bustle towards the train.
"If we want to sit together, we'd better hurry!" Charles said, and took hold of Raven again, pushing her towards the train. Cain and Erik followed, joining the long queue of students at the doors. Many of the older students were in school uniform already, making it easy to pick out the First Years – who, as Dumbledore had said, ranged considerably in age and size – who were mostly with their parents and not in uniform. Erik had his uniform in his case, but he had no school tie yet. Glancing around, he could see four different coloured ties on students: those must be for the four houses, as every student was wearing a badge to match, and a few of the oldest students had fancy versions of the badge.
A very small student – no taller than four feet, though obviously one of the older students by his shaving rash – approached them.
"Hello, Charles! I see you all made it safely."
Charles beamed, and Raven stuck her tongue out, turned away slightly so only Erik could see.
"Yes, thank you for your excellent directions, Filius." He turned to Erik. "This is Filius Flitwick, Ravenclaw Prefect. He's the one I was telling you about. Filius, this is Erik Lehnsherr."
"Very pleased to meet you," Filius said politely, shaking Erik's hand. "Now, remember, when it gets to the Sorting, wish very hard for Ravenclaw!"
He hurried off to separate a First Year from a crying parent, with the help of a sallow-faced girl with a green and silver tie and a Prefect's badge.
Charles was still beaming until Raven poked him in the ribs with one pointy finger. "Wake up, Charles, we're getting on the train now."
They hurried up the steps and Erik nearly dropped his suitcase in relief when the train was nothing like he'd been secretly imagining. Instead of bare boards and a dreadful stench, there were beautiful compartments with leather seats, highly polished brass fittings and a plush red carpet. He paused to let out a breath and someone pushed him from behind.. He spun around, elbows flying.
"Stop pushing," he snapped.
A skinny, olive-complexioned girl with glossy black hair glared at him. "Someone thinks he's important."
"I don't like being pushed."
"Hurry up, Selene!" someone called from behind her.
"Then maybe you shouldn't stand around crying in corridors."
"I'm not crying!" Erik shouted, blinking hard and realising that, in fact, she was right. Even if there were no tears on his cheeks, his eyes were full and he hadn't even realised. He hastily glanced around but couldn't see Charles and his siblings in the crush so, he dragged his case into the nearest compartment.
Two boys, both black, were the only two in the compartment.
"Come in, these seats aren't taken!" smiled the skinny one, in a broad London accent.
"Thanks," Erik muttered, and flopped down opposite them.
"Well, finally someone wants to sit with us!" The solid boy sounded very grumpy, and had an extremely peculiar accent that Erik had never heard before.
The skinny boy burst out laughing at Erik's expression. "I'm Armando Muñoz, and this is Lucas Bishop. He's come all the way from Australia!"
"Erik Lehnsherr, pleased to meet you." Erik shook their hands. "I've come from Ireland. Much closer than Australia."
Armando smiled at him. "I'm from about five miles away, so this will be the furthest I've ever been away."
"You weren't evacuated in the war?" Lucas asked. "I thought all the London kids got sent away."
Armando shook his head. "My mum didn't think it was safe for me. Not so many black lads in London, even less in the countryside. And there were plenty what didn't go. Besides, my mum cast a few spells on the flat so we didn't get blown up."
"She couldn't have cast them on other flats?" Erik asked. His good mood of earlier had evaporated completely.
"She did, yeah, but each time took about a week. Protection spells are hard. Got our whole block done by the end of the war!" Armando seemed entirely immune to Erik's sarcasm. "She had to work on one for my dad's ship, too."
"Your dad's a sailor?" Lucas asked, with interest. "I had to take a ship from Perth to Cape Town."
"Yeah! He's from Puerto Rico, and he's in the merchant marine. My mum's from London, and she went to Hogwarts, so she wanted me to go there. They don't have so many schools in the Caribbean, they get apprenticed."
"That sounds good," Erik replied, thinking how peaceful it had been in Ireland with Brendan and Diarmuid.
"Yeah, sometimes. My Nan, she grew up in Jamaica, and she liked it a lot, and said maybe I should head over there. But my dad got apprenticed with some daft old bloke who didn't teach him anything, so he was dead against it."
"That's what they do in Australia, too, with my mum's people," Lucas agreed. "Not apprenticing, really, but all the boys go off with an elder and he teaches them. My dad's white, though, from England, and he wanted me to at to Hogwarts like him."
Lucas looked quite tense, despite his casual telling, and Erik was fairly sure there must be more to it than that, to send a boy to the other side of the world.
The last of the students were boarding the train now, and the Trask siblings walked past the compartment. They both waved cheerfully to Erik, but walked on. They were followed by the small Asian girl who Erik had seen with her parents, who hurried into their compartment.
"Can I sit here? Is that okay? I don't know the rules, I'm sorry, I just got here."
"Please, sit down!" Armando waved his arm expansively, king of the compartment.
"Oh, thank you! I'm Suzanne Chan, and we just got here from Hong Kong last night, and there was a big mix-up with the Portkey and, oh, I thought I wasn't going to make it!"
The three boys introduced themselves as the train jerked into motion, and Suzanne made a polite little bow to them.
"So, Erik from Ireland, Armando from London, Lucas from Australia. Thank you for letting me sit here! I'm an only child and my mum wouldn't let go, and it's been a long trip!"
"My dad's been to Hong Kong," Armando supplied, helpfully.
"Your dad's been everywhere." Lucas grinned and Armando grinned back at him.
Two hours later, Armando had taught them all to play Spiral Whist – Erik having vetoed Exploding Snap – and Armando was winning the lion's share of the humbugs that they were using as bets. Since he'd supplied the sweets in the first place, and several had been eaten along the way, Erik had to admit this seemed fair.
Just as Suzanne played trumps on top of the spiral staircase of cards hovering over their makeshift table, there was a knock at the compartment door. Three older students were there, two boys and a girl; the girl wore a Prefect's badge.
Suzanne slid the door open and the three students crowded in. One of the boys and the girl, who were both wearing blue and bronze ties, looked very alike. The other boy had a green and silver tie.
"You're Erik Lehnsherr?" the boy with the blue tie asked. "We're the Jewish Students Association."
"The whole association is the three of you?" Erik replied, startled.
The boy in the green tie laughed. "No, no, just the heads of it. I'm Carmen Rosanoff, and these two are Samuel and Chava Prydeman." He had a mild German accent, although the other two didn't. It made Erik feel a little queasy, and he pushed the feeling down ruthlessly.
Chava, the Prefect, smiled. "There used to be quite a few of us at the school who came to Britain with the Kindertransport, but we were the youngest of that group and now we're in Seventh Year."
"There's Arnold," Carmen said, "He's in Sixth Year."
"Okay, apart from Arnold, we were the youngest. There's a few students in every year level, but just two of you starting this year, you and Gabrielle Haller."
"We'll talk to you more at school, but we wanted to introduce ourselves and let you know we're here in case you need anything. Do you keep Kosher?" Samuel asked.
Erik shook his head, unsure of how to respond to this outpouring of kindness.
"You're easily taken care of, then! There's going to be a Rabbi at Hogwarts this year – the Astronomy teacher – who's come over from Tripoli. I haven't met him yet."
Chava took her brother's arm. "Let's find him then. These kids have a game going and it looks like the stakes are high."
Armando laughed and offered her his bag of humbugs. She took one and hustled the other students out the door.
"I wonder if there's an association for Chinese students?" Suzanne mused.
"Maybe you should start one!" Armando thoughtfully ate a humbug. "Erik, it's your turn."
Erik blinked and checked his cards. He had a terrible hand, but Spiral Whist allowed more opportunities than the regular kind. With a quick check to see he wasn't shaking, he reached out and inserted a three of clubs into the spiral.
They saw Chava a few hours later, walking down the corridors with another Prefect and reminding everyone to change into school uniform, but the boys didn't show up again, for which Erik was very glad. He had felt very exposed in front of them, and in front of the other First Years, having them go on and on about being a Jew: Armando, Lucas or Suzanne didn't seem troubled, but they were hardly the only people at the school. Nonetheless, he didn't feel too bad overall. A man with a sparkling gold leg had come by pushing a giant cart full of food and everyone bought delicious meaty sandwiches and pumpkin pasties and cocoa – Brendan had given Erik some money to buy something to eat, so he didn't have to pretend he wasn't hungry. Now, as the train pulled into Hogwarts, he could face the new place with the right clothes and a full belly.
As the train pulled to a halt, an amplified voice rang through the train. "We are now arriving at Hogwarts. All students please leave luggage on the train: it will be transported to Hogwarts separately. First Year students please assemble at the north end of the platform."
"That's us!" Armando said unnecessarily, sounding nervous for the first time.
"I hope we're all in the same house!" Suzanne added.
Lucas shook his head. "We'll still be sharing classes, won't we? You shouldn't worry."
"The girls' dormitories are probably separate anyway," she sighed.
They all followed the stream of students out of the train, everyone blurring together in their dark robes and the evening gloom. It was considerably chillier than London had been, but that made sense, considering that they had been travelling due north all day. Erik wasn't quite sure where they were but he had no trouble telling north, and directed the others towards that end of the platform.
A tall, haggard-faced man in a long grey coat was calling out to the students. "First Years this-a-way! First Years!" There was an enormous teenage boy – surely ten or eleven feet tall – standing next to him counting off students as they went by him.
"Seven, eight, nine, ten, there you go!" the ruddy-faced boy boomed as he ushered Erik and the others past him to wait with a few other students at the end of the platform. The boy Erik had seen with the woman in the silver turban was there already, along with an Asian boy and girl.
"Are they Chinese?" he whispered to Suzanne, but she shook her head and kept her distance.
Charles and Raven were counted in and gave Erik a friendly wave, which he briefly returned – he was a little annoyed they hadn't waited for him on the train – and the girl who had pushed Erik was there, too. Cain tagged along behind Charles, of course. There seemed to be slightly more boys than girls, but Erik didn't find it hard to pick the other Jewish student, Gabrielle. She was small and dark-haired, and had the same constant awareness of her surroundings that Erik himself had. She'd spotted him, too, but she made no approach, simply choosing to wait quietly near the edge of the group.
More and more students were counted into their group until the gigantic boy counted "Thirty! That's it, Mr Ogg!" He thumped the last student on the back – fortunately he was a tall, fat boy almost Cain's size who managed not to collapse under the enthusiastic blow – and stepped aside to allow Mr Ogg to speak to them.
"Thank you, Hagrid. First Years, follow me for your first glimpse of Hogwarts." He walked off briskly down a dirt path, without checking to see if anyone went after him. Hagrid made a shooing motion at the students and they all hurried along. Erik stuck close to the middle of the group, but he could hear Charles talking to Hagrid.
"Hello, Mr Hagrid, I'm Charles Xavier!"
The enormous boy laughed. "Don't call me Mister, just Hagrid! I'm the assistant groundskeeper. No need to be fancy. Now, Mr Pringle's the one you'd better be polite to."
"He's your boss?"
"Mr Ogg's my boss, there, nice fellow. Mr Pringle's the caretaker. Work with him too, sometimes. He gave me a caning or two when I was a student here and sometimes I reckon he'd like to do it again!"
"Oh, I see." Charles sounded rather crestfallen, as if he'd expected everyone to be his friend. "Well, I'll make sure to be polite to him, then."
"Ah, you seem like a nice young bloke, not the type to cause trouble. No illegal pets, nothing like that."
Erik would have asked him about the illegal pets, but Charles was defending his honour, instead.
"Oh, no, I don't have any pets at all."
Before Hagrid could reply, they reached the lakeshore. Erik was looking at the cluster of small boats there when he heard cheers and gasps from other students and glanced up to see what was affecting them. Across the lake stood an enormous castle, all turrets and sparkling lights. If that was Hogwarts, it was considerably larger and more isolated than Erik had anticipated. Still, wizards had lots of ways to travel, so he should really have thought that they could put a castle anywhere they wanted.
"Right, you've had a gawk, into the boats!" Mr Ogg shouted, obviously having done this many times before. "Four to a boat, please!"
Erik ended up with Suzanne, the fat boy Hagrid had backslapped, and a tall, skinny boy with heavy glasses. As soon as the four of them were in the boat, it began to sail smoothly across the lake.
"I'm Suzanne, this is Erik, what are your names?"
Erik was rather glad that Suzanne was there to break the ice.
"Fred Dukes," the fat boy muttered. "You ever seen a place like that before?"
"I've seen pictures of it – my mother went here." Suzanne nodded firmly. "Are you Muggle-born?"
"What?"
"Are your parents wizards?"
Fred understood. "Nope. My dad was in the Army but he's gone back to the bakery now. My mum used to sew parachutes, but I suppose they don't need those anymore."
"What's your name?" Suzanne asked the skinny boy, who hadn't said a word and seemed utterly terrified to be addressed.
"Hank McCoy." He was an American – maybe one of "Albus' Americans" that Professor Black had mentioned. "My parents aren't wizards either."
A yell came from another boat, Mr Ogg's voice. "Don't stick your hand in the water, you silly girl, there's a giant squid in there!"
Erik stared dubiously at the lake, but before he'd had time to worry about how to fight off a squid, the boats all glided into a large cave and beached on a sandy shore. Dumbledore was standing there, a glowing light hovering above his head. Erik relaxed a little. It had been months since he'd last seen Dumbledore but he looked as strong and fearless as ever.
"Welcome to Hogwarts!" he called out. "Come along!"
They followed him up a steep passageway to open air and soft grass in the shadow of the castle wall. Dumbledore waited for them all to catch up, then threw open an enormous oak door, leading them all into a small chamber. Erik could hear the murmur of many voices and the shuffling of feet and furniture from behind another door, and held himself very still, determined not to appear nervous. Most of the rest of the students looked worried enough to make up for it, though a few like Suzanne and Charles were excited.
"Again, welcome!" Professor Dumbledore beamed. "Lovely to see such a delightful crop of new students. Now, in a few minutes the start-of-term banquet will start, but before that can begin, you'll all need to be Sorted in Houses. Your House will be like your family as long as you are at Hogwarts – you will all have classes together, share a dormitory, and, best of all, gain or lose points for your House. How is that best of all, you might ask? Your victories, no matter how minor, may gain points while your misdemeanours will lose them."
Erik thought that didn't sound like much of a system of punishment. Maybe it just meant that the stakes were low. He hoped so.
"At the end of the year, the House with the most points will win the House Cup. Ravenclaw have won for the last two years, and Slytherin before that, so I want all of the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs to do their very best this year. Especially the Gryffindors – that's my house!"
A few students laughed nervously.
"I see you're not in the mood for my little jokes. No matter! I'll pop through to the Great Hall and see if they're ready for you."
He went through the door – Mr Ogg and Hagrid had already gone – and all the students shuffled about anxiously.
"Does anyone know what being Sorted involved?" Charles asked, his voice clear and steady.
"My cousin Tom says you have to fight a dragon," said a freckle-faced Irish boy dubiously – Erik recognised him from the wand tree in Ireland.
The dark-haired girl who had bumped into Erik waved dismissively. "Don't be silly. They put a magic hat on your head and it reads your mind to see what would be best for you."
Everyone was considerably more nervous after that, and even Erik couldn't quite make himself stand still.
Dumbledore opened the doors and a rush of sound burst through. "All ready! Alphabetical order by surname, order of the Headmaster! I prefer a more ad hoc method myself, but what can you do?" He waved his wand and all the students were suddenly airborne, floating gently into place in line. Erik had a great urge to be sick, but he was a champion at controlling that particular feeling. He was twelfth in line, between a small, sturdy girl and a skinny blond boy who kept hiccupping. Lucas was second, behind a tall, stately girl with her hair in a tight bun.
Dumbledore led them through the doors to a deafening round of applause from an entire room full of students. Erik could have sworn that the train couldn't have held that many, but he must remember that regular spatial reasoning didn't really apply to wizards. The Great Hall was a tremendous room, largely filled by five long tables. Four of them ran parallel to each other down the room and each was full of students wearing ties and badges of the same colour: red and gold, blue and bronze, green and silver, yellow and black. The fifth table, for the teachers, was on a slightly raised platform. Erik spotted the Rabbi immediately: he was a small, unprepossessing man in his thirties with a scruffy beard and large glasses, sitting by a balding man who kept almost knocking over his wine with his trailing sleeves.
Two prefects – Chava Prydeman and Filius Flitwick – placed a stool in front of the line of first years, and Dumbledore put a dirty old pointed hat on the top. It was much patched and terribly frayed around the edges. Erik had absolutely no idea what was going on or why everyone was staring at it. The room had gone quiet as if they expected something to happen. Then, of all things, a rip near the brim of the hat opened like a mouth and the hat began to sing.
"You may not expect much of me,
And think I'm just old hat,
But I have four brains in my cap,
And none of you match that!
Now all of you fought death and ruin
To join us here today,
So listen close, children of war,
To what I have to say.
Four Houses wait for my commands
I'll sort you into each,
But only in true unity
Can we dare hope for peace.
Brave Hufflepuff, she knew this well
So some of you I'll choose
For compassion and for comradeship
That all of us must use.
Shrewd Slytherin would plan ahead
For days both bright and dim,
His clever schemes need cunning minds,
Some students follow him.
Then Ravenclaw: her students bright,
For knowledge always yearning,
Are those who read the signs of fate
And from history take learning.
And last, the bold knight Gryffindor,
War making his ranks thin,
His students fight for honour, friends,
And never once give in.
Through all these virtues we may thrive,
But which brings out your best?
Well, sit down here and put me on,
And I will do the rest!"
The rest of the Hall burst into applause, but Erik was glad he wasn't the only First Year staring at the Sorting Hat with his mouth hanging open. He was very relieved that he wasn't first in line, and rather worried by the idea of a hat with four brains: if a hat could have a mind, what else could? He cast his eyes around the hall and noticed that there appeared to be no ceiling, just the clear night sky, bright and close. That made no sense: if there was no roof, the room wouldn't be so warm, and the candles would be flickering instead of burning steady.
"It's enchanted to look like the sky," the girl in front of him hissed, in a Scottish accent.
"Why would you do that?"
"They must find it pretty! I'd much rather have a nice solid roof, myself."
Erik laughed, trying to keep an edge of hysteria out of it.
She turned slightly, still keeping an eye on the Sorting Hat. "There's a book called 'Hogwarts: A History' that tells you all kinds of useful things. It's not on the reading list but there's supposed to be an enormous library here. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be in Ravenclaw, so I hope there'll be lots of time to spend in the library!"
Erik nodded. He had no idea how you could guess which House you might be in, but books meaning Ravenclaw seemed to be considered a pretty clear equivalence.
The first girl in the line was taken over to the stool by Dumbledore.
"I shouldn't be first! I should be under R, not A!"
"Please take a seat, Miss Al-Reraph, and it will all be finished soon."
Dumbledore plopped the hat on her head, hiding her face entirely, and Erik had the feeling that she and the hat were in close communion. A few moments later, the mouth-like tear opened again to declare,
"SLYTHERIN!"
The table with the students in green and silver ties erupted in cheers and Miss Al-Reraph hurried over there to be given a seat at their long table, people applauding and congratulating her.
Erik barely had time to wonder if this behaviour was peculiar to Slytherin, when Lucas took his seat.
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
The yellow and black table was just as effusive, and even more so when the Irish boy Erik had met also joined that house.
Suzanne Chan was next, sent to Gryffindor, then Raven to Hufflepuff. There was another Hufflepuff and Slytherin before the first Ravenclaw, a dark-haired girl with glasses and a ponytail. The Ravenclaws, despite their academic reputation, cheered as loudly as everyone else had.
The other Jewish student, Gabrielle, was sent to Gryffindor, and the Scottish girl, as she had predicted, to Ravenclaw. Then it was Erik's turn.
He felt a little shaky as Dumbledore directed him to sit, and the hat – while not as ridiculously oversized on him as some of the younger First Years – was still enough to cover his eyes. He tried to push the brim up, but then the Sorting Hat spoke, right in his mind.
"Hello, Erik! Well, you're a tricky one, aren't you?"
"Why am I tricky? Erik snapped. "And get out of my head."
"Ah, but it's your head that's in me. You want power, don't you, but knowledge and family as well."
"Who wouldn't?"
"You might be surprised! Still, you desire that power to destroy evil and set things right, not for its own sake. A little arrogant, yes, but that's never been a setback in…GRYFFINDOR!"
The Hat's voice was deafening from inside it, and Erik staggered over to the red and gold table in a daze. People were cheering and slapping him on the back, but he was very glad when he was pushed to a seat beside Suzanne and Gabrielle. A few moments later the hiccupping boy who had been behind him in the queue joined them in Gryffindor, then Erik lost track a bit in all the noise, until Armando plopped down next to him with a delighted grin.
"Erik! I can't believe we got the same House!" he yelled over the noise of a fair-haired girl being Sorted into Hufflepuff.
Erik felt sick again, and angry like he wanted to punch someone. It was crowded and hot, and he couldn't take this any longer, but he forced himself to sit still, breathing shallowly. He glanced over at the other students, and they were all clapping and cheering, except for Gabrielle whose expression was glazed and flat. Erik tugged at the sleeve of a chubby red-haired girl who had a Prefect's badge.
"Excuse me, where are the toilets?"
Erik must have given away more than he thought, because the girl smiled kindly and tapped her wand on his hand. There was suddenly a little map drawn there, and he wanted to vomit all the more. Instead, he grabbed Gabrielle's arm and hurried out of the hall – the Gryffindor table was right at the end, luckily – out into the cool darkness of the corridors.
"Where are we going?" Gabrielle whispered, which still sounded awfully loud after the Great Hall.
"Nowhere. You look sick."
"So do you. I didn't like them Sorting people." She forced his hand open with her hard little fingers and saw the map. "Did that girl draw on you?"
Erik nodded. "I said I needed the toilet. Were you in a camp?"
"Yes. You too?"
"Yes. The Jewish Student Association told me you were the other Jewish First Year."
"And now we're both in the same house. Great." She started walking away from the Great Hall.
"Where are you going?"
"To the lav, silly. Otherwise they'll think there's something wrong with me when I need to go again later."
Erik followed her immediately. Running out of the Great Hall was bad enough – better than hitting someone – and he certainly didn't want to start a reputation for being weird. Though, really, with oarless boats and floating cards and school houses chosen on your personality by a psychic talking hat, he wasn't sure what would be considered "weird".
He was glad that he did because, a few minutes later when the male Gryffindor Prefect – who was chubby and red-haired like the female Prefect – came to check on them, he and Gabrielle had washed their hands and were on the way down, as if nothing here was wrong.
On to Chapter 3