Chapter Text
September 1st, 2003
Louis’s mother had been having difficulty getting the family anywhere on time since her stomach had begun showing with the latest pregnancy. (It was supposed to be twins, and Louis shuddered to think what would happen once they were born. Lottie and Fizzy were enough to deal with without doubling his amount of siblings.) Even with Louis’s attempts to help with the girls, they had arrived at Platform 9 and ¾ with less than ten minutes to spare, and Louis could feel the train moving beneath him as he searched for a compartment.
The thought of the school was enough to have him bouncing happily down the train, but he couldn’t seem to find a compartment to join. Louis wasn’t arrogant enough to sit with anyone above second year. He would have time to build up rapport with the older students later. Right now he was just an unsorted little first year.
An unsorted little first year who couldn’t even find a compartment to sit in. He had to admit, maybe he was being a little picky. Louis knew first impressions were important, and the train was the perfect place to mingle with the other young purebloods. It wouldn’t do to be seen sitting with any muggle-borns on his first day. He couldn’t be labeled a blood traitor before even being sorted.
Eventually, Louis had to accept that no mingling with the oldest well-respected pureblood families was happening today. Every decent pureblood Louis passed was already in a compartment full of other purebloods. Dignified families arrived on time.
Louis’s family wasn’t dignified. Not anymore. The arrest had been one thing. Plenty of decent purebloods went to Azkaban after the war. But the divorce and remarriage had been another. It struck Louis as ironic that keeping the name of his criminal father probably would have been better for him in the long run. Accepting the Tomlinson family as his own was as close to social suicide as he could get without being a blood traitor. Not that the Tomlinson family had been looked down upon before the marriage. The purebloods didn’t look kindly on divorce, but marrying a divorced woman was apparently the ultimate shame. More so than being an imprisoned Death Eater at any rate.
Near the end of the train, Louis finally came across a nearly empty compartment. The unfamiliar boy who sat inside wasn’t one of the pureblood children Louis had prepared himself to meet today. Still, he was cute, Louis had to admit. He also appeared to be at ease on the train, so Louis figured he couldn’t be a muggle-born. Nothing too bad could come from sitting here the rest of the trip. Half-bloods could be decent at times.
Louis didn’t bother to knock as he slid the glass door open. The boy immediately looked up at him with a smile, and Louis felt his stomach flutter. The boy had been cute before, but now Louis had to fight to keep his own grin from taking over the entirety of his face.
“Mind if I sit here?”
Louis hoped the other boy couldn’t hear the shakiness of his voice.
“Of course not,” the boy replied, his grin becoming impossibly wider. “Have to make friends and all that.”
The boy struck Louis as a bit odd in the best possible way. He certainly wasn’t like the purebloods Louis had spent his entire life with, and Louis had been able to gather that upon the boy speaking only a few words.
“So,” Louis began after storing his luggage in the rack and plopping down across from the boy. “Pureblood or half-blood?”
“How do you know I’m not muggle-born?”
Louis was sure that his panic showed on his face. “You’re not, right?”
The other boy giggled, actually giggled. “No, I was just teasing you. I’m a half-blood. My mum’s a muggle, and my dad’s a wizard. You’re a pureblood though, right?”
“How do you know that?”
The half-bloods weren’t usually as well-versed on the pureblood family trees as Louis had been trained to be. Louis may have been able to recognize a pureblood on sight, but he didn’t expect half-bloods to put much stock in such things.
“You asked my blood status before you even knew my name, so you must be really concerned about it. That means you’re either a pureblood or a very rare half-blood.”
Louis gaped at the other boy. Was he really that obvious?
The boy chuckled a bit, and Louis felt his face flush.
“It’s okay,” the boy assured him. “As long as you’re not bothered by my muggle mum, I won’t be bothered about your concern over my blood status.”
Louis just looked at the boy for a moment before responding, “No, of course not.”
It was something of a lie. Louis knew he should care. This boy was kind of half-mudblood after all, but he was already far too enamored with this boy to put much stock in his ancestry. For the first time, Louis was thinking that maybe a lesser blood status wasn’t too terrible of a thing.
“Great.” The boy’s grin brightened again. “I’m Harry Styles, by the way.”
He stuck out his hand for a shake, which Louis happily took, being careful not to grasp it for too long.
“Louis Tomlinson,” he offered.
“Tomlinson,” Harry repeated. “I know about your family. You’re the adopted one.”
“I’m not adopted,” Louis cut him off sharply. “My mum gave birth to me, okay.”
Harry’s smile had dropped, and his eyes widened in fear that he had damaged his chances of a friendship with Louis.
“I know,” he assured him. “I just meant everything with your dad, you know?”
He went silent at Louis’s continuing glare.
With a sigh, Harry spoke again. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
It was silent for a few minutes before Harry spoke, still looking out of the window. “I didn’t mean it as an insult, and I didn’t expect you to take it that way. I just meant that I knew who you were. I don’t care about your dad.”
“Neither do I.”
And that was the last thing spoken about either of their families.
The rest of the train ride was taken up with jokes and Quidditch talk and stuffing their faces with sweets from the trolley. It was the most fun Louis could ever remember having with someone. He was lucky whenever he got to play with other purebloods, as their parents often disapproved, and he wasn’t allowed to play with anyone his parents deemed as not having good blood. Those restrictions didn’t apply now that Louis was on his own.
“I’m nervous,” Harry muttered as the two boys stood in front of the gathered students and watched a boy named Niall Horan get sorted into Hufflepuff.
“Don’t be,” Louis assured him. “Maybe you’ll be in Slytherin, like me.”
Harry looked as doubtful as Louis felt. Few people were as poorly cut out for Slytherin as Harry Styles, and Louis had learned that in one train ride.
Louis’s mouth tightened as he watched Zayn Malik get sorted into Ravenclaw. He recognized that name. Malik’s father was an auror who had helped send Louis’s own father to Azkaban. His mother would not be happy to know that the boy was in Louis’s year.
“We’ll still be friends though, right?” Harry asked quietly. “Even if we’re in different houses?”
“Sure.”
But Louis’s answer wasn’t reassuring to either boy. Louis just couldn’t afford to keep promises like that. Not to someone who had a muggle parent. Whatever friendships (i.e. connections) Louis made at Hogwarts would have a chance at restoring the Tomlinson family name.
Louis turned away from Harry’s disappointed face to watch a boy named Liam Payne get sorted into Gryffindor.
It was only a few more students before, “Styles, Harry,” was being called up to the stool. Louis wondered if he was the only one who noticed the slight stumble after Harry tripped over the edge of his robes. (He’d told Louis earlier that his mum had gotten them longer than necessary because she was worried about a growth spurt. Louis couldn’t see the small boy sprouting up that much.)
There was a tense moment as the hat sat on Harry’s head and remained silent. It was only several moments longer than some of the others, but it was enough for a slight whisper to work its way through the students. Louis held his breath with anticipation, willing the hat to make a quicker decision.
Finally, the hat yelled out, “Gryffindor!” Louis let out his breath, but also frowned as Harry happily bounded over to the Gryffindor table. He sat right next to Payne, and the two boys immediately began talking and laughing together. Louis felt a pang of jealousy. He wanted nothing more than to march over to the table, sit down, and insert himself into the two boys’ conversation.
Louis had been so interested in Harry that he didn’t even notice that his name had been called until someone reached out to shove him towards the stool. He hoped his face wasn’t noticeably red as he took his seat facing the school. The hat was promptly put over his head, and Louis was almost bored as he waited for what he knew would come.
Sure enough, “Slytherin!” was shouted to the entire student body within seconds of the hat being on his head. As soon as the hat was removed, Louis ambled over to the Slytherin table, much sadder than he had imagined being after the sorting he had anticipated for so long.
He couldn’t help but glance over towards the Gryffindor table and wasn’t surprised when he saw Harry looking back at him. The other boy looked a little melancholy, but there was a hope there. A hope that the two boys would remain friends.
It was more than six years before the two boys would speak to each other again.