Chapter Text
Anne is twelve years old when, freshly expelled from Beauxbatons and fuming at being forced to repeat a year of school like a CHILD, she steps onto Platform 9 and ¾ for the first time.
She’s taken herself to London- she’s done it before, often (and she’s quite pleased that Marian won’t be there to whine and fuss and cry like the irritating younger sister that she is).
She isn’t afraid.
She finds herself a spot against a pillar and watches carefully to see how the more practised students access the barrier, before she attempts it herself.
(She knows she will do it perfectly and she does.)
On the platform, she stands alone and watches the waves of children and parents ebb and flow around her.
Most of them have pets, and some have pets that aren’t mentioned in the prospectus- but she doesn’t see any dogs yet.
(She hopes Argus won’t feel lonely.)
She’s already rehearsed over and over exactly how she will swear on the lives of every family member she has (and maybe twice on Marian) that Argus is merely an ugly looking cat if anyone tries to question his presence…. But so far, no one does.
Perhaps it’s that no one has noticed, or perhaps it’s the fact that he sits at the feet of a girl who looks (most privately think) far more calm and self possessed than any first year has a right to be on their first day.
*
Ann is brought to London by several of her numerous and elderly relatives.
She has Elizabeth’s company on the journey too, but the minute they enter Kings Cross, her sister is surrounded by a crowd of friends and swept away- she just about has time to squeeze Ann’s hand and whisper that she’ll find her later during the feast and then she’s gone.
Ann is left with the assortment of Aunts and Uncles that help make up the hoarde she now has in the place of actual parents- and they all seem to know everybody.
There is a lot of exclaiming over how quickly the year has past, over how much growing all the children have been doing, much mentioning of the fact that Elizabeth is a prefect now, and lots of talk about how much Ann has to live up to and how she’ll soon be like her sister, like her cousins- a pillar of the school.
Hovering at the edge of the group, Ann doesn’t feel particularly like a pillar of anything.
Her stomach is twisted with anxiety and everything is so loud that she wants to cover her ears.
So many people, so many faces.
She doesn’t exactly enjoy the silence of Crow Nest during the endless terms that Elizabeth is away, but she definitely doesn’t like the noise of the platform.
(If only Catherine was coming to Hogwarts too! But Catherine had chosen Beauxbatons, and has already twice sent Ann owls addressed to ‘Ma Chere Ann’.)
She’s scared- but her sister has told her to be brave (and also extracted the specific promise that she not cry no matter what), so she bites her lip and blinks and wonders if she’ll make any friends at Hogwarts.
(She hopes so.)
Her sister- and Aunts and Uncles and cousins- have all advised her to choose who she sits with on the train carefully, because people you meet on your first trip on the Express can set the tone for your whole school experience…. But what is Ann to do when it doesn’t look like anyone actually wants to sit with her?
Everyone she sees is either older than her, or busy with their own friends or parents- some of the First Years look excited, some look nervous.
None of them seem terribly approachable- she just knows she’d be an unwelcome intrusion on either their fun or their anxiety.
‘Oh Theodore would be happy for Ann to join his friends in their compartment-’ A voice from the aunt-huddle drifts over to her and she looks up quickly- it seems that she’s been remiss in not making any apparent effort to talk to anyone yet and her relatives are going to choose her new friends for her (just like they choose everything else).
(Theodore does not seen to share his mother’s enthusiasm at the prospect).
As much as Ann doesn’t want to be utterly friendless, she absolutely cannot bear the humiliation of being foisted off, unwanted, on a strange boy- she’d rather sit alone…. Or at least be rejected by someone she has chosen to talk to herself.
Not that there is anyo-
Then she spots a girl standing by herself on the other side of the platform, scratching the ears of the definitely-not-regulation dog at her feet and giving everyone a look that challenges them to make something of it.
The stripe on her tie gives away the fact that she’s a first year too but she doesn’t look like one- she looks like she’s deciding whether or not to grace Hogwarts with her presence. She doesn’t look afraid- she looks interesting.
Ann isn’t impulsive usually but she’s impulsive then- she darts away from her Aunts and Uncles and hurries across the platform. She has to dodge around quite a lot of groups of students and narrowly avoids being run over by a trolley- the owl on it hoots in reproach- before she makes it to the girl.
As a consequence, she’s a tiny bit flustered by the time she’s actually standing in front of her.
*
‘Hello!’
The girl who has just appeared looks so happy to see Anne that for a minute she wonders if she knows her- but no. She doesn’t know anyone yet.
‘Hello?’
The smile falters a little- she twists her fingers nervously.
‘Hello- sorry, I said that already… I don’t know you but you were standing on your own and I was- and- and I just- I wanted to ask if- ifyouweresittingwithanyoneonthetrainyet’ She finishes in a rush.
Anne is a little taken aback by being accosted in such a fashion- and by such a person as this. This girl doesn’t look old enough to come to Hogwarts for one thing, it’s only her robes that mark her out as a pupil.
She also hasn’t really thought about who to share a compartment with- she had planned to take stock of the other students first.
This girl- impetuous and shy all at once, with the sort of perfect golden curls more commonly seen on antique dolls- isn’t really the sort she’d envisaged as being her first friend at Hogwarts.
Except….
Anne has to admit to being just the tiniest bit impressed by her tenacity- she doesn’t look like the sort to just march up to people and offer friendship usually, and doing so on the first day of school in such a public place without even the buffer of a friend or parent if Anne had turned her down…. well, it must have taken some courage.
(And the fact that she looks so very eager about the prospect of just sitting with Anne is more than a little flattering. The girl is positively glowing.)
(She has a nice smile.)
And so she nods, with a casual ‘Why not?’, and the girl beams.
(She could, she figures, do a lot worse.)
*
(Ann is the happiest she’s ever been.)