Chapter Text
"Mummy, why does Martyn hate me now?"
Mrs. Lester glanced over her shoulder to where her youngest son had walked into the kitchen before quickly turning her attention back to the vegetables she was guiding into a pot with her wand. "Philip, love, don't be silly. Your brother doesn't hate you."
Phil frowned, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the kitchen tile. "But I was just talking to Cynthia, and—”
"Darling, who is Cynthia?" his mother cut in as she flicked her wand and set the water boiling on the stove.
"Mum, I told you last week, she's the Puffapod plant in the back garden! Don't you remember?" Phil answered with a twinge of frustration.
"Oh, of course she is, sweetheart! How could I possibly forget?" his mother replied, checking on another pot. "Now, you were talking to Cynthia, and…"
"All the older neighborhood kids made fun of me for talking to her! I was just trying to help her grow, I read that talking to plants helps them!" Phil continued, sniffling a little. "Mar was with them, and I asked him to make them stop, but he just laughed at me, too... And then one of the older boys told him he should p-push me in the dirt, and Martyn d-did it!"
Hearing his tear-laden voice, Mrs. Lester finally turned away from her cooking to fully look at her son, finding the eight-year-old covered in patches of dirt and grass stains. He was half-heartedly attempting to swipe at his face with his filthy sleeve, doing more harm than good.
"Aww, come here, little duckling," she cooed, grabbing a rag off the counter as she made her way around the kitchen island. She dropped to one knee in front of the quietly whimpering boy, wiping a streak of dirt from his chin. "Not much use in crying over a spilt potion, now, is there?"
"But I d-don't understand…" Phil attempted to swallow down his sobs while his mother pulled a stray blade of grass from his hair. "Martyn has always been my best friend, why does he hate me now?"
His mother's brow creased, and she abandoned her attempt to clean up her son, deciding it could wait until his bath.
"Well, ducky, he's going about handling it in all the wrong way, but it sounds to me like your brother is nervous."
"Nervous?" Phil repeated as his mother stroked his hair, not quite able to connect the dots for himself. "He pushed me in the dirt because he's nervous?"
A pot began bubbling over on the stove, and his mother jumped to her feet, wand at the ready.
"I know it doesn't make much sense to you now, but your brother is off to Hogwarts in just a couple weeks," she said, getting dinner back under control, "and it sounds to me like he's trying to fit in with some of the older kids before he leaves. Mind, that absolutely does not give him an excuse to hurt you in the process," she added with a look over her shoulder in Phil's direction, "and I’ll be having a nice chat with him when he gets home after dinner this evening…"
"Don't tell him I cried!" Phil interrupted, leading his mother to whip around to face him in surprise. "He'll tell all the other kids and then I'll be Martyn's crybaby little brother forever!"
Mrs. Lester sighed, letting her shoulders rise and fall with her breath. "I won't mention it."
Phil, unconvinced, thrust one hand forward toward her. "Pinky promise?"
She smiled, but quickly schooled her face into a more serious expression before locking her pinky with her son's much smaller one.
Relief flooded his still-dirty face, a little bit of tension dropping out of his small shoulders.
"Now, since you're here already," she said, turning back to the stove, "why don't you wash up and help me set the table for dinner?"
"Aww, Mum!" Phil whined with an accompanying pout. "Can't you just use magic to do it?"
She simply raised an eyebrow in response, although that alone was more than enough to send her youngest trudging across the kitchen to wash his hands.
"Under the fingernails, too, Philip," she added, "I know how dirty they get in the garden."
Phil sighed dramatically, but then continued washing up before grabbing plates and cutlery and getting to work.
For a few moments, the kitchen was silent save for dinner bubbling away and the occasional sound of Phil setting something down at the table, but he still had something on his mind.
"Mum? If Martyn is nervous about starting Hogwarts...should I be nervous, too?"
“What’s there to be nervous about going to Hogwarts for?” Mr. Lester exclaimed loudly from the kitchen doorway, startling them both. “Best time of my life!”
He snuck a small pinch of the cake intended for dessert as he passed the counter, only to be met with a disapproving look from his wife, and he gave a sheepish grin in return.
“Was it really?” Phil asked skeptically as he put down the last plate at the table.
“You bet!” his father answered. “The food was incredible, classes were fun, and I’ve never felt more alive than when I was out on the Quidditch pitch, helping to lead Ravenclaw to victory!”
Mrs. Lester crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow at her husband. “Oh, really? Those are the memories that made Hogwarts the ‘best time of your life?’”
His eyes went wide. “Of course not, no!” he attempted to backpedal. “All of those memories simply pale in comparison to the many hours spent studying with you in the common room, my dear!” He pulled her in for a hug, kissing the top of her head for good measure.
“Oh, hush, you,” she laughed, smacking his arm lightly.
Phil quietly slipped past his parents for a glass of water as they laughed, but on his way back to the table, his father slid an arm around his shoulder, pulling Phil into his side.
“Ah, Philip, I can’t wait for you to see Ravenclaw Tower,” he reminisced as Phil squirmed and tried to get away. “From way up there in the sky, it’s the—”
“—best view of the entire grounds,” Phil quoted along with his father as he finally slipped out of his grasp without spilling his water, heading for the dinner table. “I know, Dad, you’ve only been telling me my entire life.”
“I swear it still feels like just yesterday we were there,” his father continued, seemingly oblivious to his son’s tone of voice. “But now Martyn’s nearly gone, and you’ll be right behind him in a couple years… Soon enough we’ll have two full grown wizards running around here wreaking havoc!”
“Now, you just hold your hippogriffs, mister!” Mrs. Lester exclaimed as she walked over to join them, a parade of pans and serving dishes floating along behind her and gliding gracefully onto the table. “You let my babies stay babies for as long as they can!”
She gently ran a hand through Phil’s hair as she walked around the table and slid into her own seat, her napkin unfolding itself and dropping across her lap with a flick of her wand.
As they started eating, Phil feared his father would loop back around to his Ravenclaw reminiscence, something he had always been fond of, but had only intensified ever since Martyn had received his Hogwarts acceptance letter a few months earlier.
However, to Phil’s relief, the discussion swiftly changed as his father began regaling his mother with a bit of gossip that had been making its way around his office at the Ministry that day. Phil managed to get through dinner without even having to contribute much to the conversation, and soon enough his mother was sending him upstairs for his bath before bed.
He had made it about halfway up the staircase when he heard his name mentioned from where his parents were still talking quietly in the kitchen. He debated for a moment, his foot hovering over the next step, but in the end he couldn’t resist; he silently snuck back down and stopped next to the kitchen doorway, just out of view.
“I just don’t understand what you’re upset about,” he heard his father say over the sound of dishes clinking together as his parents cleared the table.
“I’m not upset,” his mother insisted, “just...worried.”
“Worried?”
His mother sighed. “I’m worried that you’re going about counting your dragons before they’ve hatched with all this Ravenclaw business, and that you might be putting too much pressure on the boys, especially Phil.”
Phil’s eyebrows furrowed. He was having just as much trouble following along as his father apparently was.
“How so?”
“Well… Call it mother’s intuition, maybe, but I have this suspicion that Philip may not be sorted into Ravenclaw when he gets to school.”
Phil suddenly felt his as if his whole world had flipped upside down, and he waited with bated breath for his father to jump to his defense.
The moment never came, though. He heard his father draw in a deep breath and then blow it out slowly as the dishes continued washing themselves in the sink.
“No, you’re right,” he finally said, “lately, I've been starting to think the same.”
Phil felt tears prick behind his eyes and decided that he didn’t want to stick around the hear the rest, rushing up the stairs as quickly and quietly as possible to take his bath and get ready for bed.
He had just brushed his teeth and slipped beneath the covers of the bottom bunk when he heard stomping footsteps coming up the stairs. The bedroom door swung open to reveal his obviously irritated brother, and Phil quickly tried to pretend he was already asleep, but Martyn wasn’t having any of it.
“Thanks a lot for tattling to Mum, Phil,” he shout-whispered so as not to draw attention from their parents as he shut the door behind him. “I’m grounded practically until I leave for Hogwarts, now.”
Phil pulled the duvet up to his nose, wincing a little as Martyn yanked his shoes off and tossed them across the room with a little too much force.
“I didn’t mean to,” Phil said quietly as Martyn changed into his pajamas, “it just kind of all slipped out.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Martyn muttered, climbing up the ladder up to the top bunk. “I can’t wait until I’m at school all by myself in a few weeks.”
Phil shifted onto his back, staring up at the bottom of Martyn’s bunk above him in the dark.
“Martyn? Can I ask you a question?”
Martyn groaned. “Dibs, for the hundredth time, I don’t know why the moon is round.”
“That’s not what I was gonna ask!”
“Okay, fine,” Martyn said, and Phil heard him turning over to get more comfortable. “What’s your question?”
Phil chewed on his lip for a moment, debating whether he wanted to go on, but finally asked quietly, “Will you miss me even a little bit when you leave?”
Martyn sighed deeply. There was a lot of shifting above Phil, and suddenly Martyn’s head was hanging down over the side of his bunk.
“Phil. Of course I’m gonna miss you. What are you on about?”
Phil shrugged. “I mean, you pushed me in the dirt and laughed. And we've barely spent any time together this summer. Doesn’t exactly sound like you care.”
Martyn groaned, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against the bed frame.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed out, “I don’t even really know why I did that.”
Phil sat up, pulling his knees to his chest under the blankets. “Mum reckons you’re nervous about starting school.”
Martyn huffed out a humorless laugh, lifting himself back up into his bed. “I reckon she might be right.”
“What do you have to be nervous about? You’re, like, the coolest kid I know.”
This time Martyn’s laugh sounded more genuine. “Thanks, Dibs, but this is kind of different, y’know? A lot of older kids, pressure to do well from Mum and Dad, it’s...it’s a lot.”
Phil rested his cheek against his knees, staring out into the semi-darkness of their room.
"I’m scared of being sorted,” he admitted in a whisper, half hoping his brother wouldn’t hear him.
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know,” Phil answered, falling back against his pillow again. “I guess I don’t feel like I’m smart enough for Ravenclaw, so I’ll end up in some other house and Mum and Dad’ll disown me, so I’ll end up having to, like, live in a ditch somewhere, and—”
“Phil, slow down!” Martyn exclaimed, cutting off Phil’s anxious ramble. “They’re not gonna disown you just for not getting Ravenclaw, Merlin’s sake!”
Phil sucked in a choppy breath. “They’re not?”
“Of course not, dufus, they love us no matter what, or whatever. Besides, there’s more to Ravenclaw than just being smart, have you ever even listened to Dad’s stories? It’s also for people who are creative, and curious—”
“I can be curious!” Phil enthused with a newfound sense of hope.
“Oh, don’t worry, you’re definitely curious, that’s for sure.” Martyn snorted from above him.
“Hey! Brother abuse!"
"Phil, you're basically the definition of 'curious.' You ate fish food for, like, three months last year."
"Only because Gran said I was part fish!"
Marytn let out a loud laugh. "She didn't mean literally!"
"I thought it would give me fish superpowers!" Phil pouted.
"You're a wizard! You need more superpowers than that?"
"You’re the worst person in the world, you know that?” Phil whined.
“Yeah, yeah. Love you, too, Dibs.”
Phil huffed, turning on his side and hugging his pillow. The room sat in silence for a minute or two, but something was still nagging at Phil.
“Seriously, though, Mar. Do you think I’ll be in Ravenclaw when I get there?”
Martyn was quiet for a moment, but finally answered. “You want my absolute honest opinion? And you promise won’t get mad?”
Phil nodded before realizing Martyn couldn’t see him from the top bunk. “Yes, please.”
He heard his brother take a deep breath. “Honestly, Phil... I don’t think so.”
Phil instantly deflated. “Oh.”
“It’s just, you give off some major Hufflepuff vibes, if you ask me. I can’t really imagine you anywhere else… Not that that’s a bad thing!” Martyn scrambled to add.
“Yeah, sure,” Phil mumbled, pressing his face into his pillow, “being completely different from the entire rest of your family is just totally ace, I’m well excited.”
“Phil, I—”
“No, Mar, it’s okay, I asked you to tell me the truth,” Phil said, discreetly wiping away a tear. “I don’t really want to talk about it anymore tonight, though, I want to go to sleep now. Night, Mar.”
“Okay… Night.”
Phil could practically hear the frown in his brother’s voice, but he ignored it, pulling his pillow closer and trying to swallow around the lump in his throat.