Chapter Text
1st September 1971
Marlene watched her mother and little sister disappear as the train rounded the corner. Houses flashed past the window, and as the locomotive got faster, she could feel her excitement increase. She had never been so long without her parents, the idea of not seeing them until Christmas terrifying and strangely freeing. With three children, there was never silence at the McKinnon’s, and she was just beginning to enjoy the solitude when the compartment door opened, revealing a thin, pale boy, with long black curls brushing his shoulder.
“Anyone sitting here?” he asked, pointing at the empty space opposite to Marlene. “Everywhere else is full.”
She shook her head, and the stranger sat down, sometimes glancing quickly at her figure just to look out the moment he was caught. Marlene noticed he had a yellow shadow on his cheek, like a nearly healed bruise, but instead of asking what happened, and maybe make a new friend, she focused on the pastures of cows and sheep flowing in front of her eyes. Around half past twelve there was a great clattering in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door, asking if they wanted anything off the cart. Marlene, who hadn’t had breakfast due to the tension, leapt to her feet and went out to purchase a pack of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, a pack of Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum, a couple of Chocolate Frogs and a bag of Pumpkin Pastries, which she dropped into the empty seat next to her own.
“Help yourself,” she said, when she noticed the boy looking at the colourful wrappings with wide eyes. They ate in silence, and Marlene wondered who the peculiar stranger was and what made him so broody on the journey to an exciting new chapter in their lives. Perhaps his parents scolded him on the platform, but eating someone’s food without even exchanging a word wasn’t exactly polite and she was sure that such an attitude would earn him another lecture.
“Dumbledore again,” she muttered, opening one of the Chocolate Frogs.
“Do you collect them?” she asked, waving the little portrait of the current Headmaster.
The boy just shook his head.
“Dumbledore is a good way to start, even if he’s one of the most common. I already have six,” she explained, handing him the picture. Maybe he was just a Muggleborn who didn’t even know what she was talking about, too scared to ask or to make a face when he tasted one of the awful beans’ flavours.
“Thanks,” he murmured, quickly slipping it into his pocket. At first, she hadn’t noticed, but her traveling companion was already wearing an impeccable uniform, evidently brand new. Marlene had one too, but it was in the trunk, and soon she would’ve to ask him to go out for a second to let her change.
“I can make sure no one tries to come in,” he said casually, as if he read her mind. Marlene blushed slightly, but thanked him anyway for the kind gesture and hurried as much as possible to put on the white shirt and the grey pleated skirt. When he returned, he did everything he could not to say anything, and perhaps not to embarrass her, or maybe because he didn’t know how to kindly put the concept into words, he just reached out into the small corridor between their seats to straighten her robe.
“Thanks,” she replied, still stiff for the surprising touch.
“My parents say appearance matters,” he explained, a faint blush unravelling from his ears to the pointy cheekbones. “They say it gets people to form a better idea of you.”
“And what to you think of me?” she asked, unable to quench her famous curiosity.
“You are kind, but that has nothing to do with appearance,” he replied, after which silence fell again in the cabin, but this time less uncomfortable. Out of the window, it was getting dark, mountains and forests covered in a deep purple tinge. The train slowed down, a voice echoing through the corridor warning the students they were going to reach Hogwarts in five minutes, and instructing them to leave their luggage behind, for they would be taken to school separately. Marlene’s stomach lurched with nerves, and the boy seemed even paler than when he entered the cabin. Cramming their pockets with the last sweets, they joined the crowd waiting to spill out onto the tiny sidewalk, and just when she thought she was going to fall face first on the concrete, she felt a bony hand tighten in hers. Shivering, she regained her balance, but her companion didn’t let go until they reached some sort of half-giant calling for first-year students. Slipping and stumbling, they followed him down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path, darkness on either side, the silence broken only by a couple sniffles coming from a short boy a few heads ahead.
“Beyond this curve, you’ll have your first sight of Hogwarts,” the hairy man explained, but his words were drowned out by a chorus of astonishment. The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake, a vast castle with many turrets and towers perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky.
“No more than four per boat!” their guide called, pointing to a little fleet sitting in the water by the shore. Marlene and the pale boy were followed by two other guys, one with thick glasses, who said his name was James, and the other with a scarred face, who said his name was Remus.
“Everyone in?” shouted the half-giant, who had a whole boat to himself. When he received univocal approval, the little fleet glided across the glass-smooth lake, the children silently staring at the great castle towering overhead. As they reached the cliff, they descended into a dark tunnel unfolding below the school’s foundations, their sail ending abruptly in an underground harbour; clambering out onto rocks and pebbles, the students followed their guide’s lamp up a flight of stone steps and finally crowded around the huge, oaken front door, where a tall, black-haired witch clad in emerald awaited. She had a very stern face, and Marlene thought she wasn’t someone you would want to cross. Behind her, the big entrance hall was lit with flaming torches, the ceiling too high to make out, a magnificent marble staircase leading to the upper floors. Hundreds of voices could be heard behind a door to the right, but the woman escorted them into a small, empty chamber off the hall.
“Welcome to Hogwarts,” said the Professor, “I’m Minerva McGonagall, the school’s vice-principal and Transfiguration teacher. The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into one of the four houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin, each of them with a noble history and outstanding former alumni. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you’re here, your house will be something like a family: you’ll share classes, dormitory and the Common Room, and your success and rule-breaking will impact your house points, based on which we assign the House Cup. In a few minutes, the rest of the school will see their possible new housemates, so I suggest to smarten up as much as possible, and be quietly ready for my return.”
“How exactly do they sort us?” asked a girl with auburn hair. She was very pretty, with enchanting green eyes and a fair complexion worthy of a porcelain doll. She was waiting next to a black-haired boy, his nose hunched and dark, small eyes to make his face vaguely unpleasant.
“They use the Sorting Hat,” Marlene replied, more on a natural reflex, having a younger sister, than out of desire to prove she was well versed in the subject. “It’s a pointed wizard hat, patched and frayed and extremely dirty, but it speaks, and it’s never wrong. You just have to put it on when Professor McGonagall calls your name and when it shouts your house, you have to go sit at the right table, or at least that’s what my brother told me.”
The process was really that simple, as well as helpful in finding out the pale boy’s name. With him, the hat took its time, apparently indecisive, but Marlene assumed it was because Sirius Black was only the second student to wear it and because he was really good at hiding both his qualities and flaws. In the end, he was sorted into Gryffindor, just like Lily Evans, the red-haired girl, and Remus Lupin, after which came her turn. The last thing Marlene saw before the hat dropped over her eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at her. Next second, its lining was all her world.
“Difficult,” said a small voice in her ear. “Very difficult. I see plenty of courage, and not a bad mind either. There’s talent and a nice thirst to prove yourself. You’re an interesting girl, so where shall I put you?”
Marlene gripped the edge of the stool, and thought as hard as she could she would’ve liked to be in Gryffindor, like every other person she spoke to.
“Even in Slytherin you could make good friends, and your loyalty would make me lean towards Hufflepuff, but after all, questioning my judgment you proved to be a real GRYFFIDOR,” concluded the hat, shouting the last word so everyone could hear it. Shakily, she walked toward her cheering housemates and finally gave a proper look at the High Table: at the end nearest her sat the half-giant, while in the centre, on a large gold chair, the headmaster, with his long, silver hair and piercing eyes; Marlene supposed the empty seat on his left was for Professor McGonagall, and on the opposite end she saw a fat chubby with a receding hairline and a dangling double chin. He was looking straight into her eyes.
“Who is he?” she asked an older guy sitting next to her. His hair was as red as Lily’s, but his skin was covered with freckles and his eyes were a warm hazel colour.
“That’s professor Slughorn, he teaches Potions. He has a club for whoever excels in his subject, although those who have an acceptable grade but show some peculiarities are also admitted,” he explained briefly, before focusing again on the Sorting Ceremony. Severus Snape, Lily’s friend, became a Slytherin, and with that Professor McGonagall rolled up the parchment with the names and took a seat next to Professor Dumbledore, who stood up to give a small opening speech, in which reminded the students that entering the forest was forbidden for anyone who didn’t want to die a very painful death, magic couldn’t be used in the corridors between classes and Quidditch trials would begin in the second week of the term, but not for first year students.
“Now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!” he concluded with a little flick of his wand, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end. A long golden ribbon flew high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words about teachings and empty minds. Marlene didn’t feel like her head was bare and full of air, nor she liked particularly the idea of someone thinking she had flies and bits of fluff in place of her brain, but she sang softly anyway, eager to follow the Prefect out of the Great Hall and up the marble staircase. At the end of the corridor hung a portrait of a fat woman in a pink silk dress.
“Password?” she asked, and the Prefect whispered something that gave them access to the famous Common Room, a cosy, round place full of squashy armchairs. At the end of a spiral staircase, the girls found their dormitory, furnished with five four-posters hung with deep red velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up, but they all were too tired to talk about it, so they pulled on their pyjamas and fell into bed. The next morning, they discovered someone already sneaked out after curfew for a midnight duel, but although gossips were evidently fast to circulate at Hogwarts, it wasn’t known who the culprits were.
“Must’ve been older students,” Sirius told her over breakfast, and there was no further mention of the matter, although Marlene had a lot of trouble keeping her mind on the lessons for the next few days. With all the homework every teacher gave them, nobody really cared when September faded into October, but the castle started to feel like home and the subjects became more and more interesting as they mastered the basics. On Halloween morning, they woke to the delicious smell of baking pumpkin wafting through the corridors, but the best part of the day was when Professor Flitwick announced in Charms that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly, something they had all been dying to try since they’d seen him make a toad zoom around the classroom. After they were split into pairs, everyone started to swish and flick their wands, but it was harder than it seemed, the feathers they were supposed to be sending skyward still laying on the desks. To Sirius though, magic seemed to came naturally, and when his feather rose, hovering about four feet above their heads, he earned the teacher’s compliments and a couple points, a goal quickly forgotten when they saw how sumptuous the Great Hall was for the first feast of the year; a thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling, while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low, black clouds, making the candles inside the levitating pumpkins stutter. Food was already served: baked potatoes and Yorkshire puddings were piled up in long serving golden plates, while in bowls as big as Hagrid’s head lay jellied eels, fish fingers and mashed potatoes ready to be devoured by hungry students. All that goodness, however, didn’t warmed them enough to face the following day, when temperatures plummeted, as if the icy winter cloak had fallen on the school early. The grounds were covered in frost, and Hagrid could be seen from the upstairs windows taking care of the broomsticks on the Quidditch field, bundled up in a long moleskin overcoat, rabbit fur gloves, and enormous beaver skin boots. The first game would take place that Saturday, Gryffindor versus Slytherin, and if the former had won, they would’ve reached second place in the house championship. What Marlene knew about the Wizarding World’s favourite sport, she had read in her brother’s shabby copy of Quidditch Thorough the Ages, and although she learned there were seven hundred ways of committing a foul and all happened in the 1473 World Cup, she didn’t really know what to expect from a real game. In the Common Room, everyone told the most disparate experiences, but as always Sirius remained silent, not quite aloof, but without contributing to the noisy conversation. Remus didn’t seem to have much to say either, and was checking his classmates’ homework sitting on the windowsill. Illuminated by the milky light of the nearly full moon, he didn’t seem to be feeling very well, but Marlene asked nothing, despite his multiple absences in the previous months. Even Lily didn’t share everyone else’s enthusiasm, and when Marlene returned to their room, she found her sound asleep on top of the covers. Any bad moods were forgotten in the next, bright morning, and in order not to seem meddlesome, Marlene decided to mind her own business while paying special attention to her most uncomfortable friends, making sure Remus, who didn’t seem to have much appetite, eat something and Sirius, who seemed particularly distracted, didn’t forget to put on his robe before class.
“I swear I’ll give you a Remembrall for Christmas,” she joked as they hurried to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, certainly not expecting to be told that it would probably be the only gift he would receive.
“Your family doesn’t celebrate Christmas?” Marlene asked, fearing she’d made a fool of herself. She never thought the Black could be Jewish or Buddhist, mainly because in the small village where she came from no one would be offended in receiving a gift for a holiday not belonging to their religion, making it impossible to know which creed they belonged to, but probably not everyone felt the same way, and now she feared she looked racist, or at least exclusionist, a fear short lived, for Sirius reassured her his family would surely celebrate a sumptuous Christmas, just without him.
“They weren’t pleased when I was sorted into Gryffindor,” he explained, pausing for a second in front of the classroom door to catch his breath. “Someone must’ve told them the Sorting Hat stalled, and they drawn their conclusions as usual.”
“I’m too pushy if I ask what other house the Hat suggested?” she wondered, sending all precautions to hell, but above all, securing them a lecture from the teacher for being late.
“Gryffindor and Slytherin, basically my values and those of my family. What about you?” he inquired, looking at her sideways.
“It mentioned Gryffindor, Slytherin and Hufflepuff, so I can do anything but prioritize academic achievements,” she replied, a mischievous smile growing on her lips. With his strange ability to read her mind, Sirius reached out and Marlene squeezed his hand tightly before she started to run toward their first skipped class.