This Animal I've Become

The ride up to Hogwarts was a long one. The train left the station at 11 o’ clock sharp in the morning and would not arrive until about five thirty in the afternoon. Most of the students had catching up to do with each other, so the time had passed by rather quickly. Peter had told his friends about his trip to Scotland. He told them about how he was bored half the time and tried to play pranks on his relatives. They didn’t take the pranking too well. He had also been forced to babysit five of the younger children (his cousins) ranging from the ages 3 to 8 for two whole days by himself. He was actually quite surprised that his relatives has trusted him with looking out over the children. They rarely even trusted him alone with their children for an afternoon.

During the ride, while Remus had gone to the Prefects meeting, Sirius and James had managed to set off a dungbomb in one of the Slytherin compartments, which had six of the older, tougher Slytherins in them. Luckily for James and Sirius, before the Slytherins had a chance to retaliate, the Prefects were out of their meeting and patrolling the train. The two boys had reunited with Remus quickly shortly after. The chances of the Slytherin boys getting detention within the very first few hours of going to school from retaliation were high, seeing as there was no proof that it was in fact James and Sirius who had planted the dungbombs in the first place.

Throughout the rest of the ride, Sirius, James, and Remus were telling both Peter and Addie about their adventures together during the few weeks that they had had off after the end of their previous year. One story was about when James and Sirius were trying to see how high they could get, while on their brooms, and jump into James’ pool without getting hurt. Needless to say, Mrs. Potter came home to the groaning James holding his ankles in pain from slamming into the shallow end of the pool. Neither had known where the first aid kit filled with potions was, so they had decided to wait out the hour until James’ mother came home to heal his twisted ankles.

The four boys also told Addie all they could about Hogwarts. They had obviously left out many of the secrets they knew about like: the secret passageways out of the castle, that there was a passageway underneath the Whomping Willow, where the kitchens were (the less amount of people who knew it was there, the better for them), and the Room of Requirement which they had only found the previous year by chance.

“Ed and Ricky are good guys,” Sirius said from beside Addie, “But their two other friends are the ones you have to look out for.”

“To put it nicely: they’re arseholes,” James inserted, looking up from his game of Exploding Snap with Peter, who sat to his right.

“Hooper and Russell are full of themselves,” Sirius clarified. “They can’t help but brag about everything. It’s annoying as fuck.” He then carried on in a higher pitched voice, “Look everyone I got the latest Quidditch gloves from Romania. I sat near the Minister during the World Cup with Puddlemere versus the Harpies. I got an O on the hardest Transfiguration test of the year.”

“They’re pretty stuck up for Ravenclaws,” James commented.

“And that’s saying something,” Sirius admitted. “Most of them think they’re the shit at school anyway. I mean, what are we? Flobberworms? James and I are just as smart as most of them are anyway; Remus is even smarter. The only difference between them and us is our modesty.” He then threw Addie a cheeky grin which Addie couldn’t help but laugh at.

During their discussion there had been quite a few interruptions to greet the Marauders, Addie was sure that ninety percent of them were girls. And out of those ninety percent, only ten percent had greeted someone other than Sirius or James. Addie could tell that Remus didn’t mind too much, but she could see that Peter was a little agitated by the fact that he was hardly ever noticed. The final ten percent were boys who mainly praised Sirius and James on their dungbombs and then introduced themselves to the new girl, Addie. She had gotten a little annoyed by the fact that a least half of them were eyeing her like a piece of meat. Two of these boys were Johnny and Paul who were accompanied by Ed. Johnny and Paul behaved as Sirius had described, trying to impress her, whereas Ed just wanted to make sure that she was doing okay with the Marauders.

Out of all the girls who had stopped by the compartment, giggling and batting their eyelashes at the two boys, one of them had stood out among the rest. She made Remus squirm in his seat, not from excitement, but as if he was trying to hide from her. The girl was no taller than five foot three, with straight, dirty blonde hair and eyes that were a warm brown color. She had a skinny, yet almost curvaceous body. The pretense in thinking that she was curvy was actually just her chest, which was larger than the rest of her body deemed it should be, making her seem a little top heavy. The girl wore a short skirt and a blouse that dipped low into her chest. Despite wanting to, Addie admitted that this girl was pretty.

She didn’t pay any attention to Addie or Peter as she gave Sirius and James both flirty smiles and greeted them by saying, “Hi, Sirius, James.” Sirius gave her his own signature smile and a wink in return whereas James just smiled and nodded. The girl turned towards Remus and gave him the same flirty smile she had given Sirius and James, but greeted him a little differently. “Nice to see you again, Remus,” she said, then bit her bottom lip. Addie had to turn her head and clamp a hand over her mouth from laughing out loud. This girl had no shame.

Remus smiled back in what almost appeared to be a grimace. “You too, Clara,” he choked out. The girl, Clara, smiled once more at him before turning and walking away.

As soon as the girl was gone, Addie had busted out in a fit laughing, not being able to hold it in any longer. She was glad to know that she wasn’t the only one, everyone except Remus had joined in on the laughter. He sat there next to the window, across from Addie, red from embarrassment.

“Was that for real?” Addie managed to say after her laughter had settled down.

“You’ve just met Clara Knotting, Remus’ number one admirer,” James laughed, slipping his arm around Remus’ shoulders and giving him a small shake.

“Too bad Remus hates her guts!” Sirius boasted, still laughing along with James.

“Remus hating somebody?” Addie asked rhetorically a playful smile upon her face. “That hardly seems possible.”

“She’s one of the few,” Remus grumbled slouching in his seat, his mood dropping quickly.

“She’s been after Remus since the beginning of last year,” Peter explained with a smile.

“Clara can be quite the bitch sometimes,” Sirius then said. “Other times she’s okay. But she hasn’t let up on our Remmy, even after he told her ‘no’.”

“I told her that I wasn’t interested,” Remus explained looking exasperated. “It’s like she can’t take a hint. Multiple, large, hints.” Remus sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. The rest of the compartment laughed at his claims.

“Doesn’t that sound like someone else we know?” Sirius implied grinning at James. The other three had looked at James and laughed.

“What?” James asked clueless as to what Sirius was saying. When it finally dawned on him, he glared at Sirius and tried kicking him the leg, but only managed to scrape along his calf. “Bastard.”

“Well, I know one thing,” Addie mused after their laughter had subsided, her arms crossed over her chest and one of her hands’ fingers mindlessly playing with the necklace that could be seen due to her v-neck shirt. The boys looked at her to continue. She directed her comment at Remus, “You two would look ridiculous. You’d practically have to fall over to kiss her.” Her comment had started a new round of laughter as Remus couldn’t help but chuckle along at the thought of the large height difference between them. He supposed that it would look quite ridiculous of someone’s Remus’ height at six and a half feet to be kissing someone who was two heads shorter than himself.

When the trolley had stopped by halfway through the ride, Addie didn’t know what anything was. The boys had a fun time trying to tell her what all the candy was, even tricking her into believing an earwax flavored bean was actually a caramel one. She didn’t eat much of wizarding sweets back home, usually only the muggle kind (if she did eat any at all). She found that the pumpkin pastries were not as good as the cauldron cakes, and that she didn’t like the fact that the chocolate frogs were charmed. Addie, being someone who rarely ate any kind of candy besides chocolate, found that she rather enjoyed eating the sweets.

The rest of the ride was rather uneventful. Besides Peter beating mostly everyone at Exploding Snap and everyone accusing him of cheating, there was not much to be excited about. Addie spent a lot of the time looking out of the window at the scenery that flew by. Remus was reading a book titled A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions while James read over his shoulder whenever he had gotten bored of playing Exploding Snap with Peter before leaving to look for Lily Evans. Sirius had taken to walking down along the compartments, trying to flirt with the girls. Peter was the only one who had fallen asleep, taking over Sirius’ spot beside Addie and stretching his across the seat as best as he could in the small space.

Near the end of the ride, the group had gotten changed into their robes. When Addie had returned to the compartment with her robe slung over her arm, Sirius didn’t miss the fact that Addie’s skirt only reached a little below half way down her thighs, which still kept some modesty intact. The fact that she was taller than most girls caused the skirt to look absurdly long on her, so she had used magic in the bathroom to cut off most of the end and then sew itself back up so that it didn’t look frayed.

“Sexy legs there, Ferrari,” Sirius commented with a wink while grinning and eyeing her legs after she opened up the compartment door. The other three boys had turned their heads to the door to see that she had indeed changed the length of the skirt. All of them had been in the shop when Addie was getting fitted for her robes, and the skirt, at the time, had reached the top of her knees. The new length had shown off her thin, perfectly toned legs. Half of Addie’s body was all legs, giving her the leggy look.

As Addie looked down at her legs, Sirius had turned to looked at his friends; they too were all staring at her legs. Not a lot of girls had the guts to change the length of their skirts (in fear of being reprimanded by a teacher) or had the want to change the length, so seeing a good pair of shapely legs of a girl in robes was not a common occurrence to the boys. It was normal to see James and Peter staring, but Remus was a different case. He usually had the decency to look away or give Sirius a disapproving look, but he too was staring at her legs.

“You even have Remus staring at you,” Sirius teased looking from Addie to a now slightly gaping and blushing Remus. “He never stares. I was beginning to wonder if he even knew what a good pair of legs even looked like.” Remus had scoffed before glaring at Sirius, the blush never leaving his cheeks.

Addie had blushed lightly as well and sighed before giving Sirius a light push on the shoulder as she moved past him. “Leave him alone,” Addie chastised as she took her original seat across from Remus and crossed her legs, drapping her black robe across her lap.

Remus stole another glance at her legs and had noticed that she had also had freckles splattered across her knees and thighs, but not as much her face and shoulders. His thoughts then trailed off to wondering where else she may have freckles. He was reminded of the freckles on her face that trailed off, down her slender neck and across her shoulders, and lightly dipped down into her cleavage. Remus heaved a sigh. It was almost as if she was dangling herself in front of him. She was practically screaming, I have the most luscious scent and the perfect body. I’m smart and beautiful. Don’t you want me? Oh wait, you can look, but you can’t touch, because you’re a bloody, fucking werewolf. Remus stopped himself before getting himself too worked up and grabbed his book to take his mind of the girl sitting in front of him.

“I feel like I’m being sent off to catholic school in these; like I’m some sort of prude,” Addie complained her arms flopping beside her. “I hate uniforms…and robes for that matter.”

“They aren’t all that bad,” James said before looking down at himself. “They’re good for smuggling Firewhiskey and hiding dungbombs,” he then claimed with wide grin.

It wasn’t too much longer until they had arrived at the Hogsmeade station. The boys escorted Addie, who had finally put on the robe, towards the carriages, telling her that she didn’t need to go with the first years. Besides, she would have looked like a monster compared to the younger kids.

“Did you see that one girl?” Addie asked looking back at the barely five foot first year and then glancing at the boys around her. “I don’t think she even reached my waist.”

“Now you know how I feel,” Remus commented from beside her.

Addie laughed before looking up at him slightly, “You must feel like a fucking giant. Do they look like ants to you?”

He gave her a wry smile, “A little bit, yeah.”

“Remus literally ran over one last year,” James said, laughing at the memory. “He must’ve apologized to the poor kid at least fifty times.”

“I didn’t see him at all,” Remus complained. “They should carry signs or something.”

“Whoa,” Addie all of the sudden said, coming to a stop. Ahead of them stood the carriages being pulled by Thestrals. “You guys have Thestrals?” she asked with a hint of excitement in her voice as she looked at the boys. Sirius was the only ones out of the four boys who could see the dark, winged creatures.

“You see them?” Sirius asked as to which Addie nodded. Thoughts flowing through the four teenage boys’ brains as to whom she may have seen die.

“I’ve never come across one in the U.S.,” she replied as she took the lead in weaving around other students, her luggage narrowly missing other students along the way. The four she had left behind glanced at each other, secretly asking for an explanation, before shrugging their shoulders and following behind her.

When the Marauders had reached Addie, they were brought upon the sight of the girl clutching at the sight of something in mid-air while Sirius was wondering why she would even want to go near those creatures in the first place. A few of the other students who had seen her do this looked upon her in the same fashion.

“Addie,” Sirius addressed her warily, “Are you sure that’s such a great idea?”

Addie looked over to Sirius with a smile on her face, her hands not moving from petting the Thestral’s long nose. “Don’t you know anything about your Magical Creatures?” she asked with a tiny smile. “Thestrals are harmless…for the most part at least.” She then turned back to the creature, and unbeknownst to the boys, her eyes had glowed softly. She then asked it softly, “You wouldn’t hurt anyone would you?”

“Do you think she’s all of a sudden turned barmy?” James asked Sirius, his eyes never leaving the girl.

Having heard the question, Addie glanced over to James, a small smile weaving its way onto her lips, before petting the Thestral for last time and saying, “Don’t judge a book upon its cover, James.” She walked towards the boys and nodded toward the carriage, “Come on, I wanna see the castle.”

They fell back into a normal conversation as they stowed away their trunks, climbed into the carriage, and headed up to the school. Addie continued to look outside, loving the view of the dark, looming castle in the background. The others were telling her of their first time upon seeing the castle on the boats as first years. Peter had almost fallen out into the lake upon trying to get in the boat, Remus had no other kids in his boat who had jeopardized his safety, and Sirius and James were trying to get their boat to move faster by rocking the boat. She rarely took her eyes off the scenery, and the boys didn’t blame her, knowing it was a sight to be seen for the first time.

In no time at all, they had arrived at the castle and Addie had followed her new friends into the large building, leaving their trunks behind for the house elves to move.

“This place is gorgeous,” she had whispered.

“I know, right?” James had replied from beside her. Addie looked over and nodded at him. As soon as they had stepped into the castle James told Addie, “Welcome to Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.” She grinned at him as the group moved along with the crowd into the Great Hall.

“Wow,” she murmured as she looked up at the ceiling. To make sure that she wouldn’t bump into anyone, she had absentmindedly grabbed onto the sleeve of one of the boys, still looking upwards.

Remus was the one she had latched onto, seeing how he was just in front of her. He had turned around to see who was grabbing onto his robes, ready to speak, but his lips curved into a smile as he saw Addie looking up at the ceiling in awe. He continued to let her hold on as he lead her to the far end of the Great Hall to where the Gryffindors sat. Remus and Sirius always sat on the side where their backs would be against the wall as James and Peter sat on the side where their backs would be towards the other students and tables. The seating arrangement had been unconsciously set during their second year after their group had settled with each other quite nicely.

Addie had slipped in between Sirius and Remus, with Remus on her left and Sirius to her right. They sat near the center of the long row of tables, which was their usual spot during the school year. It was the area that received the most attention.

“You know it’s-” Remus started to say before Addie had cut him off.

“Enchanted,” she said while nodding and turning to look at Remus. “I read that, but I didn’t think it would look this nice.” She smiled at him before looking up once again.

“Yeah,” he replied as he kept his eyes on her face and then whispered, “It’s quite something.” He quickly looked away from her and entered the conversation with his friends about the sorting this year.

Soon she had returned her eyes to level ground, glancing around at the massive amount of students, and finally drinking in the appearance of the Great Hall. Addie could see the Slytherins at the far end of the hall, the Ravenclaws sitting before them, and then the Hufflepuffs beside of the Gryffindors. She could sense eyes on her, but she figured it was because she was a new girl and was already sitting with the popular boys. The eyes innerved her; she wasn’t used to so many eyes upon her.

It wasn’t too much longer until a woman was leading in the group of first years who had varying looks of emotions; she could see that some looked excited, others scared, and some were indifferent to what was happening. The group of young students had stopped just before the teachers table where she finally spied Dumbledore sitting at the center of the long table.

In between the teachers and the first years was a stool with an old, pointed hat sitting on top of it. A few seconds after everyone had settled down, the hat had burst out into a song about Hogwarts and the houses, then had a message about banding together against darkness at the end. The boys had already filled her in on the process. It was quick and painless. Go up, put the hat on your head, and the hat will say what house you belong in; quick and easy.

It was only a matter of time before the sorting had gotten started. The boys around her were all trying to guess which house each first year get into. They had based their opinion off their looks and last name. Most of the time, they were surprisingly right.

Once they had reached the ‘S’ portion of the list, Addie had started to get even more nervous than she had been previously. Before it was an excited nervous, now it was just plain old nervous. Whenever she got nervous her leg bounced up and down quickly and her fingers on her right hand would tap upon the pads of her fingertips in a seemingly random sequence.

Remus had noticed the change in Addie’s behavior since she was in his peripherals when looking towards the front of the hall. “Nervous?” Remus whispered to Addie. Addie had jumped slightly at the acknowledgement and then nodded slowly while running a hand through her hair and re-tossing her hair to the side. “Don’t worry you’ll be fine,” he assured. “You’ll get into a good house.”

Addie was not nervous about the sorting, she had already known which house she was getting into, it was the fact that she was going to be up in front of so many people is what was making her nervous. She heaved a sigh. “I’m more nervous about going up there than the actual sorting,” she replied in a whisper. “I’m not used to being in front of so many people.”

Remus nodded in understanding before patting and rubbing her shoulder. “Just think that you’re in a large empty room. We aren’t even here,” he chuckled. She gave him a nervous smile before nodding in thanks.

Once the last first year had gotten sorted, Professor Dumbledore had stood up from his throne-like chair. People who didn’t know about Addie’s presence were expecting a short welcome speech before getting to eat, but instead he had said in a loud voice, “This year, I am pleased to announce the admittance of a new student. I know that Hogwarts does not usually accept new students who are not first years, but I have made in exception in her case. Attending Hogwarts for the first time as a sixth year I wish for her to be treated kindly and respectfully, just like you would any other student. She hails from America, being home-schooled for all of her magical education and, in my opinion, she is quite the talented witch. Please welcome Miss Adelaide Ferrari.”

There was a polite round of applause. Addie nervously stood up from her seat as the boys whispered a good luck to her. As she made her way down the aisle, she kept her head up, her stride unbreakable and any emotions away from her face. The claps had died away, along with a wolf-whistle from Sirius and another boy who had seen her on the train earlier, as she made her way up the few steps towards the stool that stood in the center of the room.

Addie met eyes with Dumbledore and gave him a subtle nod before facing the students and sitting upon the stool. She once again crossed her legs, her long legs reaching the ground easily unlike the first years that had climbed upon the seat to be able to sit down. Addie took a deep breath as the middle-aged woman with graying brown hair that was tied up in a bun, placed the hat upon her head. Addie kept her face blank and her focus upon the large wooden doors of the Great Hall.

Most of the students had expected a quick shout from the hat and others were impatiently waiting for her to be done so that they could start the feast. But after a minute or so, the Marauders had started to get a bit worried. Addie sat underneath the sorting hat, almost like a statue. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was breathing, blinking, and occasionally biting her lips, many would’ve questioned her consciousness.

The boys had noticed that Dumbledore was intently staring at the girl before him, his gaze staying fixed upon the back of her head. They had never seen Dumbledore so interested on a student’s sorting, besides Remus’ during their first year. This had also gotten the boys worried about her. It obviously didn’t take this long for any of the other students. Many of the teens could not remember a single student that had taken this long during the sorting. She was bordering on three minutes.

“What do you suppose is taking so long?” James whispered. The other three shrugged their shoulders.

A few seconds later, the hat shouted a house name, the one name the Marauders didn’t want to hear come out from the hat.

“Slytherin!”