Remember Me

Cassandra woke and wished she hadn’t.

The knowledge that she would be starting school today drove the ghosts of the dream from her mind. Stories and memories from Debbie hadn’t prepared her for this – the nerves which consumed every cell of her body, writhing and prickling in her stomach.

She groaned and rolled out of bed, knowing that her nerves went away when she was concentrating on other things. A new sleek black trunk lay open at the foot of her bed, three-quarters full. Cassandra flung in an eagle quill as she went past, scanning her untidy room for anything else.

Debbie wasn’t awake yet, so Cassandra had no one to distract her. Breakfast. Coffee, eggs…she busied herself that way, warding off the terror.

Hogwarts. The name always made her smile. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. How often had she asked to go there, especially recently… and now she was finally going and she wasn’t excited at all.

The eggs were golden and soft by the time Debbie came down, running a weary hand through her black hair. “Oh, thanks Cass,” she smiled sleepily when a plate of scrambled eggs was held out. “How’re you feeling?”

Cassandra shrugged, placing a forkful in her mouth. “Okay. A bit nervous, but who doesn’t feel that when starting a new school?”

Debbie nodded. “John sent us an owl – it got here today. He says good luck.”

“Oh!” Cassandra poured over the parchment eagerly, reading it carefully. “He seems fine.”

“That’s what I thought.”

They both reached for their coffee, and then gasped as the hot drink hit their throats.

“Everything packed? Books, quills, ink?”

Cassandra smiled ruefully. “Almost,” she replied, dragging the word out.

“I’ll help you.”

“Thanks, Debbie.”

An hour later, the trunk was bursting with ‘essentials’ and almost impossible to close. By that time, they were running late.

“Car keys, car keys,” muttered Debbie distractedly as she rummaged through her pockets. “Car keys…”

Cassandra watched her, leaning against the open door. “You know it’d be so much easier if we Apparated.”

Debbie stared at her in shock. “But you hate Apparating!”

“Good point.” They scrambled into the car, Cassandra bouncing up and down in her seat. “Hurry up, hurry up,” she sighed as they hit a traffic jam, looking urgently at the clock. “I’m going to be a hundred by the time we reach the station, and that means you’ll be dead so I’ll have to walk.”

Debbie laughed as she overtook. “Nice to know you look on my death in such a negative manner.” She wrenched the steering wheel to the right and the car skidded into Kings Cross Station. The trunk was lifted out, spare Madam Malkin’s bags bulging with objects slung over wrists and the two of them ran onto the platforms. Debbie ran straight towards Platform 9.

“Cass, go in, get through,” she said urgently, looking at her watch. “Ten minutes!”

Cassandra hurried up, looking left and right. There was no train to be seen. Obviously it was either late or they had missed it. “Get through what?” she said cautiously.

Debbie motioned towards a brick wall. “Through the barrier, come on now. Run!”

Cassandra focused on the solid concrete structure and gasped as Debbie sprinted towards it. “Deb-“

A crowd of Muggles swarmed past and when they had moved on Debbie was gone. Cassandra blinked in shock, gazing at the floor, half expecting to see Debbie lying down rubbing her head, moaning from the collision.

“Okay,” Cassandra muttered, taking a deep breath. “Magic.”

She’d expected a normal train. She never thought she’d have to crash into a brick wall on her fist day at school.

She closed her eyes and, sucking back a scream, ran at the wall.

The collision Cassandra had expected…never came. She kept running and running but there was no sudden solidity, no harshness on her forehead. But the sounds changed. Hootings and squeaks. Wheels grating over cobbled floors. Yells and shrieks and cries.
Cassandra opened her eyes. A scarlet stream train greeted her. Around it, students and parents were gathered like wasps around honey. Farewells and laughter as children clambered on board and leant out for goodbye kisses, or sprinted down the corridors to greet their friends.

Debbie appeared at her shoulder. “Cass, come on. The train leaves in five minutes.”

They wove between families, pushed the new trunk onto the Hogwarts Express and stepped down onto the platform, suddenly feeling very awkward with each other.

Cassandra was the first one to react. “Bye,” she said, avoiding Debbie’s eyes and made to dart away when Debbie’s hand caught her shoulder.

“Come here,” Debbie smiled, pulling Cassandra in for a hug. “You have a good time, Cass.”

Cassandra fidgeted uncomfortably, pulling away as soon as possible. “See you.” She boarded the train, leaned out to wave once to Debbie, and then pulled her trunk along the corridor.

The train was full of students chattering in loud voices, and Cassandra was gradually giving up all hope of finding an empty compartment. As she passed by another full carriage she gritted her teeth. She would just have to barge in. Preferably not a full one…

Her eyes fell on four people who were sat in a compartment, laughing at some joke. It was the emptiest one Cassandra had seen in a long time.

“Hello,” she smiled, opening the door and walking in. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

She raised her eyebrows at how quiet the little compartment had gone after her entrance. A girl with long red hair nodded.

“Thanks.” She swung her trunk up into the luggage area and got comfy. Still there was silence.

“Carry on,” Cassandra grinned, taking a copy of Witch Weekly out of an orange plastic bag and flipping it open, holding it up so it covered her face. “Pretend I’m not here or something.”

“You’ve got a Wrackspurt in your brain.”

Cassandra froze and lowered the magazine. “Me?” she asked, addressing a girl with long dirty blonde hair, much like Cassandra’s own.

“Yes.”

“A what?”

“Wrackspurt.”

“A what?”

“Wrackspurt.”

“Which is?”

“An invisible creature. They fly inside your ear and make your brain go all fuzzy.”

Cassandra rubbed her ear self-consciously. “That’s what comes of not studying Care of Magical Creatures,” she said. “You don’t buy Wrackspurt repellent.”

A slightly pudgy boy let out a nervous laugh. The ginger girl sniggered, scratching her nose with a quill.

Cassandra stared, puzzled at them all, until her gaze fell upon a boy dressed in a baggy sweater and jeans three sizes too big for him, with round glasses and messy black hair. A faint stirring of recognition appeared in the back of her mind, but she ignored it. It was probably the Wrackspurt.

As she disappeared behind the magazine again, the four of them began talking. The two boy’s conversation revolved around OWL results, bringing back a wave of unpleasant memories of test papers, examinations and the old hairy face of the witch who examined Cassandra. The train chugged along merrily for some time, prompting inescapable boredom from Cassandra, who had already reread Witch Weekly three times. It was when the sweet trolley had came and went that she began to talk more to the other students.
“So you’re all in the same year?”

The pudgy boy shook his head. “Me and Harry are in sixth, and Ginny and Luna are in fifth.”
Cassandra brightened. “Same here! I’m a sixth-year too.”

The boy called Harry frowned. “Oh! You’re the transfer student we saw in Diagon Alley.”

That was true. She could recollect him now, his embarrassed face as his red-headed friends shouted at her. “Mmm,” Cassandra replied with less enthusiasm. “I remember.”
Harry’s cheeks darkened as she turned her penetrating gaze on him. Serve him right. He hadn’t made his friend apologise.

It was as his dark head dropped slightly that his fringe was cleared off his forehead, and Cassandra had to stifle a gasp. A lightning-bolt scar was etched upon his face. Half-remembered passages from books ran across her mind… There has only been one known survivor of the Killing Curse… The banisher of the darkest of wizards…defeated The Dark Lord, but it is a mystery how….

“Oh my God,” Cassandra said, and her tone implied shock and a faint note of disgust at the red scar. “You’re Harry Potter.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“You go to school?”

“Yeah,” Harry replied, frowning.

“Oh.” Cassandra couldn’t take her eyes off his scar. “I thought you just ran around fighting Death Easters.”

Again, the red-haired girl laughed. “Yes he does.”

Cassandra made the connections. “The ministry?”

“Uh-huh.”

Cassandra’s eyes darted back to Harry, and noticed that he looked far from happy. His hands were clenched into fists in his lap and his mouth was thin, forced into a straight line.
“You were all there!” She recognised them all now, Luna Lovegood, Ginevra Weasley, Neville Longbottom…she had seen their pictures in the Daily Prophet, read the story.

“What happened?”

All of their faces shut down, obviously unwilling to talk.

“Oh. Okay.”

The door opened and a girl with bushy brown hair stalked in, followed by a gangly red-headed boy.

“Blimey, the first-years have some nerve.” His blue eyes fell on Cassandra, who raised her eyebrows.

“Only first-years aren’t able to stand still.” Cassandra said, mimicking the assistant’s voice again. “Maybe first-years have more similarities with you than you realise.”

She sank back into a corner and watched the darkening sky, closing her ears to the loud voices the compartment was full of.