Cold

The train ride was something I was both dreading and anticipating. Stereotypically, it’s the kind of place where you’re supposed to meet your new best friend or lover or something, which would be exciting. But while I wasn’t shy or anything, I didn’t particularly feel like interacting with people all the time. So with this all in mind, my goal was simply to meet up with someone who I got along well enough with to show me the ropes when we arrived at the school. Eyeing a compartment with students that appeared to be my age, I made a beeline for the doorway.

“Is it ok if I sit with you guys? I’m a transfer student and I don’t know anybody yet.”

“Of course,” a female with strawberry blonde hair said, her face beaming.

I smiled at her and placed my bag in the cubby under the seats, plopping myself down as if it’d been the roughest day of my life.

“So what exactly is your accent?” asked a boy across from me. He had large eyes and freckled cheeks, making him appear unusually adorable.

“It’s French. I’m from Beauxbatons.”

“Beauxbatons?” his face lit up. “You guys came two years ago for the Triwizard Tournament! You weren’t in the group that came, right?”

“Yeah, it was only eligible and willing students that went. The rest of us stayed behind and waited for updates.”

We chatted about a whole lot of nothing and snacked on the trolley treats we’d bought for a little while before I had to ask the girl, whose name was Rooney, something I’d been curious about since I found out I was moving to Hogwarts. “What’s Harry Potter like?” I felt a bit silly asking, but they’d been calling him the Chosen One in the papers for weeks and I had to know more.

She smiled knowingly. “He’s actually pretty normal. I mean he’s always at the center of all of the school’s problems, but aside from that he’s really kind. I’m not in Gryffindor so I don’t know him well or anything, but I’ve seen him around and I have friends that know him.”

“Which house are you in?”

“Ravenclaw!” the boy, Gus, hooted excitedly, “the best one there is!”

“So I suppose that’s the house I should wish for?” I laughed.

“Absolutely,” Rooney said with a definitive nod of her head.

“I hear Slytherin is the worst,” I prompted.

“I think it’s just that it’s hard to be a Slytherin. Like, if Malfoy doesn’t like you, you’d be better off going to Durmstrang.”

“Malfoy?”

Gus piped in, “Yeah, Draco Malfoy. He’s a Slytherin prefect and the seeker for the Quidditch team. Thinks he’s a right king.”

“Be sure to point him out to me, then. I’ll try and avoid him,” I said with a laugh, though I was undeniably a bit excited just to see what kind of man went with a name as sexy as that. Draco Malfoy. I felt as if I’d heard it before. I conveyed this feeling to them.

“You probably have. His dad got sent to Azkaban recently,” Rooney nearly whispered as if she didn’t dare to be heard talking about it, “And I personally think he’s up to something himself. He always seemed like the guy who’d be scheming something big.”

Gus chimed in, “I’d say as much. He’s probably plotting his next terror on Potter.”

“I don’t know. He’s a dodgy bloke. I could see him getting into more trouble than that. I’ll reckon he’s getting bored of poor old Harry anyhow.”

“He’s got something against Harry Potter? What for?” I quizzed.

“I don’t think anyone knows, exactly. It’s always just been that way. Though Harry’s a bit of the reason his dad went to Azkaban. He might have it out more for him now,” Gus answered.

Rooney scowled a bit. “I just wish he hadn’t such a bloody perfect face. It’d be easier to hate him. As he is now, if I’m around him I’ll be thinking more about how I must look like a total frog to him rather than how much of an arse he is.”

I laughed at that, “A total frog? You’ve got a beautiful face.”

She scoffed, but smiled a bit, “Thanks, but it’s hard to take that from someone who looks like you do. I mean how come your face is so perfect without any makeup?”

“It’s a charm,” I stated with a shrug.

“Ok, I’m just gonna pretend that wasn’t totally conceited because I actually like you so far,” she rolled her eyes and smirked.

“No, literally. It’s a charm,” I pulled out my wand and with a tiny flick and the words “vrai venustas” her lips and cheeks had a little more rosiness to them and her eyelashes darkened. She was absolutely wide-eyed as she felt the changes occur, “It enhances your most beautiful features without making you look like a git with a ton of makeup.”

Slowly, a wide grin appeared on Gus’s face, “Blimey! You look incredible!”

With another quick twist of my wand, I made a mirror appear in front of her face so she could see the difference. Her lips curled up from ear-to-ear. “How do you like me now, Malfoy?” she joked, making faces at her reflection. “You’ve got to show me how you did that.”

For the next few hours, I proceeded to teach them the beauty charm as well as several other nifty ones they never taught in school. My French friends and I had even made a few of our own as a gag. I found that these two students were quite fun to be around and I began to hope I’d be sorted into Ravenclaw with them. I wondered what house that blonde boy was in. He seemed like a Slytherin. Understandably, this made me want to be a Slytherin as well, even though they said it was the worst. I’d rather have that Draco boy dislike me than not be around whomever that was I saw at the platform.

He was surely on the train, and I longed to exit the compartment and search for him, but I figured it would’ve been very awkward and unusual for me to go hunting about for a person I didn’t even know. I considered asking Rooney and Gus about him, but I figured they go on with questions of why I wanted to know and I truly didn’t feel that I should flaunt whatever he and I shared earlier. It seemed too intimate to me and they were the type of people that would just get too enthusiastic over it.

At last, the train stopped at “Hogsmeade Station” as I believed it was called. Slowly but surely, we all filed out. As I was technically a first year, I was told I would be riding the boats to school with a man named Hagrid. Gus and Rooney both gave me hugs, telling me they’d make sure to look for me at the Welcoming Feast. To my amusement, they both attempted yet still completely butchered the French farewell ‘au revoir’.

Hagrid was an easy find as he was massive, both in height and general size. He held a lantern up high so that we’d all flock to him like moths. Noticeably taller than the other first years, he spotted me out like a sore thumb and smiled warmly. “Ah, ye must be Victoire DeLavergne! Did I say that right?”

“You did quite well,” I grinned back. He seemed very genuine for such an oaf-like appearance. Such goes to show you must never judge.

He began to give us a little introduction, but I suddenly became preoccupied by a quiet flapping sound, and when my eyes followed the noise, I barely caught all the blinds hastily being shut in one of the far train cars. How peculiar, I had thought. Within seconds, a light flashed from what I assumed was a spell. It caused the whole train car to tremble slightly partnered with a loud thump, as if something had been dropped. At this time, Hagrid had finished his speech and began to scan the area in order to check for missing first years.

To my surprise, the door of the train car flew open and the pale blonde boy stepped out in a rather cautious manner, flicking his head in both directions to check for onlookers. I was so deeply invested in trying to figure out what this boy was all about that when Hagrid spoke I nearly jumped out of my shoes, “Aye, a secretive one, that boy.”

I turned to him; he must have seen him, too. Here was my chance. “Who was that?”

“Name’s Draco Malfoy. Always seems t'be up to something.”

I was shocked to put two and two together, but I can’t say that I was all that surprised that this Draco guy was precisely the one of whom I’d developed an intense interest. He looked just as fiendish as they described him. Yet I’d seen that dreadful flicker in his eyes at the platform and I had every intention of uncovering every piece of this mysterious stranger. What caused that sad look? And why did he come storming off of the train in such shady way? I was going to find out. Slytherin, here I come, I thought.