❦ 𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐀𝐇 𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐊𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐓 ❦

"Have a good ride," Aldo Lockhart tells his three children. "Make sure to put your uniforms on about a quarter before your arrival. Sit down with decent people—"

Maurice, the youngest of all three, looks up, a hint of fear in his eyes. "How do I tell which people are decent?"

He's not the only nervous one. Even though Vesper has spent five years on a witchcraft and wizardry school, and Jannah three, this whole place is new for them. The whole country, in fact.

Due to not only Maurice's struggles with school, but also their father's work, they moved to the United Kingdom this summer. Hogwarts is their only option in whole Great Britain.

"If they wear blue ties," their mother explains.

"Or red, or yellow," Aldo adds. "But preferably blue, indeed."

Vesper rolls her eyes. "Yeah, because our whole family has been sorted in Ravenclaw, if not Horned Serpents. We know by now. Let's go, we'll be late. Bye!"

Maria cups her son's face and places a fat kiss on his forehead. The eleven-year-old does not back away. A tiny smile even forms on his face. "See you!"

"Bye, Maurice." As she looks to her oldest daughter, she gives a whole speech about making sure her siblings are okay, she gets nice grades, doesn't cause trouble, et cetera.

"And you," their father turns to Jannah. "Be careful—"

"Can we go?" She interrupts. "Give me Salem."

Sighing lightly below his breath, Aldo hands the girl her cat. It's a Bombay with the usual bright yellow eyes. "Trust me, this cat will cause you problems. Should've taken an owl."

"Too late now." Jannah takes her little brother's hand. "Come on, Maurice. Before the train is completely full."

"Write us!" Their parents command while the kids start stepping towards the Hogwarts Expr—

"Woah!" A sudden force that almost feels like a whirlwind jolts the three of them to the floor.

Fast, their father appears, grabbing whoever they bumped into by the sleeve. "Watch out during your apparition, please."

Apparition. A spell Jannah can't wait to learn and be allowed to cast. Traveling from one location to another in just a second!

Even though the man looks vaguely disgusted when Aldo touches him, he replies in a polite voice, "My apologies, sir. We were running late."

At the we, a boy reveals himself from behind the man. His brown hair is tousled across his forehead, eyes a mix of many emotions she can't seem to read. A simple white shirt hugs his torso, along with a bag.

He holds his hands out, which Vesper gladly uses to get up. As he does the same for Maurice, Jannah jumps up on her own, wiping the dust that was never really there off her jeans.

"Thank you," Maurice peeps, clearly impressed by the boy. "Are you in Hogwarts?"

He crouches down in order to reply. "Mhm. This will be my fourth year. What about yours?"

"It's my first," Maurice says. "And my sister, Vesper over there— it's her sixth year already! And Jannah's fourth, too... wait, does that mean you will be in her class?"

"Possibly. What House is she?"

"Horned Serpent."

His eyebrows scrunch. "I don't think I... what's that?"

"That was her house at Ilvermorny," Vesper hints. "Our school in the US. We moved here this summer. And we assume we'll all become Ravenclaws. Our whole family was, plus, Horned Serpents is very similar."

"Ah, I'm a Gryffindor."

"That'd be Wampus at Ilvermorny," Vesper 'translates', eyeing her brother.

The boy turns to Jannah. "I guess we'll have some classes together. It's divided—"

"—in two Houses per class, I know. Sometimes, there's an exception. We also have elective classes and I doubt we have chosen the same ones," she cuts him off. "Can we go?"

His eyebrows raise, impressed, as their talk continues. "Yeah," says Vesper. "Come on. Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad."

Both adults turn away from the man they were talking to. The one all of them assume is the boy's father. A man whose way of dressing shows the amount of money he has, and the expressions he wears how highly he thinks of himself.

"Bye," mutters the brunette boy to his father. His mood seems to brighten the second he turns away from him.

Or rather, he puts on a mask of happiness again. Jannah can tell.

Maurice stares at the boy. Instead of fear, his eyes have now gained a strong look of admiration. "Are you rich?"

"Eh." He scratches the back of his head. "I guess you can call my father rich—"

"That's inappropriate to ask, Maurice," Vesper warns.

All four of them step inside the train. Jannah takes one last look behind her before following the others. The boy's father has already vanished somewhere else. Her own parents are proudly waving them goodbye. Other parents are waving, too. Kids are walking past her.

"It's okay," says the boy. "I guess you can tell by the way he talks and dresses."

"We're rich, too," Maurice answers.

Vesper harshly shakes his shoulder. "Maurice! You cannot mention it, let alone brag about it."

"But he's rich, too. Wouldn't that make it fair?"

They pass many carriages. Most of them are full with people, no space left.

"Our parents have money," Vesper corrects, "not us."

"It's the same."

The boy, who walks at the front of the group, stops at one carriage. "Hi, guys. You have space for four more?"

"We'll barely fit three," someone inside of the carriage says.

"Oh." He turns back to the Lockhart siblings. "Eh, you guys go inside. I promise these kids are good ones. I'll find—"

"No worries. I'll go sit somewhere else," Jannah says. Before anyone can protest, she hurries off.

She'd be insane to spend her first train ride glued to her siblings, with age gaps of multiple years between them. And this boy—who weirdly enough has not told them his name—probably wanted to join a carriage with all year four kids.

Neither does she want to be glued to any of those Gryffindor kids for the rest of her year. Not only do they always try to be the good guys—like that boy did when he held out his hand and started a whole tour—but they are also reckless and too idealistic. The Wampus's at Ilvermorny proved that well enough.

Or maybe the boy was just being nice.

No. Too nice. Doing too much to get them to like him.

She stops at a carriage with plenty room for one person left. Not a single one of them is wearing a tie yet, so no one will be able to blame her if she 'gets along with the wrong people'.

"Hi. Do you have any room left for me?"

A short silence falls. All five of them look up and down at her, not hiding that they're somewhat inspecting her. Then they share a glance.

"Sure," says one of them. "What's your name? House? Age?"

"Jannah."

"Jannah what?"

Her cheeks gain a color. "Lockhart. But I promise I'm not as egocentric as some of my family members."

"Hm. Interesting." One of the two girls tilts her head to the side.

"I haven't been sorted yet. This is my first year at Hogwarts. I was at Ilvermorny before this."

"And this is your..."

"—fourth year," she confirms, sitting down by the sliding door. The second she does, the Asian boy across from her closes it. "And you guys?"

The boy who closed the door crosses his arms, flexing the muscles that are highly impressive for someone not very old-looking. "Minho Lee. We're all in Slytherin here. Also our fourth year."

That's not red or yellow, and especially not blue.

On the other side, how big was the chance she came across a whole group of people who aren't Gryffindors and in the same year as her?

She doesn't believe in destiny, but it's... something.

"I'm Brenda Vos," says one of the girls. Her dark hair barely makes it past her ears, and it fits her perfectly. Large, golden earrings in her ears, matching with the golden chain around her neck. "That's Harriet."

"Hi," greets the other girl, voice raspy in a way that makes Jannah's heart stop a beat. Her hair is done into beautiful dreadlocks. Some of them have jewelry intertwined with them, from swirls to tiny snakes.

The dark-skinned boy with his buzzed hair next to Harriet waves. "Alby."

"And I'm Gally," says the last boy, a dark blonde one, hair almost as short as Alby's. "So it's your first year at Hogwarts, you said?"

Jannah nods. "Mhm."

"Well," Minho shifts in his seat until he is comfortably manspreading, "might as well introduce you to everything important that the head of the school for sure won't tell you."

Her eyebrows fly up in curiosity.

"First of all," Brenda begins, "your House doesn't define you—"

"It does," Minho interrupts.

"No, it doesn't. It depends on how you act."

"Exactly," he points out. "We act the best, so we're Slytherins."

Harriet rolls her eyes. "Don't mind him. He indeed thinks he's the best."

"And he literally has friends all over Hogwarts, who aren't Slytherins," Gally adds.

"Whatever." Brenda clears her throat. Her eyes take Jannah in once again. Her blue button-up, showing off the upper part of her top below it. Low-rise jeans. "Next, remain Janson's friend."

"He tends to hate everyone who isn't a Slytherin. Even us Slytherins have a hard time being accepted by him."

"And he's the head of our House, so you want to keep him as a friend."

She shrugs. "My family expects me to be a Ravenclaw and every ancestor of mine has been a Ravenclaw. I highly doubt I'll become a Slytherin."

"You never know."

"What else do we tell her? Do you have any siblings?"

"Two. My little brother is eleven and my sister is sixteen."

"From now on, stay out of their way. It's embarrassing to linger around them."

Just like she had thought.

"Don't take that too seriously, though," Harriet quickly chimed in. "Gally here did, and he nearly caused his family to throw his brother out of the house."

"That's not true—"

Harriet interjects with a smirk, while Gally leans forward with a flush face. "Don't worry. You just didn't want to live in his shadow."

Gally shakes his head, but doesn't reply and turns to Jannah. "Anyway, just don't make a big deal out of any family ties or shit like that. It's better to be your own person."

That's exactly what she has always wanted to be. She likes books, but does that immediately mean she has to be a Ravenclaw like her whole family? She has opinions she's not allowed to reveal, unless they're polite— they're not. She doesn't hate school, but neither does she enjoy it as much as Vesper seems to do, or how much her parents say they did.

Jannah nods, taking it all in. At Ilvermorny, it wasn't much different. Here it just feels a little more... competitive. And this group in particular seems to carry a great kind of confidence.

"So," Minho happily continues at his role of unofficial guide, "some of the professors here can be pretty tough. As mentioned, Janson. Especially if you're in Ravenclaw. He doesn't like people more clever than him."

"I thought Slytherins were also clever."

"They are, but in another way. Look— you'll understand later on," Gally assures.

"What do we think of Gryffindor?"

"Hm." Alby touches his chin. "Half of them are the most horrible people at Hogwarts, half of them are great people."

"Agreed," the other four say.

"There was this boy..." Jannah starts, frowning. "Back at the train station. He's with my siblings now. I have no idea what his name is, but I'd like to know if he's an... alright person. I don't want my little brother to end up in the wrong hands."

"Goddamnit, if someone would teach me that legilimency spell, I could look straight into her mind and see who she means," Minho mutters.

"Isn't that like, super hard?" Brenda asks.

"It is." Jannah looks up at Minho, surprised he'd even want to be capable of that. It's not always nice to look straight into someone's brain, especially if that someone doesn't allow it.

"Just point at the boy once you see him."