Looking In

1. Looking In

Looking In

I remember my first day at Hogwarts with more clarity than any other day in my life. I was eleven years old, like the rest of the new students and I only had a rough idea where to go. My mother’s family were an old wizard family so I wasn’t entirely lost, but I was also small and eleven and trying to contend with a trunk in the midst of King’s Cross St. Pancras. It wasn’t fair, I thought at the time. My mum or dad should’ve been with me, but instead they had to work. Don’t they know the sort of people who hang around King’s Cross? Anyway, I finally made it to platforms nine and ten and immediately noticed a red haired boy disappear through the barrier. Of course, no Muggle noticed, but they don’t notice much.

“Need a hand?” I looked up to see a tall boy with black hair smiling down at me and my trunk. Thanks to Railtrack or whoever are meant to supply trolleys, I’d had to drag the thing through the station.

“I, um...”

“Platform Nine and Three Quarters?” he asked. I nodded, feeling terribly small and pointless. He grinned at me and picked up my trunk with seemingly effortless ease. I followed behind quickly. He paused for a second before disappearing through the barrier. I followed behind him and found myself on Platform Nine and Three Quarters. I followed him to the train, where he put my trunk with all the others.

“You’re all sorted now,” he said, flashing a grin at me again. “Are you a First year?”

I just nodded. Apparently, when in the presence of very tall black haired boys, I lose my elementary powers of speech.

“What’s your name?” he asked. Bloody hell. I’d have to speak.

“Roisin. Roisin Collins,” I managed to stammer. He held out his hand and I shook it.

“I’m Harry Potter. You’ll be OK from here?” he asked. I nodded again. He grinned and walked further down the platform. Harry Potter. How did I not recognise him? For three years, my mother had commented that Harry Potter was most deserving of ‘Best Smile’ from Witch Weekly, even if he was still at school. We learned about him at our magical primary school, and he helped me with my trunk!

I watched him with curiosity, as he wandered down the platform, clearly looking for someone.

“Harry!” I turned to see a girl with brown hair barrelling towards me from the barrier. She hurtled right past me and went straight into a hug with Harry Potter. I watched as the slight grin he’d given me transformed into a full on, blindingly bright smile and he swung her around a couple of times. Then perhaps they realised they were being watched, because he put her down, spoke to her for a minute, the smile still plastered on his face, and then they disappeared onto the train.

***

It was official- I was already ostracised and I hadn’t even got to school yet. Even though I was from a wizard family, I didn’t know anyone my age at the school and apparently all the compartments were full. At least, that’s what I was told and, as most of the people inside them were decidedly larger than me, who was I to argue? Finally, just as I was about to give up hope and settle down in the corridor, I came upon Harry and the girl in the last compartment. They were in the middle of a heated discussion about something called ‘Padfoot’ and stopped as soon as they heard me knock.

“Please may I sit in here?” I asked, not trusting myself to look at them. They wouldn’t say yes, I knew that.

“Of course you can,” the girl said with a sweet smile. I mumbled some sort of thanks and sat down.

“Don’t you know anyone at Hogwarts?” she asked. I shook my head, feeling like a complete reject.

“Want a Chocolate Frog?” Harry asked. “Roisin, isn’t it?”

“Yes. And thank you,” I managed to say as he handed me a Frog. I already had a Circe card, so I just quietly munched on the chocolate. The girl smiled at me, and I noticed she had a shiny silver badge on her shirt. Head Girl. She must be something really special, I thought, to be friends with Harry Potter and Head Girl of all Hogwarts.

“I’m Hermione,” she said.

“Hello,” I mumbled. Hermione... Hermione. I’d heard that name somewhere. If she was good friends with Harry, it must have been in my Mum’s Witch Weekly, which I sometimes read.

“Where are you from, Roisin?” Harry asked conversationally.

“Oh, a place called Stevenage,” I said, hoping he hadn’t heard of the place I called home.

“Stevenage!” exclaimed Hermione. “I live near there. In Knebworth,” she added. Knebworth, the small town near Stevenage. Knebworth, where people rich enough not to live in Stevenage live. I just blushed, guessing what she was thinking.

“Harry, you’ve been there,” Hermione told him. He just looked clueless. “I took you to see a film there. Remember?”

“Oh. Yeah.” He quite obviously had no recollection and winked at me. It suddenly occurred to me that if Hermione was Harry’s girlfriend (and it seemed pretty obvious to me) that they wouldn’t want some annoying kid in the compartment with them.

“You don’t mind me sitting in here do you?” I asked. “Because-”

“It’s nice,” said Hermione quickly, perhaps understanding that I’d already been turned out of every other compartment. “It reminds me of my first day.”

It hadn’t occurred to me at this point that once upon a time, this beautiful grown up girl had once been just like me.

“It does?” Harry asked.

“Yes. That was the first day I met Harry, you know, Roisin.”

“It was? You’ve known each other all that time?”

“Yes. And somehow, I’m still his best friend,” she said with a smirk. “Although he didn’t like me very much at first.”

“I did so!”

“You didn’t! You thought I was bossy and stuck-up. And you were probably right.”

Hermione smiled at him. Best friends. Yeah right. I might have been eleven, but I wasn’t blind or stupid.

“Are you boyfriend and girlfriend?” I blurted out suddenly and clumsily. The two both blushed quite deeply.

“No!” they exclaimed in unison. Yeah right. Eleven, not blind or stupid.

***

When we got to the school, I had to go off with the other First years, all of whom seemed to be friends already. We rode across the lake in boats and saw the castle in all its moonlit beauty. We were taken into the Great Hall and I was sorted into Gryffindor. It wasn’t all that surprising- most of my family had been and my parents had brought me up relatively well, I thought. But there were no recognisable faces at the Gryffindor table and I hesitated. Nobody seemed to want to let me sit down. It was going to be just like on the train...

“Roisin!” Harry called to me. I went red as everyone at the table looked at me. They must've all wondered why the Great Harry Potter was calling to me, a nobody First year.

“Come and sit with us!” Hermione said with a smile, sharing one of those ‘let’s be kind’ looks with Harry. They told me the names of all the teachers and filled me in on lots of school things. It was the best feast I ever had.

***

Of course, I didn’t see too much of either of them after that. Although we shared a house, they were still Seventh years and I was an ‘ickle firstie’. I saw them occasionally in the Common Room, but they were usually with their other best friend Ron Weasley or other older kids. I made friends with the other Gryffindor girls in my year and we watched Harry and Hermione tiptoe around each other.

Hermione was my hero, without a doubt. She was nice and sweet to us little First years, and with Peeves around, we needed that. But more than that, she was one third of the famous trio. The stories about her, Harry and Ron were already legendary in school. She wasn’t like all those boring so-called heroines in stories my mother read to me. She was feisty and didn’t let anyone tell her what to do, aside from teachers of course. Even then she was quite famous for breaking a few rules here and there in attempts to help Harry save the world. She was the kind of girl I hoped I might grow to be. She was beautiful and poised and I think every girl in Gryffindor secretly wanted to be Hermione Granger. I think perhaps that every boy in Gryffindor wanted her, too.

It wasn’t much of a secret that Harry was in love with her. I mean, nobody ever spoke of it, least of all to him, but we all knew. I’m not sure what gave it away, but the longing gazes directed towards her might have been part of it. It was fascinating to watch Harry and Hermione. I wanted a best friend like that. A best friend who knew exactly what I was thinking or feeling, who knew what I needed it before I knew myself. A best friend I could love. I don’t suppose it was much of a secret that Hermione was in love with Harry, either. Everyone seemed to know except them.

***

I had a nightmare. It wasn’t unusual, I often had nightmares about headless horsemen or Transylvanian nobility with heart defects. I knew I wasn’t going to get to sleep for quite some time so instead of just lying in bed, I shoved on my dressing gown and headed for the Common Room. I wasn’t sure if I was really allowed down there at two in the morning, but I quickly decided that I didn’t care much.

I’ve always had a gift for sneaking up on people. It worked to my advantage in games and pranks, but I don’t think I was ever so grateful for the knack than this time. I was just about to get to the foot of the stairs and enter the Common Room when I heard a voice. Paralysed with fear for a moment that Count Dracula was there and I hadn’t actually woken up yet, I stopped. Pinching myself (definitely awake) and pausing for a moment, I peeked around the corner.

Curled up in front of the fire were Harry and Hermione. I say curled up, really she was lying in his arms and he was planting a series of kisses along her jawline. My first instinct was to run back up the stairs, wake up the other First year girls and tell them that Harry and Hermione were downstairs snogging. Fortunately, I wasn’t quite so rash. Even to my untrained eye, it didn’t look like a first kiss. They were used to this! We all thought that they had no idea about their feelings and here they were as if they’d been together for weeks, maybe even months! They were whispering to each other, although I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I suddenly realised what a private, intimate moment I’d almost walked in on. How would they feel if they knew an annoying First year was watching them. I turned around, sneaked back up the stairs and went straight back to my bed. I wasn’t going to ruin that for anything. If Dracula turned up again, well I’d just have to deal with it.

It didn’t stay secret for long- it’s impossible to keep secrets in the tower. There was a lot of fuss for about a week, then everyone went about their business. Having people know about them didn’t make Harry and Hermione smooch openly in the common room or the halls. In fact, it was just as it had been before. But whenever I woke up in the middle of the night, I stayed up in the dorm. I never wanted to disturb Harry and Hermione: and everybody knew that they often stayed up all night studying. Well, I say studying, nobody ever hung about to find out if they really did study.

After that, Hermione was even more my hero, I suppose. Not only did I want to be just like her, but I wanted one day to have what she had. Not Harry Potter, of course, but something just like that. I wanted one day to be the girl that everyone admired and I wanted one day to be one half of a duo like them. I think every school has a couple like Harry and Hermione: that perfect couple who you just know will live happily ever after, the couple that little First year girls want to be part of when they grow up. One day, I hope I’m half as happy as them.

The End