Chapter Text
Your eleventh birthday isn’t the most spectacular of birthdays. You hit double digits the previous year. You haven’t even progressed to pre-teen, let alone actual full-blown I-hate-my-parents, no-one-understands-me, teenager yet. It’s one of those nothing years. Like nineteen, twenty-two and everything after thirty. Nothing particularly special. Well… for muggles that is.
‘Stop pushing me, mum!’ Aaliyah Adams snapped moodily at her mother. She happened to be the apple of her father’s eye and the only grandchild on her paternal grandparents had.
‘Don’t you get snippy with me, hurry up and get through the door miss. Do you want to be late for your first day of school?’ Her mother snapped back. Don’t take this exchange as Kanika Adams, little Aaliyah’s mother, not thinking the world of her tiny daughter. She did. But the two of them were so strikingly similar, that even at ten years of age, Aaliyah and her mother tended to butt heads.
‘Aren’t you supposed to love me?’ Aaliyah bit back coolly as her mum firmly pressed her hands against her daughter’s lower back, edging her through the doorway. Aaliyah just dramatically flopped backwards onto her mother at her attempts to move her along and Kanika struggled to grab her under the arms, thanks to the massive bump growing by the day on her front.
‘For goodness sake, you’re more trouble than any other ten-year-old I’ve known! What did I do to deserve you?’ Kanika groaned but decided to pay her daughter back for the fake fall by itching her hands around where they were resting in Aaliyah’s armpits. Aaliyah nearly jumped three feet in the air to get away, screaming. ‘Get back here!’ Kanika laughed chasing Aaliyah as fast as her pregnant form would allow back into the house where she was retreating.
‘Come on Ali-bear, you can’t be late.’ Christian swooped his tiny daughter up before she could get to the staircase, from where he had just descended. ‘The train waits for no one.’ He smiled, a twinkle in his bright blue eyes as he watched Kanika envelop their daughter in his arms and begin tickling her with no relent.
Once Kanika finally stopped and Aaliyah’s giggle-screams subsided, Ali let out a brief sigh and stared up at her parents. They were her best friends in the whole world, ‘so what you're saying Dad, is that if I keep this up, I won’t have to go to that hell-hole?’ She asked fluttering her lashes briefly with a cheesy smile.
‘Aaliyah Adams!’ Her mother reacted instantly, her bright green eyes snapped wide open from their mirth induced slits, ‘I did not raise you to use such language.’
‘Well I told you those outings with Dad would do me no good.’ She countered, smiling cheekily at her father who was shaking his head urgently, eyes wide, quite truly worried.
‘Christian Adams! You did not use such a word in front of your ten-year-old daughter?’ Kanika rounded on him.
‘I would never.’ He replied, mockingly shocked. ‘Kani, I thought you'd know me better by now, I am a perfect gentleman, and such language would never leave these lips.’
‘He also used, bloody, fricking, and shi-‘ The young girl was cut off here when her father’s hand swung from underneath her and wrapped over her mouth while he smiled back to his wife, uncannily similar to the smile she had produced moments before.
‘She’s lying dear. That was Evelyn next door who taught her that tardy language I assure you.’ His wife just huffed up a bit before lurching up and back over to the threshold where a large leather trunk was waiting for them.
You could see the smile in Aaliyah’s eyes even though her mouth was covered as her father leant down towards her, ‘are you trying to get me killed? It’s not nice living without a father.’ He whispered and she giggled.
Aaliyah Lydia Adams was ten years old, but very soon to be eleven. While to muggles your eleventh year of life held no real significance, to a wizarding family such as theirs, it marked the year Aaliyah began her first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The year was 1972 and Aaliyah, who was one of the smallest ten-year-olds her parents had ever seen, wasn’t exactly keen on travelling so very far from home just to go to school. As it was, her father worked for the Ministry of Magic as an Obliviator in the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, he was rather gifted with his talents for memory charms. Thanks to this he had been offered a job on the opposite side of the world, while Kanika was pregnant with Aaliyah after an Antipodean Opaleye dragon went renegade and murdered several kangaroos in full view of a town of muggles. The ministry deemed this a problem and needed someone stationed there for good measure. This opportunity provided Christian with a hefty paycheck each month, but more importantly, a very large old house and for the soon to be parents to live in. So with a baby on the way, they couldn’t pass the offer up and moved from their small flat in London all the way to Australia.
However, with Christian’s family scattered around Europe and Kanika’s through the Middle East, both had attended Hogwarts and wanted their daughter receiving the same fine schooling they had.
As Christian placed Aaliyah down onto her feet she tried desperately to shove her mounds of matted honey curls out of her face, she was almost the perfect mixture of her parents. As her father’s bloodlines went back through Holland and more west of England, his features were very light. Bright blue eyes, fair skin, tall and lean. Kanika, on the other hand, had most of her family coming from places much more exotic, such as Egypt and the Middle East. This meant her skin was a very rich chocolate brown, her hair consisted of tight curly black spirals that fell long down her back and her eyes, contrary to her darker features, a beautiful bright green that was shared all through her family. Aaliyah inherited those eyes, but sometimes you couldn’t quite put your finger on whether they were blue or green. Aaliyah's skin was a profit from her strange mix, she tanned exceptionally well even though her natural tone was probably a little closer to that of her fathers. She took after her father in the way of figure, as her mother certainly had a very womanly shape despite her height (just barely clearing 4 foot 11 the poor dear) but then again, most ten-year-old girls usually were quite lean. The more womanly traits came later.
Kanika, who was now revealing an insistently large bump, was trying her best to bend down and fiddle with Aaliyah’s trunk. Christian chastised her and quickly made his way over to help. Aaliyah couldn't wait until her brand new baby sister was born. She really didn’t want to go away to this poppycock school where the climate was all different and she’d have to wear layers. She wanted to stay home with her mum and dad and her cat. But her parents were forcing her, even if Snowball was going.
Their home was a very grand old castle type dwelling. It had lots of quarters and hiding places and what was, really, an excessive amount of room. It was fantastic fun for a child to play all day in. Being set high on a hill it was very far out of the way of just about everything, besides the beach. This is what led to Aaliyah never interacting much with other children. Naturally, she was scared out of her mind at the thought. The only other person remotely her age that Aaliyah had regular access to was her next-door neighbour (who lived on a farm at least a fifteen-minute walk down that very large hill away) Evelyn Grey. She was two years younger than Aaliyah and Aaliyah wasn't allowed to hang around her overly often. This was mainly due to the fact that Evelyn was a muggle. Aaliyah, on the other hand, most certainly was not and her mother was furious when her father had to modify the tiny girl's memory after Aaliyah had brought her over one day to show her the new cauldron set she’d gotten for her birthday and the pepper-up potion she was brewing.
While Christian was an only child, meaning Aaliyah got very spoilt by her paternal grandparents, Kanika had three sisters, two older and one younger, and four brothers, three older and one younger, that all lived scattered between England and Egypt respectively. Aaliyah had cousins and second cousins and third cousins by the bucket load on her mum’s side but she hardly ever saw them. Kanika had informed Aaliyah a few months ago that, Misha and Nay, the only cousins Aaliyah's age that she ever had contact with, would be going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry also. Just thinking about the trip made her antsy.
‘I don't want to go!’ She ended up yelling at her parents. Kanika turned her attention from the trunk as she smacked Christian away from it (being as short as she was she didn’t enjoy people offering to help her with anything) and Christian looked up as he’d almost surrendered trying to help.
‘Come here Ali-bear.’ Christian held his arms out and his sombre daughter walked over to him, wiping her hurryingly dampening eyes. Kanika waddled over to them and began calmly curling Aaliyah's hair around her fingers as Christian rubbed her back in a very fatherly way. The three of them stood together for a while, silent. This had been all Ali had ever really known. She adored her parents, and her mother was due to deliver within a few months. This was a dreadful time to be shipped off. What on earth could be so bloody fancy at that stupid school anyway, Aaliyah thought?
‘I really don’t want to go,’ she whispered again threw silent sobs, ‘what if I don’t make any friends?’
‘You? Not make friends? Impossible. Everyone is going to fall in love with you Ali-bear.’ Her father reassured her, pulling his tiny daughter close to his chest and swaying her slightly. Aaliyah was a very small child, she probably shouldn’t have fit so neatly into her father’s form at a day from eleven. She probably looked closer to nine as it was, but seeing how tiny her mother was, it wasn’t much of a surprise.
‘Darling I know it seems scary and daunting but you have to go. And certainly not because we don’t want you here, but because Hogwarts is the best school around. We want you to grow up to be the best that you can be.’ Kanika relayed placing a hand on her own back to steady herself and ease the pain she'd now become quite accustomed to from the weight carried in her front.
‘But I want to stay here Mama. I want to see my sister when she's born. I don’t want to go all the way to Scotland to stay in some stupid haunted castle with a bunch of people I don’t even know.’ Aaliyah looked up from Christian's arms and down to her mum’s belly.
‘Ali, dear, did you think you wouldn't see the baby when it’s born?’ Kanika smiled warmly at her daughter’s frightened expression, ‘is that why you're so upset?’
‘Part of the reason.’ Aaliyah admitted.
‘Oh my gorgeous girl, we'll send word straight away to Dumbledore to send you home via floo so that you can meet-‘
‘Him.’ Christian interrupted with an air of cheek, in an attempt to cheer Aaliyah up.
‘Her!’ Aaliyah argued. Aaliyah and her father had established a war over whether the baby was going to be a boy or a girl the moment Kanika and Christian came into her room and told her she was going to be a big sister.
Kanika sighed over the ‘Him.’ and ‘Her.’s being thrown about the place, ‘I’m so sorry darling, but this is what you're to be born into.’ She rubbed her stomach in a circular motion.
‘Him.’ Christian uttered finally under his breath, making sure to have the last word. Aaliyah couldn't help but laugh.
Furrowing her brows, ‘Is Dumbledore a professor at Hogwarts?’ Aaliyah enquired quizzically.
‘He’s the headmaster there now Ali-bear, you’ll be seeing a lot of him I assume.’ Christian replied. Albus Dumbledore was one of the few people outside of her family members that Aaliyah knew relatively well. He was an old friend of Christian’s grandparents and visited from time to time on what Aaliyah expected was mostly Ministry business. This is why she assumed that Mister Dumbledore had worked for the Ministry. She had no idea he was running a school. It picked her mood up slightly. She very much liked Mister Dumbledore, he always had candy with him when he came around and his smile made her happy and warm.
‘So I still have to go?’ she pouted, although knowing she’d been fighting a lost cause from the beginning.
‘Yes, dear I’m afraid so.’ Kanika nodded. She may have been a tiny woman, but no one argued with her when she got her head around something. Kanika was known to have gotten positively scary when she was angry. Working as a healer most of her life had given her a certain edge in the way of getting what she wanted and she claimed authority over most. Even if deep down she was just as soft as her husband, if not softer.
‘But don’t worry, you'll be home for Christmas, or even before when this little tyke decides to come along.’ Christian explained standing Aaliyah up and rubbing her shoulders affectionately.
‘But for now, it’s time to find Snowball so we can get to the Leakey Cauldron on time sweet pea.’ Aaliyah decided to give up the battle for now and relent to her mother’s wishes, running over to the large stone staircase to try and locate her fluffy white cat and collect anything she might have forgotten.
*
‘Quick, quick! Christian, you always manage to make us late!’ Kanika chastised as she waddled through the gushes of people streaming through kings cross-station. Even with Kanika being very pregnant, Aaliyah's tiny legs still couldn't keep up with her mother’s quick strides. Christian, seeing her predicament, scooped Aaliyah up onto his shoulders and ran behind Kanika who was pushing a trolley with Aaliyah's trunk and Snowball in his cat cage, a very grumpy look on his face. Considering his breed however, he could have been quite happy for all they knew.
She stopped abruptly and turned to both of them. Aaliyah looked left and right to see no trains as of yet. This being her first time to the station, as she’d had no older brothers or sisters to send off, she had no clue why her mother would be suggesting her father run directly at a bloody wall.
‘Well... in you go!’ Her mother ordered as Christian lifted Aaliyah off his shoulders and placed her in front of his tall body.
‘In where?’ She asked her bewilderment mounting by the passing second. Christian took her hand and walked over to a pillar with two signs indicating to the left was platform ten and the right was platform nine. Aaliyah squinted slightly in wonder when her father looked around briefly and stood her in front of a specific side of the pillar.
‘Just lean on the wall with me Al.’ He smiled and she did as she was told.
‘Merlin, dad, a bit of bloody warning would be nice.’ Aaliyah stood, brushing herself off from her fall into this new concealed platform. He laughed at his baby girl’s escalating cheek as Kanika came through with the trolley.
‘Will you just let me take it Kani?’ Christian wastefully tried to argue with his headstrong wife, yet again, as she just swatted him away.
‘No!’ She recoiled from his outreached arms, ‘just because I'm carrying your fat child doesn't mean I'm incapable of pushing a trolley Christian.’ She said steering the trolley away from Christian's grasp as he made a move to take it.
Aaliyah laughed now. She loved seeing her dad brought down to size by such a tiny woman. She knew it wasn’t weakness, but rather intelligence. Getting the tiny form of Kanika Adams angry would be a very, very bad idea. Very bad indeed. Christian just rolled his eyes towards Aaliyah when Kanika turned her back.
‘I saw that.’ She announced, walking quickly towards the scarlet steam train as she spotted a familiar face.
‘Only Merlin knows how.’ Christian said making sure Kanika was out of earshot and Aaliyah laughed as she retook her place atop his shoulders once more.
‘Lula dear how are you?’ Christian asked politely as they join Kanika who had located Aaliyah's youngest aunt. Aaliyah smiled down at her from her perch and Lula smiled back kindly. Lula was Aaliyah's favourite aunt, mainly due to the fact that she was the only one Aaliyah really saw. She and her family would come to Australia to visit once a year over the summer, which happened to be winter where Aaliyah lived. Lula looked almost exactly the same as Kanika, however just slightly taller, which Kanika despised. They were the closest out of their mass of brothers and sisters as they were born merely eleven months apart.
‘Hi Mishi!’ Aaliyah waved happily to her favourite cousin who was nervously clutching her mother’s arm.
‘Hey Lili!’ She waved up, releasing her grip as she noticed someone her own age she actually knew. Christian placed Aaliyah down and she threw Misha into the biggest hug she could manage. Misha was a little taller than Aaliyah. She was actually the right size for her age. Misha had the same dark complexion that her mother and aunty bore and the same green family eyes. Her hair was dark brown and extremely long, hanging in a straight sheet down her back.
‘Well girls, it’s time to hop on the train.’ Christian smirked at the amusing sight before them. Aaliyah and Misha had broken into high-pitched giggles when Misha's brother walked over to the little group that had been formed and tripped over his trouser leg.
‘What's up Nay?’ Misha asked, she and Aaliyah were muffling their fits of laughter as Nay picked himself up and brushed himself off. Nay was the same height as his sister and had cropped curly black hair and dark skin. He enjoyed teasing his sister and cousin when he came on holidays so this was an opportunity of a lifetime for the young girls.
‘Send us a postcard from your next trip.’ Aaliyah added and now even Christian chuckled. For a ten-year-old the joke wasn’t half bad, but he quickly stopped at the glare emitted by Kanika.
‘Shut up squirts you'll get your own back.’ Nay bit out waving to a new friend of his a little while away.
‘I believe it’s you who’s getting his own back.’ Aaliyah accused him. Nay just shrugged, fixed his curls, bade his farewells to the small family gathering and left to board the train with his new friends. Although Nay was the same age as the two, being a fraternal twin with his sister Misha, somehow boys were a lot more outgoing than girls at their age, and so finding new friends seemed a much easier feat.
Misha and Nay were typical siblings. Nay would tease Misha and she'd cry and complain to their mother, but if anyone else would tease Misha, Nay would flare up and protect her. Aaliyah didn't, and rightly couldn't understand how it worked. If someone teased you then they didn’t like you in her opinion. You can't call someone an annoying little brat and then turn around a tell someone else off for doing it Aaliyah thought. She'd never understood that though because she'd never had any sibling rivalry. Well not as of yet anyhow. The entire concept on inter-social contact with kids her own age Aaliyah was completely indistinct to. She was much better at holding a conversation with her parents and their older friends. But adults are always quite frank with children, so Aaliyah never learned how to distinguish a person’s signs through body language or the way they reacted to you. She never had to figure out that sometimes when someone was upset and told you to 'go away', for instance, it really meant 'please stay'.
‘Okay let’s get these blasted things on and find you both a compartment. Are you ready girls?’ Aunty Lula asked levitating the two trunks from their trolleys.
‘I just have to use the bathroom.’ Aaliyah proclaimed letting go of Misha's waist and looking around. She spotted the sign instantly. ‘I'll be right back!’
‘Okay dear, don’t talk to strangers.’ Kanika called out as Aaliyah walked away from them and merely nodded back her reply.
*
Aaliyah stood on her highest tiptoes to try and reach the sink and only just managed to turn the tap on after lathering her hands. She jumped up trying to see what the mirror reflected, but it was useless. All she could make out were the top of her light curls, her forehead and green eyes.
She sighed, ‘I wish I were taller.’ Cursing her mother’s genes she shuffled out the swinging door. To get into the bathrooms of platform nine and three quarters, one had to enter a first swinging door then choose their pathway. Girls to your left, boys to your right and there was also a door straight ahead saying something Aaliyah couldn't read yet. She thought must have been for other creatures. After exiting the girls' bathroom with an extra sigh, retracing her steps back down the small corridor of the lavatories, she was suddenly bowled backwards when some idiot flung the swinging door open so fast Aaliyah had no idea what hit her.
‘You silly brat!’ she cursed with the best swears she could remember whilst rubbing her upper back.
‘Gee, such harsh words from such a little girl. Truly, I’m wounded.’ A boy’s voice washed over Aaliyah. She looked up to see a boy not much older than herself clutching his chest in a mock astonishment. He had midnight black hair that fell into his face quite neatly and flicked at his collar. He was a lot taller than she was and he reached out a hand to help Aaliyah up. Aaliyah looked at his face and saw his grey eyes smiling down at her.
‘You're joking right?’ She mused in her light voice raising her brows at his offer. ‘First you knock me over, then you call me little, then you don’t even apologize? Get out of my way.’ Aaliyah helped herself up and pushed straight passed the boy and stormed right out of the corridor. On her way out she knocked into someone in her blind fury and the figure stumbled a bit.
‘Whoa, watch it whirlwind.’ This new boy joked, steadying Aaliyah as his stump of a friend laughed at the comment. She looked up at the boy who saved her the humiliation of a second fall that day. He was quite the scrawny kid, but still taller than she was as he had quite long legs. His messy brown hair cropped up everywhere and he wore a pair of thin round glasses over his hazel eyes. He smiled at Aaliyah and she unwittingly apologized.
‘It’s nothing. Just look up when you're storming through innocent bystanders next time?’ The second, stout boy laughed again. Aaliyah looked over to him and liked that he wasn’t much taller than herself. He was large and squat and his facial features reminded Aaliyah of the mouse she'd found Snowball torturing last month, with his long pointed nose and mousy colourless hair. Her attention suddenly averted to the boy next to him. He was holding onto a sling bag that was over his shoulder and had no expression on his lips. If Kanika thought Aaliyah was skinny it was nothing compared to this boy. She would have had a heart attack, it was like he was made of nothing but skin pulled over bone. His eyes were a pretty amber hue and slightly sunken looking and his light brown hair was brushed to the side to keep off his face. He also had several very noticeable, long, thin scars on his neck and forearms.
‘James Potter at your service!’ the boy in glasses flung a hand forward and Aaliyah jumped back before realizing all he wanted to do was greet her.
‘A-Aaliyah Adams.’ She offered back, shaking it.
‘These strapping lads before you are none other than the great Remus Lupin, boy of intelligence beyond belief,’ he indicated to the sickly boy ‘and Peter Pettigrew-‘ the stump laughed. Aaliyah raised an eyebrow wondering how he managed to laugh at his own bloody name. Why on earth would you laugh at that?
‘-the boy of immense stupidity beyond all comprehension.’ A voice came from behind them. Aaliyah swung around to face her attacker once more. Her baby lips pursed and she glared at him as if he'd stolen her favourite cauldron and melted it down in front of her.
What a little turd. I certainly don’t want to get to know you. You don’t even know how to say sorry. Aaliyah thought filling the airwaves with her negative energy. But she couldn't glare for long because in a bustle to get onto the train people around her were knocking into any and everything they came across. Someone collided with James again and he stumbled forwards crashing into little Ali.
‘Oh, so sorry milady.’ James smiled at Aaliyah apologetically.
‘Oh, so sorry milaaaady.’ the other boy mocked and Peter snorted with laughter. ‘He’s an unforgivable klutz this on-‘ the unknown boy Aaliyah had yet to be introduced to interrupted. Everything about him made her want to punch him. He had a haughty air of superiority surrounding him that was intoxicating, not to mention the way he was teasing the nice boys she'd been talking to. Aaliyah was too young to overlook his attitude as boys will be boys as most people did for twelve-year-olds.
‘You're the klutz!’ Aaliyah shouted before allowing him to finish. She turned without saying goodbye to the others and stormed off to find her parents. Aaliyah now wanted to go to this school even less.
Once she located the others near-by she argued uselessly with her parents about staying home. Their reaction was shoving Aaliyah in a compartment with Misha and kissing her goodbye.