Chapter Text
Paper crinkled in Claire’s hand, almost tearing in half with how tight she was holding it.
An echo of her parents’ voices seemed to whisper in her mind, prompting her to loosen her death grip. She was a Belstring, not some common place mudblood. She was going to Hogwarts because she was an educated, proper pureblood girl and she had the luxury of choosing which wizarding school she should invest her time in. She deserved to be there. They were lucky to have her, in fact.
Why should she be nervous?
She nodded courteously at the bustling people around her, all bulky suitcases and noisy animals and tearful goodbyes. Pathetic. Claire and her family had already said their farewells in a far more dignified manner, before they left to drop her older brother off for his final year at Durmstrang. One of their house-elves, Libly, had been elected to assist Claire to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. There was no need for tears and silly things like requests of letters and promises to not forget younger siblings and swearing to be good. Letters, remembering younger siblings and representing the family well were supposed to be simply a given, and it sounded lowly to have to remind the children of that. Tears of the pain of departure were a pathetic show of emotions.
Claire tried not to show too much disdain as a mother nearby practically strangled her child, wailing about how she was ‘so grown up’.
“Would Miss Claire like to find her friends?” Libly squeaked, eyeing the same family with a similar caution. “Away from such commonplace mudbloods?”
Claire tilted her chin up loftily, turning her condescending gaze away from the grotesque show of unnecessary emotion, towards the outlandishly bright red train that was to take her to Hogwarts.
“My friends will find me.” Claire purposefully strode forward, ignoring yet another family telling their child to make them proud through tears.
That half-breed would have to work for their scraps of respect. Claire, her blood as pure as it was, would have no trouble in that regard. So what if she was the first in her family of three older siblings to go to Hogwarts instead of Durmstrang, or the third born girl, fourth born child? She was Claire Belstring . That meant something in their world.
As for her friends, there were many respectable children going to Hogwarts this year. She would have good company. Pure company.
Libly hurried along behind her, transporting all Claire’s luggage.
Claire wasn’t too early, but by no means was she late . With Libly’s assistance, it was no trouble finding a clean, empty compartment.
Libly bowed once she had stored all Claire’s luggage safely.
“Libly hopes Miss Claire has a good term at Hogwarts, ma’am, and does not forget what her parents Lord and Lady Belstring have taught her.”
“Of course not.” Claire rolled her eyes at the notion of the idea she would fail to uphold the Belstring name. She was not a failure .
Libly bowed deeply again. “Libly will see Miss Claire at the Yule tide, ma’am.”
Claire nodded and dismissed the house elf, who disappeared with a clear pop .
The compartment was relatively peaceful. Certainly quieter than on the platform, but she could still hear the murmur of a thousand voices talking, shouted greetings, and all the other noises expected on a train station.
From her spot on the train, she could easily spy out key families she needed to connect with. Inviting them into her compartment would start the fellowship, and a fellowship with the right people would get her far in life, hauling her up the societal ranks.
The Malfoys with their pale hair and proper attitude were easily distinguishable from the rest. They were talking with the Parkinsons, who were wearing expensive designer robes to flaunt their wealth and status. Pansy was clearly trying to flirt with Draco — it had never been properly confirmed, but it was expected they would be engaged to be married soon. Quite an ambitious match, on the Parkinson’s behalf, but they had been consistent with it for quite a few years now, and it seemed Pansy had taken up attempting to convince Draco of their suitability.
If the way he excused himself to talk with Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle was any indication, Draco didn’t seem too interested. He was an eleven year old boy, after all, but either way, he would be looking to make similar connections high up. There wasn’t much higher you could get than a Malfoy, but that just meant he had to choose his company wisely.
He would be harder to sway into a friendship than Pansy. Not impossible, but more difficult. Claire and Pansy were already on relatively good terms, even if Pansy preferred Daphne’s company over her own. Daphne was another of high-standing however, so Claire could moderately understand that. She’d just have to lure them both into her compartment, then.
Claire noticed the multitude of red-headed Weasleys next, and wrinkled her nose. She counted perhaps seven of them, which was far too much blood-traitorous contamination for her liking. And it seemed one of the weasels was just joining Hogwarts just now in his first year. Wonderful.
Claire started to compile a list of whom to avoid.
Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, and Daphne Greengrass would make good, intelligent company. Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott would also make for good company.
Crabbe and Goyle were pure, but daft. Their intelligence {or lack thereof} contradicted most of their status. They made for great intimidators, however, due to their size, so they weren’t altogether useless. Not high on Claire’s list, but absent from it, either.
The Weasleys were very high on Claire’s stay away from list. Blood traitors were almost worse than mudbloods and half-breeds. They’d been given the superiority of being pure, but tarnished, and threw it away. Mudblood lovers.
Who else had Claire noticed at the latest gathering? The Malfoys had hosted, and invited all respectable families who had children going to Hogwarts, to initiate that fellowship. Of course, it doubled as an opportunity to send their son to Hogwarts with the reminder of who he was and what power and status he had, but fellowship would have been a notion behind the idea.
Of course, most of these families were already quite close with each other and knew all the people worth knowing, but there were a couple of new faces. The Patil family didn’t normally grace occasions such as those, not being part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, but they were still a moderately well-respected family of Indian descent. The Hamza family from Australia was another key addition and a more interesting one at that. Their eldest daughter, Luce, could be fun and interesting company, when she wasn’t blatantly showing disrespect for their customs.
Luce wouldn’t be on the stay away from list, but as of yet, Claire couldn’t see reason for her to be high on her priorities.
Speaking of the devil.
Someone entered the train loudly, very audibly complaining about how heavy her trunk was in a thick Australian accent.
A familiar face peeked in the compartment window and lit up upon seeing Claire.
“Oi, help a girl out here.” Luce Hamza slammed open the door.
There went the peace.
* * *
Claire still held hopes that the others would join her.
Luce was very loud and didn’t hold traditional customs in as high esteem, but her blood was pure nonetheless. Her father was rumoured to be held in high regard in Australian society, so it wasn’t as if Claire was sitting with a mudblood.
By half past twelve, Claire was sure no one else was coming and her plans had been rudely foiled. She could still form close connections with high wizardings families from British society, but the first train ride was really the best place to form those connections. The only one Claire had gotten was a brazen Australian who spent forty-five minutes yapping about British sweets.
It was fine though. Claire was resilient. She wouldn’t be deterred by this temporary setback. Luce could be funny. Even the jester was a role to be filled in the castle’s court.
The rest of the roles however, lay unfilled. Much like the empty seats in Claire’s compartment, or the candy cart the Trolley Witch pushed through the halls.
The lack of candy was a very sudden, very pressing issue that could and needed to be resolved quicker than the issue of societal standings.
“What do you mean there’s no sweets?” Luce demanded of the poor witch. “Isn’t your whole job selling them to us?”
“Surely you’ve got more.” Claire furthered pleadingly. “We don’t ask for much!”
Luce was a bit more straightforward.
“We’re stuck on this train for nine hours and you don’t even have sugar ?!”
The trolley witch gave them a strained sympathetic smile, like she’d had this conversation a hundred times already.
“Yes.” She confirmed. “My apologies, but someone already beat you to buying the contents of my trolley.”
Claire gave her companion an incredulous look. “ All of it? All of the train’s sweets? One person?”
“Fat fuck.” Luce muttered.
The Trolley witch looked aghast. “Language!”
“What?! I’m just concerned !”
“Yeah, you’re gonna give the kid diabetes!” Claire chimed in.
Arguing with the witch clearly wasn’t the best course of action.
“There are no more sweets, there is nothing you can do about it, and frankly at this moment, I wouldn’t want to sell you any. Good day.” She shut the compartment door in a huff.
Claire looked at Luce mournfully. “I think we made her mad.”
“Really? Hadn’t noticed.”
“Do you think she’s going to sell us sweets on the ride back? I don’t think I’ll survive another nine hour journey without any sugar.”
“You know what?” Luce stood up abruptly. “We’re going to go find them.”
Claire blinked. “Who?”
“The pig. Who bought all our sugar?” Luce opened the door the Trolley Witch had closed. “Are you coming or not?”
“Got nothing better to do.”
Walking through the train felt like it should have been more magical than it was. Sure, Claire had grown up around magic, so she felt more immune to the little things that she’d seen fascinate some of the lesser blood children. But still, the Hogwarts Express had been hyped up. It was a train. A sugarless train unless they could find out who stole their candy and take some back. She wasn’t fond of her chances against a seventh year student, but another first year, that she could handle.
If they were a first year of higher standings, however, Claire might have to rethink her vengeance plan. It could be a great opportunity for making those connections that she refused to have been foiled. She could solve her two largest problems in one go!
Luce was very clearly on a mission to beat whoever had stolen the sweets up, regardless of how old or experienced they were, and how young and inexperienced she was in comparison. It was definitely best that Claire was there to recognise a fight they could or couldn’t win, and to stop Luce ruining any chance she had to make decent connections.
Luce stormed ahead, on the lookout for any noticeably round children who had the appearance of being capable to buy and consume an entire trolley of candy, while Claire peered through the windows of each door with the skills of a certified stalker to see any obscenely large piles of candy in any one compartment.
It turned out she didn’t need to worry about Luce attempting to beat any older student only to have her ass handed to her, however, as their culprit was a skinny homeless looking boy and a Weasley. Seriously, that family bred like rabbits. There was a line of how many kids people ought to have. A money-to-kids ratio if you would.
Her family? Rich. Stupidly so. They could afford to have five kids with perfectly tailored clothes and enough food and all the things you needed to raise or keep said children functional. The Weasleys? Poor. Stupidly so. They could not afford their like, seven billion kids. Seriously, look at the state of both of their clothes. Hand me downs from the eighteen hundreds, probably.
Claire and Luce could definitely take these two on.
Claire didn’t recognise the homeless-looking kid either, which meant it shouldn’t be a problem if she automatically made an enemy. Anyone sitting with a Weasley wasn’t worth her time. She wouldn’t be surprised if it was a mudblood.
Claire slid the compartment door open.
“What are you doing?” Luce asked grumpily, from further up the train, having finally realised that Claire had stopped.
Claire pointed at the two boys, who had briefly stopped stuffing their faces with sweets. “They’re not round.”
“Are you kidding me?” Luce’s eyes lit with a righteous fire as she pushed past to stare at their unfortunate victims. “They’re going to be round soon , aren’t they?”
Homeless-looking-kid swallowed his candy. Claire supposed rationally, he couldn’t be homeless since one of the two apparently had enough money to buy the entire cart and she knew for a fact it wasn’t Weasley. That made it worse. He had money, but clearly no sense of style whatsoever . Another point to the kid being a mudblood. Perhaps a mudblood with money, and Weasley was making his own connections.
“Uh, my cousin’s round?” Not-so-homeless-kid said weakly.
“Oh, you got the good genetics, huh?” Claire rolled her eyes. “Better hope those hold.”
Weasley shifted and at least three candy wrappers fell to the floor. “What do you two want?”
“Candy.” Luce said bluntly. “But we can’t because someone bought all the sweets. Seriously, how do you even do that? There’s two of you!”
Not-homeless-kid’s face dissolved into understanding. “Oh!”
“Oh,” Claire mocked, swiping a chocolate frog. “Who do you think you are anyway?”
“I’m Harry Potter.” Not-homeless kid offered.
Claire stared at him. She kept her face carefully blank, but she was screaming internally. Harry Potter. As in, saviour of the Wizarding World, Boy Who Lived Harry Potter. Perhaps the person with the greatest status in their world, regardless of the fact he was a half-blood with apparently no sense of style, and Claire had in their first interaction, butchered any chance of fellowship.
Luce had either not heard of the tales of Harry Potter or just didn’t care.
“I don’t care if you’re Harry or Harriet or Harold or whomever, why the whole cart?”
Claire cleared her throat. “Luce.”
“Harry Potter?” Luce continued, oblivious to Claire’s attempts to get her to shut up. “That sounds like such a prick’s name!”
“Excuse you?” Weasley demanded. “This is the Boy Who Lived!”
“So are you, your heart’s still beating isn’t it? Unless all that sugars already gave you a heart attack.”
Claire face palmed and dragged her hand slowly down her face. Stupid Australians and their stupid lack of knowledge and sarcasm and refusal to uphold the proper customs and respect.
“I don’t, for the record, agree with her statements.” Claire told Potter in a vain attempt to bridge the gap she had created. “She doesn’t understand how things work around here.”
Luce whirled around to glare at Claire. “Is this about that boring ass party I had to go to?”
“It was an esteemed social gathering for families of high standings.” Claire said through gritted teeth and a fake smile.
“Boring ass party.” Luce repeated. “They didn’t even have good food.” As it turned out, she had a very pointed one-track mind. “Neither does this train, apparently , thanks to you selfish brits!”
“You can have some.” Potter offered shyly.
Claire figured it was more of a peace please-take-them-and-get-out-of-my-face offering and not a hey-I’m-actually-sorry-about-this thing, but either way, she’d take the sweets and leave with the remaining shreds of her and Luce’s dignities.
She and Luce shoved a bunch of sweets and pastries into their pockets.
“Uh, thank you. Sorry about …” Claire waved a hand absently. “That.”
She tried not to cringe. Sorry about that? And Potter seemed kind of nice and innocent, too, which made everything worse. Naive. Easy to sway.
In a way, it was good Weasley wasn’t as nice.
“That’s the sort that will be sorted into Slytherin, Harry. Stuck up purebloods only trying to be nice when they’ve decided you’re of use.”
The way he said that made it sound like that wasn’t exactly what friends were for. They were of use, so you were nice to them. It was a transactional affair.
Weasley wasn’t done with his insults, though. “That’s how future death eaters act.”
Luce whirled around. “And you , Weasley, are how future assholes act.”
“ Present assholes, Luce.” Claire corrected. Hey, Weasley had turned it nasty. It was therefore simply retaliation and a perfectly respectable thing to do.
And he was a Weasley. It was self-explanatory.
She cut him off again when he opened his mouth to respond. “I will not have a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent.”
That would have made the most badass exit ever, except for the fact that Claire stubbed her toe as she was leaving and therefore swore loudly. The misfortunes were piling up. Fate did not want her on good terms with someone who’s friendship would have skyrocketing social benefits. And she wasn’t saying Potter was naive and didn’t know what on earth politics were about, and that she could have used that to her advantage if they were friends.
But there was also fucking that.
“Goddammit, Claire.” Luce sighed, very exasperatedly.
“Oops?” Claire offered sheepishly. “Should we redo our dramatic exit?”
“Duh. But that was a good line, we’re repeating that.”
Weasley and Potter exchanged a bewildered look as the two girls did just that and left, slamming the compartment door dramatically after them.
“I don’t understand women, Harry.” Weasley’s voice said faintly from inside the compartment.
“At least we got sugar?” Claire pointed out.
Luce nodded, satisfied, and immediately got to work consuming this sugar, starting with a chocolate frog, which she did not eat at all elegantly. This wouldn’t have been Claire’s main concern if she hadn’t run into Draco Malfoy of all people.
She had already fucked up companionship with Harry Potter, she couldn’t mess this one up too.
“Malfoy.” Claire nodded at him politely.
“Belstring.” He nodded back. “Who’s your companion?”
“Luce Hamza.”
A faint glimmer of interest sparked across Malfoy’s face. “The Australian?”
“Yes.” Claire quickly agreed. “Quite high in their ranks. Luce, this is Draco Malfoy.”
“Who?” Luce replied vacantly, very clearly more interested in fighting against her newfound chocolate frog’s desire to leave her mouth and jump to freedom. “Get back in there bitch.”
Malfoy raised an eyebrow, all interest fading into disgust. “Pleasure.”
Luce would not mess this up for Claire.
“Ah, the Australian sweets are different from ours.” She tried to remember what Luce had ranted about. “They’re more dangerous, and come in a variety of different animals that you have to physically best.”
Malfoy frowned. “Why on earth would that appeal to them?”
Claire tried not to stare as Luce grabbed the chocolate frog’s leg and slammed it repetitively against her opposite palm.
“Australians are … the dangers appeal to them. Challenges, to sharpen their wit and reactions.”
“Right.” Malfoy didn’t seem fully convinced, but decided that ignoring Luce was the best course of action. “Where have you been then?”
“Conversing with Potter.” Claire elected to leave out the ‘accidentally bullying him’ part of it.
Malfoy lit up like Christmas had come early. “Potter’s here?”
Claire, ignoring Luce actively slamming her chocolate frog against the wall in an attempt to ‘kill’ it, answered. “Yes. Over in that compartment there. Be warned, however, he is seated with a Weasley. And purchased all the sweets in this entire train.”
Malfoy appeared to turn deaf after hearing of Potter’s whereabouts, his dreams of being Potter’s best friend finally realised.
“I’m going to introduce myself to him.” He decided.
“We’ll leave you to that.” Claire agreed and moved straight past him, back to the safety of her own compartment. Luce trailed behind, chewing her limp chocolate frog in victory.
Claire’s conversation with Draco Malfoy didn’t seem to have gone terribly. That possibility of a friendship was still very much alive, and if Malfoy managed to win Potter over, he might be more welcoming towards Claire. She could explain the honest mixup once he had been introduced to the way their world worked through a source that was not as unreliable as a Weasley. Not everything was a lost cause after all.
Claire’s good mood was vanquished the moment she stepped foot into her compartment to find a bushy-haired girl she’d never seen before, elbow-deep in Claire’s trunk.
The girl didn’t even look fazed when she heard their footsteps and whirled around. “Ah, you’re back, you can help me.”
This bushy-haired, buck-toothed bitch wasn’t a pureblood, which meant she had a lot of fucking audacity.
Claire wanted to start immediately cussing her out. But she had thought Potter was a mudblood at first glance.
“Who are you?” Claire couldn’t make herself sound nice about it.
“My name’s Hermione Granger. I must say, being here is very exciting, don’t you think?”
“It’s a train.” Claire had definitely never heard of a Granger family.
Luce gasped dramatically and pointed at the mudblood girl. “It’s a stowaway! Oh, wait, no, it’s just a thief.”
The girl went red. “I’m not stealing anything.” She looked down at the clothes worth more than her life that she was holding, then sheepishly dropped Claire’s stuff and stepped away.
Claire wrinkled her nose. She hadn’t even neared Hogwarts and already she needed to deep clean all her belongings.
“Care to explain what you were doing then?” She scowled at the girl, who was very definitely outnumbered and cornered in the compartment she had intruded in.
“A boy called Neville’s lost his toad, so I agreed to help search for it.” The mudblood looked at Claire’s open trunk. “I was just checking. You weren’t here.”
The idea of a disgusting toad anywhere near Claire’s pristine belongings made her want to deep clean everything twice . First a mudblood, now a toad — neither was any better than the other!
“And what part of our absence made you think it was okay to go through our belongings?” Claire demanded hotly.
The mudblood shifted nervously, perhaps gaining the situational awareness to know that she had messed up .
“I didn’t go through her trunk.” She pointed at Luce. “It tried to bite me when I got close.”
“I can get my mum to enchant yours too.” Luce said when Claire glared at her.
If it kept the thieving mudbloods away.
“Oh, are your parents magic?” The mudblood lit up. “Mine aren’t, so it was ever such a surprise when I received my letter.”
Claire barked out a laugh. “You didn’t need to tell me you were a mudblood. I could smell the dirt on you. Honey let me give you a tip, no one wants to hear you confess to being contaminated. Don’t go around blabbing it out to everyone you come across. I’m not going to give you pitying points, because I’m sure your parents would have taught you better, even if they are muggles.”
“Time out.” Luce made a T with her hands. “You’re really tearing her apart, I get it, I agree, she’s been a thieving stowaway. But you’re really hyper fixating on the fact she’s a muggleborn, and as someone with a muggleborn mother — ”
Claire whipped her head around to stare at Luce so fast she was lucky she didn’t snap her own neck.
“Your mother is a muggleborn ?”
Luce looked supremely confused. “Did you not know that already? I didn’t exactly make an effort to hide it. I guess I haven’t said it outright but — ”
“You went to a pureblood gathering!”
Luce groaned. “We’re talking about that boring ass party again? Yeah I went to it, my dad said I had to, to ‘make connections’ and ‘befriend people in my year level’.”
“But your father’s a pureblood, is he not?” Claire had been associating with a halfblood this whole time, thinking they were equal. And Luce had let her, taking advantage of Claire’s temporary unknowing kindness.
“Well, yeah I guess.”
Claire studied Luce in an entirely different light. Before, she had clung to the fact her father was an important Australian figure. Now she knew he was a mudblood lover.
“I thought your family was high in the Australian societal class.”
Luce looked completely lost. “I don’t … I guess? We don’t — ” She looked around the compartment for help, and her eyes fell upon the thieving mudblood that had started this whole discussion. “You need to leave. It seems me and my friend need to have a conversation.”
The way she emphasised ‘friend’ got on Claire’s nerves. They were acquaintances as of yet, and if Luce proved more harm than help in Claire’s journey to climb the societal ranking ladder, acquaintances was all they would stay.
The mudblood looked way too interested in this turn of events for Claire’s liking. “Oh, but this is such an interesting debate! I mean the different sentiments and beliefs in life — it’s right out of one of my books!”
Luce almost threw Claire out against the wall and slammed the door open, gesturing angrily out. “We’re not a fucking spectacle for you to take entertainment in. Leave.”
Prompted by heated glares, the mudblood decided to take her leave.
Luce slammed the door after her before looking at Claire.
“So is this magic racism or something? Cause I’m not a fan.”
“It’s not racism , it’s just, you know — ”
Luce gestured angrily, “I know what!?”
“Apparently not enough!” Claire spat. “I suppose if you don’t understand blood status, or our customs, you won’t understand the politics, or — ”
“Sorry for not caring about boring ass things that clearly hurt people.” Luce’s voice was laced with sarcasm.
“It doesn’t hurt people, it keeps them in their proper place.”
“Beneath you?”
“Yes!”
Luce looked disgusted. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”
“That’s just how it is.” Claire slammed her trunk shut and shoved it away. It was fine. Everything was fine. They were nearly at Hogwarts and the house elves there could deep clean Claire’s belongings. Luce’s father was still apparently high in Australian society. He might be a mudblood lover, and his daughter a half-blood, but it didn’t mean she was completely useless.
Claire could fix this situation. She’d just have to smooth over her and Luce’s so-called ‘friendship’. Luce just didn’t understand politics. Claire could educate her, and then everything would be fine.
“But you’re right.” The best way to get close to someone, so that you could manipulate them, was always to admit you were wrong and they were right. “It is kinda silly. You being a half-blood isn’t that big of a deal.”
Luce didn’t look convinced or satisfied at the abrupt change of topic, but let it slide for now. “You wanna talk shit about buck-tooth because what the actual fuck was that?”