The Pureblood Princess | Sirius Black

|2| The First September 1st

A great billowing puff of steam blasted through the bustling platform, sending a lock of Adelaide's feisty hair out of place.

"Now, you make us proud, alright, dear?" Adelaide's mother said fretting over the pins in her daughters hair. Adelaide winced as she jammed one a little too forcefully back into place.

"She'll be fine, Cathy," her father said with small chuckle, placing a hand on his wife's shoulder.

Her father was... chuckling? September first was a strange day indeed.

Adelaide could count on one small hand the number times she'd heard Filip Fawley chuckle in public. He wasn't a mean man, per say, just... distant. Intimidating like her mother. Certainly not the type to chuckle.

What was stranger, though, was that she felt such dread on what should have been a very happy day.

All around kids were grinning and throwing their trunks onto the scarlet steaming train... and here she was, wanting nothing more than to go back home.

It was pathetic.

It's not like her parents really knew her... or even particularly liked her. They just liked the idea of having a prize to show off.

But still... home was home. Hogwarts was scary and foreign and full of people she didn't know.

Her father chuckling about her going off to school for months and months, seemingly unbothered, like he wouldn't even miss her certainly didn't help things.

She swallowed the lump in her throat. She would not let her face betray her.

However, her father must have noticed a change for he took her mother's seat on the bench whilst her mother struck up a conversation with Cleo Greengrass's mother across the platform.

He smelled of pipe smoke and peppermints, placing his hand on hers. "Sweetie... you'll be just fine," he said softly. "Hogwarts is wonderful."

Adelaide shook her head.

She didn't know why she was shaking her head.

He was probably right.

He was always right.

He continued. "You just mind your manners and stay close to your friends in Slytherin. They'll look out for you."

She shook her head again, this time more forcefully, probably jostling those pins out of place again. "But what if I—I don't—"

What if she didn't get into Slytherin...

She snapped her traitorous mouth shut, grinding her teeth together. She couldn't finish that sentence. Nope nope nope.

Her father's deep set blue eyes fell upon her as if he knew what she was going to say. For the first time in her life, she prayed he wouldn't show an interest in her thoughts.

She had to be a slytherin.

The train whistled loudly.

Last call.

Her stomach flipped and out of the corner of her eye Sirius ran, leaping and laughing onto the train with another boy with dark hair.

How had he made friends so quickly?

"Now, now, Adelaide... enough of this nonsense," her father said, warmth evaporating as he rose from the bench. "You're going to be perfectly fine—Let's hurry up and get you settled."

***

Walking into the castle was just as awe inspiring as her father said it would be. The floating candles and the general magnificence was dazzling... but Adelaide couldn't help feeling that she missed out on something important the ride up there.