Chapter Text
Wednesday 1st September 1976
The Hogwarts Express rattled over the tracks as it slowly pulled away from Platform 9¾.
‘Where's Lyra and Katie?’ Julia asked as Anna finally slid open the compartment door and dropped her trunk with a heavy thud.
‘They’ll be joining us later,’ Anna panted, pushing a stray lock of hair out of her face. ‘They wanted to catch up with some of their other house friends first.’
‘Oh, good,’ Julia said, leaning into the cushioned seat. ‘That will give us a chance to catch up privately.’
It wasn;t that she hated her other dorm mates., but five years in close quarters had defined the boundaries clearly. Julia and Lyra had never quite seen eye to eye; they didn't dislike each other, per se, but they existed in a state of constant, low-level friction. They were both headstrong, leading to endless debates over everything from Transfiguration theory to the best way to brew a Draught of Living Death.
Katie, on the other hand, was the opposite: quiet, retreating, and rarely offering an opinion at all, she liked everyone and was quite submissive, though very smart. Whilst veing perfectly nice, Julia secretly found her boring.
Anna, however, was the social one and very kind, the type of person who would go out of her way to help anyone who needed it. She managed to get on well with all her dorm mates, but she was closest to Julia by far. She's the only one Julia truly trusted. They were like sisters.
‘So,’ Anna said, flopping against the seat once her trunk had been wedged overhead, ‘what’s the big plan for tomorrow? You know...your birthday.’
Julia huffed out a laugh. ‘Thrilling stuff. I’ll wake up, have a hearty breakfast, then sit through Sprout’s annual 'welcome to sixth year, here’s your soul-crushing workload' speech.’
She grimaced. ‘Birthdays on the first day of term are a scam. You’re too knackered to do anything except collapse into bed.’ Julia paused for a moment of self-pity, then continued. ‘Mum and Dad took me to London last week, though. A proper fancy meal. That was nice. So I suppose that counts. How were your holidays?’
‘Same old. Dad worked double shifts, mostly avoiding mum. Mum pretended everything was 'fine', as if we didn’t hear them rowing the night before. I swear, they should divorce already.’ She hesitated. ‘Mum said next August we might go on a proper holiday, out of the country. To ‘reconnect’ as a family. That’ll be fun … or a disaster.’ There was a silent pause for a few moments, Anna staring out of the window, as if she were thinking.
Julia knew the history. Two parents who barely spoke, staying together 'for the kids,' as Anna had once said. Anna wanted them to be happy, and she believed that might only happen if they divorced and maybe then became better parents.
Anna sighed before she continued. ‘I also spent most of August trying not to hex my little brother, Bobby. I’m glad I’ll have left Hogwarts by the time he starts. Oh, and I looked for a job. Everywhere wanted someone older, thinner, or prettier.’
‘You?’ Anna asked after a breath.
‘Chaotic,’ Julia declared instantly. ‘I spent the majority of it working, hence why I haven’t had time to see you much. The first two weeks, I was cleaning, reorganising, and stock-rotating the storeroom, ready for the Hogwarts rush. Weirdly… I kind of enjoyed it. I spent half the first day trying to decide whether to organise everything by size, alphabetically, or by colour. In the end, my dad who is the boss' told me to do it alphabetically. The rest was spent measuring ingredients, labelling jars, and pretending I don’t hate customers. It’s money, at least. Oh, and I found a dead raven in the chimney one morning. Absolutely vile. We think it was Mr Pawsome.’
Julia screwed up her face, disgusted by the memory. The two girls jumped when the two boys slammed into their door, one of them in a headlock and the other students yelling, 'Fight, fight, fight!'
Julia rose from her seat, yanking the door open. ‘Oi! Fuck off to your section of the train!' she shouted at them, and the second-year students scattered.
'Immature twats,' Julia muttered as she returned to her seat. 'Oh, I nearly forgot, you’ll never guess what.' She stared at Anna expectantly.
When Anna merely shook her head with a small shrug, Julia huffed. 'Got a letter a week ago, Dumbledore offered me Prefect this year!'
Anna stared at her, mouth open. 'What?' she said.
'I know, right? Terrible choice. I can’t believe they’d want me as a prefect. Why? I’m hardly a model student. I mean, I’ve had my fair share of detentions and point deductions, mostly for arguing with Slughorn.'
'Yeah, you should probably stop that. You do know half our house calls you Rebelpuff, right?' Anna said, grinning.
'Then maybe Slughorn shouldn’t be wrong so often,' Julia shot back.
'Relax, I’m teasing… Well, mostly. They really do call you that. But Prefect? That means access to the posh bathroom! Lucky bitch.'
'Nah, I declined it,' Julia replied, shaking her head. 'I don’t want the added responsibility, if I’m honest. Our timetable will be hectic as it is, better to leave it for some other poor Hufflepuff.’
Suddenly, the blood drained from Julia's face as the realisation hit her like a Bludger. She gasped, clutching her seat. ‘Wait... hang on... Oh my god! Why didn’t it occur to me! So stupid!’
‘What?’
‘...if he offered me Prefect, that must have meant Katie quit the role at the end of last year. So, if I said no, and you wasn’t asked, then that means...’
Julia groaned, her head thumping back against the seat. ‘Oh no. It’ll be Lyra. She’ll be the new Prefect.’
‘I wonder why Katie quit?’ Anna thought out loud.
‘Probably interfered too much with her gardening club,’ Julia scoffed with a roll of her eyes.
‘Why is it a problem for Lyra to take the badge? She’s all right,’ Anna asked with a small shrug.
‘Why? Because she’s already pompous! Giving her that bit of extra power will make her even more intolerable. It's a terrible choice, in my opinion.’ Julia paused, taking a breath to steady herself before pivoting the conversation to something far more interesting.
‘Speaking of terrible choices... do you remember the boy I was seeing? Alfie? Remember him?’
Anna nodded. ‘Of course. Tall with short, dark hair. Lower lip slightly bigger than the upper lip.’
‘Yeah, well, I dumped him in week one. I only went and caught him snogging the girl who works two shops down in Flourish and Blotts outside the shop. Like, how stupid can you get? It’s a shame, really, he was pretty good, if you catch my drift.’ She gave Anna a wicked wink.
Julia’s curiosity about her body started shortly before Hogwarts. She had discovered early on her body could evoke feelings others were unable to. It gave her a sense of control, of confidence. That private indulgence became her way of finding calm on nights when insomnia kept her awake.
Curiosity had developed into desire over. Jamie Phillips, a summertime Muggle friend of the same age, was the first person she truly experienced intimacy with before year three started. They fumbled through it with affection and naivety, each learning what it meant to want and be wanted. For six weeks, they believed it was love.
When the holidays ended, they went their separate ways, and the so-called love faded, but the lessons stayed. Julia didn’t regret a single moment. She didn’t see herself as impure or reckless. She saw someone who knew her own mind and her body and refused to apologise.
‘I was relying on Alfie during the holidays; he may have been one sandwich short of a picnic, but, man, he was committed to effort, and, oh god, he knew how to use his mouth and fingers. Plus, he had a good, suckable dick.’
‘So both of us shit out, then; nothing for me, either,’ Anna chortled.
They both turned towards the door, which Julia had forgotten to close, at the sound of a sharp gasp. Sirius Black stood there, staring at her with steel-grey eyes. Probably the most handsome boy in the school, and painfully aware of it.
Julia had to admit, reluctantly, she fancied him, to a degree.
Sirius Black was loud, bold, and impossible to overlook. Wherever he went, he took up space. And yet, despite his good looks and charm, she didn’t exactly like him or his cronies much, not like others did who fawned over them. In the early years, she’d laughed at some of their pranks, she’d admired the audacity, but as time passed, the jokes soured. What had once been clever became borderline cruel, and that was when she stopped laughing.
She also noticed how Black and, especially, his friend Potter had a habit of targeting anyone they considered weaker. She’d witnessed it a couple of times herself, when she made the rare trip outside Hufflepuff to the library. And she’d heard the stories, too.
‘Yes, Black?’ Julia said coolly, arching an eyebrow. ‘Can we assist you?’
Black looked like he’d walked in on a crime scene. He blinked, his lips parted. ‘Since when did Hufflepuffs become so...’ he paused, searching for the right word. Eventually, he said, ‘Unfiltered'. So open. A bit shocking, really. They’ve changed.’
Julia laughed.
‘There's a lot about Hufflepuffs you don’t know, Black. Do you imagine us as prudish virgins? Pure?’
‘Julia!’ Anna gasped.
‘What? It's true. I bet they do. Am I right?’ she asked Black.
‘Well… yeah.’ He spoke frankly. ‘Especially innocent-looking Julia Thorne.’
Julia stood and moved closer to the door. Tall for a girl, the same height as Black, with only a few inches between them. Her hand curled around the handle, inches from him.
Black’s gaze flicked to her chest, and he made no effort to hide it.
Julia had spent her first two years at Hogwarts virtually unnoticed; she was neither popular nor bullied. She simply blended in, keeping her head down at the back of the classroom, never raising her hand... even when she knew every answer. That suited her fine. No one paid her any attention, and that was exactly how she liked it.
It was at the end of her second year when things shifted. She caught sight of herself in the mirror one morning and barely recognised the girl staring back. She resembled a young woman more than a girl. Her body seemed to change overnight, with her breasts becoming more prominent and her body transforming into an hourglass shape. Her features became more feminine as she blossomed. Just shy of finishing her second year, she had become the most well-developed girl in her year.
It was then boys became aware of her, as they did with most girls. And though it startled her at first, and she tried to hide it, now, she didn’t entirely mind. For the first time, being seen didn’t feel uncomfortable. She felt desired. Wanted. Black was one of the first boys who noticed when she started to grow into herself. The others at least tried (badly) to pretend not to notice, awkward and unsure. He made no such effort. He looked boldly.
'Black… Hufflepuffs have many hidden talents,’ she said with an obviously alluring tone in her voice. ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes with me.’
'Please, Thorne. I’ve had girls hexing each other outside my dorm begging for a repeat performance,' he shot back, a smirk plastered across his otherwise handsome features, and his short black hair falling into his eyes in a carefully haughty way.
Julia laughed, tilting her head. 'Tell your little dorm fan club I’m not offering lessons. Cheerio, Black,' Julia said, giving him a playful shove with one hand and waving at him with the other before slamming the door in his stunned face.
She turned, a victorious grin spreading across her face. 'That was fun,' Julia said, brushing non-existent dust from her hands, clearly pleased with the chaos she’d left behind.
'I can’t believe you sometimes,' Anna chortled.
Julia smiled, still riding the high of it, when Anna asked, 'So? Would you?'
Julia blinked. ‘Would I what?’ she asked, momentarily thrown, before realisation dawned. ‘Oh, you mean, would I sleep with Sirius Black?’ Julia pretended to consider it for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Yeah. Who wouldn’t? I mean… I don’t particularly like him. Sure, he’s an arsehole. He is certainly not someone I would take home to the parents, but he is surely shaggable. Heck, that boy could probably seduce a straight man into bed.'
The girls fell into a fit of giggles and spent the next half hour imagining all the ways Sirius Black could seduce a man into bed.