Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Waverly made her way down the Hogwarts Express, glancing into compartments for any familiar faces. She brightened at the sight of Steph and Chrissy sat with Steph’s boyfriend and a couple of older students.
“Hi guys, mind if I join?” Waverly slid the door open with a smile and five sets of eyes swivelled round to land on her. She gave a shy little wave at the two guys who she didn’t know, and started to step into the cabin when Steph cut her off.
“Oh hi Waves, it’s just it’s kinda full in here at the moment. Where’s Champ- why don’t you sit with him?” Her tone was sweet, but her smile was clearly forced and her eyes glared daggers. Waverly felt her heart fall and looked helplessly at Chrissy, who unhappily shifted in her seat and dropped her gaze. Waverly faltered for a moment, but it was clear from Steph’s face that she wasn't going to give in.
“Oh… sure, yeah, I just wanted to say hi I guess, I hope you all had a nice summer.” She quickly left the compartment, blinking at the sudden burning in her eyes. She started to make her way back towards the compartment she’d been sharing with Champ and his mates, but when she got there she could see they were still being raucously loud. The arm wrestling match that had prompted her to go look for her friends had now escalated into actual wrestling in the narrow space between the seats. Champ had pinned one of the other guys and the two muggleborn spectators were shouting words and phrases that would have been nonsense to her if Champ hadn’t made her watch many, many hours of WWE on his dad’s television that summer. The fifth Hufflepuff watching was a guy named Johnson who she knew was a pureblood, and she hid a smile at the mildly alarmed look on his face.
“Babe, I’m winning!” Champ spotted her as she tried to sneak past and bellowed through the glass. Waverly smiled even as she winced internally and gave him a double thumbs up before mouthing “I’ll be back soon”. She cringed an apology at the group of seventh year Slytherins who were glaring at the source of the noise and hurried away. She felt relieved when she spotted her sister’s dark curls in a cabin just a bit further down the train. She slid into the cabin and sat next to Dolls, who nodded curtly at her.
“Hey guys, am I uh… interrupting?” Dolls, Doc and Wynonna were each holding some playing cards and it seemed to be a little intense. Dolls was leaning back into the seats looking smug, Wynonna was glaring at Dolls, occasionally flicking back to the cards in her hand, and Doc was looking at the cards in confusion, one of which he had dropped, rubbing them between his finger and thumb whilst he muttered under his breath.
“Hey Sis.” Wynonna replied without breaking her death stare with Dolls. “Just in the process of annihilating Dolls at this muggle game.” Dolls’ smirk said otherwise.
“Poker.” He mumbled, before slapping his cards down on the windowsill. “Two kings, let’s see what you’ve got, Earp.”
“Damn it.” She threw her jack and ace on the floor in annoyance. Dolls let out a low chuckle, which was a pretty rare occurrence for him, and gathered up his winnings from the seat between Wynonna and Doc. It was mostly just Bertie Botts’ Every Flavour Beans, but there were a couple of knuts and sickles mixed in too. Apparently neither of them cared that Doc was technically playing.
“How do you they get the parchment so shiny?” A particularly sheltered pureblood, Doc often couldn’t wrap his head around the simplest of muggle things. Although Wynonna and Waverly were also purebloods they had at least grown up near a muggle city, which Wynonna had made her way around plenty as a teenager, getting into all sorts of trouble, and Champ had introduced Waverly into a lot of muggle technology, which she found fascinating. Dolls himself was muggleborn and was constantly moaning that his gadgets didn’t work at Hogwarts. Unconcerned that nobody was bothering to answer his question, Doc turned to look at Waverly.
“And to what do we owe your charming presence on this fine evening?” Waverly smiled at the odd formality of Doc’s speech that even after four years she hadn’t got used to, but it didn’t do much to help the unhappy swirling in her stomach that had followed her reunion with her friends.
“Yeah Waves, why aren’t you with that numbskull boyfriend of yours, or whatshername and Chrissy?” Wynonna leaned across to swipe a handful of Dolls’ newly won jelly beans and dished out half to Waverly. Despite the nonchalance in her tone Waverly could see that Wynonna had picked up on her unhappiness and she forced a smile.
“Oh you know, Champ is being, well, a guy, and Steph is being… Steph.” She tried to brush past the topic because she didn’t want Wynonna to know that it was technically her fault that her friends hated her. She had hoped they would get over it during the summer but apparently Steph at least was determined to hate her and her sister for longer. No such luck though, Wynona squinted at her for a few long seconds before scowling and slapping her knee.
“Don’t tell me that bitch still has a broom up her ass about the final!” Waverly shrugged and inspect her handful of beans, trying to decide which ones looked safe to eat. “I barely even hit the guy!” And by ‘barely even hit the guy’ she actually meant ‘tackled Steph’s boyfriend off his broomstick and broke his nose by repeatedly smashing her fist into his face’.
“Well I’d say you went a darn sight further than that.” Doc chuckled and even Dolls cracked a smile. Wynonna rolled her eyes and threw a jelly bean in the air to catch in her mouth. It bounced off her nose and rolled across the floor.
“Yeah well, the little weasel deserved it.” That much was debatable. It had been the quidditch cup final between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and things had become heated. The last straw for Wynonna had been when the Ravenclaw chaser in question called Dolls a mudblood, to which Wynonna decided that physical violence was a suitable response. Whilst Waverly herself would have been tempted to smack the boy, Wynonna had perhaps gone a bit too far. She was sent off and the ravenclaw boy couldn’t finish the match so both teams were a player down, and Gryffindor just about won the match. Although Waverly had been a bit upset that her own house hadn’t won the season, she was proud of her sister’s performance- excluding that one little bit- and she was happy that her sister’s team had won the cup at least. So when Steph started mouthing off Wynonna in front of Waverly, she couldn’t just let her speak that way and they’d had a verbal pow-wow of their own. Steph had turned most of the Ravenclaws against her but she hadn’t been too concerned because it was just before the school year ended so everyone would probably forget about it over the summer. Judging from Chrissy’s reaction though it seemed like Steph was still determined to queen bee everyone into hating her still. She sighed unhappily and chewed on a dubious looking green bean that turned out to be avocado flavour.
“Aww come on Sis, you know I’m sorry…” Waverly raised her eyebrow in disbelief and Wynonna carried on with a grin. “… Sorry she’s such a stuck up cow.” Waverly snorted but couldn’t help the real smile that tugged at her lips. Wynonna spotted it too and jumped on her with a cry of success. She grabbed Waverly in a bear hug and pecked a kiss on her forehead. “You’re welcome in the Gryffindor common room any time you want, you know that right?” She whispered in her ear and Waverly nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat.
“Gerroff me.” She heaved her sister off her, and darted into Wynonna’s vacated window seat instead so she could look out for Hogwarts. It was dark and raindrops scattered the glass but you could usually spot the castle’s towers once you got nearer to Hogsmeade.
“We should be arriving soon, you should get changed into those ugly ass blue robes of yours.” Wynonna teased and Waverly smiled.
“Speak for yourself, I mean who honestly thought red and yellow looked good together.”
“It’s gold, not yellow! And that would be… Mr. Gryffindor.” Wynonna retorted indignantly.
“You forgot his name didn’t you?” Dolls interrupted, rolling his eyes at his friend’s blunder. This of course started a fresh bout of squabbling between the three friends and Waverly tuned them out. When she first started school she had worried Wynonna would be disappointed if she was sorted into any house but Gryffindor. But when the sorting hat had shouted Ravenclaw, after deliberating long and hard between Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, her sister had immediately ran over to the Ravenclaw table and noogied her little sister, shouting “I knew it ya little brain box!” above the applause. They still saw plenty of each other around school and Waverly had snuck into the Gryffindor common room more than a few times in the past. The Ravenclaws could be a little obnoxious and were less accommodating to her sister even before she kicked their butts at quidditch. But the Gryiffindors were fine with her so long as she didn’t go “full know-it-all” as Dolls called it.
When they finally arrived Waverly left her sister to go fetch her luggage from Champ’s train cabin and as they were getting off the train she noticed a girl around her own age struggling with her trunk and a wire cat basket. The sheet had slipped off and the cat inside was hissing at the rain and noise around them. A boy tried to put the sheet back over the basket and the cat inside tried to scratch him through the wires.
“Sorry, she doesn’t really like boys.” The girl smiled apologetically as she secured the sheet. Waverly thought she heard an American accent, but with all the noise and bustle she could be mistaken.
“Who’s that?” She muttered to Champ. She didn’t know everyone in school by name but she was pretty sure she at least knew their faces. Champ just shrugged though and heaved all their stuff into the horseless drawn carriages. Waverly stopped to pet one of the thestrals before climbing up after him, taking one last look back at the tall red head who was now chatting amicably with the other boy.