Rita's Point of View
Rita Skeeter loved train stations.
So many people. So many reunions. So many badly hidden disasters.
King's Cross was Muggle, which meant it was ugly and loud and smelled like hot metal and old newspapers, but that was fine. The real show was on the other side of the barrier, and Rita was early enough to watch everyone arrive.
Not because she was excited for school, obviously.
Because she had a mental notebook to fill.
She adjusted her glasses, smoothed down her curls, and leaned casually by a luggage trolley that technically belonged to her but was currently functioning as camouflage. Her actual notebook was in her bag. For now, she was just… watching.
Then the Blacks arrived, and the whole platform tilted.
The Black Sisters, Revised
They always drew attention. Old family, old money, old scandals. The three Black daughters were practically public assets.
But this year, they looked… upgraded.
Bellatrix came first, of course.
Same wild hair, same eyes like hexes waiting for a reason, but there was a new layer to her. The robes hung just right, fitted in a way that said someone understood tailoring. Not vulgar. Not obviously altered. Just… sharpened. Battle-ready and sinful.
Dominatrix, Rita thought, pleased with herself. If dark lords had fan clubs, Bellatrix Black was auditioning to be president.
Narcissa followed like an advertisement for "pure-blood perfection." Pale hair in immaculate waves. Robes smooth and severe, minimal jewelry, everything precise. No scuffs, no loose threads, not a single button wrong.
Ice queen, Rita mentally labeled. The kind that froze people for getting her tea order wrong.
Andromeda walked between them and somehow managed to look like she owned the train, the platform, and possibly the Ministry.
Her robes were structured, not fussy. Lines straight, cut clean, posture relaxed but ready. Less drama than Bella, less frost than Cissy, but definitely dangerous.
That one's going to run a department or a coup, Rita decided. CEO energy.
Rita knew all three by reputation, but something was different this year. Their silhouettes were… cohesive. Stylized. Like the same hand had decided what each of them was supposed to look like and then pushed.
She squinted.
Nothing obvious. No glamor shimmer, no cursed glint.
Just that feeling you got when a room suddenly had more teeth.
"Interesting," she murmured.
Sirius and Regulus trailed behind, but Rita's interest in boys with mummy issues was limited. She filed them away for later drama and went back to the main attraction.
The Blacks were talking to their parents and that absolute horror Walburga, and Rita was just about to drift closer when something else caught her eye.
A flash of black and grey at the edge of the crowd.
And a face she hadn't seen in a while.
Eileen Prince, New Edition
Eileen Prince had been a year ahead of Rita before she vanished into "married life," which usually meant "some dismal house and early death."
She had been:
Brilliant in Potions
Decent in Transfiguration
Terrifying in a quiet, tired way
She'd also dressed like she was allergic to tailoring. Baggy robes, limp hair, permanent expression of "everything is disappointing."
The woman on the platform now was… not that.
Still thin. Still pale. Still Eileen.
But the robe actually fit. Dark, clean lines, cinched here, looser there, the kind of cut that said: I might have to hex someone, so I need room in the shoulders.
Her hair was tied back properly instead of existing as a suggestion.
There was a choker at her throat. Black. Simple.
Goth goddess, Rita thought, delighted. Like a cross between a funerary statue and a bad idea.
Something about Eileen's posture had changed too. Less folded in on herself. More here I am, and I dare you.
Her son walked beside her, pushing a trolley.
Rita recognized him instantly. Smaller version of Eileen. Same nose, same dark hair, same pinched mouth. Severus Snape. Lived in Cokeworth, rumor said. Half-blood. Quiet. Very... starey.
Tucked just ahead of them was a cluster of red and blonde.
Muggles.
No. Not just Muggles.
The Muggle-born from the letters.
Rita slid sideways through the crowd, closer.
The Evans Problem
The younger one was obvious.
Red hair like it had picked a fight with the sun and won. Green eyes, wide, taking in everything, practically vibrating with excitement.
Lily Evans. The name had been floating around Slytherin for a week now. "Did you hear, Professor McGonagall personally went to see a Muggle-born in Cokeworth." "Apparently her magic shook the street." "Gryffindor bait."
The older girl next to her looked… similar, but sharper. Longer face. Blonde hair, tightly pulled back. Mouth thin, eyes tired-but-angry.
That's not on the Hogwarts list, Rita thought. Interesting.
Rita edged close enough to catch snippets as the barrier spat them onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
Lily stumbled out first with Severus, laughing. The older sister and the parents followed, looking as if physics had personally betrayed them.
McGonagall did the soothing "this is all normal" thing.
Rita ignored the adults.
She watched the older sister.
Petunia Evans, something in her memory supplied. The "normal" sister. The one not supposed to be here.
Except she had a wand sticking out of her coat pocket.
And she walked through the barrier.
And the way the magic in the air moved around her felt… wrong. It didn't bend to her like it did to Lily. It clung. Like she was dragging something else with her.
Rita's scalp prickled.
"Oh," she whispered to herself. "That's a story."
Eileen drifted nearer with Severus' trolley.
Her gaze flicked over the Evans girls, and Rita caught the moment recognition clicked.
Tightening around the eyes. A half second of extra attention for the older one.
Some kind of connection then. Snape and the Muggles. Prince and the Blacks. Blacks and whatever nonsense they'd got into over the summer.
Rita could feel it. Threads. Crossing. Tightening.
She watched Severus and Lily talk, too close, too quick.
He was hunched like the world might laugh at him for breathing.
She was bubbling, words spilling over, grabbing his sleeve to drag him toward the train.
Petunia walked a half-step behind them. Watching Lily, watching Severus, watching the crowd. The kind of watching that meant: if anyone tries something, I'm going to detonate.
Rita enjoyed that flavor of vigilance.
She followed.
Enter James Potter, Menace-in-Training
The platform was hitting peak chaos when it happened.
Students pushing, trunks scraping, owls screeching, parents shouting their last ten pieces of advice at once.
Rita snagged a spot by a pillar with a good line of sight and pretended to rummage in her bag. In reality, she was tracking red hair, sallow profile, and a weirdly interesting blonde older sister.
Lily, Severus, and Petunia reached a gap near one carriage.
Lily was yammering about the moving staircases.
"I read there are ghosts!" she said. "Actual ghosts. And a forest we're not supposed to go into, and—"
Severus was nodding, answering quietly, filling in details. He knew all this already. It was in his posture: finally, I know something someone else doesn't.
Petunia rolled her eyes, but stayed close.
Then a trunk swung into the narrow space.
Lily jolted; Severus yanked her back.
"Watch it!" someone yelled.
"Sorry!" came a boy's voice.
Rita recognized the voice before she saw the hair.
James Potter. Gryffindor golden boy in training. Second-year. Owns too many Quidditch posters. Laughs at his own jokes.
He came into view with an owl cage under one arm, wand stuck behind his ear like an idiot, hair already a lost cause. Behind him, Sirius Black, hands in his pockets, grin sharp.
Rita perked up.
Intersection. Perfect.
James spotted Lily first.
Of course he did.
She was hard to miss.
"Oi," he said, brightening. "First year?"
"Obviously," Lily said. "Unless you think I dress like this for fun."
She gestured at her school robes over Muggle clothes.
James laughed. "You are funny. I like her."
His eyes flicked to Severus, taking in the sallow face, the hair, the expression like he'd rather be anywhere else than under this boy's attention.
"And who's this?" James asked. "Your bodyguard?"
"Severus," Lily said. "He's from my town. He's been telling me all about the Houses."
"Has he now," James said. "Let me guess. Slytherin fan?"
The word came out like "rat infestation."
Severus stiffened. "There's nothing wrong with Slytherin."
Rita mentally took notes.
Lily's mouth opened. "He said it's where the clever ones go if they're not boring."
"I said ambitious," Severus muttered.
"Same thing," Lily said.
James' smile tilted. "Clever ones belong in Gryffindor. That's where all the action is."
"'Action' like 'detentions for idiocy'?" Petunia said mildly.
James blinked.
Rita almost dropped her quill she wasn't technically holding. Older sister speaks.
Sirius' grin widened. "Who's this then? Extra Evans?"
"Petunia," she said crisply. "I'm not in your year, so you don't need to practice your lines on me."
Sirius actually snorted.
Rita liked her more.
James glanced at Petunia's wand in her pocket, then at her clothes, then at her face.
"You're—" He frowned. "I thought Lily was the Muggle-born."
"She is," Petunia said. "I'm the late paperwork."
That made James laugh. "Nice. You going to Hogwarts too, then?"
"Unless someone tackles me before I board, yes," she said.
Rita caught the flicker of unease there.
Lip gloss over panic.
Severus stepped slightly closer to Lily. Instinctive. Possessive. Faintly pathetic.
"You can't just decide Gryffindor is best because you landed there," he said tightly.
"Can and did," James said. "Better than slithering around in the dungeons with the snake cult."
"My mum was Slytherin," Severus shot back. "She's better at magic than your whole family tree."
James' smile sharpened.
"Touchy," he said.
Sirius, lurking at his shoulder, went still in that way that meant his brain had just drawn a line between "mysterious Snape boy" and "Eileen Prince rumor."
Rita practically vibrated.
There it was.
Fault line.
"Anyway," James said, turning back to Lily with a blinding grin, "if you get sorted into Gryffindor, I can show you the common room. Best view of the grounds. And the Quidditch pitch. You'll want to see that."
"Quidditch is just people on sticks chasing balls," Petunia said.
"Quidditch is life," James replied automatically.
Lily laughed. "I'd like to see it," she admitted. "But the Hat decides where I go, doesn't it?"
"It can be… persuaded," James said. "If you're brave."
He winked.
Rita wanted to smack him and also pat him on the head for being so stereotypically useful.
Severus was practically vibrating beside Lily now.
"You don't want Gryffindor," he muttered. "They're all—"
"Loud?" Petunia suggested.
"Idiots," Severus said quietly, eyes never leaving James.
James tilted his head. "Got something to say, Greasy?"
Rita inhaled.
There.
First spark.
Lily's eyes flashed. "Don't call him that."
James blinked, surprised.
"Sorry," he said, automatically, to her, not to Severus. "Didn't mean to upset you."
Rita filed that: cares what Lily thinks, not about Snape, check.
Severus' jaw clenched.
"She doesn't belong in your House," he said.
"And she does belong in yours?" James asked. "With all the budding Death Eaters?"
Rita was delighted. He'd said it out loud. On a platform. With parents around. Idiot.
Lily frowned. "Death what?"
"Nothing," James said quickly. "Just… Slytherin's full of dark wizards and worse haircuts."
Severus' hand twitched near his wand.
Petunia stepped between them.
Literally.
She shifted half a step, just enough that James would have to hex through her to reach Severus.
It was subtle.
Rita saw it anyway.
"If you're going to start your macho posturing," Petunia said coolly, "do it after my sister is safely on the train and out of stray spell range."
James blinked again, thrown off script.
Sirius' grin edged toward feral. "I like her. She sounds like McGonagall if McGonagall had mascara."
"And a better hairstyle," Petunia added.
"Oi," Sirius protested, touching his hair.
Lily grabbed Petunia's sleeve. "Come on. Let's get a compartment before we're stuck with you lot."
"You could be stuck with worse," James called after her. "Like Slytherins."
"Or Quidditch fanatics," Petunia retorted.
Lily snorted, trying not to smile.
Severus shot James one last, heartfelt look of loathing and followed the sisters onto the train.
Rita let out a slow, happy breath.
Triangle, she thought, satisfied. We've got a triangle.
Severus: haunted bat. Lily: bright flame. Potter: arrogant idiot. Petunia: protective knife on the side.
And that's not even counting whatever Sirius is going to do when he figures out his cousin is trying to marry the Dark Lord.
Delicious.
Patterns & Problems
Rita's gaze drifted back to Eileen.
The woman stood a little apart now, watching the train, eyes tracking her son until he vanished into a carriage.
Her robe shifted when she moved, like it had more structure than fabric should. Not fancy. Not expensive. Just better.
Upgrade over summer, Rita thought. New clothes. New choker. New spine.
Rumor said Eileen Prince had married a Muggle and gone to rot in some factory town.
Rumor now needed updating.
On the far end of the platform, the Black sisters were boarding too. Bellatrix glanced back once, eyes sweeping over the crowd, lingering on the scarlet steam, the symbol of their shared future.
Narcissa checked her own reflection in a window's glass, smoothing hair that didn't need smoothing.
Andromeda stood centered, one hand on her trunk, gaze level. Evaluating.
Rita noticed, for the second time, that all three moved with the same subtle adjustment. Like their clothes had opinions.
She also noticed how Eileen, the Blacks, Severus, the Evans girls, and that weird flick of unease when Dumbledore walked by all felt like parts of one big, ugly, beautiful story waiting to happen.
Her fingers itched for a quill.
She fished her notebook out of her bag and, shielding it with her back, scribbled fast:
> Notes – 1 Sept, King's Cross
– Black sisters: new looks (Bella = executioner chic, Cissy = glacier, Andy = future Minister)
– Prince-Snape: back from the dead, hotter, suspicious
– Evans sisters: two letters, not normal
– Snape attached to Lily like fungus
– Potter immediately hates Snape, wants Lily
– Petunia = problem. Mundane + magic? HOW.
The whistle blew.
Parents shouted.
The train lurched forward.
Rita closed her notebook, smirked, and hopped aboard at the last second, nearly clipping a prefect with her trunk.
This year, she thought, finding a seat and already planning who to eavesdrop on first, is going to be fantastic.
Somewhere in the walls of the train, something old and slimy shrank back from Dumbledore's presence and hummed softly in five different rib cages.
Rita didn't know that part.
Yet.
But she'd find it.
Secrets didn't stay buried around her for long.