among other dark things {hp}

chapter two.

September 1st that year was unusually warm, and students and parents alike shed jackets and outer robes as they mulled around Platform 9 3/4. The air was full of hooting owls, meowing cats, and the occasional croak of a toad as belongings were gathered, and children wished their mothers and fathers goodbye.

Among them was Hollis Black, leaning against Padfoot as he hugged her, stroking his fingers through her short black hair.

"I'm going to miss you," she said, though her words were muffled where she spoke into Sirius's shoulder. She pulled back to look at Remus. "Both of you."

Sirius hugged her again, only for Moony to step forward and join, embracing both of them.

"We'll miss you, too, cub," he said, kissing her forehead. "But Hogwarts is amazing, you'll see! There will be so many new friends, and places to explore, and even the classes can be fun. You'll have a wonderful time."

Hollis pulled back, biting her lip. The newspaper article, telling the whole world that she had been adopted, that she had once been a Potter , had been published the day after her trip to Diagon Alley. It had quite ruined her mood, and it was only the prank war that Sirius and Remus held that managed to lift her spirits before her small birthday party.

Now her melancholy returned full force. Instead of being just another student, or at worse, the Heir of House Black, when people saw her they would first think of Lucas Potter and how her parents didn't want her.

It wasn't exactly how she imagined things would go. It wasn't the kind of first impression that she wanted to make.

But that dragon was already hatched, as the saying went, and there wasn't anything to be done about it.

Hollis hugged Sirius and Remus one last time, wishing that Hogwarts didn't mean that she had to leave Grimmauld Place.

"Go on, now," Sirius said, pressing a kiss to her temple. "Or the train will leave without you."

With a determined nod and a weak smile, Hollis took the handle of her new trunk, filled with her school supplies and a few other things, mostly books, and waved.

"I'll write to you as soon as I can," she promised. Her owl, Hedwig, who had been a birthday surprise, would be glad of the exercise.

"You'd better. Tell us all about Hogwarts - I'm sure it's changed since we were in school," Remus said.

"And don't worry about being sorted," Sirius added as if reading her mind. "It doesn't matter what house your in, not really."

"All right. I love you both!" Hollis said, and with a wave, turned away towards the train, pulling her magically lightened trunk and owl cage behind her.

They called out their farewells as she climbed up the stairs and into the scarlet train, nerves fluttering in her stomach. What if everyone had read the article in the Daily Prophet?

What if people looked at her and saw only Lucas Potter's twin, not Hollis Black?

She shoved the through away harshly. Hollis had spent her whole life trying to be independent of the Potter's and their actions, and she wasn't about to let some stupid newspaper stop her now. If people didn't see her for who she was, she would make them.

Determination filling her, Hollis walked down the train's corridor, peering into compartments. Most of them were full, and the ones that weren't had older students in them. She didn't particularly want to sit with older students, though. She wanted to find people her own age, fellow first years.

Perhaps Draco.

But what she did not want to find, she knew, is Lucas. Hollis, in truth, wasn't sure what she felt towards her twin. It wasn't Luca's fault, after all - none of it was. But she couldn't help the feeling of jealousy that filled her whenever she saw him, the knowledge that their parents chose him over her a sharp edge in her mind. And for that, Hollis wasn't sure she could forgive. Even though she loved her dads, loved her life, she felt marked by what had happened, as certainly as the scar on her forehead marked her, as certainly as Lucas had been marked by You-Know-Who.