secrets & scars -- {dm x mr x tn x november greene}

ch. 1

It was dark and rainy, with a bitterly cold breeze casting pinpricks of icy rain into the students' faces. First-years had their cloaks and hoods on, umbrellas over their heads, causing the scene to seem ever more chaotic as the student body shuffled out of the train cars and flung out their umbrellas. The older kids were using simple charms to keep themselves dry.

In the crowd, a tall, blonde-haired boy with gray eyes scowled at the younger students bumping into him. With him, a dark-skinned boy with short hair, and fair-skinned girl with wavy blonde locks, and another girl with dark, straight hair, all cluster together, the blonde girls hand clutching the dark-haired girls arm.

The four stick close together and towards the edge of the crowd of students while the first-years break off from the group towards the lake. Left behind is a crowd full of returning students whose educational journies had been interrupted due to the Battle of Hogwarts and the issue with Voldemort. After nearly two years, Hogwarts is up and running again, and welcoming, or welcoming back, its students.

The oldest returning students, here to finish off their seventh years, are all between 19 and 21. As the four returning Slytherins follow the crowd, carriages are loaded and begin to trot down the path toward Hogwarts. Nearly every student could see the Thestrals.

The four Slytherins find themselves a carriage and they climb in, waiting to begin the bumpy ride to Hogwarts.

"I see nothing's changed. Still have these bloody carriages." Pansy remarks as she climbs in; Blaise, Andromeda, and Draco following.

"And those creepy rats with wings," Andromeda adds, shuddering. The Thestrals were remarkably creepy, with taut, shiny black skin and their bones nearly visible under what could be called their scales.

"McGonogall's too noble in her respect for Dumbledore to change anything about his school. I'm sure the old bat named each one of those Thestrals. He never was right in the head." Blaise takes a seat next to Draco on one side of the carriage, while the girls sit on the other side.

"Where's Theodore gone off to?" Pansy wonders aloud, peering out of the foggy window into the dark crowd of students, trying to spot the handsome, dark-eyed Slytherin boy, with long eyelashes that had half the girls in the grade after him.

The fact he'd come back to Hogwarts to finish off his last year when he'd likely skip half his classes and sleep through the rest appalled them all.

Blaise peered out the window, "Here he comes. He'd better put that bloody cigarette out before he climbs in here."

The carriage shudders and while it's beginning to move, Theodore's hand appears at the threshold and he pulls himself in as the Thestrals begin to break off into a walk.

Theodore doesn't pull the small carriage door shut, though, because following directly behind Theodore is another student, who climbs into the carriage and pulls the door shut behind him.

Theodore drops into the open seat on Pansy and Andromeda's side, and the other student sits by Draco, also with a lit cigarette between his lips.

The boy is relatively short, compared to the other three boys in the carriage, but not ridiculously so. His shoulders and general frame were a bit wider than Draco, who had always been somewhat lean and arguably scrawny. The student has short brown locks peeking out from under a dark beanie and noticeably hadn't bothered to put on any sort of uniform, instead in a pair of black jeans with a gray sweatshirt and a thin, though insulated, black coat on top.

At least Theodore bothered to wear something with the Hogwarts crest on it (a dark gray jumper with a Hogwarts crest over the right side of the chest, with a green stripe lining the collar.)