Narry: One Shots

Heart is Where the House Lies

by: alteringegoism

Summary:

Where they are just and loyal, those patient Hufflepuffs are true, and unafraid of toil. 

Congratulations! Your prefect here, welcoming you to Hufflepuff House. Our emblem is the badger, an animal that is often underestimated, because it lives quietly until attacked, but which, when provoked, can fight off animals much larger than itself, including wolves. Hufflepuff is the best of houses. Don’t let anyone, including those sly Slytherins, know-it-all Ravenclaws, or arrogant Gryffindors tell you any different. Oh, and if someone could convince our very own illustrious Head Boy, that git (though don’t you dare hurt any feelings he may or may not have by telling him I said that!) of the same, it’d be much appreciated. Please and thank you!

Luckily, one Niall Horan, Hufflepuff extraordinaire, is about to take on hard-headed, Head Boy Harry Styles, whether he knows it or not. And isn’t it always better when they don’t?

°•°•°

September 1st, Year One

Harry dropped his mum's cradling fingers from his well before they arrived at King's Cross St. Pancras station. Small hands freed and twitching for something else to hold on to, he placed one palm down on top of the old trunk that bumped against his knee with every bend and sway of the tube carriage in its rush along the tracks. The battered, brown case, a remnant from his mother's long ago school days and passed down to him via his sister Gemma (whose imminently fashionable wardrobe had long since outgrown its shabby confines), persisted in its knocking like a particularly nervous tic.

Lacking a floo connection, and indeed even a place to light a sizable fire in their tiny flat in Newham, the three magical members of the Styles household had been forced to travel across London the muggle way. It seemed a particularly long journey that day. Hemmed in and bogged down by hefty baggage and concealed cages, they went first by bus and then through the extensive Underground. Owing to the finicky nature of muggle transportation, they made sure to gift themselves plenty of extra time with which to arrive. At the stroke of nine that dreary fall morning, they left behind their flat and their equally muggle father sat in front of the telly. With only a hastily mumbled goodbye and nary a glance backward, the trio had set off into the brisk autumn air and, for Harry at least, out into a wide world of possibilities.

Now, as the tenth hour passed and eleven fast approached, Harry felt that airy sense of relief that had so lifted his thin shoulders settle down into leaden trepidation. Grow up. Stop being a baby,Harry scolded himself and proceeded to stiffen his spine and upper lip. The train slowed to a squeaky stop. Again shrugging off any helping hands, he heaved his feather-light charmed, but still unwieldy luggage and cat-carrier up against his twig-like thighs and toddled out with the tide of exiting people.

Each additional step that took him closer to the rail terminal seemed to drag longer and more perilous than the last. His mum's constant and deliberately cheerful prattle buzzing in his ear hardly helped, what with the way it made Harry's insides twist with equal parts longing and denial. He focused instead on forging his own careful path through the sea of muggles.

"My little bug, growing up and going off to Hogwarts," Harry's mum murmured from beside him, words limned with a sheen of tears. Her slender hand, the skin around the short nails red and cracked because no amount of 5 sickle softening potion could counteract hours spent washing and scrubbing up after muggles, rose to rest on the back of Harry's neck. Roughened fingertips petted at the softly curling hairs there. "Wait until you see the castle, oh and the lake, and Hogsmeade! But first the feast and the sorting! Imagine, you might be a Hufflepuff like me. Wouldn't that be just grand? But whatever house, I'm so, so proud of you. Of you both, my babies."