Episode 1.2
September 1st, 1985
11:00 am
Hogwarts Express
‘Well, I had better be off - they want me in the prefect’s car.’ Bill Weasley sighed and stood up, as the train began to pull away from the platform. ‘I’ll catch up with you guys later.’
As the compartment door slid shut, Polly Trent sighed and slumped in her seat. Her best friend, Sebastian Levitt, wasn’t sure which was worse - the goofy smile on her face, or the fact that the vacant expression she wore was the same as the one she got whenever she started to talk about Hamish MacFarlan’s last game for the Montrose Magpies.
‘I think that prefect’s badge really suits him, don’t you?’ she said dreamily. Sebastian raised his eyebrows.
‘Your area of expertise, not mine,’ he replied, sick of her Bill-fascination already. As much as he liked Bill Weasley, Polly’s infatuation sometimes made him wish that Bill went to some other school. Polly’s other obsession he didn’t mind so much - he could live with not getting a word of sense out of her when it came to quidditch. After all, most of the boys at his primary school had had the same level of obsession with football, so he was relatively used to this. And he supposed he didn’t mind when Polly decided she had a crush on some other poor bloke, which happened relatively frequently. But he had to be friends with Bill, and hearing Polly’s various fantasies on a regular basis made him more than a little uncomfortable.
Polly laughed girlishly. ‘Not jealous, are you Seb?’ she joked.
Sebastian shook his head. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I just wish you could pretend for a moment that you weren’t hopelessly in love with him; you know, for my sake.’
Polly had stopped listening, however. She lay down on the seat and smiled at the ceiling.
‘I think I’ll talk to Jones about that move the Wigtown keeper made at that game a few weeks back,’ she said, slightly distantly. ‘I think I could do it, you know - it’d really throw Hufflepuff off their guard.’
Sebastian smiled and, knowing that his input was not really required for this particular change of subject, reached for his book. He’d found it in a bookshop not far from his grandparents’ West End home and had read it cover to cover several times already. It was, in a word, brilliant. It was all about muggles, obviously, but Sebastian had never been one to let something like that stop him. Besides, as a muggle-born he was perfectly positioned to take full advantage of muggle business theories that wizards knew nothing about.
He smiled more widely still as he thumbed through the worn pages, his notes in red ink jumping out at him from the margins. It all made perfect sense to him, and he knew he could put his new know-how to good use at Hogwarts - if he could only think of a product to sell.
‘Pol? Question.’
‘Yeah?’
‘What’s the one thing missing at Hogwarts?’
Polly frowned slightly. ‘Well, I always thought a premiership-standard pitch wouldn’t be a stupid idea.’
Sebastian rolled his eyes. ‘That’s not exactly what I was-’
‘It’d be great for training, and we could hold real national and international matches at the school! You could even sell the tickets to students - most of them don’t have much opportunity to go to proper games, so it’d be great for the promotion of the sport. Not to mention we could host other schools, and have a whole-school team and not just the house teams ...’
Sebastian listened thoughtfully. The funny thing was, she sort of had a good point - even if it was not precisely what he had in mind. Polly, although he valued her opinion, did not have too many opinions outside the subject of quidditch - or Bill Weasley. He had a feeling that if he really wanted his scheme to succeed, he would have to come up with something with a slightly wider appeal.
He nodded, as though he was actually listening to what she was saying. He knew she didn’t need his encouragement. He supposed that it ought to have bothered him, but in reality he quite liked how Polly was able to talk about things that she was passionate about without needing him to participate in any meaningful way. It was something that they had in common - when he got an idea into his head, he scarcely stopped to hear anything that was being said around him.
‘Mum said you could come to ours for Christmas, by the way,’ Polly added to the end of her speech, as though the sentence was somehow related to what she had been saying before about quidditch. Sebastian looked up from his book bemusedly.
‘That’s nice of her. I’ll ask my Gran.’
‘Yeah, I think she feels sorry for you or something,’ she continued, with a customary lack of tact. ‘She kept saying things like ‘we’ll give him a real family Christmas’ and stuff like that.’
Sebastian raised his eyebrows. ‘She does know that I already have a family, right?’
‘That’s what I kept telling her, but she’s stuck on some sort of weird idea that you’ve been neglected and ignored your whole life just because you don’t have any parents.’
‘Who does she think I am anyway? Oliver Twist? Please, sir, may I have some more? ’
There was the usual sudden, heavy silence that always followed when Sebastian inadvertently made a muggle reference. Polly’s look was completely blank.
‘Never mind,’ he said quickly.
‘I never do,’ Polly replied, with a shrug of her shoulders. They caught each other’s eyes and grinned.
11:00 am
Hogwarts Express
‘Well, I had better be off - they want me in the prefect’s car.’ Bill Weasley sighed and stood up, as the train began to pull away from the platform. ‘I’ll catch up with you guys later.’
As the compartment door slid shut, Polly Trent sighed and slumped in her seat. Her best friend, Sebastian Levitt, wasn’t sure which was worse - the goofy smile on her face, or the fact that the vacant expression she wore was the same as the one she got whenever she started to talk about Hamish MacFarlan’s last game for the Montrose Magpies.
‘I think that prefect’s badge really suits him, don’t you?’ she said dreamily. Sebastian raised his eyebrows.
‘Your area of expertise, not mine,’ he replied, sick of her Bill-fascination already. As much as he liked Bill Weasley, Polly’s infatuation sometimes made him wish that Bill went to some other school. Polly’s other obsession he didn’t mind so much - he could live with not getting a word of sense out of her when it came to quidditch. After all, most of the boys at his primary school had had the same level of obsession with football, so he was relatively used to this. And he supposed he didn’t mind when Polly decided she had a crush on some other poor bloke, which happened relatively frequently. But he had to be friends with Bill, and hearing Polly’s various fantasies on a regular basis made him more than a little uncomfortable.
Polly laughed girlishly. ‘Not jealous, are you Seb?’ she joked.
Sebastian shook his head. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I just wish you could pretend for a moment that you weren’t hopelessly in love with him; you know, for my sake.’
Polly had stopped listening, however. She lay down on the seat and smiled at the ceiling.
‘I think I’ll talk to Jones about that move the Wigtown keeper made at that game a few weeks back,’ she said, slightly distantly. ‘I think I could do it, you know - it’d really throw Hufflepuff off their guard.’
Sebastian smiled and, knowing that his input was not really required for this particular change of subject, reached for his book. He’d found it in a bookshop not far from his grandparents’ West End home and had read it cover to cover several times already. It was, in a word, brilliant. It was all about muggles, obviously, but Sebastian had never been one to let something like that stop him. Besides, as a muggle-born he was perfectly positioned to take full advantage of muggle business theories that wizards knew nothing about.
He smiled more widely still as he thumbed through the worn pages, his notes in red ink jumping out at him from the margins. It all made perfect sense to him, and he knew he could put his new know-how to good use at Hogwarts - if he could only think of a product to sell.
‘Pol? Question.’
‘Yeah?’
‘What’s the one thing missing at Hogwarts?’
Polly frowned slightly. ‘Well, I always thought a premiership-standard pitch wouldn’t be a stupid idea.’
Sebastian rolled his eyes. ‘That’s not exactly what I was-’
‘It’d be great for training, and we could hold real national and international matches at the school! You could even sell the tickets to students - most of them don’t have much opportunity to go to proper games, so it’d be great for the promotion of the sport. Not to mention we could host other schools, and have a whole-school team and not just the house teams ...’
Sebastian listened thoughtfully. The funny thing was, she sort of had a good point - even if it was not precisely what he had in mind. Polly, although he valued her opinion, did not have too many opinions outside the subject of quidditch - or Bill Weasley. He had a feeling that if he really wanted his scheme to succeed, he would have to come up with something with a slightly wider appeal.
He nodded, as though he was actually listening to what she was saying. He knew she didn’t need his encouragement. He supposed that it ought to have bothered him, but in reality he quite liked how Polly was able to talk about things that she was passionate about without needing him to participate in any meaningful way. It was something that they had in common - when he got an idea into his head, he scarcely stopped to hear anything that was being said around him.
‘Mum said you could come to ours for Christmas, by the way,’ Polly added to the end of her speech, as though the sentence was somehow related to what she had been saying before about quidditch. Sebastian looked up from his book bemusedly.
‘That’s nice of her. I’ll ask my Gran.’
‘Yeah, I think she feels sorry for you or something,’ she continued, with a customary lack of tact. ‘She kept saying things like ‘we’ll give him a real family Christmas’ and stuff like that.’
Sebastian raised his eyebrows. ‘She does know that I already have a family, right?’
‘That’s what I kept telling her, but she’s stuck on some sort of weird idea that you’ve been neglected and ignored your whole life just because you don’t have any parents.’
‘Who does she think I am anyway? Oliver Twist? Please, sir, may I have some more? ’
There was the usual sudden, heavy silence that always followed when Sebastian inadvertently made a muggle reference. Polly’s look was completely blank.
‘Never mind,’ he said quickly.
‘I never do,’ Polly replied, with a shrug of her shoulders. They caught each other’s eyes and grinned.