don't make me choose between you and what we're fighting for;

[wingborne]

Year One

1.

Voldemort never killed Alfred’s mother. In the little house on Juniper Drive, nobody had even heard of the Dark Lord, except for bad anagrams on the Scrabble board. Alfred never lived in a cupboard below the stairs; he slept in a small bedroom where Superman posters stood plastered vigilantly above his bed. On the day before his eleventh birthday, his mother took them to the zoo, but nothing happened. Alfred dragged his little brother to look at the snakes for a while, before he got bored and wandered around lost in the aviary house.

So when the owl flew into the breakfast table in the morning, with two letters dangling from its claws, Alfred didn’t know he was going to be a wizard.

He just thought, as the owl fumbled around in the marmalade, that the toast this morning was going to be particularly feathery.

2.

“Alfred! Come back!”

Matthew toddled after him, dragging his polar bear. Though he was eleven, too, his voice came out pinched and anxious, and quickly lost in the crowds. Alfred expertly lost himself in the bustling black robes as the parents ushered their children around the books and to the cauldrons and back again.

Alfred frowned as he glanced down at his list. He already slung his robes haphazardly into his shiny new cauldron, which already had a resounding dent on the side from a tragic accident against a monster book. But his heart pounded steadily in his ears, and his neck hurt from all the craning. The entire store was small, tucked neatly into a cranny, but the display tables had piles of strange-colored books with musky smells, and cauldrons boiling carefully with biles of green smoke turning into smoggy dragons. To the corner, small gem stones glittered under a display case, each more wildly colorful than the last. Even the robes danced on the hangers under a clerk’s watchful wand, swinging back and forth and too eagerly applying themselves against the passing children who found themselves purchasing a bigger robe than they had anticipated.

“Wow,” he breathed, clutching a book to his chest. He had said it under his breath, but it must have came out louder than he anticipated when a nearby student turned around, carrying a standard spell book.

“First time?” The other boy seemed slightly older than him, though an ambiguous age at best. He was still taller than Alfred, and wore the plain black robes with a green tie messily tucked in. Alfred already liked him, even if the boy had thick eyebrows that made him look perpetually concerned.

“It’s amazing,” Alfred said eagerly, trying to eye the other boy’s purchases without making himself too obvious.

“You’re not from around here, I take it.” The other boy swiveled his head expertly around the shop, accidentally brushing his cauldron of purchases further into Alfred’s view. Though he could only catch a quick glimpse, Alfred saw a small golden chain with a compass on the end, except there was only one word written inside: THERE. He was startled out of his reverie by the boy’s remark.

“We moved here from America. I’m Alfred F. Jones, and I’m going to be a first year student at Hogwarts.”

“The first year’s the hardest,” the boy murmured with a frown. “Or was that the second year? No, I heard the second year is quite easy. Fortunate for me.”

“Why’s it hard in your first year?” Alfred swallowed thickly and steadied his frown, pretending to not care about the response, even when his ears were twitching forward.

“The usual things. You know, the fire-breathing dragons, the toxic gases of the potions… oh, right, and if you can’t do a spell on your first day, they’ll gladly kick you out.” The boy seemed to survey Alfred’s sudden shock with some amusement.

“You’re kidding, right?” he asked uneasily.

“Of course I’m kidding. Hogwarts is a good school. But if you believed all that rubbish, you must come from a Muggle family.” The boy inclined his head towards him. “Are you?”

He hadn’t thought of about it, but he was suddenly conscious of the wizards in the room. Everybody else in the store seemed to know what they were doing, but he was holding a cauldron that looked two sizes too big, and unflattering robes. He didn’t quite fit.

“Yeah,” he said loudly, “Does it matter?”

The boy only hummed and glanced at him distractedly as he slid another book into his cauldron, this one about hexes and charms. They were standing at a small alcove away from the store, where the people pushed and shoved around them, but there was still a comfortable space for the two of them. The boy appeared to be grabbing books randomly off the shelves, glancing down every now and then at his cauldron.

“You shouldn’t tell lies,” Alfred grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I shouldn’t,” the boy said mildly. “But I’ll teach you a spell, free of charge. Even if they don’t test you on the first day. Do you have your wand yet?”

“We’re going there—next.”

“All right. When you get your wand, you just wave it around—like this—” The boy gave a practiced flick of the wrist. “And then you say, Abracadabra, alakazam, make this day go easy as jam. Got that?”

“Yeah,” Alfred said enthusiastically, pressing himself forward. He tucked away his first spell in his head, promising himself to try it out on Matthew as soon as they got home. “What does the spell do?”

“Make your day better, of course. All the meanings are in the spell. You just have to listen.” The boy glanced up from the book he was holding, which Alfred could barely see had a big black dog pacing inside the pages. “Where’s your parents? You came with them, didn’t you?”

“Yeah—erm—they went to buy Mattie and me our owls, and there’s my mom, over there.” He stood on his tippy-toes and waved, glancing back to see if his new friend saw her, too. He was somewhat embarrassed to be shopping with his mother, but he was a bit proud, too. Even though his mother was a—what was it? Muggle?— she had been the one to take control of the marmalade owl, and shuffle her sons off to Diagon Alley, and buy them all the proper books and equipment after exchanging pounds into knuts. She was a young woman with short blond hair and soft blue eyes, holding two owl cages in front of her and speaking with Matthew.

“I see,” the boy said, glancing up from his book. But he stared at Alfred’s mother for another second, and then glanced back to Alfred. Then to Alfred’s mother, and back to Alfred. By the end of the quick volley of looks, the boy wore a vague, unreadable look on his face.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s strange how much you look like her. You have your mother’s eyes,” the boy said, sliding the book absently into his cauldron. “I’ll see you around, then.” He ducked his head to merge into the crowd, but Alfred caught his sleeve. He felt childish and anxious, all at once, but he never had a wizard friend before.

“You haven’t told me your name,” he insisted.

“My…” The boy blinked blearily at him, and then hastily to the crowd. “It’s Arthur. Arthur Kirkland. But don’t tell anyone.” He pulled abruptly on his sleeve, and before Alfred had a chance to say anything else, he disappeared into the crowd of black robes. His mother reached him around the time, scolding him and pulling Matthew along with the cages clacking together and owls fluttering inside the small cage.

“Who was that, dear?” His mother bent over to slick back a curl on Matthew’s head.

“Mom—”

“I’m only making you presentable, dear.”

“It was just some student,” Alfred said loudly, tugging on her sleeve. Her attention drawn away, Matthew fussed up his hair again.

“I see,” his mother said vaguely, checking the dent on his cauldron with some dismay. “Be careful who you befriend. Though I’m sure,” she added as an afterthought, “he was very nice.”

Alfred would remember those words for the rest of his life, even to the day he was bent over on the battlefield with dirt in his mouth, feeling his life seep from his wound. His mother’s vague words haunted him, guided him, assured him, and hurt him. Arthur Kirkland was a nice boy. His mother was rarely wrong, but when she was, she never was wrong only slightly. She was wrong horribly.

But today was not that day. Alfred F. Jones was eleven years old, and he was going to be a wizard. He received his first owl, his first robes, and his first wand. Ash, dragon heartstring, fourteen inches. Slightly springy, good for the charms he would be throwing even when blood stained his old robes and his dead owl laid, impaled, on a broken pillar.

3.

“And don’t forget to send me a letter every week,” his mother was saying, kissing him on both sides of the cheeks. Alfred pulled away, wiping at his face with disgust. He hopped from foot to foot while Matthew obediently turned up his face for the kisses, even while he looked nervously at the baggage cart where his stuffed bear laid well-hidden in the suitcases. Alfred, as a big brother, knew it was his job to tell Matthew that it wasn’t cool to carry that kind of stuff around.

His hand curling around his secret lucky whale charm, he moved away from his family to stare up at the large train that had pulled up at Platform 9 ¾. The train looked like a heavy beast, inky black on the surface, but the windows showed a luxuriant red curtain and velvety lining for the chairs. It was an old-fashioned train, not like the tube. Smoke pillared high and exhaust clung to the back of his throat, and he thought he could hear somebody selling newspapers at the back of the crowded station.

“Alfred!” His mother rapped on the cart. Her large hat cast a shadow over her face, making it hard to read her features.

“It’s almost time, Mom.”

“You have to take care of Matthew, all right? And be careful. If you need anything—”

“I know, tell a professor,” Alfred said impatiently. He watched as his mother’s long sleeves flopped in the wind as she nervously moved her arms around. But he had been right, after all, and the whistle blew shrill in the air.

“Take care of your brother,” his mother was still anxiously saying, even as Alfred bounded two at a time up the stairs. He dragged Matthew behind him, even though Mattie had sweaty palms. But he wanted to find a good compartment, except they were all mostly taken by other small students.

There was an empty one by the end of the row, and he hastily took an inside seat while Matthew lowered himself into the other. Alfred pressed his nose against the cool glass, and watched his mother in her long spring dress, nearly indistinguishable in identity, wave sadly to her boys. The train started suddenly under his feet, and he gripped the sides of his seat even when his mother was barely a dot in the distance.

“Wow,” Alfred breathed, twisting in his seat to watch the rapidly passing forest. “We’re going to be wizards. C’you believe it? We’re going to do magic. What magic are you going do first? I’m going to fly, like—ka-pow, and ka-boom!” He wiggled in his seat, even as Matthew carefully folded his hands into his lap.

“But I don’t know any magic,” Matthew offered timidly.

“I know a spell.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not! Somebody taught me at the store the other day. It’s a real good spell, too. It does something really great, but I’m not going to tell you.”

“Why not?” Matthew cried out anxiously, clutching his hands together in the space where a teddy bear might have gone.

“Because,” Alfred said, turning to glance at the corridor. His breath froze when a familiar face passed by the window, faint snippets of arguments floating into the air.

“Where’s that food cart? I thought it would have passed here by now—”

“Fucking hell, why does Antonio have to faint from hunger? And fucking Gilbert, not…”

“Shh, shh, we are with the first years. Don’t teach them bad language already…”

“Arthur!” It surprised Alfred how fast the word slipped out of his mouth, peeping out the door frame. Arthur turned around, dressed like he was in the store. Black robes, with a sloppy green tie. Under the daylight, he looked more tired and unhappy, a scowl tugging on his lips even as his oversized eyebrows drew together. He had hair that looked like it would never keep down.

His friend, on the other hand, was perfectly manicured. There was something alluring about his young, thin face, with his slender fingers and a hint of facial hair edging around his chin. His shoulder length hair seemed to glitter in the wind, and he composedly glanced at his friend. Like Arthur, he had a green tie, though far less fussed. Where Arthur looked as if he had been thrown through a tumbler, his friend appeared to have walked out of refreshing clouds.

“You have a little first year friend?” the boy teased. “He is cute.”

“Get your paws off him, Francis.” Scowling, Arthur drew his robes closer to himself, as if he suddenly felt a chill. “That’s Alfred. I met him when I was shopping for books.”

“Books? I thought you went to…” Francis paused gracefully, and then smiled grandly on Alfred. “And who is that behind you? Come, don’t be shy. He doesn’t bite.”

“You’re the one scaring him off,” Arthur grumbled underneath his breath, but he inclined his head, as well. Matthew crept from the corridor, nearly hiding behind Alfred. Even as Francis opened his mouth to coo over him, Arthur stepped neatly on his foot.

“That’s Matthew. He’s my little brother.” Alfred patted him on the head fondly.

“Nice to meet you. We should really go, Antonio will die unless we get him something to eat…” Arthur was already twisting away when Francis caught him by the hook of his arm.

“You never cared so much about Antonio before. Are you afraid I’ll corrupt your little friends?” Francis teased gently.

“They’re not my friends! Bloody hell, Francis, if you’re not going to get him the poor lad something to eat, I will. Just give me some galleons.”

“Knuts will be enough for some chocolate frogs,” Francis said, passing over the money. “But get me those clever little beans. They didn’t have those in my school—”

“Hey, it’s Arthur!” A scruffy first year peered out of the corridor, beaming happily. He looked like he loved the sun, judging by his dark tan, and his robes were already torn in several places. Inside his compartment, there were various squawks and owl hoots, a small zoo inside the train.

“What’s he doing here?” a girl bemoaned behind him, emerging relatively unscathed. The corridor, by now, seemed far too crowded, and Alfred found himself jostling forward and trying to protect Matthew from being jammed back into their own compartment.

“Enough already! I’m leaving before Antonio eats Gilbert, not that I care. You—” Here, he stepped forward to the scruffy boy. “At least try to look respectable for your first day of school.” Though his tone seemed insulting, he leaned forward to fix the boy’s tie. Alfred wasn’t sure if it was a cultural gap, between Muggles and wizards, that they seemed so close together. Even as he wondered, Arthur reached out to pat the girl’s head, and she squirmed out underneath his arm to crowd around Alfred. With a slight grumble under his throat, Arthur strode off down the long corridor, robe billowing behind him.

“Who put ants in his pants?” the scruffy boy muttered, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. “Thought we were getting along fine, last time he came over.”

“How do you know Arthur?” Alfred asked eagerly. Since Arthur was his new friend, he thought he should know everything about him. But even as the scruffy boy opened his mouth to speak, it was Francis who smoothly cut in, a refined and experienced second-year, but more importantly, a refined and experienced friend.

“He’s from the main house of the Kirklands.” Francis nodded subtly to the fading figure. “The youngest son, in fact. This is Ralph—” The scruffy boy raised his hand proudly. “—and this is Sesel.” The girl scowled.

“We’re from the branch houses,” she said with a curling lip. “Which means that we get sent off to—Australia, and Seychelles, and all sorts of places. And then we get royal visits from His Majesty over there, and since Bonnefoy has a mansion in Seychelles—”

“I visit too,” Francis said, nearly purring.

“The Bonnefoys are another pureblooded family,” Sesel said, ignoring him.

“I am a sixteenth Veela—” But Francis had no luck again to get attention.

“D’you come from a Muggle family?” Ralph asked persistently, leaning forward. Behind him, Alfred thought he saw a lizard flick its tongue on the wall. He thought that they were only allowed certain pets into Hogwarts, but judging by the way Ralph’s robes appeared to move by themselves, Ralph had no intention of showing his pets to anybody.

“Yeah, me and Mattie.” Alfred touched Matthew’s shoulder, who was staring at Sesel with wide eyes. “Is he always like that? Arthur?”

“If you’re from a Muggle family…”

“But he was nice to me in the store,” Alfred said persistently. Francis glanced at Ralph and Sesel, as if sharing a quiet secret for a moment. The sudden awkward silence, occasionally stabbed with the owl’s hoots, pressed heavily against his chest.

“When Arthur was a first year,” Sesel finally said, her bouncy happiness fading into a serious frown, “I heard he beat up a student really badly, and he stayed in the hospital for months. His father had a lot of money, so he didn’t get expelled or anything like that. But the student’s never coming back to Hogwarts, ever again.”

“That student was Muggleborn,” Ralph murmured. “Listen, mate, Arthur’s sometimes not bad. I get it. But the whole of Kirklands are a bad lot, since all they care about is blood. Just because they’re pureblooded, they think they can get away with anything.”

“And with the money they have, they can,” Francis said. He put a hand on top of Alfred’s head, which Alfred found somewhat comforting. “Don’t think too badly about mon petit, hm? But don’t get too close to him. If you have heard what his father has said, over and over again, about Mudbloods this and Mudbloods that, you would understand.”

“What’s a Mudblood?” Alfred asked, shielding Matthew even further. He felt uncomfortable about the conversation, as if they were talking about Arthur behind his back. He hadn’t known Arthur for very long, but it seemed strange. The Arthur who had hospitalized a student was not the Arthur who had taught him the spell. But his head felt clogged and confused.

“It’s nothing,” Sesel said loudly, even as Francis opened his mouth to answer. “Hey, maybe we’ll be in the same house.”

“House?” It was Matthew who asked this time, and Alfred was startled. He was ashamed to admit it, but he had already forgotten that Matthew was standing behind him.

“The Four Houses of Hogwarts. There’s Slytherin, where Francis and Arthur belong to. Most purebloods go there, I dunno why…” Ralph shrugged as he ticked off the houses on his fingers.

“They’re a nasty lot,” Francis said, smirking. “Arthur’s not even the worst of them. They’re cutthroat and willing to do anything to win.”

“You know you’re speaking about yourself, right?” Sesel asked dryly.

“And there’s Hufflepuff, the most loyal. You want to make friends with them, you can always use them to your needs…” Francis trailed off, whimsically staring out the window with apparent thoughts of utilizing a crowd of Hufflepuffs to suit his own purposes.

“Ravenclaw, where all the smart people go,” Ralph added eagerly, “I’m not getting into that one. But maybe I’ll get into—”

“Gryffindor,” Francis said. He shook his head slowly. “The most foolish House, in my opinion. Brave, strong, loyal, all those terrible traits. Doesn’t that sound terrible?”

“It sounds amazing,” Alfred breathed. He wanted to go into Gryffindor. It was an easy choice to make, since he always wanted to be like Superman. Except now he would be like Wizard Superman, and that was even cooler. “Matthew, come with me, okay?”

“Nobody gets to choose for themselves,” Sesel said. “There’s a Sorting Hat, and a welcome feast, and… oh, where did I put that book…”

“It’s a talking hat,” Ralph said confidentally, “Like a kangaroo.” Alfred wasn’t sure how the analogy worked, but before he could ask, Francis was murmuring something about how the train would arrive soon and he should really take care of Antonio, and Sesel had already disappeared into the crowded compartment of animals, disgusted by Francis’s presence, and Ralph had to chase his lizard down the corridor. Before Alfred knew it, he was sitting on a boat, and watching the largest castle he had ever seen rise up from the steep cliffs, the school he would come to love for his own.

4.

Jones was a long way down the list, and Alfred wiggled in his seat as he watched in silence as the students slowly placed the shaggy hat on top of their heads. At first, he thought the hat would eat the student, and he was surprised to see the first years emerge relatively unscathed.

When he craned his head, he could see Matthew talking softly with another boy down by the W’s, a black-haired boy with soft brown eyes, and texting quite rapidly on his cell phone. Alfred, on the other hand, was too busy staring at the ghosts to talk. He had never told anyone except Matthew, but ghosts always gave him the heebie-jeebies. After the A’s began, he noticed the ghosts mournfully drifting over the food. By the C’s, he thought one particular ghost passed by his hand, and no matter how many times he wiped his hand on his robes, it felt like the cold pierced to his bones. At the E’s, he watched a ghost absently play with his own head, rolling it back and forth as a small ghostly tendril kept his head on the line. By the H’s, Alfred wanted to go home, after watching a ghost juggle his own head. Ghosts were creepy, and he didn’t sign up for this.

But the J’s came rapidly, and he was soon sitting on the bench. Before the hat swallowed his head, he could see Matthew staring at him anxiously from the line. Poor Matthew, it suddenly occurred to him. No wonder the ghosts somehow seemed familiar. They reminded him of Matthew.

No more time to think of his brother, though, as he could only see darkness in the hat.

A young boy, quite brave, and quite intelligent… Yes, I think we can go far with you.

Alfred jolted in his seat. There was a voice inside his head. His mother said that if people heard voices in his head, they were crazy. He didn’t want to be crazy.

I am the Sorting Hat. I must look into your mind to sort you properly, and… yes, I think you would make a good Slytherin.

His breath caught in his throat. But the Slytherins were the cutthroat ones, the ones who hated anyone who weren’t pureblooded.

They are simply ambitious. And with their guidance, I can see you going far, very far…

He wanted to be Gyffindor. He concentrated on that single thought, at the lion roaring against the red of the coats. He didn’t want the weird bird of Ravenclaw, or the badger of Hufflepuff, or even the snake of green Slytherin. Alfred F. Jones was going to be Wizard Superman, and Wizard Superman was brave and loyal and all those other traits that he couldn’t remember at the moment, but he knew they were quite good.

You would have been a good Slytherin. But, if it’s how you feel, then you shall be—

“GRYFFINDOR.”

A smattering of applause met him as he lifted the hat from his head, and he nearly walked off with the shaggy being sitting on top of his hair. But after the professor called him back, he eagerly jogged to the Gryffindor table. Not soon after, he was joined by Ralph and his friend that he only called New Zealand, another branch house member. And not soon after that, Matthew shyly sat on the other side of him, watching with some amazement as the pie tin refilled itself in front of his eyes.

“It’s amazing,” Alfred said, wiggling in his seat. “It’s really amazing.”

“Isn’t it?” Ralph said, mouth full of pie. “Prefer the kidney pie myself, but this isn’t so bad…”

“No, I mean, this whole place. And we get to be Gryffindors and everything,” Alfred said eagerly. “We have to start earning points right away.”

“No help on you there,” Ralph said apologetically, stirring his shepherd’s pie around his plate. “I’m not great at the books.”

“It doesn’t matter, we have to win the House Cup. Right, Mattie?”

Mattie appropriately nodded, and returned back to staring at the pie as if it was the best thing he had ever seen in his life.

Alfred could barely eat, since he was too busy looking around the Great Hall. There were the Gryffindors, loud and noisy, and then the blue Ravenclaws who were much quieter. The Hufflepuffs put up a small buzz, and he recognized Sesel and the boy that Matthew had been talking to sitting together. At the Slytherin table, he finally understood with Francis had been saying. Though they seemed to get along together, he recognized the secret whispers going on between them, the way their eyes slid territorially over the Great Hall with some disgust over particularly shabby students. Arthur sat with Francis and three other boys, a loud one who cunning red eyes, a laughing one with a clever smile, and a quiet black-haired boy with a menacing aura.

He had thought he and Arthur could be friends. But the more he stared at the table, the more he realized that Francis had been wrong. Arthur