Huffily Puffily || Golden Trio

Lucy With-A-Last-Name || iv

* * * * *

Lucy, Ron, and Harry all huddled together as they exited the train. Taller students bustled past them and toward lone carriages in the distance, and it left Lucy feeling smaller than ever. Two students brushing past cast Ron an odd look; he and Harry had stuffed their pockets full of sweets, and it left their robes looking lumpy. When Lucy told them this, the boys were quick to dump the candies onto the ground.

One boy slipped on a peppermint and fell to the ground. Lucy didn't bother her laugh and the boy fixed her with a glare. "What gives?" he scowled, his face turning a deep shade of red.

She only continued snickering and Harry had to tug her along by her robes because she was laughing so hard.

He and Ron headed for the giant man she saw at Diagon Alley. If she had to guess, he looked like he might be about two Mrs. Coles stacked on top of one another. Maybe a bit more. "Firs' years, over here!" he called. As they walked into a clearing, the man beamed down at Harry from behind his thick beard. "All right there, Harry?"

Harry nodded at him happily. "That's Hagrid, the gamekeeper at Hogwarts," he whispered to Ron and Lucy as they followed the giant man closely. "He's the one who took me to Diagon Alley."

"How do I get that tall?" Lucy said, staring at Hagrid. She wondered if it was normal for wizards, and she shuddered, imagining Ron and Harry growing to the size of the gamekeeper.

They headed down a steep, narrow path. Lucy found it hard to enjoy the scenery when it smelled as though some kids had not heard of deodorant, and she finally pulled her robes over her nose. Malfoy, who just so happened to look over his shoulder at that exact moment, cast her an odd look. She pulled down her robes long enough to pull a face at him. He rolled his eyes and turned back to face the front.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid pointed at the curved path ahead of them. The trees were thinning and bits of light shone through from beyond the path. "jus' round this bend here."

The children around her gasped collectively; a huge black lake had come into view the moment they rounded the corner. The trees came to an abrupt halt, and sitting atop a great mountain across the lake was Hogwarts. She'd been expecting a normal boarding school, but this was a magnificent castle with huge, spiraling towers and hundreds and hundreds of windows. There was another forest nearby, and from what she could see, it was connected to the one they'd just walked out of.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid yelled. He took up one boat on his own. Lucy didn't follow Harry and Ron into a rowboat, instead heading over to an empty one. She was joined by three others in a matter of seconds. There was the boy she'd laughed at earlier, a tall girl with long, brown hair, and finally there was a calm boy who seemed content to ignore the other three.

The brown haired girl beamed at Lucy. "Hi! I'm Megan Jones. I'm so excited to be here! Do you see how amazing the castle looks? I bet it'll take years just to walk around it. Do you think they'll have a map? Or a tour? Or even golf-carts?"

Lucy blinked at her. Megan Jones reminded her a bit of that Hermione girl, but she seemed less stuck up and more genuinely happy to share her excitement. "I'm Lucy."

The boy she'd laughed at was glaring at her. Lucy stared right back at him, and they held their gaze for a long time. Their eye contact was only broken when Lucy pulled the funniest face possible, and it made the boy duck to hide his grin.

"That was weird," Megan commented, staring in between them. "Do you know each other?"

"No —" the boy began.