Broken Feathers || Marauders Era

{1} The Dinner Party

I had never liked people. 

They had always been terrifying, towering over me and asking all those questions with too-sharp eyes and condescending tones. 

I had also never understood what made my sister love them so much.

Then again, everyone loved her, so maybe that wasn't much of a surprise. She was exactly what was expected from our family, charming, pretty, and, most importantly, smart. Extremely smart, if somewhat predictable. 

She had already decided that she would follow in our father's footsteps and become a professor at Hogwarts like our family had done for centuries. She wouldn't stray from tradition.

My father would probably expect me to follow in his footsteps as well if his not-so-subtle jibes were anything to go by. I had done my best to ignore them all my life, but as my eleventh birthday and, by extension, my first year at Hogwarts, drew closer and closer, I couldn't not think about it.

In fact, that was probably where most of my conscious thought had been directed for the past month. Maybe not so much what my father wanted, but what I wanted, which was a rather foreign concept to me, but a necessary one, I had decided. 

I had gone with the flow for my entire life so far, and it simply wouldn't do for the rest of it. First, however, I had to differentiate what I wanted from what other people wanted. 

Well, no, first I had to figure out how to do that. 

"Freya!"

My head shot up, my quill dropping from my fingers to the worn wood of my hand-me-down desk.

"Freya!" My sister called again.

Now I could hear her coming up the stairs.

I hurriedly placed the quill back in ink pottle, rolled up the piece of parchment I had been using, and stood, managing to straighten my dark blue dress before my sister burst into my room.

She smiled kindly at me when she saw that I was ready. She was dressed in a lilac version of my own dress. She looked nice, but then again, she always did.

Victoria was the kind of person that was always put together, no matter the situation. She was very different to me, in that way, and so many others.

Where I got flustered easily and preferred to hide behind our father, she charmed her way into everyone's good books. Where I had dark brown waves, she had black locks. The physical dissimilarities didn't stop there, the most notable of which being our eyes. Mine were an odd golden-amber, hers were a stunning blue.

No one would think that we were siblings. Our father always said that we looked like our mothers, which was true for me, at least. But Victoria shared his black hair, if not his dark eyes.

I was the odd one out- I just prayed that that didn't continue with my house placement at Hogwarts. If I wasn't placed in Ravenclaw, they might as well disown me.

I swallowed nervously, forcing my fear down.

"Come on." Victoria beckoned, offering me her hand.

I took it gratefully, my small hand fitting right into her bigger one. She was four years older than me, entering her fifth year at Hogwarts in a few days, where I would be starting my first.

I forced my fear down again, and urged my feet to move, stumbling after Victoria.

Walking became easier after the first few steps, and I managed to find my footing by the time we reached the winding staircase.

Victoria led me through the winding corridors to the dining room. It was currently empty, but a small feast was laid out on the table. My sister placed her hand on my shoulder in a silent command to stay still.

I obeyed without question, wringing my hands together in front of me.

We were only there for a minute or so before loud and familiar voices rang through the house, their owners appearing a moment later.

My father was one of them. William Sallow, the latest in a long line, was the Professor of Arithmancy at Hogwarts. Beside him was Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

They both smiled kindly at my sister and me, my father also greeting us with a satisfied nod. It seemed we were both tidy enough for his liking. He was quite the perfectionist. Everything in our house had its place, and it had to go back there.

You could see it in how he was dressed too. A neat, dark suit, in order to fit in with the Muggles in London.

Professor Dumbledore, on the other hand, could only be mistaken for either a wizard or a kook. He was in flowing wizard robes, with half-moon spectacles perched precariously on the end of his nose.

"Victoria." He smiled, grasping her outstretched hand and shaking it.

"Professor." She smiled, bobbing her head.

"Freya," he said, turning to me.

My eyes widened momentarily, and I hurriedly held out my hand for him to shake. His hand was warm and kind of wrinkly, but his grip was firm. Not to the point where it hurt, however.

I was still relieved when he let go.

"I shall not keep us from food any longer," Dumbledore said, "It looks as though we have a wonderful spread for us tonight."

"Indeed," my father agreed, taking a seat at the head of the table. 

Dumbledore sat down on his left-hand side, my sister on his right, and me next to her. 

"Are you excited to be starting school this year?" he asked me kindly after a momentary lapse in conversation as we all filled out plates. 

"Um... yes," I replied quietly, faltering slightly. 

"It will be nice to have our family together for the whole year," my father added. 

I had spent the past ten years being mostly raised by a revolving door of nannies, as my father stayed at Hogwarts year-round. As a result, there had always been a distance between him and my sister and me, although they had gotten a lot closer since she had started at Hogwarts. 

I'm not jealous of her, I reminded myself. 

She might be the apple of our father's eye, and able to upstage me in every way, but I wasn't jealous of her. 

After all, I couldn't lose the moral high ground, could I?