“James, wake up already!”
James Potter groaned and rolled over, ignoring that whiny, little nagging voice at the back of his head…
“JAMES!”
Mrs. Potter’s voice, magically magnified to three times its normal volume boomed into James’ ears. His eyes flew open in a panic, and with a muffled scream he fell out of bed onto the floor.
“Serves you right,” said the figure looming above him. “I’ve been trying to get you up for the past half hour. Get dressed before Sirius eats all the cinnamon rolls.” The mention of his best friend and breakfast had James up in a flash. He shoved his glasses onto his nose, grabbed the cleanest dirty shirt he could find and shook out his rumpled, slept in jeans. He snapped his fingers and a house elf appeared.
“Clean my room!” he shouted, before sprinting out onto the landing. After dashing through the Potter Mansion’s many rooms and hallways, James came to a screeching halt on the landing that led to the kitchen.
“DROP THE ROLL.”
Sirius Black let a smile twitch on the corners of his mouth. In his hand was the last of Allie Potter’s famous cinnamon rolls. She was a lousy cook in general, but her cinnamon rolls were a thing of legacy. Or at least that was what Sirius thought.
“What roll?” he asked innocently. “Oh! You mean this roll? This sweet, sugary, hot, delicious-“
James made a lunge for the cinnamon roll and missed when Sirius moved at the last second. He somersaulted onto the floor and got back to his feet. Pandemonium ensued; James scrambled around the kitchen trying to tackle Sirius, Sirius scrambled around the kitchen trying to avoid James, knocking over several chairs, kitchen supplies, and sending food flying every which way. Mr. Potter, who had been calmly reading The Daily Prophet, continued to do so, occasionally lifting his paper or scooting his chair to make room for whoever dashed by.
“Enough!” Mrs. Potter walked into the room and immediately the two friends froze. She saw the cinnamon roll in James’ hand and sighed in exasperation. “Dear God, James, it’s as if we never feed you. There are fresh cinnamon rolls in the oven. Sirius, dear, would you grab the milk out of the fridge? Thank you sweetheart. And why didn’t you stop them, Richard?” she directed the last question at her husband who was still sitting at the table reading the paper with a mild expression on his face.
“I’m sorry, dear but I was just reading this fascinating article on the Wizengamot election results.”
There was dead silence in the kitchen for a full minute. Then the words sunk in…
“Lemme see dad!”
“Honey, what does it say?”
“Did you win, Mr. Potter?” The noise had reached decibel level when Mr. Potter shouted loudly over his wife’s anxious voice and James and Sirius’ jibber, “I can’t tell you if you all don’t SHUT UP!” The noise died down immediately. “Much better. Let’s see here, Percival Peeves, umm, twelve votes. Lacy Hunter, eight votes. Harold Limington, twenty votes. Terrines Lisa Kensington, twenty votes. Richard Potter, thirty votes.”
“YES! DAD WON! DAD WON! DAD WON!” shrieked James. Sirius was grinning from ear to ear and Mrs. Potter looked faint.
“Well, this calls for a celebration then. Dear, what do you think about dropping by Diagon Alley before we drop the boys off at school?” she asked weakly.
“Pretty please?” begged Sirius. He dropped to one knee and put on his most adorable you-can’t-refuse-my-every-wish-face.
“Yeah, pretty please?” James joined Sirius on the floor and pouted. Mr. Potter laughed.
“Why not? Allie, dear, would you please call up the house elf? We’ll have to swing by the Ministry so that I can make my acceptance speech, but the boys won’t mind being in the Daily Prophet would they?”
“Wicked!” exclaimed Sirius. With amazing speed, he and James woofed down the rest of the cinnamon rolls, sprinted back up to James’ room and got dressed in clean clothes in record speed. A word to the house elf sent their trunks on their way downstairs and in less than fifteen minutes, the entire Potter family-plus Sirius, minus Mr. Potter who had gone ahead by Floo to check that everything was ready- were waiting in the grand entrance hall waiting for the chauffeur to bring the Wizard car up the rainy drive. Mrs. Potter brushed invisible stray hairs away from Sirius’ shoulders as James fiddled with his new wand.
“Are you ready, Madame?” The chauffeur had arrived.
Mrs. Potter looked around her the last time, doing the loving check over that all mothers mysteriously know, and finally said, “Yes, I believe it’s time to go.”
And so began Sirius Black and James Potter’s greatest adventure.
Lily Evans passed the brush through her hair one more time. Amazingly enough, her hair had abandoned its usually tangled state to become one beautiful mane of curls. Not.
She had at first just shampooed and conditioned. When that had failed, she stepped it up with a quick twenty minute hot-oil treatment. Nothing. The attack on her hair became ferocious; she used mousse, detangle spray, and electro-shock therapy (long story). When she had laid her hair down on the family ironing board and the iron barely made a dent, she knew. It was one of those weird “magic” things again. Sighing, she wrapped her hair in a scarf and started walking.
After a while she came to a quaint country house just a third of a mile away from the Evans’ own home. She stepped onto the cliché “Welcome” mat and rang the doorbell. The door cracked open and dark violet eye peeped out through the tiny space. It was one of younger Healey children.
“Hi, Lily!” she was attacked by a flying blur of blonde hair and tan skin that had exploded out of the house.
“Glad to see you too, Christie.” She wheezed. “Is Marie here?”
“Uh huh!” Christie grabbed Lily’s hand and began to drag her through the house. “Wait ‘til you see what I got yesterday! I got a brand-new toy broomstick, Lily! And guess what? It goes up to four feet! Isn’t that cool? You’re so lucky you’re old enough to go to Hogwarts, Lily! You’ll get to ride real brooms.” She stopped smiling. “You have to go alone from here, Lily,” she said solemnly. “I’m not allowed to go into Marie’s room anymore. I stole her broom and I crashed it through the window yesterday. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, Christie.” Lily patted her head and hid a smile at the younger girl’s antics. “You’ve been a great help. Why don’t you go see if Hailey wants to play Quidditch?”
Christie brightened and then ran off to find her twin.
Lily took a deep breath before charging the door. She made a dive for it, grabbing a pillow on the way down to protect her from the darts that made up part of Marie’s homemade alarm system. She landed in a crouch and then tackled the nightstand and threw the clock across the room. It broke and activated the bowling ball that swooped down from the nearby closet door on a thin string. Lily dodged the ball then ripped apart the covers where one of her best friends, Marie Healey was giggling from underneath the sheets and tickled her mercilessly.
“Okay, okay, what do you want?” she gasped.
“We need to Floo to the McGuire’s. I’m having a bad hair day.”
“It can’t be that bad. You realize that if we Floo to the McGuire’s, her sisters are going to be all over you! You’ll end up looking like a one of those Barbie dolls that you gave my sisters. Besides, they’re all the way in Switzerland.”
Lily sighed. “Good point. We don’t have enough time for that. What have you got?”
Marie smiled and Lily automatically backed away. “I don’t trust that smile, last time you smiled like that, Bridget’s hair caught on fire.”
“Trust me, I know what I’m doing this time.” She coaxed Lily onto her vanity table chair and flipped on the lights. Marie untied Lily’s hair scarf and grimaced. “This is going to take awhile.” She snapped her fingers. “I’ll have Dad pick up your trunk and we’ll go to Platform 9 ¾ together!”
“Brilliant.” Lily relaxed as her best friend played with her hair, twisting it and spraying various potions onto the unruly tangled curls.
She leaned her head back and began the countdown to the Hogwarts' Express and the adventure of a lifetime.
Three giggling, gossiping girls, and no escape hatch. Bridget McGuire rubbed her temples and tried to bring her raging headache back to a dull throb. She silently cursed the inventor of Wizard cars. He had excluded one, crucial detail to the McGuire’s one of a kind, special designed Wizard car. Or maybe two. A mute button that worked on teenaged girls if they got too loud, and an escape hatch if they got too out of control. At the moment, they were both. Bridget loved her stepsisters, but they were always so, so what? You get like this too, around your friends, her conscience reminded her. She inwardly cringed, she hated it when she, it was right. She took one deep, calming breath and then listened in the conversation.
They were talking about Beauxbatons, their boarding school. She slumped down in her seat and resumed rubbing her forehead. Wife Number Two had been French and of course, her darling daughters had to go Beauxbatons. Where wife Number Two was now, no one knew. After the divorce, she had disappeared somewhere in Canada, taking with her a cool 1.2 million Galleons, but leaving her three teenaged daughters. Wherever she was right now, Bridget hoped she felt the raging pain in her forehead that she did. She couldn’t take it anymore. She scooted up to the driver’s seat, and tapped the shoulder of their chauffeur.
“Excuse me, Henry? Any chance you have a headache potion close by?”
“Certainly, Madame.” He pushed a small button and a cabinet popped out next to the Wizard’s Wireless.
“Thank you, Henry.” She closed the divider between the driver and the main body of the limo. She grabbed a carbonated water from the mini-fridge and a headache potion from the small medicine cabinet. A snap of her fingers and it sunk back into the wall. She leaned back onto the leather seat and gulped the potion down. She gave a small sigh of relief and after taking a few sips from the carbonated water, put it back into the mini-fridge and smiled approvingly. One of the things that she liked about Wizard cars, (or in her case Wizard limos) was that the inventor had installed Muggle features such as the mini-fridge and the limo form, but kept classic features such as the Wizard’s Wireless.
She checked the limo clock and then started to play with her new puppy. It was a gift from Papa; he had gotten special permission from Professor Dumbledore so that she could bring her Corgi, Bisou to school. As she rubbed its soft belly she reflected that it was actually probably not such a good idea. She was already branded as a spoiled brat because of her stepsisters’ notorious party girl reputation, and the fact that she was arriving in a Wizard limo probably wouldn’t help. At least she would already have friends. She smiled fondly as she remembered Lily Evans, Marie Healey, Alice Reeves, and Claire Collins. They were her best friends in the world and she loved them to death. She sighed; they were probably going to be split up. Her cousin Claire would probably be in Ravenclaw along with Alice. Lily would no doubt be a Gryffindor and Marie was destined for Hufflepuff as were all the rest of her family. As for me, I’ll be stuck in Slytherin. Stinky, smelly, snobby, sardonic, stupid, slimy, slut-nosed, Slytherin. Oh joy.
She felt the car come to a halt and lifted Bisou into her carrier. She double-checked the car to insure that none of her belongings had been scattered during the long ride from Switzerland to London. Why Papa had to take the entire family on a business trip with him the week before school was beyond her. She took a deep breath and stepped outside into the train station. She started walking up to the platform barrier and stopped.
“Everything all right, Madame?” queried Henry.
“Henry, will I like Hogwarts?” She stood with her back to him so that he couldn’t see her trembling.
“Finest school there ever was, Madame. Went there myself, I was in Hufflepuff. Take my word for it, Madame, you’ll love it there.”
“Thank you, Henry.” Bridget straightened up and walked straight through the barrier with Henry at her heels. “My friends will meet me on the train, Henry. Thank you for your help.”
He tipped his hat and said, “It was a pleasure, Madame. See you on your next holiday!” and left her alone on the platform. Bridget sized the scarlet steam engine up. It was going to take a while for her to get her trunk up, so she seized the trolley and wheeled it to the nearest entrance. She grabbed one end of her trunk and lifted it onto the train. She quickly found an empty compartment and started hoisting her trunk up to the rack.
“Need help?” A dark haired boy was watching her from the hall as she struggled with her trunk.
“Yes please,” she huffed as she gave the trunk another shove.
“James! Get your lazy butt over here, some girl needs our help!” He turned to face Bridget. “Oh, and by the way, the name’s Sirius Black.” He shrugged a shoulder at the boy who had just joined them, “and this is James Potter.” All three of them heaved and the trunk slid onto the rack smoothly.
“Thanks.” She swept her bangs off to one side and held out her hand to Sirius. “Bridget McGuire.”
“McGuire? Is your father Gus McGuire?” asked James. He shoved his glasses up his nose and heaved his trunk next to Bridget’s.
“Yeah.”
He nodded. “That’s cool. My parents went to fundraiser your mom hosted last summer. The one in Wales?”
“Oh, yeah! I heard that there was supposed to be dragons there!” Sirius said excitedly.
“There were! It was so awesome! We got to see the dragon tamers perform!” exclaimed Bridget. “You should’ve seen it! They flew the dragons right over our heads!”
“Are you serious? That’s fantastic!” said James.
Bridget nodded fervently. “The dragon part was fun, but the rest was boring.” She pulled a face. “No kids to play with.”
“That stinks.” Sirius shoved his trunk in the overhead and plopped onto a seat. “I was supposed to go, but mummy dearest put me under house arrest.” He pulled a face, “I don’t think she was too happy when I locked Reggie in a cupboard. Little bugger should’ve known to keep his nose out of my business.”
“Was that before or after you threw darts at your uncle Cygnus’ portrait?” asked James.
“After.”
“So when did I break the china? I thought that was why you got in trouble, because you took the blame.”
“So after I threw darts at uncle Cygnus, I locked Reggie in the cupboard because he was going to tattle, and then when mum started screeching for me, you broke the china so that I could hide, then Kreacher-the mangy rotter-turned me in.”
Bridget snorted. He was obviously either ecstatic about Hogwarts, or just plain hyper. Before they knew it, they were all cracking up. She clutched her sides as she tried to contain herself, but the one little snort turned contagious. They all started cracking up, just laughing at themselves.
“You guys are weird.” Then she started laughing again.
“Look who’s talking!” Sirius joked between laughing fits. He suddenly sprang up. “Who’s hungry?”
“ME!” yelled two voices. They sprinted out the compartment and raced each other down the corridors.
Bridget suddenly stopped laughing. “Damn! I totally forgot!”
“What?” Sirius turned around. James stopped a little bit before him and panted.
“My friends! I promised that I would meet them on the train!”
“No problem. We’ll find them, ma’am!” Sirius mock-saluted her and started back down the corridor yanking open doors and startling occupants.
“Sirius, wait! You don’t even know what they look like!” Bridget braced her back against the wall and slid down the wall laughing. Sirius and James ran back to her and braced their hands on their knees and gave in to another laughing fit.
“Um, can we help you?” Two boys had peeked out of their compartment at the commotion.
“No, we’re o-“ Bridget started, when Sirius cut in front of her saying, “Actually, we’re looking for our friend here, Bridget’s friends. You want to help?”
“Yeah, sure!” responded the taller boy of the two. He had sandy hair and amber eyes that were framed by gaunt cheekbones. The other boy was short, with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. He was a bit chubby and looked out of breath.
The taller boy held out his hand, “My name’s Remus Lupin.” His hand trembled tentatively and he started to withdraw his hand when Sirius grabbed it and pumped it up and down enthusiastically. “Sirius Black! This is James Potter and Bridget McGuire. Who’s your friend?”
“I’m Peter Pettigrew. I’ve heard all about the Black family! Your family is legendary for…” he trailed off at the look on Sirius’ face.
“Let’s leave my family out of this okay?” Sirius asked. He rubbed his hands together. “Okay, Bridget, what are your friends’ names?”
“Lily Evans, Marie Healey, Alice Walters, and Claire Collins.” She ticked off the names on her fingers and added, “They should all be in the same compartment. They were saving a space for me before you two came along.”
Sirius swept a dramatic bow. “Sirius Black and James Potter, troublemakers at your service.”
Bridget giggled. “Very well then! Go find my friends!”
“With your leave, Madame! Me, you, and Remus will search the middle part of the train, James and Peter can take the back!”
And so Bridget McGuire met the four boys that would turn her life upside down.
Slainte by dragonwings
Chapter Notes: One person can change the entire future...Meet Bridget McGuire, the fifth Marauder, a wildly wicked girl swept along for the ride!