James could not help but to glance ever so often over to the strange boy, who had just succeeded in turning his match silver and pointed. He wondered whether this was the Richard Hannah Longbottom had talked to his parents about, but he didn’t know how to ask. There was definitely something weird about the boy, something James could not quite name, something more than just the unfriendliness with what Richard had greeted them. Why was he practicing spells before they had even reached Hogwarts?

And why did he have to sit it in their compartment? James wanted to show Fred the Marauder’s Map so badly, it almost hurt, but he did not want to do it in front of another student. This was going to be their big secret.

But that was not what bothered James the most.

Over the years, James Potter the Second had gotten used to the attention he received wherever he came. Being Harry Potter’s oldest son meant a certain amount of fame he had never earned but that had been thrust upon him never the less. He liked that. He liked the look on people’s faces when they recognized his name, and even more he liked it when there was awe mixed in with that recognizing him. It meant he was special. He also enjoyed to hear that he looked exactly like his grandfather, James Potter the First, and he was most determined to live up to his name: James Sirius Potter.

But the strange boy had not recognized his name, or if he had, he hadn’t given a sign of it. When James glanced over to him again, he realized that he could not read anything in the boys face. It was like a blank wall. Even concentrating at the spells as he was, Richard still thought of keeping his face smooth.

He was concentrating, wasn’t he?

“Hey, Richard,” James called out, frustrated.

Richard looked up slowly, disappointing James, who had hoped to startle him.

“Where’re you from?” James asked, when the hard blue eyes met his own brown ones.

Richard held his gaze a second longer, until James quickly looked away, before he replied: “I’m from London.”

“Me too,” James said, and tried to match Richard’s indifference. But it still bothered him. He decided to have one last try, and with a short movement of his head he gave Fred a sign. “My father is Harry Potter,” he mentioned and watched Richard closely, knowing that his best friend did the same thing from a different angle.

“Is he,” Richard acknowledged coolly, adding: “I’ve read about him.”

He reached into his bag and pulled out the book “Hogwarts: A History.”

Of course, James thought, inwardly rolling his eyes. It had been compulsory for every Muggleborn student since a few years to read the book, as it was supposed to help them integrate into the Wizarding society. James’ aunt Hermione Weasley herself had added chapters about the Battle of Hogwarts at the end, but James had never read it.

Of course Mr.-practice-spells-before-school-starts-Richard would have read it. But didn’t he understand? Didn’t it mean anything to him? Fred rolled his eyes and mouthed the word “jerk”, and with that they returned to their game.

Fred is right, James thought. Smith must be a bit slow.

Richard was glad when he finally felt that both boys averted their interest from him. He hated being watched like some kind of circus clown. What did that James boy think he was, an idiot who would kiss his boots because his father was famous? Richard knew boys like that, but he was not going to admire James for being born.

Usually, Richard would have shown James all the distaste and disdain he held for boys who grew up getting everything they wanted. But he had indeed read about famous Harry Potter. His name had been all over the headlines in the wizard newspaper “The Daily Prophet”. Head of Auror-Department he was, a catcher of Dark Wizards, a kind of police man. And Richard knew about police men. They had taken his father to prison, and once his mother too, and they had never been nice to him either. They had power, and they liked to make others know they had power.

“Bad boy,” they had called him, when he had clung to his mother, four years old, like he was some kind of dog, and a bad boy he had been all through school.

He would not be a bad boy at Hogwarts. He would start over there, where nobody knew him, and one day he would be the one in power and no policeman would dare threaten him. He would not need the knife he had been given for his eleventh birthday by a friend of his father, not when he had a wand. He would only keep it until he knew how to use his wand properly.

But that was nothing the son of dark wizard catcher Harry Potter needed to know, and so he would never hear of it. Richard was good at keeping secrets.

When he was certain that neither Potter nor Weasley were watching, he flipped through the pages of “Hogwarts: A History”, until he reached the chapters that had been added at the end by someone other than the original author. As much as he could gather from them about that Hero Potter, he had not been one to follow the rules too closely. That was bad. Policemen who stuck with the law were bad enough, but worst were those who made their own rules, which came usually down to: It is not a bad thing as long as I do the beating up.

Those policemen tended to bent and break the law until it was some kind of grotesque excuse for what it should be, but they would punish even the most trifle offence with full force.

No, he most certainly didn’t want to get in trouble with a man like that, nor his son.

Richard closed his book and returned to the spell he had been practicing. Mumbling the words under his breath, it still took him numerous attempts to turn a single match into a needle, which made him wondering whether the spell would work better if he spoke it aloud. But that did not make sense. The magic was not within the words, but within himself. He had to concentrate harder, that was all.

He lowered his book and wand for a moment and glanced out of the window. The landscape outside turned wilder and wilder with every mile they travelled north. A faint smile touched Richard’s lips. He enjoyed the view. He had always dreamed of living outside of town, out in the open country, where there were less crimes for his father to commit and less drugs for his mother to take and less policemen to trouble them, but mostly had he dreamed of being on his own.

When he returned to his magic, he was focused completely on the little match. He knew he was able to do this, for he had done magic – far bigger magic than this – before he had even known that he was a wizard. Sometimes he had just willed things to happen, as when he had been chased by older bullies. He had made them hurt, and they had never understood how. It had felt good.

Richard remembered the feeling, and when he picked a new match, hissing the spell just barely audible, it returned to him. The match turned silvery and pointed at his will, without resisting, forming a perfect needle. Triumph flushed his cheeks. This was it. This he had to remember whenever he had difficulties casting a spell. There was nothing he could not do.

When he looked up again, he met James’ gaze for a second. At once he smoothed out his face, cursing himself. He must not forget that he was not alone in the compartment. Potter looked away quickly, winking at his friend. The two of them communicated without as much as a word. It was annoying. Richard prided himself as being good at reading people, but these two knew each other too well. Their gestures were too little for him to catch their meaning, though it was clear that right now they were talking about him.

James was very careful not to be caught staring again. The look on Richard’s face when he had succeeded in turning the match into a needle had nearly been frightening. And how quickly he had succeeded! James had heard that only very few students managed a transformation at their first attempt. It was supposed to be a very difficult kind of magic that needed lots of practicing, and Richard had been successful after less than two hours, without a teacher guiding him.

One look in Fred’s direction told him, that his older friend was just as impressed as he was himself, and that annoyed him even more, because it meant that Richard was indeed extraordinary. But then Fred mouthed “beginner’s luck,” and James nodded. Of course, that had to be it. Nothing unusual at all.

Still… Once they had reached Hogwarts he would use the Marauder’s Map to find an empty room and ask Fred to teach him some spells. He had heard too many stories about how brilliant his grandfather had been at Transfiguration to be beaten by some little git.

If it hadn’t been for Richard, he’d have shown the map to Fred the moment they had boarded the train. This way it seemed better to be careful, though he could barely hold back his huge secret. How Fred would stare when he heard… when he saw… The map had to be almost as much an heirloom to him as it was to James, as Fred’s father George has once used it to play pranks with his dead twin brother, Fred Weasley the first.

He would have to wait until they reached Hogwarts.

Fred grinned and asked: “Nervous about the sorting?”

“Nah,” James said, shrugging. “Why should I? I’m gonna be Gryffindor. Or do you think the hat would put me into Slytherin?”

Fred laughed. “I know somebody who might belong there,” he replied, winking.

Richard would have had to be either deaf or stupid not to understand that the two were talking about him, and he was neither. Still he kept quiet and did not let them see that he was listening to their chatter. That James-boy was not quite as relaxed about the sorting as he wanted to appear, that much Richard understood. It did seem to be highly important to him that he was not sorted into Slytherin.

From Hogwarts: A History Richard knew about the four houses of Hogwarts, and that after the Second War people had wanted to close them all. Richard could see why. The weak ones had always feared the powerful ones, and especially Slytherin seemed to be the house where the powerful and the ambitious gathered. Potter would not fit in there that much was obvious.

But Richard hoped he himself would not end up there either, even though he did fit in with the mighty and the cunning. He feared being sorted into Slytherin would stigmatize him, as his parents’ reputation had stigmatized him at his old home.

Richard’s hopes were low, though. He was used to the worst that could possible happen.

If someone had given him a choice, he would have chosen Ravenclaw. Nobody ever seemed to care much about Ravenclaws, who had not entered any war as readily as Gryffindors, and he was certain that he did not fit into Hufflepuff. Ravenclaw would be good for him, Richard was certain of that. Nobody would be surprised about an exceptionally bright, hard working student in Ravenclaw. Nobody would care. He would be left alone and earn fame, and later power. If it were his choice.

Fred and James both bought loads of sweets when the cart passed by, while Richard saved what little money he had. He had made himself some sandwiches at home, and did not pay much attention to the other boys, who seemed to have great fun eating little bean-shaped sweets and chocolate in the form of frogs.

“Oh not again!” Fred Weasley suddenly called out. “Look what I got, James! I got your father again, and I must have half a dozen of him soon!”

James laughed. “Yeah, I know. Uncle Ron thinks it’s funny. He says it’s just as it used to be with Dumbledore.”

Fred turned around. “Hey, Richard, do you collect?”

“No, I don’t,” Richard replied coldly.

“You’re Muggleborn, aren’t you?” Fred continued, and did not even wait for an answer. “Here, you can have it. Learn something from it.”

Fred and James laughed.

Richard caught the card and looked at it carefully, as soon as the two were distracted again. It was a small card with a picture on it, moving, as all pictures in the Wizarding world.

Harry Potter, the text read.

The Boy Who Lived, only known survivor of the Avada Kedavra curse and conqueror of Lord Voldemort, also known as Tom Riddle. Harry Potter joined the reshuffled Auror Department under Kingsley Shacklebolt at age 17, rising to become Head of said department in 2007.

So this was famous Harry Potter. The picture showed a rather young man with black hair and green eyes. He smiled at Richard, winked, and then was gone. The way he moved resembled exactly the way James’ father had moved on the platform.

So it is true, Richard thought.