Episode 1.3
September 1st, 1985
10.37 am
Lorwood Park, Derbyshire
There was a loud CRACK! which echoed around the vaulted ceiling of the grand entrance hall. Bentley Thorpe didn’t even flinch. He was quite used to it. Lorwood Park, the ancestral home of the Thorpe family, had always echoed a bit, but the effect had been multiplied in recent times, because the house had become somewhat emptier of late.
He turned toward the house-elf, and gratefully took the cup of tea she had brought him.
“Thank you, Morny. Could you tell me what time it is?”
The house-elf gave a small curtsy. “Twenty-three minutes to eleven, sir.”
Bentley sighed and rubbed his face tiredly. He had been ready to leave for King’s Cross Station since about eight o’clock that morning. As usual, he had been inconveniently early. It wasn’t as if he was a particularly punctual fifteen-year-old, but rather that there wasn’t much else to do at his house than to get ready to leave it again.
The summer holidays had been less than fun. Normally, Bentley was quite content with his own company. He was an only child, so he was quite used to amusing himself, and his parents were rarely at home at the same time as him, or even as each other. He would spend countless hours in his room, or in the family library, pouring over the old musty volumes that contained detailed discourses on wizarding history and various theories on spell-making. Or, if he felt starved for conversation, he could visit the Portrait Hall in the east wing, where his ancestors were more than keen to impress on him the wisdom of the ages. But now the library and portrait hall were empty, save for the bare shelves and the sun-bleached outlines of where the portraits once hung.
Bentley balanced his teacup on its saucer carefully in one hand, and closed the other around the handle of his trunk.
“I think we should leave for King’s Cross Station now, Morny,” he told the house-elf. At least there, he might find someone to talk to.
Morny took hold of the hem of his robes, and with no more effort than a snap of her fingers they had appeared on Platform 9 and ¾, where Bentley was momentarily overwhelmed by the sudden change in volume.
There were quite a few people on the platform, even though it was still twenty minutes before the train was due to leave. The scarlet engine already had steam billowing from its stacks as the engineers readied it for the upcoming journey. An image of aloof composure, Bentley surveyed the surrounding families over the rim of his teacup. Beside him, Morny was stacking his trunk and broomstick tidily.
“Right then,” he said, briskly. “Shall we?”
Bentley made his way through the corridor of the Hogwarts Express, in search for the compartment claimed by the other fifth year Slytherins. He paused, in part waiting for his house elf, who had been levitating his school belongings down the corridor in his wake, but also mentally preparing himself for what would be, as usual, a long train ride. This year would be particularly trying, he knew, because as he himself had received no prefect badge with his Hogwarts letter that summer, he knew it must have been given to Evander Van Doort instead. And Evander would be insufferable with it.
“Thank you, Morny,” he said wearily as the house-elf finally caught up with him.
She gave a little curtsy and set his belongings down carefully. “Young Master must have a good term,” she said kindly. “Master and mistress send their best wishes, Morny is certain.”
Bentley smiled tightly at the old house elf, and handed her his empty teacup. “That will be all, Morny. You may go back to the house now.”
Morny curtsied again before disapperating.
In all honesty, Bentley would have been surprised if his parents even noticed he was gone. They had been quite preoccupied the entirety of the summer, engaged in tense meetings with the Gringotts Goblins over negotiating repayments to the bank. The Goblins were to hold some of the Thorpe's belongings in trust until the payments had been made. Bentley wasn’t supposed to know about this. His parents had, for as long as he could remember, adopted a style of parenting in which the main prerogative was not to give their son any reason for concern. In fact, it had been an off-chance occurrence that he’d met his father on the stairs one morning six weeks ago and had been able to ask him precisely why their belongings were steadily disappearing.
Turning back to the compartment door, Bentley was loath to hear the distinctive, indecently gleeful sound of Evander’s laughter. Bentley rolled his eyes. Evander had a somewhat embarrassing tendency to laugh at his own jokes, jokes which were usually at someone else’s expense. Bentley slid the compartment door open in time to hear the end of a particularly nasty comment.
“…probably poorer than the Weasleys!”
There was a burst of laughter at this from the Slytherins, which quickly faded into an awkward silence as they noticed him at the door.
The silence continued to be awkward the entire time it took Bentley to stow his trunk away, making it pretty clear who they had been talking about. He found a seat and surveyed his class mates, carefully aloof. It was not done to show how you had been offended, especially by someone like Evander. There was something vaguely predatory about the way Evander treated people. He would jump on any weakness of resolve as some kind of victory on his part, with that wide, nasty smile that he was currently attempting to hide behind a hand.
“I wonder, Bentley,” Francesca murmured suddenly, breaking the silence.
Bentley turned his attention to her with an expression of polite interest.
Francesca leant slightly forward and smiled. “Have you heard who our new prefects are?”
The arch of her brow suggested that she knew perfectly well that Bentley was aware of the identity of new authority figures.
He smiled politely. “I have. Congratulations, Francesca. No one deserves the post more than you.”
She laughed off the compliment, a light, nonchalant laugh that always made Bentley feel like he had somehow been made a fool of.
Francesca Selwyn was indisputably the most important person in Bentley’s year. It felt strange, sometimes, how invested everyone became in trying to impress her. In his more judgemental moments, Bentley suspected her soft-spoken demeanour was possibly affected, an active attempt to subtly command the attention of the entire room.
Evander had visibly bristled at Bentley’s loaded words. He stood, and cleared his throat impressively.
“Well, Francesca, we had better be off to the Prefect Meeting. You know they’ve set aside a compartment specifically?” Evander chuckled and clapped Bentley on the shoulder. “I’m sure we can trust Bentley here to keep an eye on things while us prefects are otherwise engaged.”
Bentley forced his face into a tight smile that probably looked more like a grimace as the two prefects left the compartment amid a chorus of farewells.
Bentley sighed. It was going to be a fun year.