Broken Star

Chapter 1: Banim Choser Shalom (Children Without Peace)

Thousands of people stood staring up at a screaming figure on a raised platform. There were large banners on either side of him, and many people were waving miniature flags with swastikas on them as they cheered. She too stared at the screaming figure, but not in awe as the rest of the crowd did. She stared at him in fear. She couldn't remember how she got into the middle of the crowd, but she knew she had to get out before someone realized... Turning away from the platform, she tried to push to the back of the crowd. This brought attention to her. The crowd started pressing in on her, and she couldn't breathe, but still she pushed. They tried to grab her, to restrain her, but she somehow managed to get out of the crowd and onto a street.

But the scene in the street was worse. A mob of angry people were pillaging stores, breaking the glass windows of many shops, setting fire to them, stealing as much as their arms could carry. They were pulling people from the shops and beating them in the streets. She saw the synagogue at the other end of the street. From where she was standing, she could see smoke pouring from the building, and flames creating a dull red glare against the black sky. In the back of her mind she registered that, only a few moments before, it had been mid-afternoon, but paid no mind to the change other than that. She raced towards the synagogue, and she reached it just as she saw her father struggling to climb out a window after her little brother, Moshe. Moshe saw her and ran into her arms, crying. Her father managed to get out also, and grabbed her and Moshe and pulled them away from the synagogue. They ran, trying to get away from the mob.

"I wasn't able to put out the fire," her father was saying as he ran, "There was too much of it."

Running through the streets, she saw many figures in black robes mixed among the mob. She knew who they were. They were supporters of Grindelwald.

By now, her father had his wand out, ready to defend himself and his children. He stunned a man who was running at them, holding a baseball bat. They continued running. They were almost home, where they would be safe. Her father himself had placed protective wards on the house.

Suddenly, he stopped. She saw one of Grindelwald's supporters behind him, holding a wand to the middle of his back.

"Children," he said quietly, "run."

No sooner were these words out of his mouth than she heard the words Avada Kedrava and saw a green light envelope her father. He fell silently to the ground.

"PAPA!"

Esther awoke with a start, gasping for breath. She wiped cold sweat from her forehead as she surveyed her surroundings and remembered where she was. She was sitting alone in a train compartment that was taking her to Hogwarts. When she had fallen asleep, the train hadn't started moving yet. Esther was grateful that nobody else had been in the compartment to witness her having the nightmare.

The dream she had just woken up from was not a new one. She'd been having the same dream since she was 10 years old, since the night her father had died. As her breathing slowed down to a normal pace, she looked around the tiny compartment for some distraction. She didn't want to think about that night any more than she had to. But it was no use. The horrible images played over and over again in her mind, pushing her back to the brink of panic. It seemed that the harder she tried to push the memories away the more they dominated her thoughts, driving away any hope of escape.

Esther clutched Moshe to her side as she watched her father's body fall lifelessly to the ground. They started to run, but the hooded figure was already raising its wand at them, ready to slaughter them. Moshe stumbled and pulled Esther down with him. She closed her eyes, afraid for Moshe, but accepting the fact that she would die. Perhaps Moshe would be able to escape...

Suddenly she heard something thud behind her on the street. 'Please, not Moshe!' she thought frantically.

"Esther? Moshe?"

Esther slowly opened her eyes. The hooded man was sprawled on the ground and her Uncle Abram was standing over her and her brother. Her uncle had stunned the man and had thus saved their lives. She stood up and leapt into her uncle's arms, crying violently. After a few minutes, Uncle Abram picked up her father's body and carried it to Esther's house, gently guiding Esther and Moshe...

A knock on the door to her compartment broke her away from her memories. The door slid open and a girl with long black hair poked her head in. She looked around the compartment for a moment, then looked at Esther.

"Hey, can my sister and I sit in here? All the other compartments are full."

"Maybe if someone had gotten on the train more quickly instead of gaping at Davis Potter," remarked someone behind the girl.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Anyway, can we sit here?"

Esther nodded. "I don't mind."

The girl opened the door further and walked into the compartment, sitting across from Esther. Another girl followed and sat next to her. The two girls looked exactly alike, except that the first girl's hair was long, hanging down to the middle of her back, and the second girl's hair only reached her shoulders.

"I'm Nicole Fairfax and this is my twin sister Gwendolyn," said the second girl.

"But everyone calls me Gwen," added the first girl.

Esther shook both girls' hands. "I'm Esther Rothberg."

"Nice to meet you," said Nicole.

"Are you a transfer student? I don't think I've seen you before, and I know you're not a first year, at least you don't look like it. I don't recognize your accent either. What school did you to go to? What country did you move from?" Gwen said this all so quickly that it took Esther a moment to catch up with what she said.

"Don't mind Gwen," advised Nicole, "She always greets people she doesn't know with endless amounts of questions."

"Oh," said Esther. "Well, I'm a fourth year transfer from Beauxbatons, but I was born in Germany."

"Really?" said Gwen, "We're fourth years too. And since you've lived in Germany and France, that means you know English, French, and German?"

"It's not a big deal. I had to learn them when I moved with my family, and it took me a lot of time to become fluent. I'm still a little off in my English."

"But still, that's amazing!"

"We've been on holiday in France before, but we've never been to Germany. What was it like there?" asked Nicole curiously.

"Well...ah..." Esther's thoughts jumped suddenly back to her nightmare and the night her father died. But she couldn't tell them anything about that. Especially since they had only just met. "It was... it was nice." Esther cringed at not being able to think up a good lie, or even an interesting one.

Nicole and Gwen looked at Esther strangely and seemed to know she was hiding something ('How could they not, after that brilliant lie?') but they didn't press the issue.

"So," said Nicole, changing the subject, "You know what the different Houses are and their traits, right?" When Esther nodded, Nicole continued, "What house do you think you'll be in?"

"I don't know. The headmaster says that I'm to be sorted privately before the feast begins. I think I have fair chance of being a Ravenclaw, though."

"I wouldn't doubt it. You already know three languages!"

Esther gave a small smile. 'Five languages,' she thought, 'if you count Yiddish and Hebrew... but those just come with my background.'

"Well, if you are in Ravenclaw, you'll be with Nicole here," stated Gwen. Nicole nodded.

"What house are you in?" Esther asked Gwen.

"I'm in Gryffindor."

"Oh," said Esther, "So, you are twins, but you are in different houses?"

Gwen laughed. "We may look identical, but the similarities mostly stop with our appearances. For instance, I'm known for being loud and outspoken-"

"And I'm a bit quieter," said Nicole, "Charms is my best subject-"

"Along with everything else," muttered Gwen. Out loud, she said, "And I bloody hate charms, almost as much as potions. I like transfiguration the best."

"Oh." Esther couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Well, we do have one other thing in common," said Nicole, "We're both chasers on our house teams."

"But that doesn't really make a difference anyway, as we're in different houses. All it does is make for some good natured sibling and inter-house rivalry," laughed Gwen.

Nicole laughed a little bit too, and Esther gave a small smile. The twins were very nice and interesting, if not a little overwhelming at first. At least they were keeping Esther's mind off of her nightmare.

"Speaking of quidditch, do you play at all?" asked Nicole.

"A little. I'm a fair keeper."

"Really? If you get sorted into Ravenclaw, you should try out for a position on the team. Our keeper graduated last year."

"Hey! There's no guarantee she'll get sorted into Ravenclaw. There's a chance she'll get sorted into Gryffindor; I can feel it. And besides, we need a good keeper as much as you do."

Esther laughed a little at the twins. It was right what they had told her, their positions on house teams did spark some rivalry.

"You haven't even seen me play," she said, "how do you know I'm a good keeper?"

"We can tell," they both said at the same time, prompting laughter from all three girls.

"And besides," added Gwen, "you said you were, and you don't give the impression of someone who would lie."

A moment later, there was another knock on the compartment door and it slid open again. This time it wasn't a student, it was a plump, middle-aged witch pushing a snack cart. She smiled cheerily at the girls as she asked them if they wanted anything off of the cart. The three girls bought some candy and continued talking.

Well, at least Gwen and Nicole continued talking. Esther was mostly listening, putting in an occasional comment here and there. First, the twins filled her in on some of the professors and classes she should watch out for.

"The worst class is potions," stated Gwen, "it's bloody horrible. Bellmont, the Potions Professor, is crazy. He's head of Slytherin, but doesn't show any favoritism... even towards his own house. It's a change from the last Potions Professor we had, but I don't know if it's any better... he hates all the students, even those in his own house!"

"But it is better, Gwen," said Nicole, "At least now, the Slytherins can't get away with disturbing that class or getting easy grades."

Gwen shrugged off her sister's comment. "He's still a psycho."

Gwen then proceeded to tell Esther how much fun it is to go exploring the castle at night. This raised mild protest from Nicole about how many detentions that Gwen had gotten because of her wanderings. Actually, to Esther it looked like Nicole was just teasing her sister about the detentions, as she noticed she had a slightly amused look on her face that she was trying to hide. But whether Nicole meant her reprimands or not, Gwen didn't pay them any mind.

"The best place to go," Gwen continued, ignoring a rather forced looking scowl from Nicole, "is the kitchens. You can go any time, day or night, and the house elves will give you anything you want."

"It also happens to be against the rules," said Nicole pointedly.

"That's a minor point. Rules only matter if you're caught," laughed Gwen.

The three girls continued talking and eating their candy until, a few hours later, a prefect knocked on the compartment door and informed them that they would be arriving at Hogwarts in a few minutes and they had better get their robes on. They hurriedly slipped on the school robes over the clothes they were wearing. Only a couple minutes later, the train stopped and they climbed off, stepping into a light rain.

"I swear!" exclaimed Gwen, "They must put a charm on the place. Every single year it's raining when we arrive. Do you think they do it to make Hogwarts more mysterious to the first years, or just to make us more eager to get into the school?"

"If they do indeed cast a charm to make it rainy every year," laughed Nicole, "it's probably a combination of the two."

Esther laughed a little bit and looked around her. There were students everywhere. She heard someone calling the first years, telling them to go in one direction, but she noticed all the other students were heading another way. When Gwen and Nicole started walking, Esther followed them and saw that the direction they were going was leading to an area filled with stagecoaches. Gwen and Nicole climbed inside a coach and Esther followed them, but before she stepped into the carriage, she felt someone roughly jostle her. Looking around in order to see who bumped into her, she saw a tall boy with dark hair striding away. Shrugging it off, Esther climbed into the carriage and closed the door behind her. Immediately, the stagecoach started moving, rattling towards Hogwarts.

As the stagecoach bounced onwards, Esther was gazing out one of the windows, watching the large castle as they moved closer and closer to it. It was gigantic, much larger than Beauxbatons, with many towers and turrets, and thousands of lighted windows. Esther couldn't tell how many stories there must be in the castle, but there were many of them. The large structure looked, and indeed was, ancient, but yet it seemed incredibly strong and stable. The weathered stones would, aided by magic of course, support it for millennia to come. They also added a feeling of majesty and timelessness to the atmosphere that made the scene even more breathtaking.

The stagecoach passed the front gates and made its way up a long, sloping path towards Hogwarts. In a few minutes, the coach stopped and the girls climbed out. The three of them climbed up the steps to the castle and passed through the two gigantic oak doors that led to the entrance hall.

There was another set of doors that led into the Great Hall. Esther could see four long tables, which were already crowded with students, and another table, perpendicular to the first four, where a few adults, presumably professors, were seated. Most of the students passed through this second set of doors, but a few were milling around, talking. Esther wasn't sure what she should do. She was supposed to be sorted before the feast, so she didn't think she should enter the Great Hall with everyone else. When Gwen and Nicole started towards the Great Hall, Esther told them that she would meet up with them later, after she was sorted. Esther stood awkwardly in the entrance hall for a few minutes, wondering what she should do before she heard a voice behind her.

"Esther Rothberg?"

Esther turned around and saw two people looking at her.

"I'm Headmaster Dippet and this is Professor Dumbledore, the Deputy Headmaster and transfiguration professor."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Professors."

The headmaster was very old and appeared slightly frail, but he looked very warm and kindly. He was slightly tall and was almost completely bald, with the exception of a couple patches of white hair. Professor Dumbledore was tall as well, and middle-aged, but also seemed very amiable. Dumbledore also had long auburn hair and a beard of the same color that was a good two or three feet long.

"Come, Miss Rothberg," said Headmaster Dippet softly, "Your future awaits you."