FicWad

Chapter 3: Train rides and old friends

Harry had made his way to the train station with little difficulty. The pocket money he had made over the years as well as the less than scrutable dealings with Dung had secured him ample money even without his touching the Potter accounts. That he had several accounts in his own name made him glad that he had not officially gone to Gringott’s Main Office even with the new vaults he had filled. Thankfully there was a small branch in the alley as he loathed the adult nature of those in that alley. The goblins seemed to respect him and he had quickly made his way to his destinations.

He had upon arriving at nine and three quarters simply looked at the barrier and as he had for Knockturn seen where the door was. He was as always disappointed by the idiocy of wizards. He was grateful that he was not really a member of their number.

He ignored the crowds that milled about wasting time and entered the train and made his way to a compartment. He simply sat down and started to read the book as KiKi chattered about as she explored the room. Time passed and a red headed boy came in.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" he asked. "All the others are full..."

"Hn," Harry said as he was more concerned with the book than the person encroaching his space.

The Boy took that as an affirmative and sat down before saying, "The names Ron Weasley so what's your favorite Quidditch team? Mine's the Cannons..."

Harry proceeds to ignore the rest of the rant until the redhead stops talking to say simply. "Harpies," before turning back to his book.

"You seem a bit too interested in that book," Ron says looking in disbelief at a guy reading that much. "You planning on being in Ravenclaw or something?"

"No," Harry says before proceeding to return his focus to the book.

Ron continued to make small talk before the door finally opened revealing a somewhat bushy haired girl.

"Hello my name is Hermione," Hermione said with a friendly smile. "Now I hate to interrupt but by any chance have you seen a toad? I met a boy and Neville lost it you see."

"No," Ron said irritated by the girl for some reason.

"Sorry Hermione," Harry said still reading his book. "So this is the boarding school that you were accepted to well I guess that things won't be too bad..."

"I can see it now," Hermione said with dread and anticipation. "All those long nights trying to catch up. So what are Anne and Alice going to do?"

"I left a copy of instructions and there are the Hols," Harry said with a sigh. "So is there any reason that this Neville didn't ask someone to summon his toad? It just seems so obvious compared to wandering and looking for it..."

"Why didn't I think of that," Hermione lamented. "I know I read up on them and yet..."

"The obvious slipped your mind," Harry finished still with his concentration mostly on the book. "On the plus side there will be plenty of time to learn. So which house are you aiming for?"

"Well I seem to be inclined to Ravenclaw," Hermione hedged. "Although there is something for the other houses as well."

"Ron here seems to think that only Gryffindor’s matter and that his entire family has been in it," Harry said with a resigned sigh. "Sadly if his views are shared by that house neither of us would fit in. They seem to pride themselves in bold actions that are quire reckless and look down on those who would work hard or put their mind into it to succeed. Worse if anyone has any cunning than since he seems to think that would be... evil. Quite the little biased boy we have here. I pity if he ever meets our mutual friends. I don't think he would survive either of them."

"I can see that," Hermione said after giving Ron a more thorough look over. "Still any one sorted into Slytherin would most likely have to accept that they would be looked down on. Then there are the other issues..."

"Slytherin is the house for cunning and the ambitious that does not necessarily mean evil merely more likely to do what is necessary though the Gryffindors seem as likely to break rules, but for lesser reasons," Harry said with a smirk that Hermione practically heard.

"Hey!" Ron shouted in indignation. "There is nothing good about those slimy Slytherins."

"Completely missed the point didn't he," Hermione said somewhat sarcastically.

"Youngest children seem to need to be the center of attention," Harry said. "OH wait he isn't anymore that role is reserved for his only sister. You can see the issues he has can't you?"

"A lost cause I take it?" Hermione asked. "Shame he seemed to have some potential..."

"A new interruption coming our way," Harry said without looking at the corridor. "Odd how KiKi hasn't gotten involved yet."

"That is odd," Hermione said as she turned her attention to the hallway. "I half expected her to gobble that rat up..."

Three boys entered, and Harry recognized the middle one at once as he had seen the ponce of a man swagger in Knockturn as if he had the world at his beck and call. He had actually had several offers to kill the man and if it hadn't been for a lack of opportunity would have likely done so. He was grateful that no one had spotted him and that Hermione had controlled herself and not asked why he had never mentioned that he Harry Potter was The Harry Potter. There could only be one Harry Potter on the train after all.

“Is it true?” he said. “They’re saying all down the train that Harry Potter’s on the train and this is the last compartment we checked. So it’s you, is it?”

“Yes,” said Harry as he glanced at the other boys over his book. "Not that it is anyone’s business or something and you were..."

Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean for their age. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards. Not that Harry would care about that even if they were werewolves. Compared to grown men they were not even intimidating, but compared to how most saw him due to the loose clothes he wore that failed to show any of the muscles he had gained it would be something others would think. He appeared not to be terribly physically intimidating but he was far stronger than he looked. He could most likely go hand to hand with a Master Vampire and come out at least at a draw and that was without using any blood magic.

All of that led to a completely indifferent boy than the one that Malfoy expected. This would lead to him making several mistakes in his plans. The first inconsistency was that he would expect Harry as the Boy-Who-Lived to be familiar with the Wizarding World, which while he was sadly was not in the same circles as the boy would expect. Harry was familiar enough with their customs just didn't agree with the bastardization that he saw them as. He was a traditionalist in the old ways and not a traditionalist as the current pureblood elite would associate with the term. The second was that he would care about a Malfoy or their ideals. Perhaps things would have been simpler if there had been another mistake and Harry had let KiKi have her fill of ignorant weak wizard flesh as it was things unfolded differently.

“Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle,” said the pale boy carelessly in his attitude, noticing where Harry had glanced. “And my name’s Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.”

Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger while Hermione merely kept her face schooled as to avoid looking the fool. Draco Malfoy looked at him while ignoring the girl. She was far too busy at trying not to laugh at his horrible Bond impression.

“Think my name’s funny, do you?" Draco asked before rounding on the boy almost sneering his rebuke. "No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasley’s have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford.”

He turned back to Harry. “You’ll soon find out some Wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.”

He held out his hand to shake Harry’s, but Harry didn’t take it. There were several things that would cause him to do so. Chiefly he didn't like anyone that reminded him of Dudley before he had put that bully in his place. Secondly he had barged in and without a by your leave interrupted his conversation with his friend. Lastly the boy was ignorant and enthralled with his supposed affluence. Kid would last maybe a moment if KiKi felt like playing. Completely unworthy of his time especially if his magic was as weak as his will or body.

“I think I can tell who the wrong sorts are for myself, thanks,” he said coolly ignoring the boy who seemed to be the center of attention. "Besides there are plenty of the right sort that are a better fit than you would ever be..."

Draco Malfoy didn’t go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks. It was obvious that he was not used to being ignored or slighted. Daddy's little rich boy was used to getting his own way. He simply demanded something and it was given regardless of circumstances.

“I’d be careful if I were you, Potter,” he said slowly as he tried to figure out how to respond to this response. “Unless you’re a bit politer, you’ll go the same way as your parents. They didn’t know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasley’s, and it will rub off on you. So who are you girl?”

"Hermione Granger," Hermione answered without any timidity one would have expected of her a few years back. "What do you want Draco Malfoy? It is obvious that you are lacking in any of the manners one would expect of a pureblood let alone one supposedly from a noble family..."

Unlike Harry's dismissive comment earlier this actually caused him to flush with emotion before it turned to red. Who did this girl think she was the look that was clearly discerned on his face. The red was obvious as he finally processed her last name.

"Granger," Malfoy said with a drawl. "I never heard of a family by that name. I guess that makes you a mudblood."

“Say that again,” Ron said as he jumped up already pissed about the earlier comment with his face having become as red as his hair. He may have not liked the girl, but his mother would kill him or worse for not standing up in this situation. She might actually make him skip desert.

“Oh, you’re going to fight us, are you?” Malfoy sneered.

"Why would we do that?" Harry asked as he glanced at the three boys. "Seems to be a Gryffindor thing to do and I only see one in this compartment that is going there. Besides it would be quite unfair. We outnumber you for one..."

"What do you mean there are three of you and three of us," Draco said as if stating the obvious. "How does that make you outnumber us?"

"Well there is someone your overlooking," Hermione said with a smirk. "Though it might be best if you just left. Wouldn't want to mess you up too much."

"Ron may seem a bit strange by our notions but at least he has the willingness to act for what he believes," Harry said causing the boy to flush. "Still a fight with us would only lead to you being injured. It wouldn't do for you to appear in a manner which would humiliate your familial reputation. Oh I knew exactly who you are from the moment I saw you. Lucius Malfoy's little spawn. A perfect physical as well as personable duplicate of your father. If it wasn't for his uses far too many friends of mine would have put him down for the weakling he is."

"Perhaps we should end the taint his line seems to have produced," Hermione said with a sinister grin that almost caused Ron to flinch away from her. "No offense Harry, but he is rather disappointing..."

"I know and his mother is a Black," Harry lamented while his eyes twinkled at what he had just read. "Now this sounds interesting though. A nice little spell to break bones where they have to heal the muggle way first. You can't even vanish the bones and use Skelegro or there are consequences. Doesn't that sound rather fun?"

"As much as breaking every bone in his body is tempting," Hermione began to say as her wand appeared in her hand carefully out of sight. "There just is no point as he is as obviously outclassed physically as he is mentally. I merely wish to avoid having a battle of fists with someone so soon after beating them so easily in a battle of words and wit. Besides none of them move in a manner that says they would be more than brawlers."

"It just isn't fun picking on the weak and helpless," Harry agreed sadly still reading his book though if anyone had noticed there was a slight tension to his free hand as the ring their sparkled darkly. "Personally I prefer to deal with my enemies in a decisive manner that cannot be traced to me. Besides while your two friends are strong for their age they are not very fast and I know that both Hermione and myself would be capable of dealing with any of you. It is merely a matter of having to explain why you are unable to depart from the train under your own power..."

"It would be ever so troublesome to explain away things in that case," Hermione continued with a smirk her wand a snap away from cursing the boy. "Besides shouldn't you be getting back to your seats. We are getting there soon and it would be so un-Slytherin for you to show at the feast looking like that..."

"Like what?" Malfoy said before looking down and seeing his robes suddenly fray and fall to the floor in pieces. "I'll get you for this! Crabbe Goyle we are leaving."

"I guess you two should change as well," Hermione said. "Now my dear friend no need to look like that..."

"Like what?" Ron asked. "Besides why didn't you tell me you were Harry Potter!"

"What need was there to say," Harry said with a shrug still reading his book. "You never did ask my name so I saw no reason to mention it besides I didn't feel like being gawked at. Now Hermione why should I mention that I was The Harry Potter when you knew enough to be able to put it together. Especially considering how much you like solving puzzles. Besides you never said where you were going or we could have gone to the Alley together and gotten our things. Alice and Anne are most likely going to be coming along in the near future anyways even if I don’t think that they would accept being in separate years. I was trying to find a way to mail some ideas back and forth but was contemplating explaining owl or more accurately raven post to you."

"Alice was going to send Night with messages," Hermione stated in with a shudder. "Well I guess it is better than having brought Shadow along would be or worse Mischief, Trick or Trouble. I am surprised that none of them noticed KiKi..."

"Even Ron here didn't notice her and he has been in the compartment the whole time," Harry said with a sigh. "It just seems that I am going to be disappointed with our classmates level of observation. Well that and why she didn't try to gobble Scabbers up. She seems to like rats more than a cat does."

"I understand," Hermione said with a resigned sigh. "Still I had best let Neville know. He seems an alright sort needs a bit of confidence though..."

"Considering what I heard about him it is understandable," Harry said as he placed a bookmark in his book and set it down. "Now if you don't mind Hermione. We still need to change and I am a bit unsure if Ron here would like changing with a girl here."

Hermione glanced at him and sighed before saying, "I do need to deal with some things. Boy will need to lose those notions if he wants to hang around. Well that and get used to the usual. I am surprised KiKi didn't ask about his rat as well. Still I need to get going..."

"Later Hermione," Harry said with a wave as he looked at the window. "Hermione may be a bit over focused at times, but when she talks about things like this it is best to go along with it since she is more often right than not. So we best get changed. It would not do to be sorted looking out of place. Besides what would your mother say?"

That was more than enough to motivate Ron and soon Harry and Ron had taken off their jackets and pulled on their long black robes. Why that might be unusual to do so with a girl present Harry didn't want to consider. He chalked it up to a modern Wizarding eccentricity. Now while Ron’s were a bit short for him as you could see his sneakers underneath them, Harry however was dressed in a loose fitting pair of trousers with a button down shirt that while looking similar to the standard uniform moved just a bit differently. Someone more experienced would notice the oddness and wonder what had been added to his clothes to do so.

He had been surprised that KiKi hadn't jumped for the rat when she first saw it. Well that and she didn't injure the three idiots as that was something that she would have done. He could just picture having to scold her for swallowing the rat. It was a good thing that most likely he would not be sharing a dorm with the boy. If things continued like that than he might get worried about his companion. He did have to wonder if KiKi had eaten the toad though. No he would have heard the croaks as she digested it in that case. He was worried that KiKi would have left the boy catatonic and yet she was following him around completely unnoticed perhaps she had learned a notice me not charm.

A voice echoed through the train: “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train; it will be taken to the school separately.”

Harry’s stomach would have lurched with nerves but the years of conditioning prevented that although Ron, he saw, looked pale under his freckles with an obvious nervousness in his features that the boy was doing nothing or nothing effective to conceal. One would think that as the youngest brother of pranksters that he would be a better actor than this. Perhaps that was why he tried to find a way to stand out as he lacked the common sense that appearances mattered as well as the image one thought of when they saw you. They joined the crowd thronging the corridor. Harry however seemed to have no issues flowing through the crowd unnoticed even if they were all looking for him. The same could be said for the chattering KiKi who was looking over everything while trailing almost obscured beneath his cloak.

The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Harry noticed that the others shivered in the cold night air but he was used to it as well as cheating with the enchantments he had spent far too much time weaving into his clothes. Then came a lamp bobbing over the heads of the students which seemed out of place until he realized that the other students were not as able to see in the dark as he was. After that Harry heard a booming voice calling, “Firs’ years! Firs’ years over here!”

A giant of a man came into view with his presence almost obscuring the students around him who continued to say, “C’mon, follow me – anymore firs’ years? Mind yer step, now! Firs’ years follow me!”

'I wonder if he has giant blood in his veins,' Harry thought as he looked at the man. 'His magic is rather like that of that giant's blood sample I finally got to play around with. Although it seems less potent than a full giant would be.'

The students were slipping and stumbling as they followed him all save Harry and Hermione who seemed to have an almost unnatural grace, they followed the huge man down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. Harry had noticed the older students going toward some carriages that were drawn by skeletal winged horses.

'Thestrals,' Harry had thought with a moment of giddiness trying to overcome him. 'It looks like this place might allow me to definitely further my studies and not all of which would be on the school approved curriculum. Hermione might need rescuing if their library is as good as I have heard.'

That no one seemed to notice KiKi as she walked among them was unsettling in that the other students seemed too oblivious for their own good. Odd that they would go down such a winding narrow path on the way to the school, but it was probably about the image of the school.

It was so far on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there which seemed to be almost crackling with the magic flowing in them. Nobody spoke much on the way as most were too nervous and Harry didn't feel like talking to anyone he didn't know and what he wanted to talk about was private anyways. Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice.

'While he seems nervous as all,' Harry thought as he looked over Neville more carefully. 'There is potential there. I just wish I had spent more time on analyzing auras in regards to magical instead or mental or physical potential, but I lacked too few test subjects for that. Instead I focused on analyzing the auras of components and animals and not people. Pity I will need to rectify that short coming or I might underestimate an opponent.'

“Yeh’ll get yer firs’ sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec," he called out, "jus’ round this bend here.”

There was a loud “Ooooooh!” by the first years as they turned to see the school for the first time.

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

Harry was less impressed than most of them. However he was impressed not with the physical presence, but with the magical presence of the place. It reminded him of the long term effects in the areas where they had preformed rituals. However it seemed different somehow.

'This area is even more saturated than the grove,' Harry thought as he looked at the castle. 'However there is somewhere here near here where the magic feels wild like the grove only far older unlike the castle which feels structured and ordered. It feels like whenever we use the more complex of circles in out spells.'

“No more’n four to a boat,” the man called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore.

Harry and Ron were followed into their boat by Neville and Hermione. Harry had been rather cold to Ron, but he kept following him like a puppy at times. Perhaps if he was sorted in a different house he would be free from the boy. It was not that they were cruel it was just that neither Harry nor Hermione could see being friends with someone that closed minded.

“Everyone in?” shouted their guide, who had a boat to himself, much to the relief of the students. “Right then – FORWARD!”

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

“Heads down!” yelled the guide as the first boats reach the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

“Oy, you there! Is this your toad?” the man boomed, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

“Trevor!” cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock, coming out last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around a huge, oak front door. There were plenty of things that seemed out of place. Harry however was used to some magic effects in his normal activities. However the amount that the wards of the school were impressing on him were quite annoying. He was grateful that there did not seem to be a ward geared against him as the amount of pressure that the building has gained over the millennium was immense. He kept from wincing as he looked at the layered wards in front of him. He had crossed a few on the way to the school proper, but the strongest was up ahead.

'If I hadn't desensitized my sight and shields to as strong of a level of magical pressure than I would have been seriously affected,' Harry thought as they waited near the door being grateful not to have shown his discomfort with the situation. 'Now as I know there are ghosts here I need to keep my presence as low as possible as most ghosts would rather run than come anywhere near me and as soon as I am inside the school buildings wards I won't be obscured by them.'

“Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?”

He raised a gigantic first and knocked three times on the castle door.

'Now this better not be a letdown,' Harry thought as he felt the wards try to scan him and KiKi. 'Still there will be only one way to go from here. Onward!'