Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of its wonderful characters, it all belongs to J.K. Rowling
I looked out the window on the Hogwarts express at the dismal rain pouring down its glass pane. I was barely listening to my cousin Hugo and his best friend, Justin, rambling on about something or other. I think it had to do with dolphins. Why they were talking about those weird muggle creatures again I had no idea. I didn't get their obsession with them. Ever since Hugo's mum and dad had taken us to the muggle zoo (along with Justin,) they had become obsessed with those strange marine animals.
Whatever. I went off to find my other cousin Rose, who was Hugo's older sister. She was beginning her sixth year at Hogwarts, and was two years older than Hugo and me. I found her with my older brother Albus.
"Hey Lily," she said, when she spotted me in the doorway of their compartment, "My brother boring you?"
"Yup," I responded, "Him and Justin are talking about dolphins again."
Rose and Albus looked at me with a knowing expression; we had all been the unfortunate audience of Hugo's dolphin ramblings at some time or another this summer. Luckily, the rest of them weren't in his year and could escape his ceaseless discussion of the muggle creatures during the school year. I, on the other hand, was not so lucky.
Just then, my oldest brother, James, and two of my other cousins, Fred and Louis, burst in.
"Wassup guys?" James drawled in his most annoying voice. For some reason he thought it made girls find him irresistible. I refrained from pointing out that he had yet to have a girlfriend. James, Fred and Louis were in their seventh and last year at Hogwarts, and were the school's troublemakers. It was said that they rivaled my uncle's Fred and George, in my parents' time, and the marauders, including my grandfather, and James's namesake, during my grandparents' time.
"Are you guys ready for a fabulous year at Hogwarts?" Fred continued in the same drawl.
"'Cause it's our last," included Louis.
"And we're gonna make it…" added Fred.
"The BEST…," supplied Louis.
"…Yet!" finished James.
"Wow," said Albus sarcastically, "can't wait."
"Oh you just watch, little brother," James smirked, "we're gonna start this year off with a bang!"
"Right here, right now!" added Fred. He pulled out something green and slimy.
"What is that?" I questioned in disgust.
"Aha baby sister," James grinned at my distain for being referred to as a baby (I was fourteen!), "that is a new and improved Dungbomb."
I eyed it warily; it still looked pretty atrocious to me.
"And what are you going to do with it?" Rose asked fretfully, "you do realize those can be quite dangerous."
Fred grinned evilly, "ahaha, young cousin, we are going to find out what happens when you light a Dungbomb on fire."
"What?" Rose exclaimed, "But that's horribly dangerous, you could blow apart this whole train!"
Louis shrugged, and pulled out a pack of matches from his pocket and lit one.
"No! You mustn't, you mustn't!" Rose cried. But they paid her no mind. Louis lit the slimy Dungbomb with the match, and we all stared at it with bated breath, Rose, with a look of horror on her face.
For a few moments, nothing happened; but then the Dungbomb started to glow an eerie luminescent green, and before anyone knew what was happening, our entire compartment blew off from the rest of the train and flew into the air.
I screamed. I'm pretty sure a few others did too, and I could hear Rose's shrill voice shrieking, "I told you not to! I told you!"
For a few seconds we were air born, and then there was an enormous splash, and we all plummeted into a loch.
There was silence for a moment, before all of us started freaking out. There were a lot of "YOU IDIOTS!" coming from Rose, before she had sense enough to put an underwater breathing charm on all of us.
"Great," said Albus, speaking for the first time since the incident, "really brilliant idea, James! Let's light a Dungbomb on fire! I wonder what will happen?"
That started a bunch of arguing between everyone. I started freaking out. How on earth would we get out of here? What would happen when the train got to the school and they found out we weren't on it? Did they even realize a whole compartment had been blown apart from the train? Would anyone come looking for us? How would anybody know where to find us anyway? I decided that if we were going to get out of here, our best bet would probably be to try and get out on our own. But we wouldn't accomplish anything if everyone kept arguing amongst themselves; we needed to work together, as a team.
"GUYS!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, "SHUT UP!"
Everyone stopped arguing and turned to look at me. I began, "Well, we obviously need to figure out a way to get out of here don't we?"
They all nodded.
"Ok," I continued, "well we need to work together to accomplish that so STOP bickering! We all know James, Fred and Louis were being idiots—"
"Hey!" came all three of their protests.
I gave them withering looks and stared again, "but we can't just sit around here and blame them, we need to figure out a way to get out of here! Any ideas?"
No one spoke up. I sighed, who knew how long we would be here? We had no idea where we were, if we were in an ocean, lake or river, how to get to land, or how to get to Hogwarts. Suddenly, something large and pink came swimming our way.
"Ahhhhhh," James screamed, "The Loch Ness Monster!"
We all gave him withering looks. However, none of us knew what it was, whether it was magical or not, whether it was dangerous or not.
As it swam closer, Rose, who had gone to the zoo with us, identified it.
"It's a dolphin!" she exclaimed.
As I examine it closer (for we knew dolphins weren't dangerous, especially because they were muggle creatures,) I realized she was right.
"But why is it pink?" I asked.
She shrugged, "I might be the type of breed. In fact, I think I remember reading about pink river dolphins in some book! Dolphins are known for helping take lost swimmers to shore, maybe it'll help us!"
The dolphin nuzzled me affectionately; it seemed perfectly willing to help us get to shore.
"Will you take us back to shore?" I asked it.
I don't know if or how it understood me, but we all grabbed onto its dorsal fin as it shot to the surface and carried us out to the shore. We climbed out of the lake, and Rose performed a quick drying charm on all of us. I thanked the dolphin, and said farewell to it as it shot across the lake and back down the river.
"How are we going to get to Hogwarts now?" asked Albus.
"Well, we should walk along the railroad tracks," Rose said, "that will get us there eventually."
"You mean we're going to walk all the way to Hogwarts?" James whined, "That takes all day by train!"
"Shut up," I said, "you're the one who got us into this mess in the first place, you'll be lucky not to be expelled."
James shut up at this realization.
"Besides," Rose added, "it takes all day from Kings Cross station, but we're miles from that here, I think there was only about an hour left of our train ride anyway."
"Still," said Albus, "it will take a long time to walk, and people will wonder where we are when we don't show up at the feast."
"But what other choice do we have?" Rose countered. So we all set off along the rails.
After about an hour of walking Rose decided we probably had about 30 or 40 miles to go. There was no way we'd make that tonight. We stopped to take a rest.
"What are we going to do?" moaned Rose, "we can't miss the first day of school!"
"We could Patronus mum and dad," Albus suggested. Rose and Albus, the two smartest here probably (even if they were a year younger than James, Fred, and Louis), were both accomplished at Patronus making. Sending a Patronus with a message, however, was a whole other matter and neither one had successfully accomplished that yet.
"You try, Albus," Rose told him, "Your better at it than me."
Albus agreed and made his Patronus, a fawn. He gave it his message, enunciating clearly, "Dear mum and dad, we: James, Fred, Louis, Rose, Lily, and I, got stuck off of the train. We're on the railroad tracks, and Rose reckons we're about 40 miles from Hogwarts. Something happened and our compartment blew apart from the train, blame James, Fred and Louis. We're all ok but we need help to get to Hogwarts. Please come and help. Love, Albus."
The fawn amazingly, pranced off back in the direction we came from. We could only hope Albus's message had worked.
It apparently had, as in about half an hour we saw four broomsticks flying through the air. We spotted them and waved, and they touched down to where we were, the sun sinking behind them.
It was my mum and dad, along with my Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron, Rose's mum and dad. Mum was livid.
"JAMES!" she started shrieking, her red hair blowing wildly around her face, and she looked very terrifying. Even though James was taller than her, he cowered under her deathly stare. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"
"Um, well Mum," he began timidly, but I cut in.
"James, Fred, and Louis decided it would be a good idea to light a Dungbomb on fire."
"YOU WHAT?" Mum shrieked, "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?"
Now all three them were cowering under her wrath. Once Mum had yelled at them for a good ten minutes, Dad decided to step in.
"Ginny dear," he said, as she took a steadying breath "I think that's enough."
Mum nodded.
"Do you boys understand how foolish you've been?" Dad asked them.
They all nodded hastily, and Dad looked satisfied.
"Ok then," he said, "each of you take a broom, and we'll fly up to Hogsmeade. From there, we'll walk up to the school and you three," he turned to James, Fred, and Louis, "will explain to Professor McGonagall what happened. You will take whatever punishment she gives you, even if it means you are expelled."
They all nodded. Then we mounted our broomsticks and set off towards Hogsmeade.
Once we had gotten to the school, James, Fred, and Louis had to explain everything to Professor McGonagall. The rest of us had to stay to, to be witnesses, I guess. Professor McGonagall was furious, but miraculously, she didn't expel them. They didn't even get kicked off the Quidditch team, but I think that's because McGonagall secretly wants Gryffindor to win just as much as the rest of us. Instead, they all got detention every night for two months. Mum thought this was more than fair, and so the boys didn't argue. McGonagall gave us all sandwiches to eat, and then we all went off to our dormitories for bed, as Mum, Dad, Uncle Ron, and Aunt Hermione left.
Once we got up to the Gryffindor common room, James, Fred, and Louis's moods went from ashamed to proud. They were all over the girls, bragging about how they had exploded a train car and had miraculously flown all the way to Hogwarts, stretching the truth a bit. I rolled my eyes as the boys all pulled their shirts off to show off their "battle scars." I refrained from explaining how James had freaked out over a pink dolphin; blackmail, blackmail. I grinned. Just then I saw Hugo, standing in the corner, listening to their story. I came over to him.
"So is that what really happened?" he asked.
I shook my head and proceeded to tell him what really happened.
"Cool!" he exclaimed, "You actually met a real dolphin in the wild!"
I rolled my eyes and said, "Yes, Hugo, and now I've had about enough of dolphins as I can take. Good night."