Chapter One
Where to begin? It was raining, it was dark, it was cold, and we were all at the movie theater to spend our last day in a three-day weekend pleasantly. By we I mean Lisa, Laura and me. We were seeing The Two Towers, again. The only difference was we had seen it live since the last time. Let me explain for those of you who are just jumping into our story.
Two days ago we were all sucked into an alternate universe. Yes, you read write, sucked into an alternate universe. The universe just so happened to be The Lord of the Rings. Suddenly we had gone from being bookworms to book-victims. Anyway, after we got home we found out that a month in the book was only a minute at home. Thankful, we finally got to rest hoping that nothing like that would ever happen again. Unfortunately, the next day, we were sucked into Animorphs, book #34, The Prophecy. It should be called Hell, if you ask me, because that's what it was. Touching flies to "acquire their DNA", climbing trees that tower thousands of feet over the fiery core of some foreign alien planet, falling from those trees to our death. Sorry, that was just me, and you read right, again.
Falling to my death.
You see, in order to get home, we had to die. Suicide, however, was out of the question. You commit suicide, you're done for. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Now then, where was I? Oh yes, we were at the movie theater seeing The Two Towers. The show didn't start for another ten minutes, so we were sitting in the theater with no more than fifteen other people, we had the best seats in the house, and we were bored out of our minds. We had gotten popcorn for one reason and one reason only: To throw at people. After you've had the experience of going for two and a half, nearly three, days without eating your stomach kind of, well, shrinks. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true, and a three-hour movie is a piece of cake to get through without food. So, we were sitting and talking, refraining from reminiscing, and becoming more and more bored. I, for one, was anxious to see the movie. Unlike the other two, who constantly said how glad they were we were home, I rather missed Middle Earth. I wanted to see Helm's Deep, a major battle that I am proud to say I fought in and, amazingly, lived through.
By now, for those of you who aren't jumping in, you should know who I am. For those of you who are jumping in, my name is Courtney Caillet. I have a sword that has seen more battles than you can count on one hand and more scars than you will ever have in a lifetime. My mouth is quicker than my brain, and my ears are better than my eyes. I've made friends with warriors, elves, dwarves, aliens, and, of course, teenagers like myself. I would mention a wizard, Gandalf to be exact, but I don't know that he was my friend. More an ally, but I knew him all the same.
Now then, as you can tell I'm the narrator of this story. Laura told the first one, Lisa got the second one, and I get this one. There's perfect logic behind the decision of narration, and when you figure it out, would you let me know what it is? Anyway, on with the story.
Being bored with no movie on the screen is not exactly a sign for good things to come. Throw talking in there and you have a disaster on your hands, especially when you take into consideration who's talking: Lisa. For those of you who don't know who Lisa is or what she's like or, in fact, the full history behind our getting sucked into alternate universes you can't realize the danger of this situation to the full effect.
By this time Laura and I had tuned her out and taken up a conversation between ourselves. Quite suddenly, however, we heard those infamous words, "I think..." and tuned Lisa back in just in time to hear, "Really happened!"
And BOOM!, no more theater, no more comfortable seats, no more popcorn. Okay, maybe it wasn't a BOOM. Basically, the world dimmed down. All of the dull colors began to swirl together creating what seemed to be a very bad finger painting. We all grabbed onto each other as the wind picked up around us. Faster and faster it got and it felt like we were in a miniature tornado. I shut my eyes to stop the wind from stinging them. It felt like forever we were in that tornado, spinning around and around. Then, the wind stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and I opened my eyes. We were in darkness, darkness so pure that if we had of had the nerve to move we wouldn't have been able to see our hand in front of our face. There was no sound around us, just dreadful silence. All we could hear was our ragged breath and pounding hearts. And then, as soon as it had started, colors came back into the world, a regulated wind began. It was all over.
And we were really far from home.
We were standing in the middle of a jostling crowd, each of us with a cart in front of us with maroon trunks that bore our initials and squawking owls. "Lisa?" Laura and I questioned as calmly as possible.
"I thought it would be fun to see Hogwarts," Lisa replied.
"You didn't," I moaned.
"She did," Laura groaned. I checked my watch.
"It's seven till eleven, we had better find the train," I announced.
"You mean you aren't mad?" Lisa asked.
"Of course I'm mad, but we're here, we can't get back, so let's go." I pushed my cart forward.
"Do we even have tickets?" Laura mused aloud.
"Who knows," I replied. I checked my pockets as I walked and wasn't surprised to find a ticket in my jeans' pocket. I held it up, "Yep, we've got tickets."
"Great," Laura said with nothing but sarcasm.
"Hey look at it this way Laura, you can buddy up with Hermione and read books!" Lisa told her sister. I smiled in spite of myself.
"You're hopeless Lisa," I remarked.
"And you'll get to see your lover boy," Lisa said to me while ignoring my statement. I blushed slightly.
"Harry is not my lover boy," I corrected her.
"Sure," her and Laura chorused.
"So," I said in an attempt to change the subject, "where's the platform?" Lisa and Laura shrugged. I looked back at my watch. "We have five minutes, either we find the platform or we take a walk in a dangerous neighborhood," I told them.
"It can't be that hard," Laura remarked.
"Yeah, just look for people vanishing through a wall," Lisa added. We laughed, despite our situation. We continued to walk, but began to attract attention because of our owls.
"Where's the stupid platform?" I heard Laura mutter behind me. Suddenly, I noticed someone walking toward a wall and watched, in amazement, as they went clear through instead of crashing into it.
"Over there!" I told the other two. We made our way over and stood in front of the barrier between platforms nine and ten.
"Well, we're here," Laura said, then looked at Lisa and me. "Now, who goes first?" Her eyes lingered on me now, and Lisa was looking at me as well.
"Oh no! Not me!" I told them, shaking my head vigorously.
"Who then?" Laura asked. I looked at the two of them.
"Lisa," I chose.
"Give me one good reason why I should go first?" Lisa asked.
"Because you got us here," I said, but in addition thought, again. Then I added, "Because I don't want to go first."
"And because I can easily make you," Laura chimed in.
"I believe I asked for a good reason," Lisa remarked.
"Oh, God, we've been here for three minutes and already we're fighting. I'll go first," I announced. Then I looked at Lisa and added, "Before you push me through." She grinned and I faced the barrier. It looked solid all right. "Oh God," I muttered.
"Go for it," I heard Laura tell me.
"Crash and burn, crash and burn!" Lisa chanted quietly on my left. I was too nervous to yell at her. I walked toward the barrier, jogged slowly, and then broke into a run. The wall got nearer and nearer. Oh God, I thought, I'm gonna hit the wall! It's gonna end here and now! I'm going home before anything happens!
The front of my cart hit the wall, no, it didn't hit, it went through! The rest of it, and me, followed. Soon, I was on the other side! A sign over my head said Hogwarts Express, eleven o'clock. I looked behind me and, not to my surprise, saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. I had finally done something right! Suddenly, Laura appeared on my right, and not long after, Lisa appeared on my left. "Whoa," they said in unison.
In front of us was the scarlet steam engine we had read so much about. Smoke from the engine was drifting over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way, three of them being ours, over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks. We walked forward to find a compartment, preferably an empty one.
No such luck.
Seeing as how it was only three minutes to eleven, there were no empty compartments. Therefore we settled for the option of getting our trunks onto the train and then worrying about where we would sit. Between the three of us we got our owls and other belongings loaded onto the train. There was a compartment with only one occupant so we opted for that one. I was forced to knock on the door. The person, a boy to be exact, looked up. I stuck my head in the door and asked, "Do you mind? Everywhere else is full."
"No, not at all," the boy said. I heaved my trunk in with one hand, held my owl with the other. Finally, we were all in the compartment and seated. I looked out the window and saw, much to my shock, a family of boys and their mother standing there, and they all had flaming red hair! "Lisa, Laura," I hissed. They both looked out the window.
"They must have just met Harry," Laura whispered in my ear. I nodded in agreement. We all looked away so as not to seem rude and relaxed as best we could. The train suddenly started and my nerves flared. There was no turning back now. I could see that I wasn't the only one who felt this way, judging by the looks on my friends' faces.
About ten minutes went by I suppose and no one had said a word. Everyone stared out the window in some sort of reverie I suspect. Where everyone else's mind was I don't know, but my mind was back in Middle Earth, again. As a matter of fact, my mind was practically always back in Middle Earth, when it wasn't in Animorphs. I missed everyone. Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas, Gimli, hell, I even missed Gandalf, and that's saying something!
All of a sudden, a very odd thought crossed my mind. It involved the boy sitting across from me. I looked back at him and realized that I knew who he was. I turned to Laura and whispered, "It's Cedric."
"Who?" she asked.
"Cedric Diggory," I told her. A lightbulb flicked on somewhere in her mind, and she silently mouthed, "Oh yeah."
"So," Lisa, who hadn't heard the news, said, "what's your name?" The boy looked at her, possibly because he was shocked to hear she had an English accent. Well, that's why I looked at her.
"Cedric Diggory," he replied. Lisa looked at us and smiled. "I'm a fourth year."
"Oh, we're only first years," Laura explained, also with an accent. Great, I was the only American around now.
"Really? Well, you'll love it at Hogwarts. There's so much to do, so many people, but stay away from anyone in Slytherin House. They're as bad as they come," Cedric informed us. Of course we already knew all of this.
"What house are you in?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.
"Hufflepuff," Cedric replied proudly.
And so the conversation continued. We gave him our names, he told us about Hogwarts. I noticed that Laura seemed to be rather dreamy-eyed, but dismissed it. She was probably just tired. After all, this was the third alternate universe we had been in over the course of three days. Cedric at one point asked about my lack of an accent, and our story was that I was Lisa and Laura's cousin and had moved here to live with them when my parents died three years ago. He bought it and everything was fine.
Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back our door and said, "Anything off the cart, dears?" Well, believe it or not, even though we had eaten before we came, we were anxious to try as many things as we could. We got to our feet and went out into the corridor. Cedric, however, stayed behind. When we approached the cart, we ran into someone else buying sweets. Actually, I rammed into him, hard. Caught off guard I stumbled a bit, regained my balance, and then blushed as I hastily apologized. "I am so sorry, I didn't mean to run into you," I stammered idiotically.
"That's all right," the boy said. Then he looked at me, and I gasped. Stumbling again, Laura steadied me while laughing.
"First day with your new feet?" she asked, still with an accent. I took it that they were going to use their accents the whole time we were here and decided to get used to it. I forced a laugh and turned back to the witch with the cart. Between the three of us we got a little of everything off of the cart. I gave my stuff to Laura and told them I'd be inside in a minute. I turned back to the boy.
"I just want to say that I'm sorry, again," I told him.
"It's really fine," he insisted. Finally, I couldn't contain myself anymore.
"You're Harry Potter, aren't you?" And I immediately wished I hadn't said it.
"Yes," he replied, coloring slightly.
"I don't mean to be rude or anything, I just wondered." Stupid, just shut- up! I yelled at myself. Harry just smiled uncomfortably. "Anyway, I should get back to my friends now. Bye." And I walked back into my compartment. I sat down and when Lisa offered me a Chocolate Frog, I refused it.
"What's wrong?" she asked me.
"Didn't you guys recognize him?" I asked.
"Who?" the twins asked in unison.
"Harry Potter!" I said.
"What?!" everyone in the compartment exclaimed, even Cedric.
"Harry Potter, on this train? Going to Hogwarts?" Cedric asked. I nodded, we all nodded.
"And I bumped into him," I groaned in embarrassment. Lisa and Laura found this humorous. "Shut-up, it's not funny!" I said, but proceeded to disprove this by laughing myself. After the initial shock was gone, we all decided that the candies were looking rather tasty. There were Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things that none of us had every seen before, but they were good nonetheless. We offered our goodies to Cedric, who readily accepted and joined in our miniature party. This broke every shred of ice and we were perfectly content with the company of everyone in the compartment.
We were in the middle of daring each other to eat certain Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans when our compartment door slid open. The girl standing in the doorway was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes, and we knew exactly who she was. "Have any of you seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had, of course, a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.
"No," we all answered her in unison. The boy behind her, Neville, moaned.
"He's gone, Trevor's gone for good this time. I'll never find him on this train."
"Don't worry, I'm sure none of the cats are hungry," Lisa told him. Neville moaned again and walked away.
"Lisa, what did you do that for?" Laura asked.
"What?" Lisa asked, clearly not seeing her remark as upsetting.
"Did you know that Harry Potter is in the compartment next to you?" Hermione suddenly asked, coming in and sitting down.
"Yes," I replied with a sigh.
"And he really has the scar!" Hermione continued excitedly. Then she said, "I'm Hermione Granger by the way." We went through introductions quickly. "Anyway, I had better go help Neville find his toad. You should probably change into your robes, you know, I expect we'll be there soon." And then she was gone as quickly as she had come.
"I do hope she's not in Hufflepuff," Cedric said quietly with a slight grimace. We all laughed. Then, we opened our trunks and looked for our robes. Not looking at each other we pulled them on. I, for one, was anxious to see what else was in my trunk, but before I had a chance there came a noise from outside in the corridor. We all went to the door to see what was happening. The door to the compartment next to us, Harry's and Ron's compartment, was open. We were just in time to hear Draco Malfoy's cool voice say, "I'd be careful if I were you, Potter. 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 Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it'll rub off on you."
"Say that again," we heard Ron say.
"Oh, you're going to fight us, are you?" Malfoy sneered.
"Unless you get out now," Harry told him.
"But we don't feel like leaving, do we, boys? We've eaten all our food and you still seem to have some."
There was a pause, we supposed while someone reached to get some candy. Then there came a horrible yell. For a split second a hand flew out of the compartment and on one of the knuckles of who we took to be Goyle (Malfoy's "bodyguard" along with Crabbe) Scabbers, Ron's rat, had sunk his sharp little teeth in and wouldn't let go. We laughed, but heard a small thud which was Scabbers hitting the window. The three boys then came out of the compartment and saw us. They stopped and not long after Hermione Granger was back. "What are you looking at?" Malfoy asked us. We all just grinned at him. The boys then walked hurriedly away.
"What has been going on?" Hermione asked Harry and Ron. We looked into their compartment and saw sweets scattered over the floor. Ron picked Scabbers up by his tail.
"I think he's been knocked out," Ron told Harry. He looked closer at Scabbers. "No - I don't believe it - he's gone back to sleep."
And so he had.
"You've met Malfoy before?"
Harry explained about their meeting in Diagon Alley.
"I've heard of his family," Ron said darkly. "They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side." He then turned to Hermione. "Can we help you with something?"
"You'd better hurry up and put your robes on, I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there. You haven't been fighting, have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there!"
"Scabbers has been fighting, not us," Ron replied, scowling at her. "Would you mind leaving while we change?"
"All right - I only came back here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors," Hermione said in a stiffy voice. "And you've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?" Yes, Ron did know. His mother had been trying to rub it off back at the station. I smiled.
She then turned, pushed past us, and walked away. "And what do you want?" Ron asked us.
"Nothing," we all replied.
"Who are you anyway?" he then inquired. We went through introductions again. "Hey, aren't you the girl who ran into me?" Harry asked me suddenly. I felt my cheeks flush and nodded almost unnoticeably.
"Well, we'll let you two get into your robes," Laura said. Everyone nodded in agreement, and we went back to our compartment. It was getting dark outside and the train did seem to be getting slower. My nerves flared once more. We were almost at Hogwarts, a place I had always wanted to go but never thought I could. Now that my dream was coming true I wasn't so sure I wanted it to. Luckily I didn't have too much time to dwell on my thoughts. A voice suddenly 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."
Between the four of us we got rid of the uneaten food, cramming it into our pockets, and joined the crowd thronging the corridor. Cedric spotted some of his friends whom he hadn't had the luxury of sitting with during the trip, said good-bye to us, and went over to them.
The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. It reminded me exactly of school to be honest, only everyone was wearing black robes. Although it was cold I refrained from shivering. After my trip to Middle Earth and hanging out with Aragorn and the rest of the gang, cold air doesn't have quite the same affect that it used to have on me. I could tell that Lisa and Laura had grown a tolerance for it as well. A lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and I heard a voice that I recognized: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" I also heard, more quietly, "All right there Harry?"
Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads. For some reason it comforted me.
"C'mon, follow me - any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"
Slipping and stumbling we followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of us that I thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody talked much, not even Lisa. Neville, otherwise known as the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice. I pitied him already and then thought of the year that was ahead of him. That just made me pity him more.
"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "just' round this bend here."
There was a loud "Oooooh!"
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. Even Lisa, Laura, and I couldn't not be stunned at the sight of the castle. Let me tell you, the one in the movie doesn't do it justice by a very long road!
"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Lisa, Laura, and I got a boat to ourselves. Next to us Harry and Ron were followed into their boat by Neville and Hermione. We all smiled at each other.
"Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "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 us as we sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood. My nerves were being stretched to the limit and my hands began to shake.
"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; we all bent our heads and the little boats carried us through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. We were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking us right underneath the castle, until we reached a kind of underground harbor, where we clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.
"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" inquired Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.
"Trevor!" Neville cried blissfully, holding out his hands. Then we clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.
We walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.
"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?"
Hagrid raised one gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door. I grabbed Lisa's hand, and she grabbed Laura's. This reassured us that we would be there for each other no matter what kind of hell we were going into, which was usually the worst kind. A deep breath of cold air cleared my mind and. . .
Where to begin? It was raining, it was dark, it was cold, and we were all at the movie theater to spend our last day in a three-day weekend pleasantly. By we I mean Lisa, Laura and me. We were seeing The Two Towers, again. The only difference was we had seen it live since the last time. Let me explain for those of you who are just jumping into our story.
Two days ago we were all sucked into an alternate universe. Yes, you read write, sucked into an alternate universe. The universe just so happened to be The Lord of the Rings. Suddenly we had gone from being bookworms to book-victims. Anyway, after we got home we found out that a month in the book was only a minute at home. Thankful, we finally got to rest hoping that nothing like that would ever happen again. Unfortunately, the next day, we were sucked into Animorphs, book #34, The Prophecy. It should be called Hell, if you ask me, because that's what it was. Touching flies to "acquire their DNA", climbing trees that tower thousands of feet over the fiery core of some foreign alien planet, falling from those trees to our death. Sorry, that was just me, and you read right, again.
Falling to my death.
You see, in order to get home, we had to die. Suicide, however, was out of the question. You commit suicide, you're done for. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Now then, where was I? Oh yes, we were at the movie theater seeing The Two Towers. The show didn't start for another ten minutes, so we were sitting in the theater with no more than fifteen other people, we had the best seats in the house, and we were bored out of our minds. We had gotten popcorn for one reason and one reason only: To throw at people. After you've had the experience of going for two and a half, nearly three, days without eating your stomach kind of, well, shrinks. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true, and a three-hour movie is a piece of cake to get through without food. So, we were sitting and talking, refraining from reminiscing, and becoming more and more bored. I, for one, was anxious to see the movie. Unlike the other two, who constantly said how glad they were we were home, I rather missed Middle Earth. I wanted to see Helm's Deep, a major battle that I am proud to say I fought in and, amazingly, lived through.
By now, for those of you who aren't jumping in, you should know who I am. For those of you who are jumping in, my name is Courtney Caillet. I have a sword that has seen more battles than you can count on one hand and more scars than you will ever have in a lifetime. My mouth is quicker than my brain, and my ears are better than my eyes. I've made friends with warriors, elves, dwarves, aliens, and, of course, teenagers like myself. I would mention a wizard, Gandalf to be exact, but I don't know that he was my friend. More an ally, but I knew him all the same.
Now then, as you can tell I'm the narrator of this story. Laura told the first one, Lisa got the second one, and I get this one. There's perfect logic behind the decision of narration, and when you figure it out, would you let me know what it is? Anyway, on with the story.
Being bored with no movie on the screen is not exactly a sign for good things to come. Throw talking in there and you have a disaster on your hands, especially when you take into consideration who's talking: Lisa. For those of you who don't know who Lisa is or what she's like or, in fact, the full history behind our getting sucked into alternate universes you can't realize the danger of this situation to the full effect.
By this time Laura and I had tuned her out and taken up a conversation between ourselves. Quite suddenly, however, we heard those infamous words, "I think..." and tuned Lisa back in just in time to hear, "Really happened!"
And BOOM!, no more theater, no more comfortable seats, no more popcorn. Okay, maybe it wasn't a BOOM. Basically, the world dimmed down. All of the dull colors began to swirl together creating what seemed to be a very bad finger painting. We all grabbed onto each other as the wind picked up around us. Faster and faster it got and it felt like we were in a miniature tornado. I shut my eyes to stop the wind from stinging them. It felt like forever we were in that tornado, spinning around and around. Then, the wind stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and I opened my eyes. We were in darkness, darkness so pure that if we had of had the nerve to move we wouldn't have been able to see our hand in front of our face. There was no sound around us, just dreadful silence. All we could hear was our ragged breath and pounding hearts. And then, as soon as it had started, colors came back into the world, a regulated wind began. It was all over.
And we were really far from home.
We were standing in the middle of a jostling crowd, each of us with a cart in front of us with maroon trunks that bore our initials and squawking owls. "Lisa?" Laura and I questioned as calmly as possible.
"I thought it would be fun to see Hogwarts," Lisa replied.
"You didn't," I moaned.
"She did," Laura groaned. I checked my watch.
"It's seven till eleven, we had better find the train," I announced.
"You mean you aren't mad?" Lisa asked.
"Of course I'm mad, but we're here, we can't get back, so let's go." I pushed my cart forward.
"Do we even have tickets?" Laura mused aloud.
"Who knows," I replied. I checked my pockets as I walked and wasn't surprised to find a ticket in my jeans' pocket. I held it up, "Yep, we've got tickets."
"Great," Laura said with nothing but sarcasm.
"Hey look at it this way Laura, you can buddy up with Hermione and read books!" Lisa told her sister. I smiled in spite of myself.
"You're hopeless Lisa," I remarked.
"And you'll get to see your lover boy," Lisa said to me while ignoring my statement. I blushed slightly.
"Harry is not my lover boy," I corrected her.
"Sure," her and Laura chorused.
"So," I said in an attempt to change the subject, "where's the platform?" Lisa and Laura shrugged. I looked back at my watch. "We have five minutes, either we find the platform or we take a walk in a dangerous neighborhood," I told them.
"It can't be that hard," Laura remarked.
"Yeah, just look for people vanishing through a wall," Lisa added. We laughed, despite our situation. We continued to walk, but began to attract attention because of our owls.
"Where's the stupid platform?" I heard Laura mutter behind me. Suddenly, I noticed someone walking toward a wall and watched, in amazement, as they went clear through instead of crashing into it.
"Over there!" I told the other two. We made our way over and stood in front of the barrier between platforms nine and ten.
"Well, we're here," Laura said, then looked at Lisa and me. "Now, who goes first?" Her eyes lingered on me now, and Lisa was looking at me as well.
"Oh no! Not me!" I told them, shaking my head vigorously.
"Who then?" Laura asked. I looked at the two of them.
"Lisa," I chose.
"Give me one good reason why I should go first?" Lisa asked.
"Because you got us here," I said, but in addition thought, again. Then I added, "Because I don't want to go first."
"And because I can easily make you," Laura chimed in.
"I believe I asked for a good reason," Lisa remarked.
"Oh, God, we've been here for three minutes and already we're fighting. I'll go first," I announced. Then I looked at Lisa and added, "Before you push me through." She grinned and I faced the barrier. It looked solid all right. "Oh God," I muttered.
"Go for it," I heard Laura tell me.
"Crash and burn, crash and burn!" Lisa chanted quietly on my left. I was too nervous to yell at her. I walked toward the barrier, jogged slowly, and then broke into a run. The wall got nearer and nearer. Oh God, I thought, I'm gonna hit the wall! It's gonna end here and now! I'm going home before anything happens!
The front of my cart hit the wall, no, it didn't hit, it went through! The rest of it, and me, followed. Soon, I was on the other side! A sign over my head said Hogwarts Express, eleven o'clock. I looked behind me and, not to my surprise, saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. I had finally done something right! Suddenly, Laura appeared on my right, and not long after, Lisa appeared on my left. "Whoa," they said in unison.
In front of us was the scarlet steam engine we had read so much about. Smoke from the engine was drifting over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way, three of them being ours, over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks. We walked forward to find a compartment, preferably an empty one.
No such luck.
Seeing as how it was only three minutes to eleven, there were no empty compartments. Therefore we settled for the option of getting our trunks onto the train and then worrying about where we would sit. Between the three of us we got our owls and other belongings loaded onto the train. There was a compartment with only one occupant so we opted for that one. I was forced to knock on the door. The person, a boy to be exact, looked up. I stuck my head in the door and asked, "Do you mind? Everywhere else is full."
"No, not at all," the boy said. I heaved my trunk in with one hand, held my owl with the other. Finally, we were all in the compartment and seated. I looked out the window and saw, much to my shock, a family of boys and their mother standing there, and they all had flaming red hair! "Lisa, Laura," I hissed. They both looked out the window.
"They must have just met Harry," Laura whispered in my ear. I nodded in agreement. We all looked away so as not to seem rude and relaxed as best we could. The train suddenly started and my nerves flared. There was no turning back now. I could see that I wasn't the only one who felt this way, judging by the looks on my friends' faces.
About ten minutes went by I suppose and no one had said a word. Everyone stared out the window in some sort of reverie I suspect. Where everyone else's mind was I don't know, but my mind was back in Middle Earth, again. As a matter of fact, my mind was practically always back in Middle Earth, when it wasn't in Animorphs. I missed everyone. Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas, Gimli, hell, I even missed Gandalf, and that's saying something!
All of a sudden, a very odd thought crossed my mind. It involved the boy sitting across from me. I looked back at him and realized that I knew who he was. I turned to Laura and whispered, "It's Cedric."
"Who?" she asked.
"Cedric Diggory," I told her. A lightbulb flicked on somewhere in her mind, and she silently mouthed, "Oh yeah."
"So," Lisa, who hadn't heard the news, said, "what's your name?" The boy looked at her, possibly because he was shocked to hear she had an English accent. Well, that's why I looked at her.
"Cedric Diggory," he replied. Lisa looked at us and smiled. "I'm a fourth year."
"Oh, we're only first years," Laura explained, also with an accent. Great, I was the only American around now.
"Really? Well, you'll love it at Hogwarts. There's so much to do, so many people, but stay away from anyone in Slytherin House. They're as bad as they come," Cedric informed us. Of course we already knew all of this.
"What house are you in?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.
"Hufflepuff," Cedric replied proudly.
And so the conversation continued. We gave him our names, he told us about Hogwarts. I noticed that Laura seemed to be rather dreamy-eyed, but dismissed it. She was probably just tired. After all, this was the third alternate universe we had been in over the course of three days. Cedric at one point asked about my lack of an accent, and our story was that I was Lisa and Laura's cousin and had moved here to live with them when my parents died three years ago. He bought it and everything was fine.
Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back our door and said, "Anything off the cart, dears?" Well, believe it or not, even though we had eaten before we came, we were anxious to try as many things as we could. We got to our feet and went out into the corridor. Cedric, however, stayed behind. When we approached the cart, we ran into someone else buying sweets. Actually, I rammed into him, hard. Caught off guard I stumbled a bit, regained my balance, and then blushed as I hastily apologized. "I am so sorry, I didn't mean to run into you," I stammered idiotically.
"That's all right," the boy said. Then he looked at me, and I gasped. Stumbling again, Laura steadied me while laughing.
"First day with your new feet?" she asked, still with an accent. I took it that they were going to use their accents the whole time we were here and decided to get used to it. I forced a laugh and turned back to the witch with the cart. Between the three of us we got a little of everything off of the cart. I gave my stuff to Laura and told them I'd be inside in a minute. I turned back to the boy.
"I just want to say that I'm sorry, again," I told him.
"It's really fine," he insisted. Finally, I couldn't contain myself anymore.
"You're Harry Potter, aren't you?" And I immediately wished I hadn't said it.
"Yes," he replied, coloring slightly.
"I don't mean to be rude or anything, I just wondered." Stupid, just shut- up! I yelled at myself. Harry just smiled uncomfortably. "Anyway, I should get back to my friends now. Bye." And I walked back into my compartment. I sat down and when Lisa offered me a Chocolate Frog, I refused it.
"What's wrong?" she asked me.
"Didn't you guys recognize him?" I asked.
"Who?" the twins asked in unison.
"Harry Potter!" I said.
"What?!" everyone in the compartment exclaimed, even Cedric.
"Harry Potter, on this train? Going to Hogwarts?" Cedric asked. I nodded, we all nodded.
"And I bumped into him," I groaned in embarrassment. Lisa and Laura found this humorous. "Shut-up, it's not funny!" I said, but proceeded to disprove this by laughing myself. After the initial shock was gone, we all decided that the candies were looking rather tasty. There were Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things that none of us had every seen before, but they were good nonetheless. We offered our goodies to Cedric, who readily accepted and joined in our miniature party. This broke every shred of ice and we were perfectly content with the company of everyone in the compartment.
We were in the middle of daring each other to eat certain Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans when our compartment door slid open. The girl standing in the doorway was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes, and we knew exactly who she was. "Have any of you seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had, of course, a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.
"No," we all answered her in unison. The boy behind her, Neville, moaned.
"He's gone, Trevor's gone for good this time. I'll never find him on this train."
"Don't worry, I'm sure none of the cats are hungry," Lisa told him. Neville moaned again and walked away.
"Lisa, what did you do that for?" Laura asked.
"What?" Lisa asked, clearly not seeing her remark as upsetting.
"Did you know that Harry Potter is in the compartment next to you?" Hermione suddenly asked, coming in and sitting down.
"Yes," I replied with a sigh.
"And he really has the scar!" Hermione continued excitedly. Then she said, "I'm Hermione Granger by the way." We went through introductions quickly. "Anyway, I had better go help Neville find his toad. You should probably change into your robes, you know, I expect we'll be there soon." And then she was gone as quickly as she had come.
"I do hope she's not in Hufflepuff," Cedric said quietly with a slight grimace. We all laughed. Then, we opened our trunks and looked for our robes. Not looking at each other we pulled them on. I, for one, was anxious to see what else was in my trunk, but before I had a chance there came a noise from outside in the corridor. We all went to the door to see what was happening. The door to the compartment next to us, Harry's and Ron's compartment, was open. We were just in time to hear Draco Malfoy's cool voice say, "I'd be careful if I were you, Potter. 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 Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it'll rub off on you."
"Say that again," we heard Ron say.
"Oh, you're going to fight us, are you?" Malfoy sneered.
"Unless you get out now," Harry told him.
"But we don't feel like leaving, do we, boys? We've eaten all our food and you still seem to have some."
There was a pause, we supposed while someone reached to get some candy. Then there came a horrible yell. For a split second a hand flew out of the compartment and on one of the knuckles of who we took to be Goyle (Malfoy's "bodyguard" along with Crabbe) Scabbers, Ron's rat, had sunk his sharp little teeth in and wouldn't let go. We laughed, but heard a small thud which was Scabbers hitting the window. The three boys then came out of the compartment and saw us. They stopped and not long after Hermione Granger was back. "What are you looking at?" Malfoy asked us. We all just grinned at him. The boys then walked hurriedly away.
"What has been going on?" Hermione asked Harry and Ron. We looked into their compartment and saw sweets scattered over the floor. Ron picked Scabbers up by his tail.
"I think he's been knocked out," Ron told Harry. He looked closer at Scabbers. "No - I don't believe it - he's gone back to sleep."
And so he had.
"You've met Malfoy before?"
Harry explained about their meeting in Diagon Alley.
"I've heard of his family," Ron said darkly. "They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side." He then turned to Hermione. "Can we help you with something?"
"You'd better hurry up and put your robes on, I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there. You haven't been fighting, have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there!"
"Scabbers has been fighting, not us," Ron replied, scowling at her. "Would you mind leaving while we change?"
"All right - I only came back here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors," Hermione said in a stiffy voice. "And you've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?" Yes, Ron did know. His mother had been trying to rub it off back at the station. I smiled.
She then turned, pushed past us, and walked away. "And what do you want?" Ron asked us.
"Nothing," we all replied.
"Who are you anyway?" he then inquired. We went through introductions again. "Hey, aren't you the girl who ran into me?" Harry asked me suddenly. I felt my cheeks flush and nodded almost unnoticeably.
"Well, we'll let you two get into your robes," Laura said. Everyone nodded in agreement, and we went back to our compartment. It was getting dark outside and the train did seem to be getting slower. My nerves flared once more. We were almost at Hogwarts, a place I had always wanted to go but never thought I could. Now that my dream was coming true I wasn't so sure I wanted it to. Luckily I didn't have too much time to dwell on my thoughts. A voice suddenly 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."
Between the four of us we got rid of the uneaten food, cramming it into our pockets, and joined the crowd thronging the corridor. Cedric spotted some of his friends whom he hadn't had the luxury of sitting with during the trip, said good-bye to us, and went over to them.
The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. It reminded me exactly of school to be honest, only everyone was wearing black robes. Although it was cold I refrained from shivering. After my trip to Middle Earth and hanging out with Aragorn and the rest of the gang, cold air doesn't have quite the same affect that it used to have on me. I could tell that Lisa and Laura had grown a tolerance for it as well. A lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and I heard a voice that I recognized: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" I also heard, more quietly, "All right there Harry?"
Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads. For some reason it comforted me.
"C'mon, follow me - any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"
Slipping and stumbling we followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of us that I thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody talked much, not even Lisa. Neville, otherwise known as the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice. I pitied him already and then thought of the year that was ahead of him. That just made me pity him more.
"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "just' round this bend here."
There was a loud "Oooooh!"
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. Even Lisa, Laura, and I couldn't not be stunned at the sight of the castle. Let me tell you, the one in the movie doesn't do it justice by a very long road!
"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Lisa, Laura, and I got a boat to ourselves. Next to us Harry and Ron were followed into their boat by Neville and Hermione. We all smiled at each other.
"Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "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 us as we sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood. My nerves were being stretched to the limit and my hands began to shake.
"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; we all bent our heads and the little boats carried us through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. We were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking us right underneath the castle, until we reached a kind of underground harbor, where we clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.
"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" inquired Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.
"Trevor!" Neville cried blissfully, holding out his hands. Then we clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.
We walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.
"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?"
Hagrid raised one gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door. I grabbed Lisa's hand, and she grabbed Laura's. This reassured us that we would be there for each other no matter what kind of hell we were going into, which was usually the worst kind. A deep breath of cold air cleared my mind and. . .