The next story of Circe Louvenia Grace. I hope you have at least watched the movie before reading this. Enjoy:) lOVE, Wildreams
The feeling of anger was slowly fading and a new feeling began to emerge: panic. After a very rude and vulgar remarks about his parents by Aunt Marge, Harry unconsciously bloated her into a large balloon and she was still somewhere floating in the sky screaming. Realising that he had used magic outside school so badly this time, Harry wasn't surprise if the representatives of Ministry of Magic were swooping down to apprehend him at that instance.
Tugging his trunk, Harry wondered into Magnolia Crescent, panting from the adrenaline rush of running away from number 4, Privet Drive and the heaviness of his trunk. What was going to happen to him now? He was surely to be expelled from school now and that thought alone made the panic in him grew bigger. Hogwarts was the only place he ever felt belong and at peace. It was where all his friends were and the people who cared for him. All alone, harry fumbled into his wallet; there wasn't enough to spend a night in any simple lodging. Of course, he has a lot of money, inherited from him parents, in Gringotts Wizarding Bank in London but it was a long way there and with his trunk with him, it would be a tedious journey. Then two things occurred to him: his invisibility cloak and his broomstick. If he was already expelled from school, another bit of magic wouldn't harm more than it already had. Lying his trunk down on the pathway, he opened it and looked for the invisibility cloak.
Then, a funny feeling enveloped him and Harry looked up. The prickling on his back made him feel as though someone was watching him. When everything was still and quiet, Harry bent down again. But before a second passed by, he felt the some odd feeling and glance up again. No doubt this time, he heard a rustling sound in the gap between the garage and fence behind him. Clenching his wand hard, he pointed it at the direction.
"Lumos." He muttered and a glow of light appeared at the tip of his wand, he held it high and the garage door gleamed. Between them, Harry could tell there was a hulking outline of something very big with wide, gleaming eyes. Taking a step backwards, Harry was still very much focus on the creature. But then, his leg caught the wheels of his trunk and he tripped. His wand flew out of his hand and he flung his arms wide open to break his fall. There was a deafening BANG and a blinding light as Harry shielded his eyes. Quickly rolling back to the pavement, a gigantic pair of wheels and headlights screeched to a halt right where Harry was a second ago. If that was not frightening enough, he heard another rustling sound nearing him and immediately grabbed his wand and pointed at the direction of the sound. "Lumos!"
The glow appeared and revealed a slim figure walking towards him. Reaching within the rays of the light, stood Circe Louvenia Grace, clad in a light floral skirt and a beige colour turtleneck. She stood where she was, glancing down at Harry who was still lying on the ground. Harry was so startled by her presence that he completely did not hear a skinny lad walking down from a large triple-decker bus with the lettering 'The Knight Bus' was labelled across the windscreen.
"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Stan Shunpike and I will be your conductor this eve-
The skinny conductor stopped halfway, noticing that the boy on the ground and the girl standing aside were not listening to him. Harry, who still ignored the conductor, got up. "Circe!"
"Hi, Harry." She said, sounding much calmer than Harry, who has not still overcome by surprise of her sudden presence.
"You two kno' each other?" asked Stan. But when neither of them answered, he asked again. "You two goin' on board?"
"Come Harry, let's go." Circe said finally, walking up to Stan, handing him twenty two sickles. "It's for me and my friend." She said to him. "I'm going to Diagon Alley. You?" she said this time, looking at Harry.
Harry finally got his sense back. "Umm...sure, yea." And he climbed on the bus. Inside the bus, instead of rows of seats were half a dozen brass bedsteads stood beside the curtained windows. Candles were burning in brackets beside each bed, illuminating the wood-panelled walls.
Glancing at the driver, Stan introduced them to the driver. "This is Ernie Prang here, our driver. So, Ms Circe, mind telling me who' this friend o' yours is?"
Harry looked at Circe, wondering how the conductor knew her. "This is Neville Longbottom, Stan." She said rather unenthusiastically. "C'mon, Stan, let's go."
There was another loud Bang and Harry was thrown backwards by the speed of the bus. Only Circe seemed unaffected as she sat on one of the beds, sipping hot chocolate that Stan handed to her automatically.
Stan enjoyed looking at Harry's stunned face while Circe just sipped her drink without so much glancing at Harry. "How come the muggles don't hear us?" asked Harry, looking at Circe.
"Them?" Stan said contemptuously. "Don' listen properly, do they? Don' look properly either. Never notice nuffink, they don'."
Harry glanced at Stan, he wasn't asking him. "I see."
"Well, better go wake Madam Marsh up. Gonna reach Abergavenny in a minute." Said Stan as he disappeared behind a wooden spiralling staircase.
Harry looked at Circe who hasn't said a word to him yet. "So what were you doing there? Weren't you supposed to be at Hogwarts?"
Putting her mug on a coffee table, Circe turned to Harry. "I was just taking a walk."
"A walk? At Magnolia Crescent?" he said in disbelieve.
"I wanted...a change of scenery." She said nodding slowly.
"Wouldn't the school catch you running off like that?"
"Harry, you couldn't expect anyone to coop up all alone in Hogwarts for the entire summer holiday, could you?"
Harry thought for awhile, wondering whether or not that was a rhetorical question. "Well, it's nice bumping into you. I'm actually in huge trouble now."
"I know. You ballooned a female relative of yours." Circe said.
"How...how did you know?"
"I saw her in the sky and since you live there, it could only be you. But don't worry about it. I'm sure it was nothing."
"Nothing! It's law! I did magic outside, you know the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry. I've really done it this time, Circe." Harry cried out, wondering how Circe could make it sound so uncomplicated.
Circe looked at him with boredom on her face. "Trust me. You're not in trouble." And she looked back outside the window.
Stan came back with an elderly woman in a bright orange suit following behind him. Ernie stamped on the brakes and the beds immediately slide forward with the bus coming to a sudden halt. "'Ere you go, Madam Marsh." Said Stan happily. The minute the elderly woman got down, Ernie hit the accelerator, a BANG and they were again on the move.
The bus was constantly banging loudly and jumping a hundred miles at a time that Harry could not possibly find ways to sleep or drink a cup of hot chocolate like Circe did. He's stomach was churning aggressively and he wasn't surprised if he threw up if he had a drink.
"You take this bus often?" he asked her casually, trying to gulped down some saliva to make him feel better.
"I've travelled the whole of England for the past two months with this bus and Stan as my lovely companion. Very useful this bus is."
"Yea! Me and Ms Circe here 'ave been riding up and down the country." Quipped Stan. "Whole day and night!"
"Shut up Stan." Circe said jokingly.
Stan smiled back and unfurled a copy of the Daily Prophet and was now reading with his tongue between his teeth. A large moving picture of a sunken-faced man with long, matted hair blinked slowly at Harry from the front page. He looked strangely familiar.
"Hey, that man!" said Harry. "He was on the Muggle news!"
Stan turned to the front page and gave a light chuckle. "Sirius Black." He said, nodding. "'Course 'e was on the Muggle news, Neville. Circe, where 'ave your friend been to?"
"Mars, Stan." Circe said without looking at the papers.
Stan chuckled louder. "You oughta read the papers more, Neville. That man 'as killed 13 people with a single curse! Surely you 'ave heard 'o him." He took out the front page and handed it to Harry.
"Murdered 13 people? With one curse?" Harry said, looking at the photograph. The shadowed eyes of Sirius Black were the only sunken part that seemed alive. His skin was waxy white, just like the pictures of vampires from his Defence Against the Dark Arts classes.
"Yep, in front of witnesses an' all. Broad daylight. Don't know why Ms Circe here wanted to go gallivanting about the country with a man like that on the loose. I told 'er she was crazy."
"You know about Sirius Black?" Harry said, turning to Circe was seemed unperturbed by the conversation.
"Of course! I'm not as thick as you." She muttered.
"Black woz a big supporter of You-Know-'Oo." Stan said creepily.
Without thinking, Harry cried. "What, Volde-
But he couldn't finish his sentence when Circe gave him a big slap on his face. "Oww!" he looked at her as she made an odd look. "Oh..."
"What you wanted to say, Neville?" asked Stan suspiciously.
"Erm...so Black was a supporter of You-Know-Who?" He said apologetically. No one dared to say Lord Voldemort's name out loud. People go to a total anaphylactic shock when they hear his name and Harry was glad that Circe caught him just in time.
"Yea...and guess what 'e did after he killed a dozen Muggles?"
"What?"
"Laughed!" said Stan. "Jus' stood there laughing like a mad man, of course, he is one. An' when the reinforcements came, 'e when with 'em still laughing his 'ead off!"
"A mad, mad man..." said Ernie from the front, shaking his head.
"Anyway, if he weren't when he went to Azkaban, he will be now. I'd blow my 'ead off if I were ever be stuck in a place like that. Them Azkaban guards scare the 'ell out of me." Stan said, shivering just a little bit.
Harry thought about him blowing his aunt. Is a crime like that serious enough to land him to Azkaban, he wondered. He didn't know anything about wizard prison but Hagrid was there for two months and he recounted it with terror. Harry knows that he was one of the bravest people so Azkaban must be a place of horror.
"Alright, enough Stan. Stop scaring Neville." Circe suddenly jutted in.
"'Right, 'right... I'm done." Said Stan and he got up and went to Ernie.
"Hey, thanks for that slap just now." Harry said to her.
"No problem. Just mind your language next time. I'm not always around to slap you." She said finishing the last bit of hot chocolate.
Harry grinned. Then, the awkward silence settled in between them. Circe was a friend but the closeness they had was far less the one he had with his two bestest friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. They had a few brief conversations before but that was that, nothing more. Harry even harboured a bad feeling about Circe last year when he stumbled upon her with Nearly Headless Nick and Justin who was both petrified.
"So how's your summer?" he asked trying to fill in the silence.
"It was cool. At least I didn't get in trouble like you. Why did you blow up that woman?"
"She's actually my uncle's sister, Aunt Marge. She...well, she said something nasty about my parents and I just couldn't control my anger I guessed. It wasn't on purpose." Harry said desperately.
"Okay, okay! Calm down. I'm not blaming you or anything. You don't have to explain yourself to me."Circe said.
"We're reaching now, Ms Circe!" cried out Stan. "Any minute!"
There was another loud BANG and the bus came to a screeching halt in front of a small, shabby-looking pub called the Leaky Cauldron where behind the little pub was the magical entrance to Diagon Alley.
Harry and Circe got up and headed down the steps. "Thanks a lot Stan!" said Circe handing in another sickle in Stan's palm.
"Whot' 'sis for?"
"For being a nice company throughout the times." Said Circe, smiling at Stan broadly.
"Thanks 'a much, Ms Circe! Wish there was more like you! Goodbye, Neville."
"Goodbye."
"There you are Harry!" a voice boomed from behind them. And then Harry felt a hand on his shoulder. When he turned around, he realised that he had bumped into Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic himself.
Stan squinted his eyes at Harry, especially on his forehead. "What did 'cha called him, sir?"
Fudge looked at Stan as though he asked something stupid. "This is Harry Potter." he said.
"Oi, Ms Circe! It's Harry Potter!" yelled Stan who hasn't left yet. "What 'choo lie to us for?"
"Alright, Stan, goodbye. Right, up you go now. Many places for you and Ernie to go." Said Circe as she tried pushing Stan up the steps.
"Hey, Ern! That wasn't Neville. That's him, Harry Potter."
"Yes, he is Harry Potter." Said Fudge testily. "I'm glad the Knight Bus picked him up but we need to get going."
"Bye, Stan." Circe said the last time with a hint that he must get going now in her voice. Stan gave another reluctant glance at Harry. There was the loud BANG and the Knight Bus disappeared.
"Well, how are you Harry? And who is your friend here?" said Fudge, looking at Circe.
"Oh, erm...this is Circe Grace, a friend of mine at school." Harry introduced.
"Circe Grace..." muttered Fudge as he narrowed his eyes of the brown-haired hair with gleaming green eyes. "Ah...yes, I remember you now. You caused an uproar in the Department of Education. I would like to have a word with you regarding your examination dual. Pity Professor Snape whisked you off so quickly."
Harry stared at Circe. What had she done that caused an 'uproar' as Fudge put it?
"Ah...well sir, maybe next time. I need to be somewhere else now." Smile Circe.
"I can see that. Loitering in the night when a murderer is loose, you both should be given a sound thrashing. Well, goodbye Ms Grace." Fudge said.
"Goodnight, sir." And Circe entered the Leaky Cauldron.
A toothless, hunching man who appeared to be the landlord came out just when Circe went in. "You've got him, Minister!" he cried in happily. Will you be wanting anything? Bear? Brandy?"
"Perhaps a pot of tea. Now, Harry shall we go in? You look starving." Fudge said, ushering him into the pub.
I hope you enjoyed the this opening. Review please. Thanks :) lOVE, Wildreams
