Disclaimer: I own nothing! No seriously though, I'm kinda broke, so I really don't own much besides my handy dandy notebook... The electronic variety.
A/N: Ok, well. I know I sort of abandoned my past two stories, and I'm hoping that I don't follow that form with this as well, seeing as I've always kinda had trouble following things through. I think it's called being sanguine or something, but whatever. Really gonna try and make this a good story, and hoping that it turns out well... Wish me luck? And R&R regardless of how harsh the criticisms may be, I'd prefer honesty to kindness. In terms of premise, the story takes place during his fifth year, and is slightly AU in the fact that all the events are much closer to modern times, in the story it is currently 2010. However, everything else up to this point has been canon.
Worlds Apart: First Impressions
Harry Potter was hardly the happiest of people at the moment, even as he, Ginny and Neville were searching for a reasonably empty compartment on the train that would, quite shortly, be taking him to his favorite place in the world. Despite the fact that he was finally free of all the anxiety and anticipation that he had held prior to his court date as well as the oppressive tyranny of his aunt and uncle, the stress and indignation still remained from both, and this was just compounded by the fact that he couldn't even sit with his two best friends on the long trainride ahead. Sighing exasperatedly as he followed Ginny, trying to avoid the rather clumsy steps of Neville, who was trailing behind him, his spirits were finally lifted when she seemed to find an empty, or at least sparesly occupied, compartment that they could use. However, his mild relief was quickly quashed when he peered inside the small space and observed their riding companion. Inside was a younger girl with exceedingly long, blonde hair, though this was hardly an obvious feature compared to the large glasses she wore upon her face, the... Eccentric radish earrings that hung from her earlobes or the fact that she had tucked her wand behind her ear, not unlike one might a pencil. She appeared to be reading a magazine and only looked up from it when Ginny offered a friendly greeting.
"Oh, hullo Ginny. How are you?" She said dreamily, as though her mind had not left the magaizne, which Harry noticed was upside down, as quickly as her eyes had. He tuned out the polite, if uninteresting that followed between the two as he and Neville put their luggage up and sat down. However he quickly looked up when he heard his name, however, safe in the knowledge that she was only introducing him, he returned to his thoughts, but not before hearing Neville try to avoid the conversation by saying he was 'nobody', for which which Ginny quickly scolded them. This relatively quiet ride continued for some time until they all were somewhat startled by a commotion in the hall. They stared curiously at the door, though they could see nothing on account of the blinds being closed, when they heard the angry and frustrated voice of Draco Malfoy emanting from the hall directly outside.
"Hey, shove off you two. What the bloody hell do you think you're doing anyway? Freaks!" There was a quickly following thud, as though something heavy had hit the compartment door and an unfamiliar voice replied indignantly,
"Screw you kid, what the hell do you need to be doing out here anyway?" Through the small slits between the blinds on the glass window of the door, they saw the shape of two boys stand up suddenly. Then a new voice chimed in to add to the first and continued,
"Yeah, seriously man, why don't you just go back to your freaking cabin, huh you little prick." But despite this, they appeared to move aside for Malfoy anyway, likely because of the menacing shadows of Crabbe and Goyle over Malfoy's shoulder. 'Hm, I guess trained gorillas are useful' Harry thought sarcastically to himself.
"Cabin? Where the hell are you dorks from? Whatever, I don't care, just get out of my way." Malfoy said arrogantly as he slid open the compartment door and looked in at Harry and the other people in the small space, sneering snidely. "Hey Potty! Decide to switch out the old posse of losers for an even more lame one, huh? Or did Weasle and the mudblood finally realize that they're friends with a nutter and ditch you?" The two boys over his shoulder laughed stupidly and Malfoy took the encouragement and continued, "I'm a prefect this year, so you'd better watch, hear that Potty? By the way, I found some real weirdos out here on the floor, figure they'd fit right in with you. See you... Scarface." And with that Malfoy and his two goons left down the hallway, laughing in quite possibly, at least in Harry's eyes, the most assinine manner possibly.
At the this, the taller of the two boys who were in the hallway, the one who had spoken first before shouted after Malfoy angrily, "Really! You bugged us just so you could fucking serenade your god damn boyfriend?" He proceeded to flip off the turned back of the trio and then turned to look inside and asked Harry curiously, "Why the hell did he compare you to Al Capone?" Harry gave the boy a confused look and then shook his head and asked politely,
"You wanna sit with us?" How could he not after the boy just insulted Malfoy as wonderfully as he had? The boy, as well as his somewhat shorter companion shrugged noncommitally and then pulled their luggage in and storing it above them and sitting down across from eachother.
It was only then that Harry got a real chance to look at them, and they certainly were odd. The shorter one was about 5'8" and had short, mildly curly light brown hair, though it was tinted with a tawny, sandy red. His sideburns, though hardly noticeable seemed slightly longer than normal for someone with his length of hair. His face seemed a little more round than usual and was clean shaven and his nose was a bit longer than most, though nothing too prominent. His eyes were a olive green, and above them were bushy black eyebrows. He wore a short sleeved white shirt with 'WTF?' on it in large bold letters, though the parts of the 'W' and the '?' were obscured by a partially zipped offwhite hoody with a small red emblem on the left side of the chest and a brass colored zipper. He wore light, faded and worn jeans with a minor tear on the left knee and beige trainers with white soles and laces. Over his shoulder was grey and black messenger bag, which seemed stuffed even though he had also brought a considerably large trunk that was now sitting above them.
The other boy was taller, standing at about Ron's height, though hardly as lanky. His hair was pitch black, and short on the sides than on the top, and it grew even longer the farther to the front one went, eventually reaching down to just past his eyebrows. His eyes were very dark, and they appeared black to Harry, it was impossible to tell where the iris ended and the pupil began, and it was slightly disconcerting. Framing his face were rectangular black, thick framed glasses. He, like his friend was mostly clean shaven, though there seemed to be an almost imperceptable hint of rough stubble on his face, closer perhaps to what one might call 3 o'clock shadow than 5 o'clock shadow. He left ear had two peircings, both helix peircings on the top of his ear, both black captive ball rings. He wore a black t-shirt depicting what appeared to be a space battle with spaceships reminiscent of the Star Wars star destroyers, the scene colored in bright blues and pinks, with the words 'The Black Dahlia Murder' across the top. Over this he wore an army green canvas military style jacket with the sleeves rolled up. Around his right wrist was a brown leather armband and a bracelet made of several leather strings woven together as well. On his left was a similar armband and a hemp bracelet with sevearl beads of various colors in it. His dark jeans, also worn and faded, though untorn, were held up by a grey belt, whose unsecured and frayed end fell a couple inches down his leg. His feet sported worn and somewhat dirtied converse chuck taylor hi-tops. He too had a bag, though his was a black single strap backpack which he had set on the floor at his feet, and this bag too appeared full.
The strange students looked at all of us and then the shorter of the two spoke carefully, "I believe introductions are in order? My name is Jon, Jon Hainsely. My friends call me Dexter... You can call me Jon." The taller one continued, "And I'm Ethan Roseman." He then looked at each of the Hogwarts students in turn as they introduced himself. When Luna introduced herself half-heartedly Ethan said something along the lines of 'oh you hipster', which elicited a snigger from the Jon kid, whi earned them both a glare from Ginny. Finally it was Harry's turn to introduce himself, and internally groaning and preparing himself for the questions, he regretfully introduced himself.
"Harry... Potter" However the resigned greeting didn't get quite the reaction he was expecting. Ethan gave him a quizzical look and after a moment said,
"Why do you say it like something unpleasant? I mean, the last time I heard someone talk like that was when Jon's uncle had to go in for a prostate exam." Jon meanwhile merely raised an eyebrow, though ahe did let a smirk slip when Ethan made the comment. Neville and Ginny seemed shocked by the pair's utterly underwhelming reactions, and under their jaw-dropped (literally) gaze, Ethan questioned them. "What? Why does that name sound familiar?" At this Jon actually spoke again.
"The boy-who-lived they call him. That ring any bells?" And then a look of realization dawned on Ethan as he said, "ohhhhh, the Voldemort kid, right? I suppose you're a big deal over here, aren't you?" After this he merely shrugged in response to the almost appalled look on Ginny's and Neville's faces, and their cringes in response to his use of the name. Neville then asked timidly,
"Do you even care about Vol- ... He-who-must-not-be-named at all?" Ethan then did the last thing any of them expected. He laughed.
"Not really. Especially considering he's dead. But to be honest, even if he WERE alive, he never really meant much to us in the States anyway, was never any kind of threat." So that explained why they seemed so strange, and ignorant of the boy-who-lived. They were Americans. But Harry now decided he had to interject at the dismissal of one of the strongest dark wizards ever to exist.
"Actually, he is alive... He returned last year. And how could he not be a threat to the United States too?" Harry actually sounded a bit offended that someone who struck such fear into every wizard in Europe seemed so laughable to these Americans.
"How? You mean besides that huge ass ocean in between there and here? Well, from what I've read, him and his death eaters wouldn't last very long over there. You Brits handled him wrong, back home they'd be dead in a week. Even though our Wizarding government prefers to take prisoners, there is pretty much a perpetual open season on any and all terrorists, and we aren't so averse to using things like unforgivables as you are. And we also happen to have a much more open relation with the muggle government, which certainly helps." Everyone, except Luna, who still seemed captivated by her upside down magazine, took on an expression of mild fear at his light-hearted mentioning of the unforgivable curses, but Harry took on a skeptical expression when the muggle government was mentioned.
And he wasn't the only one either. Ron, who it seemed had returned with Hermione shortly before and had decided to listen, gave a snort at this point and said humorously, "What good does that help? They can't really denial him into oblivion, can they?" Here Jon decided to take up the arguement.
"Like we said, we happen to have relatively open relations with the muggle government. Which means if need be, we have access to Guns. Lots and lots of guns. And lots of people who know how to use those guns very well. I don't care how good a wizard you are, you can't do much against someone whose using a round that can shatter a cinderblock from over a mile out. I could give you more examples of just how good at killing muggles are than I'd care to imagine, but from the look on your face, I think you already get the idea." Ron's face had paled at the idea, and he now stepped into the compartment without looking at anything in particular and managed to squeeze in next to Harry, making a conspicuous show of sitting on the opposite side of the black haired student as Ethan. Hermione also moved in, but she seemed to retain a skeptical attitude. She asked in her usual, questioning tone,
"Well if that's so effective why didn't we just do that, hmmm?" This time, it seemed it was Ethan's turn to answer and Hermione turned to look at him when he spoke.
"Well, because you Ministry is rather narrow-minded when it comes to muggle relations and technology and our government, in simplest terms, couldn't give a fuck." Even Hermione seemed taken aback and speechless, not only because of his vulgarity but also simply because of what he had said. Deciding to change the conversation before things got any more uncomfortable, Ginny asked as Hermione also squeezed into a seat as well,
"So, what brings you here all the way from America?" Seemingly just as eager to steer the conversation in a different direction as Ginny was, Jon smiled. "A transfer program. We were half pressed into it, as our headmaster thought it would be a 'good experience' for Ethan, and I got dragged along. But it'll also be nice to see how you guys run things over here in Europe and get away, ya know?'
Hermione jumped into the conversation now too, eager to question the foreign students. "So, you're Americans? I'm assuming you're coming from the school in Salem?" However, her smile quickly turned into a frown when she was answered with a quick and simple 'nope'. "Then where from?" she inquired curiously.
"A small boarding school in northern Washington. God knows why the hell it'd be in Washinton... Scratch that, why anything would be in Washington, but whatever. Northwestern Scholastic and Magical Academy. Also known as the Northwestern Academy of Why the fuck is it raining so much and get me the hell away from Seattle and out of Washington." Ethan replied jovially, faking frustration. The conversation continued like this for some time, the Hogwarts students (ok, mainly Hermione) bouncing questions at the Americans and the Americans responding.
Finally Hermione looked up and out the window and said surprisedly, "Oh my, I think we're going to be there soon. Sorry, I must've talked your ears off." She grew pink with embarassment at this and then averted her eyes downward to try and avoid the awkwardness she felt now.
Soon the train pulled up to the station, and Harry, Hermione and Ron continued with Neville, Ginny and Luna to the carriages, though they lost the Americans in the confusion of the platform. "Not that I'm to bothered by that." Hermione said stiffly when Neville pointed this out.
"Why you so hostile 'Mione?" Ron asked curiously, looking at her questioningly.
"I don't like them, they seem like unpleasant individuals. Especially the one in the jacket, he swore too much, and did you see his shirt?" She said, making a disgusted face at the end.
"Yeah, what about it?" Harry asked, wondering why she seemed so offended. She looked at him, shocked, then replied,
"It said 'The Black Dahlia Murder'. Do you know what that was?" At their blank looks she explained, "It was particularly brutal murder in the mid 20th century. The poor girl had her face cut open and was sliced in half." Nodding at the horrified looks that came over their faces at this she kept her grim expression and walked towards the carriages. Ron looked at Harry weakly and he said, the sickly look on his face extending to his voice as well,
"Well, at least they'll keep the Slytherins away from us, no way they're going anywhere else."
A/N: Well, there it is. Once again, thank you, R&R. :)
