Out of the Console- Part 2

Harry was rudely woken up by the little Italian plumber bouncing up and down upon his stomach. He told him to get of the bed so he could get ready and pack for the new term at Hogwarts.

After he picked up his glasses he looked down at his pile of Easter Eggs, he was running low; out of the pile that he had started with, he only had three left. One was from Hermione, who had given him a sugar-free chocolate egg. Another was from Ron, who had given him an egg with the Chudley Cannons logo emblazoned on it. The final one was from Ginny, which had a picture of a dove that was spelled to be everlasting; it would grow if you left a little bit spare, or until the spell ran out.

Mario had kindly presented Harry's clothes to him, whilst at the same time looking away. After getting dressed, they thought of ways to get Mario back into the game, they thought long and hard, and could not come to any conclusion.

"You'll have to stay here Mario; there are some nasty people at Hogwarts." Harry said.

"But, I-a want-a to go with you-a." Mario protested.

"You're staying here, besides Dudley's not half bad when you get to know him." Harry's last words couldn't have been further from the truth.

"Now where were we, ah yes could you pack my ties for me they're the last things and I need the loo."

After Harry had left Mario packed the gold and red ties as he was told then saw that there was enough room for him in the trunk he checked the door, wrote not on a sticky pad and stuck it on the door, clambered into the suitcase and silently shut it. Harry returned soon after, and grinned as he read the note on the door, it said: Gone to terrorise Dudley outside in the back garden, hope to see you again. Thinking no more about the matter Harry took his trunk down the stairs parted with the Dursleys and then took in the sight of the purple triple-decker bus before mounting and getting his ticket from a familiar face; Stan Shunpike.

"Where you headin'?" asked Stan, he did not try to disguise the boredom in his voice.

"King's Cross." Harry said blandly. Harry sat down on one of the many seats that were available and looked out of the window, not that he could see much of course, it was all a blur as the bus pelted all around the country. It was only three or so minutes until he got off the bus, and only another five minutes after that before he was standing in front of the scarlet steam engine. He stood up on the balls of his feet to see if he could spot his friends over the sea of heads. He found them swiftly enough, and pushed through the crowd until he was with them. Hermione was on him in the blink of an eye.

"Oh Harry it's so good to see you!" she said still hugging him. Ron stood behind her, hands in pockets and ginger eyebrows raised.

"Honestly Hermione he's only been away two weeks and you've been writing to him constantly, oh I forgot, hi Harry." said Ron. Ginny came up behind him and gave him a peck on the cheek before saying hello.

"Shall we get a seat then?" Asked Harry and they found a compartment with nobody in it. They talked for a while until they heard a muffled sound coming from Harry's trunk.

"What's that?" said Hermione. Harry was getting his trunk down from the rack and then opened it, there was a load gasp as the little Italian plumber wolfed in the air, they were all stood gawping in disbelief, but no more so than Harry, after he catching his breath the little man said.

"It's-a me again, Mario!"

The babbling that continued after that was loud and hard to keep track of. As far as Harry knew, Ron was on his side and Hermione on the other and they were now having their own little argument. He sat down, head dizzy from the memories of all the events concerning the little plumber. Then Ginny sat next to him and asked for the truth, he did not lie, after all, he was not in the lying sort of mood. Therefore, he told her the truth and nothing but the truth. He told her the story all the way through; all about the accident, the first contact, and how he had told him to stay at the Dursleys, and she believed him, she believed every single word he said and he was glad. Then they were interrupted by the woman that operated the sweets trolley.

"Do you want any sweets, dear?"

Harry pondered for a while about what he wanted but then finally came to a decision.

"Two pumpkin pasties and five liquorice wands, oh and some Burtie Botts for Ron." Harry handed over the money and was given the sweets in return. He pocketed the pasties and the wand and gave the Beans to Ron. Ron was pulling out a chocolate frog.

"Hey where did you get that?" Harry inquired.

"Found it under my bed." Said Ron

Ron opened it up and caught the chocolate frog neatly in his hand before biting its head off. Then he took the card out of the packet and frowned.

"It's Wendalin the Weird; I've got two of her." He said scowling at the card in his hand.

"I haven't got her, can I have it?" asked Harry

"Sure, she's boring anyway." Grunted Ron, chucking Harry the card. Then the brakes started to screech and they knew that they were going to have to get off the train now to avoid the big squeeze for the platform. Harry got his suitcase down from the rack and told Mario to stay with the conductor and explain that he had made a mistake and that he needed to get back to London. Mario did as he was told and walked away to the conductor, avoiding people's feet with head down. When he reached the conductor he explained what had happened, then he changed his mind and checked if Harry was gone, he was, and while the conductor was telling first years where to go Mario disappeared.

Ron bit down hard on a sausage that was held up by his fork. Hermione looked at him in wonder.

"Is there any time when you stop eating?" Hermione asked; stunned.

"Yeah," said Ron "when I'm sleeping." His mouth still crammed with sausage.

Hermione stopped talking after that.

"I wonder if Mario's ok?" pondered Harry

Mario meanwhile was definitely ok and was looking in amazement at the grand staircase, because even after bouncing off many different things, he had never see something like this.

He went up to a grizzly old man with lanky hair who was cradling a scrawny cat.

"Excuse-a me-a, but where-a is the Gryffindor common room?"

"Seventh floor," muttered Filch, not bothering to look down. Therefore, without a word Mario jumped to the bottom of the staircase and jumped six steps at a time to reach the seventh floor.

Harry and Ron laughed as they climbed up to the boys dormitory. Dean, Seamus and Neville were waiting for them with a whole host of different sweets. They stayed up for hours trading chocolate frog cards and sweets until there was a bang on the trunk under Harry's bed; they all turned slowly and Neville fell off his chair. Harry slowly withdrew the trunk from under the bed and slowly opened the lid. Out popped a tall, lean man with a moustache, brown boots and a pair of bright blue dungarees with a green shirt underneath and a pair of white gloves, he also had a bright green flat cap emblazoned with a green L in a white circle. This man spoke with a thick Italian accent, very much how Mario did; the man spoke three words.

"It-a me-a, Luigi!"