Platform 9 ¾ was more crowded than it had been since he was a fourth year. John Watson edged past a Hufflepuff who seemed to be accompanied by his entire extended family and set his sights on a compartment that was, as yet, empty. The air around him was full of jubilant greetings and near-tearful farewells. Since May, the whole Wizarding community seemed to have given itself over to a holiday spirit that made them as free with their emotions as the average American teenager. John had entered into as best he could, but he had been at the castle that night, and it was difficult to marry wild elation with the remembrance of so many dead. Despite the festival atmosphere, he had seen a few faces that, like his own, were set to face the place that had haunted their nightmares of the summer.
"Watson!" The call halted him as he halted by the steps to a car that seemed least occupied.
"Lovejoy!" he called back, waving once as the blond girl made her way to him, pushing the trolley with trunk and ginger cat around another knot of boisterous family – this time crowded around a scrawny girl who could only be a first year.
There was an awkwardness that came with her. They had been close friends last year – both Muggleborns who had had their records altered by someone in the Ministry, both at Hogwarts illegally, and both determined to make as much trouble for Snape as possible. They had been in the thick of the fight together, back to back in the courtyard fending off monstrous spiders, giants and wizards alike. John's last memory of the battle was the billow of Lindsay Lovejoy's robe as she turned from helping him into the shelter of a pile of rubble and faced the oncoming Death Eater. There were shadowy memories of the Great Hall, the sunrise, the cheers that broke into the haze of pain and blood loss, then the face of Healer Gillysmythe in St. Mungo's three days later. Lindsay had sent a few owls, and he had replied with a good attempt at normalcy. But since then –
"When did you get out of St. Mungo's?" she asked, grinning in what looked like relief. "I was afraid you might not be able to come back for the start of term."
Her eyes had already found it. John swore in his head and shifted the cane so his jean leg hid most of it. The question on her face was obvious, and he had no intention of answering it.
"Got sent home three weeks ago. St. Mungo's was being extra careful with the under-17's that came in – didn't want to risk turning any more of us into martyrs."
Lindsay nodded, her eyes resolutely away from the object in John's hand. He leaned it against the inside of the train and held out his hand for her cat carrier. She hesitated, then allowed him to take it.
"I see Pippin made it through alright," he said, looking in at the ginger cat before climbing up a step and placing the carrier inside the train.
"Best I can tell, he was in the owlery the whole time."
Lindsay was eyeing the hand he held out for her trunk, but made no move to allow him to take it.
"Hand it over, then."
"Shoulder," she said pointedly.
"It's healed," he said in a tone of practiced easiness. "Half the summer in St. Mungo's can fix anything."
"I can get my trunk. You've got your own to manage."
The train whistled. John pursed his lips and hefted his trunk up the stairs. His left shoulder screamed in protest, but he fought through it and, with more brawn than finesse, threw it onto the luggage rack of the first compartment.
He hadn't fooled Lindsay, who had merely stepped behind him in the hallway with her own trunk and now put it next to his with a grunt that seemed nothing compared to what his had been. They returned to the corridor in silence to retrieve the cat carrier and his cane. She released Pippin and let him settle next to her on the bench. John sat across from her, the tension slowly building in his muscles. The compartment was too small, the air too warm, the corridor too loud. And across from him, a girl who knew too much. She was petting her cat with diplomacy, but he didn't like the fact she felt the need for diplomacy at all. They had been outlaws and fighters together last year, part of a group of Muggleborns who had been spared the purge and part of a much larger unit bound fiercely together by their desire to thwart Snape's regime. Now, with both those connections stripped away, and so much John wished to keep locked away –
The noise in the corridor really was too distracting. As the train sounded its final whistle and jolted forward, he heard the sounds of discord, voices raised in anger. Then, the unmistakable crack of flesh on flesh – a solid punch had landed. The tension coalesced – propelling John out of his seat and out the compartment door.
Wizarding robes and Muggle clothes were tangled around each other as the brawlers – two Slytherins and one skinny boy still in jeans went at one another. John grabbed the backs of the two nearest him – and the bigger of the two Slytherins and Jeans Boy. He twisted immediately out of John's grasp and raised his guard, focus only on the Slytherin still standing with fists raised.
"Calm down, the lot of you," John said, an edge of authority to his voice. It would have to be enough, as his wand was still in the compartment.
The lout John was holding kicked his right shin and his fingers involuntarily loosened. He attempted to regain his hold, but the lunged sent firebursts of pain through his shoulder. The boy turned and sent a rabbit punch at him. John ducked, bobbed to the side, and threw right hook of his own that the Slytherin caught on the chin. The boy stumbled, and John knew a flash of satisfaction at the surprise on his face at the power of the blow.
"Oi!"
It was Lindsay behind him, but now he'd attracted the attention of the other Slytherin. He settled into fighting stance, weight on the balls of his feet, and let his fists curl themselves up. The smaller of the two lunged forward and the big fellow went after Jeans Boy. John sidestepped just as the door to the car slid open and a Ravenclaw prefect entered the corridor followed by a man wearing a pinstripe suit. Jeans Boy got his chin clipped as he turned to see the newcomers and staggered back a step. The prefect, who John now recognized as Charles Boot, caught the boy as the man took charge of the Slytherin.
"Why am I not surprised?" Boot sighed. "Come along, detention for the lot of you. I'll inform Professor Slughorn."
The boy attempted to wrest his shoulder from Charles' grasp. Charles rolled his eyes. "Now, now, don't make me get Big Brother involved this early in the year. He's spoken with Professor Flitwick already. All the Ravenclaw prefects got instructions about you."
John peered curiously at the boy, but his face was averted, a near-silent stream of complaints streaming from his mouth. He didn't look familiar, but then John hadn't been close with many outside Gryffindor till the Carrows drove so many in the upper levels into hiding. This boy was too young to have been in that number.
"John, were you mixed up in this?" Charles' surprise was obvious.
"Jus t trying to break it up," Lindsay spoke up from the doorway.
Charles frowned. "I suppose I ought to talk to –"
"It's alright, Charles," the man in the suit said, drawing everyone's attention for the first time. "I'm sure our scrappers mean to behave the rest of the journey. Right boys?"
John found himself bristling at the intrusion. Yes, it was better than detention, perhaps, but who was this strange fellow and why did he have the power to dispense with a fair punishment?
"Right then, off with you," the man said, shooing them with his hands.
Jeans boy was the first to move, heading out the door Charles and the man had come from. The Slytherins made to follow, their faces still thunderous. John moved forward in protest just as the man blocked their way.
"Ah, ah," he said, crossing his arms. "I wasn't born yesterday, lads. Find yourself a compartment to that end of the train."
They turned around with only slight hesitation. John had to assume that even a Slytherin had more sense than to defy a man who was obviously faculty before the train was fairly out of London. The man watched them exit the car, then turned to the three remaining students.
"Thanks for your help, both of you," he said. " I'm the D – Professor John Smith, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."
"John Watson."
"Lindsay Lovejoy."
There was a note of something in her voice that made John turn toward her. She was staring at John Smith as if trying to place where she'd seen him before, or trying to decide if he was familiar or not.
"Well, then, we'll be off. Have a good trip – no more fighting, mind," he said with a grin. "Now, Charles, what's next on the tour? Fascinating way to travel…"
Charles was full flow into the origins of the Hogwarts Express by the time the door closed behind them.
"Did he say, 'the tour'?" Lindsay asked as they reentered the compartment. "Like he's never been on here before?"
John, whose shoulder and leg were both setting up quite the protest, eased himself onto the bench with a careful shrug. "Went to another school, maybe? Beauxbatons or the American one or some such?"
"Could be," Lindsay said, reaching down for Pippin. "But he sounds like he's from here."
"Sounds as if we'll find out more tonight at the feast."
Lindsay looked slightly disappointed but accepted the subtle shutdown. John had no desire for conversation just then, particularly not speculation about something they would find out in a few hours, by which time his limbs would have ceased throbbing. He leaned his head back and let his mind travel to Hogwarts. Would it be completely repaired, all signs of the previous year erased? Would he prefer it that way, or with a few scars still visible? His eyes slid closed and he saw the courtyard alight with a dozen jets of light, stone pillars tumbled from their places, combatants falling left, right and center.
He jerked his eyes open. He would not dream about it - not here, as the hatefully clacking wheels took him ever closer to the physical location and the girl who had fought alongside him sat there in suffocating normalcy.
Healer Gillysmythe had suggested he speak to Madam Pomfrey or a professor he trusted upon his arrive at school, to set up some sort of therapy or counseling to deal with these recurring dreams that no spell or potion could diminish. He knew full well that he would not go. He was a Muggleborn, he had an innate understanding that magic was not the answer to every problem.
Whatever this demon was, the key to fighting it did not lie at Hogwarts.
