We Few
"Then bang! Crash! The lightening flashed and-well, that's another story, never mind."
Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods
Chapter Two: Memorable Moments
Lucy had been knocked unconcious a surprising number of times in her short stay at Hogwarts, and as a result, she was beginning to find she came out of a blackout with surprising speed and clarity.
The lights were out in the compartment, as far as she could tell. Her only way of guessing was because no light was coming in anywhere, she couldn't actually see for herself as she was currently buried under a barrage of luggage. Trying to push herself up off the floor proved futile, and confirmed her suspision that there was something seriously wrong with her right arm, it just should not be bending that way. It didn't hurt, yet. Perhaps she was in shock.
Steadying herself, she focused on her breathing, grounded, centered, and with a little concentration, manage focus her power and raise whatever was covering her about three feet in the air. Still no light. She struggled with using her left hand to get into her right pocket, and finally succeeded in locating her wand.
"Lumos," she whispered, not knowing why she was whispering. She crawled out through the opening she had created when she raised what she now saw as three trunks that had landed on her, and surveyed the damage.
The car was a disaster, at least what she could see of it. She could make out a few of the Slytherins, unconcious against the left side, but since the car had leaned to the right, they were not completely buried. In fact, they appeared the be almost on top. Lucy now realized why she was so disoriented. Sometime after she had blacked out, the car had fallen completely over onto its right side. It had violently thrown those on the left side of the car on top of most of the luggage, and had buried those on the right side under the avalanche.
A cold sweat broke out down Lucy's back. Marguerite had been on the right side of the car.
"Marguerite?" She called.
She heared something, but it wasn't Marguerite. It came from outside the car. Someone was outside, and they were trying to be quiet. No one who was coming to check for possible students that had been riding in the baggage car would try to be quiet.
With nowhere else to hide, Lucy quickly noxed her wand, slithered back into her original place, and carefully lowered the three trunks back on top of her.
The footsteps came closer, walked around the car, and came back again. Lucy held her breath, she was hidden, but Katya and Dimitri were not. She could only hope that in the darkness whomever it was would not look that far back in the car.
The door creaked. Getting through that door would be tricky, Lucy thought, since with the car on its side one would have to climb over the luggage blocking the bottom.
After what sounded like a few tries, the footsteps returned, walking away into the night.
She promised herself she would worry about who that was later. As it was she was scrambling out of her hole again, scanning the car for Marguerite.
As her light fell on Dimitri, the boy groaned, and muttered something in Russian.
"Dimitri? Are you ok?"
She paused in her systematic stacking of luggage.
"What happened?"
"The car flipped. Give me hand, will you? I'm down to one and we've got people buried in here."
Dimitri rubbed his head, but his eyes soon cleared, and together they Leviosa'd the luggage off the pile one at a time, stacking them to create room, and lifting layer after layer off of the people on the bottom.
"How many did you say you were under?"
"Three, but I was near the door, I didn't get the brunt of it."
"I just remember flying... right into the ceiling. Katya, Sasha and I must have gotten knocked out."
"I think everyone got knocked out." By now she could see one of Marguerite's black and white saddle shoe and the skinny little leg it was attached to sticking out.
Dimitri paled. "Come on, she'll be fine, keep going."
Two more trunks and they knew that Marguerite was, indeed, fine. She had been buried under seven trunks, one Slytherin, and one Ravenclaw. When the rubble was finally cleared they found that the only bit of Marguerite that could be seen was her leg, the rest of her was covered by Sergei and Vlad, who both, so it appeaerd, had thrown themselves over the small girl when the explosion occurred.
"Great," Dimitri huffed, the Slytherin in him not willing to display just how proud he was of Vlad, or how relieved he was to see everyone breathing, "Once Katya hears about this she's gonna start bugging me about why I didn't throw myself over her."
"I wouldn't want you to throw yourself on me if the train had fallen off a god damn cliff you great baboon," came a slurry voice from behind them. Katya was sitting up with Sasha on top of the pile they had landed on. Sasha didn't seem to be completely conscious, and was leaning heavily on Katya's shoulder.
"Good, then you can get down here and help us dig. Gisella, Aysha, and the twins are pinned under a couple of trunks in the corner."
"And we are all getting a little tired of waiting to be rescued." Gisella giggled.
"Are you guys ok?"
"As good as can be expected. Lighter stuff down this end, although there is an owl over here that is getting less and less friendly by the minute."
Sasha dealt with checking Vlad, Sergei, and Marguerite, who awakened once all the talking began. The little girl had a few bruises, but was otherwise fine. Sergei and Vlad were suffering from back pain, which was to be expected.
In the back corner, several trunks had not been fastened correctly. Gisella had been partly pinned under an open trunk, and as such had suffered little more than a few scratches. The twins had been knocked out when they were thrown in the corner, but were not buried under anything heavier than a guitar case. And Aysha had been buffered by the contents of another trunk, her major trauma had come from hitting the wall and the angry owl that had scratched her through the cage bars in its agitation.
When they were all freed, Koji led the way out the door and into the night.
The car was lying on its side, facing downhill, and it appeared to have slid about fifty feet from the tracks.
"Oh great merciful Merlin," Gisella breathed. "Look where we were?"
Lucy's stomach clenched. The car's slide had been stopped by trees on a forested slope. She could follow the path of dirt and debris back up the slope to the train tracks. The car had toppled off the tracks not twenty feet after crossing the bridge.
"A couple of seconds sooner..." Vlad speculated
"We would have fallen all the way to the bottom of th gorge," Sergei measured the distance cooly. "That's got to be about three hundred feet."
"Stop it," Aysha shivered. "Let's go find the train."
The light of ten wands illuminated the path back up the slope, and the little troop begain to march along the tracks. Sasha, still not quite conscious, was given a piggyback ride by Kentaro. Aysha, deciding it would be cruel to leave it, carried the owl in its cage. They could hear noise in the distance, and as they rounded the sharp corner two hundred feet from the bridge, they saw the bright lights of the Express. Faces were pressed to windows, and a group of individuals was gathered around the back of the last car, inspecting the damage.
Someone spotted their lights before they got near, and suddenly a light a thousand times brighter than any "Lumos" Lucy had ever seen exploded from the direction of the train, illuminating the pass, and the little group of battered students limping, in the case of Sergei and Vladimir, along the tracks.
"Stop where you are!"
Seeing as they were very tired, and since there were about half a dozen wizards with their wands pointed at them, the little group shrugged, and noxed their wands.
Two wizards approached them briskly.
"I know one of those," Marguerite murmerred, "He's an Auror, he was guarding Andre's hospital room for a while."
Lucy hadn't realized that there were Aurors guarding the express this year. She hadn't realized Aurors were guards at all. Of course, in war, people tended to be put where they were needed.
And apparantly these two were needed to stare down a group of students.
The first Auror, a tall young man in his mid twenties with auburn hair and freckles regarded them with puzzlement.
"Where did you come from? Did you jump the train or something?"
Katya snorted. "Jump the train or something. The train jumped, not us!"
Kentaro settled Sasha a little more comfortably on his back and gestured to the twisted mess on the back of the second to last, and now the last, car. "The last car got disconnected and fell off the tracks."
"And we were in it." Aysha added.
The second Auror, a woman in her forties with short bonde hair peered into the darkness. "Where is it?"
Sergei sighed, "About 300 feet back, around the bend, follow the debris trail just after the bridge. It's in the trees on the eastern slope about 50 feet down."
Gisella sighed, "May we go sit down now?"
The first Auror held up a hand, "Wait a minute, the last car on the Express is always a baggage car."
"Yes." Lucy felt they were demonstrating a phenomenal display of patience.
"What were you all doing in the baggage car?"
"Nothing, just talking, listen these two guys really need to sit down their backs are not well," Lucy tapped her foot impatiently. And, not that she was going to say anything in front of the stoic and uncomplaining Slytherins, but her arm was starting to hurt like hell.
The Aurors ushered them into a car near the back, which they all appreciated. The last thing they needed was to be marched to the front of the train while the entire school peered out the windows. As it was, the only people who knew that they had ever been off the train were the handful of firsties in the second to last car, and none of them knew their names.
The Aurors also administered the Morphinus Charm, which would keep the pain down until they got to Hogwarts.
Lucy drifted off into a stupur as the train finally started again. As she did so, the two Aurors passing through the car looked on.
"You got their names?"
"Yes, all of them."
"And what did they say they were doing back there?"
"Having a meeting, something like that. I'm inclined to believe them, but we'll see what Albus Dumbledore thinks."
"Well, until then, I think it best to just keep this all under the ivy bush. I read about these kids last year, and the last thing this little society needs after nearly being arrested at Easter is to start the year off charged with the bombing of the Hogwarts Express."
Lucy awoke when she felt a gentle shake of her left shoulder. She looked up to see the blonde Auror standing over her.
"The train's stopped. We're going to wait for most of the students to move out, then we'll put you all in carriages for the hospital wing."
Lucy stood up and looked down at her right arm. That angle just wasn't natural. She sighed, seeing Madame Pomfrey first thing was probably not the best way to start the year off.
After a few minutes, when the firsties had been ushered off to the boats and most of the carriages had left, the bedraggled group climbed into the remaining three coaches. Instead of dropping them off near the Great Hall, the coaches continued around towards the Hospital Wing.
"She's not going to be happy to see us again, is she?" Koji grumbled as he made his way up the stairs.
"Probably not," Kentaro sighed, and settled Sasha on his back.
"Let's just get this over with," Sergei sighed, winced, and pushed open the doors.
Madame Pomfrey was standing in the middle of the room, her foot tapping.
"They sent an owl ahead about you lot. Train accidents? Dementor attacks? I'm going to have to retire if your club decides to continue to court disaster every four months."
"Yes, because we had so much control over those two events," Lucy grumbled.
Dimitri sighed, "We're sorry to tear you away from the feast, Madame Pomfrey, but the accident was not our idea."
"I am aware of that, Mr. Chernyshev. But if you keep trying to undo the countless hours of my best work that I have put into patching you all back together, I'm going to begin to think you don't appreciate it. And I already have Mr. Potter for that particular exhasperation."
At this moment Sasha decided to pick her head up and moan, and Poppy snapped into action mode.
"All right, just set her down there Mr. Tsujimoto. Everyone take a bed, and I'll see if I can get you out for the end of the feast."
Sasha had a mild concussion. Once Madame Pomfrey was satisfied there was not any damage to the skull, she moved on to Sergei and Vlad. Whatever charm she cast seemed to be rather painful, but it also had the boys up and walking with little pain fifteen minutes later. Dimitri and Katya had some serious bruising, and Katya had a sprained wrist. Marguerite, sheltered beneath Sergei and Vald, had a few bumps and scratches, and bruise on her temple. Gisella, Aysha, and the twins had relatively minor injuries, and were cleared to leave after she had satisfied herself that there were no hidden ailments.
"All right Miss Montero, let's deal with that."
Lucy was suddenly apprehensive. "You know, I kind of like it at this angle."
"You'll have some trouble doing wand work that way, aren't you right handed?"
"I could use my left."
"Way I hear it, Miss Montero, you have enough trouble with your right. Now just stay still..."
Twenty minutes later the group left the hospital wing, although Sasha would be required to return to spend the night.
"They better have left us something to eat," Gisella growled, "I'm starving."
Lucy thought of the massive appetites of her housemates, and decided that she may need to swing by the kitchens before bed.
"How's the arm?" Dimitri examined the sling on her right arm.
She flexed her fingers, and inhaled sharply. "Still a bit on the painful side. Madame Pomfrey says it should feel better by morning, and I can take the sling off when I get to bed." She arranged her sleeves so the sling was not obvious.
"So, that letter..."
She rolled her eyes, "Honestly Chernyshev, after all that has happened you're still concerned about the letter from Krum?"
"Of course. You still have it, don't you?"
"Yes, I still have it. Why don't we wait for the meeting, and we can look at it then. It will give the Kornakovitch's time to translate it."
"Fine," the Slytherin tried not to sulk.
The feast was still in full swing when they entered the hall. They would later learn that the Sorting had been delayed half an hour because most of the boats were swamped by the Giant Squid. Apparantly the new paint that had been used to cover the hulls had some unknown phosphorescent qualities during the full moon. While the Squid was more interested in playing with the boats than the students, the frantic first years had to be corralled and dried out before the ceremony could take place. The poor first years were really having a tough first day.
"We'll discuss the meeting place and time later," Gisella patted Lucy's good arm.
"Right." Lucy returned Marguerite's little wave and slipped in beween Nicholas Kornakovitch and William Lane at the Gryffindor table.
"Oy, hello again," William wiggled his eyebrows. Apparantly not many people had noticed their absence.
Lucy piled a few vegetables on her plate before producing the letter from her pocket. She handed Nicholas the first page.
"Can you read that?"
Nicholas frowned, put down his turkey leg, and quickly wiped his hands on his pants leg. "Let's see it..."
Lucy grimaced, but handed it over.
As he read, a frown appeared between his eyebrows. Finally he looked up, confused.
"Lucy, where did you get this?"
Lucy looked at the students packed closely together up and down the table.
"I'll tell you later, but can I take that as a 'yes, I can read this'?"
Nicholas nodded impatiently, "Of course, it's in Bulgarian, we moved there from Yugoslavia when Svetlana was four. Who sent this, where's the rest of the letter?"
"I have it. You can read it later, when you are somewhere a little less public."
"Huh?"
"Trust me."
Nicholas shrugged and handed her the paper back.
Lucy turned back to her dinner. "Oh, by the way, what did the first page say?"
"It said that the students of Durmstrongs are interested in forming an alliance with the Hogwarts International Society for the increased flow of information and mutual protection of all."
Nicholas took a large bite of his turkey leg as Lucy choked on her broccoli and had to be pounded on the back by William.
They were going to have to arrange that meeting, and fast.
Lucy's absence had not been noticed by her year mates, most likely because she had never really been a consistant train companion. In any case, it meant a blessed lack of questions about her delayed entrance, for which she was very grateful.
When the meal was over, the song was sung, and it was time to make the trip up to the tower, she heard a familiar voice behind her. "First years, Gryffindors, follow me!"
Hermione Granger, her Head Girl badge perfectly straight, was standing on her tiptoes and waving her hand in the air as she directed the newest Gryffindors out of the hall and up the stairs.
"This way, follow me! You there, not that way! Stop! You're following the wrong house, they're going to the dungeons, the Gryffindors are this way!"
As Hermione hopped up and down midway up the staircase, Ron strided forward, leaned into the mass of Slytherin students with a mild display of disgust, pulled the wayward boy out of the huddle by his sweater with one arm, shoving him back into the center of the swarming Gryffindor mass.
Crisis averted, Hermione continued guiding the students toward the tower, and Lucy watched in amusement as first Harry, then Ron again managed to nip the wayward first year back into line as he repeatedly took the wrong turn, first accompanying the Ravenclaws, then the Hufflepuffs.
Chandrika laughed, "Get the feeling he doesn't want to be in this house?"
"We're going to need a leash." Wesley Lane added.
Lucy chuckled, and waited patiently as Hermione murmured "Fortitudo," which finally ended the Fat Lady's rambling account of July's "Where's Winifred?" contest in which the castle ghosts competed to be the first to locate Winifred Waltzingham, a Hogwarts headmistress from the 17th century who wandered through the galleries every summer. The contest was made more difficult by the fact that she had been painted in miniature and consequentialy was only five inches high, and never stayed in the same painting for more than a day. Annoyed that Hermione had cut her off before she could finish her description of the Bloody Baron trying to beat information out of Sir Cudugeon, the Fat Lady stuck out her tongue and the doorway swung open.
Watching the firsties catch their first glimpse of the common room was always amusing. The wandering boy even finally stood still for five seconds.
Hermione began directing the newcomers to their rooms. Lucy was tempted to search out Nicholas and have him read the final page of the letter, but he had already found his year mates and charged up the stairs. Just as she was about to go in search of him she felt a tug on her arm.
Lavender Brown, beautifully tanned, was pulling her towards the stairs, Parvati was walking along beside her.
"What's going on?"
Parvati tossed her head. "She's gone mental, that's what's happened. Just about every single event since the Express left the station has been "the last time," and Lavender has gone mad on sentimentality."
Lavender gave Paravati a pitying look. "Just you wait, spring will come and our Hogwarts career will be over and then you'll wish you'd savored every last moment."
"And you are going to, is that it?" Lucy queried.
Lavender nodded. Parvati snorted again.
"Don't look at me like that lovey, the day you savor a Potions Exam is the day McGonagall strips naked and paints herself red and gold."
Lavender shuddered, "That is a perfectly horrible mental image to throw at me when I'm in such a vulnerable state."
"Well, now, technically it would be a brilliant display of house spirit." Lucy added.
"She wasn't talking about McGonagall in the buff," Parvati added quietly as she started up the stairs.
Lucy chuckled.
"It's not funny, a Potions exam is proven to reverse the effects of an entire month's worth of anti-aging beautification spells."
"Well, I dare say the joyous moment of graduation and the promise of leaving Snape behind forever will set things to rights."
That seemed to cheer Miss Brown up considerably, she trotted to catch up with them and tuck both her arms through their elbows, as had been her initial plan.
"We'll cross the threshhold of the seventh year girls bedroom together...and in years to come we'll look back on this day..."
"And remember how tempted I was to toss you back down the stairs."
Lavender's sentimentality was unphased by Parvati's sarcasm, and Lucy swore the girl nearly wept when she pushed open the door, and tried to pull Lucy and Parvati through with her.
"Ow."
Lucy's already tender arm scraped the doorframe as a surprisingly strong Lavender pulled her through, and she bit down on her tongue not to scream. The last thing she needed was for these two to start asking questions. There was a clever cartoon of two Nifflers drawn on the stall in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and although they were only identified with initials, everyone knew to whom they referred.
Trying not to giggle at the memory of Lavender's face on a Niffler, Lucy surveyed their new room. Three canopied beds which looked just the same as last year, but with the addition of a large and comfy sofa against the wall on the right in the space that was normally occupied by Hermione's bed. There was also an arm chair and foot stool with a crazy floral pattern. Because seventh years occupied the highest rooms in the tower, the ceiling was not the normal flat ceiling they were used to. It sloped upward from the windows all the way to the wall that the door was on, displaying lovely rafters and giving the place the feel of a palace.
Lavender was looking out the window. "It's so high..."
Parvati shrugged and opened her trunk. "It's exactly twelve feet higher than our room last year."
Lucy decided that unpacking was over rated and collapsed on the sofa.
"So where does Hermione live now?"
"In the Head Girl's quarters. I hope we get to have a look, they are supposed to be fabulous. Private bath, your own sitting room, personal house elf, although I suppose Hermione won't be too keen on that, did I mention the private bath?"
"Makes you wish you'd worked a little harder, lovey?"
"Not at all. Not even the chance to escape sharing a bathroom with hordres of females could induce me to spend any more time identifying entrails than I already have."
Parvati smiled as she set up the mahogany stand she kept her gazing balls in. "Actually, there should be a secret entrance somewhere around here. When Percy Weasley was head boy he had a door that opened from his sitting room directly into Gryffindor tower. Can't remember where it came out though, I think it might have moved around. Whatever it did, Fred and George Weasley found a way in one night and pretended to be Sirius Black. Apparantly Percy was so terrified he wet the bed. Denies it to this day of course. But Penelope said he slept with the light on for weeks afterwards."
Lucy had never met Percy Weasley, but she substituted Ron in her mental picture and was suffciently amused. Lucy didn't hate Ron, and techincally Ron didn't hate Lucy. While most people, when they noticed her at all, treatedly her relatively normally, Ron had never quite forgotten about or adjusted to her "different talents." As a result she sometimes caught him looking at her as one might examine a strangely ticking suitcase abandoned in the airport. Just wondering how long until it went Boom.
"Well, now there's something you don't see every day." Parvati stood by the window, polishing one of her gazing balls with a silk cloth. Lavender and Lucy joined her.
"Poor firsties, must have been terrified."
"You know, from up here it looks kind of cute."
Not even Parvati made a comment about the possible over-sentimentality of the moment as the three girls remained in silence by the window, watching the giant squid toss glow-in-the dark boats about like bath tub toys.
oOoOo
