AN: Finally, our boy meets a few familiar faces! This chapter and the next may be the last before the Christmas hiatus. Enjoy the chapter and any comments will be most welcome as I gear up to write the next part.

Rose

Chapter Fourteen: Take-off

Harry squared his shoulders as he stepped down into the crowd; it was a daunting sight, but he could see the crimson hull of the Express over the heads of even the densest bits of crowd. With one hand tight around the strap of his pack, he stepped forwards into the melee. Immediately, he had to dodge a businessman chattering away on his comm., who strode at speed and paid not enough attention to his surroundings. He followed in the wake of a man with a trolley full of cargo for a while, until he turned away towards the other transport and then he had to weave through the crowd himself again. It didn't help that the port was a phenomenal building; with great white arches holding up a glass roof and enormous barriers and screens everywhere casting great sheets of colour over the walls and that the Hogwarts Express kept catching his eye. He tried his best to keep his head down and look where he was going but he still managed to get tangled up in the groups of people that would sweep along, using sheer numbers to make a path.

"Now George! It's Ronnie's first trip, you look after him, you hear? I'll have no more of this! " He heard a red-headed mother say to one of her sons as he apologised for bumping in to one of their trolleys.

"Mum, I'm Fred, he's George!"

"And you call yourself our mother!" Harry blinked at the two identical boys, not realising quite how gormless he looked;

"Mother! We appear to have acquired another first year," said the rather prim and proper boy Harry had bumped into, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder. He jerked away from the gesture immediately, feeling rather small next to the leggy, gangly teen. Hedwig plastered herself to his neck and chattered at the crowd of red-heads, he lifted a hand to stroke down her ruffled tail feathers and blinked up at the advancing matriarch; it was obvious that this brood was hers.

"Um... hello?" He mumbled quietly, looking up at the woman.

"Hello there. First time on the Express, dearie?" She asked with a kind expression while her son's milled around behind her and the one small girl in the group clung to her skirts.

"Yes, Ma'am. Sorry I bumped into your son." He found himself being fussed over; her hands flitted over his collar and lapels, straightening and smoothing the stiff fabric. He deliberately took a steadying breath, controlling his flinch at the contact. It had taken a full blown panic attack to get over Snape touching him, though he had been alright with Hagrid from the start... how strange. He was jerked back to reality by the woman speaking again;

"That's quite all right, dear. My youngest son is having his first trip today too," He didn't quite know what to do with the gestures and the warm, proud look in her eyes when she glanced at her smallest son so he just nodded and tried not to look as nervous as he felt.

"Right then, off we go! Find a ramp, Percy, and let's get you lot onboard!"

Harry found himself swept along towards the Express, the tall, prim one leading the way and their mother herding them, and by default Harry too, from the back of the group. The Express' great hulk of a hull loomed over them as they got closer and Harry swallowed. Space. Probably in less than an hour, he'd be in space. All the things Aunt Petunia had ever said about the evils of leaving the planet God had made for them flitted through his head and he pushed them away angrily, how many times had Petunia lied to him over the years? Hundreds? Thousands? Had she really believed that her own sister had been some soulless monster? What about his grandparents, had they at least still loved his mum? Snape... Snape had really known his mum, not that he talked openly about her, but there was this look he would get when he talked about his parents... Harry had almost come out an asked, but Snape was so private and he sounded so pain filled when he talked about the war that he had felt it was never the time.

The red-headed family paused at the bottom of the ramp leading up into the Express and fussed over each other, while Harry looked out over the crowd towards the Thanatos. He could just see Snape walking over his hull and supervising the placement of huge barrier straps under the ships' hull. The Thanatos would be coming with them, docked tightly on the Express' underside and, even as he watched, Snape waved off the mudder technicians and the ship began to move, cradled in the grip of a tug. Orange warning lights flashed and the thick stream of people stopped and waited for the ship to pass. Eventually it went out of sight around the curve of the Express, taking his Professor with it.

"Now, give your sister a hug, boys, and we'll see you at Christmas." He turned back to the group of red-heads and watched with a pang of envy as they said their good byes'. The woman, their mother, had an Interface on, tucked neatly over the high collar of a conduction shirt, as did most of the people around him. Students in their uniforms and insignias made their way up the ramp, leaving their parents behind. Most of the adults left behind, watching the windows for their children, were obviously spacers, with Interfaces and conduction shirts and the mudders seeing Planet-born's off were few and far between. They stood out like sore thumbs though, Harry thought as he watched one family part ways, the bushy haired little girl looking both excited and nervous. Her dad looked like a professional, white shirt, trousers and a jacket slung over his shoulder but significantly, his collar gaped open to show throat, rather than conduction shirt. He looked away when the girl was hugging her mother, both embarrassed to be staring and envious.

The prim and proper red-head, who's name he'd over heard as Percy, caught his attention as they passed on the way to the ramp;

"Come along Firstie, don't fall behind!" Harry blinked twice before frowning slightly. The twins came up either side of him and laughed at his expression;

"Don't worry mate,"

"Percy's a Perfect Prefect,"

"We find him annoying too!" Harry blinked again as they traded off sentences and then a spark of recognition made him grin;

"Here, you two are the ones on the hoverboards, when I was in Vertic!" He exclaimed a little too loudly and they suddenly looked mischievous, ushering him after their brother quickly. Their little brother trailed behind them, rubbing at his nose.

"Well now, seems like our,"

"Reputation Precedes us!"

Harry refrained from mentioning that they'd nearly knocked him over and just grinned along, "Should I be worried?" He asked absently as they made their way up the ramp. The hatch in the Express' side was large enough for the three of them abreast, but not the twins' trunks as well, so Harry stepped up ahead and into the busy interior of the transport. The twins looked at each other contemplatively and nodded;

"Definitely!"

Harry just sighed and went ahead to find a seat.

"Look after yourself Wonnikins,"

"Wouldn't want you to get lost on your first day!"

"Oh sod off, both of you..." Harry heard his fellow first year grumble; he was pretty sure his first name wasn't actually Ronnikins... Ron was probably the best approximation.

"Right then. Since we're so,"

"Welcome here... Lee's got a Tarantula,"

"We're going to find it."

"See you, squirts!"

Harry waved bemusedly as they took off through the crowded corridor while their brother grumbled, falling to walk beside him. Ron dropped his trunk off with one of the crew, who was loading them into storage crates to go into the hold, and they headed off themselves.

"Right, we should get a compartment before they fill up." He said and Harry took his first good look at his new classmate; reddish brown Interface, freckles, spacer-pale skin and bright ginger hair. There was a sleepy looking rat on his shoulder, which Harry eyed warily; worried that it would fall off at any moment. It made him appreciate Hedwig's sticky hands and Madam Malkin's work on his uniform; Ron's had no such modifications.

"Um, yeah. We've only got a few minutes left before we leave." Harry replied, pulling his eyes away from the precariously perched animal and craning his neck to look around the crowd.

"Ah, here's one." Ron said, unnecessarily, as Harry slid open the door to a compartment. They settled themselves in the heavily padded seats, Harry with his bag on his lap, by the window. There was a moment of quiet, during which Harry stared out of the large window at the Express' deeply swept back wings. He perked up for a moment when he spotted Professor Snape signing off on something on a data pad someone was holding out to him, but the man soon vanished out of his field of view again. There was an awkward clearing of throat after a minute, and Harry turned back to the redhead sitting next to him.

"Um, hi. I'm Ron Weasley. Uh, nice to meet you." He stuttered and Harry gave him a big grin.

"Same, I'm Harry Potter." He wasn't quite expecting the reaction he got, but he should have, he thought in retrospect;

"Blimey!" Ron's eyes practically came out of his head, but he still managed to hold out a polite hand for Harry to shake, which he did. "Do you really have the... the...?" Ron trailed off, making gestures towards his forehead, "the scar?"

Harry nodded and pushed his fringe out of the way, "Yeah." He fingered the unnaturally smooth starburst for a moment before covering it over again with his fringe.

"Wicked..." Ron said, collapsing back in his seat and staring straight ahead, gobsmacked. Harry was strangely pleased with that reaction and settled back into his seat; it was so... innocent.

"Right, come on!" Came a yell from the corridor and a few minutes later, the whirr and groan of the ramp moving away started up, only to be cut off as the hatch closed. Harry and Ron could just see if they craned their heads out their door. Soon, older pupils with the same insignia as Percy were moving through the crowds of milling kids and herding them into compartments. Since it was just the two of them, Harry fully expected that they'd be joined by a few more people before they took off and he was right.

A very pale, platinum blond first year sauntered in and directed his two companions, hulking lumps that Harry thought looked a bit thick, to sit in the acceleration chairs closest to the door. He himself sat down next to Harry, without so much as a by-you-leave. The kids' hair was slicked back obnoxiously and his Interface was bright, polished silver.

"The rumours are true then, Harry Potter." He said, staring shamelessly. Harry was immediately on his guard, "Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." The hand held out to him was steady, pale and Harry couldn't see a reason to refuse it, despite his unease, so he shook it briefly.

"Nice to meet you, Draco." He didn't notice Ron bristling next to him; the deeply cushioned protective seats were such that he had to lean forwards to see Draco, but couldn't see them both at the same time. An unpleasant confrontation was averted when the Prefect's started strapping in Firsties. Loud commands echoed through the corridor and Harry scrambled for the barrier emitter Snape had given him for Hedwig. Ron's rat went into a padded box and Harry was sure he saw, out of the corner of his eye, one of Draco's pockets writhing. Sure enough, as Harry extracted the harness and convinced Hedwig to get back into it, a gecko emerged and Draco scooped it up to go into its carrier.

"Last Call! Get those Firsties strapped in!" came a voice from just outside their door before the caller ducked into their compartment and worked his way along the row. Draco's two companions, who had not yet been introduced, were first and got firmly strapped in to their chairs, and their pet's checked. When the tall brunette reached Draco, Harry had Hedwig safely into her harness and his bag stuffed in the locker under his chair. She pulled out the bar of the restrainer, split it in two and clipped the pieces into place on either side of Draco's narrow hips, the strips pressed his shoulders and back firmly into the padding of the seat. A third section of barrier sprung up between the two and held the blonds hips too; he looked bored and used to the procedure, perhaps even a little irritated. With a final sharp tug to check the attachment, she moved on.

Harry held himself still as she strapped him in, answering succinctly when she asked about his pet.

"Right then, clip her on, and you're done." He nodded and the prefect checked the restrainer, jerking him forwards slightly and nodded. She moved on to Ron, and Harry made sure to secure dear little Hedwig safely, the warm bundle of lemuro attached to his chest. The Prefect vanished out the door as quickly as she had come and Harry craned his neck around the edge of the seat, first to see Ron, then Draco.

"Everyone alright?" he asked, settling back and pressing his head into the seat.

"Yeah, mate. Shouldn' be any different from any other lift off." Ron said with an easy wave; the hand was all Harry could see of him.

There was a snort from Harry 's other side; "The Express is one of the finest Transports in the Close Orbits, nothing can go wrong!" Draco said with a sneering, arrogant tone that put Harry's teeth right on edge.

"Well, can't say I'd know the difference," Harry replied in a deliberately light tone, "I've not been off planet since before I can remember."

There were indignant splutters of "Really? But you're the Boy-Who-Lived!" and various other, related, exclamations. He could just hear, over their inarticulate and outraged comments, the voices of older cadets announcing that they'd finished checking people's restrainers. A man's voice sounded over the ship-wide intercom and Harry couldn't hold back his massive grin anymore; it was time.

The thrum of drives rumbled up into his feet as they came out of idle and he could feel the Express straining forwards until oh-so-slowly she began to move.

Out the window, despite the bad angle, Harry could see the orange flashes of warning lights and the enormous barrier that now separated the ship from the crowd. What little he could see of the people watching them go was dominated by parents waving but before he could react to that, Draco and Ron had realised they were moving.

"Blimey, this is it. Poseidon. Bloody hell..." Draco had gone quiet but Ron's mumbles ran on incessantly. The first touch of acceleration had Harry's heart beating out of his chest in excitement and the view out the window showed that they had left the port building for the runway. He rubbed his cheek, it was sore from grinning so much, and couldn't help his nervous, excited laugh as he was pushed further back into the cradle of his seat. The runway was flashing past, now, and the Express tilting up into the sky. The hum of the drives had grown into a roar and the sensation of power echoed under Harry's skin, both terrifying and intoxicating, as they began to rise. A harsh hiss that Harry hadn't even been aware of vanished and they were airborne. The angle of acceleration changed, pushing him down and back, as they began to power upwards and Harry let out a whoop, echoed here and there all through the transport. The take off had made him only slightly light headed, he noted absently and fingers crossed, he wouldn't need to see Snape before his appointment later in the week.

Ron had fallen quiet at some point, Harry didn't know when, but they roared up through the atmosphere without a word spoken. Clouds fell away below them, the horizon dropped away and then, finally, finally, the brilliant blue faded into navy, then purple, and eventually star-studded black.

Harry stared at the stars as it finally hit him; he was leaving. Gone from Terra, no longer bound to the earth, the mud and the soil... He let out a long shuddering breath as his heart tried to rise up out of his chest.

"Ceasing Acceleration in three, two, one... We are now in zero-g, repeat, we are now in zero-g." Came the pilots voice over the intercom and Harry braced himself for what Snape had said would be a nauseating and unsettling sensation. The lightness, the floating feeling... Harry was having trouble deciding how to describe it, but his hand was floating up off the armrest all by itself! But... somehow it was familiar and comfortable and wow. Maybe, just maybe, he could remember this feeling from a time when he had been a very happy child indeed. The thought rushed up and was overwhelming in its implications and he clung to reality by a thread.

"Right, belts Free, you lot! Out you get." Said the prefect who had strapped them in. Harry looked up and blinked at her, since she was floating at right-angles to what had been down twenty minutes ago. Draco was already out and away, his gecko scuttling around his uniform, and sticking his boots to the far wall. The two hefty boys who had come with him were drifting out of their seats too, reaching for the ceiling with little magnetic pads on their hands. They bumped into each other, and the wall and then the ceiling, until the Prefect despaired and stuck their feet to the wall next to Draco.

Harry's pack was still stowed under his seat, and had his magnetic gloves in, so he carefully stuck his feet to the floor with an Interface command before unlocking the straps over his chest. Hedwig stayed stuck to his uniform sleepily while he pulled out the gloves and fumbled them on, hoping he wouldn't make an idiot of himself.

"Right, you lot! Any Earth-born?" The prefect asked briskly, obviously expecting Draco's two henchmen to say yes.

"Um... I've never been off-planet before, uh..." Harry said, his voice trailing down to nothing, before picking up again, "But I think I'll be ok." He finished, looking at his new year mates.

"Of course you'll be fine! You're Harry Potter; it's in your blood!" Draco's sneer was enormous, and oddly enough, directed at the prefect, who huffed and pushed herself back into the corridor, muttering about 'Malfoy's and their bloody...'

Draco's sneer vanished when she was gone and he tilted his head up to look at Harry, who was standing on a surface at ninety degrees to him. "Don't worry Potter, I won't let you embarrass me; there's a trick to it-" He said, and Harry was prepared to listen, even though he really didn't know what to make of him. Ron broke his silence then, however;

"Harry, you can't trust him, he's a Malfoy!" He hissed into Harry's ear, his rat clutched to his chest.

"No mistaking what you are. Freckles, red hair, patched uniform, you must be a Weasley." Draco snarled right back, not missing a beat and calmly stepping down to the 'floor' to do it to Ron's face.

"Oh yeah? At least I don't spend hours making myself look like a pansy each morning!" Harry backed away carefully, fumbling to control the magnets in his boots with his Interface. Ron's face was getting alarmingly red while Draco's was simply bent into a furious scowl.

"I do NOT! How dare you-!"

"What, afraid that it's going to float away? History of balding, by any chance, you stuck up little jerk?" The two boys were advancing on each other, faces reddening,

"More children than sense, I hear. What's dear old mum on now, number eight?" Ron went fully scarlet and was gearing up for a full blown roar when Harry decided that enough was enough.

"Shut UP! Just, for crying out loud, shut up!" Harry burst out, looking between them incredulously, "What the hell? You've only just met! You don't even know each other's first names!"

The pair of them blinked at Harry, shocked out of their respective tirades, before blurting out, practically in unison;

"But, Harry, he's-"

"Potter, you can't expect me to-"

They stopped when they realised they were being talked over and turned to start arguing again, so Harry quickly stepped between them and grabbed a wrist from each boy.

"Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley, Ron Weasley, Draco Malfoy!" He forced the hands together and had them shake, "There! Now calm the hell down!"

Harry glared at them, trying not to let on that his heart was buzzing with nerves and adrenalin, trying not to show how frightening their absurd fight had been and how utterly terrifying intervening was.

Draco recovered first, and tentatively opened his mouth, closed it again, cleared his throat and then started talking again;

"Pleased to meet you. Ron Weasley, Harry Potter. This is Vincent Crabbe, and that's Gregory Goyle..." He looked like he was acting on auto pilot and Harry was grateful to whoever had taught him manners.

"uh... right. Yeah, I'm Ron. Nice to meet you..." the ginger replied, looking rather overwhelmed. Harry didn't blame him, he felt that himself, too.

"Right. Now that's sorted..." Harry mumbled, "You can go back to... whatever it was you were talking about." He kept his mental fingers crossed, hoping that he'd shocked them enough that they wouldn't just argue again. He rummaged through his bag for Hedwig's lunch and his data pad, deliberately not looking at the argumentative pair; the little lemuro was waking up, now that Harry was moving about and it gave him something to do with his hands. He retreated back into his chair and petted her until she was more alert, with one ear on what Ron and Draco were up to, which consisted of blinking at each other, last he checked. It felt strange to 'sit'; in reality, he was floating in the vague vicinity of the chair, his legs turned sideways slightly to jam him in so he didn't float off. Even his hair felt strange, not that it needed any help sticking straight up...

Hedwig cooed sleepily at him when he offered her a piece of mango and she ate lazily, eyes staring off into the middle distance. Her tail was wrapped around his wrist in a warm bracelet of feathers and he stroked his palm down her back. He was so, so very grateful to Hagrid; with each warm, affectionate sound and each delicate touch of her sticky palms, the little creature gave him a little sense of calm. The quiet of the Thrace and Snape's solemn company had been wonderful and now, he felt like he was taking a piece with him.

Without knowing it, the look on his face had silenced his two new acquaintances; it was too much for them to make sense of. But if Severus Snape had seen it, he could have told them that that was the look of a very old, and very wise child, who would take what goodness life would give him.

"Well. Harry Potter, ei?" One Ron Weasley said, in a voice quiet enough that the boy in question wouldn't hear.

"The Boy-Who-Lived." Replied one Draco Malfoy. "Don't mention the hair again."

"Don't mention the freckles." Ron said out of the corner of his mouth, eyes still fixed on the repetitive motion of Harry's hand on his pet's fur.

"Agreed."

They shook on it, eyes straying helplessly back towards the ever compelling Harry Potter, whose fingers were becoming progressively stickier as the mango was consumed.