On the morning of the first of September, Harry got up early as was his wont – in the past he'd sometimes read long into the night, but it was much better to have the same amount of sleep and start early than finish late, as far as Harry was concerned. It meant that it was easier to remember things you'd forgotten, it let you linger over breakfast, and in this particular case it let him write a letter to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

In the letter he apologized that, unless things changed, he would have to come back to Number Four Privet Drive for at least half the summer. He also said that he'd see about making sure he could spend August away, though, and included two postscripts.

In one of them, he asked Aunt Petunia specifically what she thought Uncle Vernon would like for Christmas, and the same for Dudley, and in the other he asked Uncle Vernon the same question but reversed (so he was asked about what Aunt Petunia would like for Christmas).

Folding it up into the envelope and putting the address (the full address, with Number Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, and the postcode) Harry wondered whether he should post it the Muggle way in London this morning, the Magical way by sending Hedwig off (it might have been a bit unfair to ask her to make the return flight all the way to Hogwarts, but then again owls flew to Romania quite happily – it was probably magic) or the Muggle way by posting it from Mallaig or Fort William.

That conundrum occupied him over breakfast, and as he packed everything for the train journey. His trunk went in his tent, which he folded up and put in his slightly battered old backpack, then Granny Longbottom saw the backpack and Transfigured it into a much better looking one with a few Gryffindor touches – nothing blatant, just a red and gold colouring on it – and the straps repaired like new.

"There's no reason to be going around with something so broken down," she told him firmly, after Harry had said thank you. "Especially when you're flying around half a mile up with it. No, Mr. Potter, you've been a charming guest and it's just a common courtesy."

Harry was quite grateful anyway, and he double-checked that he had everything in his backpack. Tent, a set of robes to change into on the train, some books (including the complete first Dragonlance trilogy), a pair of sausage rolls, and the letter to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

Neville had a bit more to do, because he had to load up his trunk, but a lot of that had been done last night and so they were ready to set off by nine in the morning.

"Goodbye, Mr. Potter!" Tandy waved to him, coming into the Floo room to see them off. "I hopes you has a good year!"

"I hope you have a good year as well," Harry replied, touched, and then they all went through the Floo to Kings Cross.

When they came out onto the platform, there was quite a bit of bustle going on. The Hogwarts Express wouldn't set off for another two hours, Harry knew, but with so many hundreds of students to get on it and so many parents to drop them off the platform would probably see something like a fifth of the total British wizarding population today.

"Don't forget to write," Granny Longbottom admonished Neville, and Neville nodded. "I'll send Darius to you in a few days so you don't need to use a school owl."

"Thanks, Gran," Neville replied, and Granny Longbottom examined him for a moment before nodding.

"And Mr. Potter," she went on. "Do let me know if that dreadful business with the House-Elf is resolved, will you?"

"I will," Harry agreed.

He adjusted Hedwig's cage, then looked over at the train. "Should we get on early? I think the others are going to be coming in by the station entrance, except maybe Ron."

"It was pretty busy last time, I think," Neville replied, thinking. "Maybe we should grab a compartment now?"

That sounded good to Harry, so after Neville said goodbye to his Gran the two of them boarded the train. There were a few photo-flashes from the Wizards and Witches standing around, and Harry overheard a confused Muggle parent asking why everyone was so interested in the boy and whether he was a celebrity, but then they were on the train and picking out a compartment.

Harry helped Neville hoist his trunk up onto the ceiling rack, and Harry unzipped his bag before taking out his letter to Aunt Petunia and putting the bag down on the seat.

"I think I'm going to go and post this," he said. "I'll be back before long."

"Sure," Neville replied, taking Trevor out, then yelped as the toad promptly made a break for it. Harry raised a wing, bouncing the toad back to his friend, and Neville took a much tighter hold of his pet now.

Remembering that flying out the train exit would mean ending up several miles away around London Euston, Harry walked out of the entrance instead – fortunately avoiding bumping into anyone.

He passed Justin going the other way, who waved to him before pushing his cart towards the portal, and from there getting outside to post the letter was just a matter of walking for a few minutes.

Really, Harry was quite impressed with how easy it was for Wizards to get around. They had brooms, which were nice, and they had Apparition (at least the adults did), but Floo was the thing which really impressed him because it was basically just walking.

Making his way back through Kings Cross, Harry sort of wondered in an offhand way what he looked like to the Muggles. He knew that Mr. Granger said he looked sort of like a boy with black hair, which was what he'd been back when he was human, but obviously he must look older than he did then because otherwise it would be obvious something unusual was going on.

Then he reached the place where the portal to Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters was, and bumped into it.

Confused, he stepped back a bit and looked at where he was, to make sure he wasn't too far to the left or the right. Then he walked along the line of where the platform was supposed to be, running his tail along the wall, and there wasn't anywhere where it opened out.

It was a pity he'd left Hedwig in the compartment with Neville, because otherwise he could send a letter. Or he could fly to London Euston, but he didn't know if you could come into the portal the train used like you could go out of it.

Thinking about it, and wondering if the portal had broken down or something, Harry decided to sit down on his haunches and wait for a bit. He still had a few things he could do – he could fly to the Leaky Cauldron and take the Floo back to the platform again, or fly to London Euston and wait to see the train come out before following it, but there was no way that people wouldn't notice the portal being broken. There were still dozens of people to get on at least, and it was more than an hour to go.

Harry did wish he had a book, though.

Ten minutes later, there was a small queue waiting outside the location of the portal and trying to look like they were just there for a chat. There was Penelope (who was by herself) and a few of the other Muggleborns and their parents, plus some people who had one wizarding parent and one Muggle parent and who had decided to walk or come by train instead of Floo.

Harry was in the middle of a conversation with some redhead twins (not Fred and Other Fred – these were first-years called Tyler and Anne, or possibly Taira and Anna, it was a little hard to tell.) They seemed very interested in hearing what Hogwarts was like, and Harry did his best to reassure them about how classes worked and things like that.

He was fairly sure they were Muggleborn, because he knew that Ron and Neville had known more about what using spells was like than they did, but then they would say something which showed that they knew a lot more than he'd expected and actually more than Harry did about some parts of the magical world.

It was a very interesting conversation, and Harry was sort of sorry in a way when a slightly mousy adult man came up to the barrier.

"What's going on?" he asked. "You're all for the platform?"

"If you mean Platform Nine and Three Quarters, then yes," said Penelope. "Are you from the Ministry?"

"That's correct," the man agreed. "Department of Magical Maintenance. Er, well… the platform's blocked, then?"

"Is there a name for it?" Harry asked. "I've been thinking of it as the portal."

"That's as good a name for it as any," the man said, and stepped forwards into the group before taking his wand out. "Hmm… yes, that's quite odd-"

Suddenly half-a-dozen people fell out of the wall at once.

"Well, whatever it was, it's gone now," the Magical Maintenance man said, as the people who'd been trying to get out of the portal picked themselves up. "Through you go, I'll sit outside here to make sure it stays working..."

The whole experience was quite odd, really, and Harry was glad to make it back onto the platform. He explained what the problem was to Neville, who was appropriately worried, and then they sat back to see when their friends would show up.

Dean was first, arriving just before ten, and then Hermione arrived a bit later. When she heard about the problem with the barrier she frowned, looking at her trunk, then unzipped it and got out some notes.

"I got some books about House Elves while we were in Diagon Alley," she explained. "We don't really know all that much about their magic, surprisingly little really – it's as if Wizards don't bother to try and find out about something once they think they understand all they need – but it says that, hold on."

Hermione went to the third page of her notes. "House Elves can't be mistreated, but that only applies to things that people do to them and that they complain about. There's nothing stopping whoever it is who own Dobby from having him hurt himself… which is terrible… and they're not allowed to leave. It says that they're really loyal, but none of the books said whether that was actually magical or just that they're… well, really loyal…"

She sat down. "But one of the books which explained the kind of magic House-Elves can do said that they could do some really impressive, difficult magic, and that's without even needing a wand – maybe Dobby's the one who did that to the barrier?"

"Maybe," Harry agreed. "Yeah, that would make sense, but it's kind of silly – though if he's trying to keep me safe then perhaps he's panicking about it."

"But why would stopping you from catching the Hogwarts Express keep you from going to Hogwarts?" Neville asked.

The others looked at him, and he flushed. "I mean, um, even if I got shut out of the platform I could do something about it," he explained. "There's Floo connections in Hogsmeade, and in Hogwarts too, though I don't know if those ones are turned on a lot of the time… I could just walk to the Leaky Cauldron and go there by Floo."

"That is a good point," Dean agreed. "Hermione or I would find it harder, but we could still go to Diagon Alley and ask. And Harry can fly."

"You could be Apparated, as well," Neville pointed out. "Harry can't."

There was a long pause, as they considered that.

"I think Dobby is a bit silly," Harry decided. "I wonder what he thinks this awful plan is that I need to be away from Hogwarts for."

He rummaged in his bag, and took out the September 1992 Quibbler – delivered just that morning. "Maybe there's something in here, I haven't had a chance to read it yet."

"You don't honestly believe that, do you?" Hermione asked, sniffing.

"Not really," Harry replied. "But it's interesting to read, and sometimes they do get things right… even if it is only by chance."

He picked a random page. "This one says that someone called Mafalda Hopkirk in the Improper Use of Magic Office is being bribed by a French dark lord called Monsieur Secretperson."

"It says…. What?" Hermione asked, completely confused.

"Maybe that's because Lord Voldemort is a French-sounding name?" Dean suggested. "I think that sounds like one of the ones they made up, to me."

Harry moved on to another one. "And this one says that Rubeus Hagrid was seen buying currycombs in Knockturn Alley. That one sounds kind of plausible, but it does suggest that it's because he's in a romantic relationship with Fluffy, and I don't think that's true."

They contemplated that.

"Yeah, that raises way too many questions," Dean decided. "Anything new you found to read?"

"Hold on," Harry told him, rummaging around in his bag again. "Here, I was going to – oh, actually, do any of you still have those letters about when we're allowed to use magic?"

Hermione did, and she got it out of her bag.

As she unfolded it, someone knocked on the door.

Opening it without asking, someone who looked like they were about a fourth- or fifth-year poked their head around the door. "Have you heard? There's supposed to be a sphinx on the train!"

"Really?" Harry asked, interested. "I didn't know, no."

The other student looked at Harry, and blushed slightly. "Well, er… sorry about the noise."

He shut the door again.

"I wonder why there'd be a sphinx on the train," Neville said. "Do you think Dumbledore's decided to keep something else safe?"

That set them off on talking about other ways that something could be magically protected, like making a room without any entrance and putting it under the Fidelius Charm, or even just throwing it in the sea if you didn't care about getting it back. It was fun to talk about, and to look through their new spellbooks (and the books of Professor Lockhart) for ideas about what to use, and that and the occasional person checking if the compartment was full distracted them enough that they didn't notice the time – until Ron knocked on the door, only ten minutes before the train was going to leave.

"What a nightmare," he groaned, as he got his packed lunch out of his bag and Harry heaved the trunk up to go with the rest. "There were five of us getting ready this year… and then there was traffic, so we nearly didn't make the train."

"Can I come in with you?" Ron's sister asked. "It looks like there's space."

"Come on, Ginny..." Ron groaned.

"It should be all right," Harry told her. "I'll just go up on the trunk rack like I did last year. Besides, Ron, you're not going to leave your sister to Lee Jordan's tarantula, are you?"

Ron's ears went pink, and Ginny turned about the same colour.

"Come on," Hermione said, making space next to her. "If Dean starts talking about football, commiserate. His team got relegated, so he's kind of upset about it."

"Oi!" Dean complained, and Ginny smiled a little.

"That's all right," she said. "I'm used to that sort of thing. Ron supports the Chudely Cannons, remember?"

That made Ron complain, and Dean as well – not liking his own tragically and unjustly relegated football team being compared to the generally-considered Worst Quidditch Team In The World – and they hadn't finished talking about sport by the time the train set off.

About ten minutes after they pulled out of Kings Cross (and with at least three more groups of students going past asking where the sphinx was – which made Harry vaguely nostalgic for his first year) Percy stopped by. He asked Ginny how things were going, and after she'd said it was okay Harry raised a paw.

Percy didn't notice, possibly because Harry was lying on the luggage rack (and wizards didn't look up, Harry remembered) so he dangled his tail and waved it a bit to get Percy's attention.

"Yes, Harry?" Percy asked. "Is something wrong?"

"Not really," Harry replied. "I was wondering if we could use magic now we're on the train."

"Oh – yes, that's fine," Percy told him. "So long as you don't hex anyone or anything."

"Great," Harry smiled, and got his wand out of his backpack.

"What are you going to do, Harry?" Ron asked.

"I had a couple of ideas about using that book copying spell," Harry explained, as Percy decided that he may as well shut the door. "Ginny, Fred and George said you liked those books about dragons?"

Ginny made an eep noise, blushing, and Harry wondered about that reaction before deciding to just ignore it.

"Well, I've got lots of books about dragons," he went on to explain, rummaging for a bit before getting out Dragonsong. "Hold on… Xerographia."

The spell went well, which was pleasing – he hadn't done it in a while – and now Harry had two copies of Dragonsong. He did the same thing to The Hobbit, then passed them both down to Hermione, and she handed them to Ginny.

"Those are the ones I've got with me," he explained. "There's more, but they're in my trunk."

"Thanks," Ginny said, looking at them – her ears still pink. "You shouldn't, really..."

"They don't cost anything," Dean pointed out. "They're just made by magic. I've got some of them myself."

He shrugged. "It's kind of a pity we can't copy our textbooks, but that's magic for you."

Harry nodded, then put the books back and took another one out.

"Is that a new one?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, it's kind of a gamble," Harry admitted. "I got it in a bookshop in London, I've got no idea what it's about."

He tapped it with his wand. "Xenographia."

"You haven't read it yet?" Neville asked, then frowned. "Wait, isn't that the other spell?"

Harry nodded, and inspected the result.

The original copy he'd got was still just as it had been, but the new one was in a different language completely to the Chinese characters it had started with.

Unfortunately, it had ended up in Russian, complete with Cyrillic characters.

"I think I need to practice this spell a bit more," he admitted. "And we're going to have a lot of copies of whatever this is by the time I'm done..."

After four more castings, giving him copies in Germanic Fraktur, French, Egyptian Heiroglyphs and a language Harry couldn't even identify, he decided to give it up for now and practice again later when there was somewhere to put the probably-inevitable large numbers of books.

If he could get it to translate things into English, though, there were probably other books he could read, which would be nice. Maybe he'd even be able to find some which were supposed to have been translated but the translation hadn't worked well?

He put them away in his bag, which was bulging a bit by now with the extra copies, and instead got out Small Gods. They were passing not far from a city, right now, and it looked like it wasn't long until lunchtime – which would be when the cart came around, and Harry saw no reason not to buy everyone lunch again.

As he started reading, though, the compartment door slid open to reveal Draco, Vincent and Gregory.

Draco looked at Hermione, Ron, Neville, Dean and Ginny, frowned, and opened his mouth. Then he looked up, catching sight of Harry.

Harry waved, folding his book over his talon with his other hand to keep his place.

There was a long and slightly awkward pause, and Harry wondered if Draco was expecting one of them to say something first. Then the Slytherin second-year slowly stepped backwards, and shut the door again.

Ginny blinked. "...what just happened?"

"Draco," Dean shrugged. "He's kind of a berk."

"What's a berk?" Ron asked.

"...you know," Dean said, frowning. "A berk. Someone who's… a berk."

He looked up at Harry. "You know what a berk is, right?"

"Not really," Harry replied. "If you'd called him a twit I might know what you meant."

"I know what a twit means, I don't need you to explain that one," Ron said. "I've got at least two of them in my family."

"And which two were you thinking of?" Ginny asked him.

"...do I have to answer that?" Ron replied.

"I think by saying that you have answered it," Neville told him.

"I could have been talking about the twins," Ron defended himself. "In fact, I was talking about the twins. I decided."

"I don't think that's how it works," Dean said. "I don't think you can decide to have been talking about something else all along."

"But I wasn't talking about something else all along," Ron replied. "I was talking about Fred and George."

"His story checks out," Neville contributed.

"Can't I decide that Ron was talking about me?" Ginny asked. "And be offended?"

"Well, if you decide that I was talking about you, based only on how I said twit," Ron began, "doesn't that mean that you're accepting that you're a twit?"

Ginny's lips moved.

"I'm confused," she admitted. "Should I just read that book Harry made me?"

"Probably," Hermione advised.

Picking one of the books at random, Ginny opened The Hobbit.

Four seconds later she looked up. "What's a Hobbit?"

"It sort of makes sense as you keep reading," Harry replied. "They're sort of like short people."

"Oh, like dwarves?" Ginny asked.

"Not really," Neville said. "There are dwarves in The Hobbit, but Hobbits aren't dwarves."

Ginny frowned for a long moment.

"I'm going to keep reading and see if it does make sense," she decided. "I do like the idea of an underground house, though. It's sort of like… a den, or something."

The trolley came around, and Harry got them all a pile of things to eat. Ginny seemed a bit embarrassed about it, saying that Harry didn't need to, but Harry shrugged and pointed out that the collection of pastries and sweets and all sorts of things had only cost about a galleon – so they may as well.

Ginny still tried to protest, but then Harry ate a cauldron cake and she stopped saying anything.

"Oh, yeah, that's right, you don't know about that," Neville realized. "I don't think we've ever found anything that Harry doesn't eat."

"But that… that was wrapped," Ginny said weakly. "I thought dragons mostly ate meat?"

"That's pretty nice too," Harry agreed readily, rummaging through things and picking out some tooth-flossing mints and liquorice wands. "But I don't think I'm the same sort of dragon as most dragons, because I'm twelve and I can still fit in the compartment…"

"Is Harry not what you expected of a dragon, Gin?" Ron asked.

"Shut up, Ron," Ginny replied. "I still haven't got to the bit in that book where the dragon shows up. I don't know what to expect a dragon to be like."

"I think there's something about not tickling them?" Dean asked.

"Well, maybe Nora will be more like Ginny expects dragons to be," Harry suggested. "…oh, I don't think we had this last time. Crystallized pineapple?"

"Yeah, I've heard they sell it in Honeydukes," Ron contributed. "Maybe the trolley lady works there most of the year?"

Harry threw a piece in the air. It missed his mouth completely, bounced off his wing, and landed on Scabbers – who jolted awake with a startled squeak, noticed the sweet, and looked around for a moment before starting to nibble it.

Everyone but Ginny dissolved into laughter, and Harry ate the next piece in a much more normal way.

"Who's Nora?" Ginny asked.

"You might know her as Norberta?" Dean said, and Ginny shook her head. "Norberth?"

Shake.

"...Ron?" Hermione began. "Did you and your brothers completely fail to mention that Hogwarts has a dragon for a mascot now?"

"Wait, what?" Ginny asked. "How did that happen?"

Harry opened his mouth, ready to explain, then paused.

Should he mention how Hagrid had sort of got hold of the egg illegally? Even if it was all sorted out, Hagrid was his friend, and not properly explaining it could be confusing.

But if he did properly explain, it would take ages.

"Professor Kettleburn seized a dragon egg from someone who was probably You Know Who," Dean summarized. "Then it hatched."

Harry decided that that was probably the simplest explanation that made sense.

"You Know Who?" Ginny repeated, sounding distinctly stunned. "I thought Harry killed him, or something!"

"Professor Dumbledore thinks he did," Harry said, tilting his head a little. "But apparently he's only mostly dead."

"You hadn't seen Star Wars until this summer but you know The Princess Bride?" Hermione asked. "Your aunt and uncle have strange taste."

"What's The Princess Bride?" Harry replied, confused.

For some reason, Hermione responded to that by getting out a piece of paper and starting to take notes.

One of the odd things about a train journey lasting more than seven hours was that it was quite easy to run out of things to talk about, especially if you'd had several hours together only a couple of weeks ago.

The Hogwarts Express wound north, crossing the border into Scotland, and conversation died down a bit. Ginny sometimes asked questions about what was going on in The Hobbit, Ron asked to borrow Tooth and Fang and spent the next few hours giggling, Neville and Dean played a game of chess and Hermione read one of Lockhart's books.

For Harry's part, he was very much enjoying reading the Dragonlance Trilogy again but knowing what was going on this time – despite the occasional interruptions when someone who'd waited hours to ask about it tried to find out where the sphinx on the train was – and it was about five in the afternoon when there was a sudden clatter outside.

"What was that?" Dean asked, confused, then the door trembled a little. It opened a crack, and an orange blur came running into the room.

It was a fox, which was quite odd – orange fur, brush tail, pointed ears – and it looked around with an alert gaze. Scabbers squeaked in terror and Ron put his hands protectively over the rat, and the fox sprang up to an empty seat where it seized what was left of a cauldron cake in its jaws.

Hedwig didn't seem bothered at all.

"Where did that come from?" Hermione asked, confused, as the fox curled up a bit on the seat and started eating the leftover pastry. "I didn't know foxes were allowed as pets. I thought it was only owls, cats or toads."

"Or rats," Harry pointed out. "I know Ron probably wouldn't mind if he had a pet that wasn't really allowed, but Percy had Scabbers first."

"Oh, yeah, that's right," Dean agreed. "And there's Lee Jordan's tarantula, I know about that one..."

"Maybe the rule about what pets you're allowed is a new one," Harry wondered, as the fox finished snacking on the pastry. "It's odd that Puffskeins and stuff aren't allowed."

"I had one of those once," Ron said, still hiding Scabbers in his hands. "I've no idea what happened to it, though."

"I think Fred happened to it," Ginny told him, looking up from her book. "I'm not sure though."

The fox licked its paw, getting all the pastry off, then crouched and jumped up to the headrests of the seats Hermione and Ginny were sitting in. It yawned, stretching first one way and then the other, and curled up to dangle its tail down where it just brushed the tip of Hermione's hair.

"Hey," she protested, shifting to the side a little, and the fox's tail twitched to brush her hair again.

Hermione moved her head in the other direction, and got tail-brushed yet again, before just giving up and moving over to a free seat.

The fox promptly flopped down onto the just-vacated seat, curling into a ball, and Hermione huffed.

About twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the door.

Ron glanced around, then told whoever it was to come in, and Harry watched with interest as Tyler (or Taira, he still wasn't sure) looked around the door.

"Did any of you see a vixen come in – oh, there she is!" he said, opening the door all the way and scooping the vulpine up with both hands. She made a moderately annoyed noise, and Tyler touched her on the nose.

"Is she yours?" Harry asked, interested. "I didn't see her when we met earlier."

For some reason Taira sniggered at that. "Yeah, she's kind of hard to find when she wants to be… I turn my back and she's vanished, you know?"

"I know the feeling," Neville commiserated, checking to make sure Trevor actually was where he was supposed to be and breathing a sigh of relief that the toad was still in his pocket.

"Is there anything she's not allowed to eat?" Dean said. "There was some chocolate around earlier, and I know dogs can get ill if they eat chocolate."

"She can eat that, that's fine," Tyler assured him. "Thanks for keeping track, though."

Harry asked where his sister was, and that made the first-year snigger as well.

"Around," he said, scratching the vixen under her chin. "I'd better get back to my compartment, though, I think we're supposed to be getting changed soon."

Getting changed sounded like a good idea to the six of them, as well, and they did it the same way they had the previous year – in relays. Harry thought it was a bit of a pity that he couldn't fit his tent in the compartment, because that would have given them a lot more space, and wondered when they learned how to make an existing room bigger.

It wasn't in their second year spellbook, he knew that much.

That took longer than expected, because just about everyone had grown a bit over the summer (except Harry, but he didn't really know when he would have his next growth spurt) and while robes were easier to adjust to that sort of thing than Muggle clothes were it was still a bit fiddly.

By the time that was done the sun was just starting to sink, and Harry hopped back up on the rack for a last bit of reading before they arrived. He'd got to the bit where The Everman showed up, and he was just reading about his reaction to being spotted when Hermione gasped.

"Oh, no, I almost forgot!"

"What?" Dean asked. "What is it, is something wrong?"

Rummaging in her bag, Hermione produced a book. It said STAR WARS in big words at the top, and the front cover had pictures of several people he recognized and a few he didn't (including a man with white hair and a white beard, though not nearly as impressive a beard as Dumbledore).

"I read this over the summer," Hermione explained. "I thought you'd like it – since you've seen the films now, I mean."

Harry reached down and took it, seeing that it was called Heir to the Empire.

"Is this what happens next?" he asked.

"Well..." Hermione began. "There's a few other Star Wars books, I think. But this one seems to be the one that went the furthest out in front, it's five years after the end of Return of the Jedi."

"Thanks!" Harry said. "Is it okay if I borrow this to read?"

Then he remembered that it was a Muggle book, and got out his wand from his robe pocket. "Or I could just copy it."

Ginny giggled, which Harry thought was a good sign. She'd seemed shy at first, but it seemed like the last few hours had helped her get used to the idea of being with Ron's friends.

Actually, now he thought about it, did wizards and witches who knew they were wizards and witches go to primary school? It might be a difficult thing to not mention in the playground…

Harry didn't get very far into Heir to the Empire before the train slowed down, but he liked it already. It had a nice feeling to it.

But all too soon the Hogwarts Express was stopped at the station, and everyone was getting out. Hagrid called for the first-years, and Harry watched as everyone who was a first-year went over to that end of the platform.

There was Ginny, of course, and he also waved to Taira and Anna (who seemed to have left their pet fox on the train), but then Harry saw a bubble of chatting first-years who weren't taking up the space in the middle.

He rose up on his hind legs to check, remembering not to flap his wings for stability, and saw that it was the Warg he'd met last year, June – the one who he'd helped to pick what the human name for her race actually was.

He hadn't know she was on the train, and it was nice to see her, so he waved – though then he saw the sphinx everyone had been talking about, who clambered down from the train to the platform with care and moved with what wasn't quite a prowl towards where Hagrid was waving.

Maybe that was why she was here, then. It was nice to think about there being some more non-human students at Hogwarts this year.

"Hey, Harry, did you know about this?" Ron asked, as they reached the other end of the platform. "They've got carriages which don't have anything pulling them!"

"They do have something pulling them," Neville said quietly.

"Huh?" Ron asked, confused. "No, they clearly don't."

"Oh, hold on, I know what's going on," Dean said. "Neville's the only one who can see them for some reason. This is just like the Harry and Muggles thing again. What do they look like, Nev?"

"Well, uh… kind of odd?" Neville tried. "They actually look a bit like Harry… or, like Harry mixed with a horse? Think of a horse, but black and with kind of… leathery skin, and wings a lot like Harry has."

Hermione was already getting out her copy of Fantastic Beasts. "Like a horse?"

She thumbed through to the end. "Not going to be a unicorn… well, either they're Beings or they're a Winged Horse… aha! Thestrals have the power of invisibility."

She shut the book again. "Well, there we go. That's interesting, Thestrals are very rare. I wonder where they came from."

Harry looked at where there wasn't anything to see, and reached out his paw. Some of the carriages were already setting off, looking like nothing was moving them, but then Harry touched thin air and it moved under his paw.

"Neat," he said. "I wonder why only Neville can see them?"

They talked about it for a couple of minutes, and Blaise came over to chat to them about it as well – it turned out he could see them too – before deciding to get into them.

Harry tried getting into one carriage, and the wheels all fell off at once.

"Blimey, Harry," Ron said, between sniggers. "Have you gained weight?"

"I don't think so," Harry replied, quite embarrassed. "I'll just walk alongside..."

AN:

Off to Hogwarts they go.