Silver & Black
RolandRay16
Chapter 1. Nine & Three-Quarters"Have a good term," Uncle Vernon said sarcastically and the Dursleys drove off laughing.
Harry wasn't too sure what to do, platform 9 and platform 10 appeared to be right next to each other and there was no platform 9¼, 9½ or what to speak of 9¾ in between. Harry pushed his cart around the station for a few minutes and was too embarrassed to ask for help until finally, with only 15 minutes left till departure he showed his ticket to one of the guards, an idea which seemed obvious now. The guard however, seemingly unamused as he made eye contact with Harry, determining if it was a joke, handed the ticket back and told him that it wasn't a real train or a real platform.
So he pocketed the ticket once more and was about to start his wandering again when he heard something.
"I wonder if Hagrid's really as much of an oaf as father says," Harry heard from a cold voice.
The voice it seemed was coming from a sleek blonde boy Harry's age, and judging from his statement Harry's grade as well.
"You don't have to act like dad all the time Draco," said a girl with jet black hair standing next to him.
They must be twins Harry thought and he pushed his cart over.
"Excuse me," he said.
Their mother, hardly a kind looking woman, peered at him with her lip curled down a bit.
"Can I help you?" she asked though it didn't seem like she wanted to help much at all.
"Well you see, I think you might, uhm, do you know where I can find platform 9¾?" Harry blurted out in an irregular stuttering sort of way.
Suddenly her demeanor changed and it seemed she was about to answer when the blonde boy stepped forward again. His hand outstretched.
"I'm Draco Malfoy, I can help you out," he said as a smirk spread across his face.
"And I suppose you think he should be kissing your feet right?" said the black haired girl as she also stepped forward.
"I'm Meissa," she said and she made a fake toothy smile.
"Both of you leave the boy alone," said their mother and they slunk back to the carts.
"What's your name, young man? Are your parents wizards?" she asked with the expectation of a full and honest reply.
"Well yes my parents were wizards but I'm not sure you'd know about me at all," replied Harry, knowing full well of course that they would know him after the incident at the leaky cauldron, and everywhere else for that matter.
"Don't tell me he's a Mudblood," Draco said, chuckling as he made a crazy face.
His mother reached out and hit him with her bag, and Meissa looked annoyedly in his direction.
"Well it doesn't matter too much, the train will be leaving soon, just follow me," she said.
She started walking forward, towards a large brick pillar right between the platforms with the platform numbers flanking it on big plastic signs. The twins had waited till their mother had started her brisk walk before they started moving so Harry was between them as they walked.
"So you must be a first year, we both are too, me and my annoying brother I mean," said Meissa.
Harry realized her objective was to insult her brother more than to inform him of anything. Draco scoffed but refused to reply, thinking it beneath him perhaps.
Mrs. Malfoy now gave some instruction to her twins and Harry by association as to the task at hand. It seemed the process boiled down to running your cart directly at the pillar. Smirking again, Draco decided to try first and within seconds had seemingly vanished into the masonry. Now slightly thrilled by seeing the display of magic with his own eyes Harry made for the pillar as well. He exited into a cloud of smoke, smelling of coal and blurring his round glasses. Meissa and her mother soon appeared as well and Draco was standing as if he had known this was how it worked the whole time, confidently leaning on his cart waiting for them. The things were loaded up and the three got onto the train but not before Mrs. Malfoy gave the both of them a strained hug and whispered something about a sense of propriety, her eyes flickering towards the extremely baggy clothing and unkempt black mane on Harry's person. He stood awkwardly in the aisle as other people shuffled back and forth finding their cabins for the journey. Suddenly, Meissa, whom Harry had thought abandoned him in the thruway, grabbed his arm and started pulling him down to some unknown fate.
"You can sit with us you know," she said in a kind voice and he was soon seated in what he presumed was the most cramped cabin on the train, at least ten people seemed to think this was the perfect spot to be, much of them chattering with Draco about things Harry had never heard of. Draco sooned noticed Harry sitting there and a confused face appeared on him, though it was clearly forced.
"Oh, you, I don't know if you can really fit in here," he said, and Harry suddenly caught the gaze of everyone in the cabin, including two incredibly large boys with ugly looks on their faces.
"He's fine, I invited him in here," said Meissa and she plopped herself down next to him.
"What's your name anyway?" she asked.
Harry took a moment wondering if he should just go by some sort of alias while at school but Meissa seemed to trust him.
"Harry, Harry Potter," he replied.
It seemed he had said it loud enough at least to cut over the chatter on the opposing bench and he had redrawn the gaze of the cabin.
"You've got to be joking," she said.
Harry shrugged and his ears turned a bit red.
"Do you have the, you know, the scar," she asked, gesturing toward his forehead.
He lifted his bangs and the cabin gasped as the red thunderbolt met their eyes. The next few minutes were filled with questions about how he had killed the "Dark Lord" and about if he knew any really powerful evil spells, Harry of course knew the answers to none of the questions or any evil spells. Draco seemed quite pleased with himself though, as if it was by his genius that Harry Potter was in his kingdom which, in this case, was a cramped cabin filled with children. Harry then heard some noise at the door and it swung open and a girl with bushy brown hair and rather large front teeth stuck her face in.
"Have any of you seen a toad?" she asked.
They all shook their heads.
"Well a boy named Neville Longbottom has lost his and…" she started, but the cabin started laughing at his name and she slammed the door in annoyance, stomping off towards wherever.
"Trust a Longbottom to get something stupid as a toad for a pet," said Draco.
Not knowing the context Harry said nothing on the situation. Draco noticed that Harry hadn't laughed at the joke and he smirked once again.
"Do you not know who the Longbottoms are?" he asked with a laugh.
"Sorry no," said Harry, embarrassed.
Another boy, slim with dark skin, then decided to explain.
"They're a bunch of kooks," he said casually.
"Yea, my auntie Bella did that, they wouldn't say anything so she did what she had to," said Draco proudly.
Meissa rolled her eyes, clearly disappointed.
"Where did that land her," she asked and Draco didn't say anything.
The next hour or so passed in relative silence most of which Harry spent looking out the window or pretending to inspect his wand, whilst thinking about what would happen once he got to Hogwarts, he still wasn't sure if it was made up. But then again, Harry doubted that something like this could be faked, and even if possible, it wouldn't make sense for him to be at the center of it.
Different things kept bouncing around his head until he heard something rattling outside. The door opened and a stout woman poked her nose into the Malfoy domain. Harry could see that she was pushing a little cart stacked to the tippity top with sweets and treats of all sorts. Immediately, the hands of the cabin members were scrounging around in their pockets for as many sickles and galleons and what not as they could. Harry quickly pulled out his sack of Gringotts fortune and rushed to the cart buying as many things as would fit in his hands. The next few minutes were filled with both the most incredible flavors and the most disgusting, especially when he decided to try Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans, ignoring Meissa's warnings.
"Would you like something that actually tastes good?" she asked, holding out a Chocolate Frog.
Harry forced down the last bits of the lard flavoured bean he had just ingested and attempted to not have a look of pure disgust on his face while he took it from her. Inside was both an apparently living frog, though made entirely from chocolate, as well as a card with a strange little man on it, he seemed to be looking at the deepest places in Harry's mind from behind his half-moon spectacles. Harry scrounged down the chocolate quickly while he inspected it.
"Who's this?" asked Harry, staring down at the little man.
"That would be Professor Dumbledore, he's headmaster at Hogwarts," she replied.
In fact below the picture was a small bit of lettering Harry now noticed which read ALBVS DVMBLEDORE and on the back was more information, about him as headmaster and his friendship with a wizard named Nickolas Flemel. Harry had remembered Hagrid saying something about Dumbledore being a great wizard at the cottage.
"So is he any good at it?" asked Harry.
"Well my dad doesn't like him much, makes Hogwarts too open, my father thinks it should be a bit more selective-," Meissa was interrupted by Draco.
"He's a twat," said Draco.
"Well I guess so, something like that," she said.
Harry shook his head in agreement.
"Also, as for Hagrid, he's a bit dim you know, Dumbledore just keeps him around to be nice, I heard he was expelled from Hogwarts back in the day. He's not even allowed to do Magic at all," said Meissa.
Harry remembered Hagrid lighting a fire with a pink umbrella but decided to keep that to himself.
Harry then inquired about some of the other teachers though Draco's descriptions and opinions more often than not drifted wildly from Meissa's. Harry could tell that neither of them knew as much about Hogwarts as they thought, nonetheless he listened intently, anything magical was novel and interesting to him, even if it was sometimes a bit far fetched. They talked for so long that now the sky was getting properly dark, and only a handful of purple and orange wisps could be seen hugging the highland ridges passing outside the windows, the last of daylight. The members of the cabin slowly made their way to the toilet car to change into their robes. As soon as the sun had dipped down low enough all the other students on the train had come up with the same idea and the car was full of people, the older students pushed and shoved their way to the front. It was apparent to everyone now that the train was nearly to Hogwarts and it was a miracle that Harry was able to get dressed and ready by the time the train had finished slowing down.
They pulled into the station of a small Scottish village and in the plumes of steam being let out Harry and the other members of the compartment made their exit. They waited on the platform for a few minutes, slightly confused, when finally a big bellowing voice could be heard.
"First year's this way," it shouted.
Harry recognized it as Hagrid. They followed him and the large lantern he was holding down to the shore of a lake where some small boats were docked. Harry shared a boat with the two Malfoys and the two large boys, friends of Draco named Crabbe and Goyle. They did most of the rowing while Draco shouted commands, Meissa didn't seem fond of them and instead looked across the lake at the castle in view. A thousand shimmering windows and dozens of towers and turrets. It was even better then Windsor Castle, though most of what he remembered from visiting there was being chased around by Dudley, after he'd taken a mace out of an armour suit's hands.
They were all shivering by the time they got to the small boathouse on the opposite shore. It had been cold on the lake.
"It's rather cold isn't it?" asked Meissa.
"Terribly yea," replied Harry and he looked at his scarf.
"I suppose I don't need this too badly though," he said and he handed it to her.
Meissa wrapped it around her neck and gave him a warm smile, Harry smiled back but was quite cold the whole way up to the monumental castle doors. It was a relief when they finally made it inside.