Harry Potter and the Hermetic Arts
Chapter 11: Hogwarts Bound
The last day of August had been a hectic one for Harry; a Saturday, he had taken a train to London once more, visiting Diagon Alley one final time before the school year started while incognito in order to purchase a second snowy owl that could have been the twin of the one Hagrid had purchased for him, which he then took back to Bourne's Comics and Games and left in Jason's care so his friends at the hobby shop would have a way to contact him while he was away at boarding school; he had also taken the opportunity to name the owls Leia and Luke in tribute to one of his favorite series of movies.
After that, he had visited Tesco again, this time in the company of Romy, filling a shopping trolley with all kinds of nonperishable foods—beef jerky, boxed pasta, canned beans, dried fruit, energy bars, peanut butter, ramen noodles and water in bottles—until it was nearly overflowing, then filled a second trolley with sacks of fresh fruits, large hunks of various cheeses and products from the meat department, being bringing it to the cashier and paying for his purchases in crisp fifty pound notes. He also purchased several tubs of ice cream in various flavors, a set of kitchen knives, a cutting board, a butane-fueled camp stove with several cans of fuel and a few pots and pans. The fruits, cheeses and meat went into the ice boxes he had made, while the rest were sorted onto shelves in the main pocket of his haversack, which was fast becoming a combination between a library and a disaster bunker. In a way, preparing to go to boarding school was like running away from home.
He left the money he had left after making his final purchases for the summer minus a few hundred pounds in the care of Ethan, trusting the economics professor to invest his money carefully in exchange for a commission that he had to insist the professor take.
That night, the regulars had gathered at Bourne's Comics and Games for the last movie night before Harry went away to Hogwarts; to celebrate the momentous event, the theme of the evening was school, and thus, the regulars found themselves marathoning The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Three O'Clock High and Pump Up the Volume amidst shared laughter, groans and pizza.
It was a fine way to spend the last evening before shipping off to boarding school.
~ooOoo~
The regulars had wanted to see Harry off to Hogwarts, but Harry had no desire to attract unnecessary attention to himself or for long, teary goodbyes, and thus awoke early to complete his daily exercise regimen and pack the last of his belongings, leaving the payments for bed and board along with a note explaining his early departure and thanking his hosts at the reception of The Footman before he let himself out inn he had slept in the last month.
Jason was waiting for him at the kerb, leaning on the roof of a sleek black sports coupe with his arms crossed, fingers tapping against the sleeve of his leather jacket. Seeing the boy, he gestured for him get in the car before getting in himself and starting the engine.
Harry let himself into the car, plopping down into the passenger-side seat and buckling the seatbelt over himself. "Was I that obvious?" he asked.
"Maybe, 'Squeak," said Jason. "But that's who you are."
"What gave it away?"
"You always answered evasively when asked which train station you needed to go to."
"What should I have done?"
"Lied with complete confidence."
"So, where are we going?"
"King's Cross Station. That is where you're boarding the train, isn't it?"
"I never mentioned it."
"Romy did, though, when she read your ticket out loud."
"Do you remember everything?"
"Only the important things."
"You're going to have to teach me that trick one of these days."
"Maybe when you get back from school."
A beat followed. Then, something occurred to Harry.
"What about the others?"
"What about them?"
"Won't they be livid I left without saying goodbye? And even more so when they find out you helped me do it?"
"As a man, there will be times you have to decide between doing something that will make other people happy and doing something you can live with for the rest of your life."
"So you couldn't live with saying goodbye to me with everybody else?"
"I couldn't live with myself if I didn't give you something before you went to boarding school. Check inside the glove box."
Harry pulled open the compartment, then recoiled as if bitten. "You want me to have a gun?
"What? No!" said Jason, as the car pulled up to a stop light. Leaning over, he pulled a small object from the glove box before closing it, dropping the item into the boy's lap. "This."
Harry closely examined what the hobby shop proprietor had dropped in his lap, turning the handle-shaped mass over carefully in his hands. Finding the button on the side, he held it up to the light and cautiously pressed it, and almost instantly, a sharp blade flipped out.
Cautiously, the boy folded the blade back into the handle. "Is this even legal for me to have?"
"Not particularly, but a boy your age shouldn't be without a knife."
"I have an entire set of kitchen knives."
"They're not knives you can easily carry around."
"That's fair. So, why do you have a gun?"
"I would love to tell you, but then, of course, I'd have to kill you."
"The Hounds of Baskervilles? Really?"
"What can I say? The classics never die."
Harry chuckled. "Seriously, though."
"No, seriously."
~ooOoo~
The rest of the car ride had been filled with ultimately meaningless conversation. Harry had tried to use to opportunity to dig deeper into Jason's past, something he knew little about, but he made little headway; the few concrete answers he did get were quickly contradicted by an another answer Jason would give him, making the boy wonder just how much he really knew the man who owned the hobby shop.
Now they were at King's Cross railway station, just outside the barrier through which Harry would need to pass to get to the train to his boarding school.
"Listen, before you go, a few things," said Jason, grasping the boy by the shoulders and looking him dead in the eyes.
"People are stupid, so don't ever care what other people think about you.
"You're famous, 'Squeak, so people, even famous people, are going to want things from you. Find out what they want. Figure out what it'll cost you and what they're willing to give up for it, then decide whether it's worth it or not.
"And most importantly, don't let people stop you from doing what you have to do, because they will try and stop you, and if you let them, they will succeed, The only person who is going to be looking out for you while you're away is yourself, because we're not going to be there with you."
"Thanks for the rousing speech," said Harry, as Jason released his shoulders. "I should go."
"I'll be seeing you."
"Likewise, chummer."
~ooOoo~
Three hours early for the eleven o'clock train, Harry found himself the only person already at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters and easily secured a compartment in the passenger car furthest from the engine. Sitting down with his back to the wall, facing away from the window to his right, he put on a pair of fit-over sunglasses over his round-framed spectacles and pulled his ball cap down hard over his forehead before putting the earphones from his Discman into his ears and pulling up the hood of his zip-up jumper over his hat. Quickly flipping through his binder of compact discs, he selected Incredible Bongo Band's Bongo Rock album and put it into the music player, quickly thumbing it on and reaching into his bag to pull out a book, a notepad and a pen to take notes as he read.
So engrossed he was with his reading and note-taking that he didn't notice the appearance of the bushy-haired brunette until she was knocking on the compartment door. Looking up from his reading at the sound, he nodded at Hermione, who was shyly peering into the compartment, pulling the earphone from his left ear. "Come in, Hermione," he said as he checked his watch. "You're two hours early."
"I thought it might be you," said the girl, bounding eagerly into the compartment and stowing her trunk under one of the seats. "Only you would go out of your way to dress like… I never asked, what should I use instead of 'muggle'?"
"'Normal'," said the boy, having already gone back to his book. "The Ministry estimates there to be fifty thousand magical individuals in all of the United Kingdom; London alone had a population six-point-seven million in eighty-eight and all of England had a population of more than forty-seven million last year. That means the magical population of the United Kingdom would make up about a tenth of a percent of the population of just England; that's a very minuscule segment of the population, enough to deem the rest of the population as normal, rather than exceptional."
"But isn't that discriminatory towards people with magic?" asked Hermione, having taken a seat.
"We're not calling them 'abnormal', though," Harry said. "In fact, by calling them 'magicals', we're actually calling them exceptional, and in a way with positive connotations."
Hermione considered what Harry had said for a moment, then nodded. "Well, you're the only person who would go this far out of his way to dress like a normal person."
"Hey, I've got to hide who I am if I don't want to get swarmed," said the boy with a smile before slipping into a lazy drawl. "'Memba, Ah'm Hunter Whiplash of the Louisiana Whiplashes, studyin' at Hawgwarts wahl mama is servin' as a diplomaht to the Ministry."
"That accent is still so exaggerated," said Hermione with a giggle. "What are you listening to?"
"The Incredible Bongo Band," said Harry, offering the brunette the free earphone after wiping it off with the hem of his jumper.
Hermione took the offered listening device hesitantly and placed it in her ear, listening intently, but quickly found her head nodding in time with rhythm of the drums. "It's catchy," she admitted, before handing the earphone back.
Harry politely turned off his music and pulled out the remaining earphone, depositing it into a pouch hanging from a hook clipped onto the lip of his haversack; he had acquired a good number of them for hanging certain things on so he would not need to go into the haversack proper to retrieve items he anticipated he might often need.
"Do you know what house you'll be in?" Hermione asked.
"Do we get a choice?" asked Harry.
"I don't think so."
"Then what does it matter?"
"Well, I used to think Gryffindor sounded best—Dumbledore was in it, after all—but now I've had a chance to think about it more, Ravenclaw may actually fit my life goals better."
"You're very hard-working, though," said Harry. "Are you sure you're not a Hufflepuff?"
"I think I value learning more."
"Who am I to argue with you?"
~ooOoo~
There was a knock on the compartment door, and Harry waved in the chubby boy who looked as if he was on the verge of tears.
"Sorry, have you seen a toad at all?" asked the newcomer.
"Come again?" drawled Harry, leaning back in his seat.
"I lost mine," the boy explained. "I don't know why he keeps disappearing!"
"Mebbe he ain't lahk wahteva you've bin keepin' him in?"
At that, the chubby boy sniffled, a fat tear rolling down one of his cheeks.
"We could help you look for him," Hermione helpfully volunteered.
"List'n 'ere bahdy," said Harry, realizing things were about to escalate into a situation he didn't want to be apart of, having no interesting hunting for an amphibian in a packed train. "'Ave ya e'r read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency?"
"I'm sorry?" asked the boy, confused.
"It's a novel 'bout a detective who solves cases by lettin' Fate do 'er thang," Harry clarified.
"I don't understand."
"If he was meant to be yers, he'll come back to ya," explained Harry. "Elsewise, he was never yers a'tall, and tha's why he keeps runnin' away."
The newcomer left the compartment contemplating answer with a puzzled look on his face.
"We could have helped him!" she remarked, clearly displeased at how her companion in the compartment had handled the situation.
"The toad keeps escaping," Harry answered calmly. "Even if we were to help him and find him, chances are, he'll just escape again, and then he'll come back asking for more help. Do you want to have to spend your time helping him find his toad whenever he escapes?"
"Still!"
"That bloke looks really high-strung," said Harry. "I just told him, 'Que será, será' and took some stress out of his life."
Hermione started to say something, but the compartment doors slid open, and a pale boy with slicked-back peroxide blonde hair barged in, flanked by two large boys who looked like they had made to smell white vinegar straight from the jug.
"They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's going to Hogwarts this year. Is he here?"
"Naw, chummer," drawled Harry lazily. "Ah am Hunter Whiplash, of the Louisiana Whiplashes, an' this be mah local liaison, Miz Wells."
The towheaded boy looked taken aback at the unexpected meeting. "Malfoy, Draco Malfoy," he said tensely with a slight bow before indicating his associates. "Crabbe and Goyle."
Studying Hermione for a moment, Draco Malfoy wrinkled his nose is distaste. "You'll soon find some wizarding families are much better than others, Whiplash. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."
Harry gave the boy with the slicked-back hair a scrutinizing look. "Ah'm sorry, are ya hearin' ya'self?" he asked.
"Pardon me?"
"Ya speech, it's sumthin' straight outtava movie," laughed Harry, barely able to retain control of his drawl. "Miz Wells, does he nawt sound lahk a vill'in ya maight see ina movie."
"He really does, sir," agreed Hermione, happy to play the part Harry had improvised for her.
Draco stood confused for a moment, not understanding what was happening. Then, his face flushed in anger, and he snarled, "When father hears about this!" while storming off, his muscle on his heels.
"That went rather well, I'd like to think," said Harry as he slid the compartment closed.
"It's going to come back and haunt you," Hermione warned. "I read about the Malfoys; they are very wealthy and very well-connected."
Harry shrugged. It wasn't something he was particularly interested in arguing over, and besides, it was starting to grow dark outside.
"We should get changed," he said as he doffed his hat and lowered his hood, retrieving a robe he had hung from one of the hooks and pulling it on over his streetwear before putting the hat back on.
"Would you mind terribly waiting outside while I changed?" asked Hermione.
"It's not like I haven't seen more and better," Harry said.
"Excuse me?"
"Don't tell me you've never seen an 'eighteen' rated film."
"I have never!"
"In that case, I'll wait outside."
Author's Notes: Another transitional chapter, but now Harry's on his way to Hogwarts, so it's another little bit of calm before another little bit of storm.
A lot of Harry's musical tastes are going to be influenced by my own, and frankly, I love The Incredible Bongo Band; Bongo Rock is an all-time great album, and Apache" and "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" are especially classic breakbeats. The rest of Harry's not insubstantial musical collection consists of other music from the 70s and 80s, with also a few releases from 1990 and the first half of 1991.
Once again, thanks to Shinshikaizer for the original treatment, and goalie12345 for copy-editing. Thanks also to those who have been leaving reviews.