Credits:
All the references to Harry Potter, the world of Hogwarts and the magical
community are J.K. Rowling's. All the rest
are mine.
Author's note: It's not fair for me that I write and you read and then not review! Come, on, people! yeah! You know, I'm starting to think about doing something a lot of people in the world do- no, you sicko's, it's not that…. What's it called again? Oh, yeah, sleep. Haven't had much practice at it, but hey! there's always a first time, isn't there? Please review!
Chapter 4
"Are you sure it's through the wall?" asked
Nirry, her eyebrows sharply raised. "What if I crash?"
They were at the barrier at King's Cross station, and Nirry
was having big doubts about the entrance to Platform Nine and
Three-Quarters. Just to show her it was fine, George and Fred had gone
through first, and then back out to where they were waiting.
"See?" they said in unison. "Come on,
we're gonna be late!" The clock on the wall said 10 minutes till
11:00, the time the train departed for Hogwarts. Hermione shook her head
exasperadly and took hold of Nirry's cart. "We're going, now!"
She pushed Nirry and her cart through the barrier.
"Wow," said Nirry in surprise, opening her eyes, "so it did
work. Sorry."
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley came through the wall with Ginny.
"Come here, give me a hug, Ron, Fred, George. I'll miss you all so
much! Promise me you'll write, and boys, I don't ever want to hear about
another incident like the one with Percy..."
The twins struggled to hold in their laughter. Nirry waited for the hugs
to finish, and, to her surprise, Mrs. Weasley turned to her after parting with
Harry.
"Now, good luck, dear. I hope you'll have a very
good year, and mind you keep an eye on Harry. I'm worried about
him." Mrs. Weasley smiled down at her, and Nirry had a faint memory
of being hugged by her own mom. Then it was gone and Harry yelled,
"Come on, Nirry! You'll be late!" The others were already
on the train. Harry had stuck his head out of the window from the last
compartment.
"Bye! Thank you, Mrs. Weasley!" Nirry
said hastily, grabbed her trunk, and lugged it onto the train in just in time,
for the train had just started moving. She started through the train, to
the back where she had seen Harry. She earned a few curious stares from
people on the train, but pointedly stared ahead as to ignore them. Just
as she was sliding the door open and Ron was saying, "Well, it's about
ti-", she felt a tap on her shoulder.
"So, it's the new show off, isn't it?" A
sneering voice stopped her in surprise, and she whirled around, startled.
"Malfoy, get out!" Harry had sprung out into
the corridor, wand raised. Nirry narrowed her eyes at the Malfoy
character, flanked as he was with his two bodyguards who were both grinning
evilly at Hermione and Ron. Nirry turned her attention to Malfoy, who was still
face to face with Harry, lips in a sneer and eyes filled with contempt.
Nirry's temper boiled over during the tense silence
between Harry and Malfoy. He'd
sneered at her. He didn't even
know her. No one would ever treat Nirry like that, and get away with
it. Certainly none of her friends would have acted like that.
She glared and turned ultra cold. "Malfoy… that is
your name, right?" Draco had narrowed his eyes at Harry, but still
nodded yes, breaking the look. "Please, can it." she
said, still in that tone of voice.
Now Draco's sneer was fixed on hers. "Oh, yeah,
and you're going to make me shut up, aren't you? Going to stick up for
your puny boyfriend?"
"I said, get out of my way." Nirry had gone
beyond cold. Now she was Arctic. At home, the only people who made
Nirry go this far were the animal torturers, the ones she saw yanking along
their dogs by the collar, or boys who dragged cats by their tails.
He was still there, infuriating smirk on his face. She
raised her hand. For a second, she thought she saw fear in his eyes, but
was replaced by cold indifference. Harry stood on the side of them, and
Ron and Hermione were coming slowly out of the door to join Harry in glaring at
Crabbe and Goyle, Malfoy's bodyguards. They were getting extremely
agitated and cracking their knuckles.
Nirry's eyes narrowed once again. Clenching her fist,
she raised it and swung it heavily around to meet Malfoy's nose, where he was
stopped in mid-sentence. "So, what are you going to do, just stand
around and wait for-"
He gasped
and blood started to flow out of his nose. "I swear... who do you
think you are, huh?" he finally said, trying to cover up his agony with
arrogance. Nirry glared at him, lips narrowed so tight they were a grim
line, and marched into the compartment.
A few minutes passed, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered
the room, slightly uncomfortable.
"Wow," said Ron, finally breaking the silence,
"how'd you learn to hit like that?" At this, Harry's face broke
out into a wide grin, and even Hermione's face was amused.
Now embarrassed, Nirry spoke into her hands. "Oh,
well, I don't know. I guess it's partly from swimming. I've got
muscles from that."
Harry looked at her strangely. "Didn't Hagrid say
you lived at a horse stables?"
Nirry shrank back from the memory in the barn.
"Yeah, but I only live there during the summers." Her mind took
on another track, thinking, instead of the man and the horses, her riding
career . "How will I get to ride when I'm going to be all summer
long at Hogwarts?"
"You wont be all summer long at Hogwarts, we get
vacations, didn't you know that?" asked Hermione in surprise. Nirry
shook her head.
"I'm going to be living at Hogwarts, didn't I tell you
that? Dumbledore adopted me." That earned her open-mouthed
stares from all her friends.
"Dumbledore adopted you? But, but,
he couldn't have!" Ron managed to stammer. Harry stared at
Nirry in disbelief.
"What?"
Hermione was the first to recover from the shock. She
closed her mouth and blinked rapidly. "Dumbledore adopted
you? Are you sure it was Dumbledore? Nirry, he's almost... well, way to
old to be a father!"
Nirry looked quizzically round at them. "Geez,
what's wrong with that? You guys okay?"
A clattering came in, making them all jump. It was the
witch who managed the food cart, and now she entered cheerfully, displaying
large amounts of unusual candy that Nirry had never ever seen before in her
life. However, her friends lit up immediately and their faces lost the
blank amazement of her announcement.
Moments later, Nirry was surrounded by magical food.
"Try these!" Ron thrust another bag of jelly beans at her.
"Thanks anyway, I've got some." said Nirry,
picking up a Chocolate Frog and unwrapping the foil. "Whoa!
What's this?" she exclaimed. Harry leaned over to see the
card.
"It's Dumbledore, your first card…like me…" he
paused. "You can start collecting. Oh, look! Here's that
Muggle Aztec god I was looking for, you don't mind, do you?"
Nirry looked at the card closely. Yes, it wasn't her
imagination, there actually was a card, and the picture of a man, with white
beard and twin twinkles in his eyes, was actually waving at her. Just
like her hallucinations. On a hunch, she spoke. "Hermione, do
you have words that sound something like, oh, I don't know, Windarbuim,
Lefasoia?"
Hermione looked up from the Cauldron Cakes she was sharing
with Ron. "Why, yes, there is, Wingardium Leviosa, that's a
charm for- wait a minute, how did you know that?"
Nirry told her friends of her imagined insanity.
"...and here I was, thinking I was insane, while all along there really
are words that sound funny like that."
She laughed now, in incredulity. Harry couldn't get
over the fact she was at the very least, equal to Cho Chang or even Fleur in
looks. Now he blurted out what he'd been thinking about, off and on,
about Nirry.
"Hey, Nirry, how'd you get your name?"
Nirry laughed. "Well, my real name's Rennee, but
I couldn't pronounce that when I was little, so I switched it around and called
myself Nirry. My mom just went along with that."
"What happened to your mom?" asked Ron,
obviously uncomfortable for asking but eager to know the answer.
Nirry turned quiet. "I don't know. She left
when I was five, and my dad... well, I don't even now my dad. Mom had an affair
or something and she divorced her real husband when she had me. My dad
left the day after he met my mom."
There was an awkward silence. It was Nirry herself who
broke it. "Well," she said, forcing a smile, "are we
almost there yet?"
They all looked out the windows and realized they were
coming in to the dark forests of the woods near Hogwarts. They soon came
to a stop, and Nirry got her first glance at the magnificent castle that was
Hogwarts.
"Oh, wow." she said, obviously
impressed. "This is Hogwarts?" Her friends grinned.
They had to drag her from the window to get to a carriage, which would take
them up to the school. Then suddenly, Nirry paled. Harry caught her
sudden tenseness and gave her a smile, which caused to ease the knot of tension
a bit. She had no idea what she would be facing. Oh, I hope
it'll be okay, she thought nervously. The carriage began to move
toward the castles' gates.