~Chapter 8: Talking to friends and friends' enemies
"Did you see them?"
"Where?"
"Over there."
"Did you see their clothes?"
"Did you see their face?"
Lor, Dar, and Red calmly walk through the corridors with a face of amusement. Ignoring all the remarks and wearing a small smile on their faces they amble through the castle. The teachers found it very hard to teach that they as their students kept whispering about the Americans. The girls kept giggling about Red and Dar while the boys held dreamy faces.
The three sat in the back of classes to survey a each teacher. They left in the middle of a class and enter another. Students kept glancing towards the back trying to catch one of their eyes. Lor ignored everyone except her friends and the teachers. The boys sat boringly in each class, staring at the ceilings and out the windows.
"Let's go outside, Lor." Dar whispered. "It's so boring in here." Like Hermione, Lor is much-devoted student. Learning about each teacher's way of teaching can help immensely when it comes to dealing with them.
"Okay," she agreed. "After this." Red and Dar sighed. They looked bored out of their minds. Currently they were sitting in Snape's potions along with some 4th years.
"Miss Lor," he called suddenly.
"Yes?" she answered emotionlessly. He strolled to the back where they sat on stools and out of the way. Sneering into her face, he asked, "Why don't you and your friends leave? You are disrupting my class."
"Okay, bye." She replied simply. They got up and left. No fuss? Snape thought. Good.
"Miss Weasley, tell me what would you add next?"
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Outside on the castle grounds, Dar, Red, and Lor stroll off to find a place to rest and talk.
"I don't get it." Red said out loud.
"What?" Lor and Dar replied tiredly.
"What's so great about us that they have to keep staring at us? It's starting to get on my nerves." Soon they came to a tree near the lake and plop down on the spongy grass.
"Maybe it because we're Americans." Dar answered. He slouched against the trees and closed his eyes tiredly.
"Maybe they have never seen foreigners before." Lor replied earnestly. She lay on her stomach in the shade, playing with a blade of grass. "I think we are going to have a problem with some of them."
"Why do you say that?" Red asked. He stood near the edge of the lake skipping rocks across the surface. His arm swung back and flicked a rock. It skipped 4 times across the lake before sinking out of sight.
"We are different from them. And some people have problems dealing with people they don't know or don't understand. Remember Frankenstein? The village people tried to kill him because they are afraid of the unfamiliar."
"Lor," Dar said sighing, "They are not going to kill us."
"How do you know they won't?"
"Because they have a headmaster that likes us." Red said from the lake's shore.
"And lots of them already likes us. Only a few particularly dislike us." Dar added.
"And you can't have everybody like you. You know that's impossible." Red added as he came back from the shore and into the tree's welcoming shade.
"Yeah, but I can try." Lor retorted bitterly.
"What are you going to do?" Red asked accusingly.
"I'm," she said mercifully, "going to have a slumber party." Dar's eyes snapped open and Red held a face of pure fear.
"NO YOU'RE NOT!!" They yelled in unison.
"Of course I'm not." Lor replied in kidding manner. "I'll have it after I ask the Headmaster and probably not until Halloween. And I'll just invite girls."
"NO!!!" They wailed. Red buried his head in his hands as Dar began shaking violently.
"L-Lor please don't do this to us." Dar pleaded. He scrambled from the tree and to her side. "You don't know what affects this has on boys."
"Please we are begging you," Red begged. "Don't have your party until we are completely sane from the insanity of your last slumber party!!" Dar stared into the sky remembering the summer night at Cranely when Lor last held slumber party with only girls. He shuddered at the madness.
"Okay I won't," she said defiantly. The boys let out heavy sighs.
"But I will have one." Groaning, they turn to other thoughts.
"Promise us that we have at least 24 hours in advance." Dar asked with begging eyes.
"Yeah we need the time to get as far away as possible." Red put in.
"Oh, please." Lor replied as she rolled her eyes to the sky. On another thought she said aloud, "What do you think about the Headmaster?"
"What about him?" Red replied irritably.
"Don't you think he's a bit weird? I mean I know that the British are a bit on the weird side when it comes to treating people with equal respect, but I think he is expecting a miracle from us."
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, it seems like he expects a lot from us. And it's just weird that he completely understands everything. It's like he knows everything."
"Yeah so what if he does?" Dar said coldly.
"I think he's kinda cool." Red replied unexpectedly. "He's letting us do whatever and not have like someone follow us. He's giving us total freedom around the place."
"It's like he wants us to get in trouble except we won't because being new we don't know where everything is." Lor retorted. "So in a way we're excused from almost everything."
"Lor, just drop it." Dar replied. "Stop worrying about this guy. He of all people won't hurt us."
"Okay fine whatever," Lor said with a look of defeat on her face. A small breeze blew across their faces as the lounge in the shade. The tree was old and gnarly. Its leaves sway gently in the breeze. Above them, the castle loomed in a mystical way. Faintly a chimed was rung.
"Time for lunch." Red said as they got up and walked into the castle.
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The Great Hall began to fill with Hogwarts students. Many chattered about the Americans and some were wondering where they are going to eat. A couple of students bunch up in order to allow room for the Americans to sit next to them.
"Do you think they will sit here?"
"Is my hair okay?"
"Where are they?"
The double doors banged open. A hush silence fell as the Americans walked in. They looked unexpectedly at everyone and sighted Dumbledore at the Staff's table. They shuffled noiselessly to him and whispered something. He gestured towards the students sitting in the long tables. Immediately there was a scramble to make room for them to sit. Hesitantly the Americans turn around and looked out at the other students.
"You pick a place," Red whispered in Lor's ear. She nodded as she scanned the sea of faces until she recognized a red-haired boy.
"Come on guys," she motioned as she walked off the dais and towards the left side of the room. The right side of the Hall began to talk in a small angry voice. In the lead, she kept eyes on the familiar face until she was standing right next to him.
"What's your name?" She asked him with a small smile. The boy blushed.
"R-Ron." He answered nervously.
"Well Ron is it okay if my friends and I sat here?" She looked at the dark haired boy and brown haired girl sitting next to him. "Hey you guys were in that place this morning."
"Yeah," the dark haired boy answered. Lor sat between Ron and the brown haired girl as Dar wedge himself between the brown haired girl and a sandy haired boy. Red chose to sit next to the dark haired boy and Ron.
"So what are your guys names?" Dar asked curiously.
"I'm Hermione Granger." The brown haired girl answered with her hand out to Dar to shake and then Lor and Red.
"Dar."
"Lor."
"Red."
"Pleased to meet you," Hermione said to each of them.
"I'm Ron," Ron spoke shakily. "Ron Weasley."
"Hi," they said in unison.
"Harry Potter," Harry introduced himself to them. Dar and Red eyed him and then Lor with a perplexing look.
"Hi Harry," Lor said with a quiet voice. With a bolder voice she asked, "what's for lunch?" Before their eyes all the plates filled with steaming pasta and sauces of all kind. Breadsticks appeared every few places. There was angel hair, ravioli, lasagna, spirals, and all sorts of funny shape pasta. They piled a little of each kind of pasta before drowning it in a bath of tomato sauce.
"So what school do you go to?" Harry asked as they began the first process of digestion; chewing and swallowing.
"Cranely's School of Modern Magic and Technology." Lor answered. She then slurped a long strand of spaghetti and wiped her mouth with a golden napkin.
"Modern Magic and Technology?" Ron inquired puzzled.
"Yeah," Dar answered as he gulped a glass of what was once water but now Pepsi. "We believe in updating the system every 50 years so that if anyone of us ever get caught outside the magic world we can use the Muggle way to get home."
"Modern Magic," Lor began, "emphasizes that we don't do old school like you guys. Meaning we don't enjoy using wands. We prefer to use our fingers you know. Just zap as you go."
"But in a way it's harder," Red butted in. "You have to concentrate on what magical thing you want done. Let's say you want to change what you are eating." He pointed to the pasta. "You would hold out your finger and concentrate on the thought of changing pasta into pizza. When you have that thought you make it flow from your head to your finger and the wand strung in your finger will make it happen." All of a sudden a small streak of red and blue sparks came out of his pointer finger and fell onto his plate of pasta. Soon there was a full plate of pizza with all the works.
"See like that," he ended as the faces of amazement stared at the plate of pizza. He peeled a slice and took a bite.
"Mmmmm." He said with his mouth full. Lor and Dar just nodded with face that said they didn't really care.
"You have to be careful 'cause you might accidentally do it wrong and change into something else or get the wrong thing." Red finished.
"So explain the technology part," Hermione asked Lor.
"Well, technology includes voice activate passwords, entrance only gained by wearing a certain necklace that contains a special radioactive substance, computers, labs, rays, lasers, elevators going at high speeds, science, TV, radios, and other stuff. In other words we use technology to help us gain the information we need. There is even a special part on the Internet dedicated to the magic world."
"Really?" Ron said with amazement. In his head was thinking, what is the Internet?
"Yeah, you got to something dot com and you would have to go through a series of passwords and junk before you actually get there. Then you are free to do anything you a wizard is able to. Like sending stuff to other people and having it magically pop out of their screens or whatever."
"What does Cranely look like?" Harry asked from behind Red's head. He felt suspiciously left out. Not being near the conversation center, which was Lor, Ron and Hermione, he felt he had nothing to do with them. Red was too busy trying to eat everything in sight to talk to him. Harry knew that Malfoy and his crew would come swaggering over to talk to Lor, Red, and Dar eventually at some time.
"Cranely is much like this castle on the outside, but really hi-tech on the inside." Red answered. "Except maybe the entrance hall and the dungeons but everything else is more or less modern. Marble, flexi-glass, the works. Know what I mean?"
"Yeah," Harry answered slowly. His eyes flicked over to the Slytherins' table and sure enough Malfoy and his gang was striding over. "Hey Lor, Red, Dar."
"Hmm?" They answered together looking his way.
"Malfoy and his crew is coming this way and it looks like bad news."
"Oh." They said with a disregarding face and continue to eat while ignoring the fact that Malfoy was almost right behind them.
"You Americans better stay out of the wrong sort." Malfoy said almost down Dar's neck.
"Now why would you say that?" Lor asked readily. Her eyebrows were raised with attitude. Malfoy smug smile disappear quicker than a Firebolt zooming for a snitch two feet away. His face began to grow a rosy pink. Crabbe and Goyle were already shaking with sweat at Lor's face.
"Well, um…Potter's got no family and is a show off, and Weasley is so poor that he couldn't buy his way out of a paper bag. And Granger here is a stupid Mudblood." Immediately Ron made a movement to jump on Malfoy but Red held him back. The table fell quiet as they waited for what Lor has to say.
"She can handle this," Red whispered.
"What's your name, blondie?" She asked as she rose in her seat and turned to look in his face.
"Er, um… Draco Malfoy." His face grew red hot.
"Well Draco Malfoy, I hope you don't expect me to believe what you just said." Draco looked nervously around.
"Beside I never thought a guy like you would talk so badly about his friends." Draco could only splutter whatever his was going to say.
"They are not my friends," he managed to say. "I was only here to warn you."
"Thanks, but no thanks for the warning. When I see that Harry has a family and is not a show off, and Ron can pay his way out of a paper bag and Hermione is a smart witch, that is when I'll come knocking on your door asking what kind of person are you."
"Is that-that a threat?" Draco and his gang slowly backed away from Lor's freakishly calm face.
"Of course not," She answered with ease. "Expect me sometime this week okay?" She smiled sweetly at him and sat back down. Draco with fear in his eyes, walked quickly away.
"Are you really going to visit him?" Ron asked with wide eyes.
"Yeah," Lor answered. "If I ever say I was going to do something, then I will. Remember that. Besides he seems like a nice guy."
"What are you? Crazy?" Ron shouted.
"No of course not."
"But he's our enemy! You just can't waltz in enemy territory. That's just plain lunacy!"
"First, he's not my enemy but yours and two, you don't waltz, you glide into enemy territory." Behind her, Dar began chuckling. "And you don't shout your hatred for everyone to hear unless you want everyone to hear."
"Chill little man," Dar told Ron, "Lor will take care of it."
"Yeah, why did you think I held you back?" Red said.
"You were going to fight him?" Lor asked accusingly. Ron turned beet red and muttered an apology.
"Lor cut him some slack." Red said in Ron's defense.
"I didn't give him any slack."
"Whatever, Draco is his enemy-"
"And Harry's and Hermione's." Ron put in. Harry and Hermione glared at him. "Well it's true," Ron said quietly to them.
"Yeah whatever," Red said as he hushed Ron. "Draco may be their enemy doesn't mean you have to automatically defend everyone even if it means going against your friends."
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry I snapped." Lor said apologetically.
"Did you just say we're your friends?" Harry inquired with an astound face.
"Didn't I say that?" Red asked Dar and Lor. They both nodded. A huge grin came over Ron's face. Magically a bell rang somewhere summoning the students for class.
"Bye guys," Lor said Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they got up and gather their books.
"See ya later," Red added.
"Bye." Dar simply said to them. Harry, Ron and Hermione said their good-byes and went off to class.