'Harry Potter' © 1997 to Joanne Kathleen Rowling, all rights reserved. Infringement of copyright acknowledged.
Oderint, dum metuant
Chapter Four
Harry arrived at King's Cross station, paid the taxi driver, and made his way onto the platform. People stared at him as he entered, to be honest, he'd never really noticed the staring eyes, but carrying a trunk, and an owl in a cage must have looked pretty odd.
Putting the staring eyes out of his mind, he set off at a brisk trot towards the ticket barrier that would take him onto platform 93/4. This would probably be the final time he would do this, if felt strange, he could remember exactly seven years ago standing on platform 9 wondering how to get onto the platform. It seemed so normal now.
He arrived on the other side and was immediately greeted by a tall girl with a mass of brown bushy hair. "Harry!" She said as she almost crushed his ribs with a bear like hug.
Harry grinned and pulled himself free. "Hi, Hermione." She had all ready changed into her billowing black school robes; the 'head girl' badge gleamed in the sunlight. "Do you know who the head boy is?"
"No, at least not yet. Hopefully it won't be that idiot Draco Malfoy."
Harry shrugged, "he might not be so bad this year."
"Why?"
"Dunno, just a feeling I've got."
"HARRY! HERMIONE!" They both spun round at the sound of a distinctly familiar voice. A very tall young man, with a shock of ginger hair met them, bounded over. This was Harry's best friend Ron Weasley; he was the second youngest and the second last to be leaving Hogwarts. Ginny followed him through and then disappeared into the crowd to find her own friends.
"RON!" Both Harry and Hermione cried.
Harry grinned as Ron embraced each of them in turn. "How've you been! I'm sorry I couldn't write during the hols." He apologised, "but with what's been happening recently, dad wouldn't let me write in case I 'compromised security' or something like that."
Harry laughed, "it's okay Ron."
A gleam of light from Hermione's badge caught Ron's eye. "Hey look at you, head girl eh?"
"Yup!" Hemione puffed herself up proudly. "Any idea as to who the head boy is?"
"Nah, knowing our luck it will be that slimy git Malfoy."
"Yeah…" Harry looked at his feet. "How are Fred and George getting on?" Fred and George, Ron's older twin brothers, had originally been intending to set up a joke shop but after the events of last year they had abandoned the idea and had joined the fight against Voldemort.
"They seem fine, they've been sending regular owls back but obviously they can't say much about where they are or what's happening." Ron replied.
"What do they do?" Hermione asked curiously. She knew they were part of the Ministry of Magic defence squad, but as to what they actually did, she didn't know. Neither did Harry if he was honest.
"Fred's now a sergeant in the Front Line Defence unit, and George is assistant Chief Medical Officer for Reserves. Neither have seen much action yet as the FLD hasn't been called in yet, and George said he's only been treating colds at the moment."
"Harry! Ron! Hermione!" The looked round and saw Neville Longbottom, a forgetful, but very intelligent boy running towards them. "Guess what! Guess what!"
"What?" The three friends asked.
"Look," Neville straightened himself to his full height and there, pinned proudly on his chest was the head boy's badge.
"WELL DONE!" They chorused, and Hermione gave him a hug.
"Congratulations Neville!"
Neville grinned, "gran was dead proud when I got the letter and badge from Dumbledore, and," he lowered his voice, "I even got a note of congratulations from Snape!"
"Bet Dumbledore made him write it."
"Don't think so, Ron, the letter came about a week after I got my badge, it came in the Muggle post."
"Odd."
"Yeah."
"Come on, let's get some good seats on the train! We've got tons to tell each other and we don't want first years or anyone listening in!"
* * *
They pulled the trunks into an empty compartment towards the back of the train and sat down to talk.
"Have you heard from Padfoot?" Ron asked, aware that Neville was in the compartment.
"No, but no news is good news… I hope." Harry shrugged. "Remus is coming back to teach Defence though."
Ron grinned, "I bet Snape is going to be pleased."
Hermione looked thoughtfully out of the window; "last year I really got the impression that Snape wasn't after the job, and that he was just suspicious of the defence teachers."
"Eh?"
"You know when I got a detention with Snape last year? Well, he told me to sit in silence and not to disturb him as he had work to do. He was making some potions for the hospital wing. I'm telling you, I have never seen someone as skilled making potions before."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want the Defence job."
"The impression I got was that he loves potions and wouldn't give it up for the world, if he got the Defence job he would have to give it up, wouldn't he? I don't think Snape would do that."
"Lupin must be really brave to come back to teach, after Snape told everyone that he was a werewolf." Neville said, changing the conversation dramatically. It was no secret that Neville fear Snape, and the conversation was no doubt making him feel uncomfortable.
"Yeah, but he's the best Defence teacher Hogwarts has ever had and it must be hard for Dumbledore to find a good teacher." Harry replied.
"Hogwarts needs a good teacher, Defence is probably going to be the most important subject this year."
"Yeah."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, staring out of the window or staring at the floor. No one quite knew what to say, nearly everyone knew that Voldemort was getting stronger and that it was getting harder to defend against the curses.
"Well, well, well." The looked up at the sound of Draco Malfoy's posh, boring drawl. "If it isn't Potty, Weasel, and his two reject friends, mudblood and squib." Malfoy sneered down his nose at Neville, "how did you get to be head boy? Hogwarts is really going down hill."
"Shove off Malfoy." Harry snapped. "Face it, you weren't good enough to be the head boy."
Malfoy sneered and gave Harry a hateful look. "You'll pay for that, Potter, you wait, just you wait!" With that he left the compartment.