Harry Potter and the Fifth House
Christine Morgan
christine@sabledrake.com / http://www.christine-morgan.org


Author's Note: the characters of the Harry Potter novels are the property of their creator, J.K. Rowling, and are used here without her knowledge or permission. All other characters property of the author. 53,000 words. January, 2002. Adult situations, mild sexual content and violence.
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Chapter Five – Murder on the Hogwarts Express.

King's Cross Station was a buzzing hive of activity. Muggles rushed to and fro, nearly all of them in a hurry. Even so, some were startled from their own business to notice the admittedly unusual sight of four teenagers pushing carts piled with distinctly un-Mugglish luggage. None of their carts had cauldrons, or caged owls, or cloth-wrapped shapes that were still recognizably broomsticks.
Ginny's broomstick wasn't even wrapped. She wanted all the world to see the gleaming handle and sleek twigs, and the sharply-angled lettering like script made from lightning that read 'Skyblazer.'
Harry and Hermione had accompanied the Weasleys back to the Burrow for a final dinner the night before they were due to leave for school. Fred and George came over too, and as they were in the midst of regaling everyone with funny anecdotes from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes – their mother, Mrs. Weasley, listened to these with a firm scowl of disapproval pasted on her features – a large brown owl came swooping in through the kitchen window and dropped the Skyblazer squarely into Ginny's hands. A congratulatory note from the proprietor of the shop had been tied to the handle.
Nothing would do after that but for Harry to break out his Firebolt, and for the two of them to practice out back. They took turns dive-bombing the gnomes that infested the garden, scaring them into sight for Hermione's cat Crookshanks to chase. Ron's owl, Pigwidgeon, flapped and fluttered madly all about, wanting to play and trying to keep up with the zipping, darting broomsticks. Hedwig, Harry's snowy owl, ruffled up her feathers and hunched her head down into them, and her expression was as patiently exasperated as Hermione's own.
Ron was purple with indignation. When Harry had first gotten his Firebolt, a present from his godfather, Ron had been all over Harry to let him have a ride. But when Ginny offered him a turn on the Skyblazer, he sniffed and stalked inside, and slammed the back door so hard that it sent the gnomes bounding in new directions.
He kept Harry up until nearly midnight with his tossing and turning. Every so often, he'd rise up, punch his pillow, and snarl something under his breath. Harry didn't know what to say. He felt bad for Ron, shown up by his own sister, but it was nice to see Ginny so happy for a change. She'd had a bad first year at Hogwarts what with the Chamber of Secrets and all. He figured Ron would get over it.
They got up at the crack of dawn to leave for the train station. The Burrow seemed oddly empty now that Fred and George had a flat in town, upstairs of their joke shop. Mrs. Weasley still made more food than was needed at meals, and bundled up a big bag of leftovers for them to have for lunch. Nobody wanted to hurt her feelings by mentioning Harry's usual habit of treating them all to goodies from the snack trolley.
While they were waiting for their turn to surreptitiously approach the entrance to Platform 9 and ¾, Harry caught himself stealing glances at Hermione. She was dressed up for the trip in a skirt-and-sweater combination not all that different from ones he'd seen in years past, but it was really remarkable how shapely her legs were, and how fascinating the contours the sweater followed.
He had to consciously quit looking at Hermione, though, when out of the corner of his eye he caught Ginny looking at him with a suspicious furrow to her brow. Last thing he needed was for her to get all jealous … or worse, say something to Hermione. There had been that nasty mess with Rita Skeeter two years ago, and he'd sooner be eaten alive by scorpion-ants than go through that again.
Making a big show of deliberately looking elsewhere, Harry saw a cart with a trunk on it, and just barely sticking up over the top, the dark-blond head and frightened violet-blue eyes of Jeremy Upwood. He was rolling his cart aimlessly back and forth, staring first at the sign that read "Platform 9" and then the one that read "Platform 10," and was on the verge of tears.
"Jeremy!" he called. "Over here."
"I can't find where I'm supposed to be," Jeremy wailed. "The ticket says --"
"It's all right," Hermione assured him. "Just watch how we do it. Here, Ron, show him."
"It's easy-peasy," Ron said. "Watch."
He checked to be sure no Muggles were paying particular attention, then purposefully pushed his cart straight at the brick wall dividing Platforms 9 and 10. As he reached it, the wall wavered and he vanished through.
Jeremy's mouth was hanging open. Harry grinned. Things that were old-hat to him now were new again when he saw them through the eyes of someone else.
"See?" he said, as Ginny and then Hermione went. "Nothing to it. Here I go."
His vision blurred briefly as he passed through the illusory wall. Sometimes he wondered what would happen if a Muggle accidentally blundered against it. Would the wall know, and reject them? Or would the Muggle suddenly be standing where Harry was now, in front of the shining scarlet train?
The leading edge of a cart slammed into Harry's ankles and almost knocked him over. He jumped out of the way. Jeremy Upwood was there, gaping in amazement. Harry grinned at him and winked, then went to where Hermione was waving to him.
He lost track of Jeremy in the crush of people all loading their luggage and boarding the train. He spotted Ginny chatting with Dennis Creevey, younger brother of Harry's admirer, Colin. Since Dennis had also made the Quidditch team – Beater – at the end of last year's tryouts, Harry hoped Dennis would be more likely to get to know him as a person now, and less of an idol.
The Hogwarts Express pulled away from the platform with a bellowing hiss of steam, and picked up speed as it chugged out of the station. Harry settled into a compartment with Ron and Hermione. Ron was slumped by the window, wearing a sulky look, and Hermione already had her nose buried in The Standard Book of Spells: Grade 6. Harry couldn't help being intrigued by the way her skirt had hiked a little bit, exposing a pretty knee.
Someone rapped at the doorframe of their compartment. Neville Longbottom, whom Harry had had a hand in turning into a frog last Christmastime, stuck his head in. He'd recovered completely from that ordeal, and while Harry would never be on Neville's grandmother's list of favorite people, she had quit trying to have Neville removed from Gryffindor House.
Neville, of all of Harry's friends and classmates, had changed the least. He was still pudgy and round-faced, still with a perpetual worried look that said he knew things were going on around him and was trying his best to comprehend.
"Do you know who's come back to Hogwarts?" he asked breathlessly, plopping onto the seat beside Hermione. Harry had sat next to Ron, the better to keep stealing peeks at her knee.
"Professor Lupin?" Harry knew it was too much to hope for, but still …
Ron roused from his sulk. "The girls from Beauxbatons?"
Neville shook his head at both of them. "Fyren Grimme!"
Harry was blank, but Hermione looked up from her book and Ron rocked back in his seat.
"No!" said Ron. "You've got to be kidding."
"Who's Fyren Grimme?" Harry asked, mentally kicking himself for once more being behind the times and not knowing all he should about the wizarding world.
"Didn't Professor McGonagall mention him?" pondered Hermione. "I seem to remember something in one of her Transfigurations classes … oh! When we were first-years, and she was telling us why we wouldn't be allowed to practice any human Transfigurations until fifth or sixth."
"I heard about it from Fred," said Ron. "Fyren Grimme was a year behind them, but everyone knew he was going to be trouble. Slytherin, of course. Had Dark wizard written all over him."
"You say that about everyone from Slytherin," said Harry.
"Am I wrong?"
"Well …"
"Anyway," Neville went on breathlessly, "they finally got the spells undone on him and now he's back."
"Hang on," said Harry. "That was how many years ago? And it took this long? When you were a frog, Madame Pomfrey had you back to normal in just a few weeks."
"Don't remind me." Neville made a face, perhaps recalling what it had been like to live on a diet of pureed flies.
"I thought he was expelled," Hermione said. "That after he partway Transfigured himself, he went mad and bit some students."
"It only had half to do with Transfiguration," Neville said. "Gran told me that he was trying to turn himself into an Animagus, and something went wrong." He went somber. "And she told me that if I ever tried …"
"He did," said Ron. "Bite some people, I mean. That's what Fred said. I wouldn't think Dumbledore would be in a hurry to let him back. Are you sure, Neville?"
"I'm sure," said Neville. "I passed by a bunch of Slytherins on my way to the bathroom and Malfoy was introducing him around. He's enormous. Well, not like Hagrid, but big. Like Marcus Flint, Harry, do you remember him?"
"How could I forget?" said Harry dryly. Flint, the captain of the Slytherin team, had been a huge, mean bruiser who'd been held back and had to repeat a year, and taken out his anger about it on the Quidditch field as well as the bodies of the opposing team. Something struck him. "Say … is he about so tall, dark haired, shoulders like this?"
"That's him," confirmed Neville.
"That's the one we saw outside Flourish and Blotts," said Ron. "Blimey, he was a big one. Tough-looking, too. Fyren Grimme and Malfoy, talk about a match made in Hell. I bet Malfoy's already poisoned him against you, Harry. Better be on your toes."
"Always."
Just then, as if on some horrible cue, the lights snapped off, plunging them into darkness. Total darkness, for at that moment the train was in a long tunnel.
A spate of screams and startled outcries erupted. Harry bit back an alarmed exclamation of his own. The last time something like this had happened, dementors had been aboard.
He pulled out his wand, the words Expecto Patronus poised at his lips. First would be the chill, the awful bone-deep chill, like tendrils of icy mist wrapping stealthy fingers around his insides and slipping into his marrow. Then the voices, his mother's desperate pleas, his father's last stand, their dying shrieks.
"Lumos," said Hermione. A glow lit the end of her wand.
The frightened commotion elsewhere on the train died out as others did the same. Soon the eerie flicker of wandlights was visible all up and down the corridor. No dementors appeared. The train rushed from the tunnel and afternoon sunlight poured in through the windows.
"What was that all about?" asked Ron as the overhead lights came back on too.
He was answered by a fresh scream, this one full of horror and very close. Harry and Hermione were quickest to the door, Neville stumbling over Crookshanks and treading hard on Ron's foot so that the two of them didn't sort it out for several seconds.
The snacks trolley was angled crossways in the corridor. The witch who managed it was standing in the doorway of another compartment, staring down and now screaming through her fingers as she covered her face. A gaggle of students surrounded her, elbowing each other and going on tiptoe and trying to see in.
Harry shoved through them. A surprising number gave way the moment they saw him, his reputation acting like an invisible wedge clearing him a path. Hermione came along in his wake, and they reached the witch.
"What's the matter?" Harry touched her on the shoulder.
She turned to him, her face the color of curdled milk, and pointed.
The compartment at first glance looked empty, unoccupied. But there was something on the floor … a small and crumpled something …
"It's Jeremy!" gasped Hermione.
Harry squeezed past the witch in the doorway and dropped to his knees. Jeremy was face-down, one arm bent behind him so that the tiny hand was palm-up and curled as if begging for help.
"Jeremy? Jeremy, answer me."
The boy didn't move. He was still, so still, and it didn't look as though he were breathing. Harry looked up at Hermione. She was chewing her lip in anxiety and agitation. Behind her, the news was being passed from one onlooker to the next.
Carefully, gingerly, Harry took hold of Jeremy and rolled him onto his back. Jeremy was limp and cold. His eyes were wide, glassy, like jewels the color of twilight. Unseeing.
"I think …" He didn't want to say it because saying it might make it true.
Hermione said it for him. "He's dead, isn't he?"
A whispering gasp, like wind through tall grass, stirred through the crowd and ended all other talk. The witch moaned and covered her eyes.
"Someone's got to do something," Harry said.
But they were all looking at him, as if expecting him to do something. Even Hermione made a sort of 'well, hurry it up' gesture at him.
He still had his wand out, prepared as he'd been to deal with dementors. Now he pointed it at Jeremy and said, "Ennervate!"
Light streamed from the end, but pooled uselessly around the body. If he'd been sleeping, even if he'd been unconscious … Harry grimly shook his head at Hermione.
"He's not wounded. What …? Was it …?" she trailed off.
"I don't know." Harry sat back on his heels and ran a hand through his hair. He rubbed the faint roughness of his scar under his palm and wondered if he would have felt anything had someone gone and used the Avada Kadavra Curse on poor Jeremy. The only other times he'd been around when that spell had been cast, it was by Voldemort. But this wasn't the Dark Lord's handiwork. Harry surely would have felt that.
Bedlam was taking over the train, a near-panic spreading like wildfire among the students. Harry didn't know what to do. When the dementors had come, Professor Lupin had saved them and cured the worst of the residual chill with chocolate. The trolley was right there within arm's reach, but what good would chocolate do for Jeremy Upwood now?
Hermione had come to similar conclusions because she was holding a thick bar, turning it over and over in her hands. "Isn't there anything we can do?"
"You're the book-smart one," he said dismally. "Don't you have any ideas?" When she shook her head, he looked up at the witch. "What did you see?"
"All the lights went out," she said. "Someone came out of this compartment, pushed by me, nearly knocked me over."
"Who was it?" demanded Hermione.
"Couldn't see. Might've been a man."
Harry's initial impulse was to look around for Draco Malfoy, as he recalled the Slytherins' snide remarks about Mudbloods, Muggles, and stricter laws. But any suspicion aimed at Draco quickly vanished when Harry saw him, rumpled and trying to straighten out his clothes, emerging from the tiny, one-person lavatory with Pansy Parkinson behind him. Pansy, too, was rumpled, her make-up smudged.
Malfoy's face was flushed and indignant, as if all of this had interrupted something he really hadn't wanted interrupted, and he wasn't a good enough actor to be counterfeiting those emotions. Further, when word reached him that there'd apparently been a murder on board, his look of surprise was entirely genuine.
The conductor, a wizard in dark red robes with shoulderboards trimmed in gold braid, and buttons all down the front with raised images of the Hogwarts crest, pushed into the compartment. He blanched as he saw Jeremy, but gathered his wits and motioned people back, sliding the door shut. Harry saw Ron, craning to peer over the heads of the crowd, and then Ron was gone as the door thunked home.
The snack-trolley witch, inside with Harry and Hermione, collapsed onto the nearest seat and began sobbing with her head in her apron. The conductor knelt opposite Harry and, not without a grimace and a hesitation, grasped Jeremy's outflung wrist and felt for a pulse.
"Nothing," he said. "The lad's gone. What did this to him?"
"We don't know," Harry said, and explained how they'd been in their compartment when the lights went out, and then heard the witch's screams.
"Shouldn't we cover him?" Hermione took a folded blanket from one of the upper shelves and shook it out. Harry caught the other end and together they lowered it over Jeremy. He made such a small, pitiful lump.
Then, from beneath the blanket, Jeremy hitched in a shuddering breath. His hand, which hadn't been covered, spasmed as if grabbing at thin air.
Hermione voiced a thin shriek and sprang back. Her bottom hit Harry, and the backs of his knees hit the edge of the seat. He landed sitting, with Hermione in his lap and her skirt flipped most of the way up her thighs, but thoughts of her legs were as far as could be from his mind. He scrambled out from under her and whipped the blanket off of Jeremy.
Those violet-blue eyes shifted to look at him. Their color was clouded, twilight sky viewed through a thin veil of cloud, but alert. He sat up.
The snack-trolley witch pealed a scream like a siren and bolted for the door. She fought wildly with the conductor, tore free, yanked the door open, and burst out into the still-crowded hallway. Her sudden arrival set off new outbursts of panic.
"What's going on?" asked Jeremy Upwood in a faint, strained voice.
The conductor's mouth opened and closed, opened and closed.
"Jeremy?" asked Harry cautiously. "How do you feel?"
"I'm fine." But he didn't look fine; he looked pale and drawn, and there was a greyish underhue to his complexion that reminded Harry of something that he couldn't immediately place.
The boy got up, unsteadily. The doorway was a wall of faces and wide, astonished eyes. He uncomfortably averted his face from them.
The conductor reached out for Jeremy's wrist, perhaps meaning to assure himself that he'd simply felt in the wrong place for a pulse. Jeremy edged away, tucking his arms around himself.
"I'm fine, really I am," he insisted.
"I guess he must be," Hermione said, with doubt coloring her tone. "What do you think, Harry?"
"I think … we ought to just let it be," he said, telling her with a look that they'd talk more about it later.

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page copyright 2002 by Christine Morgan / christine@sabledrake.com