The five of them boarded a boat, Harry doing most of the rowing.
George unhesitantly cranked up the volume on his stereo, blaring music for
the students in all the boats to hear.
"Here comes Johnnay heeerre again!" George sang with an encouraging smile. His bellowing and off-tune voice was just as loud and attention- grabbing as the music it overlapped.
"I don't know you people." Ron crossed his arms and looked away, and then he noticed Harry was tapping his feet and mouthing along to the lyrics.
"Not YOU?"
"Even when I'm in ruddy Muggleville all I get to hear is Dudley's Limp Bizkit pizza rock crap," Harry said. "I`ll enjoy it while I can."
As soon as they got out of the boats, it became clear that the school was running late.
"Everybody on the train!" Snape commanded unceremoniously, strolling down the platform toward them. When he passed he whined, "Weasleys, Weasleys, turn down the Ziggy Pop."
"It's Iggy Pop," Fred said snootily, but only when Snape was yards away.
The massive crowd flooded onto the train. There were three different carts, and though one would expect the different houses to massively segregate, the rush to get good seats was so intense that randomly arranged smaller sub-cliques were formed in the compartments. The train technically allowed four people per compartment, but of course many students packed up to seven in one, and these instances were balanced out by couples or bookworm Hufflepuffs only allowing two to a booth.
The obvious three plus Fred and George piled into one, Hermione taking Harry's lap next to George, who was across from Fred, who was griping at Ron for taking the window seat. The boom box got the seat in between Ron and Fred.
Music became their main source of entertainment. The twins let Harry surf through the radio stations, and he found that they were mostly some kind of educational spoken word or chamber music, but found one station that seemed to be entirely Muggle music, and randomly played all kinds. He knew some songs, liked some songs, and hated some others. Eventually they played BBMak`s "Do You Believe In Magic" and Hermione cranked the volume while Harry gave her a cynical look.
.
A couple hours passed, during which time tables appeared in the compartments with lunch sitting on them, and after an hour's time dissapeared. Almost every group of children had found one peculiar way or another of occupying themselves.
A group of Hufflepuffs on the first train car were having some kind of political argument. "See, everyone knows that since the beginning of Hogwarts, Gryffindor has always been the strongest house. But in the past four years, the amount of students accepted into Slytherin each year has increased by almost seventy percent. This one theorist said that such a dramatic change has not been evident, or seemed possible, since the time when You-Know-Who was admitted at Hogwarts, and the power that Slytherin had then was later explained by the theory that a spell had been made to ensue some kind of contagious attraction to evil, and that some kids were admitted to that house because they were ill. And if they didn't brush off this virus..."
"Aw, that's rubbish. The sorting hat could always tell anything, wouldn't matter if you had some stupid 'virus', as you call it..."
Another student added, "But they do say he can't die. Even if the actual human form of who he was has been dead, there's that myth...The guy basically invented black magic, and that force completely overtook Voldemort so that he-"
"Bloody banshees, I can't believe you just said his name, Thorn. You might as well join those slithering perverts..."
Meanwhile, a group of Ravenclaw members were having a slightly more optimistic conversation.
"Dude, like...the world is sooo huge," a girl with a stick of incense used her hands to gesture vastness. "But, like...when there's a Hogwarts? It's even bigger."
"Woah," the boy next to her concurred.
The kid sitting across from her was strumming an acoustic guitar that had bright red eagle feathers hanging from the neck, and he was singing a slow, sporadic song with the lyrics based on verbal charm spells. He had long hair hanging in his face, and his girlfriend reached over and brushed it out of his eyes, and then licked his face. She giggled and fell off the seat.
"Hey, Caesar," the girl said, taking a drag of what she was smoking. She blew a smoke ring onto his foot and said, "This is some good shit."
The boy stopped playing. "It's a fucking cigarette, Gretch."
And a group that happened to consist of the majority of the Gryffindor Quidditch team plus Harry and his friends were playing hacky sack in an open space they'd found. (It looked as if two compartments had been removed, for whatever reason, leaving a spacious stretch of floor in the middle of the train car.)
"So, Fitch," a Keeper asked of the team captain, kicking the hacky sack at him. "Tell me: What's the difference between a Nimbus 2000 and a Nimbus 2001?"
"Well." Fitch served the sack to Ron, who missed it. "One has three zeroes and the other has two zeroes and a one. And, uh, one's black."
"That's it? Really?"
"Yeah. I thought about using a spell to make mine black, you know, just to spite Malfoy after he got one. But he'd probably figure it out and I'd look really stupid."
Then Ron accidentally served the hacky sack straight into Harry's eye.
"Ow!...Hermione? I broke my glasses!"
.
Shortly after that Harry`s glasses were repaired thanks to a flick of Hermione`s wand and their group was back in their compartment, stereo blasting without tire.
"Cause I`m the taxman!" sang a random student as he passed their compartment and heard the music. "Yeeah, I`m the taxmaaaan...."
Fred, sitting across from Harry, pointed at him. "Rock to the Hives do you, Harry?"
Harry looked down at his T-shirt. He had unbuttoned the plaid one so now it was viewable. "Oh. Yeah. This is just something I picked off from poking around clothing resale stores."
"Oh, the Weasleys know all about that, believe me," Fred laughed. "Ron`s a big Hives fan. Wants to be Howlin` Pelle `imself. I can at least say he screams just like him if you stick a spider down his shirt."
Harry laughed. "I like `em fine. I`m more of a Strokes man myself."
"Now that is some decent American muggle rock."
"As opposed to non-muggle rock?"
"Of course. George only listens to the non-muggly stuff."
"But this is your CD, George," Harry said, pointing to the stereo that was triumphantly playing the Beatles.
"You dumbass," Ron laughed. "You don't know about John?"
"Huh?"
"He was a wizard!"
Harry's mouth fell open. "You're jackin' my broom!"
"No, it's true. He's everybody's favorite Beatle among magic folk..."
"I was always more partial to Paul," Hermione interrupted. "He's cute."
This aroused a rolling of the eyes from most of the others in the room.
"Anyway, John Lennon was a wizard, but not necessarily a very good one," Hermione said. "He dropped out of magic school when he started writing songs. Can we really blame him?"
"Heck, no," Harry said. "Thank God he did join a band."
George laughed. "Listen to you, Potter. You`re an original bohemian. You belong in Ravenclaw, that you do."
"Shut up."
A couple hours later the entire train seemed to simmer down a little, and Harry and Hermione were cuddling together, lying and taking up an entire seat, both looking out the window at the outlining stretches of skyscrapers they could see miles away. Everyone else had dissapeared to different compartments for the moment.
"Isn't the city beautiful?" Hermione said. "I've never seen so many lights before."
"It's pretty," Harry admitted, "But it kinda reminds me of when my uncle took me into the city to buy shoes. See, all day I had to...well, never mind."
Then for the millionth time, Hermione said, "I really hate those people."
"You hate them more than me, hon. I used to fantasize about really bad things happening to them, actually, but after I went to Hogwarts I didn't care so much anymore."
In a subtle joking way she suggested, "You know, here's what I think you should do this summer: Beat up Dudley..."
Harry was already laughing.
"Seriously: beat up Dudley, turn that aunt and uncle into something terrible, tie them to their expensive furniture and apply peanut butter to the roof of their mouths with a big glass of milk sitting just out of reach..."
Harry laughed harder and nuzzled her shoulder.
"And then get out of there and hitchhike to my flat."
Harry stopped laughing. "Hermione..."
"I'm only in Liverpool, Harry - the Knight Bus or something could get you there if you really needed it. I hate summer, I hate always knowing that we are both in the same world, but I can't even talk to you. We`re both in muggle society, we both know how to use a phone, but it can`t be as easy as just calling you."
"Mm...," he squeezed her and closed his eyes, ready to fall asleep. "After next year I'll be out of there. If I'm eighteen I can live alone, I promise I will."
"And you'll visit me?"
"I will visit you."
"Wait...if you could live without your family, couldn't you just...live here?"
"Then we wouldn't be in the same world anymore, would we? Besides, I can be comfortable in the muggle world. I`m familiar with things there."
Neville Longbottom suddenly walked into the compartment and sat down across from them, bobbing his head to a pair of headphones. He waved at them.
"Hi...Neville..." Harry greeted in an unsure tone.
"I found out we're roomed together," Neville commented, taking his headset off.
"Oh, the lists are out?" Hermione untangled herself from Harry and stood to go ask for one. "I didn't even request to be with anyone..." She left into the hall.
"Anyway, do you mind if I take a shower like, at four in the morning?" Neville asked with a very slow, off-the-point way of speaking that emphasized all the wrong places. Harry wondered if he'd had some pot. "Cause, I have this...quirk. I can't wake up any later than that."
He nodded. "That's...yeah. Uh, that's fine."
"Thanks, Harry," he said. "I'll go ask Ron now..."
"No...Neville...I'm sure it's okay."
"Oh. Okay." And he left.
Hermione came back in and tapped him on the head with a rolled-up flyer. "We're almost there, wake up."
"I'm up."
About a half-hour later they got off the train, and the students and teachers had to walk a few blocks before they reached the hotel. The students walked a little slowly, so taken by their surroundings that they felt the need to look in every direction at once.
"Blimey," George breathed in awe. "It`s so...modern."
"And everything is run by magic," Hermione said. "No power lines. No outlets and chords. It`s like....it`s....."
"Magic," Harry finished simply.
"Allright, you are to stick with your assigned roommates as soon as we enter the hotel," Professor Alchore, the Muggle Studies teacher, announced once they had arrived, while standing on a stack of luggage. "Behave yourselves. Especially you students of a certain teen age. I know you won`t listen to me, but I had to say something. See Snape in the morning. He knows a great potion for hangovers."
"No need for that - Look!" Cynthia Warbeck was pointing to a line of machines right by the hotel entrance. "They`re vending machines for potions."
Harry smiled and said to Hermione, "Next time you try to tell me that something`ll be cool, I might listen."
Alchore`s announcement somehow translated to meeting bunkmates *outside* of their assigned room, which seemed just as effective. Ron and Harry got there first, and soon Neville came, followed by Walter Birdman, a.k.a. Walt the Pot Smoker.
"Oh, no...," was all Ron said.
"Well," said Harry optimistically. "This should be interesting."
"Here comes Johnnay heeerre again!" George sang with an encouraging smile. His bellowing and off-tune voice was just as loud and attention- grabbing as the music it overlapped.
"I don't know you people." Ron crossed his arms and looked away, and then he noticed Harry was tapping his feet and mouthing along to the lyrics.
"Not YOU?"
"Even when I'm in ruddy Muggleville all I get to hear is Dudley's Limp Bizkit pizza rock crap," Harry said. "I`ll enjoy it while I can."
As soon as they got out of the boats, it became clear that the school was running late.
"Everybody on the train!" Snape commanded unceremoniously, strolling down the platform toward them. When he passed he whined, "Weasleys, Weasleys, turn down the Ziggy Pop."
"It's Iggy Pop," Fred said snootily, but only when Snape was yards away.
The massive crowd flooded onto the train. There were three different carts, and though one would expect the different houses to massively segregate, the rush to get good seats was so intense that randomly arranged smaller sub-cliques were formed in the compartments. The train technically allowed four people per compartment, but of course many students packed up to seven in one, and these instances were balanced out by couples or bookworm Hufflepuffs only allowing two to a booth.
The obvious three plus Fred and George piled into one, Hermione taking Harry's lap next to George, who was across from Fred, who was griping at Ron for taking the window seat. The boom box got the seat in between Ron and Fred.
Music became their main source of entertainment. The twins let Harry surf through the radio stations, and he found that they were mostly some kind of educational spoken word or chamber music, but found one station that seemed to be entirely Muggle music, and randomly played all kinds. He knew some songs, liked some songs, and hated some others. Eventually they played BBMak`s "Do You Believe In Magic" and Hermione cranked the volume while Harry gave her a cynical look.
.
A couple hours passed, during which time tables appeared in the compartments with lunch sitting on them, and after an hour's time dissapeared. Almost every group of children had found one peculiar way or another of occupying themselves.
A group of Hufflepuffs on the first train car were having some kind of political argument. "See, everyone knows that since the beginning of Hogwarts, Gryffindor has always been the strongest house. But in the past four years, the amount of students accepted into Slytherin each year has increased by almost seventy percent. This one theorist said that such a dramatic change has not been evident, or seemed possible, since the time when You-Know-Who was admitted at Hogwarts, and the power that Slytherin had then was later explained by the theory that a spell had been made to ensue some kind of contagious attraction to evil, and that some kids were admitted to that house because they were ill. And if they didn't brush off this virus..."
"Aw, that's rubbish. The sorting hat could always tell anything, wouldn't matter if you had some stupid 'virus', as you call it..."
Another student added, "But they do say he can't die. Even if the actual human form of who he was has been dead, there's that myth...The guy basically invented black magic, and that force completely overtook Voldemort so that he-"
"Bloody banshees, I can't believe you just said his name, Thorn. You might as well join those slithering perverts..."
Meanwhile, a group of Ravenclaw members were having a slightly more optimistic conversation.
"Dude, like...the world is sooo huge," a girl with a stick of incense used her hands to gesture vastness. "But, like...when there's a Hogwarts? It's even bigger."
"Woah," the boy next to her concurred.
The kid sitting across from her was strumming an acoustic guitar that had bright red eagle feathers hanging from the neck, and he was singing a slow, sporadic song with the lyrics based on verbal charm spells. He had long hair hanging in his face, and his girlfriend reached over and brushed it out of his eyes, and then licked his face. She giggled and fell off the seat.
"Hey, Caesar," the girl said, taking a drag of what she was smoking. She blew a smoke ring onto his foot and said, "This is some good shit."
The boy stopped playing. "It's a fucking cigarette, Gretch."
And a group that happened to consist of the majority of the Gryffindor Quidditch team plus Harry and his friends were playing hacky sack in an open space they'd found. (It looked as if two compartments had been removed, for whatever reason, leaving a spacious stretch of floor in the middle of the train car.)
"So, Fitch," a Keeper asked of the team captain, kicking the hacky sack at him. "Tell me: What's the difference between a Nimbus 2000 and a Nimbus 2001?"
"Well." Fitch served the sack to Ron, who missed it. "One has three zeroes and the other has two zeroes and a one. And, uh, one's black."
"That's it? Really?"
"Yeah. I thought about using a spell to make mine black, you know, just to spite Malfoy after he got one. But he'd probably figure it out and I'd look really stupid."
Then Ron accidentally served the hacky sack straight into Harry's eye.
"Ow!...Hermione? I broke my glasses!"
.
Shortly after that Harry`s glasses were repaired thanks to a flick of Hermione`s wand and their group was back in their compartment, stereo blasting without tire.
"Cause I`m the taxman!" sang a random student as he passed their compartment and heard the music. "Yeeah, I`m the taxmaaaan...."
Fred, sitting across from Harry, pointed at him. "Rock to the Hives do you, Harry?"
Harry looked down at his T-shirt. He had unbuttoned the plaid one so now it was viewable. "Oh. Yeah. This is just something I picked off from poking around clothing resale stores."
"Oh, the Weasleys know all about that, believe me," Fred laughed. "Ron`s a big Hives fan. Wants to be Howlin` Pelle `imself. I can at least say he screams just like him if you stick a spider down his shirt."
Harry laughed. "I like `em fine. I`m more of a Strokes man myself."
"Now that is some decent American muggle rock."
"As opposed to non-muggle rock?"
"Of course. George only listens to the non-muggly stuff."
"But this is your CD, George," Harry said, pointing to the stereo that was triumphantly playing the Beatles.
"You dumbass," Ron laughed. "You don't know about John?"
"Huh?"
"He was a wizard!"
Harry's mouth fell open. "You're jackin' my broom!"
"No, it's true. He's everybody's favorite Beatle among magic folk..."
"I was always more partial to Paul," Hermione interrupted. "He's cute."
This aroused a rolling of the eyes from most of the others in the room.
"Anyway, John Lennon was a wizard, but not necessarily a very good one," Hermione said. "He dropped out of magic school when he started writing songs. Can we really blame him?"
"Heck, no," Harry said. "Thank God he did join a band."
George laughed. "Listen to you, Potter. You`re an original bohemian. You belong in Ravenclaw, that you do."
"Shut up."
A couple hours later the entire train seemed to simmer down a little, and Harry and Hermione were cuddling together, lying and taking up an entire seat, both looking out the window at the outlining stretches of skyscrapers they could see miles away. Everyone else had dissapeared to different compartments for the moment.
"Isn't the city beautiful?" Hermione said. "I've never seen so many lights before."
"It's pretty," Harry admitted, "But it kinda reminds me of when my uncle took me into the city to buy shoes. See, all day I had to...well, never mind."
Then for the millionth time, Hermione said, "I really hate those people."
"You hate them more than me, hon. I used to fantasize about really bad things happening to them, actually, but after I went to Hogwarts I didn't care so much anymore."
In a subtle joking way she suggested, "You know, here's what I think you should do this summer: Beat up Dudley..."
Harry was already laughing.
"Seriously: beat up Dudley, turn that aunt and uncle into something terrible, tie them to their expensive furniture and apply peanut butter to the roof of their mouths with a big glass of milk sitting just out of reach..."
Harry laughed harder and nuzzled her shoulder.
"And then get out of there and hitchhike to my flat."
Harry stopped laughing. "Hermione..."
"I'm only in Liverpool, Harry - the Knight Bus or something could get you there if you really needed it. I hate summer, I hate always knowing that we are both in the same world, but I can't even talk to you. We`re both in muggle society, we both know how to use a phone, but it can`t be as easy as just calling you."
"Mm...," he squeezed her and closed his eyes, ready to fall asleep. "After next year I'll be out of there. If I'm eighteen I can live alone, I promise I will."
"And you'll visit me?"
"I will visit you."
"Wait...if you could live without your family, couldn't you just...live here?"
"Then we wouldn't be in the same world anymore, would we? Besides, I can be comfortable in the muggle world. I`m familiar with things there."
Neville Longbottom suddenly walked into the compartment and sat down across from them, bobbing his head to a pair of headphones. He waved at them.
"Hi...Neville..." Harry greeted in an unsure tone.
"I found out we're roomed together," Neville commented, taking his headset off.
"Oh, the lists are out?" Hermione untangled herself from Harry and stood to go ask for one. "I didn't even request to be with anyone..." She left into the hall.
"Anyway, do you mind if I take a shower like, at four in the morning?" Neville asked with a very slow, off-the-point way of speaking that emphasized all the wrong places. Harry wondered if he'd had some pot. "Cause, I have this...quirk. I can't wake up any later than that."
He nodded. "That's...yeah. Uh, that's fine."
"Thanks, Harry," he said. "I'll go ask Ron now..."
"No...Neville...I'm sure it's okay."
"Oh. Okay." And he left.
Hermione came back in and tapped him on the head with a rolled-up flyer. "We're almost there, wake up."
"I'm up."
About a half-hour later they got off the train, and the students and teachers had to walk a few blocks before they reached the hotel. The students walked a little slowly, so taken by their surroundings that they felt the need to look in every direction at once.
"Blimey," George breathed in awe. "It`s so...modern."
"And everything is run by magic," Hermione said. "No power lines. No outlets and chords. It`s like....it`s....."
"Magic," Harry finished simply.
"Allright, you are to stick with your assigned roommates as soon as we enter the hotel," Professor Alchore, the Muggle Studies teacher, announced once they had arrived, while standing on a stack of luggage. "Behave yourselves. Especially you students of a certain teen age. I know you won`t listen to me, but I had to say something. See Snape in the morning. He knows a great potion for hangovers."
"No need for that - Look!" Cynthia Warbeck was pointing to a line of machines right by the hotel entrance. "They`re vending machines for potions."
Harry smiled and said to Hermione, "Next time you try to tell me that something`ll be cool, I might listen."
Alchore`s announcement somehow translated to meeting bunkmates *outside* of their assigned room, which seemed just as effective. Ron and Harry got there first, and soon Neville came, followed by Walter Birdman, a.k.a. Walt the Pot Smoker.
"Oh, no...," was all Ron said.
"Well," said Harry optimistically. "This should be interesting."