a/n: Another filler-ness…lalalala…. You (if there is indeed anyone reading this now) are probably quite tired of my ranting at the beginning of each chapter, yet I continue to do it. Why? Because I like ranting…and talking to myself. This chapter has a nice little taste of Snape in it, something I don't have very often because the "schoolboy antagonist" position is partly shared by Sennin, who needs a much bigger role, in my opinion. I like Sennin — he is one of the most well-rounded and believable characters in the Siandra stories and definitely my favorite.
T H E D U S T Y V O L U M E
M
olly reached groggily up to turn off her ringing alarm clock. It was about five o'clock in the morning, but they needed to be up by then if they were to catch the Hogwarts Express back for the Christmas Holidays.
"Siandra!" she whispered sharply across the room.
"Yurg," Siandra replied sleepily and slowly got out of bed. All the lights were off for the night so that the others could sleep, so it was rather hard for her to find the nice blue-lined robes that she had picked out for the day. Once she and Molly had both found their clothes and put them on, they sat down on the luggage they had packed the night before and waited.
They didn't have to wait long. After about four minutes a delegation of smartly dressed house-elves marched quietly into the dormitory and levitated Siandra and Molly's trunks behind Siandra and Molly as they marched out.
When they got out of the girls' dormitories and into the common room, they were joined by James and Sirius, who greeted them sleepily as they were marched quicker by their elves. They walked in silence until they reached the Great Hall where there were students pooling there from all of the house corridors.
Not having a clue what was going on or where to go from there, Molly and Siandra followed James and Sirius who almost lead them into the boys' bathroom and apparently did not know what they were doing either.
Siandra heard a horde of feet coming toward them, and signaled to Molly. Then the throng of people that was previously in the Great Hall stampeded by the bathrooms where Molly and Siandra and their house-elves joined them. James and Sirius burst out of the bathroom (they were now each carrying a bag of Filibuster's Fireworks) and joined the horde too.
The students seemed to be racing in the general direction of a lot of parked carriages and once they reached them, they started scrambling into them. Siandra and Molly along with their elves managed to cram themselves into the last one.
There was a little lurch and the carriage started to go — without any horses! Siandra supposed that they must be invisible. She looked up at the castle and noticed enviously that none of the lights were on in the Gryffindor dormitories yet. They must be still fast asleep in their nice warm beds. In fact, there were hardly any lights on except for one in the teachers' dormitory.
Both Siandra and Molly were starting to drift back into sleep when the carriage gave a sudden lurch and stopped by the Hogwarts Express Station.
One of the house-elves nervously gave each of them a small poke and said, "You is waking up now small mistresses! We is at the station!"
Molly gave a grunt and slowly woke up. Then she poked Siandra until she was awake too. As the train gave a loud whistle and the engine started to go, Siandra and Molly leaped out of the carriage and on to the train as it started to move. They quickly undid the latch on the door, jumped in, and then closed it tightly again.
After giving their ticket to the official looking ticket-taker at the front of the train, they started to move through the aisle looking for a compartment that wasn't mostly full, because most of them were. They each looked at one side and reported back at the small aisle leading to the conductor's room and the teacher's lounge.
They figured out that there were two compartments that they would like to go in. Siandra found one with a pair Ravenclaw girls occupying it talking about the properties of the Wingardium Leviosa spell. Molly found a compartment with only Sennin reading a book occupying it.
Molly thought that they should go join Sennin because he was only one person and was doing something quiet, but Siandra flat-out refused and they ended up going to ask the Ravenclaw girls if they could join their compartment.
Once the Ravenclaws had agreed to let Molly and Siandra join their compartment they heard a voice behind them.
"Is you staying here mistresses?"
Both Molly and Siandra jumped. They had totally forgotten about the house-elves following them around.
"Er, sure!" Molly replied looking at the Ravenclaws. They didn't seem like the type that would suddenly kick them out.
The house-elves levitated their luggage into the bin above the seat and with one final crack they disappeared.
"Did yours do that?" Siandra asked the Ravenclaw girls. They nodded quickly and then turned back to talking about levitating.
"Shall we go?" Molly asked Siandra, motioning their head toward the Ravenclaws. Siandra nodded and they skipped out of the compartment.
After a little while of wandering up and down the corridor, Siandra decided to go and ask James if he could help her with the transfiguration homework.
"Hey!" Siandra yelled and jumped around. Something large had smacked into her which turned out to be the candy cart. "Who's driving this thing?" she yelled down the hallway. Just then a rather plump woman came running down the aisle.
"I'mmmm ssoooorrry deeeaaarrsss," she was yelling at the top of her lungs.
They continued along the hallway towards James and Sirius' compartment, which, Molly found out, was labeled number forty and had a large candy cane hanging over it.
The trouble was that someone was already there and blocking the doorway.
"Excuse me, do you mind?" asked Siandra indicating to Snape that she would like to take his place.
"I'd rather not, so yes, I suppose that I do mind," he replied coolly, stepping over so that he was completely blocking the door. "And what are you going to do about it? Shoot sparks at me because you don't know how to do anything else?" he continued mockingly.
"Oh, shove off," said Siandra trying to shove Snape out of the way. "Ouch!" she yelled. Snape had drawn out his wand and sent some sort of curse hard at her arm.
"All right, one more curse and you're a mouse!"
Siandra had drawn her wand from her pocket and pointed it straight at Snape. Unsure whether Siandra could actually turn him into a mouse, Snape sneered and said, "I'll leave you to practice your spells so you can say more than false claims at our next meeting and we'll be equally matched. That should be more…fun."
Then he walked off towards the end of the train and Siandra slid open the door to the compartment where James and Sirius were residing.
"Not a lot of fun, are they?" Sirius remarked while trying to detach some melting chocolate frogs from his muffin container.
"They?" asked Molly, "There was only one of Snape!"
"Oh, so you have only met Snape then. Wait until you meet Evan!" Sirius said, giving one great tug as the bunch of frogs came out from the muffin container.
"I don't really think I want to meet him," mused Molly sitting down. Just then the lady with the cart came by their compartment and slid open the door.
"Would you like any breakfast or snacks, dearies?" she asked, pointing at the cart and smiling, "Oh!" she had just noticed Siandra and Molly, "You're the little girls that my cart smacked into, aren't you! I'm very sorry, baby angels, but I was surprised when some little tot said her mother was a prophetess that I made it smack down the isle. You know what? I'll give you one drink and one treat free! Pick whatever you want."
Siandra gazed through the many candies she ate on her first trip on the Hogwarts Express and noticed that the bottom of the cart was now labeled "Breakfast". On the bottom there were toast with butter and cinnamon toast and hard-boiled eggs, croissants in chocolate and butter, strips of bacon, sausages, bagels, and the pumpkin pasties. Siandra chose a pumpkin pasty and a small jug of pumpkin juice. Molly chose some cinnamon toast to go with her pumpkin juice, Sirius chose some more chocolate frogs, and James chose a cauldron cake. They ate in silence for a while then Sirius finished his frog and read his card aloud.
"Wow! It's the inventor of dungbombs!"
James, who was starting to drift off, instantly woke up and leaned over so he could see the card too and said, "Wow! Cool!"
Siandra looked at Molly and rolled her eyes and nodded at James and Sirius now pouring over Smelly Steven's autobiography.
"Bye!" Molly said waving as they walked out of the compartment and slid the door shut.
" — remember when we set those dungbombs off in the Slytherin common room — " they heard James saying as they were leaving.
"Boys," Molly muttered.
The country outside of the window was turning from wild moors to neat, prim, gardens of people oblivious to the scarlet train speeding past.
"Argh!" Siandra yelled. She had just tripped over a book lying on the ground. "Why is everything attacking and tripping and smacking into me today, eh?"
She leaned down and picked the book up. It was something old and dusty.
"Ooh, look!" said Molly, "It's old and dusty!"
She turned it over; it was the same book she found in the forgotten corridor.