Chapter 4: Grand Entrances
"Harry? Harry, you have to wake up now. We are almost to Hogwarts, and you still have to change into your robes. Come on, wake up." Hermione's voice said in his ear, trying desperately to wake him up. "Honestly, it is like trying to wake the dead." Hermione and Ginny laughed. Harry woke up, and put on his robes. Ron was still asleep, but Ginny kept kicking him and he kept flinching and saying things like, "Bad goose! Very bad goose!" Which made everyone laugh hysterically when he acted like he was talking to a goose.
Eventually, Ron woke up he was still tired and mumbling when the train pulled into Hogsmeade station. He hurriedly put on his robes while complaining that they shouldn't let him sleep so long and all the way. Harry ignored him and walked off the train. Hermione and Ron were behind him bickering about who knows what. Harry caught a carriage that he used to think were horseless, until we realized the thresterals pulled them.
Harry jumped into the carriage with Ron and Hermione behind him, still fighting. Harry zoned out of their droning voices and watched the landscape come to life with the lights of the carriage lanterns. "I did not know you didn't want to sleep that long. Really, you should have told me. Well, at least you'll be awake for patrol unlike most of the time where you are half asleep and stumbling down the hallways." Hermione had her book in her hand again, and was reading and arguing with Ron. "I am not half asleep and bumbling down hallways! I am always wide awake. Thank you, very much." Hermione laughed and said, "Right. And the time when you skipped the bottom step and hit the ground with your head. I suppose you were wide awake then. And how about the time when you ran smack into the wall and collided with a suit of armor? Oh yes, you are always wide awake." Ron turned scarlet, "Well..besides those times I am always awake." Hermione looked like she was going to say more and prove that he was hardly ever really awake, but Ron cut her off saying, "Okay. Fine, lets just leave it. We've been neglecting Harry with our fighting and you know how he gets about it..."
Harry looked over at Ron and almost laughed at his face. It was all squished up and wrinkled. Hermione looked apologetic, but Harry waved it off. "I am fine, and you have not been neglecting me. I've been thinking." Hermione and Ron looked at each other with the Oh-oh-That's-Never-Good look. But this made Harry laugh even harder. He shook it off and looked outside the window. He could see, out of the corner of his eyes, Hermione continuing to look at him, but she politely went back to her book. Ron stared at Harry, but when Harry turned to talk to him, he looked at Hermione.
"What?" asked Harry. "Hmm? Say somethin' Harry?" asked Ron nonchalantly. "You know what I mean. You were looking at me strange, and I don't like it. That was the face you used when Professor Trewalny told us about the Grim." Ron looked at Hermione with an Is-It-Okay-That-I-Tell-Him look. Hermione nodded, and Ron turned back to face Harry.
"It is just that we, Hermione and me, think that you are acting...strangely." Ron looked like he regretted what he said as son as he said it. Harry looked at him in shock. "What? I am acting weirdly? I am? What about you two? You two are always talking and looking at each other and..and..stuff." Hermione snorted, "Real elegant. But, that's beside the point. I realize that it was hard for you to stay in Sirus's house after he..died and all, but you were acting....different. Is there something else you know that we don't?" Harry was about to tell them about his last talk with Dumbledore, but he held back. He didn't want to tell them just yet. He shook his head and returned to looking out the window.
Suddenly the carriages stopped and the students began filing out and running up the steps to the school. He saw many people getting pelted with water balloons. Peeves had already done this trick in his fourth year. He thought he was getting soft, but he soon realized that the balloons were filled with pudding. Harry laughed as he tried to duck Peeves's balloons when he heard the drawling voice of Malfoy.
"Well, well, well. What have we here? Potty trying to duck one of Pevvessie's wittle bawoons? Well that is just too bad, boys, because look at what we have in store for you." He held up three balloons, one for Harry, one for Ron, and one for Hermione. "The only question is which one to use on who."
Hermione replied, "Whom. It is whom you dumb bouncing ferret." Malfoy blushed at his memory of being turned into a bouncing ferret just two years ago. "I know, I'll use this one, the one filled with custard cream. It's dreadfully hard to get out of your robes. Then I think I will use the raspberry one on your boyfriend, Potty here. And a chocolate cream one for the Weasel." But before Malfoy could launch a single balloon, Peeves pelted him on the face with the three kinds of creams and custards he had just named. Ron and Harry busted up laughing while Hermione lead them away tot he Great Hall.
"That was so funny! I cannot believe Peeves would do that. I mean, has he ever stuck up for a student before? Wow. That was so amazing." Ron was laughing up and down. The he sat at the Gryffindor table and started concentrating really hard. Harry knew what he was doing. He was trying to memorize everything that had just happened. "I think it had something to do with Fred and George's last words. He always liked them, he most likely tried to help you because he loved them so much." Hermione inserted. "Wow, look! The sorting's about to begin."
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Vyk saw the creature come out of the cave. She followed it, stealthily, into the forest. She hid in the underbrush and watched it. It stood uncertainly in the shadows. It seemed to be waiting for something. A man walked out into the clearing, and the creature greeted it. The man talked to the leithfold, if you could call it talking. The man was a Death Eater. She did not recognize this man, but she could tell by the tattoo on his left arm of a skull with snakes. Vyk got out a sketch pad and drew him so she could show Dumbledore when she got back to Hogwarts.
The man left and the leithfold started walking back to it's lair. Vyk ran to her camp and looked at her watch. It was after seven, and she should be at Hogwarts making friends and getting fat off the Welcoming Feast, but she was here tracking down a dangerous creature. She took her sword, Nemiah, and belted it across her hips. Then she buckled in two daggers attached to her arms with leather sheaths. She stuffed the drawing of the Death Eater in her pocket and tied a sack of floo powder to her belt loop. Then she tapped her stuff with her wand and said the incantation for her stuff to disappear. When it disappeared she walked out into the open field and shouted to the leithfold, "Hey! Over here, you big over grown freak!" The leithfold paused and then turned around. It snarled at her and lifted its arms and charged. Vyk released her daggers and threw them at his head. One landed in it's forehead and the other in its heart. The creature looked shocked and then in pain. It fell to it's knees and let out a horrible wail. Yvk covered her ears with her hands. When it seemed like the terrible sound had stopped, she let go of her ears and walked to the creature. She took out her daggers and replaced them in their sheaths. Suddenly the terrible wailing started again and Vyk looked up to see where it was coming from. At the mouth of the cave there was another leithfold wailing out of sorrow for it's lost mate. It turned it's beady little red eyes upon Vyk and released a horrible howl or rage and frustration. Vyk threw a dagger at her, but it deflected it and it struck a tree. Vyk threw the second one, and it caught it between it's claws and threw it to the ground. Vyk was scared, and started running. The leithfold wasn't as fast as Vyk, so she could outrun it. Vyk ran intot he forest and to the wizard house where she could start a fire and go to Hogwarts.
When she reached the little shack she broke into it and started a fire. She threw a pinch of floo powder on it to get it started. Then she ducked into it and grabbed a handful of floo powder from her purse, and dropped it on the floor. She had the floo powder in her hands, when the leithfold entered the shack. Vyk shouted into the fire, "HOGWARTS!" And vanished without a trace into the roaring flames.
Vyk stepped out of the fire place. She was standing in the middle of the Great Hall behind the staff table. Everyone was staring up at her. Apparently she had interrupted dinner.
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Author's Note: I wrote this chapter two times, the first time it was deleted and it was over seven pages long. It had more to do with Vyk, than with Harry. I am glad it got deleted though, because it would have been too long and lengthy and not good. Hope you enjoy and keep reading the chapters to come.