Chapter Six: The Ride to Hogwarts

At first there was the landscape of the city, we were snaking through it on the rails like we were the only ones in the world and nobody could see us. Then it all changed. Instead of the tall buildings of the city it was the low structures of a town, then another, and another, until it eventually came to fields of grass with mountains on the background. It really was beautiful, and I wished that I had a camera.

The beginning of the trip had been terrible. I had left the compartment door open, and everyone who had passed by had looked in seeing the extra space, then had seen me and scurried off as fast as they could help it along the corridor. Actually I had meant to leave the door open – I didn't want people opening the door and beginning to ask if they could sit here before seeing who I was and making a break for it. I'd rather prefer to avoid the whole embarrassing scenario. I became used to the sound of hurried feet in the hallway, and spent the time looking out the window. It was a shock when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned, and looked up into a pair of bright, dazzling green eyes.

"Oh! Um, Jim. Hi. Hey, I haven't seen you for a month since we met. How have you been?" I had panicked. What was he doing here?

Jim smiled and gave a thumbs-up, then held up a note for me to read.

"You want to sit here? Sure, uh, sit down, be my guest."

I wondered if he had seen me some other time before, then kept on walking. Maybe there had been no other available space, and he had had no choice but to come back to my compartment. Yeah, maybe.

He was looking at Torque, who had been preening her feathers inside her cage but was now eyeing Jim's tawny owl Lester in caution. I said in explanation, "That's my friend Torque. She's a hawk, so she doesn't like owls much. Torque, Lester. Lester, Torque."

Torque gave a small hiss. I shrugged in apology, and we sat in silence.

I had forgotten all about Jim. The month that had gone by had been too great for me to have thought of anything else. Now that he was here, I was remembering all the things that I knew about him.

"So…excited about going to Hogwarts at last?"

He shrugged. In all, he didn't look too excited.

"Join the club. My Pop says it's going to be fun, despite all the work. He thinks I'm going to have a chance of socializing, but apart from you I don't think anybody else would be willing to even come near me." I shook my head. "Let's not go into that. What have you been doing lately?"

He reached for his notepad, and gave a huge jump when I pointed my wand at him.

"No, you're not, you're going to talk and you're not going to even touch that."

The strange thing was, as I raised my wand I suddenly experienced something that felt like fear, like I was the one with a wand being pointed at. It went away very quickly, but I put it down anyway. "Kidding, kidding. But why can't you talk like everybody else?"

He just looked at me, and for the first time I realized something.

"Wait…is it…because you can't talk?"

He nodded, and I must've called myself a million names in my head just then.

"W-well, why didn't you tell me sooner?" A shrug, and then he looked out the window. I couldn't tell if he was really just taking in the scenery or he was really thinking, he always looked as if he was thinking.

While he thought, I thought about how frustrating it would have been for him. Had he been born that way? He never would've heard the sound of his own voice before. It was sad in a lot of ways, and I wondered how his parents were coping with it. It didn't look like a recent thing – Jim had never opened his mouth to answer any of my questions like a recently disabled person would've accidentally done. He would've had time to get used to it. I looked at him, but he was still facing out the window. I looked at my hand, which was resting on the ledge of the compartment window, and was baffled to see the streak of ink down my palm. I didn't recall writing anything before the trip. I must've just gotten it off the station or the train somehow. I tried to rub it off, but it wouldn't come off so I left it be.

The trip took a long time. We spent the first half in silence, listening to the chatter of the people in the other carriages. They all sounded pretty excited to be going to Hogwarts. I wished that I could feel what they were feeling. I wished that I were normal.

Night was falling. Outside, everything was getting darker. Only the outlines of the mountains could be seen now. By then the only things keeping me going were the fudge muffins I had in my stomach – we had bought from the trolley witch when she had come along to our compartment about an hour earlier.

I sighed. "Gee, Hogwarts is a long way away from everything else, isn't it?"

Jim gave me a strange look then. I didn't know what for.

It became apparent a few seconds later. I had just thought to myself, I've decided. I'm going to tell you my secret now, no matter what.

Except that it hadn't been me who'd thought it. It had just popped into my head, and the thing was, even though they hadn't come in as words I still understood what the thought was and what it was trying to say. I thought I was going mad.

If you can hear me…say Jim's last name out loud.

"Rickman?" I wasn't liking this. It was confusing. I had no idea what was going on, I was getting these thoughts and for what?

Jim was grinning, and I heard in my head for sure, You can hear me! You must hear me! Kora, it's me, I'm the one talking in your head, did you hear that?

Ooookay…it felt like some sort of crazy mixed-up dream. I for one do not just Kora, say something suddenly start hearing other people's voices in my You look confused, sorry I didn't take the time to explain head and Kora, listen –

"Right, Jim, stop it, I'm trying to think here!" I couldn't help exclaiming. At the same time I received two emotions in great barrels: one was a heck of a lot of satisfaction, and the other was mild happiness.

Do you feel that? That's me. Look, you gotta believe me, this is how I communicate. I can't explain how I can do it, but I can and it's…I can talk to people like this, I send my thoughts over to them. I only ever do it when…when family's around, you're the first person – outsider – I have ever really talked to. Please don't tell anyone.

Now, this was interesting. I seldom met anyone who had the ability to talk to people through their minds as well as send their emotions across to others. Shock left me, and I grinned.

"Well, now you're talking! That's pretty cool, it certainly makes up for your not being able to talk. Don't worry, you can trust me with that. I won't tell a soul. But that is amazing! Wow…I'm privileged to have been the first of the whole world to know this, Jim Rickman." He turned red, and his thoughts came up in my head, Yeah…I figured I couldn't keep doing the quill and paper business for too long. You looked like you were ready to kill me or something.

"You're right. Hey, so, you can broadcast yourself, like the wireless?"

If I wanted to. I could just direct myself to you and no one else would be able to hear. And I can only go over a small distance, like from the first floor of something to the fourth floor. That's all.

"Wow…and there I was thinking you were shy. You're actually not all you seem."

We had a real conversation. Delighted that Jim really could talk, I bullied him into talking the whole way so to make up lost time for before. And he didn't seem to mind. Maybe he even enjoyed having someone to talk to. My perspective of Jim changed that evening – he definitely was not part of any group. Maybe we could even become friends. We did have some things in common, like his dreading of coming to Hogwarts, his home being in my valley and just in a neighbouring block…he lived with his grand-aunt, and he liked to learn. We were just too similar.

We reached the next train station half an hour later. I knew the story from when Pop was telling me in Milton – all students would get off, and while second years and upwards would go to Hogwarts via carriages the first years would have to be taken there by boat. And the person taking us would be…

We spotted him the moment we stepped off the train. He was so huge that no one could have missed him, even someone all the way down the end of the platform. Swinging a large lantern above our heads (Makes you feel puny, doesn't it?) he called out, "Firs' years! Firs' years come gather 'ere, get a move on now, we don' wa' be late fer the feast, now, do we?" His voice boomed exactly like a growl from the heavens. We couldn't do much but squeeze through the crowd over to where this humungous person draped in fur was standing, looking over us with tiny black eyes peeking through a nest of black beard, hair and eye brows. He seemed surprised by us – the eyes crinkled up in a smile and I felt better about it, he wasn't going to hurt us.

"Is tha' everyone, then? By George, yer a small lot this year, arncha? Don' mean nuthin' bad, now, nuthin's bad…well, 'ts time we went on our way, now. Follow me! An' it a be good if yer stay close now, don' want to get lost in these parts…if need be jus' yell out for Hagrid an' I'll come get yer…" It was clear that some of the first years didn't find this reassuring at all.

I began walking, but Jim stayed still. I turned to see that he was staring, open-mouthed, at the second years and upwards. Or rather, the horseless carriages they were riding in. I took his sleeve and gave a small tug. "Come on, Jim…" He came, but he kept looking back at them, still apparently mesmerized. Once we had entered the darkness off the train station, though, he kept quite close.

The boats were waiting for us, bobbing up and down at the edge of a misty lake. When I say misty I mean real misty – were we supposed to guide our own boats? If so, how were we going to get through the fog? I got into one – Jim and 'Hagrid' were the only ones who got in after me. I couldn't help breathing in a sigh of relief when the boats started moving on their own accord, slowly following a path that they obviously knew even through a dense murkiness.

It was cold. I had noticed while getting off the train, but this time it felt colder. I couldn't tell if those were Jim's feelings I was feeling, or just my own. It was confusing. Jim definitely was cold, he was hugging himself and two glints of light on his face were dancing as he shivered.

"Yer Kora Rastrick?'

I jumped in my seat before realizing it had only been Hagrid. I had to crane my neck all the way back in order to look up and face him.

"Yeah, I am. How did you know?"

He shuffled a bit, which might have been a shrug. "Had a hunch y'were. An' yer the Rickman boy, arncha?"

Startled, Jim gave a quick series of nods. How did he know that?

It was dark but I could make out Hagrid's eyes as he grunted somewhat knowledgably.

"Mmm…tha's int'resting…fancy seein' you two in me boat, then. Yer gonna have wonders at Hogwarts School, no need ter worry 'bou' that!"

His last sentence seemed to have been directed to all of us. Looking around at what I could see in the torchlights, I could see that a little more than half of us looked positively terrified. Others were sitting in their boats in silence, and those who knew each other were talking amongst themselves quietly.

A picture flashed into my head of a cave entrance above the water, surrounded by mist. I looked up and I saw exactly the same thing up ahead – Jim had sent me a mental picture of what he had seen before me.

"That's clever, Jim," I said, but he wasn't listening. He was looking at something a great deal above the cave – everybody was. I looked to.

It was Hogwarts. It was huge! The lights in its many windows and doors threw a dim, yellow light over this part of the lake. Its towers and turrets and large cathedral-like structure was set on this cliff above the cave, and it went out of sight as our boats floated into this cave.

Excitement was building up now, and there was a little more chatter. A few minutes into this galleon, we reached a pebbly shore. Ahead of it was the opening of a tunnel, dark and mossy looking, with blue flames lighting it up every few feet.

Moss and rocky steps steeply leading up did not work well for the feet, as Jim found out. I heard a scuffle, and the next second my friend was at my ankles.

"You alrigh' down there?"

Er, tell him I'm fine. "He's okay."

Hagrid mumbled about a heart attack, then we were walking again. It wasn't long before we reached a large wooden door.

"Well, this is where it all ends, folks, an' where it all starts." Hagrid gave a smile, and knocked on the door.