Hermione awoke with a start at around four in the morning. The train had jostled a little more than it usually had been, and she was a rather light sleeper, especially on moving vehicles. With no feeling of being able to go back to sleep, she pulled on a pair of scrubs and a loose shirt, then turned on the lights and looked in the mirror on her wall. After gazing into the mirror, she looked at the mirror itself for a moment. At the top of the frame, the words 'Carpe Diem' were carved into it. "Mhmmm," Hermione said to herself. "This train must have either been made recently, or else he has used that for quite some time." Speaking of the train, she thought, why not look around it some more? She pulled back her hair, then, using her wand, unlocked the door and walked into the under-deck lounge area. After sitting in an armchair facing the rather large TV, she thought back to the first time she had a glimpse of the train.
It had a long, sleek, silver body, with a red, a blue, and a white stripe running down the side, and intertwining. Up near the top of the car though, was a straight grayish green streak. For some reason, it seemed oddly familiar. She couldn't see the very front of the train in detail, as the engines were sticking out of the end of the station. She could see, however, that there were about three or four of them, and the very front was shaped like on a bullet train engine, narrowed down and very aerodynamic. The train was also rather tall, and you gained access through a door in about the middle of the train, vertically, at the ends of each car. There weren't any numbers on the cars, and they were all connected with bending tunnels, for in-movement inter-car migration. The sides of the train were slightly bulged out, but for the most part were straight. She couldn't tell, but it seemed as if the base of the train was slightly wider than the top. "It would make sense," she told herself. "It would be bottom heavy." The cars went from one side of the covered part of the station all the way to the other, which was a very formidable length, especially for a train. Some of the rear of the train was also sticking out of the station and it seemed like there were a couple more engines in the rear as well. She suddenly realized where she was standing, and came to realize how big the train was. She was standing on platform two, and the train was a menacing terror over all of the rest. It was mainly length, but also it was a fair amount taller than the rest of the trains. "Holy shit, this thing is huge!" she said quietly to herself. She quickly strode over to it, and then got in a car nearer to the end, hoping to be put in close to her car. She was sadly mistaken though.
"122. Damn, I thought I would have been closer to it than this. Well, here we go.""Yes, the height makes sense now that I know there is a second level underneath the main, and the length too. Malfoys show off their money way too much. But who can blame them, they're Malfoys." She found the mini-kitchen of the below deck lounge, then looked in the fridge for something to eat. She had missed dinner, and she was starving. In the freezer she found a couple boxes of hot pockets, some microwavable pasta dinners, and some prime rib steak. "You think that a place with as much class as this wouldn't have hot pockets and TV dinners, wouldn't you?" said a sleepy voice over her shoulder. She spun around to find Malfoy hunched over in a chair, with his elbows on the counter, rubbing his eyes.
"Malfoy! Don't do that, you scared me half to death!"
"So, if I scare you again, would you be dead, or would you just be a fourth live?""Wha-?
Oh shut up you," she finished as he started chuckling. She hit
him
on
the shoulder with the wooden spoon she had pulled out of a drawer
when he scared
her.
"Ow! Hey, that hurt!"
"Hmph. Serves you right."
"No, a good waiter serves me right, not being hit on the shoulder with a wooden spoon, let alone on the shoulder recovering from surgery." She almost felt sorry for him for a second. Until she remembered that wizards don't have surgery, they just get a healer to fix them up."Uhh huh. Nice try, but you lose. But what are you doing up at this time anyway?"
"I should ask you the same question, you're the one who woke me up. My door was open and the light from your room scared my cat, who promptly caused me a lot of pain by jumping on my balls."
"Oh, sorry. But that would make it your cat's fault, not mine."
"Don't you go blaming anything on Draco Jr."
"Draco Jr.? Wouldn't that be the same as Little Draco?" She laughed at the thoughts that the idea gave her."What? No, it wouldn't be, its Draco Jr., or Drake for short. What are you laughing about?"
"Haha, oh, nothing."
"Riiiiiiight. But anyways, you never answered my question, what are you doing up at this time of night?""Oh, I'm just a light sleeper. I was going to get out of this place and wander around a bit, so, do you want to wander around with me? It would keep me from being as bored as I would have been."
"As bored?"
"Yep, as bored. Which means don't think of you as a complete source of entertainment, just on occasion you can be." She thought back to her last year of school at Hogwarts."Well, I suppose I could say the same about you too. But sure, I'll walk around with you, I might save you from getting lost."
"Malfoy-"
"Draco."
"Malfoy, there's two directions you can go on this train: forward, to the front of the train, and backwards, to the rear. Explain to me how I could get lost."
"Well,
uhh...I, umm... you could, erm... oh I don't know, shut up."
She
started
to giggle again. "Shall we go then?"
"Yeah
sure, why not." He led her to the stairs, and they went up into
compartment
71. "You know, I'm not a dog and I'm not stupid, I think I can remember
how to get out of here."
"Oh shut up you, its just your cat." She went to stand back up, but found herself pulled up next to him by his arms. Her mind scrambled to figure out what to do. If she rejected him here, then he might not try again, and she would lose her chance to get close enough to him to figure out what really happened to Ron, and why someone would have done something like that. If she didn't, though, she might get distracted from her investigation and never find out what happened to Ron at all. "You know, I like you a lot, but you know what?"
"What, Herms?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't think we should. I mean, I'm just now seeing you for the first time since, I supposedly didn't see you take off with Ron. I just don't know how much you've changed, and I've changed some I know." She looked up at him somewhat sadly then suddenly smiled. "Besides, I'm on the job, you konw, and I don't get paid for pleasure, unfortunatly."
Reluctantly, he backed off, a little disappointedly. "Well then, I guess I'll just have to show you who I am before we go there, yeah?"
"I think I can settle on that."
They started off down the train, towards the end, because he said that he could get them access into the engines, and at the very end, the caboose, there was a big window that they could look out of."So you really do own this train then?"
"Yep, and it's relatively new, as you might have guessed."
"Yes, I saw the engraving on the mirror, and speaking of which, it talked to me too.""It did? I thought I was the only one it would ever talk to."
"Oh, it only told me to sleep well just before I went to sleep."
"Ahh, ok. It must have figured out that you were a witch somehow, maybe it saw your wand.""Yes that makes sense, because I do believe it could have."
"But wait, did you lace this train with magical artifacts?"
"Here and there, but not a lot of them."
"You know, I could have you arrested for threatening the secrecy of the magical world.""True, but I don't really care. It pays off to have something you can have a conversation with when you're alone."
"Only
you would know. Wait, does that mean that you've been traveling
around
in this?"
"For the most part, yes, but not the entirety of my journeys."
"Where all have you been?"
"Just about anywhere with a train station big enough to house this thing."
"Was it originally made to fit the London station? Because the specs just barely allow it to fit.""Yes, it was, but I added three more cars and two more engines, so it stick out of the station some now."
"Are there observation cars between all of the compartment cars?"
"No, the observation cars are part of all the compartment cars. There's an observation area in each car, followed by ten compartments, five on each side of the train, with a hallway down the middle."By this time they were at the end of the 12th compartment car, the 16th car on the train and last compartment car. Draco talked with the conductor for a bit, then showed him something he pulled out of his pocket. Hermione found the look on the conductor's face rather amusing. They were allowed to the very end of the train, where many pieces of glass were arranged so that the entire end of the train was a large window, and the ceiling above was a skylight. From the rear-facing couch, you could see out of the train using all of your peripheral vision, not counting down. The end room was upstairs from the rest of the engine, and the door was lockable. Draco shut the door behind them, then locked it with the lock and spells. He turned and gazed over at her.
"So, what do you want to talk about?"
Yeah, I wanna give major props to my beta, Thanks K, you really helped me out a lot. so yeah. hope you lot enjoyed this chapter.
