Chapter 4 - The Trouble With Punching a Malfoy
Crabbe-
I am Malfoy. I am writing to you. My summer was good. How was your summer? Can you read this? I hope so. I am using small words so you can read this. Words are the things on this page. They are the things you are reading. "Word" is even a word. "Evil" is a word. Are you wearing your READING glasses? I hope you are. I have to go now. Goodbye.
Malfoy
Harry groaned as a hand pushed his shoulder. "Harry, wake up," Hermione's groggy voice reached his ears. She took her hand off his shoulder,and he opened his eyes. Stationary blurs of orange, white, and deep blue were broken by moving blurs of black, bluish, and yellow. Somewhere to his right, Ron mumbled a weak protest to Hermione's whispered demand. Harry groped for his glasses and found them on the wood panelled floor. He shoved them onto his face; suddenly, the blurs defined, and he distinguish the yellow to be the colour of Ginny's shirt and the lavender of Hermione's pyjamas against the orange, black and white of Ron's room. The deep blue of the sky had lost its scattering of stars and had faded in the East, a sign of the impending morning. Harry pushed the covers off him and sat up. Downstairs the symphony of clanging pots and pans sang to him of breakfast, and the smell of bacon reached his nose. He stood and pulled a shirt over his head. Around him, Ron and Hermione were also getting dressed. Ginny was apparently wandering aimlessly, picking various items up and then setting them down in different places, with no attention to order or organization. A loud fist banged on the door, followed by a series of thumping feet down several flights of stairs.
Once dressed, Harry followed Ron and Hermione downstairs and into the kitchen, where food was waiting impatiently for them. Every person in the room chose that exact moment to lunge for the chairs. Harry managed to sit with Ron on one side, Charlie on the other. Oliver immediately began hassling Ron about eating early so they could get one last practice in before they had to leave for the train. The past week had been a hectic one, with not one but two trips to Diagon Alley, because Ron had forgotten several of the books he was supposed to buy. Arthur had come home stressed and tired for the last three nights in a row due to increasing exploding teakettles. It had taken a week for the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts department to track down the original suppliers, who then had their powers restricted for an entire month, a tricky business with more paperwork than it was worth.
Ron shovelled down his food and ran outside with Oliver, eager for one last practise opportunity.
"Ronald Weasley, you haven't packed! What do you think you're doing? And it's pouring outside!" Molly yelled after him, but the demand fell on deaf ears as Ron and Oliver banged down the hallway and out the back door.
At 9:45, no less than seventeen suitcases were stacked at the front door to the Burrow. Rain, which had only accumulated in the last 20 minutes, pelted the windows with a vengeance. Ron was running around looking for umbrellas while Ginny had been appointed the task of checking all the windows. Mr. Weasley was standing near the kitchen table, shaking his head and murmuring his surprise at the sudden onset of rain.
"Mum!" Ron hollered from the hallway. "Mum, I found the brollies!"
"Well, bring them out to the front room then, will you?" she bellowed back, then shook her head. "That boy, can't ever do anything without yelling his head off," she sighed in a kind yet scolding voice, as if she were complaining to Harry. He nodded uncertainly.
Ron burst out of the hall closet covered in dust, triumphantly clutching four mismatched umbrellas to his grey-blue shirt. A flurry of dust bunnies and mothballs scattered underneath his feet, which he promptly kicked back into the closet and slammed the door. He staggered and had barely regained his footing when Hermione and Ginny brushed past. Hermione threw his raincoat over his umbrella-laden arms and tossed Harry's over his shoulder. Mrs. Weasley grabbed one of Ron's two remaining umbrellas and called, "We ready, then?" Oliver and Charlie (Bill had left earlier that week to visit his girlfriend in France before returning to Egypt for work) thundered down the stairs, each holding their own umbrellas. Fred and George had gone back to Diagon Alley a few weeks earlier. Percy appeared with a loud crack between Harry and Oliver; he was calm, wearing plain, draping black robes and holding a stately black umbrella to match. Harry decided Percy was either the most professional he had ever looked or the most morbid.
Together, dragging their luggage, they stepped out the door into the pouring rain. Every umbrella opened in unison. Harry quickly found refuge under Oliver's large umbrella. The moment Ron had opened his, he realized there was a large hole in it. Hermione had not seen this until too late, as she had tried to share Ron's umbrella.
"Oh," she cried, as a torrent of rain attacked her. Ron unzipped his jacket and held his arm up to shelter Hermione. She huddled underneath, colour rising slightly in her cheeks. His ears turned red as well, and he tossed the useless umbrella aside. They all reached the taxis and hurried inside, luggage and all. The taxi driver transporting Harry was particularly ruffled about Hedwig; he told Harry in a thick cockney accent that he'd had bad experience with large predator birds. Harry apologized and assured the driver that Hedwig would remain in her cage.
"All the same, she scares me," He glanced at her nervously.
"Would you feel better if I put my jacket over her?" Harry offered.
"Well…. Yeah, alright."
The drive over was mostly silent. Hermione, the only truly dry person in the car, was wedged between Ginny, who was almost comatose from her last night homework, and Percy, who glanced around the cab suspiciously the entire ride and leaned precariously on his dark umbrella with one hand. The taxi crept along the crowded streets, past Harrods and Camden Town, making Harry a little suspicious of the man's direction. They finally reached King's Cross and began the mad struggle for their luggage. The large clock above them read 10:50. Once the luggage was out and onto the trolleys, they ran toward the platforms.
Mrs. Weasley tried desperately to give each of her children last goodbye kisses, but she only reached Percy, Ginny, and Harry twice. They each sprinted through the barrier and loaded onto the train. Ron, Harry and Hermione loaded their luggage into the luggage car and shoved their way onto the crowded train just two minutes before the train left. Harry peered into the first compartment, looking for an empty place where he, Ron, and Hermione could sit. Dennis and Colin waved to him cheerfully, and he got his head out of the compartment just in time to miss the snap of Colin's camera.
"Oi! Over here!" Ron shouted, waving his hand to Harry and sticking his foot in the door of an empty compartment. Harry and Hermione began to push their way through. Harry was all the way to Ron when he realised Hermione wasn't with him. He turned around and saw Hermione just a few feet behind, back to him and facing Malfoy. Ron stormed up beside Hermione, fists clenched.
"Better look out, Mudblood," Malfoy drawled. "You never know what superior may be in your path." He spit on Hermione's face and she gasped, letting out a small cry. Ron's eyes blazed, but no one saw his punch coming. Suddenly, Malfoy was doubled over, clutching his stomach, and Ron was straightening back up, a triumphant smile on his face.
"Better look out, Malfoy," he sneered. "Never know who's gonna be there to catch your tongue."
Malfoy swiped with his long fingers at Ron's face and cut him in several lines under his chin. Crabbe and Goyle grunted and heaved themselves in Ron's general direction. Crabbe caught Ron by the arms, but Ron got away by kicking him in the stomach. Ron yelled and lunged at Malfoy, but was struck back by an "Expelliarmus!"
Percy, dark and brooding, stepped up to the scene. He glared at Malfoy with deep loathing, then shook his head scoldingly at his younger brother.
"At this time," he said scathingly, "I do not have the power to punish either of you. However," he directed his glare fiercely toward Malfoy, "When I do, I will be watching closely for any type of misbehaviour, and I will distribute the maximum extent of punishment for every crime. You are prefects. So behave." He sighed and stepped over Ron and Malfoy.
Ron pushed himself quickly to his feet and walked over to Harry and Hermione, who was still passing a tissue over her perfectly clean and dry cheek.
"You all right?" He said, and Harry watched his face soften slightly.
She didn't look up, but nodded briskly and said, "I don't suppose we have to go to the prefects' compartment this year."
Together, they returned to their compartment. Harry sat next to Ron, who was looking gloomily out the window. Hermione sat opposite Ron, glaring intensely at him. Harry shifted uncomfortably, glancing from one to the other.
Ron looked from the window to Hermione, and saw her glare. "What?" He growled.
"You know perfectly well what!" Hermione snapped back. "I can't believe you, getting into a fight with Malfoy in the middle of the train like that!"
"What, and let him insult you! What would you have done, just stood there and taken it? I thought you were strong, Hermione." Ron turned back to the window, fuming.
"I never said what you did was a bad thing," Hermione murmured. She looked down at her hands. Ron looked up sharply from the window, and his expression softened again.
After a few silent minutes, Harry tentatively suggested a chess game, to which Ron eagerly accepted. They were still playing fifteen minutes later when the food trolley stopped at their door.
"Check," Ron said calmly, moving his bishop forward and to the left.
Harry frowned and moved his king to the right. Ron moved his king's side castle one space forward.
"Ha!" Harry said. "Your queen's next!" He moved his knight in position to take Ron's queen, which had no other move except into the path of either his castle or his bishop. The bishop shouted something about the taste of blood and victory in its little voice. Harry looked at Ron. Ron's eye had caught the chess gleam, and Harry saw his strategy fail. Ron moved his queen's side castle to Harry's knight. The castle quickly and effectively pounded the knight into unconsciousness, then turned toward Harry's king.
"Checkmate!" Ron exclaimed. Harry's king surrendered his miniscule sword, then fainted in a ripple of small, white stone robes. Ron's pieces cheered and stomped in the centre of the board as Harry's dejectedly gathered their injured and hobbled toward their box.
"How do you do that? Here, I didn't even think you were paying attention." Harry shook his head, then said, "Three chocolate frogs, a pumpkin cake, and an Every Flavour Beans," to the woman impatiently tapping her foot against her trolley.
"A chocolate frog," Hermione spoke up from behind a large volume titled "Mind Control and How it Can Boost Your Sales - Small Business Edition", handing over a Knut. Ron looked up at the woman as she handed Harry and Hermione their food, but said nothing.
"You better change, love," The woman said to Harry. "Your friends, too. We're almost there." She skated off with her trolley, screeching to a halt at the next door.