Disclaimer: The only things that don't belong to JK Rowling are me (Jess)
my friend Niki and her mum, everything else does. Not fair.
***
The journey to Kings Cross was only just bearable. Niki decided to stick to her new found fixation, Grease, and sang various renditions of "Summer Nights" and "You're The One That I Want" all the way there, remembering to include her own new and improved lyrics, like:
"Tell me more, tell me more, Dooby doo, dooby doo" Tell me more, tell me more Did he have purple shoes?"
The only thing that kept me from "accidentally on purpose" shoving Niki in front of an oncoming bus was Ernie Macmillan's constant chatter in my ear, his ramblings ranging from: "How much harder do you think the workload will be this year? You know, starting our N.E.W.T Level work and all." .to; "Who do you think does better roast potatoes? I can't decide between Niki's mum and Hogwarts. What do you think Jess?" He might have gone on a bit but at least he talked sense. Honestly, "Did he have purple shoes?" If that wasn't Niki talking I'd be seriously worried.
Eventually we arrived at King Cross between platforms 9 and 10, at which point Niki shouted out "Oooooooh wicked. I've never walked through a wall before. Do you reckon it'll be fun Jess?" And damn embarrassing it was too. Several people gave us very funny looks.
I reached out to give Jess her obligatory slap around the head but Ernie got there first, earning himself a disapproving look from his dad. Don't see why. She's been slapped around the head many times before and it's never done her any harm. True it's never done anything that good either, like say, knocked some sense into her otherwise empty head, but it never hurts to try does it?
Shaking her head Mrs Macmillan glanced around took her husband by the arm and stepped through the barrier between the two platforms. It was very weird watching two people melting through an apparently solid wall, believe me. Then Ernie steered a very dazed looking Niki, dazed being Niki's usual expression mind you, and guided her through as well. I had a feeling this had to do with the fact that trusting Niki with a luggage trolley was like trusting me with brain surgery. Not a good idea. So now I was left on the wrong side of the barrier all on my own. I was contemplating running through like I remembered Mrs Weasley suggesting in the book, when someone behind me shouted my name.
"Hey Jess! Wait a second!"
I turned around and saw a girl with blonde wavy hair hurrying towards me with a trolley, a woman who looked like she could be her mother hurrying to keep up.
"Oh hi." I said, deciding it would look extremely weird if I appeared not to know who she was.
"How was your summer?" the girl asked.
"Oh great. Spent most of it being slowly driven mad."
"Spent a lot of time around Niki then?" so she knew Niki too. Another unfortunate soul.
"Uh huh. Feel sorry for me. Very sorry for me."
"Don't worry, I do."
"Good." At least someone did.
"Coming then?" she said nodding her head towards the barrier.
"Oh yeah. Sure." I said. She linked arms with me and walked towards the wall, looked around to check no one was looking, and then pulled me through. It was a very strange sensation walking through a solid wall. It was a bit like pushing up from the bottom of the pool only we were walking forwards. Very weird.
As soon as we appeared on the other side of the barrier Niki came bounding over to us singing "La di da da da!" at the top of her voice. Then she stopped and said "Who's that Jess?"
"I'm Hannah." Said the girl giving Niki a very funny look.
"Who?"
"You know Hannah Abbott. Shared a dormitory with you since first year? Worked all last year with you and Justin in Potions? Known you for almost six years now? Ring any bells?" she said sounding a little confused but amused all the same. Niki has that effect on people.
"Oh. Yeah. Forgot then for a minute." Was Niki's very intelligent reply.
"Right Niki." Said Hannah. "Better go and say bye to my mum then. Oh she's over there." And she walked over to where her mum was now standing with Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan.
I grabbed Niki and steered her in the right direction before she could go wandering off somewhere. We headed over to the Macmillans to say goodbye. Mrs. Macmillan hugged us both and told us to behave then shouted Ernie over to do the same (he was chatting to Hannah Abbott and her mum) and then she bundled all four of us onto the train, where we found an empty compartment. Ernie and Hannah put their trunks away, said they'd be back soon and set off for the prefects' carriage.
The train had only just started moving when a boy slid open the compartment door and Niki said one of her best embarrassing things yet, "Hey you look just like Harry Potter!"
"Niki that is Harry Potter." I told her.
"Really?"
"Really." Said the boy at the door.
"Oh. In that case." she said, then turned her back to Harry and ignored him.
Harry looked a little confused for a moment then I guess he realised this was Niki and turned to me, possibly because I'm slightly saner. "Sorry." He said. "It's just every where else is full. I was wondering if Neville and me could come in here. But if you don't want us here.." He sounded almost hopeful, but if I have to put up with Niki why shouldn't he?
"Oh don't mind her." I said, looking at Niki. "She's not right in the head. Come in, I don't mind." They came in and sat down on the seat opposite looking incredibly uncomfortable. This was probably something to do with the fact that Niki was still sitting with her back to them.
"Niki?" I said nudging her with my elbow.
"What?" she said still facing away from everyone.
"Neville's here." I said in a desperate attempt to make turn around and sit in her seat like a normal person.
"Really?"
"Yup."
"Cool." She said turning around. Well it worked. "Where's Trevor?"
"I was wondering when you were going to say that." Said Neville, a small smile on his face. She'd done this before. Well I suppose anything's possible of Niki. "Here." He said putting his hand into the pocket of his robes and rummaging around. "Oh no." he said his face clouding over and his rummaging becoming more frantic. "He's not there."
"Not again." Said Harry.
"No!" said Niki. "Trevor!" she sounded more upset than Neville. "We have to find him!"
"You're right." Said Neville. "I take it you'll help me then?"
"Course I will!" said Niki. I put my face in my hands. This couldn't be a good thing.
"Come on then." said Neville.
I heard Niki get to her feet and took my hands away from my face. "I suppose I'd better come too." There was marginally smaller chance of Niki causing terror and destruction if I was there to keep an eye her. Very marginal mind you, but I had to do my best.
"Thanks." Said Neville.
"No problem."
"I think I'll stay here." Said Harry.
"You do that." I told him; at least he had the right idea. Staying away from Niki would probably be best for his health. Then I followed Niki and Neville out of the door and into the corridor.
We walked from compartment to compartment asking people if they'd seen a toad. Everything was going fine (if you ignore the fact Niki kept bursting into song every 5 seconds) until Niki spotted the food trolley. She wandered up to the woman who was pushing it and asked, "Do you have any mint imps?"
"Mint what dear?" asked the woman.
"Mint imperials." Said Niki.
"No dear sorry." Said the woman. Which wasn't the best thing she could have said, Niki has a slight addiction to mint imps you see.
"No mint imps?" said Niki, looking a little stunned.
"We have limited edition mint flavoured chocolate frogs though."
"But I want mint imps!" Niki practically yelled. People actually took the trouble too peer around compartment doors to see what was going on.
"Niki." I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Don't cause a scene."
"I'm not." Said Niki. Then she called the food lady a cheeseling and ran off down the corridor. So mature our Niki. Anyway I apologised to the woman and took off after her, Neville following behind looking a little nervous at the prospect of facing an angry Niki. And so he should have done, she's scarily embarrassing when she's angry.
"Niki you trollop." I said catching up with her. "What did you go and cause a scene for?"
"I wanted mint imps." She said, shrugging as if this explained everything. "In fact I still want mint imps. Or maybe midget gems. Have you got any?"
"Are you abandoning Trevor?" I said hoping diversionary tactics would work.
"Trevor?" some memory she has.
"Yes Trevor! He's lost remember."
"Oh yeah. We need to find him don't we?"
"Yes." I said.
And we set off on our mission to find Trevor, Niki humming the "Mission Impossible" theme tune, giving me a headache in the process.
We did eventually find Trevor (in the girls toilets, God knows how he got there) but not before it had started getting dark and even nice, kind- hearted Neville was contemplating pushing Niki off the train and pretending it was accidental, and it's true, he told me himself. When we did find the Trevor however, Niki was so over-the-moon Neville and me burst out laughing.
She was holding him up to her face and talking to him, saying, "It's all right Trevor. We've found you now. We'll never lose you again. I promise." Then she refused to give him back to Neville because she said he was unfit to look after a toad. We decided to just leave Niki with him for a bit. Wasn't worth the trouble really. She'd forget about it soon enough.
We went back to our compartment, told Neville to wait outside, woke Harry up (he was making the most of being rid of Niki for a while) and threw him out, then got changed. As we were doing so Niki said, "You're a traitor you are Jess."
"Why?" I asked, not knowing what she was on about and not really caring that much either to tell you the truth.
"You were civil to Harry Potter."
"Silly me. Being civil that's was made illegal wasn't it?"
"No." she said giving me a look that implied I was the crazy one.
"Then what's the problem?"
"To whom do we owe our allegiance Jessica?"
I was temporarily stunned by the fact Niki used the words "whom" and "allegiance" in the same sentence. After a second I hazarded a guess "Neville?"
"That's right."
"May I ask why?"
"Yes."
There was silence for a moment. Then I remembered Niki tends to take things literally. "Why?" I asked.
"Because he has a toad."
"Well that makes perfect sense."
At this point there was a knock on the door. It was Hannah. "Can I come in?" she asked.
"Yes." I said. "We're done getting changed."
Hannah opened the door and a horde of people came in. Hannah, Ernie, Harry, Neville, Ron and Hermione. So that was eight people. It was pretty crowded actually. I was crammed in between Niki and the window; she was sitting next to Hannah who in turn was squashed up against Ernie. The same was true of Harry, Neville, Ron and Hermione. But we survived.
We passed the time doing various things. Harry, Ron and Ernie got into an animated discussion about quidditch, which was pretty funny really because Ron kept hitting Hermione in the face because he kept flailing his arms about. Hannah and Niki were playing rock, paper, scissors (who knew Hannah was so immature?) I got talking to Hermione about Muggle High Schools and what things we might be learning there, which pretty fun really if you discount the fact she kept stopping to shout at Ron every time he accidentally smacked her. I might have had an unfair advantage in this conversation actually having attended a "Muggle" High School but never mind. This left Neville to read in relative peace and quiet. If you could call that peace and quiet.
What was really extraordinary though was Niki acting like a normal person. Well almost, she was still acting childish but she never came out with any random comments and she didn't do anything embarrassing either.
This streak of misfortune didn't last all that long though, which was very unfortunate. As soon as Niki stepped of the train she spotted Hagrid. She shouted "Look Jess!" and ran over to him.
"Hey Hagrid." She said.
"Hello Niki."
"You're really, really, really tall!" she said, at which I grabbed her, apologised to Hagrid and dragged her away.
We managed to make it to the carriages without much trouble; we shared one with Hannah and Ernie. When we got to the castle however Niki gave an excited shriek and started singing "Hogwarts! Hogwarts! Hogwarts!" over and over again. Not only that she stopped at the foot of the stairs, Ernie knocked into the back of her, Niki went flying forwards, barrelled into a group of what looked like second years creating a domino effect up the stairs. "Bloody Hell." I muttered. Hannah put a reassuring hand on my shoulder and shook her head.
I couldn't help thinking, if Niki's first steps on Hogwarts grounds were anything to go by, Hogwarts was in for a shock.
***
Yay second chapter. I suppose I should thank the people who reviewed the last chapter now (a grand total of 2, but I think I can live with that) here it goes.
vixen vampyre: Your friend's like Niki? Poor you. And the poor world. Two of them? God help us. Anyhow thank you for the review and I'm glad you think it's funny. Your review really made my day, thanks again.
ViviBlack: Thanks for the review. I'm glad it made you laugh; I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as the last.
And I'm done! Ta da!
***
The journey to Kings Cross was only just bearable. Niki decided to stick to her new found fixation, Grease, and sang various renditions of "Summer Nights" and "You're The One That I Want" all the way there, remembering to include her own new and improved lyrics, like:
"Tell me more, tell me more, Dooby doo, dooby doo" Tell me more, tell me more Did he have purple shoes?"
The only thing that kept me from "accidentally on purpose" shoving Niki in front of an oncoming bus was Ernie Macmillan's constant chatter in my ear, his ramblings ranging from: "How much harder do you think the workload will be this year? You know, starting our N.E.W.T Level work and all." .to; "Who do you think does better roast potatoes? I can't decide between Niki's mum and Hogwarts. What do you think Jess?" He might have gone on a bit but at least he talked sense. Honestly, "Did he have purple shoes?" If that wasn't Niki talking I'd be seriously worried.
Eventually we arrived at King Cross between platforms 9 and 10, at which point Niki shouted out "Oooooooh wicked. I've never walked through a wall before. Do you reckon it'll be fun Jess?" And damn embarrassing it was too. Several people gave us very funny looks.
I reached out to give Jess her obligatory slap around the head but Ernie got there first, earning himself a disapproving look from his dad. Don't see why. She's been slapped around the head many times before and it's never done her any harm. True it's never done anything that good either, like say, knocked some sense into her otherwise empty head, but it never hurts to try does it?
Shaking her head Mrs Macmillan glanced around took her husband by the arm and stepped through the barrier between the two platforms. It was very weird watching two people melting through an apparently solid wall, believe me. Then Ernie steered a very dazed looking Niki, dazed being Niki's usual expression mind you, and guided her through as well. I had a feeling this had to do with the fact that trusting Niki with a luggage trolley was like trusting me with brain surgery. Not a good idea. So now I was left on the wrong side of the barrier all on my own. I was contemplating running through like I remembered Mrs Weasley suggesting in the book, when someone behind me shouted my name.
"Hey Jess! Wait a second!"
I turned around and saw a girl with blonde wavy hair hurrying towards me with a trolley, a woman who looked like she could be her mother hurrying to keep up.
"Oh hi." I said, deciding it would look extremely weird if I appeared not to know who she was.
"How was your summer?" the girl asked.
"Oh great. Spent most of it being slowly driven mad."
"Spent a lot of time around Niki then?" so she knew Niki too. Another unfortunate soul.
"Uh huh. Feel sorry for me. Very sorry for me."
"Don't worry, I do."
"Good." At least someone did.
"Coming then?" she said nodding her head towards the barrier.
"Oh yeah. Sure." I said. She linked arms with me and walked towards the wall, looked around to check no one was looking, and then pulled me through. It was a very strange sensation walking through a solid wall. It was a bit like pushing up from the bottom of the pool only we were walking forwards. Very weird.
As soon as we appeared on the other side of the barrier Niki came bounding over to us singing "La di da da da!" at the top of her voice. Then she stopped and said "Who's that Jess?"
"I'm Hannah." Said the girl giving Niki a very funny look.
"Who?"
"You know Hannah Abbott. Shared a dormitory with you since first year? Worked all last year with you and Justin in Potions? Known you for almost six years now? Ring any bells?" she said sounding a little confused but amused all the same. Niki has that effect on people.
"Oh. Yeah. Forgot then for a minute." Was Niki's very intelligent reply.
"Right Niki." Said Hannah. "Better go and say bye to my mum then. Oh she's over there." And she walked over to where her mum was now standing with Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan.
I grabbed Niki and steered her in the right direction before she could go wandering off somewhere. We headed over to the Macmillans to say goodbye. Mrs. Macmillan hugged us both and told us to behave then shouted Ernie over to do the same (he was chatting to Hannah Abbott and her mum) and then she bundled all four of us onto the train, where we found an empty compartment. Ernie and Hannah put their trunks away, said they'd be back soon and set off for the prefects' carriage.
The train had only just started moving when a boy slid open the compartment door and Niki said one of her best embarrassing things yet, "Hey you look just like Harry Potter!"
"Niki that is Harry Potter." I told her.
"Really?"
"Really." Said the boy at the door.
"Oh. In that case." she said, then turned her back to Harry and ignored him.
Harry looked a little confused for a moment then I guess he realised this was Niki and turned to me, possibly because I'm slightly saner. "Sorry." He said. "It's just every where else is full. I was wondering if Neville and me could come in here. But if you don't want us here.." He sounded almost hopeful, but if I have to put up with Niki why shouldn't he?
"Oh don't mind her." I said, looking at Niki. "She's not right in the head. Come in, I don't mind." They came in and sat down on the seat opposite looking incredibly uncomfortable. This was probably something to do with the fact that Niki was still sitting with her back to them.
"Niki?" I said nudging her with my elbow.
"What?" she said still facing away from everyone.
"Neville's here." I said in a desperate attempt to make turn around and sit in her seat like a normal person.
"Really?"
"Yup."
"Cool." She said turning around. Well it worked. "Where's Trevor?"
"I was wondering when you were going to say that." Said Neville, a small smile on his face. She'd done this before. Well I suppose anything's possible of Niki. "Here." He said putting his hand into the pocket of his robes and rummaging around. "Oh no." he said his face clouding over and his rummaging becoming more frantic. "He's not there."
"Not again." Said Harry.
"No!" said Niki. "Trevor!" she sounded more upset than Neville. "We have to find him!"
"You're right." Said Neville. "I take it you'll help me then?"
"Course I will!" said Niki. I put my face in my hands. This couldn't be a good thing.
"Come on then." said Neville.
I heard Niki get to her feet and took my hands away from my face. "I suppose I'd better come too." There was marginally smaller chance of Niki causing terror and destruction if I was there to keep an eye her. Very marginal mind you, but I had to do my best.
"Thanks." Said Neville.
"No problem."
"I think I'll stay here." Said Harry.
"You do that." I told him; at least he had the right idea. Staying away from Niki would probably be best for his health. Then I followed Niki and Neville out of the door and into the corridor.
We walked from compartment to compartment asking people if they'd seen a toad. Everything was going fine (if you ignore the fact Niki kept bursting into song every 5 seconds) until Niki spotted the food trolley. She wandered up to the woman who was pushing it and asked, "Do you have any mint imps?"
"Mint what dear?" asked the woman.
"Mint imperials." Said Niki.
"No dear sorry." Said the woman. Which wasn't the best thing she could have said, Niki has a slight addiction to mint imps you see.
"No mint imps?" said Niki, looking a little stunned.
"We have limited edition mint flavoured chocolate frogs though."
"But I want mint imps!" Niki practically yelled. People actually took the trouble too peer around compartment doors to see what was going on.
"Niki." I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Don't cause a scene."
"I'm not." Said Niki. Then she called the food lady a cheeseling and ran off down the corridor. So mature our Niki. Anyway I apologised to the woman and took off after her, Neville following behind looking a little nervous at the prospect of facing an angry Niki. And so he should have done, she's scarily embarrassing when she's angry.
"Niki you trollop." I said catching up with her. "What did you go and cause a scene for?"
"I wanted mint imps." She said, shrugging as if this explained everything. "In fact I still want mint imps. Or maybe midget gems. Have you got any?"
"Are you abandoning Trevor?" I said hoping diversionary tactics would work.
"Trevor?" some memory she has.
"Yes Trevor! He's lost remember."
"Oh yeah. We need to find him don't we?"
"Yes." I said.
And we set off on our mission to find Trevor, Niki humming the "Mission Impossible" theme tune, giving me a headache in the process.
We did eventually find Trevor (in the girls toilets, God knows how he got there) but not before it had started getting dark and even nice, kind- hearted Neville was contemplating pushing Niki off the train and pretending it was accidental, and it's true, he told me himself. When we did find the Trevor however, Niki was so over-the-moon Neville and me burst out laughing.
She was holding him up to her face and talking to him, saying, "It's all right Trevor. We've found you now. We'll never lose you again. I promise." Then she refused to give him back to Neville because she said he was unfit to look after a toad. We decided to just leave Niki with him for a bit. Wasn't worth the trouble really. She'd forget about it soon enough.
We went back to our compartment, told Neville to wait outside, woke Harry up (he was making the most of being rid of Niki for a while) and threw him out, then got changed. As we were doing so Niki said, "You're a traitor you are Jess."
"Why?" I asked, not knowing what she was on about and not really caring that much either to tell you the truth.
"You were civil to Harry Potter."
"Silly me. Being civil that's was made illegal wasn't it?"
"No." she said giving me a look that implied I was the crazy one.
"Then what's the problem?"
"To whom do we owe our allegiance Jessica?"
I was temporarily stunned by the fact Niki used the words "whom" and "allegiance" in the same sentence. After a second I hazarded a guess "Neville?"
"That's right."
"May I ask why?"
"Yes."
There was silence for a moment. Then I remembered Niki tends to take things literally. "Why?" I asked.
"Because he has a toad."
"Well that makes perfect sense."
At this point there was a knock on the door. It was Hannah. "Can I come in?" she asked.
"Yes." I said. "We're done getting changed."
Hannah opened the door and a horde of people came in. Hannah, Ernie, Harry, Neville, Ron and Hermione. So that was eight people. It was pretty crowded actually. I was crammed in between Niki and the window; she was sitting next to Hannah who in turn was squashed up against Ernie. The same was true of Harry, Neville, Ron and Hermione. But we survived.
We passed the time doing various things. Harry, Ron and Ernie got into an animated discussion about quidditch, which was pretty funny really because Ron kept hitting Hermione in the face because he kept flailing his arms about. Hannah and Niki were playing rock, paper, scissors (who knew Hannah was so immature?) I got talking to Hermione about Muggle High Schools and what things we might be learning there, which pretty fun really if you discount the fact she kept stopping to shout at Ron every time he accidentally smacked her. I might have had an unfair advantage in this conversation actually having attended a "Muggle" High School but never mind. This left Neville to read in relative peace and quiet. If you could call that peace and quiet.
What was really extraordinary though was Niki acting like a normal person. Well almost, she was still acting childish but she never came out with any random comments and she didn't do anything embarrassing either.
This streak of misfortune didn't last all that long though, which was very unfortunate. As soon as Niki stepped of the train she spotted Hagrid. She shouted "Look Jess!" and ran over to him.
"Hey Hagrid." She said.
"Hello Niki."
"You're really, really, really tall!" she said, at which I grabbed her, apologised to Hagrid and dragged her away.
We managed to make it to the carriages without much trouble; we shared one with Hannah and Ernie. When we got to the castle however Niki gave an excited shriek and started singing "Hogwarts! Hogwarts! Hogwarts!" over and over again. Not only that she stopped at the foot of the stairs, Ernie knocked into the back of her, Niki went flying forwards, barrelled into a group of what looked like second years creating a domino effect up the stairs. "Bloody Hell." I muttered. Hannah put a reassuring hand on my shoulder and shook her head.
I couldn't help thinking, if Niki's first steps on Hogwarts grounds were anything to go by, Hogwarts was in for a shock.
***
Yay second chapter. I suppose I should thank the people who reviewed the last chapter now (a grand total of 2, but I think I can live with that) here it goes.
vixen vampyre: Your friend's like Niki? Poor you. And the poor world. Two of them? God help us. Anyhow thank you for the review and I'm glad you think it's funny. Your review really made my day, thanks again.
ViviBlack: Thanks for the review. I'm glad it made you laugh; I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as the last.
And I'm done! Ta da!