Testing Your Muggle and American Skills! Chapter 2: The Portkeys, a harry potter fanfic

Testing Your Muggle and American Skills!

By Moony

Thanks to all my reviewers! Cookies to all! –Moony

I don't own anything, the bestest woman on Earth, Joanne Kathleen Rowling, owns all the characters you recognize. If you don't recognize them, they're mine, like the kind old witch who escorts them. And the other lady. And Mrs. Karvonen is a real person. She isone of my teachers. I don't own her. –Moony

Chapter 2

On June 14th, Sirius suddenly woke up in the middle of the night and yelled very suddenly –

"Oh my gosh! I don't wanna be a stupid communications major!"

Which woke Remus and James up very groggily…

"Wha?" Remus asked.

"I don't want to be communcations. I wanna be… I wanna be… I wanna be a BAND major!"

"Are you kidding! You can't even play any band instruments!"

"Yes I can! I can play the trumpet! I took some lessons from this dude at James' house, and I play pretty good!"

"Oh yeah! He can!" James said excitedly, "Awesome mate! Go for it!"

Sirius grinned. Immediately, he ran to Remus's desk and grabbed a piece of parchment, scrawled down a hasty note and sent it off.

"I wish I could be something else…" James said.

"Hey, you can be a visual major!" Sirius said.

"You're kidding, Prongs can't draw!" Remus said, and this was true.

"Yeah, Moony's right on that," James said.

"But what if, what if you got someone to help you at that weird school?" Sirius said happily.

"You know, that's a great idea!" James replied, patting Sirius on the back.

"What if he can't?" Remus retorted.

"Stop being pessimistic Moony!" James whined. "You're ruining my moment!"

"But what if you can't? Then I'll just er, stash some pictures in my suitcase thingy that I did using my wand, and use those and pretend to be sketching it. Yeah."

Remus raised his eyebrows, but put no further objections as James scribbled his request to switch majors.

"Why did we wake up in the first place this early?" Sirius said after a while.

"Because you had to suddenly wake up and scream that you didn't want to be a communications major," Remus replied, tossing the covers over his head and trying to get back to sleep.

"Oh. Right. Ok," Sirius replied faintly, and the next sound was his snoring, and then James' added onto it.

Mrs. Lupin drove the three of them to the Kings Cross Station on June 15th, as there was no fireplace there, and arriving by Portkey would seem just way too suspicious. They had stuck all their supplies into 'suitcases', American Muggles seemed to use them more often than trunks, and they were also wearing their Muggle clothes, which seemed awfully strange. The jeans were very tight, and the t-shirt was sort of baggy, unlike the crisp uniforms they wore at Hogwarts, and the swishy pants they wore.

Their wands had been stowed away at Remus's house, and all was ready to go.

"Ready boys?" Mrs. Lupin asked as they all piled in.

"Yup!" Sirius said excitedly.

"Made sure you didn't forget anything?"

"Yup!"

So they started off the long car ride to London. It was quite boring, and pretty soon, the boys had started up again…

"I'm bored."

"Oh my gosh, please shut up!"

"I'm bored."

"Please boys, can you quiet down? That does get quite irritating," Mrs. Lupin said.

"Sure Mrs. Lupin, sorry we bothered you," Sirius said sweetly, giving a nasty smile at Remus, who scowled back.

"Thank you Sirius dear."

At long last they pulled into the parking lot of the station. The three of them grabbed their suitcases and walked on in.

"I wonder why you must go to a train station, you can't take a train from Britain to America," Mrs. Lupin said.

"That's what we were wondering too Mum," Remus said.

"Well, whatever it is, I hope it will be safe. Now, before you head on to the platform, Remus dear, if you need to contact us, simply call us, your father should be able to operate the telephone for me. And there are no full moons (A/N: I know there are full moons in a semester, but let's keep it this way so there are no complications), so that's all right," Mrs. Lupin said.

"Yes Mum."

"Now, go on, onto the platform with you! Have fun boys!"

They each ran through the wall and immediately stepped on the platform. However, instead of the Hogwarts Express that was usually there, there was a completely different train painted blue and white.

A lady was standing there, while other children stood around her.

"Are you for the contest boys?" the lady asked.

"Yes ma'am!" James replied.

"Good, come over here then. What's your names?"

"I'm Sirius Black, that's James Potter, and that's Remus Lupin."

"All right," the lady said, looking at her list. "Please see the other kind witch over there," she said, gesturing to another lady smiling.

"Hello! You must be Sirius, Remus, and James?"

"Yup!" Sirius said.

"All right, your school is very special. If I have it right, it is in Florida, and Mr. Potter is going to be a visual major, Mr. Lupin a communications major, and Mr. Black a band major."

"Yes that's correct," Remus said politely.

"Good, good. Now, this is not a boarding school, like Hogwarts is. Therefore, you will take Bus 40 to the first stop, where I will pick you up in a car to take you to your special lodgings. I will take care of all parental signatures that is needed."

The three nodded.

"You will be responsible for getting to school on time by getting to the bus stop in the morning. When you get to the school, you must report to your 0-hour classrooms."

"What's that?" James asked.

"It's the classroom where you will receive your schedule for all your classes."

"Yours are… Mrs. Karvonen, yes, you will report to room 222 to receive a schedule."

"Right, ok. So how are we getting there?" Sirius asked.

The lady smiled, took a bracelet from her pocket and whispered, "Portkus."

"You'll be taking this. We wanted to do this on the platform, so no Muggles would get suspicious. Now, are you sure that you have no more questions? You will be on your own once we arrive in America. I will not answer anything more."

"Yes," James said.

"Ok, let's go then."

The four of them touched the bracelet, and they felt themselves floating higher and higher. It was quite different however, because they had never traveled such a far distance.

At last, the Portkey came to a stop.

"Dingy town!" Sirius commented.

"Right, come with me. We'll be going to the home that I rented for this trip," the lady said to them.

Once again, she turned another bracelet into a Portkey, and finally arrived at the small townhouse.

"It's more cheery than the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black," Sirius commented.

" 'Course Padfoot, any house is more cheery than the Noble and Ancient House of Black," James replied.

The three headed in.

"Oh! New house smell!" Remus said, taking a deep whiff.

"Are you crazy? I hate that smell!" Sirius said disgustedly.

"I like it!"

"I hate it!"

"I like it!"

"I hate it!"

"I like it!"

"I hate it!"

"I like it!"

"I hate it!"

"I like it!"

"I hate it!"

"I like it!"

"I hate it!"

"I like it!"

In another room, the kind witch who had escorted them to the home rubbed her head. It would be a very long semester with these three…