Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
The Misplaced Potter
Chapter 8
In which our hero travels on the Hogwarts Express
It was just after ten o'clock the next morning when they arrived at King's Cross Station. Aunt Caroline found an amazingly close parking space and no one had forgotten anything.
"I get nervous when things go this smoothly," Aunt Caroline joked as Chris and Henry quickly returned to the car with a flat cart in tow.
Henry took charge of the luggage trolley, which was loaded with the trunk that Professor McGonagall had bought the previous day as well as two suitcases of clothes for him and Chris. A garment bag with a selection of sweaters, jackets, coats, and their school robes was draped over a large red cooler which was packed with what Henry thought was enough food and drinks to do them for days.
Henry, along with his mother, his Aunt Caroline, his cousin Christopher, and the McGonagalls, moved through the heavy throng at King's Cross Station. Now that he had an idea as to what to look for, Henry could spot the magical folk in the mass of muggles. Owls were the biggest giveaway. Henry noticed no less than seven owls in cages. The magical folk also favored old-fashion steamer trunks to modern suitcases. Henry saw several school-aged kids pulling trolleys burdened with such trunks.
Henry spied the large brick column that was the gateway to platform 9 ¾. There was a small knot of people gathered nearby. Professor McGonagall had told them that no one without magical ability could pass through to the platform so Henry guessed that these were muggle parents saying good-bye to their kids much as he would have to do shortly. At that thought, Henry was afraid that he was going to cry. He had never been away from his parents for any length of time before and now that the reality of separation was upon him, he was scared.
His mother caught his change of mood. She placed a gentle arm around his shoulder.
"It'll be alright, Henry," she reassured him.
"I know," he said thickly. "It's just…"
"I understand," Danielle Porter said as she walked beside her son. "We'll all be together at Christmas at your Aunt Caroline's and it may well be that your father and I will be back in England for good before your school year is finished."
"It seems like a long way off," Henry replied.
Danielle Porter quietly laughed. "If Hogwarts is half as interesting as Professor McGonagall has made it sound, you'll soon be telling yourself that you can't believe is Christmas break already."
"I hope so."
"I don't have to tell you to be good or to study hard or to write. I know that you will do those things," Mrs. Porter said. "But I want you to remember that your father and I love you very much and are very proud of you."
"I'd forget to breathe before I forget that," Henry said dropping his control and letting the tears flow from his eyes. "I love you and dad. You've told me that I was adopted but I can't see myself as anyone else's son."
Mrs. Porter began crying when Henry said that. They clung to each other for nearly a minute before Mrs. Porter finally broke the embrace.
"You had best be getting through the barrier," she said as she pulled a handkerchief from her purse and wiped Henry's face. "We'll see you at Christmas."
Henry nodded once, not trusting his voice. He aligned his trolley with the barrier and waited for a girl with bushy hair to go through first. As soon as she was through, Henry pushed his cart forward at a trot.
He was not sure what to expect. Would the barrier be like passing through water or syrup? In the end, it was like nothing at all.
"It must be some kind of an illusion," Henry thought looking back over his shoulder. He quickly had to move out of the path as another cart was coming through. Once out of the way of the barrier, Henry moved forward slowly looking for Maggie, whose mother had given her permission to ride the train to Hogwarts, and Chris.
Having decided that they had not yet come through, Henry headed for one of the train. He was following the bushy haired girl as she walked along side the cars peeking into the compartments. She noticed Henry when she stopped.
"This one is empty if you want to join me," she said
Henry nodded his acceptance and quickly moved forward to help her load her luggage onto the train before starting on his cart.
Henry was unloading the cooler, the last of his baggage, when two tall thickset boys approached him.
"Hey Crabbe," one boy said. "Isn't this the muggleborn who was outside crying like a baby?"
"Yeah, Goyle, it is," the other one agreed mockingly. "What's the matter? Is baby gonna miss his mummy."
Henry slid the cooler into the compartment. He turned to the two boys and smiled. Blood splattered Goyle's face and shirt as Henry's lightning fast left jab broke his nose. A right uppercut forced all of the air from Crabbe's lungs. Henry followed that punch with a left hook to the jaw that dropped Crabbe to the ground.
Henry turned at Goyle's roar. The large boy threw a wild roundhouse punch that Henry easily ducked. He put three quick jabs into Goyle's ribs then Henry drove a right cross that came from downtown into the side of Goyle's head. The boy was out cold before his shoulders hit the platform.
Crabbe was still curled up gasping for breathe when Henry dropped to a squat beside him.
"To answer your question," Henry said mildly. "Yes, I'm gonna miss my mom very much."
Chris and Maggie were standing in the small crowd that had gathered to watch the fight.
"That was a subtle way to introduce yourself to your new classmates, cuz," Chris said amidst the cheers and applause.
"Both of those boys were much bigger than you," Maggie said.
"Henry may be small but he's as strong as the horses he raises," Chris told her. "I've been foolish enough to wrestle with him in the past. Trust me; lifting all those hay bales hasn't gone to waste."
"C'mon," a blushing Henry said with a jerk of his head. "Our luggage is in this car."
An hour later, Henry was watching the suburbs speed by his window.
"Henry, it has to be broken," a concerned Maggie said. She had used her handkerchief to make an icepack but it was having little effect on his hand.
Henry gazed upon his hand. It was rapidly swelling and turning an ugly purple. He should not have let those two idiots get his dander up but they had caught him when he was already in the grip of high emotion.
"I guess there's a school nurse or something at Hogwarts," Henry said trying to keep them from knowing how much his hand hurt.
"Sure, Madame Pomfrey," Maggie said. "But we're hours and hours from Hogwarts. Stay here."
She hopped off the bench and disappeared into the corridor.
"Where does she think I can go?" Henry asked rhetorically.
Chris laughed, more to keep the mood light then anything else. "You know that none of the cool heroes are supposed to break their hands in a fight."
"Well, I'm no hero then," Henry said as he tried to find the least uncomfortable way to hold his hand.
"Beating up two thugs and then squatting down and delivering that line," Chris replied. "Cuz, that was pure cinematic cool."
Henry's retort died aborning as a fresh spasm of pain shot through his hand. Hermione Granger, as the bushy haired girl had introduced herself, caught the sudden grimace of pain on his face.
"You shouldn't have gotten into a fight in the first place," she said in a rather bossy tone. "What will they think of you at Hogwarts? Getting into a brawl before the train even left the station."
"Well, aren't you little Mary Sunshine," Chris said angrily. "Can't you see that he is in pain?"
"Yes, I can," she replied. "But whose fault is that?"
"It's mine," Henry quickly said before Chris could get a row started. "I shouldn't have let those dolts get my goat in the first place, and in the second place, I should not have forgotten that skulls are harder than fingers but it's nothing you two need to fight about."
Chris looked from Hermione to Henry and back again.
"Yeah, you're right," he said. "I'm sorry for snapping at you, Hermione."
Hermione's shoulders sagged slightly. "There is no need for you to apologize," she said sadly. "It's my fault. I lack many basic social skills. I have a severe tendency to say things and do things without considering their effect on others. It made me hated at my old school."
"No one knows you at Hogwarts so you can start anew with everyone," Chris said encouragingly.
Hermione turned to stare out of the window with sad eyes. "It's a new school but I'm the same old Hermione."
Henry and Chris were floundering for a reply when Maggie entered the compartment closely followed by an older teen-aged girl with short blonde hair carrying a large leather bag. She was wearing a pair of black jeans and a green sweatshirt with SLYTHERIN written across the front in silver.
"There he is, Barbara," Maggie said as she sat down beside Hermione.
Chris stood and stepped around Barbara. He stopped in the open doorway and looked over her shoulder as she knelt before Henry. Barbara carefully took his hand and slowly turned it side to side. She then carefully moved her fingers over Henry's swollen hand.
"Mercy of God," Henry shouted when she probed over a finger.
"I am going to interpret that as 'Barbara, that felt the tiniest bit painful when you did that,'" Barbara said.
"Barbara that was the tiniest bit painful," Henry said between gritted teeth.
"You do have some broken fingers, Henry," The teen girl told him. "And a dislocated knuckle. No great surprise there. At this point, you have three options. One, you can put the ice pack back on and tell me to get the hell away from your hand. Two, I know a spell that will deaden the pain and we can put some cream that I have on your hand to keep the swelling down until we get to Hogwarts and you into the care of Madame Pomfrey, who is a healer of no mean skill or, three, you can trust me to mend your broken bones. I am not a healer yet but I will start my official training at St. Mungo's next year and, as Maggie will tell you, I have been Madame Pomfrey's shadow for six years. She has already taught me quite a bit and the spell to knit broken bones is a fairly basic one."
"Right now, I'd trust a witchdoctor," said Henry then he blushed as the incongruence of the words in his present setting hit him. "Sorry, a witchdoctor is…"
Barbara raised her hand stopping his apology. "My grandmother is a muggle," she said. "I know what is meant by witchdoctor. So, I am taking that to mean that you're all mine. Extend your hand, please."
Henry carefully held his hand before him.
Barbara put her left hand under his wrist to steady it. She clutched her wand in her right hand and began what was to Henry's eyes a random pattern in the air.
"Ossiac," she cried.
Henry's hand exploded with white-hot heat. Bloody sweat seeped out of the pores as he felt the bones rapidly knit and his knuckle pop back into place. The throbbing muscles of his hand began to relax. Barbara carefully wiped the hand dry. She poked around her bag for a moment finally extracting a small white jar with a red lid. She smeared the pinkish cream that was inside of it on Henry's hand. The hand that was so hot moments before became icy cold. Slowly, it returned to a normal body temperature. After a few minutes, Barbara took his hand in hers. There was no pain when she manipulated his fingers. There was no pain at all anywhere in his hand.
"That's incredible," Henry said in an awed voice. "Thank you."
"You're welcome, Henry," Barbara said merrily as she stood. "Thank you for the practice. I can use all of it that I can get so lead a risky life. Wrestle trolls. Tease Hippogriffs. Get girls mad at you."
She departed with a smile and a wave.
Chris sat back down beside Henry as his cousin was rapidly moving all of his fingers.
"You mean, that's it? It's healed and everything?" he asked disbelievingly. "Man, when I broke my leg, I had to wear a cast for six weeks."
"It feels fine," Henry said. "Thanks for fetching her, Maggie"
"You're welcome, Henry," she replied.
Hermione stared at Henry's hand. The swelling was gone and ugly purple coloring had disappeared. Even the scraps and scratches on the knuckles were no longer there.
"My parents are dentists," she said her despondency dispelled by her wonder. "They would give nearly anything to be able to heal someone that quickly after surgery."
"Well, now that minor considerations such as broken bones are out of the way, let's get to important matters," Chris said buoyantly. "Other then having the foresight to put ice for your hand in there, what else did mum pack for us in that cooler, Henry? You are, of course, invited to join our feast, Hermione."
"Thank you," she replied glad that the tension that had flared up between them was gone.
Henry spun the cooler that was in the floor before him around to where to could open the lid.
"Let's see," he began. "One pizza, it looks like eight or nine sandwiches on baguettes, some milk, six pops."
"What's a pop?" Hermione and Maggie asked in unison.
"You'll have to forgive my cousin," Chris said in mock seriousness. "The Yanks have corrupted his vocabulary to where he is no longer capable of speaking the Queen's English. By pop he means soft drinks, more then likely, Pepsis."
"Sod off," Henry said without heat. "Is that English enough for you?"
"How does pizza sound to everyone?" Chris asked as he passed around cloth napkins. "Maggie? Hermione?"
"That'll be super," Maggie said.
"Can do spells on this train?" Hermione asked Maggie. "Or is it just for emergencies like what Barbara did?"
"You can do any spell that doesn't cause any trouble," she replied. "There are no muggles onboard."
"Place the pizza on top of the cooler, please, Henry," Hermione said. "I want to try something."
Henry passed around the bottles of Pepsi and then carefully placed the pizza on the lid of the cooler. Hermione raised her wand and stared at the pizza in concentration as the others watched her.
"Therme!" she suddenly barked.
Steam rose from the now hot pizza as its tantalizing aroma quickly filled the compartment.
"I didn't get it too hot, did I?" She asked.
Chris slid a slice on to a napkin and tentatively took a small bite.
"Perfect," he all but moaned.
The other three kids quickly grabbed slices of their own.
"Where and when did you learn that?" Maggie asked. "I thought that you were muggleborn?"
"I am," Hermione said between bites. "One of the books I bought at Flourish and Blott's was 1001 Household Charms. That spell was in there."
"You did it very well," Maggie acknowledged. "Professor Flitwick, the charms teacher, will love you."
"I had never attempted that one before," Hermione said with a patina of pride on her voice. "I had been practicing other spells at home until the Ministry for Magic sent me an owl saying that I was doing something illegal."
"I think that you found who you should copy from, Chris," Maggie said.
"With two of you, I guess I have a fifty-fifty chance of being sorted into a house with at least one of you in it," Chris said.
"What's that about being sorted into houses?" Henry asked.
The other three looked at him in amazement.
"Okay," Henry said. "What don't I know that everyone else does?"
"You mean other then you have a piece of pepperoni on your cheek?" Chris asked. "I warned you that not getting a copy of Hogwarts, a History would leave you ignorant of some basic facts."
Hermione nodded her agreement. "As muggleborns, it behooves us to learn about the community in which we are entering."
"The way it works, Henry, is that new students at Hogwarts are sorted into one of four houses in which they'll remain for the rest of their time at Hogwarts," Maggie explained. "The houses are Gryffindor, which my mum is the head of, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin. The houses have their origins with the four founders of the school nearly a thousand years ago."
"So they're like co-ed fraternities," Henry said. "Do the different houses learn different things?"
Maggie shook her head. "No, everybody takes the same classes with the same teachers at least until the third year when you get to choose some of your subjects on your own."
"So why the four houses, then?" Henry asked "Why not just a student body?"
Maggie shrugged. "Tradition, I guess."
"From what I read in Hogwarts, a History it is based mostly on personality." Hermione said.
"That's right," Maggie said. "Gryffindors are the bravest, Hufflepuffs the hardest workers, Ravenclaws the smartest, and Slytherins the shrewdest."
"That seems to overlook some important traits like love or honor," Henry said frowning.
"Go back a thousand years and tell the founders that they don't have their priorities straight," Maggie joked.