CHAPTER 5
Sirius closed the door and I immediately pressed my ear to it to hear what was happening.
"Er…Katrina? Sirius said to keep you away from the door, so, let's go over there, shall we?" Peter squeaked fearfully, as if Sirius was watching his every move.
I turned away from the door and sighed as Peter led me away from the compartment but in the same aisle as Sirius has said so.
"Peter? Why do they call you Wormtail?"
Peter jumped slightly when I broke the silence. "Because I turn into a rat. We have little nicknames for each other."
"May I know them?"
"Er…well, I'm not sure if…er, all right. James is Prongs, Remus is Moony, and Sirius is Padfoot." Peter whispered.
"Padfoot." I sighed under my breath.
"What was that?"
"Oh, nothing."
We reached the end of the aisle and Peter plopped down near the door of the train. The winds' weak whispers were barely heard over the loud rattle of the train. A loud grunting noise told me that Peter had already fallen asleep. I stared thoughtfully out the door, thinking of the time I had spent with Sirius. It had felt so weird. He's such a nice guy, but I don't think I'd want to get personally involved with him. I mean, he seems sort of…reckless. I slid down the icy wall opposite to the door and let the thoughts of Sirius lull me to sleep.
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"Jolly good day, isn't it?"
I opened my eyes groggily to see James' cheerful face in front of mine. I jumped off of the floor and hit my head on something hard. Only, it wasn't the floor. I was in a bed and I had just hit the bottom of a bed on top of me. I knew we still weren't off of the train because of the constant swaying motion, so I looked around for an explanation. James seemed to have read my mind.
"We came out to find you asleep so I wanted to wake you up to get you back to the compartment. But Sirius here," He jerked his head towards Sirius, who seemed to have been looking at me but hastily started talking to Remus, " didn't want to wake you up. So we carried you back." He took some Chocolate Frogs out of his pocket at stuffed one in his mouth. And while chewing noisily, offered some to me. He took an enormous gulp, and bent down so he was no more than a few inches away from my face. " You know what," he said in an undertone, " I reckon Sirius fancies yo-"
"I s'pose we better get to changing, then?" Sirius said loudly, obviously having overheard what James was saying.
"Yeah, mate, we'll be there any minute now." Said a weary voice. I looked around to see Remus sitting shakily at the edge of the bed opposite to me, his shirt ripped at several places.
"Oh my, are you okay?" I went over and sat next to Remus.
"Yeah, it's fine. It's nothing compared to the previous slashes I've had. Now, let's get to changing then."
"All right." I pulled on my robes; as Sirius, James, Peter did also. I helped Remus with his robes as he was having trouble lacing them up. As soon as I was done with this, a hard jolt that knocked Peter over told me that we had come to Hogwarts. I looked out the window, expectant to see the castle, but I couldn't see anything except for the students getting out of the train, some horseless carriages, and a deep blue lake harboring many small wooden boats.
"Where is it?" I said, fogging the window.
"Oh, you can't see it yet. We have to get on the carriages first and then they take us to Hogwarts.", said James, opening up the compartment door to the chatting of many students, eager to begin the term. We got out into the stream of black cloaks and stepped out into the dazzling sunlight.