Aboard the Express we go at last

I do not own or control any of the characters in this story except for Raveyn and Madam Mionney. J.K. just let's me play with them once in a while.

The sounds of feet running back and forth above his bedroom groaning he rolled over. His head still ached from the day before, the actual surgery, so to speak, at St. Mungo's had barely taken more than a few seconds, but he was forced to stay in the hospital for several hours with nothing to do but stare at the tiled ceiling.

The people there obviously didn't realize this was the worst thing they could have done to Harry.

Not wanting to sleep Harry was left alone with the haunted thoughts of the last few months and the worries of what was yet to come. He went over every second of that fatal night in the Department of Mysteries, still not forgiving himself for Sirius' death. Then his thoughts turned to what could soon be the end of his young life. He knew Voldemort would waste no time in getting him out of the way. The longer he was alive the more of a threat to Voldemort he was causing Harry to be painfully aware of his own mortality. The past day had not improved his mood by any means. Maybe when I reach Hogwarts things will be different. At least I'll have a little freedom there...

After being locked up in the Order all summer he had become restless he often had paced his room like an animal in a cage. But of all the things he missed locked away all day long had been the ability to fly. Oh how many hours had he spent dreaming of Quidditch and Snitches! Of the wind running through his hair, of the adrenaline pumping through his veins, of feeling the air pass through his fingers like liquid. With a new fervor he got out of bed and dressed. He packed the stack of books and supplies Hermione and Ron had picked up for him after he was taken to the hospital the day before.

After checking Hedwig was securely in her cage he took one last look at the room that had once been Fred and George's. He took a deep breath and opened the door to meet the others. The remainders of the Weasley children were assembled at the door, he remembered the days when there had been a whole passel of them. Now it was only Ron and Ginny, it was disconcerting in a way that the warm teasing group had so suddenly disassembled. Hermione soon joined Ron and Ginny at the door. Harry watched them for a few moments they were so close and yet they seemed worlds away to him, they still lived in the bright vivid world he'd once known. He wished he could join them there but all he could feel these days was a suffocating numbness. They saw him standing there and smiled but behind their smiles he saw the worry in their eyes. The worry that had grown day-by-day since they had left Hogwarts, it was an unspoken black mark between them. They could feel the difference in him but never dared to confront it, never asked him what was wrong. He hated them for it, just as he would hate them if they made an attempt to ask him what was wrong. He was lost in his own self-pity and as far as was concerned no one could do right by him.

And yet no matter how much he despised them for not understanding, or understanding too well, he still loved them both, still craved their approval, still wanted to be part of their lives. But as it stood, with his life as it was-- a walking oxymoron, he couldn't fall back into the days when their friendship had been so easy. He wished with all his heart that he could say a magic word and change the grayscale his life had become back into a bright Technicolor. But he knew it would take more than a simple spell to correct things between them.

He flashed them a quick vibrant smile, and walked over to them. He joined in with their lively conversation and jokes while Mrs. Weasley ran around the house like a headless chicken determined that they were missing something. He laughed with them, he smiled with them, he teased with them but they all knew he was just going through the motions.

The ride to the station was smooth and uneventful, quite a change from the usual hustle and bustle that came with catching the Hogwarts Express. For once, they even arrived with time to spare and he couldn't seem to overcome the eeriness of them being able to comfortably find their own compartment.

Hermione and Ron decided that they would stay with Harry this year instead of going to the Prefect cabins.

"We'd much rather stay with you."

"The novelty's warn off a bit since last year, and the cabins aren't anything special." Hermione elbowed Ron in the stomach.

"Wha' was that for!" Hermione rolled her eyes at his pained expression.

"Tact Ron, something you seem to lack." He gave her an annoyed look; with his ears blazing red, he turned to sit down.

Several students walked through their compartment to reach another cabin. Some stopped to chat, but were soon on their way. It wasn't long before Harry caught a glimpse of black hair and a familiar Ravenclaw's face.

"Hi Harry," she said smiling somewhat bashfully. Harry smiled and nodded back, Cho blushed at this and Harry had to smother a grin as Ron rolled his eyes behind her back. She was obviously waiting for him to say something, and he was quite determined not to; thankfully, after a few awkward moments of silence she waved goodbye and made a swift exit.

"Please tell me you're not going to go through that again Harry."

"Don't worry I'm not going to. Last year was enough to put me off girls for life."

"Not surprising, bloody confusing things. They say one thing when they really mean somethin' else and then they get angry when you don't realize what they really meant. Bloody strange the lot of them." He leant back against his seat ignoring the dagger like looks both Hermione and Ginny were giving him.

"For your information Ronald," she told him in her best bookwormish voice, "We are not strange an--" Interrupting her sentence Luna entered the compartment sporting a red cap with antlers sticking out the top. After giving each of them a silent greeting she sat down and proceeded to take out and study what seemed to be some sort of Fungus, Harry couldn't say he was very surprised when the fungus morphed into the shape of two legs and started tap dancing along the table, making a strange squishing sound with each step. Ron turned back to Hermione who was staring at Luna with her eyebrows knit together in a mix of confusion and utter disbelief.

"You were saying..." Hermione looked at him impatiently,

"Well there are exceptions to every rule." She told him abruptly. Shaking her head and raising her eyebrows as if to say I don't want to know, she buried her head in a very large volume. Next to join them was Neville, who had amazingly grown several inches over the summer.

The journey passed peacefully, with the occasional conversation interrupted by the consumption of chocolate. Halfway through the journey though Harry noticed something very odd.

"Shouldn't we have had a visit by now from the amazing bouncing ferret?" All the members of the cabin looked up, Ginny looked at her watch while Luna and Neville both scrutinized the cabin as if Malfoy and his cronies would jump out from behind something any minute. Ron stood and looked into the window in the door separating the compartment from the others, presumably to see if Malfoy was anywhere in sight. Hermione was lost in thought when suddenly she asked,

"Have any of you seen any Slytherins at all since we got on?" Each person thought back and each came up with a blank.

"No,"

"None"

"Not even a glimpse."

Harry Ron and Hermione exchanged a worried look.

"Maybe Dumbledore finally kicked the lot out."

"Come off it Ron he wouldn't do that."

"You never know, with you-know-who about it could be a threat to the other students."

"No," Harry interjected, "he didn't even do that during the war. Why would he this time?" Ron shrugged.

"I agree with Harry there's no way Dumbledore would get rid of them, there must be something going on..."

"I look around the train a bit," Ginny offered only to be immediately shut down by her brother.

"No, Ginny you stay here I don't want you anywhere near that git." Ginny sighed resignedly and nodded. She knew all too well that arguing with her brother was fruitless.

"I'll go," standing up Harry quickly exited before anyone argued with him. He passed through filled compartment after compartment looking around quickly at each, still not seeing a glimpse of a Slytherin. After going through an endless chain of cabins, who knew how big this train was? he came to the last three cabins. He reached out to touch the door only to find that it had been blocked somehow. He quickly examined it, he was tempted to use alohomora but considering the fact that the door had no keyhole he wasn't sure if it would work. Just as he pulled out his wand the blind, which covered the window in the door, flew open and he was greeted with the angry swarmy face of Draco Malfoy. The door opened, Malfoy Crabbe and Goyle stepped out blocking the contents of the cabin door.

"What do you want Potter" Malfoy spat, his eyes filled with hate. Harry stood his ground giving Malfoy a bored expression.

"I was just curious why you hadn't made a snide appearance in our cabin yet Malfoy, we were worried." Malfoy looked as if he were about to kill Harry right then and there, but before he could open his mouth a loud noise erupted from the cabin behind them. It sounded as if there was some type of fight going on, Malfoy immediately turned and entered the cabin. Harry tried desperately hard to see over Crabbe and Goyle to see what was going on, his efforts were useless for despite the fact they were facing inside

Crabbe and Goyle were as tall and wide as the doorway causing them to form a makeshift door. It didn't matter anyway because the scuffle sounds subdued in seconds, becoming no more than the occasional swear word and sigh. Malfoy reappeared from in between Crabbe and Goyle.

"Sod off Potter go back to your own kind, we don't want you here." With that all three of them reentered the cabin, shutting the door, and lowering the blind giving Harry no time to even catch a glimpse at the inside of the cabin. Frustrated that he still didn't have the answer to why all the Slytherins had migrated and angry that Malfoy had dismissed him like that he made his way back to the cabin.

Meeting his friends' questions with a mere shrug he sat down by the window and spent the last hour of the journey to Hogwarts staring at the scenery. Thinking about anything and everything, wondering if he'd always spend his life just going through the motions.