"You are beginning to see the charms of travel, Master Harry," cried my uncle. "Wait a bit, until we advance farther. What we have as yet discovered is nothing—onwards, my boy, onwards!"
— Jules Verne.

Qui sait s'il n'existe pas un lien entre ces deux existences et s'il n'est pas possible à l'âme de le nouer dès à présent?
— Gérard de Nerval.

Vous n'allez pas comparer au nôtre un voyage imaginaire?
— Arnould Galopin.

You must structure your world so that you are constantly reminded of who you are.
— Na'im Alcbar.

#

Westward Ho! (2: Fly By Night).

He didn't exactly wake up in the middle of kneeling down, but near enough.

Close loaner eyelids against the headlamps, clap hands to gambrels exultantly!

Knees, I've got knees, love these knees, they're so bendy!

{ You're welcome, I'm sure, } said Harry.

Maximum degree of ta! replied the Rupert, no, that's ridiculous, find a better one, the Something Appropriate, the Advisor, the Counselor, the Tutor, ooo, the Tutor, that's not bad, yes, the Tutor! Leap up and a yard to the left to get out of the glare, blinkblinkblink, ooh look at the aurora, no, afterimage, really pretty though, why can't we take pictures, maybe wizards can take pictures? Mem: add to list of valuable suggestions for Pensieve 2.0.

Out of what was either darkness or light came a voice: "This is a Kneeling Bus, boy, but that means it bends down for you."

"Hello!" he called back. "You're the Knight Bus, yes? Ninety-seven horsepower transport of delight?" (There we go, vision back, quite quick really, wizardy eyeballs, when did Harry last get a set of frames? Count windows, six six five, man hanging out of bus stairwell: driver still in seat, ergo Conductor)

"We're not the No. 22 to Putney Common," said the Conductor. "Come along if you're coming!"

The Tutor bounded over to the door and noted, while the the Conductor was backing up and out of the way, that some graffitist had neatly magic-markered

LASCIATE OGNI PAURA VOI CHE ENTRATE

in large friendly letters on the top of the door-frame.

{ What's that mean? } asked Harry.

It's Italian for Don't Panic, he translated, a bit freely, and swarmed up the steps, taking care to be more awkward than necessary.

The bus was larger on the inside, which was splendid, and the seat behind the driver was occupied by a lightly dozing (wizard or squib? Impossible to say, state of uncertainty, so:) squizard who looked like a goth Father Christmas and had a large hat in his lap that was filled with an even larger golden-white bird. The bird was suffering from hiccoughs, and every time it hiccoughed its tail momentarily erupted into a bouquet of flowers, with the sound of a fluffing umbrella.

"Mind the stairs," said the Conductor, who was dressed in a plum uniform with a golden badge and looked basically like an average of everyone's favourite grandfather and was waving a rolled up copy of the Surrey Comet in a directorial manner. "Not responsible for any negligence or stupidity on the part of passengers, nor for hailstorms, lightning, or loss of tickets. First in first out, except by arrangement. Standard seating level A, refreshments level B, sleeper—correction, observation deck level C." He peered into the darkness outside. "Any more fares? No? Well then: where to? Speak up, time's a-waiting for no man."

"A return ticket to Westward Ho!, Torridge, please," he said, careful to pronounce the exclamation point in Westward Ho!, and undid the brass fastener on his manila envelope.

"Bit cold for the surfing," said the Conductor, meaning be more specific. "Or are you for the Area of Special Magical Interest?"

"Ah — Canterbury Lane, actually, number fourteen if possible." He poured coins out of the envelope and into Harry's gloved hand and let two of them bounce to the floor. One went under a seat, the other rolled down the entire length of the aisle, ten Potter points for that. "I believe the fare is eleven sickles for ages twelve and over? I'm eleven." He got down on hands and bendy knees to feel around for the coin.

The conductor made a notation on a clipboard hanging on a short cord by the driver's compartment. "Free-fare, then, but aren't you a little young to be on the Knight Bus alone?"

"Yes," he said, "yes I am. But I think you'll find my unaccompanied minor paperwork in order. " He pulled a sheet of school stationery from the envelope and waved it up at the Conductor. The heavily inked Hogwarts letterhead, faintly visible straight through the paper, was good enough for the Conductor, who glanced at it only briefly without reading the actual name on it.

"Have you got your ticket, then, boy?" said the Conductor, with an only slightly worn twinkle in his eye.

He got up and said "No, no I don't," while stowing the paper away again.

"'Course you do, it's right there," said the Conductor, pointing to the side of Harry's head. The Tutor reached up and found a gold-coloured Knight Bus ticket parked behind Harry's right ear. It had the destination printed on it, along with the notation ETA 125 minutes. "Right ho," said the Conductor, taking the ticket long enough to punch it before returning it to him. "Seat, please. —Onward!" he added to the driver.

The driver worked the shift lever, ka-chunk, and —

WHUMF

— to the sound of a tablecloth being expertly whipped out from under a complete dinner setting, the Hogwarts gates twisted and vanished, and then the bus was hurtling through flickering darkness.

#

The seat opposite the man with the bird was also taken, by a grey and grizzled squizard who would have fit right in on a muggle bus on account of being of the species Driverus chatterus, but the seat behind him was empty, and the Tutor knee-sat on it in the way that meant I know this seat is reserved for special needs and will be moving momentarily. And then thought, I will be moving for the moment? I'm already doing that...

"Dragon on the loose in Guernsey," said the grizzled squizard, hanging over the barrier between his seat and the stairs.

"Again?" said the driver.

"Yep. Drinkin' up all the milk straight out the cows. And snaffling up chickens."

"Something ought to be done," said the driver.

There was a flicker overhead, on the overhead luggage rack on the opposite side of the aisle, and it was a sign, and it read

IRREGULAR?
Bitstein's Chocolate Garlick Antinomies
"They're Better Than They Sound!"
Exclusive To Phineas S. Marsh,
Sandstone Square, LONDON.

"Advertising?" he said aloud.

"Sad to say," confirmed the Conductor. "Not the sort of thing should be on a bus of the Knight Line, if you ask me — but that's budget cuts for you — got to make up for it somehow."

"Budget cuts," he echoed, as the advertisement changed to one for Mrs Wickle's Bouncy Pickles.

"Ever since Corny Fudge came in," said the driver.

"They cut the Flying Scotsman, ya know," said the grizzard.

"I know," said the driver. "My brother worked the dining car. Redundant without notice."

"I thought the Flying Scotsman was a muggle train," said the Tutor.

"Nah, not the muggle one," said the grizzard, "the real Flying Scotsman. London to Edinburgh in ninety minutes against the wind. Let 'em Floo, says Fudge. No more Flying Scotsman, Knight Buses down to three —"

"Two," said the driver. "Ermintrude's down."

"Aye?"

"Rides like a bucking brontosaur. Bang, bang, bang — like to shake 'erself apart. And no estimate on repair time."

The grizzard snorted. "So how come taxes ha'n't come down, eh? Said they would!"

The conductor and the driver shrugged. There was a general snorting sigh, followed by silence.

"Excuse me," said the Tutor, and raised a hand, index leading. "If I could just ask a civics question — I'm muggleborn. Why do wizards have taxes?"

Everyone chuckled, though they politely tried not to.

"No, no, I mean specifically. Is it tax-to-spend, or does the government spend money into existence and then tax it back to maintain its value?"

"Eh?" said the hanger-over-the-rail. "You can't conjure gold!"

"Not gold, money. Muggles use numbers instead, the coins are just markers."

They all stared, although the driver jerked his attention back to the road admirably quickly.

"Magic money?" said the Conductor. "Muggles?"

"Well, no matter, never mind," said the Tutor hurriedly. Gosh, I hope I didn't just upturn the wizarding economy accidentally.

WHUMF

went the bus, and he turned eagerly to the window to see what manner of magical type destination they'd arrived at.

"Victoria Fields, Birkenhead, Wirral!" announced the Conductor.

In mercury-lampèd darkness outside he could see a pair of battered store fronts.

One said

(LAST DAYS)
Artie's
(110% OFF!)
Card World
(CLOSED FOREVER)

and the other was a record store, the liquorice pizza kind, The TURNTABLE, with windows covered in ads for local indie bands, plus a notice that Pastor E. Bronwen Mackenzie would be (blotch) at St Anne's on the (blotch) Valorem Rei. Inside the window were some faded LP jackets, barely legible, beneath the flyers.

Gilbert & S/ll/van
The Pi_ate_ of Pen_ance

Uma Saudade Dirigent
BE_HOVE_
D.e Geschöpfe des Pro/the/
Große Fuge

A scraggly man with a camera around his neck got on, showed a bus pass, and then got off, and then got on again this time clutching a butterfly net.

"Come, Kudryavka!" he said, and a dog of indeterminate breed followed him down towards the rear of the bus.

"Is it true they're doublin' the monthly pass fee?" said the grizzard.

"They say they aren't," said the Conductor. "But — last to know, that's us!"

WHUMF

went the bus, and almost instantly the Conductor announced "Bermondsey!" and had to get off himself to help a rather disheveled gentleman up the stairs, and then help him further up the stairs to the refreshment level, because although the man looked as though he had fallen out of the sky and into some bushes he was, according to the Conductor when he got back, too sober by half. They whumfed again, this time to the Bognor Chichester and District Badminton Association headquarters, bit disappointing, but then

WHUMF

went the bus and and and and

"Aunt Mary's Bottom, Area of Special Magical Interest!"

morning sun was streaming pinkly orange through the windows.

"Excuse me," said the Tutor to the Conductor, "did we just travel in time?"

"Travel in time! Of course not, why?"

The Tutor pointed out the window. "It's dawn. And Dorset."

The Conductor said, "It's always dawn somewhere, boy, or what's magic for?"

"And also, apparently, summer?" added the Tutor, pressing nose to glass as a cloud of golden butterflies swept through the rosy mist outside the window.

"In some places it's always summer," said the Conductor. "Hence the Magical Interest, don't you know."

The wizard with the camera and net made a hasty exit from the bus, taking one of Harry's trainers off in the process. "Sorry, sorry," he said, "Actias luna in Britain, most exciting!" The dog leaped after him. After a minute or so a pair of similarly equipped squizards made their way down from the upper decks and out, and the doors closed, and

WHULMF

went the bus, and it was dark out again — very dark. And green. And gurgly. And a fish swam past the window.

"Tch," said the driver. "I keep forgetting —"

FLOOMF

went the bus, and barrelled once more through the night air.

"There was nothing in the DMT pamphlet about submarine capability," said the Tutor conversationally, putting Harry's trainer back on.

"For persons of special needs," said the Conductor. "Advance notice required and we're not rated past 300 meters." The bus whumfed again. "Mythe Road and The Mythe! Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire!" announced the Conductor, and the bus purred to itself for several minutes whilst a group of dispirited-looking squizards dressed in Tewkesbury Mustardballs team jackets filed off.

"The Mythe?" said the Tutor. "That's a good name for something, but what?"

The Conductor pointed out the window, indicating a Georgian house on a nearby hill. "Once owned by the Marquis de Lis — as in fleur-de-lis. Latest in a line of houses occupying this site for nearly a thousand years. And good on you for taking an interest."

The goth Father Christmas, who'd been wakened by all the rumbling feet, got up and took himself and his strange bird towards the stairs to the upper decks.

WHUMF

went the bus, "Red Lion, Penbrahan, Cornwall!" announced the Conductor, and a squizard who was not, in fact, too sober by half got on and flopped down into the newly vacated seat.

The new arrival was wearing a black dragon-leather jacket over a tuxedo. On one breast of the jacket was a large shiny button bearing the image of a red blood drop with two yellow dots and a curve that added up to a smiley face. On the opposite breast was another large shiny button reading I Do Drink Wine. "Ssssstanding Stones of Callanish, please!" he said, flashing a grin that could be described as sunny but given the sharp sharp teeth probably wouldn't.

"There's a cloud of darkness over the Standing Stones of Callanish," said the grizzard.

"I know!" said the vampire happily. "Bit of a rave going on inside it. Electropaleolithic stones, you know, they run the amplifiers off them." He dug into his pockets and brought out a handful of coins. He found a galleon and handed it to the Conductor. "Keep the change!"

"Thank you, sir, no," said the Conductor, "Rules of the Line."

"Ethics! I love ethics!" said the vampire, accepting his change and ticket. "Ethics are a thing I am entirely in favour of. We should all," he said, "have more ethics. A round of ethics on me!"

At this point he noticed that he was in turn being noticed by the Tutor, blinked at him a few times while coming to terms with size versus distance, and said "Hello! May I interest you in a small presentation on behalf of the Society for the Tolerance of Vampires?"

"Absolutely!" said the Tutor.

"A bit further down the car, if you don't mind, gentlemen," said the Conductor.

"What he said," said the vampire, pointing from the Conductor to the Tutor and back again, and they got up and moved a bit further down the car, and then another bit, having overshot the first bit, and then back one bit having also overshot the second bit.

"You're an actual wizard type wizard," said the vampire. "I mean, yeah, okay, a little one, but —" he peered at the badge on Harry's jacket — "woo! Hogwarts! Don't get many of those! Did I mention I was a vampire yet?"

The Tutor shook his head and just let him get on with it.

"Well, I am, and yet despite this — no. Ethics!" said the vampire, pointing to an empty space on his jacket. Then he followed his own finger down to the empty space and reached into an inside pocket and brought out a button reading ASK ME ABOUT ETHICAL VAMPIRISM button, which he pointed to. "That's where it all starts. I am an ethical vampire. Ask me how many throats I've torn out to slake my savage blood lust."

"How many?"

"None!" said the ethical vampire, setting about pinning the button to his jacket. "Tearing out throats to slake one's savage blood lust is an outmoded archaism in a modern age, and also grievously impolite. I have not bitten a throat in anger or calm or in fact in any emotional state, including mild inebriation, since my unsolicited conversion to vampirism. Thanks to an early intervention and the donated time and efforts of the wizards of the Society for the Tolerance of Vampires. Through the magical miracle of transfigurative duplication, a single drop of blood can sustain a vampire like myself for a solid week, and almost anyone can spare that. Moreover — no. Would you like a button? Normally we express vain hope for a donation at this point, but you're young."

"Sure, why not?" said the Tutor.

The ethical vampire reached back into his inside pocket and pulled out another button, this one a smiley blood drop. "Note the sharp pointy bit," he said, "It's called functional advertising. I've got some little glassine envelopes for adults to use..."

"So when you say vain hope…?"

"It's a pun, yes," said the ethical vampire. He grinned again. The Tutor could almost hear the fangs go 'ting'. "Monetary donations are nice too, but we take those through the Ministry of Magic these days. New rules."

"So you don't drink wine instead of blood."

"Not yet. That's the moreover bit. I'm a practical research chemist. One part Pinot Grand Fenwick, five parts butterbeer for plasma, a pinch of ginger and one drop of blood and I'm good." An oblique look of alarm crossed his face. "There's only two drawbacks. Three drawbacks if you count going through life like one of the more disreputable Romantic poets." He stood up and looked like he regretted it. "One, plays merry hob with my flying." He drew in his breath with an understandably conspicuous hiss.

"Which is why you're on the Knight Bus."

"Spot on. And two — butterbeer goes through me like one of the more disreputable Romantic poets. 'Scuse my indelicacy, but I fear I must see a man about the children of the night. Pardonnez-moi!" He lurched out of his seat and — pausing only long enough to present the Tutor with a free informative pamphlet from the STV — exited stage back, pursued by a beer.

What do you think so far, Harry? inquired the Tutor, taking a bag of jelly beans from Harry's inside jacket pocket.

{ Um...put me down for speechless! }

There was a tick from the overhead luggage rack.

LOOK HERE. We did not place this ad for you to ignore.
We placed it to get results! NOW LOOK HERE

...and the bus moved on, making time, as people got on and off:

WHUMF / "Marshall Street, London!" / WHUMF / "Christ-Church College, Oxford!" (BONG! went the bell.) / WHUMF / "St Aldate's, Oxford!" / WHUMF / "Corfby Hall, Lower Benford, Shropshire!" / WHUMF / "London! Mayfair! Dunraven Street!"

He looked out the window at number 17. There was a plaque on the front of it that was too far away to read but he hoped it said Edgar Allan Poe Slept Here.

{ Um, Rupert? } said Harry.

Yes?

WHUMF
("Fortingall, Perthshire! Loch Tay!")

{ This bus — I could have taken it from Privet Drive straight to the school gates, couldn't I? }

I suspect not. Obviously you could, but I think the rules are against it.

{ Why? }

If you're thinking there's no point to the Hogwarts Express if you can go door to door on the Knight Bus, you're thinking logistically. You see the problem as moving students from widely scattered homes to school, so you'd give everyone a bus ticket. Me, I think the Hogwarts Express is a different answer to a different question.

{ Okay, what question? }

Well, think it through: you know about floo, you know about apparation. What do those things have in common when it comes from getting from point A to point Z?

{ ...Skipping all the points in between, I suppose. }

And if there were a charter version of the Knight Bus, what would that be like?

{ Well, it'd stop at everyone's house. }

And relative to the Hogwarts Express that would be...?

{ I don't — the exact opposite, I guess. }

Exactly: the last person on gets a direct trip, while the first visits all the other houses briefly. Floo and apparation move you about losing all physical context — you lose track of your own country, you don't know what it's like, where anything is relative to anything else. A chartered Knight Bus is randomised, which is nearly as bad, plus everyone gets a different experience.

The Hogwarts Express, now — completely different. It's on rails and everyone gets boards at the same time for a uniform experience. It's as much or more a social engagement as it is transportation. It's a way to start the year with the whole and undivided student body engaged in a common activity, gathered together exactly close enough for comfort. You spend the whole rest of the year being more or less insular, but on the train you get in some common play-time outside your Houses.

WHUMF
("Llangernyw, Conwy!")

So the question being how do we maintain some kind of social cohesion, the answer is put all the kids on the same train, completely unsegregated by House. You're all in this together. Seven hours of mucking about, running up and down the corridor looking at people's spiders and screaming and aguamenti'ing each other — you can't do that on a bus. And for the first years, especially the muggle-sourced, it's that first shared experience, that something you all have in common — before Sorting, better than Sorting because less pressure.

{ Well...something almost all of us have in common... }

And believe me, I am sorry. I am so, so sorry I got in the way.

WHUMF
(
"Ashbrittle, Somerset! Wookey!")

{ It wasn't your fault. }

Well, I sincerely hope not.

In any case, you can see the value added. You wouldn't want to get rid of the Hogwarts Express any more than you'd want to do away with Owl Post in favor of dusting your letters with Floo powder.

But I can see the muggle-minded efficiency types wanting to do away with it, and if they could they'd surely have done it by now, implying something's stopping them...and I do wonder if it's Hogwarts herself?

WHUMF
("Greenleaf Algate!")

#

WHUMF

"London, Kensington Gardens!"

A prim witch or squib (squitch?) (wib?) (let's have wib, squitch is the sound of a trodden toad) with a face like a china doll boarded, set down a carrier bag and an umbrella with a question-mark shaped handle, got back off and returned carrying a week-old baby in a nightgown. She showed the Conductor an official looking badge-holder and the bus immediately whumfed into an old-fashioned street with gas lamps, where she got off with the baby.

WHUMF

"Wisteria Walk, Little Whinging, Surrey!"

{ Mrs Figg! } said Harry.

What? said the Tutor, checking the darkness outside. Who? There was a middle aged lady standing on the corner, now bending down to pick up a large cat-carrier.

{ It's Mrs Figg! She must be — She knows me! }

No worries! You're well disguised, said the Tutor, swiftly pinning the blood-drop button to the jacket. Red hair, very nearly tailored clothing, frame filled out with your firstie five, no glasses — he quickly stowed the glasses after wrapping them in tissue — and you're reading something!

He stuck the nose into the STV pamphlet, arranged the legs across the seats in a casual cross copied from Beaconsfield, commenced chewing on a jelly bean (tutti frutti, how dull) and in short order a middle aged lady who smelt of well-brushed cats was making her way past him and up the stairs without giving any indication of recognition.

See, told you. A change of hair and attitude and all manner of things shall be well.

There was a small, mildly offended pause.

{ You know, } said Harry, { it really is a bit thick to go on about me not being a reader... }

I know, I'm just messing you about. He patted the head.

{ I mean, I never got the chance before. My old school — you couldn't go to the school library during class hours, they wouldn't let you in the building before class hours, and you were supposed to leave immediately after unless you were in a club... }

Well that's rubbish. Doesn't Little Whinging have a library?

{ Uncle Vernon wouldn't sign for my card. He said he wouldn't be responsible for the books I lost. }

Tch! All right, I shall jest no more. —Who's Mrs Figg, by the way?

{ She's sort of my babysitter. The Dursleys won't let me stay home alone when they go out. And now she's a witch or a squib! }

I call them wibs. There's a term that'll never catch on.

{ And she never said anything. She must have known...and she never said anything... }

What would she have said? "You may or may not be a wizard, Harry"? They never put that on the front of the sweepstakes envelope, do they? You may or may not have already won! Then again this is England, maybe they do. In America it's "Perfect cakes every time!", over here it's "nine times out of ten"...

{ Huh...I wonder if she knows now? }

We could go ask.

{ No thanks! }

WHUMF

"Colmenier Place, Nether Paddesfeld!"

A set of four children (1 F, 3 M) got on — free-fare; the Conductor inspected them more thoroughly than he had Rupert the Tutor, but one had a permit of some kind, although from this distance the paper looked blank — and made their way towards the rear of the bus. They all paid him very nearly as little attention as had Mrs Figg — except for the one with the permit, who gave him an appraising look after the others had gone. Malfoy blond but curly, Dumbledorian blue eyes — (you know, given his height, at this relative angle he can see right under these bangs)

"Spare a jelly baby?" said the boy.

"Always!" said the Tutor, and raised the bag.

"Ta," said the boy, and actually took only one rather than a fistful. "I know you," he added matter-of-factly, "you're well famous."

"I try not to be," said Rupert.

"No worries," said the boy. "I won't tell. Well, adults." He popped the jelly bean in his mouth, bit into it, looked thoughtful, winced. "Tamarisk," he said, making the kind of face you make when you're digging jelly out of your teeth with your tongue. "Why's it always tamarisk?"

The Tutor waved the bag. "Try again?"

"Nah, 's always tamarisk — or rotten eggs." Somewhat woefully he caught up his companions at the staircase and whispered something ending in "him."

The girl one said "Who?"

"'Re P'tah," said the boy, who had moved on to digging jelly out of his teeth with his fingernail, and they ascended out of sight, three of them looking over their shoulders.

{ A change of hair and attitude? }

I told you I'm not right about everything...

Tick went the advert.

Look For
Parker's
Apple-and-Orange Soaps.
So Pure That They Are Invisible!

#

WHUMF

"Fenchurch Street, thence to Charing Cross and Leicester Square including Prince Charles Cinema and — the Holophusikon!"

The bus circled the square, adding and subtracting passengers; a ghost floated down through the ceiling and got off at the Cinema, which was interesting, and a wib carrying a stack of books taller than her bag would hold got on near Charing Cross Road. The Conductor checked her pass perfunctorily, then peered over his glasses at her in disapproval. "Have you been shoplifting in the muggle second-hand bookstores again, love?"

"Certainly not!" said the wib, raising scandalised eyebrows. "I've been breaking and entering. But I always leave more than I take. Some of those lot wouldn't still be advertising in the Saturday Review if not for me. I just left them Quaedam Miracula Universi, they'll get good use out of that."

She set off smoothly down the aisle, but halfway to the rear the bus whumfed at an unstable moment and her book stack spilled over. The Tutor, ever-helpful (and ever-nosey to see what other people were reading) dove out of his seat and quickly scooped up I. Fredriksen's Haffsårkestern, Hydromelismaticism by von Wehr, Petroarchaeology by Pierre de Foudre, A History of Hyperborea by Melanthius and Stitchery Witchery by Cuinneag Latharn & Angelica Jennet-Wild.

"Thank you very sweetly," she said when he returned them. "Too many books! You wouldn't think it possible. Here," she said, pushing an old red-spined volume into his hands, "spare us a bit of weight."

The cover read

WILL CUPPY
The Decline And Fall Of Practically Everybody

The wib raised a cautionary finger. "It's completely unsuitable for children, so don't read it until you're twenty-one. —Pooh! I'm parched." She re-shouldered her burden and moved on towards the stairs.

Well, Harry, looks like you'll be getting a Christmas present after all!

{ Okay, but if you want to get me a broomstick I wouldn't turn up my nose. }

#

WHUMF / "Linbury Court!" / WHUMF / "Gordon Way, Aberdeenshire!"

#

WHUMF

"St. Mary's Church, Brook, Isle of Wight!" announced the Conductor...

...and someone got on, free-fare, told the Conductor his destination, and passed down the length of the aisle, the corpus of H. Potter going completely unnoticed on account of the coin that had rolled away earlier being spotted under one of the chairs. The someone bent down and picked it up ("Ooh!" he said happily) and carried it away up the stairs, his tail wagging.

After a horrifyingly long moment of being too delighted to remember how legs worked, the Tutor stood up, and then had to stand up again owing to the bus whumfing. He had to follow the someone up the stairs, because the someone was a wolf wolf wolf bipedal little grey wolf Harry how can you not be saying anything —

{ Why aren't there any talking wolves at Hogwarts? } said Harry, and to the even more utter delight of the Tutor he actually seemed annoyed about it.

No idea! said the Tutor. Let's find out! We are clearly wolf-deprived!

And then the bus whumfed again and he sat down again, partly because of the whumf, partly because the Conductor had just announced what sounded like "Soggy Chip Butty" and he had to see what that looked like, and partly because come to notice it leaping up and running after people whilst mentally salivating freely was more than a bit creepy.

#

He held out five minutes — which was how long it took for the driver to nip out for a coffee at Soggy Chip Butty (which did not appear to be an actual chip butty but was more than soggy enough to make up for it) — and then slipped thunkingly up the metal stairs.

The refreshment level looked like a small pub, even to having a tiny sign hanging next to the door. The sign read The Illuminated Owl, and the main lamp in the room was indeed in the form of a frosted glass owl. The walls and the narrow bar were walnut panelled, and brass fittings were in evidence; there was a dartboard with a lot of darts stuck in the wall around it. It started to differ from a normal pub at the interior signage — Guinness was not on tap; they were pushing Croatoan Red Ale ("The Shining Fame of An Bogach Eccles!") and Bree Cola and Enchanter's Nightshade and Anderson's Old Foxwhelp Hard Cider — and continued with the clientele, who were mainly seated at tables and chairs that seemed to be bolted to the floor except that there were no bolts and everything moved on actual demand, whose conversations started off at quidditch instead of footy and worked their way up from there ("Mice? Ionise mice? Why would you want to —"). The bar was normal enough, with a mirror behind it, but the range of bottles under the mirror would have done the potions classroom proud in terms of odd twisty shapes and sizes and colours of glass; the dusty brick-coloured bottles labeled CROATOAN were positively exotic in their comparative banality ("exotic in their banality"?) [no, positively exotic in their comparative banality, please pay attention] (I am paying attention, my child, I only wish otherwise). There were also a few small chests of Mazawattee Tea.

The Tutor paused in the doorway. His target was —

(Target?)

[That does sound terrible, has anyone got a better word?]

/Prey? Quarry? Oh...oh dear. Those are vastly worse./

(Objective is — objectionable, now that I come to think of it.)

[How does one describe a person of utter fascination and intrigue and delight in such a way to exclude that person from the category of mere things?]

/— My funny valentine?/

{ I think you usually say 'me', } offered Harry blandly.

...

Ouch.

["Me." What an unfortunate name...]

The Tutor coughed mentally...

...and...

...the word goosnargh came to mind. What Ford Prefect said when he couldn't think of what to say? Fine, let's have that then.

The goosnargh was sitting at a table for one-and-a-half in an oblique corner evidently designed for shy people, sipping a Lime Claudius through a straw. The nearest table to him was host to the four children he'd seen before; all four of them had tall frosty glass mugs filled with what looked like beer except for a strange sparkling dust spiraling through it. The one who'd recognised Harry Potter was making a small coin walk over his knuckles while listening to whatever the others were saying.

The Tutor took decisive action and walked up to the bar — but before he could open his mouth the balding barman began to recite, as though he'd been recently practising:

"Switchel, Butterbeer, Roscoe's Red Pepper Pop, Ingwer Ale, New Foxwhelp Effervescing Cider, Lime Claudii, Enchanter's Nightshade. And tea. Anything else —" he gave the Butterbeer Four the hairy eyeball — "just step past the age line over there."

"Enchanter's Nightshade?" said the Tutor. "What's that like?"

The barkeep shrugged. "Expensive mint liquorice."

"Hnnh." Red Pepper Pop, Harry?

{ Bleah! }

(The bus went WHUMF. "Galfrey, Leicestershire!" announced the Conductor's voice from nowhere in particular.)

The Tutor leaned over the bar, determined to maximise his beverage experience:

"What's fizziest?"

#

He bought a red and yellow striped bottle of New Foxwhelp and carried it to the table nearest the clump of similarly-heighted persons, sat down, pulled out the STV pamphlet and pretended to read it while gauging the conversations around the room.

The book-nicking wib was chatting with Mrs Figg and a third wib over a bottle of retsina about self-animating knitting patterns.

The quidditchers were chuckling over bets they'd recently won at darts.

The goth Father Christmas and an exceptionally tall squizzard in a track suit had moved on from ionised mice. ("The single greatest act of papier-mâché since the boiling of the library at Alexandria," said the tall squizzard, waving his hands enthusiastically and knocking both the mugs on the table to the floor. Both landed safely. Neither conversant seemed to notice, not even when the bird started sticking its head into the mugs with burbling noises.)

The wolf boy was still silently drinking his Lime Claudius through a straw...and carefully not noticing him, which meant that the Butterbeer Four had been beanspilling. The Butterbeer Four themselves...

#

Boy #1: "You're mumblin' again, why are you always mumblin'?"

Boy #2: "Cos he always thinks we're going to get in trouble."

Boy #1 (morally offended): "'Course we're goin' to get in trouble. It's an adventure, can't have an adventure without maybe gettin' in trouble."

Boy #3: "Going to an ice cream parlour isn't really much of an adventure, considering."

Girl (reading aloud from a list): "Coffee-candied almond. Coconut rum. Malted lemon cherry."

Boy #2 (after a long pause): "She's got you there."

Boy #3 (doubtfully): "Well..."

Girl (conclusively): "Floating. Banana. Sundae. —You can't get that even in America, I bet."

Weighty silence.

Girl (running up the score): "Brown sugar-oatmeal-chocolate chip, huckleberry tangerine sherbet—"

Boy #3: "I concede."

Girl (finishing what she started): "Wingèd Boysenberry Swirl."

The bus went WHUMF — the coin that the blond boy had been walking over his knuckles came rolling across the floor — and the Conductor said "Diagon Alley." Easily half the pub got up to leave, including the Butterbeer Four, but happily excluding the wolf boy.

The Tutor picked up the coin. "You dropped this," he offered, but the blond boy waved it off, saying "Keep it." Which made sense, since it wasn't a coin but an old gambling chip, with REMITTAM LIBENTER written on.

He waited until the last of the departers had exited the deck, plus five heartbeats, and then relocated himself to the chair that was nearest to the half-chair. "Excuse me," he said to the wolf-boy, "is that half-seat taken?"

(It didn't look comfortable, being only the left half, but he really wanted to find out if it would fall over once someone was sitting on it...)

The wolf-boy, well, boy, stared at him. There was a look on his face, intriguing, intrigued, half caught, half wanting to be caught. And in the eyes, well, that look was worth a freeze frame —

#

What do you make of that look, Harry?

{ What do you mean? }

That look. Sometimes people look at you and you can sum their internal moment up in a word. Discerning. Loving. Empty. Starved...

That one, now...that's a whole sentence. You are the best thing that ever happened. That's a new one on me. Don't think I've ever seen a look like that before, Harry Potter.

{ ...I have, } said Harry.

Really? When?

{ In the mirror, when you popped up this morning. }

...Oh.

{ I think you look at a lot of people that way, actually. }

Um.

{ Why is that? }

...oh... The existence of other minds is nothing to sneeze at, Harry.

#

"...no, it's not taken," decided the boy.

The Tutor bounced over to the half-chair. It felt like a whole chair. What a brilliant chair, discouraging to the uninvited, comfy for the others.

"Ta," he belched, and then fabricated an alarmèd look. Fizzy drinks, Harry, great for breaking the ice. "Do you mind if I ask you a bunch of questions you get asked too often already?"

The boy stared at him a bit longer. "That depends," he said. (Perfect diction, how does that work, has he got some kind of syrinx or is it just magic?) /How can I reasonably ask him if he'd mind me wrapping my hands around his throat while he talks?/ [There is no good way to phrase that.]

"Depends on what?" he said.

The boy opened his mouth and closed it again and then blurted "Are you — him? Are you..." He couldn't quite say the name.

I need a judgement call, Harry. How do you feel about the phrase This is exactly the kind of person I want to hang around with?

There was a pause.

{ This is exactly the kind of person I want to hang around with, } said Harry.

The Tutor darted eyes left and right, pressed forefinger to lips, and then used the STV pamphlet in his other hand to lift a bang and expose the Scar. He moved the finger to the side of his mouth. "Yes," he whispered. "I am in fact Ziggy Elman, Seeker for the Plainsight Hiding Nailbiters. But you mustn't tell anyone." He tapped the nose.

"Plainsight Hiding," said the boy with quiet delight. "That's...near Great Sneaking and Deeply-In-Trouble, isn't it?"

"Yes. Yes it is. But you have me at a dis-aaaadvantage," he said, belching the advantage without intending to (this stuff is value for money, I'll say that). "What's your name?"

"...Adam."

Slight flinch there — why a flinch, plain old name, oldest in the book really, how could that be embarrassing, not like, you know, Basil, what's the context, context is wolf, context is fur, fur means what, Adam, remember the people he's associating with —

"Ah." said the Tutor. shifting into a commiserative monotone. "But everyone in the schoolyard calls you..." They finished together. "Had 'em."

{ I don't get it, } said Harry.

It's a poem called Fleas, said the Tutor, and continued aloud: "Well, okay, skip Adam, Adam is forgotten. Have you got a spare for emergencies?"

"...Christopher? That's my middle name...my tutor calls me Christopher."

"There we go. That's a cool name. That's a fantastic name. Three syllables and a leading K sound—" (It was a race, but he managed to bite off the rest of the sentence, which was "And fur at the end.")

"At my school," said the Tutor, "which is totally not Hogwarts despite this little decoration, we use last names, makes us feel posh. Ho there, Kittering-Galbraith, we say, as we pass each other in the halls."

"Do you," said the boy, not believing, which was only fair.

"Well, no, not specifically, not a lot of enthusiasm for Ho there, I've tried, it just didn't catch on for reasons I don't...fully understaaand..." He didn't intend to belch the understand but gave it his best once it started (blimey, tell the Weasleys about this stuff, they'd make a mint).

"Well, at your school I guess I'd be Backus."

"Brilliant! What ho, Backus! Call me — " Pirbright? — "Sawyer."

"What ho, Sawyer," said Backus.

"Pleased to meet you," he said, and let Harry shake the hand, which was basically a perfectly nice hand and had fur only on the back, fingers clear, skin basically greyish, claws neatly trimmed. "What was that about a tutor? I like tutors."

"Oh. Mr Lupin. I — I don't go to school any more, because, well..." One of his pointed ears flicked, love a pointed ear.

"Because of the other kids? Well that's rubbish. Have you tried the schools at Ossory?"

"Huh?"

"Last I heard, Ossorians get along quite well with — you know, I don't want to alarm you at this late date, but: you're a wolf, Backus." He tried to get across a considerable desire to join the club.

"No!" said Backus. "Gosh, wait til I tell mum!"

"Yes, you are, and the wolf was the totem of Ossory, and the last time I checked Ossorians can change in and out of that shape at will."

"I can't," said Backus. "I'm always like this. Except during eclipses." (So he wouldn't fit in any better there? Hmm.) [Not a werewolf, not a wolfman — a human wolf, a humane wolf, a civilised wolf...]

"Maybe you could commute."

"Actually," said Backus, "Mr Lupin says if I really work at it I might be able to become a — he said a reverse animagus. But I'd need a wand, and take classes I'd need to go to a school for..."

"You should be in mine," said Harry, to the Tutor's surprise.

"I got my letter in October!" said Backus, sitting up straight in his chair, almost yearning upwards. "But — but..."

"But what?" said the Tutor. "Is it a money thing? I think Hogwarts will pick up the tab for people she wants, and she obviously wants you."

{ Also, I'm rich, } said Harry thoughtfully.

"No," said Backus, waving his hands in frustration. "It's—" he didn't say obvious, he couldn't bring himself to say obvious.

"If it's the wolf thing that doesn't even make sense," said the Tutor.

"Wolves and humans don't get along!"

"No, wolves and muggles don't get along because they're both competing for the same sheep. Wizards shouldn't have any trouble with wolves."

"But..."

Harry, what are we going to do about this?

{ Tell Hermione. And ask Beaconsfield for advice. Write letters. }

A good start. Does Harry Potter give up?

{ ...No. }

Does Harry Potter give in?

{ No. }

Once you start talking about how things should be, will anyone ever make you shut up?

{ NEVER! }

You'll do Iain Adams proud, Harry Potter.

"You get yourself to Hogwarts, Christopher Backus," said the Tutor firmly, "and you'll find there's a place for you. Done and done, worry no more about it. And don't make me have to come and get you, cos I will.

"Now speaking of being a wolf —" he took another swig of cider for purposes of reloading — "do you howl at the moon? Cos everybody really wants to know why, and you might actually know."

"Cos I can't go," said Christopher Backus simply.

Oh, said the Tutor, entirely to himself, now that brings back memories...

#

The Tutor spent the last of his bus money on two more bottles of Effervescing Cider, and they took them up to the empty Observation Deck, which was completely transparent from the inside.

(WHUMF / "Catford!" / WHUMF / "Mildenhall! Mind the bonfire.")

Harry took over for a long and largely gas-powered discussion of, well, various things, it wandered around as those kinds of conversations do, but which focused, on the Christopher Backus side, on the pros and cons of being a wolf, especially at Hogwarts (the air friction would obviously be a drawback at quidditch, but you'd save a lot of money on clothes, though you do shed in hot weather, and have you considered saving it up to stuff pillows because that would be awesome)...

(WHUMF / "Steeple Gidding!" / WHUMF / "Grenville Street!")

...and, on the Harry Potter side, on the cons and other cons of being raised by a walrus and a giraffe, and about the still other cons of Dudley, which sort of led back to the wolf thing.

"I don't understand why people think someone who turrrr, excuse me, turns into a wolf has to turn into a rabid one," said Christopher Backus. "And I'm a vegetarian anyway."

Harry flicked the blood-drop button. "Vampirrrrrr, 'scuse me, vampires too. You just get bitten and turn evil? How's that work? And what if you got bitten by a vampire and a werewolf, would it be a double negative and you'd become a superhero?"

They paused to think about that.

"I'm not seeing a dowwwwwwn side," said Christopher Backus. "Pardon me!"

"Neitherrrrrrr am I," said Harry Potter. "Excuse me!"

#

WHUMF (scrunch)

"Trotter's Drive, Ottery St Catchpole, Devon."

The scrunch was the side of the bus meeting up with the overhanging branches of a tree; several very late peaches got scraped inside the observation deck through open windows.

"Rats!" said Christopher Backus, getting up. "My stop! Veterinarian."

"No, wait a minute," said Harry, "tell me your address, I might want to write you or something. And if you wanted to write me I'd have to send you a letter first, Hogwarts has a thing..." (The Tutor quietly noted, mostly to himself, that it's best practice to have that information in hand before announcing intent to rescue.)

After giving up his address (which he stumbled over a couple of times) Christopher Backus ran for the stairs—

He paused to wave. "Bye — Ziggy Sawyer!"

"See you in September," said Harry.

— and shortly emerged onto the street, along with Mrs Figg and her cat-carrier, as well as the goth Father Christmas, whose surreal bird was now sitting on his shoulder. None of them had gotten very far before the bus whumfed away once more.

The Tutor got up and collected the fallen peaches and tucked them away for later.

Harry said, { Was that true, about the Ossorians? }

Well! Hard to say. Pure myth where I come from but here it's probably true.

{ How do you know all these things? ..Why do you know all these things? }

I don't know, I have a mind like a damp boiled sweet in a pocket full of random facts. (He checked the bus ticket, which now read ETA 42 minutes; it didn't provide elapsed or current time, but the sky said eightish.) The names of Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish were Flim, Flam and Flo. Bear that in mind in case there's a test. So! What do you think of public transportation in the magic world so far?

{ Pretty brilliant. }

A vampire and a more or less werewolf. And a ghost, though you've met ghosts at school...no sign of a mummy or the creature from the Black Lagoon, but still, you're doing pretty well.

...it's been three months, have you met a single monster?

{ Not unless you count that troll, and you don't. }

Monsters are as monsters do.

WHUMF / "Thwing, East Riding, Yorkshire!"

Thing about monsters is...people like monsters, cos monsters are safe.

{ Huh? }

You can do what you like with a monster. The kind of monster that just is. Monsters are morally safe to destroy. Once you believe in monsters you can have all the murder, with none of the guilt of cheering on the destruction of a recognised...human. And then you just extend the definition of monster, bit by bit, to include anyone you don't like, and then what are you?

{ A monster. }

WHUMF / "Nasturtium Road, thence to Mafeking Road!"

{ I can tell you want to talk about Tom Riddle, you know. You're not even really being vague. }

I don't know what to say about Tom Riddle yet. Although it wasn't what I was expecting, that orphanage.

{ What were you expecting? }

Basically, seven in a bed and being shipped out to work in a rosary bead factory.

{ Rosary bead factory? }

You don't want to know. It's a wonder a single soul gets through... And some orphanages, you'd be better off being raised by wolves. That wasn't one of them, not when we saw it. Although eleven years prior Mrs Cole was the one in the apron who answers the door, so who knows what it was like before she was in charge?

...but not only has he got his own room, so did everyone else. I didn't see any rickets — no bronchitis, no pneumonia — instead, trips to the seaside...I'm wondering how much of that could be accounted for by accidental magic. Sometimes to make things better for yourself you have to make them better for everyone, which is of course what Beaconsfield is on about...so again, I'm still undecided about Tom Riddle.

Trevor Doom, now...that's different.

{ You know you're going to have to change that, you know. }

Change what?

{ The name. Trevor Doom, LL.D. It's missing letters. Tom Marvolo Riddle? }

Okay, Trevor Iam Doom, LL.D.

{ Iam?! That's not a name! }

'Course it is. Short for Iambus. Perfectly valid name, Iam. Come to think of it maybe he used it. Iam comma Lord Voldemort — that's a name. Lord Voldemort on its own is just a title — and title as in land at that. There'd have to some place for him to be lord of, marshy little cul-de-sac called Voldemort somewhere. Place with a lot of swamp gas, ignis fatuus. Probably in Jersey. And I'll thank you to leave the digressions to me. Now where was I?

{ On the Knight Bus. }

Right, thank you.

It's tricky talking about these things, cos you need to know them, I'm pretty sure, but they're also things you're not supposed to know, and if anyone found out you did know them it would be bad, so I need to be circuitous without being vague.

Okay, try this. You've seen Star Wars. It's 1991, you can't be eleven and not seen Star Wars somehow.

{ Well...I've heard it, } said Harry. { Under the door... }

Tch.

{ I know what the toys look like. Don't really need anything else. }

Tch again! Anyway, possible spoilers, Darth Vader didn't kill Luke's dad, Darth Vader is Luke's dad.

{ Yeah, that was rubbish. }

Hah! Okay, and specifically why?

{ Cos Ben said he betrayed him. You don't stab yourself in the back. }

Yeah, I could never reach that spot either. You'd need a Time Turner, or really long arms. But in the case of Tom Marvolo Riddle turning into Iam, Lord Voldemort — by way of Barrister Doom, who's sort of a transitional form — it almost makes sense. Remember when I had you disassembling old scrolls to get at the words under the surface?

{ I could hardly forget, you went and jumped me in the lake afterwards... }

Another good reason I need me own bod. You don't appreciate a good sauna. Well, one of those hidden words...was an interesting word, is an interesting word, a made up word, a mingly-mangly word, hybrid, loan-blend, a cross of Greek and Latin, a memetic intersection, a word that gives you more than you bargained with the devil for. And it describes the reason everyone knows You-Know-Who is coming back, even though hardly any of them know why.

I don't know what Herpo the Foul meant when he coined it — to sum up the rancid bit of Dark Art he'd just invented — but it could be read a number of ways depending on how you look at it. It could be taken as time-point, as in X marking the spot — or a container for the unsolvable problem — or…a garden of torment. Or all of them at once, which is probably right. Track the pieces back to the Proto-Indo-European and you get something along the lines of "bend and enclose"; maybe tie off is a good phrase.

Have you ever heard the phrase "it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it"?

{ No... }

Well, swap out village for the word self. I could maybe say soul, but that word technically hadn't been invented yet. Imagine your very self as a balloon, the long tubey kind. Now imagine twisting bits of yourself off. Oh, and especially imagine how it would feel. Squeaky squeaky squish!

{ Well that's creepy. }

It's not a great metaphor. I could go with breaking your own heart. Breaking's good, there's a fundamental division going on. You take a decision — apt word, decision: based on cutting off — you take one of those tough decisions, and thereby split yourself apart. The part that regrets falls away from the part that desires, and then you basically stuff your regrets.

I don't mean metaphorically, either — you magically place that section of yourself into an inanimate object — and carry on living on desire alone. And of course the problem is that the desire is, well...to murder. Cos that's the tough decision you take: to kill someone for your sole benefit. How hard would it be for you to do that?

{ — I wouldn't do it at all! }

So you see how tough it'd be for you. It might well have been nearly as tough for Tom Riddle, depending on how certain things went. When we saw him, he was Mad Feral Tom. You heard him scream. But by the time he had his picture taken he was Barrister Doom and he could give detachment lessons to a snake...clearly a very different person. And Iam, he could knock people off all day.

{ Why would you want to do any of that? It's crazy! }

In practice the notion is that so long as part of you is anchored to this world, by way of an unkillable inanimate object, you'll never move on to the next. It would be a cheap and nasty form of immortality if it were cheap. That's the bloody stupid part. The evil part is that others lose, the stupid part is no one wins, because once you've emptied yourself out and thrown yourself away, the person who lives is not the person who lived.

WHUMF

"Canterbury Lane! Westward Ho!" declared the voice of the Conductor, and the ticket was pulsing in his pocket.

Ooh! We're here!

{ Yeah, where is here by the way? }

You'll see!

He bolted for the spiral stairs, whirled down through them, came to an abrupt halt so as not to look eager, and quickly-but-calmlied to the front of the bus.

The grizzard was still there, hanging over the barrier in front of his seat — ("An' he says, what does ye mean, time is music? An' I says, I spend all mine passin' through bars. Eh? Eh?") — and the ad at the front read

Get the Wizardy Wet Look
with Thomerson's Self-Lubricating Combs!

He turned over his ticket to the Conductor and said: "Round trip — question — how does the first-in-first-out work? I mean, I need to know how soon I need to throw out my hand. I need to be back before dark."

The Conductor methodically punched a second hole in the ticket, and then looked at the driver, who shrugged. "Special arrangement applies, son, we'll slot you in direct."

The Tutor accepted his ticket back. "Ta!"

"You're welcome. And —" the Conductor poked him in the blood-drop button — "it's nice to see young persons taking an interest in other people's problems."

The doors whooshed open and the Tutor whooshed out, bounced away from the bus, and WHUMF. it was gone as though it had never been.

He turned around a few times and wound up looking at 1, Canterbury Lane. Number 14 was a white house halfway down the street. He set the legs in motion and they walked him down the street. At 14 he turned, faced the house and said, What do you think, Harry?

{ About what? }

About what you're looking at.

{ What am I looking at? }

Exactly. Tell me what you're looking at.

{ I don't... I mean, it's a house, but... }

Is it sort of generic? Lacking in definition, somehow? Does it make your eyes itch when I oblige you to look at it?

{ Actually? Yeah... }

Your mind rolls off it like water off a duck. I call it a perception filter, but you'd call it magic. You could look up face blindness some time to get some idea as to how it might work.

You can sort of see it — if it was a pillar-box you wouldn't bump into it — but your cognition is being messed with. Mine isn't. It's wizard-proofed, but not muggle-proofed. But if you know for a fact it's there...

He stepped forward and grabbed hold of the little black-lettered white sign hanging on a post in front of the large white house. Building. Office.

Read with me, Harry! he said, and traced the letters with a finger:

Brice, Houseman, Flamel & Liozza
Pediatricians

{ You rat! } cried Harry Potter. { You took me to get a SHOT! }