Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series or any of its characters. I also do not own the movie Mission Impossible, which is mentioned in this chapter. I briefly mention Windex, so I don't own that either.
By the way, any jokes involving are not meant to be offensive—don't kick me off the site!
Chapter Two: The Train
Zacharias Smith sat alone in his train compartment, enjoying the solitude. He was not particularly looking forward to Hogwarts, but anything would be better than home with his parents.
His mother was constantly crying. Not because she was depressed, but because the smallest, the most insignificant, and above all the DUMBEST things made her burst into tears: rainy days, snails, spilled milk.
His father was the complete opposite. Something had to be seriously wrong with the man's brain, because the smallest, the most insignificant, and above all the DUMBEST things made him laugh uncontrollably: charades, giraffes, some ruddy muggle just maybe, the people here would be normal. Or at least quiet.
Crash!
"What the hell!"
Zacharias' nice, quiet, alone time was interrupted when a young, curly-haired boy, around his age smashed through the closed glass door of the apartment.
"You idiot! What did you do that for?" Zacharias screamed.
"Damnit! It didn't work," the boy sighed.
"I'VE GOT GLASS SHARDS IN MY SKIN!"
"Oh, that's happened to me before," grinned the boy. "Mum usually freaks out and makes me go to the emergency room. I'm gonna miss it there…"
"WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM!"
"Why do people always ask me that?" the boy pondered. "Actually my mum keeps bringing me to doctors and asks them that. Poor mum… I think she's a little paranoid and not right in the head and such. Hey my name's Justin Flinch-Fletchely, what's yours?"
"It's Zacharias Smith—hey, don't you dare laugh!" Zacharias glared at Justin. "Would you mind telling me why you just ran through the glass door, covering both yourself and I with glass during the process?"
"I'm a wizard now, I can run through shit," grinned Justin.
"What?"
"Yeah, didn't you know, wizards can run through walls and doors and all sorts of stuff."
"No they can't you dumbass!" argued Zacharias.
"Yeah huh," argued Justin.
"Nuh uh," replied Zacharias.
"Yeah huh."
"Nuh uh."
"Yeah huh."
"Shut up!" Zacharias screamed. "I don't have to argue with an idiotic, immature idiot who's intellectually inferior to the amoeba from which we evolved from."
A grin spread across Justin's face, "You're funny."
Zacharias' eye twitched. No. No. No. This could not be happening.
"Hey your eye just twitched. My mum's does that too. I was worried I was gonna get homesick, but now I have a friend who reminds me of my mum. I like you, Zacharias. You're my new best friend."
It was now undeniable to Zacharias. The universe hated him.
JUSTINZACHARIASJUSTINZACHARIASJUSTINZACHARIASJUSTINZACHARIAS
Hannah Abbot cautiously walked into the empty compartment. She grabbed her special repellant and squirted every inch of it.
"Those chipmunks won't get me now," she muttered, a relieved smile coming to her face.
Then the door opened.
"Gahhh!" Hannah screeched. She squirted the intruder in the face.
"Ahhh!" The intruder grabbed his eyes. "What the fuck! Did you just spray Windex in my face?"
"No, it's chipmunk repellant," Hannah said. "Oh sorry, you're not a chipmunk."
"No, of course I'm not," the boy standing in front of her said. "Ow, my eyes sting. Was that stuff toxic."
"Not unless you're a chipmunk," Hannah said.
"Good. Sorry to intrude, I thought this compartment was empty."
"Don't be. You're welcome to stay—as long as you're not a chipmunk," said Hannah.
"I keep telling you, I'm not."
"My name's Hannah by the way. Hannah Abbot."
"I'm Ernie Macmillan."
Hannah, who seemed to have accepted the fact that Ernie was indeed, not a chipmunk, was now much friendlier. "Sorry I sprayed you in the face, but you can't be too careful. Chipmunk's are very crafty—you have to be one step ahead of them."
"You do realize that chipmunk's can't hurt you."
"Don't be fooled Ernie. They may seem innocent, but if you let your guard down one minute…" Hannah shuddered.
"Ummm, okay," Ernie said. "So, what house do you want to be in?"
"Slytherin."
"Slytherin? You really don't seem the Slytherin type. Why Slytherin?" Ernie asked.
"Slytherin's like snakes. Snakes eat rodents. Chipmunk's are rodents."
"I don't think there are any actual snakes in the Slytherin house, Hannah. I don't think there are any chipmunks at Hogwarts either."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Okay. So which house do you want to be in?" Hannah asks. She seemed much less psychotic, now that Ernie had made it clear that there weren't likely to be chipmunks at Hogwarts.
"Gryffindor."
"Oh," said Hannah awkwardly. "Ummm, Ernie, you do realize that, well… there's absolutely no chance that you're going to be in any house other than Hufflepuff?"
"What?!?!"
"Yeah," Hannah said with a grimace. "I mean, well, Ernie let's be serious here. Yellow and black shirt? I 'Heart' Herbology button? A friendly and loyal face?"
"So?" Ernie said defensively.
"Ernie, to think that you'll end up in Gryffindor is just CRAZY."
"Chipmunk."
"OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. WHERE? KILL IT! KILL IT! KILL IT!"
This went on for twenty minutes straight.
HANNAHERNIEHANNAHERNIEHANNAERNIEHANNAHERNIEHANNAHERNIE
Susan Bones desperately wanted to find a seat. Sure, there were several compartments with available seats, but Susan found all of their occupants to be unbearably normal.
She had only been able to sit with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley for twenty minutes, before she thought she might strangle the Boy-Who-Lived.
Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom were so boring that she had to rush out of the compartment without even a word of good-bye to prevent herself from stabbing them with her wand.
Now she stood in front of a compartment, with a broken door, where two boys sat arguing.
"Please let these people be tolerable," Susan said to herself before stepping in.
"Hello, my name is Susan Bones. Would it be alright if I sat with you?" Susan asked the two boys.
"Sure. I'm Justin. Zacharias here doesn't think wizards can run through walls, but I'm trying to tell him that maybe it just doesn't work with glass doors. Is this your first year at Hogwarts? It's my first year here. I'm a muggleborn, I didn't even know about magic until a couple of months ago. An owl came to our house, and gave me a letter. The only problem is that I can't remember where he kept the letter. When I get to Hogwarts I'm going to try to find out. Maybe it goes up his—"
"You can stay," Zacharias said coldly. "On the condition that you keep him from bothering me."
"Alright," Susan said with a smile. This was the compartment from heaven!
Justin was funny, talkative, and one of the most mentally incompetent people Susan had ever met—he might even compare to her parents as far as insanity went.
Zacharias was moody, intolerant, and THE biggest ass she'd ever met. That alone made him so unusual, so far from normal, that Susan liked him instantly.
'My first friends,' Susan thought.
"Do I hear screaming?" asked Justin.
"You're probably imagining it, stupid," growled Zacharias. "Didn't we reach an agreement, Susan: you keep him from talking to me, and you can stay."
"Wait, I think I hear it too," said Susan. "It sounds to me like a fight of some sort."
"Well c'mon guys, let's check it out!" said Justin. "It'll be like an adventure."
Susan and Justin got up. Justin was humming the music from Mission Impossible.
"Aren't you coming, Zacharias," asked Susan. "It sounds like somebody's dying."
"Well…" the thought of somebody being killed did interest him. "Alright."
The three went to investigate the scene.
"Die Chipmunk! DIE!" a blonde girl screamed as she squirted another girl with what looked like Windex.
The other girl, who had big teeth and frizzy hair screamed in agony.
A chubby boy next to the two was desperately trying to convince the blonde girl to get off the other girl.
"Hannah, I'm telling you, she is not a chipmunk. Hannah stop, you're going to get in trouble."
Obviously, his attempts were not producing results. Hannah continued to assault the girl with Windex. The others decided to help stop the fight as well.
"Hey, if you stop, ya know, killing her, I'll show you how to run through doors."
"You do realize that your fight is disturbing the peace, and I think that's kind of annoying so if you could, like, stop, uh that would be great."
Susan, who was more experienced with insane outbursts knew just what to do.
"Hannah, the Windex is working; she's dead now," and to the other girl, "Just play dead, she'll leave you alone."
Hannah released the girl, who crawled out of the room when Hannah looked away.
"Thanks guys," Ernie said to the Susan, Justin, and Zacharias. "She saw the girl, and just flipped out. It was weird."
"You're welcome," said Susan.
"Whatever," replied Zacharias.
"Do you know where owls carry letters?" asked Justin.
"They carry them with their feet," Hannah said. She had apparently recovered from her violent outburst, and was now back to her cheerful self. "I like owls because they eat rodents, and chipmunks are rodents, and I HATE CHIPMUNKS."
"About that, Hannah, back there… well that girl wasn't a chipmunk, she was a person," Ernie said.
"But she looked like a chipmunk," Hannah said.
"She did resemble a chipmunk," Zacharias agreed, for the sake of insulting the girl.
"Well, some people are just weird-looking, Hannah," Ernie assured her. "But just because people may resemble animals, doesn't mean they are animals."
"Hmmm…" Hannah considered this. "I think I've learned a valuable lesson."
"From now on, if they don't die when you squirt them, assume that they are not chipmunks," added Susan.
"So, are you all first years?" Ernie asked Susan, Justin, and Zacharias.
"Yes," Zacharias said. "I take it that you two are too. Great…" he added sarcastilly. Just what he needed, more loonies.
"This is the start of a beautiful friendship," Susan concluded sentimentally.
That is the second chapter in my story, The Secret Lives of Hufflepuffs. Please review and tell me what you think.
I'd like to thank salvaje, Scision, xMrsPeteWentzx, NickyFox13, and Born2Bblond for their reviews.
Thank you NickyFox13 for informing me about the mistake I made with the age difference between Zacharias and the other four characters. However, I've decided I'll keep him in the story. But I do think I'll try to incorporate the mistake into the story somewhere. Thanks again for the correction and the review!
Next chapter, we will get to see the sorting… what the Sorting Hat had to say about our Hufflepuff friends, and the truth behind his decision.
L.lulu