douchiesnacks
You should read some discworld stuff its good. I read a good Harry Potter/Discworld crossover on this site give it a look it should ease you into Pratchett's work.
Just A Question
I will get back to my other stories I just to focus my efforts on this one for now.
The First Gothic. Book One. A Wizard In Training. Part Ten.
The Hogwarts Express. Platform Nine And Three Quarters. The Wizarding World.
As Luna sat down after storing her backpack in the overhead compartment she turned to me and said.
"We met here exactly one year ago".
She said it rather matter of factly as if she was just telling me of an interesting observation that she had made but knowing women as I did ( which wasn't well but I knew enough to get by) this would be a big deal for her so I gave her a hug to show how much I cared.
Thinking about I figured that it was a big deal. We'd been best friends for a whole year and we'd spent quite a lot of that year together. With my family a whole universe away and Luna only having her absent minded Father we were all either of us had. Sure we had friends but with the secrets we both had we were more emotional distant from our friends than it seemed. Still we had each and that was what mattered.
A hoot drew my attention to the window and I saw an owl tapping on the window. I let the bird in and it dropped off an old issue of the Daily Prophet rather than the letter from the Traveller that I thought it would be.
SIRUS BLACK STILL AT LARGE!
Well that explained why the Traveller had sent this paper to me. It was both a source of information and a warning about the events of the coming year. Black would be breaking into the school over the course of the year which would make having Outcast meetings very difficult. Thankfully my House Elf would ensure that the Outcast paper got spread around but if the school was in lockdown fewer people would get to read it. And there was one other issue to deal with this year.
"Dementors" I muttered in a voice as cold as winter.
Luna looked up and her face showed me that she shared my concern over the soul sucking demons.
"You can drive them away Damien" she assured "but be careful many people will think your a Dark Wizard unless you act like the Dementors affect you as much as other people".
Luna could see possible futures and the closer an event was the more certain she was of what would happen. At least as long it involved events on this world. She'd told me that on the Discworld she'd had no visions at all. But we were back home now and it was almost one hundred certain that the Dementors would interrupt this journey if she was seeing it clearly enough to know what the ramifications were.
While I was pretty sure that I could drive the souls sucking demons away the bit about ramifications did worry me. If the Dementors didn't effect me the same way as everyone else then I would be thought off as a Dark Wizard because only Dark Wizards can remain unaffected in the presence of Dementors. Most Wizards were close minded bigots in my experience so they wouldn't even consider that there might be another reason for being unaffected by the wardens of Wizarding Britain's prison.
I was also wondering why I wouldn't be effected by the Dementors I wasn't a Dark Wizard and I could experience sadness and despair so why wouldn't I be affected the same way as everyone else.
If Luna had answers she wasn't sharing she was just reading her magazine upside down again like she did when her mind was off examining the time line. It must be so strange to be able to see the future like that I couldn't imagine not existing in the present at all times.
As the train pulled out of the station I took my seat and started to read the paper. There wasn't much about Black in here but that wasn't surprising nearly everyone knew who he was anyway.
The rest of the paper contained less important news none of which made any sense to me and I ignored the adverts out of habit. Still I had to admit that some of the stories in here made me laugh even if I didn't understand why any of these events had happened.
There was one rather amusing article about some rabbit breeders who had been horrible mauled by a bred of rabbit a Wizard had created. It sounded like some of should of lent them The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch it was a good for getting rid of killer bunnies.
Also there was a report about Lockhart and his recovery. Apparently the writer was recovering well considering his memory wipe and the paper hadn't forgotten Snape this time.
Reading that report made me want to ask Luna something.
"Any idea who is teaching potions this year?" I asked.
"I don't know who is just that he's big and jolly, and that your going to get on with him. I keep seeing him eating a lot but that's about it, oh he's going to steal from Professor Sprout".
Must be Slughorn then. That or a version of Santa Claus who really loved plants was going to be teaching this year.
It made sense that it would be Slughorn. Dumbledore could of used Potter to get him out of retirement and he'd be a logical choice to head the snake house as well. That or there was another potions master out there who liked to eat too much and didn't mind stealing from greenhouses.
If it was Slughorn I'd have to remind Neville about selling a few cuttings from his rare plants. No doubt there was money to be made in supplying potion ingredients Nev would know the value of what he was selling so he would be able to avoid getting ripped off.
The newspaper got dull after a while so I took out the Half-Blood Prince book. I had most of the modified instructions memorised by now but I was still trying to understand why some of the modifications worked as well as they did. More than once I'd thought I'd gotten it all figured out but I'd been wrong.
Of course my lack of true understanding hadn't stop me from trying to improve on Snape's work. Neville had plants you couldn't normally get outside of the Amazon jungle and I had wondered if using some of those plants would improve the potions but it was tricky to find a plant with all the same magical properties as its more common British counterpart. I had some cuttings and seeds but I was going to have a few disasters before I created any modified recipes of my own.
Given that my recipes would just be more expensive versions of existing potions I doubted that I could make a profit from them but if nothing else I'd get a good grade. Perhaps I reverse the process and find more common versions of plants to replace rare parts. I'd have to ask Nev about that he would know.
I spent a little time going over my homework again while wondering if Gillyweed could be liquidised and then turned into some sort under water breathing potion. Gillyweed was tough to eat and being able to drink it in potion form would make it so much easier to make use of the plant.
I'd have to ask Slughorn although I'd have to be careful he might steal the idea and try to pass it off as his own. But if it worked he might be able to get us a patent for it, assuming the Wizarding World made use of such things.
A polite knock at the door jarred me out of scheming and I got up to open the door to find an out of breathe first year with a bundle of letters. I must of hit a growth spurt the boy looked tiny despite only being a year below.
"Damien Mason?" asked the kid.
"That's me" I said by way of reply.
"This is for you".
A letter was passed to me and once I read it I had to sigh. The Slug Club was already forming and I was being invited. I hadn't anticipated this but it could be a good thing I guessed, the Slugclub tended to be made up of Witches and Wizards who Slughorn thought would go far so I could make some good contacts for the future as part of this club.
I just wished I knew why I was being invited to join. As far as I knew there wasn't anything about me that would draw Slughorn's interest. I'd done well on my exams but not incredibly well and I didn't have any famous and still living relatives. Most of my accomplishments were unknown to anyone on this world other than Luna so unless Slughorn knew something about me he shouldn't I couldn't think of any reason why he'd invite me into the club.
Checking the time I realised that the meeting was in a few moments. Slughorn hadn't given his guests much time to prepare.
I took a few seconds to decide if I was going to go or not before deciding that I would attend if only to find out why I had been invited.
Taking out a few gold coins I passed them to Luna and reminded her to buy plenty of chocolate for later. The after effects of the Dementor's search would be a lot of scared children so I might need to feed them some chocolate to avoid having to travel in a train full of crying children.
Fining Slughorn compartment wasn't hard. It seemed have been reserved in advance and expanded as well or it could have been two or three compartments side by side. With Wizards stuff like that is hard to tell due to the fact that internal space didn't have to match external space. Hogwarts was many times bigger on the inside than it was the out.
Knocking on the door I was asked to enter and I found myself inside some sort of posh dining room. Even the roof was higher than it should be I could tell because you normally couldn't fit a candle lit chandelier inside a train compartment.
"Ah Damien please take a seat" instructed the walrus shaped Slughorn who was sitting at the head of the table like a king overlooking his court.
As I moved to sit down my eyes scanned the room looking for familiar faces. Potter was here of course and I wasn't surprised to see that my seat was next to Susan Bones quite close to Slughorn. Neville was sitting opposite me but I didn't know anybody else. I assumed that they all had important parents and such.
"For those of you who don't know this is Damien Mason heir to the Mason and Malfoy family fortunes".
Say what now.
"I'm sorry Professor" I apologised while trying not to be freaked out about the Malfoy connection "I didn't know I was an heir to anything".
Slughorn seemed surprised.
"You must of known that the Mason family fortune was rather large my boy".
I nodded in reply and said.
"Well yes but I didn't know anything about the Malfoy part".
"It was mentioned loads in the papers" informed Susan who utilised all media form in order to gather information for gossip.
Ah that explained why the Traveller's Owl had delivered the newspaper. It must be mentioned I'd have to re-read the paper and find any articles.
"I was away all Summer" I explained "I just back into the country a few days and I didn't even know about Sirius Black escaping until this morning".
Slughorn seemed to be delighted that he would get to explain the news to me.
"Then I must be the one to inform you that the Malfoy family no longer exists. After your second , or was it third, cousin Draco Malfoy died it seems that things became strained in the Malfoy house hold. Narcissa divorced Lucius, no doubt the grief drove her to such madness, and Lucius took to the bottle. According to the Prophet he fired his staff as well and then blew himself up while trying to cook. Since Narcissa left Lucius ,denouncing both the Malfoy and Black name, and with Draco already having passed on the family fortune would passed to the Blacks only they are all either dead, on the run or in prison".
Nice extended family I had there. Draco was, had been, my second cousin or some such so in this world I was distantly related to the Malfoys, the Blacks and a lot of other Death Eaters. How joyous.
"Gringotts had a devil of time working out who should inherit. Most Pureblood families are interrelated down the generations so the Malfoys had lots of distant cousins and such but the Mason family was the closest family to the Malfoys aside from the Blacks and of course the Potters. So young Harry over here would of inherited the lot if it weren't for the fact that your Great-Grandmother was a Malfoy".
Knowing that made me feel more greasy for some reason.
"Which means that upon your seventeenth birthday you will become one of the richest men in the country and the most sort after bachelor. Aside from Mr. Potter that is whose fame tips the scales in his favour. But you'll still by far the richest student in the school".
"Luna Lovegood already has her mark on him" Susan told the group "they have an arrangement but he doesn't have a girlfriend".
If Susan had been a guy I'd of thumped the red head for that remark. I was already getting predatory looks from the two older girls at the table. Given womankind's ability to transmit information via gossip faster than the speed of sound should allow by the time we were sitting down for the welcome feast at school every person in a skirt would know I was technically unattached and also very rich. Not that I had access to the money yet, but I would before leaving school.
My arranged marriage didn't require me to stay single or even a virgin for that matter so all the girls at school would know that they could be the girlfriend of the wealthiest guy around. Also since it was a verbal agreement it wasn't legally binding so all the girls in the school would also be thinking that I could still end up marrying someone else if I had a good enough reason to.
Hopefully none of them would try to make any sort of play for the girlfriend position for a year or two. I doubted any of the girls looking to snag a rich husband would try anything until I was older but that wouldn't stop them from trying to make friends with me now so they would be in place later to make a play for the post of girlfriend.
Right now any effort a girl made would be pointless as I just didn't have the emotions needed to form a romantic connection but that wouldn't be true in a year or two. I'd have to start checking for love potions if anyone got me any gifts.
I pushed those thoughts aside for now and tried to look as if I wasn't concerned by tucking into the food set before me. Slughorn introduced to some other students some of which I might be meeting again should they make it into the Slug Club. I got the feeling that my membership wasn't in question in fact I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to refuse.
Not that I would refuse membership if offered. It would be a good idea for me to start making contacts if I was going to live in this world for the rest of my life. Granted it sounded as if I was going to be wealthy enough not to have to work for a living but simply lazying around for the rest of my life would get dull and I doubted the Traveller would let me do bugger all with the new life he had given me.
For a while everything was mindless chatter and good food. I didn't mind the food (the peasant was rather good) but I really found it hard to focus on the discussions. It was clear that Slughorn was picking out those he wished to groom for success that he could benefit from and I should of paid attention to what he was saying since gaining his patron might be important to whatever plans I came up with later but I spent most of the time staring out of the window waiting for the dark to come.
When the train started to stop I quickly excused myself saying that I wanted to check on Luna (Much to the annoyance of the two older girls at the table). Taking out my wand I used to Lumos spell to create some light as by the time I got to Luna it was dark beyond what the mere setting of the sun should bring about.
I told Luna to stay inside the compartment but she didn't listen and then she told me to remember to act scared. I didn't need to be told that I was scared. A group of soul eating demons were boarding a train full of children this could all so easily turn into a disaster or worse a massacre.
I really wish that I'd been able to find a spell that would be effective against a Dementor while at the Unseen University but they didn't exist on the Discworld and I didn't have any sort of demon vanquishing spells either.
So I just had to hope that my silver fox would be enough. Luna had her bunny but it was a small wisp of a thing which faded fast. Neither of us had been able to practice on a real life Dementor either.
The door to the compartment open and I got my first look at a Dementor. Black, ugly death summed them up nicely. The air chilled and the moister froze leaving ice on the windows. The demons left me feeling sad but I didn't feel that unhappy I was to full of determination to feel despair.
I sent my silver fox down the corridor and while it made no noise I could see its mouth moving like it was making yapping noises or perhaps even barking, but while I couldn't hear anything the Dementor didn't seemed to like the fox's barking. The dark creature fled and I directed my fox up the corridor to where Luna's rabbit or possibly a hare was protecting her but it wasn't able to drive the demon away.
My fox never got the chance as a large ball of brilliant white light overwhelmed the Dementor and sent it running to whatever dank, dark hole it had called out from. The light had been so bright that it took Luna and I a few seconds to stop blinking a few more seconds before we could see anything at all.
Then a shabby looking man with pale skin and haunted eyes spoke to us.
"So it was you two who provided the Fox and the Hare"
We both nodded in reply.
"That was very advanced magic" Lupin stated "what houses are you in?"
"Ravenclaw" we both replied.
"Twenty points each to Ravenclaw" rewarded the teacher "and I'll speak to the Headmaster about this. Your actions protected the younger students and you both kept cool heads in a crisis".
Luna beamed a smile at Lupin but I remained unaffected by the given reward and praise. Mostly because House Points don't mean anything to me but also because I was worried about Dumbledore taking notice of me. Also this event would just draw more attention to me as it would just add to the interest I would be getting due to my new fortune.
Lupin seemed to pick up on my lack of jubilation but thankfully he attributed it to the effects of the Dementors.
"You'll feel better if you eat some chocolate. Professor Slughorn has a supply he is passing around to the students most effected. I'm sure he wouldn't mind giving some to the two heroes of the hour".
"I have loads of chocolate" declared Luna who had somehow made a bar of the stuff appear by magic quite possibly by using actual magic "I'll make sure he eats some".
Luna then skipped away which made Lupin give her an odd look.
"Don't worry she always acts like that" I assured the teacher before following the dotty blonde back to our compartment.
"Well that went well" I remarked once the door was closed.
"Yes very" agreed Luna "no one knows your a Dark Wizard they will instead think your a hero".
"Wait since when was I a Dark Wizard?" I asked
I agreed that I wasn't a hero since I'd driven the soul eaters off to protect myself and Luna but calling me a Dark Wizard was a bit harsh.
"Well it doesn't mean your evil" assured Luna "but you are pretty dark. You work in the shadows to plot and scheme, and you did destroy two people's minds when you could of just as easily saved them. And the Dementors didn't effect you like they should".
Okay fair points I was dark but I wasn't evil. Was I?
I mused on this for a while and just figured it really depended on people's points of view and Luna didn't seem to care if I was a bit dark as you don't tend to feed Dark Wizards chocolate. Well Luna might.
The train started moving again and I figured that it wouldn't take us to long to get to the school as the train was moving much faster now as if to make up for lost time.
In fact the locomotive went so fast I wondered why it took all day to get to the school but I quickly realised that the traditional train ride to Hogwarts had next to nothing to do with transporting a group of children to school. It was in fact just a means to keep us all out of the way for most of the day while the teacher did all the last minute organising.
Thinking on that I realised that the entire Hogwarts experience seemed to be about getting the kids mostly out of the way during their teenage years. Given the floo network and the things like the Knight Bus it actually wouldn't be to much trouble for the students go home every weekend but they were left at the school by their parents. I found that rather depressing.
"Nearly there now" commented Luna "we should get changed".
As was typical Luna behaviour she got changed right in front of me without a care in the world so I did to since I was comfortable around the young Seer.
Soon the train was pulling into the station and Luna and I were heading into the school for another year at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry.