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Chapter 15 - Travel by Train

Harry looked down at Ron and wondered again why he had let himself be dragged away from the queue for the carriages. They were both about the same height, two of the tallest in their year, but at the moment Ron was staring at his feet with his chin almost touching his chest. Harry made a motion with his hand hoping to prompt Ron to start talking, but it was ignored. A minute passed before Harry finally lost patience and spoke, "Spit it out Ron. The others are almost at the front of the line. Why did you drag me over here?"

Harry could see Ron grimace though he didn't lift his head when he spoke, "What do you think of Millie, Harry?"

Well that was not what Harry had expected Ron to ask about. He was sure it was going to be about visiting Ron again over Summer. Too far away in his mind for plans to be made.

"Eh… she's nice enough Ron. You didn't upset her again did you?"

"No, no. It's just that… should I buy her a Christmas present?"

Harry squeezed his eyes closed for a moment as he tried to wrap his head around this, "Um… why? Do you want to buy her a present?"

Ron nodded and finally looked up and met Harry's eyes, "Yes, but she's a Slytherin and a half-blood. What'll happen if my mum finds out?"

Harry already had heard how Ron's mother wasn't keen on any interaction with Slytherins at all but this was a bit new, "I thought your mother didn't care about all that pureblood nonsense."

Ron shrugged, "Well she's friendly enough with everyone, well not anyone from Slytherin, but she already told me so many times that she doesn't want me to date any girls that don't have good prospects. Pureblood or successful she wants. Well, she wouldn't use those words but…"

Harry shook his head in wonder and gave Ron a faint grin, "Are you dating Millie?"

"No. No, we are not dating." Ron was rather surprised at being asked that.

"Well then, what are you worried about? Just buy a present and send it to her as a friend. If your mum asks, tell her it's just for one of your study group friends."

Ron instantly cheered up, "Of course. She's just a study group friend. What was I worried about? Thanks Harry, you're a great friend. You have a great Christmas and I'll see you when you get back."

Harry and the others waved to Ron as their carriage set off to Hogsmeade station.

-my-friend-tom-

It was many hours later and Harry was frustrated. His holiday plans had already been derailed and Tom wasn't able to cheer him up since he was just as frustrated by the turn of events.

'They've swapped again.'

"Yep. I see him. Must have apparated, surprised he is familiar with the route."

'The lady seems a lot more comfortable on the station. Probably muggleborn or halfblood and scouted out the path to Little Whinging in advance.'

"Wish we could just lose them." Harry was frustrated, he really didn't want to go back to his number four.

'Indeed. But they must already be suspicious when you weren't picked up at the station.'

"At least it doesn't seem like they mean me any harm."

Harry found a seat and pulled out one of his french books and lost himself in conjugations.

The straw haired man didn't leave the train when Harry did and it only took him a second to spot the tall lady sipping a tea at the nearby cafe. She had changed the colour of her clothes again but they were still the same style. The other man had been just as careless in changing his appearance, obviously neither thought very highly of Harry's power of observation.

Sighing Harry wiggled his backpack into a more comfortable position and set off down the road towards Privet Drive. He had only taken a few steps when Tom stopped him.

'Go to the public library. Might as well get some new reading material for tonight.'

"Why? Thought we were going to go shopping in Diagon Alley first? Surely they'll leave me alone when we get to number four."

'Possibly, but I don't think it's worth the risk. Better to stay the night and then go in tomorrow morning.'

Harry wish he could groan out loud but he was being watched so he tried to satisfy his urge for dramatics with a small sigh as he changed direction and headed for the library.

Harry had the sensation that he was being followed all the way from the fish and chips shop to the Dursley's but he didn't see anyone. He guessed an invisibility cloak or a really good disillusionment charm. There was no way to tell and even the wards at home could only confirm that there was someone sitting in the neighbor's backyard, someone that he couldn't see.

Harry finished up the fish and chips in his room before popping his head into the lounge room to let the Dursley's know he was home for the night, but not to worry about him as he wouldn't be needing any breakfast tomorrow.

Vernon gave a grunt of acknowledgement and Petunia just gave him the briefest of glances before they turned their attention back to the newspaper and magazine they were reading.

The hidden presence remained in the neighbor's yard till the sun had set then moved a little further from the house before vanishing.

"I really hope they don't come back tomorrow."

'Indeed. Still you did want to practice your french and get your homework out of the way so no time is wasted.'

"I guess, but I didn't want to be doing it here. Guess you're right though, too late to go back to London now."

Harry wasn't very tired so he spent an hour on his transfiguration homework before he felt he needed a break. He opened the french book he had gotten from the library and practised translating for an hour before he realized that his mind had been miles away for a few minutes. Discarding the book, he gently extracted his mother's journals from his book bag and just held them to his chest for a few minutes before putting the first two aside.

The first of the journals was half full of notes on her experimentation with herbs and healing potions, however it was all way too advanced for him to properly understand. Tom told him that there were certainly some interesting ideas in it and when he was older he'd be able to make better use of it.

The second book was filled with notes on advanced charm and arithmancy. It was significantly thicker than the other two journals and his mother had obviously added extra pages to it a few times. It was even more technical than the first journal, and was mostly written in code or in various languages. Tom believed it was mostly for a charms mastery project but until they were able to break the code it was hard to be sure.

The last and most worn journal was the one he opened. It was Lily's idea journal and amongst ideas of new charms and notes on spells she found interesting, she had written down many short personal comments. Harry loved reading the small fragments that talked about things she had seen, learnt or done especially when the comments mentioned his father and their friends. None of the pages were dated but Harry had so far managed to work out that it started sometime in her last year of Hogwarts and, after a brief perusal of the last few pages, continued up till after he was born. Now he was letting himself read two pages a night as he wanted to make the book last.

He removed his animated dragon bookmark and smiled down at the page. At the top of the revealed page there was a small stick figure demonstrating wand movements. They were for a house painting charm that his mother had copied from a home making magazine and he wondered how the original magazine had presented the wand movements. The figure was rather lopsided and occasionally fell over, though the wand movements were easily followed. Harry had already discovered that his mother liked using stick figures and the journal was filled with little men waving wands or demonstrating antics of her friends. Sadly the actual charm she had used to create the stick figures didn't seem to be in this journal.

His eyes moved past the charm to the first of the short notes on the page.

When will James learn? He managed to break his ankle again during Quidditch practice today. Well, after. Trying to do some sort of high speed landing and went down in a heap in front of the boys. Sirius just laughed and took him up to sick bay upside down.

Lily had drawn a pair of stick figures below the words. One was hanging upside down by one foot while the other figure was walking behind it waving his wand. A little bubble with "ha ha" inside floated along beside it. When it got to the side of the page it vanished and reappeared on the other side.

Harry watched the little figures walk across the page a few times with a happy smile. After the picture was a lengthy piece about a potion to add glittering highlights to hair and various variants that his mum and her friends had come up with. Harry skipped it and the following beauty tip about eyelashes to the next personal message.

Marleen warned me that Severus has been staring at me again. Sometimes I think he wants to apologize, other times I wonder if he is just looking for new ways to torment James. I do hope he is not already lost.

Harry reread that paragraph a dozen times trying to get to grips with everything that the words hinted at. Was his mother really worried about Snape's well-being? He recalled earlier comments talking about Snape's continued efforts to enact revenge on his father and his friends for their actions during their younger years. It seemed James had grown out of that behavior well before Snape. It sounded like Sirius was tamer than before, less likely to say something but still as willing as ever to continue it.

"Tom, do you know what happened to my parents' friends?"

'I know Remus Lupin was courting the other werewolves, Sirius Black was proving to be an effective Auror and a nuisance to Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew was working odd jobs whilst feeding Voldemort information on Dumbledore's ineffectual resistance movement. We could go back and check Daily Prophets from those days when you return to Hogwarts.'

Harry shook his head, "Not yet. I'm not ready to read anymore about how happy everyone was after my parents died."

'I understand. Whenever you are ready.'

Harry returned to reading but there wasn't anything else of interest so he returned to watching the stick figure of his dad being carried upside down across the page for a while before going to sleep.

-my-friend-tom-

Harry's wards were not picking up anything unusual around the house the next morning so Harry left early. He stopped at the corner shop for a simple breakfast consisting of a muesli bar and some juice before returning the mostly unread book to the library and retracing his train journey back to the city.

Whilst he waited to change lines he entered the public toilets and applied his disguise. He switched into some rather distinctive and expensive clothes quite unlike his normal style. He stowed his glasses. A small amount of transfiguration had changes the colour and style of his backpack, he kept his moleskin bag within. After gelling up his hair into a rather modern looking spike he applied glamours to age him a few years, change his features and turns his eyes brown. He hoped that even those few that could see through glamours wouldn't be able to easily recognise him. The last part of the disguise all came down to attitude. He tried for a toned down Malfoy, the version before he had implemented his plan to discredit the boy.

After returning to the platform there was only a few minutes' wait for the train. He risked a few wandless detection spells just to get a sense of any magic and was happy to feel nothing.

It was surprising just how much more enjoyable the train ride was when he didn't have the sensation of being watched and followed the entire time.

Harry amused himself by trying to guess what jobs people had. He did try to involve Tom in the game but his invisible friend had just scoffed at the unimportance of giving the muggles more than a second glance.

"Why the long face?"

'As if you can see my face.' Tom's voice was snide.

"You know what I mean. Something's wrong."

'Nothing's wrong. Go back to your muggle watching.'

Harry rolled his eyes and thought for a moment, "Did I do something wrong? Is it to do with the muggles?"

'What? No! Why would I get upset about the muggles. They are beneath us. Might as well get upset by sheep. Forget it.'

Harry persisted, "Then why are you so moody? Ever since, well, the last train change… Is it because we are getting closer to Diagon Alley? I thought you were looking forward to getting access to the bookshops?"

'No! Nothing to do with Diagon Alley.'

Harry paused a moment, "Is it to do with your old room?"

There was silence inside Harry's head.

"Tom? Is there is something wrong with it? We could stay somewhere else."

Tom's sighed and his voice was rather flat, the anger drained away, 'No. It's the best place for you. I'm sorry Harry. I've just been reliving memories of unpleasant times is all.'

"I thought you blocked most of those memories away?"

'Indeed, but there were defences about the room that I wanted to check. So I had need of those memories again. I shouldn't have let it affect my mood.'

"Is there anything I can do to cheer you up? A game of chess maybe?"

'Thanks for the offer Harry but you are hardly able to present challenge worthy of my intellect.'

Harry lifted his hand to his mouth to conceal the small grin, "Just because you so love playing with Ron. Would you rather talk about the Chudley Cannons?"

'Please don't remind me. His irrational belief that the Chudley Cannons ascent to glory is imminent is hardly the highlight of my weekly games of chess with him.'

Harry was doing his best not to laugh now, "Enough, Tom. I'm not going to be able to hold it in."

'You are not the one who has to try and plan moves whilst you are both chattering away. How he keeps up his end of the conversation whilst playing I will never understand. It's not like he is a shining example of an intellectual.'

"That's probably the nicest thing you've said about him."

'I've complimented his chess skill previously.'

"Well I guess that's true in the literal sense. I do believe what you said was that his chess skill was the one bright spot in an otherwise worthless landscape of weak willed flesh. Very complimentary."

'You disagree?'

"Come on. He's not that bad, and he's getting better."

Tom snorted, 'Go back to your muggle watching. We'll be there in five minutes.'

-my-friend-tom-

Author Notes: Many thanks to the reviewers of the last chapter. I spend a lot of time reading other peoples stories and there is such great stuff out there and it's good to see that my efforts are still appreciated. It's truly rewarding/motivating to get positive/constructive feedback. Entertaining others is great, being able to improve my writing is a bonus. I have a new concern/question; should I bother with the 'Previous Chapter' inserts? Are they helpful? I already know I don't put a lot of effort into them, but should I bother at all?

Once again thanks to the tireless work of Aletheya who continues to vanish the multitude of errors I submit to her.

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