Chapter 3 Hogwarts Letter
Harry's POV
"dude wake up it is time for breakfast" Ron said,
"oh breakfast cool" I sleepily responded before getting out of bed, putting on my glasses, and heading downstairs
"Harry, Ron, Hermione, Tonks your Hogwarts letters arrived earlier here they are
"thanks Mrs. Weasley" I said
"thank you harry" Mrs. Weasley said
"looks like were studying theory this year in DADA and most likely not learning any new spells so we probably have horrible teacher this year which is just wonderful" I said after reading my list of required books
" yep just wonderful" Tonks replied
"well I can get you all your stuff while I am in Diagon ally getting some ingredients for tomorrows dinner" Mrs. Weasley said
"thanks Mrs. Weasley" I responded
" it's no problem dear" Mrs. Weasley said
"well now that breakfast is over want to go play some chess Ron?" I asked
" sure" Ron said
Later
"Harry, Ron, Hermione, Tonks, Percy, Fred, George, Ginny time to go to the station" Mrs. Weasley said
"Coming" I replied
it took us twenty minutes to get to the station by foot. Once inside the station we lingered casually beside the barrier between platforms nine and ten until the coast was clear, then each of us leaned against it in turn and fell easily through onto platform nine and three-quarters, where the Hogwarts Express stood belching sooty steam over a platform packed with departing students and their families. I inhaled the familiar smell and felt my spirits soar... it was good to finally be going back...
"well shall we go find a compartment, then?" I asked my three friends.
"sure" said Ron
"right here we go" I said
Later
In the very last carriage we met Neville Longbottom, my fellow fifth-year Gryffindoor, his round face shining with the effort of pulling his trunk along and maintaining a one-handed grip on his struggling toad, Trevor.
"Hi, Harry" he panted. "Hi, Ginny... Everywhere's full... I can't find a seat..."
"what are you talking about?' said Ginny, who had squeezed past Neville to peer into the compartment behind him. "there's room in this one, there's only Luna Lovegood in here"
Neville mumbled something about not wanting to disturb anyone.
"don't be silly," said Ginny, laughing, "she's all right."
She slid the door open and pulled her trunk inside it. We followed.
"Hi, Luna," said Ginny. "Is it okay if we take these seats?"
The girl beside the window looked up. She had straggly, waist-length, dirty-blond hair, very pale eyebrows, and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look. I knew at once why
Neville had chosen to pass this compartment by. The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of butterbeer caps, or that she was reading a magazine upside down. Her eyes ranged over Neville and came to rest on me.
She nodded.
"Thanks," said Ginny, smiling at her.
Neville and I stowed the six trunks and Hedwig's cage in the luggage rack and sat down. The girl called Luna watched us over her upside-down magazine, which was called The Quibbler. She did not seem to need to blink as much as normal humans. She stared and stared at me, I had taken the seat opposite her and now I wished that I had not.
"Had a good summer, Luna?" Ginny asked.
"Yes," said Luna dreamily, without taking her eyes off me. "Yes,
it was quite enjoyable, you know. You're Harry Potter," she added.
"I know I am," I said
Neville chuckled. Luna turned her pale eyes upon him instead.
"And I don't know who you are"
"I'm nobody," said Neville hurriedly.
"No you're not," said Ginny sharply. "Neville Longbottom Luna Lovegood. Luna's in my year, but in Ravenclaw."
"Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure," said Luna in a
singsong voice.
She raised her upside-down magazine high enough to hide her face and fell silent. Neville and I looked at each other with our eyebrows raised. Ginny suppressed a giggle. The train rattled onward, speeding us out into open country. It was an odd, unsettled sort of day; one moment the carriage was full of
sunlight and the next we were passing beneath ominously gray clouds.
"Guess what I got for my birthday?" said Neville.
"Another Remembrall?" said Harry, remembering the marblelike
device Neville's grandmother had sent him in an effort to improve his abysmal memory.
"No," said Neville, "I could do with one, though, I lost the old one ages ago. . . . No, look at this. . . ."
He dug the hand that was not keeping a firm grip on Trevor into his schoolbag and after a little bit of rummaging pulled out what appeared to be a small gray cactus in a pot, except that it was covered with what looked like boils rather than spines.
"Mimbulus mimbletonia," he said proudly. I stared at the thing. It was pulsating slightly, giving it the
rather sinister look of some diseased internal organ.
"It's really, really rare," said Neville, beaming. "I don't know if there's one in the greenhouse at Hogwarts, even. I can't wait to show it to Professor Sprout. My great-uncle Algie got it for me in Assyria. I'm going to see if I can breed from it."
I knew that Neville's favorite subject was Herbology, but for the life of me I could not see what he would want with this stunted little plant.
"Does it do anything?" I asked.
"Loads of stuff!" said Neville proudly. "It's got an amazing defensive mechanism — hold Trevor for me. . . ."
He dumped the toad into my lap and took a quill from his
schoolbag. Luna Lovegood's popping eyes appeared over the top of her upside-down magazine again, watching what Neville was doing. Neville held the Mimbulus mimbletonia up to his eyes, his tongue between his teeth, chose his spot, and gave the plant a sharp prod with
the tip of his quill. Liquid squirted from every boil on the plant, thick, stinking, dark green
jets of it; they hit the ceiling, the windows, and spattered Luna
Lovegood's magazine. Ginny, who had flung her arms up in front of her face just in time, merely looked as though she was wearing a slimy green hat, but me, with my hands busy preventing the escape of Trevor, received a face full. It smelled like rancid manure. Neville, whose face and torso were also drenched, shook his head to get the worst out of his eyes. "S-sorry," he gasped. "I haven't tried that before. . . . Didn't realize it would be quite so . . . Don't worry, though, Stinksap's not poisonous," he added nervously, as I spat a mouthful onto the floor.
"Look, we can get rid of all this easily." Ginny pulled out her wand. "Scourgify!"
The Stinksap vanished.
"Sorry," said Neville again, in a small voice.
"it's okay" I said
The weather remained undecided as they traveled farther and farther north. Rain spattered the windows in a halfhearted way, then the sun put in a feeble appearance before clouds drifted over it once more. When darkness fell and lamps came on inside the carriages, Luna rolled up The Quibbler, put it carefully away in her bag, and took to
staring at everyone in the compartment instead. I was sitting with my forehead pressed against the train window, trying to get a first distant glimpse of Hogwarts, but it was a moonless night and the rain-streaked window was grimy.
"We'd better change," said Hermione
At last the train began to slow down and they heard the usual racket up and down it as everybody scrambled to get their luggage and pets assembled, ready for departure. Ron and Hermione were supposed to supervise all this; they disappeared from the carriage again, leaving
Harry and the others to look after Crookshanks and Pigwidgeon.
"I'll carry that owl, if you like," Luna said to me, reaching out for Pigwidgeon as Neville stowed Trevor carefully in an inside pocket.
"Oh — er — thanks," I said, handing her the cage and hoisting
Hedwig's more securely into his arms. They shuffled out of the compartment feeling the first sting of the night air on their faces as they joined the crowd in the corridor. Slowly we moved toward the doors. I could smell the pine trees that lined the path down to the lake. I stepped down onto the platform and looked around, listening for the familiar call of "Firs' years over here . . . firs' years . . ."
But it did not come. Instead a quite different voice, a brisk female
one, was calling, "First years line up over here, please! All first years to me!"
A lantern came swinging toward Harry and by its light he saw the prominent chin and severe haircut of Professor Grubbly-Plank, the witch who had taken over Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures lessons
for a while the previous year.
"Where's Hagrid?" I said out loud.
"I don't know," said Ginny, "but we'd better get out of the way,
we're blocking the door."
"Oh yeah . . ."
Ginny and I became separated as we moved off along the platform and out through the station. Jostled by the crowd, I squinted through the darkness for a glimpse of Hagrid; he had to be here, I had been relying on it — seeing Hagrid again had been one of the things to which I had been looking forward most. But there was no sign of him at all. He can't have left, Harry told himself as he shuffled slowly through a narrow doorway onto the road outside with the rest of the crowd.
He's just got a cold or something. . . .
He looked around for Ron or Hermione, wanting to know what they thought about the reappearance of Professor Grubbly-Plank, but neither of them was anywhere near him, so he allowed himself to be
shunted forward onto the dark rain-washed road outside Hogsmeade station. Here stood the hundred or so horseless stagecoaches that always took the students above first year up to the castle. I glanced quickly at them, turned away to keep a lookout for Ron and Hermione, then did a double take. The coaches were no longer horseless. There were creatures standing between the carriage shafts; if he had had to give them a name, he supposed he would have called them horses, though there was something
reptilian about them, too. They were completely fleshless, their black coats clinging to their skeletons, of which every bone was visible. Their heads were dragonish, and their pupil-less eyes white and staring. Wings sprouted from each wither — vast, black leathery wings that looked as though they ought to belong to giant bats. Standing still and quiet in the gloom, the creatures looked eerie and sinister. Harry could not understand why the coaches were being pulled by these horrible horses when they were quite capable of moving along by themselves.
"Where's Pig?" said Ron's voice, right behind Harry.
"That Luna girl was carrying him," said Harry, turning quickly, eager
to consult Ron about Hagrid. "Where d'you reckon —"
"— Hagrid is? I dunno," said Ron, sounding worried. "He'd better
be okay. . . ."
A short distance away, Draco Malfoy, followed by a small gang of cronies including Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy Parkinson, was pushing some timid-looking second years out of the way so that they could get a coach to themselves. Seconds later Hermione emerged panting from the crowd.
"Malfoy was being absolutely foul to a first year back there, I swear I'm going to report him, he's only had his badge three minutes and he's using it to bully people worse than ever. . . . Where's Crookshanks?"
"Ginny's got him," said Harry. "There she is. . . ."
Ginny had just emerged from the crowd, clutching a squirming
Crookshanks.
"Thanks," said Hermione, relieving Ginny of the cat. "Come on, let's get a carriage together before they all fill up. . . ."
"I haven't got Pig yet!" Ron said, but Hermione was already heading
off toward the nearest unoccupied coach. Harry remained behind with Ron.
"What are those things, d'you reckon?" he asked Ron, nodding at the horrible horses as the other students surged past them.
"What things?"
"Those horse —"
Luna appeared holding Pigwidgeon's cage in her arms; the tiny owl was twittering excitedly as usual.
"Here you are," she said. "He's a sweet little owl, isn't he?"
"Er . . . yeah . . . He's all right," said Ron gruffly. "Well, come on then, let's get in. . . . what were you saying, Harry?"
"I was saying, what are those horse things?" I said, as Ron, Luna, and I
made for the carriage in which Hermione and Ginny were already sitting.
"What horse things?"
"The horse things pulling the carriages!" I said impatiently; they were, after all, about three feet from the nearest one; it was watching them with empty white eyes. Ron, however, gave me a
perplexed look.
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about — look!"
I grabbed Ron's arm and wheeled him about so that he was face-to-face with the winged horse. Ron stared straight at it for a second, then looked back at me.
"What am I supposed to be looking at?"
"There, between the shafts! Harnessed to the coach! It's
right there in front —"
But as Ron continued to look bemused, a strange thought occurred to me.
"Can't . . . can't you see them?"
"See what?"
"Can't you see what's pulling the carriages?"
Ron looked seriously alarmed now.
"Are you feeling all right, Harry?"
"I . . . yeah . . ."
I felt utterly bewildered. The horse was there in front of him, gleaming solidly in the dim light issuing from the station windows behind them, vapor rising from its nostrils in the chilly night air. Yet
unless Ron was faking and it was a very feeble joke if he was Ron could not see it at all.
"Shall we get in, then?" said Ron uncertainly, looking at me as
though worried about me.
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, go on . . ."
"It's all right," said a dreamy voice from beside me as Ron vanished
into the coach's dark interior. "You're not going mad or anything. I can see them too."
"Can you?" said Harry desperately, turning to Luna. He could see the bat-winged horses reflected in her wide, silvery eyes.
"Oh yes," said Luna, "I've been able to see them ever since my first day here. They've always pulled the carriages. Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am."
Smiling faintly, she climbed into the musty interior of the carriage after Ron. Not altogether reassured, I followed her.