The journey from Platform 9 ¾
Since he already had purchased his wizard stuff, Merry agreed to begin the school for witchcraft and wizardry. Paddy threatened with suicide, but then gave in because the pressure to starve himself in order to look like Merry was lifted from his shoulders. Merry's bleached hair disappeared too, because Buttercup shaved him of a reason she refused to explain (but everyone assumed that it was pure malice). However it grew out (natural blue-black again) over one night.
Eventually the day for the departure came. The whole family followed Merry to the train station.
It became a sobbingly farewell (except for Buttercup who looked happy for the first time since Merry's school letter came).
"Promise to write every day!" howled Paddy.
"You too!" blubbed Merry.
Then the muggles had to leave since Merry was getting late. He dragged his heavy luggage and Headpick (the flamingo – it had got its name due to its habit of picking everyone in the head who came nearby) to the pillar between platform 9 and 10. As usual he did not understand how to get on the train, but for once it was not because he was stupid, but because HB had disregarded to tell him how to do.
Therefore Merry began to occupy himself in one of his favourite occupations: stare at strangers. He chose a red-haired family with weasel-looking appearance. He sneaked closer in order to eavesdrop.
"Come on, run through the wall!" said she who seemed to be the mother, "We are late! I think…"
"Yes we are, dear mum", said the oldest of the sons and kissed his mother on the forehead. Merry thought he looked silly with his goosy pink shirt.
The pantywaist took subsequently his luggage and ran straight into a pillar.
What an idiot, Merry thought, he's even dumber than me.
The pantywaist disappeared without a trace.
"WHAT!?! Where did he go?" Merry burst out without thinking.
The rest of the weasels peered at him. The mother recuperated first.
"And who are you, little boy?" she said and tweaked him in the cheek, which resulted in Merry not being able to answer properly.
"Eeee do you need help to come to the platform?" she said.
"But muuum", sighed the only daughter, "He can be like, a muggle, liiike! Hellooo?"
"Dear me! Oh dear!" the mother eased the grip on Merry's cheek, which was completely white by now. "Are you a muggle?"
"Noo", Merry said acidly. He stroked himself over the cheek which was aching intensively. He did not like this woman, but on the other hand there were few who won Merry's favour, and it was usually mutually. "Can you just tell me exactly where this darned platform is, bothersome person." He waved his ticket one centimetre from the woman's hawk nose.
"Sure my little friend", said the woman, apparently total unaffected by the brasses. "Just run into the wall over there", she said and pointed diffusedly in the direction of one of the pillars.
Merry who never unnecessarily reflected his thoughts, did immediately as she said. Three seconds later he felt tremendous agony, there he lay and squirmed on the floor.
"Zowie, oh dear, what happened?" the frump said confused.
"Buut muuummyy! Seriouslyyy, wrong wall, duuh", said the bratty kid.
"Oh, right… I am sorry little darling, my bad. It is that wall", the woman said apologetically, and pointed in the opposite direction.
"Damn stupid harridan", Merry muttered angrily to himself, and ran thereafter into the right wall.
A big steam locomotive appeared in front of his eyes. He stood and stared at the platform and all the strangers in odd clothes, a bit too long, one of the red-haired boys happened to run straight into him so the both of them fell in a pile on the floor.
"Oopsie", said the boy and rose slowly. Merry noticed how lingering this boy moved to be such a young person. The boy was tall, but moved very humpbacked, and gave the impression that he could fall asleep any second. His watery blue eyes were almost totally hidden by his eyelids. Merry liked him immediately, of some particular reason.
"Who the heck are you, you blunderer?" Merry asked impolitely.
"Rolle Weasly", spluttered the guy listlessly; "An' you?"
"Merry Poppis", replied Merry shortly.
"Hmpf", said Rolle and lounged away. Merry followed him with his gaze, and saw him meeting Mallboy, the guy from the clothes shop. Mallboy waved brightly to Rolle, which made Merry feel even more nostalgic for Paddy.
Merry soon became busy with trying to drag his enormous trunk into a coupé. While he struggled, another one of Rolle's brothers came to him.
"You're weak, aren't you?" he scorned Merry's tiny body. Another one of the brothers with the red hair joined them. This boy resembled the first one so much that Merry assumed that they were twins, or possibly clones.
"Freckle… I'm sorry to bother you, but… can't you be a bit nicer to the little boy? Huh?" stuttered the twin with quaking voice.
"D'you want to live, Google? If that's the case I suggest that you withdraw as soon as possible", answered Freckle with a sinister voice. Then he began to chase his brother, who ran away with a panicked face.
Merry, who now had managed to squeeze the bag into the empty coupé, sat down and peeped out through the little window. Since he did not have a life he liked to observe those who had one. He got sight of the Weasly family, who now had gathered right outside his window.
"Where are we now again", asked Mrs Weasly with too positive voice.
"We are on platform 9 ¾ since we are departing for Frogwarts, the wizard school", the pantywaist said.
"Aha! Certainly, thank you Piercy", the mummy exclaimed. Piercy was a fitting name to the pantywaist thought Merry, since Piercy actually had a king-size lip piercing, which looked very misplaced, towards the rest of the pantywaist's so house-proud and neat apparition. Merry guessed that Piercy merely had got the piercing so it could match his name.
The engine now began to roll, so all Weasly the children, except for the girl, had to run and jump aboard on the train.
"Adieu mother, adieu Finny!" shouted Piercy.
"Bye bro'", replied the bothersome kid. She made ugly grimaces where she stood, while blowing pink bubbles with her big gum.
Rolle fell into the coupé after a while. "Hi there. I'll sleep he…" was everything he got out before he fainted across the seats opposite Merry. Then Mallboy arrived, in company with two tall big boys.
"God day Mr Poppis! How pleasant to meet you again", Mallboy cheerfully burst out, "Let me introduce my dear friends: Rolle Weasly, who is lying and taking a nap, something he often devotes himself to. Here, at my left side, stands Vincent von Crab. ("He is a little bit introvert", Mallboy added with lower voice) Here at my right side stands the enchanting Mr Greger Giggle, who prefers to be called Miss Giggle."
Merry observed the big couple. Vincent von Crab seemed a bit shady; he looked round himself suspiciously all the time, while he mumbled something inaudibly, non-stop. Miss Giggle on the other hand, who was dressed in a pretty pinkish tutu which exposed a lot more of his hairy legs than anyone would ever want to see, stood and giggled and spread flirty glances all over the place.
"And this, my gentlemen and my… ehrhm… lady… this is Merry Poppis, famous for the deed, when he as a baby defeated the evil You-know-who", continued Mallboy.
"Can't you just get out of here and leave me alone! Cornballs", Merry roared suddenly.
"He's really volatile, isn't he?" the transvestite remarked.
"BUT CAN'T YOU JUST GO AWAY!!!" Merry looked totally mad by now; his face was blood red, he had a nosebleed since he was so upset and chewed froth of anger.
"OK OK do not explode on us now, we will leave if you want us to", Mallboy said and backed carefully from there with Miss Giggle and von Crab behind him, or in front of him, if one would say.
Merry then sat alone, with the exception of the snoring Rolle, and moped. Then a frump arrived with a lunch-wagon.
"You want anything?" she asked since it was her job to offer the students fattening lunches containing unhealthy stuff such as chocolate frogs, cauldron cookies etc.
Merry bought quite a lot of pumpkin pies and pumpkin lemonade, sat down and munched and hereafter got an allergic reaction as usual. Rolle grunted in his sleep and turned away from Merry. When he moved his slumbering rat woke up. It watched Merry curiously, ate some crumbs Merry had spilled and then rolled up and went to sleep again.
Suddenly a screw nut rolled in through the crack under the door. Merry took it up and sucked on it for a while. Then the door was hoicked. Merry jerked, and happened to unintentionally swallow the screw nut.
"Have you seen my screw nut?" asked the boy who had opened the door. His super bleached, almost white, hair sprawled in all directions, and he was skewing and rolling with his eyes. Merry hiccupped.
"Er…" he said and imitated the boy's crazy eyes, "I happened to swallow it, sort of."
"You happened to what!?!"
" I happened to swallow it."
"I heard what you said, I just wonder why you did something so stupid!"
"I just sucked on it a little, it was actually you who scared me so I swallowed it!"
"Why were you sucking on my screw nut? Are you stupid or what?"
Merry shrugged. "Fun. Impulse."
"Fun? FUN! That screw nut came from the first robot I built myself! It was special, it meant a lot to me." The other boy was crying by now.
"I'm sorry. But if it was so important, then how could you lose it, huh?"
"Yeah but I'm absentminded! All mad geniuses are absentminded."
"OK, I promise that you'll get it back later, when my body's done with it."
"Thanks, I appreciate it. And I would be grateful if you clean it before you give it back!" The boy seemed gladder now. "By the way, my name's Deville Shortbottom."
Merry looked stealthily at Deville's bottom. It was, as the surname indicated, almost totally nonexistent.
Wonder if the forename suits him too, Merry reflected.
Suddenly Rolle fell down from the seats.
"Eeeh, are we there yet? Where's Mallboy?"
"He cleared out, and no, we're not there yet." However, before Merry had attained to finish the sentence Rolle had managed to fall asleep again. He snored and drooled.
How disgusting, Merry thought.
Deville kicked Rolle in the head so he woke up. "Eeeh…?"
"You should change to your garments, we're probably there soon." Deville, who already had changed to the plum purple, spangled dress and the maroon turban, advised.
Many hours later they had reached their destination. Merry had spent the time watching an instruction video about how to ride water-skiis which they had shown on the train for some reason. It was not that he had been that attentive, since he had severe concentration difficulties. Anyway, now they were there.
"All first-years, gather aroun' me now!" Merry heard a familiar voice when he got off the train. With terror, Merry realized that the voice belonged to HubbaBubba. "Nowe come here!"
HB held an empty bucket. Merry went reluctantly forward to him. Merry sighed relieved when HB did not show any signs of recognition.
"Lay yer condoms here in thisa bucket an' put on the water-skiis!" Everyone put down their condoms. Merry noted that the most of them were magical and constantly changed colour.
Cool, he thought impressed.
"What will you do with them by the way?" Deville asked critically.
"I collect, ye see", said HB proudly, "Ye can come to my mini-castle an' look sometime!"
A common shudder moved through the first-year students. Everyone reminded themselves to avoid HB and his mini-castle.
"Have ye put on da skiis yet then? Good! Then we go."
HB tied a rope onto a big motorboat while the pupils formed a human pyramid.
"An' if ye drop down ye have to swim, so try to ride as long as pussible." He sat down in the boat and pressed the petal to the metal before anyone was prepared.
Half of the pupils fell down within the first 15 meters. Merry was of course one of them. Since he could not swim, he sank as a rock. Rolle was already lying at the bottom and slept, but he was quickly rescued from to "sleep forever" by Mallboy. Merry was also rescued by von Crab and Miss Giggle (Merry became reluctantly impressed at how Miss Giggle's skirt moved in the water).
Despite that the pupils had to swim rather far it did not take a long time to arrive on the shore, since they were chased by unidentifiable sea monsters. HB and the very few pupils who had made it all the way were standing and waiting for them. Without waiting for the very last ones (that Merry actually did not belong to) HB went into the school/castle and left the door wide open. The pupils assumed that they should follow him and so they did.