Chapter 5: King's Cross
Draco and Hermione walked nervously through King's Cross station, dreading the moment they were bound to step onto the scarlet train, which would take them to the supposed school of their dreams.
Narcissa strode quickly behind them, pushing them along towards the barrier that would open onto platform nine and three-quarters, while Lucius stumbled a few feet back, struggling to carry the two heavy trunks weighing him down. Draco and Hermione said it wouldn't be a burden if they carried them on their own, but Narcissa insisted on Lucius carrying them, her husband hardly volunteering –Hermione could've sworn she saw Narcissa smirking when Lucius slipped on a loose paper and stumbled head first into a nearby trolley, the luggage close behind. His long hair was now mangled around his head and blowing down his back.
"Oh no, I don't need any help," Lucius said loudly. "But thank you so much for asking."
Narcissa rolled her eyes obviously.
Hermione felt a knot in her stomach. They were approaching the platform; it was slowly coming into view. After a few noisy minutes of pushing through confused passerbys, it was visible over a few heads.
"Just run through it," Lucius said through heavy breaths.
"I'll tell them what to do," Narcissa snapped. "Yes, Dears, just run through it," she said sweetly.
Draco went first; he sweeped confidently towards the barrier, but then as he approached he lost the spring in his step. Hermione followed quickly after him and knew that there was no way he would get through it if he was this cautious; she pushed him straight through with such force he nearly fell. She followed after him.
Meanwhile, Narcissa and Lucius were close behind on the other side. Just as Narcissa was almost on the platform, she looked over shoulder at the luggage her husband was carrying, said, "You could've gotten a trolley for that, you know," and disappeared into the wall without another word.
They waved their good-byes, laughed and cried, then at last took their seats in an empty compartment near the back of the scarlet engine.
Hermione and Draco sat in an awkward silence, then, merely to break the ice, Hermione asked, "Want a lolly?"
She brandished a Thumbsuckers lolly from her carry-on and held it towards Draco, who waved it away. Hermione shrugged and stuck it in her mouth.
She found herself becoming extremely bored and pulled out the light read she'd brought along for the ride. Draco's eyes widened at the thick textbook sitting in Hermione's lap. She happily began flipping pages.
They had barely made it through the clean cut grass plains when Hermione reread the last sentence of page 712, the last page of the book. Draco had been staring at her the whole time, she didn't know why, and she tried to pay his constant looks no notice.
When a plump witch came round and knocked on the compartment door, Draco began digging feverishly through his pockets, coming up with a half-eaten licorice wand, a wrapper, and four galleons.
One galleon paid for a chocolate frog and a very large jug of iced pumpkin juice. They shared it, splitting the frog down the middle to reveal a delicate caramel center infused with croakoa, a magical substance it contained that was, perhaps, the reason they actually acted like frogs. They continued the ride in silence; Hermione pulled out a slightly larger book from her bag, sipping from her glass of pumpkin juice.
When they approached unattended and abandoned fields, Draco suddenly looked up, eyes wide. He'd been jumpy the whole trip, and Hermione wondered whether or not to ask him why.
At some point, Hermione fell asleep, and sometime later someone was softly tapping her shoulder. Her eyes remained closed until a pair of soft lips pressed against her forehead. She slowly opened her eyes and saw a pair of silver ones staring back at her.
She jumped up suddenly and their foreheads crashed together.
Draco was rubbing his forehead grumpily. "What the bloody hell was that for?" He asked.
"Why were you hovering over me?" she shot back.
"I, being the fantastic friend that I am, decided to wake you up and let you know that the prefects told us to change into our robes now," Draco replied.
"You kissed me!"
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said nonchalantly.
"Can you just get out so I can change?" she said.
"Well," he huffed. "I can see that someone woke up on the wrong side of the bench."
"GET OUT!"
"Fine, I'm leaving, don't get your knickers in a twist."
Hermione shoved him out of the compartment and slammed the door shut in his face. She quickly shut the blinds and took her luggage off of the top rack and dug around for her robes. When she finally found them she changed quickly and stepped out of the compartment to find Draco.
She saw Draco standing in the middle of the aisle talking to Blaise and decided to join them. Once she retrieved them, they went back to their compartment to talk about why Narcissa was so antsy lately. Suddenly, a red-haired boy with a very fat face burst through the door.
"Have any of you seen my dog?" the boy asked.
Hermione looked towards the door pansy was pushing aside. "I think I just saw something crawling in the compartment over there."
He entered the compartment Hermione had just pointed to. "Come here, Tori." He cooed.
Before Pansy had time to react, the boy had scooped her up with much difficulty and shoved her into the cage that was big enough for a St. Bernard. He looked inside the cage and exclaimed, "You've gained so much weight, Tori!"
Pansy gasped, "I'm not a bloody dog, put me down!"
"Since when can you speak, Tori?" he asked.
As they were passing Draco, Hermione, and Blaise's door, they heard shuffles and shrieks as the chubby redhead shoved Pansy through the next opening. When the three of them caught wind of this conversation they couldn't contain their laughter, but opted to snigger into their palms instead.
* – * – *
They arrived at the Hogsmeade station an hour later and rushed off the train. When they got to the lake a man, much too tall to be human, waved all of the first years over. They entered the boats and started sailing towards the grand castle. The ride was going smoothly until the comfortable silence was broken by a shriek.
They looked over to see what the ruckus was about and they saw Pansy thrashing and spluttering in the Black Lake. Too shocked to do anything, Hagrid just stared at the girl. Pansy shrieked once more as the infamous Giant Squid wrapped a tentacle around her waist. Pansy's scream was nothing compared to the piercing wail of the Giant Squid as it realized what a disgusting creature it was holding. It quickly retracted it's tentacles and descended deeper into the dark waters.
Hagrid struggled to lift her back into his boat and when he finally managed to get her settled he wrapped his moleskin fur coat around her, making her look like a hideous half-breed.