Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter (or Ron Weasley) in any way shape or form.
Castles, Toads, ad Funny Names
There was a knock on the door of the compartment and a kid with a round face came in.
"Sorry," he said. "but I you seen a toad at all?"
We shook our heads and he started to freak. "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"
"He'll turn up," Harry said with more reassurance than I would have been able to muster.
"Yeah," The boy said miserably. "Well, if you see him..."
With that, he left.
"Don't know why he's so bothered." I said. "If I'd brought a toad I'd lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can't talk."
The rat was still snoozing on my lap.
"He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference," I said in disgust, "I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. I'll show you, look..."
I rummaged around my bag, moving around second hand books and slightly worn out clothes until I found what I was looking for. Pulling out my wand I saw Harry looking at it with interest.
"Unicorn hair's nearly poking out." I said, pulling at the end of the silvery stuff. "Anyway-"
I had just barley lifted up the wand when the door slid open again. The boy who lost his toad was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She had frizzy brown hair, teeth that seemed too big for her mouth, and an annoyed look on her face. She had already changed into her Hogwarts robes.
"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one." she said. She had this bossy sort of voice and it seemed to echo around annoyingly in my head.
"We've already told him we haven't seen it." I told her, hoping she would leave, but she wasn't listening, she was looking at the wand I still have in my hand.
"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then." She sat down and looked at me expectantly.
"Er - alright."
"Sunshine, daises, butter mellow,
Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."
I waved the wand around but nothing happened. Scabbers was still grey and fast asleep.
"Are you sure that's a real spell?" The girl asked, "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard - I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough - I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"
She said this so fast it made my head hurt.
"I'm Ron Weasley." I muttered in response.
"Harry Potter." Harry replied.
"Are you really?" She didn't sound too surprised, making it obvious that she hadn't grown up with the amazement of the Boy-Who-Lived. "I know all about you, of course - I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dart Arts and Great Wizarding Events of The Twentieth Century."
"Am I?" He asked. He really didn't know anything about his fame? Hermione seemed shocked as well.
"Goodness, you didn't know? I'd have found out everything I could if it was me." Hermione told us. "Do either of you know what house you'll be in?" She didn't wait for us to answer before she continued. "I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad... Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."
And then she left, Neville trailing skittishly behind her.
"Whatever house I'm in, I hope she's not in it." I said throwing the stupid, broken wand back into my trunk. "Stupid spell - George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud."
"What house are you're brothers in?" Harry asked.
"Gryffindor," I told him, my mood depleting some. "Mum and Dad were in it too. I don't know what they'll say if I'm not. I don't suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin." I shuddered slightly at the possibility. I couldn't even imagine what my family would say.
"That was the house Vol -, I mean You-Know-Who was in?"
"Yeah."
"You know, I think the ends of Scabbers' whiskers are a bit brighter." Harry told me, trying to change the subject. "So what do your oldest brothers do now they've left, anyway?"
"Charlie's in Romania studying dragons, and Bill's going to Africa doing something for Gringotts." I told him. "Did you hear about Gringotts? It's been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don't suppose you get that with the Muggles - someone tried to rob a high security vault."
Harry looked at me.
"Really? What happened to them?"
"Nothing." I explained. "That's why it's such big news. They haven't been caught. My dad says it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they don't think they took anything, that's what's odd. 'Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happened in case You-Know-Who's behind it."
Harry was quiet for a while when, suddenly I thought of something.
"What's your Quidditch team?" I asked him. He seemed to snap out of his trance. But he still had this look of confusion on his face.
"Er - I don't know any."
"What!" The fact that he grew up out of this world slipped my mind, but still. Never heard of Quidditch! "Oh, you wait, it's the best game in the world!" And with that fact, I went on to explain it all. I was just going on to explain all the different fouls players can make (some of which only happened once, in the first ever Quidditch World Cup. Man, I wish I could have seen those) when the door slid open once again, but it wasn't Neville coming to question about his toad, or even Hermione returning to patronize us on the facts and statistics of Hogwarts.
There were three boys this time, two big blokes with stupid looks on their faces flanked the smallest of the trio. A pale boy with pointed features and white-blonde hair stood at the compartment door looking at Harry with interest, as if he was just now seeing how valuable something can be.
"Is it true then?" He said. "They're all saying that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"
"Yes." Harry stated simply. He didn't seem to be looking at the pale boy, but rather at the goons that were standing behind him. The boy noticed this.
"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle." He explained. "And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."
I laughed a bit and hid it with a cough when he turned his head and looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time.
"Think my name's funny do you?" Draco sneered. "No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children then they can afford."
He turned back to look at Harry, leaving me hot in the face and making faces at the back of his head.
"You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."
He held out his hand for Harry to shake and I thought that was the end of it. Harry Potter was going to ditch me now and I would have no friends. To my surprise, and to Malfoy's as well, Harry didn't take his hand.
"I think I can tell the wrong sort are for myself, thanks." He replied coolly.
Malfoy didn't go red in the face, but pink appeared on his pale cheeks and he seemed less confident than he did before.
"I'd be careful if I were you, Potter." He said slowly. "Unless you're a bit politer you'll go the same way as your parents. They didn't know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it'll rub off on you."
This time, both Harry and I stood up to face him.
"Say that again." I dared him, sounding braver than I felt, but I was sure my burning face gave me away.
"Oh, you're going to fight us, are you?" Malfoy sneered.
"Unless you get out now." Harry said, which must have taken guts, as Crabbe and Goyle were each bigger than me or him.
"But we don't feel like leaving, do we, boys? We've eaten all our food and you still seem to have some."
Goyle reached toward a Chocolate Frog next to me and I leapt towards him. But before I could even get a hand on Goyle's massive shoulder, he yelled out.
Scabbers was hanging off his finger, the rat's sharp teeth sunk deep into Goyle's fat knuckle. Crabbe and Malfoy backed away as Goyle swung Scabbers round the compartment, howling, and when Scabbers finally released his finger and hit the window, all three of them disappeared at once. They might have thought there were more rats lurking around in the pile of sweets, or they might have heard the footsteps because a second later, Hermione Granger had stepped back into the room.
"What has been going on?" She asked, her eyes scanning the ground now covered in sweets and I went to pick Scabbers off the floor by the end of his tail.
"I think he's been knocked out." I told Harry, poking Scabbers side. Then I took a closer look. "No - I don't believe it - he's gone back to sleep."
I then thought of something Malfoy had said.
"You've met Malfoy before?"
Harry told me how he met him at Madam Malkin's in Diagon Alley.
"I've heard of his family." I told him darkly. "They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Some said they were bewitched. My dad doesn't believe it. He says Malfoy's father didn't need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side." I turned to the girl who was just standing there, saying nothing. "Can we help you with something?"
"You'd better hurry up and put your robes on. I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there. You haven't been fighting, have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there."
"Scabbers has been fighting, not us." I told her, scowling. Who did she think she was? My mum? "Would you mind leaving while we change?"
"Alright - I only came in her because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors." She said in a stiffy sort of voice. "And you've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?"
I glared at her when she left. Harry looked outside the window. It was getting pretty dark out there, and the train did seem to be slowing down slightly. We took off our jackets and pulled on our long black robes. Mine were a bit short for me and my trainers showed under them.
A voice echoed through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."
My face drained of its colour as I felt the nervousness set in. I crammed the rest of the sweets into my pockets and walked, shaking down the corridor.
The train slowed down to a stop and people pushed past each other as they headed towards the door, some people going considerably slower than others, giving away who was new and who had nothing to be nervous about. We made our way through the crowd, out of the warm train and into the cold night air. All of the first years stood around, holding on to themselves to keep warm, wondering what we were supposed to do. A light came bobbing over and a voice called out: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?"
A big, hairy face came into the light over the sea of heads.
"C'mon, follow me - any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"
The rest of the first years looked relieved they now how somewhere to go, hopefully out of the cold weather. Slipping and stumbling, we followed the giant of a man down a steep, narrow path. Nobody spoke much, really. Neville, the boy who can't find his toad, sniffed a couple of times. Along the way, Harry had told me that the giant's name was Hagrid and that he was the gameskeeper at Hogwarts.
"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid told us over his shoulder from the front of the group, "jus' round this bend here."
There was a loud "Oooooooh!" as the bend cleared and the castle came into view. Perched up high, at the top of a mountain, it sat, its many towers reaching up into the night sky. A great lake as dark as the sky separates the ancient castle and the platform we stood on.
"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of tiny boats, bobbing in the water by the shore. Harry and I headed to a boat, followed closely by Hermione and Neville.
"Everyone in?" Hagrid shouted. He had a single boat all to himself. "Right then - FORWARD!"
And the little boats moved forward silently, gliding across the smooth lake like a tiny, not very intimidating army. Everyone was quiet, gazing up at the brilliant building that was the Hogwarts castle, and in that moment, I felt like I could truly understand why my brothers love this place so much. It towered over us as we sailed nearer to the mountain where it stood.
"Heads down!" Hagrid yelled as the first of the boats reached a cliff. We bent our heads down when it was our turn and the boats carried us through an ivy curtain that hid the open cliff face. We were carried along a dark tunnel that wove right under the school. We reached something like an underground harbour, where we climbed out of the boats.
"Oi, you there! Is this your toad?" Hagrid asked with a rather ugly toad in his giant hand.
"Trevor!" Neville cried out, rushing towards the man, holding out his hands for his beloved toad. Once he came back to the group, his toad clutched in his hands, we walked up the pebbled passageway, trying to keep up with Hagrid's large strides. We came out onto a smooth, damp grass field in the shadow of the looming castle.
We walked up a flight of stone step and crowded around a huge, oak door.
"Everyone here?" He addresses the nervous crowd, then turning towards Neville the Toad Boy, "You there, still got yer toad?"
Hagrid raised one of his gigantic fists and knocked on the castle door three echoing times.