Pleasant times seem to go by fast. As it turned out, both the Grangers and the Dursleys were happy to have Harry stay with Hermione's family until it was time to go away to Hogwarts - in Harry's case, probably for nine months away. And it seemed he'd only been there a little while when the trip to Platform 9 3/4ths was coming up.
Hermione had gotten her wand and books almost a year earlier, being ten months ahead of Harry. She had tried most of the spells in the Standard Book of Spells, Grade One, and even memorised Flipendo, the Knock-Back Jinx, when she saw it in an older, dog-eared version of the book in Flourish and Blotts.
She offered to teach Harry what she knew, which led to the question of how they could practice magic in a non-magical home. Hagrid had said he wasn't supposed to perform magic on the island, and Ollivander and McGonagall had both said that magic couldn't be practised outside of school by underage wizards and witches.
The answer turned out to be fairly simple. The Grangers had periodically rented a room in the Leaky Cauldron. They were quite inexpensive, even with the conversion rate set by Gringotts. Since it was a magical area with tons of people in and out, no one noticed the use of wands, even with the alleged trace on them. When they'd gone to Gringotts to get money - Harry offered to pay for a room while Hermione was tutoring him - the presence of the Grangers gave him the confidence to have the Goblins make him a new key and change the lock on his vault. He'd certainly never seen any money his entire life, so whoever had the key was not his friend.
They took the Tube to Charing Cross Road early in the morning, rented a room (Tom the barman didn't object to underage witches and wizards renting a room, it was more common for them to travel alone than for Muggles), studied intensely all day (though they had to go through the back wall into Diagon Alley and find a shabby alley nook out of the way of foot traffic to have Harry practice Incendio), leave in the late afternoon when Hermione dragged Harry through the book-shops on Charing Cross, and then Tubed home.
It was, all in all, quite inexpensive, and Harry learned Spongify, Lumos, Diffindo, Incendio, Alohomora, Wingardium Leviosa, Colloportus, and even Flipendo. He also learned a couple of spells that were more properly Transfiguration from a book of household spells, including Reparo. They also spent a good deal of time memorising the Latin names of common objects.
It was hard for Harry to think anyone could ever be better at anything than Hermione the Angel, but she insisted he was noticeably more powerful than she was. In that case, she said, if he truly needed to use Diffindo around someone, he should think of Hermione's Diffindo as a knife, and his as a sword. He'd have to be much more careful so as not to hurt someone accidentally.
Hermione already planned not to tell their Charms instructor she'd already mastered the beginning year spells, since you could always refine your techniques, and it would be an easy way to stand out in class. She suggested Harry do the same.
A very fortuitous thing had happened while Hermione was tutoring Harry on the contents of their books. The Granger parents had helped by quizzing them. Hermione noticed right away that if there was an open question, and she even twitched, Harry would clam up and refuse to answer. Gradually, she avoided twitching. She also laid her hand on Harry's, which reassured him. In this way, Hermione learned to be delicate about the feelings of those around her when answering questions in class.
The Grangers had been worried Harry would limit his socialising to Hermione and perhaps a couple of friends she made. To forestall that, when they got to King's Cross St Pancras - very early - and passed through the 9 3/4ths wall, she decided they should look for a compartment toward the front of the train. She estimated the prefects, Head Boy and Girl (she learned about them in Hogwarts - a History), and older students might want the first car, so they went to the first compartment in the second car and chatted while waiting to meet people. As had become a habit, Hermione kept her hand in Harry's, which made him far less nervous. She, herself, would have been nervous, but caring for Harry drove that out of her mind entirely.
One of the first people to come through was a somewhat pudgy blond-haired boy with a toad peeping out of his pocket. When he saw Harry and Hermione were already sitting there, he sighed and turned around. Hermione quickly called out to him: "Don't go, there's plenty of room! I'm Hermione Granger, and this is my best friend Harry Potter, and we're - well, we're eager to have company. We were both raised without knowing anything about magic, so anything you can tell us will be interesting!"
The boy, whose name turned out to be Neville Longbottom, acquiesced, but when he sat down, his toad made a break for it. "Trevor!" he exclaimed. Harry had very quick reflexes, and was able to catch the toad immediately, without harming it.
"Don't you have some sort of cage for your pet, Neville?" Hermione asked.
"I did," he answered, morosely. "I was jostled on the platform and it got smashed."
Hermione's eyes widened, and she smiled broadly, forgetting her teeth.
"Bring it out, and let Harry have a go at it, if you don't mind, Neville," she said.
Neville looked over at Harry.
"I'll do my best, it probably can't do any harm, you know?" Harry said, quietly. It was the first thing he'd said since saying "Hi."
The minute Harry pointed his wand at the wreckage and said "Cavea Reparo," it was like new. After Neville put Trevor (the toad) in, Hermione asked if he needed to be let out before they got to Hogwarts. When Neville said he did not, she cast a mild Colloportus on the cage. "Remind me to unlock it before we go on the boats, Neville," Hermione told him. "Toads can swim a bit, but if the worst happened, a toad in a cage would be a goner.*"
Neville complained aloud that it would be hellish keeping Trevor occupied on a boat ride out of his cage. He lamented that he seemed to have lost the treats they'd bought for the amphibian at the Magical Menagerie.
Harry and Hermione looked at each other. If there was one thing that stood out about Neville's clothing, it was the enormous number and variety of pockets he was wearing. Furthermore, looked at objectively, he was nervous, clumsy, and very absent-minded.
Deciding quickly, Hermione cast Alohomora on the cage, gently took Trevor out, and passed him over Neville's body like a metal detector. When the toad twitched towards a particular pocket, she put Trevor back in his cage and locked it.
"See what's in that little pocket below the bigger pocket, Neville," she suggested. Whispering to Harry, she said he reminded her of what they'd read about a young Newt Scamander. Harry smiled shyly and nodded.
Meanwhile, Neville had, indeed, located a parcel of toad treats. He beamed, and was obviously considering feeding some to his pet.
"The toad has to realise that treats come from good behaviour on the boats, Neville," Hermione scolded, being a bit bossy. Harry noticed when she got like that, she tensed up a bit, so he squeezed her hand. She'd noticed that he did that when she was forgetting herself, so she snapped out of it. "I meant to say, perhaps you can show Trevor the treat, but don't feed him any until we're on the boat and he's out of the cage."
All three of them were thinking how happy they were that they were getting along so swimmingly when the door to the compartment was jerked open. A red-headed boy their age yelled suddenly, spooking Harry (and if we're honest, Neville): "Is the Boy-Who-Lived in here? I heard he's on the train this year!"
The Grangers were very well-mannered, as Harry had noticed, especially in contrast to the Dursleys. This boy seemed rather far over on the Dudley end of the scale.
Hermione didn't wish to lie, but she did wish to protect Harry. And dismissing a potential friend for him on first impressions wasn't in her plans. She compromised.
"If you don't have any luck with your quest, you can come back here and sit, we have plenty of room," Hermione told the boy. Harry and Neville nodded agreement.
"Fat chance of that," the boy, who hadn't identified himself, responded. "When I find him, we're going to be best mates. He certainly won't be letting a bossy girl tell him what to do. I won't give this compartment a second thought."
Harry surprised Neville by speaking up. "Well, then, I really do wish you luck, if it means you won't be bothering us again. But in the future, I wish you'd not talk like that about my best friend, Hermione. If you don't mind."
"So long, scrubs," was the last thing they heard as their compartment door was slammed shut.
After their peaceful mood had been restored, Neville raised the question of which House they wished to go into. Hermione had been hoping for Gryffindor until she started feeling Dumbledore was a bit dubious, so she said she'd probably end up in Ravenclaw, but she trusted the school to find her place correctly. Teachers and school officials were the only people that had treated her well outside her parents, so she saw no need to stop trusting them now.
Neville said much the same about Hufflepuff, but Harry simply said, "wherever Hermione goes." He didn't elaborate.
"Harry," Hermione said with fondness and exasperation in her tone, "you might not be able to control that, you know. We won't stop being friends if we're separated by House."
To her surprise, Harry looked confident. "I have a plan," he announced. "I was hesitating, because it won't be any fun, but I think it will work."
At their quizzical looks, he simply said, "I"m going to tell them the truth about my life. Until Hagrid bought me Hedwig, the only person who was ever nice to me was her. The few happy moments I've had were all with her. I was beaten and starved and screamed at and worked until I dropped every day. And the person running Hogwarts put me there. If anyone deserves a break and some say, I do."
Neville looked shocked, but Hermione was forced to agree with him. "That's what you'll say to the people sending us to our Houses?"
"Yes, if they seem to be separating us. I think it will go by last name, so I will have a target in mind. It's too important not to try," Harry said. He turned to Neville and added, "if I don't have to do that, this isn't something I normally talk about, alright?"
When Neville nodded, he went on, "Hermione's family probably feel a little bad for me, but they don't bring it up, and they let me help around the house and keep my self-respect. But I don't give a damn what some people in school think of me. I'll use everything I have to."
At that point, a gentle knock came on the door, and Hermione, who had been pondering taking note of Harry saying he didn't give a damn, and thinking better of it, decided to let Neville, or more doubtful, Harry respond. She glanced meaningfully at the former boy. Neville invited the person knocking in, and it turned out to be five girls. The cars normally fitted six full-sized students or eight first-years, so Hermione thought the more the merrier. Besides that, she thought somewhat uncharitably, if that rude ginger comes back, even he won't dare try to sit with us, or rather, with Harry.
The new arrivals, a pair of Indian twins, two blondes and one girl with auburn hair, said they were fleeing their compartment after an older boy named Cormac McLaggen had joined them. They exchanged dark looks with each other, but didn't explain further. After Hermione mentioned they were discussing which Houses they might be put in, and, when they got to Harry, he repeated that he only cared that he end up in the same house with Hermione. One of the blondes, Hannah, said she felt the same way about her auburn-haired best friend, Sue. The twins, Padma and Parvati, hurried to express the same opinion about their sister, but Harry and Hermione noticed that Parvati had a slight catch in her voice, though only for a moment.
When Lavender, the other blonde, said she'd probably end up in Gryffindor, Sue exclaimed that that was the house Cormac McLaggen was in. "Well," Lavender responded, "maybe I can tell the other Gryffindor boys about him, and they'll watch over me. A good way to meet a better class of boy." It was true that McLaggen had paid the most attention to her.
At that point, the new girls all shrieked as the door was yanked open again. With a face redder than his hair, the ginger boy was back.
"You filthy little liar!" he yelled, glaring at Hermione. He started to push through the girls, which they protested. He stopped briefly to glare at Harry, as well. "Why didn't you say you were the Boy Who Lived?" he demanded. "Weasleys aren't good enough, but little lying, bossy grinds are?"
"Turn around and leave." That was all the reply he got from Harry Potter. As he stood there, shocked, he heard. "Now."
"Harry doesn't like bullies," Hermione helpfully explained. "And he's very protective of me. You really should leave us alone, if you know what's good for you."
That was like waving a rag in front of a bull, however.
"No one asked you anything, girlie," the boy sneered.
Harry had been learning precision, so his power wouldn't cause accidents. He'd also been practising almost whispering his spells, so it seemed as if he wasn't incanting at all. And he and Hermione had worked hard at finding the minimum motion required to cast a spell, so you could barely see their wands twitch, where most witches and wizards were, comparatively, quite flamboyant.
Suddenly, it looked like the ginger boy was being hauled into the air by his necktie. In reality, that would have caused him a grievous injury, so Harry was actually lifting his upper clothing together, but he pulled a little bit on the tie to make it seem like it.
"You should let him down, Harry," Hermione said, clearly worried.
"Okay," Harry said. With that, the rude boy's tie was cut in half, and he dropped to the floor of the compartment, forcing the girls to crowd away from him again.
Fortunately for the boy, Harry had cast Spongify on the floor before muttering a Finite Incantatem. Such a large amount of material was hard to transfigure, but it had made it much softer. He had also transfigured a scrap of parchment into something that looked like half of the boy's tie. He levitated that now, and with a whispered Incendio, it vanished in a ball of flame.
"That's not nice, Harry," Hermione chided him. "I'm not sure he has more than the one tie. You know what that's like first-hand."
"Okay," Harry said again. He levitated the boy's real tie piece over to where he was slumped on the floor, and with a muttered "Focale Reparo" it was restored to its original condition.
The boy, whose name they later learned was Ron Weasley, had just seen Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, do a series of powerful spells without speaking, and perhaps not using his wand. He jumped to his feet and dashed out without another word.
The last spell Harry used before they got to Hogsmeade Station was a Colloportus on the door.
Notes:
*From Toads and Frogs:
"Generally, toads can swim but are not very good swimmers. Unlike aquatic frogs, instead of webbed feet to propel
them in water, toads have pointy digits to help them dig. Toads reproduce in water but spend very little time there."
Trevor might have a fighting chance, being a Familiar, but even without the issue of a cage, I wouldn't recommend having him try his luck in the Black Lake.