Unlikely Allies Chapter Ten: The Journey from Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters
“They’re going different places. Different places, different crowds. And they’re sorting….
“They’re in junior high, Mother. Don’t you know about junior high? How they sort? And it’s all where you’re going. Yes and Parry’s colored and Carrie’s white. And you have to watch everything, what you wear and how you wear it and who you eat lunch with and how much homework you do and how you act to the teacher and what you laugh at…. And run with your crowd.”
Tillie Olsen, “O Yes”
Uncle Vernon stopped dead in King’s Cross, a nasty grin sliding across his face. “Well, there you are, boy. Platform nine-platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don’t seem to have built it yet, do they?”
Aunt Petunia said nothing.
“Have a good term,” said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Harry turned and watched the Dursleys drive away. Uncle Vernon and Dudley were laughing; Aunt Petunia looked like she was trying to smile with them.
Harry swallowed nervously, looking at the blank barrier. “If you’re nervous your first time,” the professor had said, “it’s best to close your eyes. You’ll be able to tell when you’re through by the change in the noises.”
Harry closed his eyes, took a breath, and pushed his cart towards the barrier, listening to the noise of the crowds of people moving past him. Suddenly the sounds changed; the mechanical announcement overhead cut off, and instead Harry heard cats mewing, owls hooting, and a hissing that sounded like a huge teakettle coming to a boil. He dragged his cart to a stop and opened his eyes.
A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. The sign overhead said “Hogwarts Express, eleven o’clock.” Harry breathed a sigh of relief. A lot of the people milling about were wearing robes like the people in Diagon Alley; cats of every color wound between various legs, and there were owls everywhere. Harry didn’t, at first glance, see any other ravens. He smiled a little at Elsie down in her cage; she squawked indignantly at him, then looked past him and squawked again, louder.
Harry looked up to see a brown-haired middle-aged man in rather worn robes approaching them. The man cleared his throat apologetically and said, “I don’t think I can be mistaken. You must be Harry, yes?”
Harry stilled and then nodded suspiciously. This man wasn’t acting like that silly Diggle man and those others, so what did he want? The man smiled tentatively. “You look so much like James. Your father. I-he was one of my best friends at school.”
Harry blurted, “You were my dad’s best friend?” He couldn’t keep himself from staring; this tired-looking, shabby man didn’t fit with any of Harry’s vague notions about his father.
The man said, “I’m so sorry, I forgot to introduce myself in the shock of actually spotting you. Remus Lupin. Seeing you really was like seeing James as a boy for a minute, until I saw your eyes. And I’m not claiming to have been your father’s best friend. James was very popular, but there were four of us who… well, we did everything together. We called ourselves the Marauders, and James was our leader. I’m the only one left now ….” His hands clenched and he looked away momentarily, then he seemed to force himself to smile at Harry again. “Running around with James and … well, those were perhaps the best times of my life.”
He held out his hand, and Harry shook it politely. “Hello, Mr. Lupin.” But Harry didn’t say anything else. James was our leader. Was that like what Uncle Vernon always said about Dudley and his gang: ”My boy’s a natural leader”? And then Aunt Petunia would go on to gush about how “popular” Dudley was, meaning most of the other kids were afraid to cross him too openly.
Dudley hadn’t been the only bully at Harry’s school, either, and they mostly seemed to run in packs.
Who was this guy really? The Marauders?
After waiting to see if Harry would add anything, the man continued, “I just wanted to see you off, and to wish you good luck at Hogwarts. And to give you something as a welcoming gift-someone told me Lily’s Muggle relatives had no photos of your parents. Well, they couldn’t have had Wizarding ones like this, of course.”
He held out a flat package wrapped in brown paper, and Harry opened it with hands that shook a little. It was a framed picture of a couple dancing, and they were actually dancing-moving! Harry almost dropped it in surprise. The people inside paused momentarily to smile up at him, and Harry felt a funny little squirm in his stomach. The woman had dark red hair and was pretty like the professor had said. And looking at the way she was dancing so enthusiastically, and her joyous smile, Harry thought maybe he understood that other word the professor had used. He whispered, “Vivay….”
“Vivacious? Yes, that was Lily all right. We were all in Gryffindor together-she, and James, and-well, and all of us. James told me once that he’d always wanted only Gryffindor, and that it was he who persuaded S-well, another friend-not to choose Slytherin instead like his family wanted.” The man’s smile froze, and he looked away again.
Harry looked back at the picture. The dancing man who must be his father really did look like a grown-up Harry. But he was throwing his head back, laughing, like nothing could ever touch him. Harry had never laughed like that.
He said to Mr. Lupin, still looking at the picture, “So if you were such good friends with my dad, how come you waited to get in touch with me until just now?”
“I-the headmaster felt it best that you be raised strictly in the Muggle world. It wasn’t my place to interfere, I felt. But now that you’re entering our world, we thought you’d like a keepsake of your parents. And maybe to hear something about them-you must be curious. If there’s anything you’d like to ask….”
“Had you ever seen me? As a baby, I mean?” Harry looked up finally.
The man looked confused by Harry’s question. “Had I seen you? Of course, Harry. I was one of the guests at your christening. And I saw you on other occasions. Although I’m afraid that James’s work in the fight against You Know Who and my own meant that our paths didn’t cross as much in that final year….”
Mr. Lupin’s face tightened a little, and he looked away yet again. Harry looked away too, back to the picture of his pretty mum dancing with the man who had black hair just like Harry’s. And like the Dark Lord’s, and like the professor’s. Just like them.
Harry said politely to Mr. Lupin, “Thanks very much for the picture. It was nice to meet you. But now I think I’d better get on the train.”
The man blinked and glanced over at the train, which had started to emit puffs of steam. “Yes, I suppose the carriages are starting to fill up. Best of luck to you, Harry!” He offered his hand again, and Harry shook it. Then Mr. Lupin turned and hurried off.
Harry looked at the picture one more time and then stuck it in his trunk. He pushed his cart forward, looking for a carriage. The first few were already full; Harry went past them. About a third of the way down, he found one that was still empty. He put the cage with Elsie (cawing indignantly-she did not like being caged) inside first, and then started to wrestle with his trunk. He could hardly lift the end; he almost dropped it on his foot.
A girl came up. She was in school robes already and wore a badge with the letter P on it shining against her black robe. She asked, “First year, yes? Could you use a hand with that?”
“Yes, please,” Harry panted.
She raised her head, looked around a moment, and yelled, “Oi, Collier and Towercourt! Over here!”
She smiled at Harry. “Always use Beaters when brawn is required. But-your family? You’re a Muggle-born, right? Didn’t anyone explain that your parents could come on the platform, as long as you held their hands through the barrier?”
Harry blushed and hung his head, mumbling, “They’re dead. My aunt ‘n’ uncle didn’t want to…”
She blushed in turn. “Oh, I’m sorry!” A rather large boy and girl had ambled forward; Harry thought they looked like more amiable versions of Dudley. The boy was in school robes; the second girl was in jeans and a t-shirt, like Harry. The first girl turned to them in relief. “Shove this up for the firstie, will you?”
In a moment, the trunk was tucked away in a corner of the compartment.
“Thanks,” said Harry, pushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes.
The boy’s eyes widened, and he elbowed his companion and said, “See that scar? It must be-they said he’d be starting-!”
The first girl darted forward. Her own eyes had gone wide too, but she said rapidly to the other two, “Thanks for your help. Now you want to join the rest of the team, don’t you? Aren’t you all planning on sitting together?”
The two large students nodded and beat a hasty retreat. The other girl looked after them a moment, then turned to Harry and said, “Er. Sorry again. Are you really Harry Potter?”
Harry blinked at her stupidly. She blushed. “Well, everyone knows you’re-he’s starting this year. And that looks like a curse scar, you see. If you-if he-I mean, if you want to stay anonymous a little longer, keep your bangs over it. But it won’t help for long. Sorry! Anyhow, glad I could help!” She darted away on the words, still beetroot-red.
Harry amused himself for a while watching from his window, mostly at the kids who seemed about his own age. A dark-skinned boy, vibrating with excitement, raced towards the train, an elegantly robed woman and man following him more slowly. He was yelling something; a shorter boy turned and ran to meet him. A round-faced boy tugged at the sleeve of an elderly woman with a vulture riding on her head, whining, “Gran, I’ve lost Trevor again.” The woman frowned and said, “If you can’t keep track of mere toad, Neville however shall you manage remembering your class schedules?” A freckled girl with her hair in a long braid down her back stopped almost outside Harry’s window to tell what looked like a dozen gathered relatives, “Hufflepuff, right. I’m supposed to insist, to the Hat. Any other house, you’ll disown me!” She was laughing, which took the edge off her words. A girl with brown, bushy hair strode forward, trailed by a confused-looking, conservatively-dressed couple. With a start, Harry realized that they looked conservative to him because they were dressed as Muggles.
But all of them, even the Muggle-accompanied girl, had someone. All of them but him. Harry gulped. The professor’s shadowy presence was less comfort than he’d hoped. Maybe he should have let that friend of his dad’s stay and talk to him some more.
Someone pushed open the door to his compartment. Harry looked around. It was the bushy-haired girl with lost-toad-boy. The girl said brightly, “It looks like the compartments are usually shared. You don’t mind sharing with us, do you?”
Harry fidgeted and said, “Looks like it, yeah. Of course I don’t mind. Are you both first year too?”
The girl yanked at lost-toad-boy. “See, I told you!” She beamed at Harry. “I’m Hermione Granger, and this is Neville Longbottom. And this is his toad, Trevor.” She held it out. “Really, Neville, I do think you should have a cage or case for travelling. Much more practical. See how he does for his crow? What’s your name, and its?”
“Er, I’m Harry, and my raven’s name is Elsie.”
Lost-Toad-Boy looked desperately uncomfortable. Granger’s dad, it must be, heaved first one trunk, then another, into the compartment, then stood looking with some dismay at the overhead shelf. The elderly lady Harry had noticed with Lost-Toad-Boy pushed in after. It turned out the vulture was stuffed, not riding on her; Harry wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. She said loudly, “That’s right, that’s right, young man!” (Granger’s father looked to be in his late forties or early fifties.) “Neville and I both thank you for your assistance. Now I’ll just put them up for the children.”
The old lady dug in her large red handbag and flourished a black wand. First one trunk, than the other, rose to the shelf and slotted itself in neatly. Granger’s dad and mum stood staring for a moment, then the man cleared his throat and said, “Er-if it’s that easy to do by magic, why did you have me heave them up into the compartment?”
“Doors, young man, doors. Doors, if enchanted, are hard to maneuver through. Once inside, however, lifting the trunks is easy. I’m sure your daughter can explain the mechanics in a few years-born Ravenclaw, that one, I should think, like my dear departed husband, even if she is a bit bossy with it.”
The bushy-haired girl went pink, and Lost-Toad-Boy looked like he would sink under the seat. His gran turned on him and said, “Now, Neville, what do I always tell you? Don’t be mealy-mouthed and don’t be afraid of others. You might not have your parents’ talent, but you can at least match their courage.”
Neville turned his flaming face away, and the beady eyes turned to Harry, resting for one moment on his raven, then another on his face. Harry had the feeling that she’d seen the scar through his bangs. But what she said surprised him. “You’d be Potter’s boy, then. I’d heard you’d found yourself a raven instead of an owl, and of course you get your looks, like your father did, from the Black side of the family. My grandson did not; he rather favors his mother. You and he are third cousins once removed, if I recall correctly, but then the same could be said of nearly everyone from the older families. Everyone’s related to the Blacks, by blood or marriage or both. But you were raised by your mother’s Muggle kin, they say?”
Harry nodded, a little cowed by the old lady. She sniffed, looking him over critically. “Well, I’m sure Dumbledore had his reasons for that. Personally I thought you should have been fostered with one of your father’s relatives, indeed I think Frank offered, but with your grandparents dead and the Potter line extinct, there was no one with the clout to override the headmaster. Particularly with the whole Black line somewhat disgraced by that Sirius and then Bellatrix. You may think of me as a great-aunt of sorts; I’m Augusta Longbottom.” Harry shook hands dutifully, trying not to flinch or stare at the vulture nodding over his head.
The girl chimed in excitedly, “Harry Potter? Really? But I know all about you, of course-I got a few extra books for background reading, and you’re in Modern Magical History and-” Her mother’s hand clamped on her shoulder, and Hermione shut up abruptly, going pink again. Mrs. Longbottom gave her a hard look, and the girl’s color deepened.
Then Harry had to shake hands with Hermione’s parents-the Doctors Granger, as it turned out, both of them dentists. Harry was glad his teeth were good; otherwise it would be embarrassing. The girl herself had buck teeth; the Grangers must not believe in cosmetic dentistry.
The train whistle blew, and the Grangers startled. “Oh, we’d better go! Now study hard, Hermione, and we want to hear all about everything in your letters!”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Longbottom. “That’s just the warning whistle; it’ll be a minute or two yet.”
Nevertheless she left with the Grangers, and the three children were left staring at each other. With the doors safely shut, Neville put his toad down on the floor, and Harry decided to let Elsie out. She cawed triumphantly and sat on Harry’s shoulder, pulling at his hair and staring curiously at the other children. Not knowing what to say to them, Harry turned to the window again. He watched a whole family of red-heads at the other end of the platform, a pair of pretty twins accompanied by a lady in a sari and a man in a dark suit, and-Draco-here, between a beautiful blond lady and a man with Draco’s pale, pointed face. Harry was happy to see that Draco, unlike many of the older students, had no broom with him. So he’d lost that argument.
There was another whistle; a moment later, the train started to move. Buildings raced past the window, and Harry felt a great leap of excitement. They were off! He turned back to the other two, and saw his own exhilaration reflected in their faces. Then there was a flash of orange at the door of their compartment. A moment later, the door slid open, and a gangling red-headed boy, one of that big family Harry had seen, poked his head in. He looked first at Elsie, then at Harry, then at the other two. “Anyone sitting there?” he asked, pointing at the seat next to Harry. “A lot of the compartments are full up.”
Harry shook his head and the boy sat down. He glanced at Harry and the others again, then looked quickly out of the window, pretending he hadn’t looked. Hermione jumped in, “I’m Hermione, and this is Neville, and that’s Harry.”
“I’m Ron,” the new boy said. “Ron Weasley. Er, are you Harry Potter?” he asked.
Harry nodded. The boy stammered, “Fred and George said you would be on the train, and that you would have a raven…. And have you really got-you know… a scar, like they said?”
Both of the other two looked a bit scandalized that Ron had asked outright, but they all three leaned forward to stare when Harry pulled back his bangs to show the lightning scar.
“Wow,” Ron said. “So that’s where You-Know-Who---?”
“Yes,” said Harry, “but I can’t remember it.”
“Nothing?” asked the redhead eagerly.
“Well-I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else.”
Neville muttered, “You’re probably better off not remembering. That’s from the Killing Curse, they say; one of the Unforgivable Curses.” Harry stared at Neville; already it seemed unlike him to volunteer a comment.
There was a knock at the compartment door, and it slid open again. Draco-here stood framed in the doorway and smiled at Harry a little awkwardly. “I can’t believe Professor Snape never told me who you really were, when we met at Madam Malkin’s. Did you enjoy the rest of your first visit to Diagon Alley?”
“Hi, Draco,” Harry said unenthusiastically. “Why should he have told you? And yeah, I did.” Remembering his lessons, he added, “Well, I liked the shops and stuff. But Professor Snape was kinda impatient about having to shepherd me about like that.”
“Professor Snape?” said Ron. “The twins have told me he can be pretty nasty. You went to Diagon Alley with him, Potter? Euw, how come?”
Harry bit his tongue and ducked his head. Fortunately, the bossy girl jumped in, saying, “Professor McGonagall told me it’s standard for Muggle-borns and their parents to have a staff escort on their first visit to Diagon Alley. But usually one goes in a group; we had three families in ours. You mean your family was the only one with the professor? Surely that’s unusual?”
Draco-here’s gaze on the girl suddenly sharpened; he drawled, “But where are my manners? I’m Draco Malfoy.”
The girl stood up, offering her hand. “Hermione Granger, and this is Neville Longbottom.”
Draco shook her hand a little hesitantly, then looked at Toad-Boy, letting his hand drop limply back to his side.
“Longbottom…,” Draco-here said. “Your folks were the Aurors, right?” He said it like “Auror” was a disease, and it might have rubbed off on Neville.
Longbottom stood up, his hands also at his side. His head was high, for the first time since Harry had seen him. “That’s right. And you’re Bellatrix Lestrange’s nephew.”
“I’ve never met her to know her, obviously. Wasn’t she also your father’s first cousin once removed or some such? Something like that; I’d have to see where we meet on the family tree. Of course, you can get bad apples on any tree.” Turning away from Neville, Draco looked at Ron.
The red-haired boy had been bristling since Draco’s self-introduction. “Ron Weasley,” he muttered. “And there are some branches that have nothing but bad apples, my dad says.”
Draco’s lip curled a little as he regarded Ron. “A Weasley. Of course.”
The girl was wide-eyed. “Neville, was your grandmother serious when she said everyone was third cousins? What about Ron-is he related to Draco too?”
Ron and Draco glared at each other then looked away. After a moment Ron muttered, “It’s pretty distant, though.”
The girl stared back and forth among the boys. “ALL of you are distantly related? Then anyone new… is really an outsider.” She looked upset for some reason.
Draco looked at her, frowning a little. He volunteered, “Potter’s mother was a Muggle-born who married into an old family. So he’s only related on the one side. And then Dumbledore sent him to be raised by his mother’s family, so he’s never met his relatives before. But, well, none of us here have met each other before, as you can see. Family fights. I only know the relatives that my parents get on well with.”
She looked at him. “Yes, I’d picked up on that much. But the books I read… didn’t talk about families as such. I noticed a lot of the same names over and over, but I didn’t realize….” What she didn’t realize she didn’t say, but she looked even more upset. Draco hesitated for a moment and then sat down next to her. Neville shifted over to the other side of Ron, and the two of them started to talk about Quidditch teams, pointedly ignoring Draco.
Draco sneered at them a moment, then looked between Harry and Hermione. “So I saw that Muggles got the idea of railroads from us. How else do they travel? Those loud smelly metal enclosed things I saw in London-is that what they use instead of brooms?”
Hermione perked right up. “Cars, you mean? Yes, a lot of people use them for personal transport, although I gather maybe a broom is more like a bicycle. For one thing, you’re not protected from the weather, and for another, it’s usually just one person riding it.”
Then she floundered, trying to explain what a bicycle was. Harry finally had to draw one for Draco to understand. Eventually they thrashed that out and decided that yes, bicycles maybe were closer to brooms than cars were.
Afterwards Hermione frowned at Draco. “But Draco, I’m thinking about how you put that-why did you say that Muggles got the idea of railroads from wizards?”
Draco shrugged. “Well, they must’ve, right? There must have been some violation of the Statute of Secrecy, and some Muggle saw the Hogwarts Express or something. Or maybe it was some Muggle-born’s family. I guess that would make more sense.” He took in Hermione’s expression. “What? I mean, I could see at King’s Cross that Muggles have trains too.”
Hermione bounced up from her seat. “But it says in Hogwarts, a History, that the Hogwarts Express has only been running since 1887.” She looked at her trunk longingly as though she wanted to drag out her book to show Draco.
“So?”
“So Muggles have been running trains since-I forget the very first, those were used in mines for coal, and were horse-drawn. But steam locomotives have been used since the early 1800s-1804, I think. The first regular passenger rail service in Britain started in the 1820’s, if I remember right.”
Draco gaped at her. “You mean Muggles had the idea first?”
Harry noticed that Ron and Neville had stopped talking to stare too. Hermione looked confused. “Yes, of course.”
Ron chipped in, “You’re saying we stole the idea from them?” All three boys looked outraged.
Hermione said, “Well, you have to have, by the dates. But it’s not really stealing-I mean a railroad isn’t exactly patented, is it?”
Harry blinked, trying to make sense of that. Draco said, “But Muggles are-“ He stopped, and started again. “Aren’t Muggles stupid?” The last came out a little plaintively.
Hermione bristled. “My parents aren’t stupid!”
Harry muttered, “Dudley is.” Louder, he added, “Your parents seemed very smart. And very nice. Neville’s grandmother seemed to like them.” Neville nodded.
Draco looked gobsmacked. “I guess-I guess if they’re inventing helicopters and stuff, they must not be stupid. I never thought of that. Or at least,” he added, glancing at Harry, “not all of them could be. Dudley’s that dumb lout of a cousin of yours, right?”
They traded a smirk, and then the talk turned more generally to awful family members for a while. Hermione had a grandmother who kept telling Hermione’s mum that she should have stopped working to have more kids. Ron told tales of a great-aunt who terrorized his whole family. Neville topped that with a great uncle who’d dropped Neville himself off a pier and out of windows to force magic out of him.
Hermione and Harry stared at Neville in horror, but Ron and Draco didn’t seem much surprised.
Ron shrugged, “Well, it didn’t hurt him, did it? He bounced.”
“But,” Hermione said slowly, “if he hadn’t been magic after all it would’ve. Or at least it might’ve. It might’ve killed him.”
“But it didn’t,” Ron argued. “Nothing happened, except Neville proved he was magic. I still say it’s worse that your Great Uncle Algie went and gave you a toad to take to Hogwarts, Longbottom. Who wants a toad?”
Draco snorted. “Says the boy with a half-dead rat!” Ron’s rat was nothing more than a tail sticking out of his pocket.
“Yeah?” Ron challenged. “So what do you have, Malfoy?”
Draco turned a faint pink. “Nothing. I mean there’s a family owl I can use. I-um-I don’t get on very well with most animals.”
Ron perked up. “You mean you’re scared of them!”
The pink deepened. “I’m not scared! I just, just don’t like them that much. I mean, cats scratch and shed, and owls bite and shed feathers, and toads are slimy-”
“Trevor’s not slimy!” interrupted Neville. “That’s frogs you’re thinking. Feel!”
He thrust Trevor at Draco; Draco recoiled and went white. “I said I don’t like them!”
“Scared,” Ron said, with deep satisfaction.
Draco muttered, “As far as I’m concerned, they’re all just potions ingredients.”
Hermione folded her mouth primly. Then she turned the subject by asking, “Draco, how come you know about helicopters but not cars? That’s just strange.”
That started first Draco and then Ron off on a round of boasting about flying. According to either of them, the only thing keeping Muggle planes, helicopters, and hang-gliders safe from collisions was their utterly unsurpassed skill on a broom. Eventually their boasting turned into another discussion of Quidditch, this time with Neville quietly explaining some of the rules to Harry and Hermione while Ron and Draco argued vehemently about the best teams and players. Neville said wistfully, “It really is fun to watch, but I hardly ever get to. That’ll be one nice thing about school, I’ll get to see the school matches.”
Harry realized that Neville said it like he sort of thought it might be the only nice thing. Harry looked at him more fully for the first time. “Aren’t you excited about going to Hogwarts, Neville? I’ve hardly been able to sleep since I found out.”
“I hardly have any magic; that’s why Great Uncle Algie had to keep testing me. And I have a terrible memory. I won’t be any good.” Neville hunched, and Hermione patted his shoulder.
“You don’t know that,” Hermione said encouragingly. “My teachers always say that lacking confidence in oneself is the biggest block to performing well. You probably just need to believe in yourself more.”
Neville looked at her. “Right.”
“And at any rate, you have an advantage over people like me and Harry-I mean, there’s loads of stuff you know already that we don’t. Like just now, with Quidditch. I’ve read all of our course books, of course, and some background works as well, but I didn’t know anything about Quidditch except that it’s some game played on brooms. So see!” He didn’t look convinced, so she changed the subject again, asking brightly, “Have you decided what house you want to be in? That’s another thing you must know better than me and Harry, what the houses must be like.”
“With my luck, I won’t get picked for any,” Neville said glumly. “I don’t even know how they pick.”
Ron broke in, “My brother Fred told me it’s a test. You have to wrestle a troll or something. Winners get Gryffindor, the ones who outsmart it get Ravenclaw, losers get Hufflepuff, cheaters get Slytherin. ”
Draco flushed and leaned forward a little, opening his mouth indignantly. Then he caught Harry’s eye and shut it again. Harry smirked at Draco-here and whispered, “Sounds like you and Ron’s brother think a lot alike!”
Neville and Hermione, meanwhile, were talking loudly over each other, Neville exclaiming, “We have to what?!” while Hermione was saying, “But in Hogwarts, a History, it says-” They both stopped simultaneously and waited for each other.
Draco relaxed suddenly and started laughing. “You make me glad I’m an only child, Weasley. Your brother was having you on. There’s a Sorting Hat, and you put it on, and it looks inside your head to see where you belong. You know, whether that red hair belongs to a Hufflepuff git or what.”
Hermione nodded vigorously. “That’s what Hogwarts, a History said. But tge book wasn’t clear what the hat DOES.”
Harry kept his mouth shut; if most kids didn’t know these things, he shouldn’t admit to having been told. Draco leaned back, clearly enjoying being the center of everyone’s attention.
“It looks in your mind for where you belong. Like if you’re ambitious you belong in Slytherin, or if being smart is the most important thing to you, Miss-” he grinned at Hermione, and made his voice go squeaky “‘I-read-all-my-course-books’-you might belong in Ravenclaw.”
“What if you don’t belong anywhere? Do they kick you out again?” muttered Neville, clutching his toad.
“Or-what if you’re in-between?” Hermione asked.
Draco said, “I don’t know what the Sorting Hat does then. Maybe that’s how it makes up the numbers, because I do know that the houses stay roughly equal.”
Hermione said, relaxing a little, “That makes sense. Well, I hope I’m in Gryffindor; it sounds by far the best House. I hear Dumbledore himself was in it!”
Ron nodded emphatically, Neville more slowly.
Harry stared at Hermione and said, “But that’s-that’s like a Slytherin reason to choose your house.”
“It is not!” she answered sharply, tossing her head. “I just said I wanted Gryffindor!”
Harry felt his way forward. He wasn’t very good at arguing. It wasn’t like he had practice; Dudley and his gang didn’t exactly listen to reason. “Yes, but, your reasons, Granger--you say you want Gryffindor because you think it’s the best House. Only, see, that’s a Slytherin reason to choose. It’s not like you want Gryffindor for itself-you want “the best House”, and you think Gryffindor’s that. If you thought the best house was Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw, you’d want that house instead. Only, see, it’s Slytherins who’d choose for that reason. See, the pro-I heard this rhyme about the houses, only it’s not really a rhyme. Whatever. Anyhow, it goes:
‘Ravenclaws want to be right.
Hufflepuffs want to belong.
Gryffindors want to be admired.
Slytherins want to be the best.’*”
Ron snorted. “That makes it sound like Gryffindor and Slytherin are the same, and we’re NOT. We’re opposites! Slytherins just want to win, no matter how they have to cheat to do it. Fred and George have told me what Slytherins are like.”
Harry frowned; he was starting not to like Ron’s brothers that much.
A crease appeared between Hermione’s brows, and she stared at Ron. “So you think it’s the same, wanting to be admired, and wanting to be the best?”
Ron shrugged. “Well, but it is! If you’re the best, everyone’s going to admire you, right?”
The girl looked around at the other boys, frowning. “But it’s still not quite the same.”
Draco backed her up, unexpectedly. “You’re right, they’re different. You could do something great and never have it be known-it would still be great, right? Or you could be a show-off,” (Hermione winced) “-or worse, you could get praise for something you hadn’t really done. And accepting it knowing you hadn’t earned it-that would be a Gryffindor thing to do. So wanting to be admired, and wanting to be the best, are really completely different. If you think about it.” Draco threw a disdainful look at Ron.
The girl chewed on her lip, looking troubled. Draco added, “Of course, you might be ambitious to be a celebrity, and then it would be about the same. But only then. So, Granger, you claim you’ve read all of our course books. Maybe you want to be the best in class? So tell me, where would you find a bezoar, and what would you use it for?”
The girl answered promptly, “In a goat’s stomach, and it counters poisons, which makes me wonder. Should I expect to be having to counter poisons, in the magic world? I never have in my regular life, you know; Muggles usually don’t.”
Draco’s gray eyes flared with interest. “Well, I haven’t either. Have you tried any spells from your books? I don’t imagine you can douse a fire, for example.”
She looked stubborn. “Maybe I could. Want me to try, white-hair?”
Draco hissed something and gestured with his wand at the lamp-sconce on the wall. It lit with a orange flame. The girl’s face flushed in the dancing light. She pulled her wand and said something in turn, and the flames died, leaving only the afternoon sunlight illuminating their faces. Harry stared at them both. He had told the professor that the other kids would probably be practicing!
Draco said after a moment. “Um. So. Can you light it again?”
The girl shook her head. “Not yet.” She raised her chin and stared at Draco. He shook his head, saying, “So when’s your birthday?”
“Why on earth does my birthday matter?”
He snorted. “Definitely a Muggleborn, Granger, or you’d know. We-witches and wizards-start developing control over our magic sometime between ages ten and twelve and then keep developing more as we grow up. So someone who’s nearly twelve ought to have more power and better control than an eleven-year-old. You’ll make me feel better if you tell me your birthday’s next month or something.”
She flushed a little and admitted, “This month, actually.”
Draco stared at her gloomily. “My father promised me a … reward if I were first in our class at Christmas. I take it you plan to give me a run for my Galleons.”
She smirked. “I take it you plan to give me one.”
Draco brightened a little. “But I just turned eleven in June, so you have an unfair physical advantage, being, what, nine months older. So if we do equally well, I’ll really be doing better.” His face turned crafty.
She lifted her chin and smiled at him. “But you’re wizarding-raised, which gives you an unfair advantage. I mean, I just found out about magic five weeks ago! So if we do equally well, I’ll really be doing better.”
Draco pressed his lips together. They looked at each other challengingly.
Harry and Ron looked at each other. Neither of them was going to give anyone a run for their Galleons. And Neville? They looked at him; he was pressed back against his seat, muttering, “Believe in myself. Right.”
A/N: Apologies and thanks to Jodel, whose definitions of the house characteristics I not only stole but let the professor have the temerity to change in quoting to Harry.
Upon reflection, all the future Hufflepuffs are off socializing with their peers….