Muggle World

06: Detained

Certainly, the solid glare of Hogwarts castle looked far more menacing as he was being escorted up the winding path from the train-area. Certainly, it looked far more threatening as he was being institutionalized.

Institutionalized.

He had gotten in a fight, been made to sit in a compartment with two other guards for the rest of the journey, and only now – days after the face-off with the butter knife – it had finally hit him, at least the emotional impact of it. He was being institutionalized.

That’s what Hogwarts Institution meant, right? Well, they called it ‘Academy’, too, but...

“Infirmary, or what?” The spiky-haired woman on his left asked. She was holding his arm at a precarious and uncomfortable 90º angle.

Harry looked-up and blinked. Was she talking to him?

“Hospital Wing, I should say,” muttered the man on his right. The quantities of scars on his face were more noticeable in the natural sunlight through the trees. He was keeping Harry’s arm at an unpleasant angle, too. “The Great Hall is out of the question, and I don’t want this one anywhere without Poppy Pompfrey getting a look at him.”

With an odd surprise, Harry felt something thick and sticky dribble down his forehead. Blood. He didn’t remember getting a wound on his forehead. Apparently, he had.

“Constant vigilance, Tonks,” murmured the man. “I don’t want anything else breaking-out under your nose, this year. Constant vigilance.”

“All right, I know, I know,” sighed Tonks. “What’s Shackelbolt doing with the other one? Same?”

Moody nodded curtly. Harry looked up to see that one of his eyes was blue and far larger than the other one. Made of glass, maybe?

Harry gave a start when Moody looked down to meet his wandering gaze. He smiled cruelly with a gnarled lip, which looked very much like a scar, itself.

“Lost the eye fifteen years ago,” he told him. “Jabbed in the face with a bowie knife when I was stationed at Dublin. After they discharged me, I wound-up here.” His scar-smile turned frighteningly reminiscent.

“Aw, Moody!” Tonks groaned. “Last time the story was that your eye-socket was hollowed out with a pocket knife in Beijing. The time before that, an arrowhead in London!”

“Bowie knife. Dublin.” Moody said firmly.

“Arrowhead. London.” Tonks countered.

“Mad-Eye told me it was a tooth pick when he was stationed in the Amazon!” A black man with golden earrings joined in. He was carrying the redhead from the train. Harry decided this was Shackelbolt.

“I heard it was a salad fork in Chinatown!” yelled an older boy up ahead.

“Back in line, Cedric!” shouted Tonks.

“...Call them by their last names,” Moody muttered to her, grimly.

Tonks waved him off with her free hand.

Harry was mystified.

***

The Hospital Wing, Harry decided, was nice. Perhaps a little over prepared, but nice. Blue curtains hovered over every bed, and IV upon IV was stacked up in the corner. Pantries full of cotton swabs, tongue depressors, and gauze lined the room.

Bandages, in the mean time, lined (in one place or another, here and there) Harry’s face.

It hadn’t only been a gash on his forehead. His lip had been split without his notice and the side of his jaw was swelling. The nurse had given him ice. Blue bruises worked their way up along Harry’s lower legs to his kneecaps. Several bumps were forming on Harry’s crown, and a welt steadily grew beside his scar.

They were all very minor, taking into account past skirmishes with Dudley’s friends. Nothing to worry about.

“Um...”

The other boy was sitting on the cot next to him, legs crossed, looking straight into his eyes.

“Err, Harry Potter, was it?” He slowly extended a box of jelly beans towards him. His hand was wide and freckled.

Harry looked up to see a bandage across his nose and a purplish mark right beneath his eye.

A grin uneasily shaped the other boy’s face. “You want some?”

***

His name was Ron Weasley, and he was one of the coolest people Harry had ever met. Harry didn’t understand why, but something clicked between them.

Weasley had five older brothers – (“Five?” “Yeah. Ginny, my little sister, makes six...”) – his dad was a police officer – (“...He’d be more than a lieutenant, by now, if they didn’t stick with the paper work all the time...”) – and his mum had been sending his siblings to Hogwarts for years.

He had been born into a small, miserable shack in a place called Ottery St. Catchpole, and his family had moved into an even shabbier house because his father had been put into another precinct far, far away. In the school he had gone to after the move, it was, well, eat or be eaten. Ron related it to him with discomfort, and Harry nodded. He understood perfectly.

Ron had built up his once lanky arms and legs during the summer. He hadn’t adjusted well to the other students in his new school that September. His brothers had taught him how to fight during the vacation. He’d caught on at a brilliant speed, though he hadn’t liked his newfound...talent...as of late.

“...I would’ve come to my senses eventually, though. I mean, I just needed a bit of time, all right? I dunno.” Ron looked down. “But they caught me beating on this--this-- He was really small. I mean, not that much younger, just kind of tiny... I shouldn’t’ve, and I know that.”

Harry doubted that that was the kind of thing a person liked himself at the end of the day for, especially a person like Ron.

“Uh, well,” Weasley went on. “They sent me home, and Mum was taking it pretty well at first, I thought. But then, I wake-up the next morning, and she’s got Bill and Charlie’s old suitcases out, and I’m like, ‘Mum, Mum! What’re you doing?’ But it wasn’t any good, because she’d already made the Phone Call.

“It’s a good school, Hogwarts, despite the bad kids – and I mean the really bad ones. ‘Least that’s why Mum keeps sending us. Since we’ve been going for so long, our rate’s pretty cheap.” Ron smiled.

It surprised Harry that he laughed. He and Ron had arranged their jellybeans into color-classified piles on the nightstand between their cots. They were beginning to eat them.

Harry thought of something.

“Why are you telling me this?” He paused, and tried again. “I mean, this school’s a...you know...and I’d think-”

“I know what you mean, and I dunno. It’s still just a school, though... Maybe it’s ‘cuz this is as far as rock bottom I want to get. Might as well set a couple of things right. Figure out how to keep my anger in check, right?”

A feeling of silent admiration filled Harry.

“Besides,” Ron grinned broadly. “Fred and George saw you walk away from Malfoy. They snuck in and told me when Pompfrey was with you. ‘Said he was red in the face after you left – absolutely brilliant!”

Harry couldn’t suppress a smile. But then...

“You don’t like him?”

“No one does, I think. I can’t figure out why he’s coming here, actually.” Ron knitted his brow. “I don’t like him because of who his father is, not just because he’s a jerk.”

“Um...?”

“Lucius Malfoy.”

“...Err...”

“He bribes the police force my dad’s on.”

Harry looked baffled. “You can do that?” He felt stupid and then shook his head. “If you know about this, shouldn’t everyone else?”

Ron looked down and shrugged.

“I mean, if it’s illegal, and your dad’s a police officer...?”

Ron pressed his lips into a thin line, and shrugged it off again. He seemed very interested in the floor.

Just then, there was a knock at the far end of the room. Ron looked up and Harry turned around.

Two, lone heads very much like Ron’s (both with fiery hair and clots of freckles) peaked out around the doorframe. The heads smiled in unison, their white teeth breaking into a pair of crescent moons. They took the look on Harry and Ron’s face as an invitation, and (revealing the heads were connected to separate bodies) strode in.

“Why, hello, Sunny Jim,” the first twin greeted the younger Weasley cheerily. “How was the little battle--”

“--Between you, and the great offender of Malfoy? Can’t fight like we can--”

“--Can he?”

Harry sensed that these twins, like Ron, were stronger than they looked.

“Is it really getting to Malfoy that badly?” Ron asked, suddenly very excited.

The second twin put his hand on Ron’s shoulder. “Like you wouldn’t believe!”

Another freckled hand clamped on Harry’s arm, which made him jump. “Our brother might be getting yelled at over you, but whoever you are, we think you’re top notch! Right, George?”

“Right, Fred!” George patted down Ron’s shoulder. He grinned when Ron scowled a little.

“What’re you two doing here?” Ron demanded. “Is dinner over, yet?”

“Yup! They already assigned the rooms, too!”

“We made sure to request for you to be in the tower with the spider webs!”

“Uh...” Harry began to speak. “You two sure you’re not going to be, um, mad about me going at your brother...?”

Fred and George stared at him incredulously, and then looked at each other beaming. Fred threw his head back to laugh while George crumpled forward.

“You’re hurt worse than him!” George laughed.

“Weasley battle scars!” Fred crowed.

And it was true.

Ron looked away and rubbed his knuckles. His ears were turning pink. When the peels of laughter quieted, he loudly asked, “Which house am I in?”

The twins smiled at each other, and began to head for the door.

“...Must be going...”

“...McGonagall will have a fit...”

“Hey!” Ron shouted in protest.

The Weasley who Harry thought was Fred (or maybe George) turned his head. “Ahh, common...! You know where you are, brother dear – right with our new friend Potter in House Four, the one through the Griffin’s doorway!”