Replay

Chapter Three: If I Could Fall Into The Sky

    Getting to Kings Cross Station was so smooth and well-planned that Harry was almost bored. Everything went without a hitch. He took a taxi from the Muggle street outside the Leaky Cauldron to the station, and the driver didn't seem inclined to talk, only in playing his radio as loudly as he could. It was tuned to Radio One, so Harry listened to Madonna, UB40 and Tom Jones for the first time in his life (Vernon Dursley favoured a right-wing talkback station, so he could yell things like "That's telling 'em!" and "Only common sense!" at the radio). The driver helped him get his trunk out of the boot and onto a trolley before roaring off to the strains of East 17.

    Harry cheerfully hummed the tune of 'Red Red Wine' to himself as he pushed his trolley into the station proper, waving his ticket at the guardsman. He wove his way through the crowds, and while he didn't crush any ankles, he came close to it a couple of times.

    He spotted a group of redheads weaving their way through the crowds, and smiled; the Weasleys were here. With luck, he'd be sharing his compartment with Ron again. That would be good. This time he didn't need to be shown how to get on the platform, but he would need Molly Weasley's sympathy in the future. So he manoevred himself closer to the group.

    He waited while the Weasleys sorted themselves out, as Percy endured teasing from the twins, and the eldest three vanished through the barrier.

    Right; *now*. He edged up close to Molly Weasley, and said, "Excuse me," to her politely.

    She smiled and replied, "Hullo, dear. First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too." She pointed at him and for the first time Harry dared to look at his best friend.

    Blinking, Harry realised over again that he and his two best friends were indeed eleven years old. Ron was taller than Harry, but gangly and thin with it, with only his huge hands and feet to indicate that he would indeed become the friendly red-haired giant of Harry's memories. But for now he was still shorter than Molly and clumsy with his childhood asymmetry.

    "Hi," Harry said, holding out his hand. Ron shook it awkwardly.

    "I'm Ron Weasley," he said. "This is my mum, and my little sister Ginny."

    "Harry Potter," Harry introduced himself.

    Molly and Ginny's eyes widened, and Ron's jaw dropped. "You're... *Harry Potter*?"

    Harry sighed and shoved his fringe back. "Yes, I'm Harry Potter," he said, and an exasperated tone crept into his voice. He sincerely *hated* this bit of introducing himself. He'd forgotten that Ginny and Molly had been star-struck, and that it hadn't been until he and Ron had been chatting on the train that Ron had managed to forget that he was talking to *the* Harry Potter.

    "Oh, dear, I'm sorry," Molly apologised. "I suppose you must get that all the time, and it must be so irritating."

    "I've been living with Muggles, but yes, it is, a bit," Harry agreed. "But, the thing is... I'm not sure how to get on the platform."

    "Oh, that's easy," Ron said, "you walk straight at the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten, and you don't stop. You can't be nervous about it either, that's how it stops the Muggles who don't know about it. Ginny closes her eyes when she goes through it, so maybe that'll help?"

    The little red-haired girl stopped blushing and staring at Harry and started glaring at her brother. Harry smiled at the girl who had been (/and will be again/, he thought cheerfully) his younger sister in all but blood and name.

    "Okay, thanks," he said cheerfully, and moved towards the barrier, moving through easily.

    That hadn't gone as well as he'd hoped. Would it affect his relationship with the Weasleys? And he hadn't acted like an eleven-year-old at all, really; far too mature and not nearly diffident enough. He'd have to work on that. Although... he could say he was a *brash* eleven-year-old....

    Before him stretched the beautiful, familiar chaos of the boarding of the Hogwarts Express. The thick, chattering crowd of parents and students clustered in eddying knots as people entered and broke away from conversations. Cats and owls added their own cries to the cacophony, and it wasn't hard to imagine them having their own reunions -- especially when he saw several clusters of variously-coloured moggies that broke apart when a child approached.

    He picked a carriage more-or-less at random, and headed over there with his trunk. There was an empty compartment there, so he put Hedwig inside (so she could settle down a little, and preen the dust off her feathers) and then tried to heave his trunk aboard. He couldn't use a lightening charm on it this time, though, as there were too many adults around who would ask what a kid of eleven was doing knowing a third-year spell.

    "Need a hand?" he heard a familiar voice ask, and he turned to see George Weasley giving him an inquiring look.

    "Yes, please," Harry gasped.

    "Oy, Fred! C'm'ere and help!" George called, and the twins helped lug the heavy trunk aboard the train and into the compartment, gleefully assisting Harry to shove it under one of the seats.

    "Thanks," Harry said, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

    "Blimey," Fred said, staring at Harry's revealed forehead. "What's that? Are you --?"

    George also stared. "He *is*," he said in an amazed tone. "Aren't you?" he added to Harry.

    "What?" Harry asked.

    "*Harry Potter*," they chorused.

    "Oh, him," Harry said absently. "I mean, yes, I'm him."

    The twins gawped, as, Harry suddenly remembered, they had the first time they'd had this conversation. He felt himself beginning to blush. Fortunately, he received a reprieve once again, in the form of Molly Weasley calling the twins. He sat down, leaning against the window, listening as the Weasleys made their final farewells, Ginny once more pled to be allowed to see him and was firmly rebuked by her mother. The train started and pulled out.

    Once more on the way... to Hogwarts, to his friends, to Quirrell -- and Voldemort.

    /I have to get rid of him this time. Somehow. That's the only reason why I'm here that makes sense./

    His thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the compartment door. Ron Weasley came in. "Um... hi," he said. "Mind if I sit here? Everywhere else is full."

    Harry shook his head, and Ron sat down. They both stared out the window.

    "Hey, Ron."

    The Weasley twins were back, and they were grinning. "Listen -- we're going down the middle of the train. Lee Jordan's brought a giant tarantula." The twins seemed to be taking an unholy amount of glee in this fact. Ron shrank in on himself.

    "Sure," he muttered.

    "Listen, Harry," George said, "did we introduce ourselves? George and Fred Weasley, and this is our brother Ron. See you later, then." And they were gone.

    Harry and Ron were left staring at each other.

    "So," Harry said quietly. "You've got two wizarding brothers?"

    "Five," Ron said gloomily. "I'm the youngest. Bill and Charlie left school already, but there's Percy -- he's a prefect -- and the twins."

    "That must be cool," Harry said. "Wish *I* had five brothers."

    "No, you don't," Ron said, "I have to live up to everyone. Bill and Percy get really good marks, Charlie was really good at Quidditch, and the twins are really good at Quidditch *and* are funny. I have to live up to everything they do, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. Plus, all you get is hand-me-downs. There's not that much money when you have to stretch it over seven kids. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand and Percy's old rat."

    Ron opened his pocket and pulled out Scabbers. Harry nearly had a heart attack. Scabbers, once known as Wormtail, and formerly the Animagus Peter Pettigrew, snoozed on Ron's hand, all unaware that the last remaining victim of his treachery was staring at him.

    "He's called Scabbers," Harry heard Ron saying, as though from far away. "He's really old, and really he's useless."

    "He has his front claw missing," Harry pointed out, his voice distant.

    "Yeah," Ron said, "he's always had it missing, as far back as I can remember."

    "How old is he?" Harry asked.

    "Dunno, really," Ron said. "He's kind of always been around."

    "If he's really old, he might die soon," Harry suggested. /Yes you will, Wormtail, very very soon, because I'm going to drag you off to the authorities, and I'm going to get Sirius out and you're going to *burn in Hell*./

    "Maybe," Ron said heartlessly, laying Scabbers down on the seat beside him.

    "Anyway, what's Quidditch?"

    "Huh?"

    "You mentioned a game called Quidditch. I've heard other people talking about it, too. What is it?"

    Ron stared at him. "You don't know about *Quidditch*?"

    "No, I don't. What is it?"

    Ron immediately launched into a fervent and not-very-coherent description of what sounded like a complicated and dizzying arrangement of balls and broomsticks. Harry listened with half an ear, feeling quietly accomplished at having successfully distracted Ron.

    This was interrupted by the lunch-witch coming around with a trolley and offering them food. Harry immediately bought some of everything. Ron, as Harry recalled, was initially reluctant to share, but was soon persuaded to enjoy the hot pumpkin pasties and other sweets Harry had bought.

    Ron was in the middle of explaining what a 'haversack' was, why it had nothing to do with any form of Muggle luggage, and why it was bad when the compartment door slid open and Neville Longbottom entered. Harry was immediately struck by how chubby Neville was, as compared to the stocky, muscular youth he recalled.

    "Have either of you seen a toad?" he asked.

    "No," Harry and Ron both chorused.

    "He keeps getting away from me! Gran'll kill me!" he wailed, and left.

    "Don't know why he's bothered," Ron said. "If I'd brought a toad, I'd lose it as quickly as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can't talk."

    "So, you were in the middle of telling me about 'flacking'," Harry said quickly. If he recalled correctly, he didn't have much time.

    "Oh, yeah... well, you see, look, imagine this is the quaffle..."

    While Ron diagrammed out Quidditch moves with discarded Chocolate Frog boxes and empty Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Beans bags, Harry quickly slid across to the door of the compartment, eased it open a little way, stuck his wand out and muttered, "Accio Trevor!"

    There was a /whizz/, a soft "Crrok," and Harry felt something coolly moist and leathery land in his hand. He pulled it into the compartment and, yes, there was Trevor the toad glaring up at him.

    "Hey, look what I've found!" he said, cutting across Ron's successful defence of his hoops against a haversacking Chaser, with and without flacking, accompanied by the cheers of the crowd (provided by Ron, this time).

    "A toad?" Ron asked. "Not mine, mate."

    "Nor mine, neither," Harry said. "Maybe that kid's who was just here?"

    "Maybe," Ron said dubiously.

    "Let's hang onto it until he gets back. You know, a toad's a pretty cool pet, really. Not as cool as an owl, of course, but still, better than a dog."

    "My mum's cousin breeds Crups," Ron volunteered. "Says she needs the stress relief."

    Harry gave that due consideration. "Raising puppies is stress relief?" he asked.

    "She works in the Ministry of Magic. Says that they're much less crazy than any Ministry directive."

    At this point, the compartment door opened again, and Neville walked in again, with Hermione, who started to say briskly, "Hello, has anyone here seen -- Harry!"

    "Hey, Hermione, sit down. You too," he added to Neville. "I think we've got some Chocolate Frogs left, haven't we, Ron?"

    "We're looking for Neville's toad," Hermione said, regretfully.

    "This it?" Ron said, pointing to Trevor, who was sitting on the edge of Harry's trunk that was poking out from under the seat.

    "Trevor!" Neville said happily, scooping him up.

    "See, toad found," Harry said cheerfully. "So, come on and sit down. Hermione, you haven't met Ron yet. Ron, this is my friend Hermione Granger, we met in Diagon Alley. Hermione, this is Ron Weasley, we met today."

    "Hi," Hermione said. "Harry, this is Neville Longbottom. Neville, this is my friend Harry Potter. Neville was looking for his toad and I decided to help him."

    "You must've been really bored to do that," Harry said.

    "I wasn't getting along with the other girls in my compartment," Hermione said. "Once they'd established I was Muggleborn, they ignored me completely."

    "Ah, Slytherins," Ron said. "Don't worry about them."

    "Have a Chocolate Frog," Harry added, offering her one.

    "I wanted that!" Ron said sharply.

    "I bought 'em, I get to offer them," Harry said happily. "Besides, you've already had five. And she's a girl."

    The look Hermione gave Harry as she sat down and took the chocolate was one that he had no trouble interpreting, although it had taken him until sixth year to get the gist of it; it was her 'I appreciate your good manners and really want what you're offering, but I don't want to accept it because you're being sexist about it' look.

    Ron, however, sat down and shut up.

    Neville, for his part, was staring and gaping. "You're Harry Potter?"

    Harry sighed and nodded. "Yep. Here, have some Bertie Botts' Beans."

    "Thanks," Neville said.

    Before he could say anything else, Harry cut him off. "We were talking about pets, before. Hedwig over there --" he nodded at her cage -- "is my owl, and was my eleventh birthday present. Ron's Scabbers is a family rat --"

    "My brother Percy had him before I did," Ron contributed.

    "So I was wondering -- how'd you get Trevor?"

    "He was a present from my Great-Uncle Algie for getting my Hogwarts letter. Everyone was so convinced I'd be a Squib, you see."

    "I don't have a pet," Hermione put in.

    "You're sharing Hedwig with me, remember?" Harry told her.

    "Still, she's *your* owl. But what's a Squib, Neville?"

    Neville swallowed his bean. "Mmmm, treacle. A Squib's someone who's born to a witch and wizard who isn't one. Kind of like the opposite to a Muggleborn witch or wizard. I didn't show much magic growing up, so everyone thought I might be one. But Squibs don't get admitted to Hogwarts, so my letter meant that I definitely wasn't."

    He took another bean, chewed for a while, and added, "I'll probably end up in Hufflepuff, though."

    "Hufflepuff isn't bad," Harry said. "It's the wacky House."

    Three sets of eyes blinked at him. "What do you mean by that?" Hermione asked, eventually.

    Harry cursed inwardly. /How do I get out of this one..../ "Well, in my reading, it said that Gryffindor's where they put you if you're brave above all else, Ravenclaw's where they put you if you're brainy above all else, Slytherin's where they put you if you're a descendant of other wizards *and* you're sneaky above all else, and Hufflepuff's where you go if you don't fit any of the other Houses. So I bet Hufflepuffs do things like have snowball fights indoors in summer just because they can. They get to be as weird as they like. I bet it's fun."

    "But I'd like to be brave," Hermione said softly. "I'd like to think I could face a dragon if I needed to."

    /You could. You did. I'll make it so you won't have to anymore. I swear it./

    "My brother Charlie works with dragons," Ron said cheerfully. "He's in Romania on a dragon preserve. He says they're okay as long as you're not trying to move a clutching dam, and then you've got yours and Buckley's of getting out without scars."

    "Why would you want to move a clutching dam?" asked Neville. "Great-Uncle Algie says they were sheer murder to shift, so they never touched them when he was working on the preserve in Wales."

    "Dunno about in Wales, but apparently the dragons in Romania like clutching in places like train carriages they've ripped the roofs off. So the tamers have to get hold of disused ones and put them out for the dragons, but at the same time make sure the dragons don't go outside the reservation and pick up ones that *are* being used, with people inside."

    All for were sitting there, digesting that little titbit, when the door of the carriage opened once more. All four heads turned, to see a pale blond boy and two hulking brutes standing there.

    Harry, naturally, recognised Draco Malfoy, Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe immediately, but schooled his expression to the same one of polite enquiry Hermione, Ron and Neville were wearing.

    Draco looked down his nose at the four of them, fixing his attention on Harry. "Is it true?" he asked. "They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this carriage. So it's you, is it?"

    "Yes, it's me," Harry said. "Who are you?"

    "My name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy," Draco said, "And this is Crabbe and Goyle."

    "This is Hermione Granger, Neville Logbottom, and Ron Weasley," Harry said.

    "Pleased to meet you," Hermione said, holding out her hand. Draco shook it and released it quickly.

    "I don't recognise your surname," he said, with asperity. "What House were your parents in?"

    She gave him a curious look as she replied, "They weren't in any. They're Muggles."

    Malfoy immediately recoiled. "A *Mudblood*?"

    She stared at him, her face alight with curiosity. "A what?"

    Meanwhile, Neville, Ron and Harry had surged to their feet. "Get out," Harry hissed.

    "Yeah," Ron added.

    "What they said," Neville chimed in.

    "*Nobody*," Harry declared, feeling himself flush with fury, "calls *my friend* *that*. Take it back. *Now*."

    He stepped forward, and Malfoy stepped back. He took another step forward... and another... and the second the three intruders were across the threshold of the door, Hermione sprang up and dragged it closed again. Confronted with a closed door rather than an enemy, Harry immediately felt himself deflate.

    "Now," Hermione said into the silence, "would one of you like to tell me what 'Mudblood' means?"

    "It's an insult," Neville said.

    "A bad one," Ron added. "It means --"

    "Never you mind *what* it means," Harry said. "He had no right to say it to you! Bastard," he added, with feeling.

    "I'm just going to look it up, you know," Hermione told him.

    "You do that," Harry said. "But you'll not hear that word or its meaning from me. I'll never say it, not about you, not about Mum. Never."

    "I didn't know your mum was Muggleborn," Neville said.

    Harry shrugged. "Had to get Muggle relatives from *somewhere*."

    A voice outside called 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."

    "Oh, sugar! And we haven't changed into our robes yet!" Hermione said, panicking.

    "Let's just pull them on over our clothes," Neville suggested.

    "It's still warm, you know! We'll die of heat!" Ron said.

    "I'll turn my back if you all turn yours," Harry suggested quickly. All four nodded and turned to the corners of the carriage.

    If anyone peeked, nobody mentioned it when, five minutes later, the doors opened and all four scurried out of the compartment and onto the platform, Hermione clutching her wand and Neville his toad.

    Hagrid stood at one end of the platform. "Firs' years! Firs' years, over here! All righ' there, 'Arry?" he added in a quieter tone as the four children ran over to him.

    Harry nodded vigorously.

    "You there, watch yer step! Any more firs' years? C'm'on, then -- all firs' years follow me!"

    The thin mountain path was thinner and more steep than Harry remembered, but soon enough they were standing at the lake edge, boarding their little boats.

    Once again it was Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville who were seated in the same boat, gliding over the lake to Hogwarts, about to be Sorted and begin their feast.

    /With them,/ Harry thought, momentarily at peace as he rested there between water and the stars. /Only let me remain with them, and keep them safe, and I will have everything I want./