Obliviate {Book 1--EDITING}

6. Welcome to Hogwarts ^

I was woken up in the morning as usual with Gennie's off-key singing of 'Under the Sea' from The Little Mermaid. That girl never ran out of Disney songs to sing to, I swear...

"This is going to be the year, Rory!" Gennie declared as she wove her hair into a multi-coloured plait.

"This is going to be the year for what?" I asked groggily, grabbing my Hobbit shirt, a plaid shirt and jeans from my trunk.

"That Harry and I date, duh!" Gennie said, rolling her eyes. "I swear he kept looking at me last night!"

"Maybe that was because you had lettuce in your teeth." I said, because even though I'd known Harry for less than a day, I had a feeling he only liked Gennie as a friend. Gennie glared at me. "Or maybe because he likes you?? I don't know, I met the boy yesterday."

"We'll have our happily ever after." Gennie said firmly. "That's all I want."

After breakfast everything was a fluster and I didn't have time to sit down once. Annoyingly the only conversation I got with my brother was that he informed me I could share his owl, Hedwig, since he thought it was a waste for me to buy a new owl when he already had one.

Mr. Weasley, who had been outside waiting for the Ministry cars, stuck his head inside.

"They're here, he said. "Harry, Aurora come on."

Feeling a bit surprised at being addressed, I followed Harry and Mr Weasley outside. Mr Weasley marched us across into an old fashion green car, driven by a wizard dressed in a similar shade of green, dark glasses covering his eyes.

"We'll be a minute." Mr Weasley said, opening the door for us.

Harry and I scooted across the seats, and I felt anxious, poking my finger through Minnie's cage so she could paw at it. "Do you think Mr and Mrs Weasley know who I am?" I asked Harry. "They were looking funny at me all through breakfast."

"I don't know, but in any case, you can trust them." Harry said, patting my shoulder.

We said nothing more of it, and we began passing around facts about each other-favourite colours (Harry's was red) favourite food (Harry's was whatever was in Hogwarts) favourite animal (Harry's was an owl) and so on. It was fun to see how much we had in common and how conversations didn't have awkward silences-as if we'd known each other for years.

Soon enough, we were joined by Gennie, Hermione and Ron and we set off for King's Cross. I almost ended up giggling at several points because Gennie kept looking fondly at Harry throughout the journey (especially considering she was sat next to him) but he was ignoring them and just carrying on normal conversation.

We reached King's Cross with twenty minutes to spare; and the Ministry drivers were nice enough to unload all the heavy trunks and find us trolleys. And then after tipping their hats in salute, they drove away, jumping the line of traffic we'd managed to avoid.

All the way through the station Mr Weasley was close to Harry's elbow, and I suspected it was because of the whole Sirius Black situation. When the ten of us arrived on platforms nine and ten, he turned to us all.

"Right then," he said, glancing around them. "Let's do this in pairs, as there are so many of us. I'll go through first with Harry."

Mr Weasley and Harry strolled towards the barrier and didn't stop, disappearing from sight. I blinked a few times. Even though Gennie had said this was the way to get onto the platform, I still hadn't believed her fully.

"Rory, come with me." Gennie said, nudging me with her arm. She noticed my hesitation. "It'll be fine, trust me. We'll just lean through, we'll be together."