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Chapter Twenty-Two

Author's Note: Once they reach Japan all conversations are in Japanese unless otherwise stated.
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The train ride was notable only for the crushing boredom they all endured. Hermione had been told that she wasn't allowed to take any books home with her, Dumbledore's orders, so she didn't have anything to read. Neville forgot his book bag so he didn't either, and had nothing to lend to Hermione. Harry smoked, settled in a corner under an open window.

He refused to leave the compartment he had selected as the corridor was filled with shrieking, giggling first, second and third years. The prefects were having no luck getting them into compartments, they barely managed to keep them from charging from one end of the train to the other. The fourth years were about equally divided between that group and the fifth, sixth and seventh years, who were mostly holed up in compartments and doing their best to ignore the chaos.

When the trolly lady came through, the corridor emptied just enough for her to get through. This added to the chaos as the younger students, and some of the older ones, succumbed to a raging sugar high. Harry wondered why they were allowed to gorge on sugary treats and were never offered anything substantial, a dining car would have kept most of the passengers from eating cauldron cakes, fantastic fudge and other sweets, just to stave off hunger. He pulled his bento out of his pocket and settled to eat that, nodding to the lady through the window. Like many Japanese, he'd never really developed a sweet tooth, although he did like candy and cake, just not a lot of it at once.

He offered part of his bento to Hermione, there was plenty, which she accepted with a sigh. "I would really like to know why Dumbledore forbade me to bring books home. He knows we're assigned homework over the holls. I'll have to scramble like crazy to do it before it's due."

"I think he's trying to force all the muggle born to stay at Hogwarts over Christmas ... for some reason I can't figure out." Harry poked at a pickle, wondering what it was.

Hermione glanced over at Neville who shrugged his own puzzlement. "Don't look at me, the workings of that man's mind completely escape me. And Gran. Canny as she is, she can't figure him out."

Harry thought while he finished the last of the rice, finally offering, "Perhaps he had some thought of making Hermione so bored that she'd ask to visit the Weasleys for part of the holidays?"

Neville gave that some consideration then nodded, "Maybe. But why?"

"He thought I was going to spend my holidays with them. Why he thought I'd allow him to dictate where I went is beyond me, but ... with me there and her there he expected something to happen to his benefit. But what it might be?" he shook his head.

Hermione shrugged. "Maybe just to indoctrinate us into the wizard culture?"

They discussed this a bit more then agreed to give up on Dumbledore as a lost cause.

They were glad to finally pull into King's Cross Station.

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Harry stepped off the train, relief evident on his face, the near riot in the corridor had given him a headache. He didn't understand why the prefects hadn't done something about the noise, not to mention the running up and down the corridor.

He was pleased to see that his father's wakashu had formed a double line from the train to his father's presence and were preventing anyone from breaching that line. It irritated all the katagi but he didn't care, they irritated him just by existing. He was very tired of trying to pretend to be something he was not. That is, that he was not irritated to the extreme by the Ministry, Dumbledore and various Slytherins. That he was not an oyabun in his own right. And that he was not perfectly capable of killing said irritants, just to remove them. His low key persona was a nuisance that he was going to demand to be allowed to drop.