Lucy Potter: Harry's little sister

| Year 3 | Chapter 3: A place to stay

Lucy's POV:

The bus thing stops right in front of us. It has to brake so hard, that I think for a split second that it will topple over. But it doesn't and a tall, thin, gangly-looking guy steps out.

The guy can't be older than 20, if that. And he is definitely from the Wizarding World, which is a relief to both me and Harry. He wears a strange jacket and an even stranger little hat (to be honest, it looks kind of ridiculous, but let's not judge him).

"'Ello there," he says in a thick accent. "I'm Stan Shunpike and I'll be your conductor this evenin'. Welcome aboard, would you like an extra drink on the ride? Where would you wanna go?" When he finishes his little talk, he looks back at us.

It must look extremely dumb, but Harry and I are just standing there, speechless, staring at this Stan-guy. And Stan stares right back. Until the driver calls and Stan takes our trunks. "What're you two called again?" He repeats.

"Er..." Harry thinks and so do I. We don't want to cause a scene here, in the muggle world. Or really, ever. "I'm Ginny Weasley!" I say quickly.

"And I'm Neville Longbottom," Harry adds, before we quickly rush into the bus. Stan follows us in, putting the trunks on two beds. Yes, this bus has beds, not chairs. Definitely magical.

"Where's the journey go?" I look at Harry, but he doesn't look back. Instead, he ans- wers immediately. "The Leaky Cauldron, please." If he wants to hide, like I did (or go to friends), this was about the dumbest move, but I guess I don't know what he wants to do.

"Leaky Cauldron i' is!" He turns back around and walks back to the front to talk to the driver. "What're we doing?" I whisper to my brother, who shrugs. "Not go to the Ministry. I thought you might have an idea..."

I can't believe this boy. "Well, first thing I'd do is not go to any public magical place, like the Leaky Cauldron," I retort and his face shifts a little. "But I don't know what to do. Go to friends? Go under the radar for some time? I wouldn't know..." I sigh.

Stan comes back to us, so the topic is drop- ped immediately. He's holding a newspaper, the Daily Prophet, I see. On the cover is a man, but I can't see it clearly. When he opens the pages however, we can.

"Who's that?" Harry asks, pointing at the front page. Stan looks too, turns to Harry and makes an incredulous face. "Well, Sirius Black o' course!" He says. I recognise that name from the news. The muggle news at the Dursleys.

"The mass murderer?"

"Yeah, that one," Stan scoffs, clearly  taken aback that we didn't know. "He's a wizard?" Harry asks and Stan turns again. "Well, o' course he is! 'Is he a wizard' he asks. Oy Ernie, did you hear that?"

The bus driver, whose name apparently is Ernie turns and he clearly did hear. He starts laughing and Stan joins in. "Who did he kill?" I ask. I know not to keep going usually, but we already had, so what's the point?

"Like all o' them folk," Stan answers. "Follower of You-Know-Who, and one o' the more loyal ones. Or haven't you heard of him either?" Harry and I exchange a look.

"Yeah, we've heard of him," Harry mutters, as he automatically flattens his hair over his scar. God, how happy I am not to have that thing.

This is when I notice the pace of the bus. We're going at a tremendously dangerous speed. We've sat on the beds all this time, but that is very necessary. The beds also move and as we turn onto a very busy road, we start accelerating.

"Er... is this normal?" I ask Stan, who looks back at the road. "Yeah, though we should be going a little faster, I reckon. Don't you think so too Ernie?!"