PHANTOM FIGURES | harry potter

68. crushes all around

     Aspen woke up at a decent hour so he had plenty of time to get ready before they left for Kings Cross. She hated when she had to prepare for the day whilst in a rush, and she definitely didn't want to do that before she had to face all of her classmates again.

     There was a lot of commotion in the house. Fred and George had bewitched their trunks to fly downstairs to save the bother of carrying them, with the result that they had hurtled straight into Ginny and knocking her down two flights of stairs into the hall; Mrs. Black and Mrs. Weasley we're both screaming at the top of their voices.

     "-COULD HAVE DONE HER A SERIOUS INJURY, YOU IDIOTS-"

     "-FILTHY HALF-BREEDS, BESMIRCHING THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS-"

     Mrs. Weasley quickly patched Ginny up, who found the whole situation slightly amusing. Almost half of the children were ready to go, but Mad-Eye said they couldn't leave until Sturgis Podmere arrived, otherwise the guard would be one short.

     "Guard?" questioned Jasmine, stuffing a piece of toast into her mouth. "They don't mean a queen's guard, right?"

     Aspen looked at her weirdly. Jasmine had been living in Grimmauld Place for many weeks now and still wasn't caught up with the Order's vocabulary.

     "Not a queen's guard," she told her, unpeeling a banana whilst they waited. "Like a group of people to protect us as we go to Kings Cross."

      "What, You-Know-Who is going to jump out from behind a cafe?" said Jasmine, looking greatly confused. "Isn't he, like, in hiding right now or something like that?"

     "Yeah, but..." Aspen trailed off, quickly finishing her fruit of choice as Mrs. Weasley yelled at everyone to get downstairs. "You know, precautions."

     Everyone rushed over to Mrs. Weasley, not wanting to anger her anymore.

     Mrs. Black's portrait was howling with rage but nobody was bothering to close the curtains over her; all the noise in the hall was bound to rouse her again anyway.

     "Harry, you're to come with me and Tonks," shouted Mrs. Weasley over the screeches of "MUDBLOODS! SCUM! CREATURES OF DIRT!" "Leave your trunk and your owl, Alastor's going to deal with the luggage... Oh, for heaven's sake, Sirius, Dumbledore said no!"

     A bear-like black dog had appeared at Harry's side as Harry clambered over the various trunks cluttering the hall to get to Mrs. Weasley.

     "Oh, honestly..." said Mrs. Weasley, despairingly, "well, on your own head be it!"

     She wrenched open the front door and stepped out into the weak September sunlight. Harry and the dog followed her. The door slammed behind them.

     A little after they left, Aspen, Jasmine, Ron, and Hermione went outside with Mr. Weasley. It took them twenty minutes to reach Kings Cross by foot and nothing more eventful happened besides witnessing a protest by environmental activists in the busy streets of London. Once inside the station they lingered casually beside the barrier between platforms nine and ten until the coast was clear, then each of them leaned against it in turn and fell easily through onto platform nine and three-quarters, where the Hogwarts Express stood belching sooty steam over a platform packed with departing students and their families.They quickly spotted Mrs. Weasley, Harry, Tonks, and Sirius (in animagus form, of course) near the entrance.

     "I hope the others make it in time," said Mrs. Weasley anxiously, staring behind her at the wrought-iron arch spanning the platform, through which new arrivals would come.

     Mad-Eye Moody soon turned up with the luggage, a porter's cap pulled low over his mismatched eyes. He limped over, pushing a cart full of their trunks.