The Serpent Mark

How Very Skeptical

I'm late, as per usual.  I pay the cabbie and lug my stuff through the train station, no doubt looking crazy due to the cat I was holding.  I check the time. 10:56.  Jesus Christ this is a close one.  I almost run into a beer bellied midget and he shouts some curses at me, but I barely catch them since I'm nearly sprinting down the platforms. 6..pick up the pace.. 7... I spot Molly Weasley standing next to platform nine in a brown overcoat. 

Her last kid just went through to the platform.  Christ, I'm even later than the Weasleys.  She sees me and I slow down when I get closer to her. She embraces me in a quick hug and rambles "May, how are you? Gosh I'd love to stay and talk but there's no time for that, is there? Go!" I hear her shout "Oh! And make sure to remind Ginny she needs to hand wash her robes! " as I'm transporting It's all a blur and she was talking so fast I can't even process what she said until I bounded up the steps and sit in the first cart in a huff.

It's empty, and probably the only empty one. No one sits in the first cart, even first years.   The train seems to start on cue as I finally throw myself on the seat and sigh the heaviest sigh I've sighed since that day Draco tried to touch the hyppogryff.  What an idiot. He's definitely grown up a lot in the past few months, judging from yesterday. I'm not sure that's a good thing.  And why was he wearing long sleeves on a summer day? That was such an odd interaction, I'm not sure what to make of it. Suspicion. Maybe that's all that will come of it for now. He's up to something, or at least his family is and their dragging him with them.  He could've just been having a bad day, I guess. Maybe he was just sick. 

I'm sure I could go this whole year without talking to him ever again and be safe. Maybe if I just avoid him. Stick with my friends. Stick with myself. I've never really been close with anyone and I like how that works. I'm good at being alone. I like being alone. But I also like to have people to talk to now and then. I'm well acquainted with the trio- Harry, Ron, and Hermione. I talk to them more than anyone else. I like being around them, they're sort of inspiring in a way that I'm not. They're smart and friendly and know things other people don't.

    I decide I will go sit with Ron and Hermione and Harry for a bit, so I walk down to find their cart and knock. Ron looks up and opens the door for me.

"Hey", Ron says.

"Hey...where's Harry?" I ask.

"You haven't seen him either?" Hermione asks, distressed. I shake my head.

"Well." Says Ron. "He's probably fine. On some fancy quidditch captain meeting or something."

"Quidditch captain? I can't say I'm surprised."

"Yeah," Ron says, looking proud and excited. "And me and 'Mione are prefects this year, too."

"Oh, that's so perfect!" I say. "I've got connections with the people in charge," I joke.

Conversation becomes easy and we chat about O.W.L.S and N.E.W.T.S and Fred and George's new shop for a while. But then Diagon Alley comes up. And all the destroyed shops. And the air in the cart gets a little thicker.

"Even Florean's is gone. What kind of sad bastards would destroy an ice cream parlor?" Ron says.

I freeze. The place that's been most my home for years. The place I met the closest thing to family I have. Dolly can't be gone, too. No. Dolly is okay. "...Florean's is gone?" I ask timidly. Ron and Hermione sense somethings wrong. They know a little about how important it is to me. I always make detours there whenever we're in the Alley together.

"The windows were boarded up when we were there." Says Hermione softly.

"I was just there a week ago." I say.