Nine Lives and Bad Luck

10

  

They made it to platform nine and three quarters with no trouble with some helpful advice from Tom- the owner of The Leaky Cauldron; a place Harry loved to frequent because of all the people that came and went and relaxing atmosphere. But now he found himself standing before the brilliant red train that reminded him of his lily decorations- one of the few things he had seen which could rival the bright red paint that covered the train- and trying not to think how he wouldn't be able to see Silk for a very long time.

Giving him a fond look she patted his hair, "If you really miss me so much, just sneak out of the castle."

"You're not supposed to encourage that." Harry barely contained the startled laugh.

"Oh. Follow all the rules then and don't die...?" She paused before tacking on, "Except the stupid rules, I think telling you to follow the rules is enough to fulfill my responsible human adult duties, don't follow the stupid ones."

      "Aye, aye."

       "And you know what house to get into?" The answer to that was simply; a good one. As in one he would be happy and able to succeed in.

      "Yep. And have all my supplies too."

      "Good." Silk looked at him for a long moment before pulling him into a tight hug, "You're going to take care of yourself, and make friends... or enemies, or ignore everyone else or, whatever you want to do about the other students-, and have fun, okay?"

      "Don't worry, everything is going to be fine."

      "You may say things always go wrong when we're in England, but I know better; you, Kitten, are a first rate trouble magnet." At his disbelieving look she raised an eyebrow, "Iceberg incident one and two, the whole canal thing, Lance, the buried treasure, those wolves, dementors, do I need to continue? Because: Salt Lake City. Just, all of it. And, you know what, Krakow too. That was... well, it happened. And all of Australia. The whole. Of Australia. Just - just why."

       "Okay, okay, I see your point. I have a knack for trouble... but it's going to be fine, safest place in the world, remember?"

      "Yep, you're going to be fine. Now, be free little kitten." 

       "Going," he huffed, "No need to hold off on the celebration."

        Silk snorted as he boarded the train and headed into the compartment with the window nearest her to smile and wave down at her. All too soon the train began pulling away and he did his best to sear the view into his brain- too often his 'I'll see you soon's seemed to become permanent goodbyes when it came to his caretakers.(he wasn't all that torn up about the Dursleys quite frankly though).

As soon as the train left the station she spun on one foot, and in a whirl of robes left to return home- Harry hadn't seen it, but she too had packed up and planned to leave, returning to her solitude. He was human- and she may not know much, but she knew they were social creatures; even the more reclusive types- he needed other humans and to be able to socialize. She did not. Her human side forged by the forced animagus technique she had tried twinged painfully, she wouldn't regret creating a targeted technique to create a particular forced animagus form, she had gotten to participate in dueling and meet him after all, but she could do without the side effects.

On the Hogwarts Express Harry sat in his compartment alone, staring out the window. It had been awhile since he had been alone when he wanted company. With a sigh he pulled out his current book- an old tome about mind techniques and the various benefits that they had on memorization, the third in a series on practical mind magics - and began to quietly read. His feet were placed on his trunk in front of him so he could place the book, tilted on his bent knees, his back comfortably wedged into the corner so he could clearly see the doorway, out the window to their destination, and still be able to read his book.