Hogwarts

The Hogwarts Express

John loved Hogwarts, of course he did, but what he hated was going into sixth year. It was the one terrible seventh year prep class jammed between the OWLS and the NEWTS, both the number one cause of stress for young wizards. Like they had any idea what they wanted to do with their lives, McGonagall might try to sort their futures out, but John's only life goal was to get through Hogwarts and then start from there. At the moment he was doing his best to stuff in the remainder of his clothes into his already too-full-to-close trunk. He wasn't allowed to use magic on it, house rules, which was the stupidest thing ever, it wasn't like he was going to use magic for anything unproductive. His owl, Jam, was hooting impatiently and he could hear the garage door open down stairs, signaling it was time to get going. John gave up, bringing his foot down hard on the lid, forcing it shut and putting some binding charms on it with a couple of taps of his wand. The rest of his stuff was in his school bag, overnight bag, and bag that carried all the rejects, plus his owl cage and his broom, it provided and large handful. He was too stubborn to take two trips though, so he slung all three bags around his neck like a purse, grabbed the owl cage into one hand and the trunk in the other, carrying his Nimbus 2000 under his arm. He waddled out of the room with difficulty, almost knocking down his long abandoned fish tank with the butt end of his broom. He felt like a pin ball, bouncing off of the walls to get down the steps and through the hallway. There was a loud beep of a car horn, where his parents were waiting for him, like they always did when he had to go to school. This was an annual thing, John loved to procrastinate. He squeezed all of the stuff through the door and almost fell down in surprise when Jam screeched without warning, but he shuffled down the sidewalk and loaded the trunk of the car. His wand was in his pocket, as it always was, even though his parents did not approve of it. They were a muggle family, like half of the school, but they were really anti-magic, thought it was evil really. Not that they were mean people, John was treated just the same as his sister Harry, who was sulking in the backseat, but he was strictly forbidden to use magic in the house.
"Got everything?" Mrs. Watson asked. John nodded, getting into the backseat next to Harry, who, as usual, pretended like he didn't exist. Hogwarts day was definitely one of Harry's least favorite days, because unlike John, she was pure Muggle and secretly hated herself for it. She'd never admit it, but seeing John go away to some fancy boarding school for wizards made her seething with jealousy, but she covered it up by not missing an opportunity to call John a freak. Jam wasn't visible from the back, but they could all hear her making a big racket at being stuffed in the dark trunk.
"John, get that owl to shut up." Mr. Watson complained, covering his ears with a bored expression, as if this wasn't something new.
"I can't do anything about it now." John pointed out as the car backed out of the driveway. Jam's cage rattled, but he elected to ignore that.
"So are you excited?" Mrs. Watson asked.
"Absolutely." John said with a smile.
"I'm just excited for you to get out of the house." Harry muttered.
"You're just jealous." John said knowingly.
"I'm not jealous, I'd never want to go to a school of freaks!"
"Then why do you go to public school? Oh ya..." John said. Harry growled, but gave up on the argument, looking out her window, sulking.
"Are you going to make some new friends?" Mrs. Watson asked hopefully. John groaned.
"I have friends!" he pointed out, thinking of Greg.
"But it wouldn't hurt to get more."
"You mean another." Harry pointed out.
"I have one best friend, what's wrong with that?" John asked, challenging her.
"What happens if Greg gets hurt? You're all alone." She said.
"He won't get hurt! Oh my god, stop taking your jealously out on me!" John said.
"I'm not jealous!" Harry defended loudly. Jam screeched in reply, as if her shout had been a challenge to see who could be louder. The rest of the car ride, Harry sulked, looking out the window as the countryside turned to city buildings and streets, all leading up to King's Cross Station, which seemed like a lifetime to John, knowing that as soon as he got there he could escape this bloody muggle life and return to the wand waving, spell casting, quidditch playing life he missed so badly. When they walked into the station, the crowd was impossibly thick, business men and women walking swiftly in packs, which was a bit difficult to navigate with the trunk and owl. He got funny looks, as he always did with Jam hooting and screeching, but John didn't really mind, he was used to it by now. Mrs. Watson was watching the crowd nervously, as if someone was watching them, noticing that they were wizards. John led the way through the crowd, desperate to get to the barrier between platform 9 and 10. It was a blur of suits and getting stepped on by high heels, but eventually he made it to the brick wall. John looked at his parents, who were always so nervous about going through the barrier, as if it wouldn't work for them.
"See you on the other side." John said quietly, and then took a running start into the barrier. There was a moment of darkness, but no crash. Instead, when he opened his eyes, he was in a completely different world. Everyone here was in wizard's robes, everyone had an owl, there were sparks shooting from wands, people lugging cauldrons onto the train, and a big scarlet steam engine cheerfully puffing smoke. It was Platform 9 ¾, and the train was the Hogwarts Express, the train every student had to take to get to school. John moved out of the way as Harry came plunging through, trying to hide the amazed look on her face. John moved through the crowd to try to find Greg, but so far he couldn't find him.
"John, come and say bye!" Mr. Watson called. John turned back, almost forgetting they weren't coming with him.
"Now you be good okay? Get good grades, behave, I don't want any more owls from Dumbledore, they attract attention."
"That was an accident okay? Filtch got in the way." John defended, remembering his little mishap with a leg lock jinx. Mrs. Watson gave him a hug and a kiss on the forehead, which he quickly wiped off, and Mr. Watson also gave him a hug. John thought he saw Harry glance in his direction, which was a real surprise actually, usually she was at the exit begging to leave.
"Bye Harry." John teased, getting a scowl in return. He gave them one last smile and turned his trunk around, walking through the less thick crowd and onto the train. The halls were packed with kids, but it didn't take long for John to find Greg sitting alone, feeding his owl, Gavin, owl treats as he waited for John to get on. He slid open the door, happy to see his friend again.
"Hey John!" Greg said happily.
"Haven't seen you in a while, I hope you shrunk." John teased. Greg was much taller than John, which was always a huge disadvantage when they played sports or tried to look over crowds of people. He loaded his stuff onto the rack above the seats and sat across from Greg, who poked a treat into Jam's cage.
"So, how was your summer?" Greg asked. John laughed without amusement.
"Horrible of course, couldn't wait to get back here, under the wrath of Harry. How about you?" John said.
"The usual, Mom was complaining a lot about me not being able to use magic outside of school yet, I'm the only one who has to do chores by hand." Greg said. Unlike John, who was Muggleborn, Greg was a pureblood, but not one of the stuck up type that constantly rub their blood status in everyone's face. If you didn't ask, you'd never know. "Do you think this year is the year?" Greg asked John.
"What do you mean?" John asked, even though he knew what was coming.
"Are you going to ask Mary out?" Greg insisted. Mary Morstan, John's forever crush, was a Ravenclaw in seventh year, and he couldn't remember a time in Hogwarts when he didn't like her. She was flawless, in his mind, smart, pretty, and a Chaser on their quidditch team.
"Maybe." John shrugged. He'd had girlfriends before, but not serious, and he never had been the one to ask them out, it was very nerve racking. Somehow though, he'd managed to keep his crush secret all of these years. The rest of the train ride was spent talking about the latest quidditch teams, the upcoming season, classes, and swapping summer stories. When the trolley came around, John bought a licorice wand and Greg bought a box of Bertie Bot's Ever Flavor beans. It was always fun to blindly pick one, which, in John's case, the worst one he got was skunk spray, which took a couple of mouth full of water and a couple minutes to stop gagging and for Greg to stop laughing. When they were approaching the school, they changed into their robes, black with red and gold for their house, Gryffindor. It had been so long since he wore his robes, and it felt so right to be back in them, and not disguising himself as a muggle for three or so months. The sun had gone down earlier, making the oncoming castle glow in the moonlight reflecting off of the black lake. It took John a couple of seconds to look at it, embrace the fact that he was here, back home, where he rightfully belonged.
"Better get out there before everyone else does." Greg suggested, pulling John back into reality. They took their stuff down and stood by the door, waiting for the okay to get into the hall. The stampede that followed that announcement was briefly avoided, for as soon as they heard the conductor's voice, they walked as fast as they could to the nearest exit. The night was chilly; a cool wind was blowing over, spraying water from the lake nearby.
"FIRS' YEARS OVER HERE, FIRS' YEARS!" The familiar voice of Hagrid boomed over the station, his lantern silhouetting his enormous figure. John and Greg led a small pack of kids to a carriage, pulled by invisible horses, and climbed in. They were squashed in the back, crushed by their own trunks. When the carriage couldn't hold any more students, the door closed by itself and they started to move, the ground rolling slowly beside them. No one talked; everyone was hungry and excited for the start of a new year. When the carriage stopped outside of the gates, John and Greg, since they were the first ones in, were the last ones out, hauling their trunks up the stone path to the castle's oak doors. The other carriages were just arriving, students piling out into the night. John thought he could briefly see a orange tentacle swim over the black lake, but it was gone before he could point it out to Greg. They walked into the inviting Entrance hall, lit with torches that flicked shadows on the wall. John breathed in the familiar air, thankful to be in his real home again. They left their bags at the bottom of the stairs, they would be taken up to their rooms during the feast. They walked into the Great Hall, where they could see the professors sitting at the staff table, a few smiling down at the students, others talking obliviously to the adults next to them. They weren't the first ones in the hall; there was a group of young Slytherins and a lone boy in the Ravenclaw table that had his nose buried in a book. John and Greg sat down in the Gryffindor table, scanning the staff table to find anyone new in the lineup. Of course, there was a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, this time it looked like an old woman, dressed completely in pink, which made John a bit nervous, all of the past teachers had mysteriously disappeared, they never lasted more than a year.
"What do you reckon will be wrong with her?" Greg asked him quietly.
"Where do I start? I bet she color coordinates her lungs." John said, sending the two into silent giggles. The rest of the students started to file in, taking their dear old time. The first years have probably arrived from their journey across the lake, which John remembered. It had been the most exciting yet terrifying moment of his life. When all of the students had sat down, the doors opened again and Professor McGonagall, an older woman with a stern face, led a small troop of first years down the hall, carrying a wooden stool and a shabby looking hat. They all looked terrified, looking around at the Great Hall with some amazement, but most of them were white in the face. McGonagall set the stool down and started calling names, and one by one, the students were sorted into their houses. John clapped with the rest of the Gryffindors as some students joined their house, sitting in a bunch at the end of the table. When the sorting was over John's stomach was growling with hunger, it had been forever since he had had the licorice wand on the train. Finally, Dumbledore took a swig from his goblet and stood up, smiling down at the students.
"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts! Congratulations to the newcomers, and I'm sure everyone is beyond famished, so dig in!" he said. Food appeared on the empty golden platters in front of them, mountains of every type of food you could ever imagine. Some of the first years gasped, but John had already started piling potatoes onto his plate. Greg took, as usual, twenty or more chicken wings and started to eat them at a monstrous pace. John had eaten three plates full of food before he felt like he would burst, so he set down his fork and waited for Dumbledore to stand back up. When he had, he just talked over the common rules, no magic in the corridors, no students allowed in the Dark Forrest, and that Filtch had a list of banned objects posted on his door for anyone who had the guts to go down to look at it. Then, finally, they were dismissed to their houses, the first years led by the prefects of Gryffindor. John had never hoped to be a prefect, it was way too much work and he had never exactly been one of Dumbledore's favorites. John and Greg made the trip up to the Fat Lady's portrait, which had been opened. The new password, according to Greg, was Pig Snout, which was easy enough to remember. The Gryffindor Common room was the most beautiful thing John could ever imagine, so much like the home in his heart he felt very emotional standing before it. Countless nights spent in front of that fireplace, bent over homework, talking to Greg, or playing a game of exploding snap with the other sixth years. He walked up to the dormitories, which were the same except they were another door up. His things were already loaded up on his bed, so, tiredness coming out of nowhere; he changed into his pajamas and collapsed into the bed. The house elves must have put heating pads in the beds, because they were warm and cozy, helping John drift to sleep easily.