ᴀ ᴅ ʀ ɪ ᴇ ɴ ɴ ᴇ [1]

07. glass and oak

chapter seven

GLASS AND OAK

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FOR THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON, Harry, Ron and I indulge on sweets, Ron's dry corned beef sandwiches laying discarded and forgotten. I try Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, which leaves brilliantly blue and pink bubbles the size of beach balls floating around for hours, refusing to pop, and therefore being blown out the window, licorice wands and pumpkin pasties.

Ron and I have a good laugh when Harry opens a chocolate frog, a chocolate shaped like a frog which really moves, and, to his dismay, it jumps out the window.

"That's rotten luck," says Ron, still restraining laughter, "They've only really got one good jump in them to start with. But it's the card you want."

"The what?"

"Oh, of course, you wouldn't know – Chocolate Frogs have cards inside them, you know, to collect – Famous Witches and Wizards. I've got about five hundred, but I still haven't got Agrippa or Ptolemy."

Harry looks inside the packaging, and pulls out a pentagonal card. On it is an eccentric-looking old man with a long, crooked nose, half-moon glasses and flowing silver hair, beard and moustache. Underneath the picture is the name Albus Dumbledore.

"So this is Dumbledore," says Harry.

"Don't tell me you've never heard of Dumbledore," says Ron, his voice slightly muffled for the cauldron cake he's stuffed into his mouth. "Can I have a frog - I might get Agrippa - thanks."

I scootch over to Harry's side as he flips the card over, and I read:

Albus Dumbledore, currently Headmaster of Hogwarts. Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Professor Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.

• • •

For a while, the three of us have fun carefully selecting dodgy-looking beans from the Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans packet, daring each other to eat them. I have the pleasure of a caramel, strawberry jam and honeycomb, before I'm treated to a horrible earthworm-tasting one by Harry, earning him a rock-flavoured one in return.

Ron has a pepper, which is so hot that smoke comes out his ears, resulting in several minutes of hysterical laughter.

"Bleeeeeeeeargh - sprouts," Harry complains, after we've managed to get up off the floor where we had lain, clutching our sides.

"You know," Ron says randomly, "Fred gave me a spell yesterday to turn Scabbers yellow. Wanna see?"

"Yeah!" says Harry, sitting up straighter.

Ron stands up to retrieve his wand, and pulls a battered stick of willow from his trunk, something silver glittering at the end.

"The unicorn hair's nearly poking out," he says. "Anyway - sun-"

Ron has just raised his wand and begun to recite an incantation of sorts, when there's a knock on the door to our compartment, and a girl with bushy hair and rather large front teeth walks in. She's already changed into her Hogwarts robes.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she says in a bossy sort of voice, eyeing my hoodie rather distastefully.

"No," says Ron, looking disdainfully at the girl.