star shopping ✰ d.m.

CHAPTER NINE

Arabella and Ginny boarded the Hogwarts Express and as it began to pull away, they waved at Molly until they could no longer see the platform. At that point, they decided it was time to go and find their friends and discuss with them the plan they that had begun to formulate just before they left the Burrow. As they walked down the corridor, they looked into every compartment. After about a minute of doing this, they looked into a compartment that didn't contain the friends they were looking for, but instead, Fraser and Duncan. Knowing that the two boys would want to be involved, Arabella slid open the compartment door.

"Come with us," she said.

"Where and why, Weasley?" Fraser asked.

"We'll tell you why soon, but only if you come with us," Ginny said. "We're trying to find Evie and a few of our other friends. Do you happen to know where she is?"

"She'll be in the prefect's carriage now, but she was with Loony Lovegood last time I saw her."

"Don't call her that," Duncan, Arabella, and Ginny all said at the same time.

"It was just a joke. I don't actually think she's that loony."

"It doesn't matter if it was a joke or not. Don't call her that," Ginny said. "Especially not if you come with us. She's one of the people we're trying to find."

"Fine, it won't happen again. We'll come with you."

And so the boys grabbed their trunks and left the compartment and accompanied the girls down the corridor, keeping an eye out for Luna. Another few compartments down, Arabella suddenly stopped walking as she accidentally made eye contact with a certain someone in a compartment full of Slytherins.

"Oh, my, it's the weasels again," Pansy said, looking at Ginny and Arabella with an expression of disgust before giggling with her friends, Millicent Bulstrode and Daphne Greengrass.

"And they've got Mudbloods with them, too," said Theodore Nott, looking at Fraser and Duncan. "Tell me, how's your mum? Snatchers caught up with her yet?" He burst into laughter along with Crabbe and Goyle.

Nott had hit a nerve; along with calling them a slur, he had mentioned the boys' mother, Amelia, a Muggle-born witch who had to go into hiding to avoid being caught by Snatchers for refusing to appear at the Ministry for questioning. Fraser and Duncan had withdrawn their wands from their pockets and Fraser made to whip open the compartment door, but Ginny stopped him before he could.

"Leave it. It won't do you any good," she told him. She grabbed Arabella's wrist. "Come on."

As the group walked away, Arabella looked at Draco one last time and saw an expression that looked apologetic, as if silently apologizing for his friends' words. Meanwhile, behind her, Fraser and Duncan didn't hesitate to flip off everyone in the compartment as a parting gift.

Looking into the next compartment, Ginny sighed and rolled her eyes. "Of course," she muttered bitterly before entering the compartment with the other three following her. "Are you lot aware that there's a bunch of worthless gits in the next compartment over?" she asked Neville, Seamus, and Luna while she and the others put their trunks on the shelves above the seats.

"Yes," Seamus said grumpily. "Almost went in there and gave them a piece of my mind, but Neville wouldn't let me."

"There's no point getting into trouble before we even get to school," Neville said. "Before we know what exactly we're dealing with, that is."