Chapter 11: Of Nosebleeds, Mischievous Mirrors and Disastrous Trips
“Don’t let go of Pomy, Master James!” squeaked the elf, terrified. “Pomy is afraid of being carried away! I is very small, Master James!”
“Well, I’m not big either,” snapped James, annoyed. He was having enough of a hard time wrenching his way through the crowd of Hogwarts students to get to the train without Pomy’s wailing. Why had his mother insisted that he should take her with him? He could manage very well on his own”
“Hey, watch it kid!” shouted a voice as James was knocked to the ground by a much bigger student. He tried to stand up, but people kept banging into him and sending him landing flat on his front on the ground again, as if he was nothing more than a suitcase abandoned on the platform.
He managed to raise his head a few inches without earning himself another accidental kick, but all he could see was a forest of moving feet and billowing robes, and the to and fro movements of heavily loaded trolleys. Pomy was no longer with him, and his trolley had been driven away from him by the movements of the crowd. Oh, just great.
As he scrambled to his knees once more, something collided violently with his face. His glasses flew and he heard them shattering on the ground; at once, he experienced a thrill of dread”how was he going to find them again? He was almost blind without his glasses.
A split second later, however, he forgot about his glasses when he received a sharp blow in the right eye.
“Ouch!”
He screwed his eyes tightly shut as his right eye throbbed painfully. The blow seemed to have reverberated in his whole skull, which was now ringing like a gong. He automatically lifted his hands to cover his eye and found his cheek wet with tears of pain.
“Well, if it isn’t Potter,” sneered a voice above him.
James hastily wiped his cheeks and strived to stop blinking; but his right eye was still aching and the pain got worse when he tried to open it. He raised his head towards the source of the sneering voice, one eye closed and the other squinted in order to try to distinguish something in the colourful blur surrounding him.
“Wow, don’t you look pretty like that,” sniggered the same voice. “Pity I can’t take any photo.”
James inwardly cursed his bad luck as he recognised the voice; of all the people who could have walked on him when he was lying half-blind on the ground, Snape had to be the one to find him.
“Shove off, Snape,” he barked while he discreetly groped all around him for his glasses.
“What a scathing answer,” Snape commented derisively. “Are you looking for this?”
And he waved an object in front of James’ blind face. James made to grab it but it was snatched out of his grip.
“It looks like broken glasses,” Snape idly went on. “Surely they aren’t yours? Great and rich pure-blood James Potter can’t have his glasses broken. Imagine what a ridiculously trivial accident that would be for great James Potter.”
“Give that back before you put grease marks all over the lenses!” James retorted, his temper rising; and he reached out, with the intention of seizing his glasses “ or, fail that, hitting Snape as hard as he could.
As an answer, Snape kicked him viciously in the face, throwing him backward to land flat on his back on the platform. James yelped and covered his face with his hands as he reflexively curled into a ball; a sharp pain was shooting through his nose, and a warm liquid flooded on his mouth and chin and between his fingers.
A second later, someone sat heavily on him, pinning him to the ground, and Snape’s gleeful voice whispered in his ear, “Not very pleasant, Potter, is it? Maybe that’ll teach you not to mess up my Potions next time… Did I break your nose?”
James released his face and aimed another blow at Snape; his fist collided with the Slytherin’s bony chest and he heard a muffled exclamation of rage. He prepared for hitting Snape again, but froze when he felt the tip of Snape’s wand digging into his throat.
“Not had enough, Potter?” hissed Snape.
“You filthy coward!” screamed James furiously.
“What’s going on here?” drawled an only too familiar voice.
James closed his eyes in despair. Lucius Malfoy. Exactly what he needed right now.
“Get off him, Severus,” said Malfoy curtly.
A few seconds went before James and Snape registered what Malfoy had just said. James stopped struggling against Snape’s weight in shock: was Malfoy actually defending him? Since when had Malfoy prevented Snape”or any Slytherin, for that matter”from manhandling Gryffindors…?
Snape was frozen in the same position, his wand pointed at James’ neck, obviously taken aback himself by Malfoy’s unexpected order.
“I said, get off him, you fool!” Malfoy snapped, and the weight pinning James to the ground abruptly lifted, as if Snape had been brutally pulled to his feet. “Attacking another student in the middle of a crowd, when any prefect can see you…. Are you completely stupid?”
James blinked. Of course…. He should have known it was not a sudden concern for justice that had encouraged Malfoy’s surprisingly decent intervention. He pushed himself off the ground in a sitting position and wiped the blood off his face as much as he could; but the flow was only getting thicker, and the throb in his nose was worsening. Above his head, Malfoy was still reprimanding Snape for his carelessness.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think””
“That is obvious,” snarled Malfoy. “I thought you would have drawn the lessons from hanging around with me all past months…. I’m beginning to wonder if you’re worth the trouble to try and teach you anything at all. Only fools and Gryffindors attack in broad daylight, you dimwit!”
“I’m very sorry, Lucius,” said Snape again. “It won’t happen again, I””
“Well, I hope it won’t!” barked Malfoy. “And I don’t give a damn if you’re sorry. Now get on the train before you do something stupid again.”
Silence followed these words and James assumed Malfoy had walked away, taking Snape with him. The crowd had gradually thinned around James during the conversation and there was hardly any student left on this part of the platform now; they had probably all gathered around the Hogwarts Express. He had to hurry up or he would miss it.
Panic suddenly swelled in James’ chest. How was he supposed to board the train? He had lost his trunk, he was dripping blood everywhere and he couldn’t even see his hand outstretched in front of him! Straightening on his knees, he looked wildly all around him, willing himself to see something, other than a vague blur. He could distantly make out the red shape of the Hogwarts Express, somewhere on his left, and the colourful throng of students and their families pressing themselves all around the train. Once again, he began to grope around for his glasses, his hands frantically feeling the hot concrete of the platform.
Where were those wretched glasses? Surely they couldn’t have fallen that far”
Wait a minute. Snape had picked them up, and he had never given them back to James…
James froze. Snape had his glasses.
Now he was in serious trouble…
“Master James! Master James!”
James blindly spun around on his knees towards the point Pomy’s squeaky voice had come from. He distinguished the elf’s small figure running towards him as fast as her little legs could carry her, followed by three dark silhouettes, considerably bigger.
“What happened with Snape?” panted Sirius’ voice as the tallest figure overtook Pomy and came to an abrupt halt next to James’ kneeling form.
“How do you know it was Snape?” asked James bitterly. He was annoyed to hear how thick his voice was, as blood lazily dripped from his nose and into his mouth, filling it with an insipid, coppery taste.
“We ran into him and he had your glasses in his hand”or rather, what was left of them,” answered Remus’ voice. “And when he saw us he tried to sneak off into the crowd. Looked really guilty.”
“But we were quicker than him,” added Sirius with satisfaction. “The git is still struggling to disentangle himself from his dirty robes.”
“Master James, Master James, I is so sorry!” sobbed Pomy, throwing herself at James’ neck and hugging him tightly. “Pomy was carried away, and then Pomy tried to find Master James, but he was nowhere to be seen, oh, Master, Pomy was so worried! Pomy found Master James’ trunk and took it to the train, and then Pomy found Master Sirius and Master Remus and Master Peter, and Pomy was so happy!”
“We’re going to miss the train!” cut in Peter’s urgent voice. “James, can you walk or…?”
“Of course I can walk,” James snapped irritably. “My nose is broken, not my legs! But I can’t see a thing!”
“Here, Master,” hiccoughed Pomy; and the elf’s little wrinkled hand pushed a round and cool object into James’ hand. “Pomy mended them.”
“Thanks,” said James hastily as he put his glasses back on and finally scrambled to his feet. “Go home, Pomy, and there’s no need to tell Mum about the whole glasses thing”she’d worry.”
“Goodbye, Master James!” squeaked Pomy as James, Sirius, Peter and Remus started to run towards the train, which was now blowing a billowing cloud of dark smoke while a strident whistle called for the latecomers. James waved goodbye at the little elf just before jumping through the door a prefect was holding open for them. The other three followed suit.
“Thanks,” panted James at the prefect while Sirius, Remus and Peter tried to catch their breath. A last whistle resounded and the train lurched. It had been close.
“No problem,” said the prefect. “What happened to your face?”
“Hum”fell over,” lied James. “I think my nose’s broken.”
The prefect glanced at her watch.
“Look, I have to go to the prefects’ compartment”I’ll do my best to fix your nose, but I can’t promise you anything. Stay still.”
James tried his hardest to mask his anxiety as the girl hesitantly pointed her wand at his nose. She did not look as if she knew what she was doing at all. He could feel his friends eyeing the pair of them warily.
“Episkey.”
His nose suddenly felt very hot, then very cold. The pain subsided and the flow of blood seemed to ease, then stopped completely. The girl looked a bit reassured.
“I doubt it’ll last long, but at least you won’t bleed for the whole trip,” she said cheerily. “Now try to find yourselves a compartment”I really have to go.”
“Thanks!” James called as she hurried away in the corridor, heading for the head of the train. She addressed him a vague wave and disappeared.
Remus led the way to a compartment at the very end of the train. Their four trunks, including James’, were waiting for them in the middle of the compartment, and they struggled for a good half an hour to haul them up in the luggage rack. By the time they had finally settled, it was almost midday and they were all starving.
“The food trolley should be there soon,” said Remus, as he absentmindedly rubbed his rumbling stomach.
Sirius groaned. “I do hope she hurries up, I could eat Peter.”
“Maybe I can help you in a different way,” said Peter, smiling but looking at Sirius with a slightly wary expression nonetheless. “I’ve brought sweets and cakes and”oh no…”
“What?” they all asked.
“Everything’s in my trunk,” answered Peter miserably.
The other three stared at him blankly for a few seconds, then slowly raised their heads to gaze at Peter’s trunk. As luck would have it, it was at the very bottom of the rack, blocked under Remus’ trunk.
“No way,” said James with a shake of his head. “I’m not getting down two trunks. You’ll have to eat Peter, Sirius.”
Sirius began to stare at chubby Peter with a frightful glint in his eyes, and Peter, feeling the urge to change the subject, hastily asked James, “So, what did happen with Snivellus on the platform?”
James sighed and pulled an exasperated hand through his hair. His right eye was still half-closed and a dull ache was developing in his temple. “Nothing important,” he replied. “I fell over and he kicked my glasses off my face, and after that he started leering at me, and he even got out his wand; but before he could use it, Malfoy came and told him off for doing things like that when everyone could see him. And that’s it.”
“You look really awful, though,” said Remus anxiously. “Your eye’s all swollen. And I’m not sure that prefect fixed your nose correctly””
“Why, is it upside-down or what?” asked James worriedly. He knew the girl had messed up her spell.
Sirius chuckled. “No, but still, you’re not a pretty sight. You’re covered in blood and I think your nose is all bruised. It took a funny colour, at any rate. And”there, it’s bleeding again!”
Sure enough, James could feel a drop of warm liquid slowly trickle down his upper lip again. He swore.
“What am I supposed to do now?” he asked furiously. “Her spell didn’t even last an hour!”
“Maybe you should go to the Prefects’ compartment,” suggested Remus. “The Head Boy and Girl should be there. They would mend your nose.”
“Yeah, and by the time I’ve found that Prefects’ compartment, I will have bled everywhere for all the Slytherins to see,” replied James. “No thanks.”
“And you could faint for the loss of blood,” added Peter.
James blinked.
“That too,” he admitted at last.
“Well, what do you want me to say?” said Remus, throwing his hands up in the air with annoyance. “You can’t keep bleeding all over your clothes. I can go and fetch a Head student for you if you’d rather not be seen, but in the meantime, you shouldn’t stay here.”
“A’d where do you wand be do go?” James asked as he held his sleeve against his nose in a futile attempt to stem the flow.
“There’s a bathroom at the end of the train,” Remus answered patiently. “You could wash your face and maybe find tissues or cotton for your nose. And I’m going to go and find someone””
“No, I’ll do that,” interrupted Sirius. “I’m not staying here getting bored while the pair of you is having fun.”
James, who was busy swallowing a mouthful of the blood that filled his mouth, shot at Sirius a furious look that clearly said, ‘Do you really think I’m having fun?’ Nevertheless, reckoning they had wasted enough time as it was, he bit back the retort he longed to throw at his best friend and rose to his feet. Sirius followed him out of the compartment.
“See you in a minute,” he said cheerfully before walking lightly away.
James sighed exasperatedly and headed for the bathroom; thankfully, it wasn’t too far away from their compartment: he could see he was already leaving a trail of bloody droplets on his way.
He grabbed the handle of the bathroom door and pushed”just to find, to his utmost irritation, that the door was locked from the inside.
“Just a minute!” said a girl’s voice from inside the bathroom.
James groaned as he leaned against the wall, still holding his bleeding nose. Just his luck. The one time he really needed to get into the bathroom, there was a girl locked up in it.
He let himself slide down the wall in a sitting position on the vibrating floor. The girl was really taking her time. Pinching his nose between two fingers, he banged on the door with his other hand, leaving instantly a bloody mark on the polished wood. James cursed.
“Hurry up id there!” he roared.
“Coming, coming!” the girl shouted back.
And surely enough, a few seconds later he heard the doorknob rattle as the girl fumbled with it, then the door flung open, revealing the smiling face of a girl about his age.
“See, I didn’t take too l”Potter?”
James looked up from his sitting position at the girl’s horrified face. She looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t remember who she was for the life of him. That was weird, as she was probably in his year; otherwise she wouldn’t have recognised him so quickly.
“Oh my God!” squealed the girl, dropping to her knees at his side. “What happened to you? You’re bleeding all over the floor! Oh dear, if I had known, I would have let you in sooner! Do you want me to go and fetch somebody? Potter? Potter? Can you hear me?”
“Yes, yes!” said James hastily, a bit alarmed by the girl’s franticness. Did he look that bad? “I’m fide, really, I jus’ need to get indo dat bathroob…”
“Oh yes, of course,” said the girl, so quickly she stumbled over her own words. “Here, let me help you.”
And before he could say another word, the girl gently took hold of his upper arm and tugged on it, forcing him to his feet.
“Danks,” said James awkwardly. If only she could let go of him now, so that he could dash in the bathroom and lock the door behind him…. He had a bleeding nose and a bruised self-esteem to nurse…
To his utter horror, though, the girl gave him a kindly smile and slid her arm around his waist, with the visible intention of supporting him in case he should faint or feel too weak to walk on his own.
“Danks, but I can madage”” he began, horribly embarrassed. But the girl wasn’t listening. She dragged him into the bathroom and forced him to sit on the stool, authoritatively waving away his protestations.
“Let me help you,” she ordered, rather than asked, decidedly.
James finally gave up; the girl would not hear him, and he was only embarrassing himself further when begging her to leave him alone. He mournfully wondered how much he would have to pay her to make sure she wouldn’t talk about that to anybody. That story would make Snivellus laugh his greasy head off for the whole term…
The bathroom was a tiny room, barely larger than a cupboard; most of the available space was taken by a huge porcelain sink, gleaming in the light diffused by an oil lamp fixed to the wall and lazily swaying with the movements of the train. A large, spotless mirror covered most of the wall opposite the door, just above the sink.
The girl was now fumbling with the drawers piling up under the sink; she finally dug up in a drawer an impressive mass of white fluffy cotton, with a triumphant ‘Ha!’
James diverted his eyes from this ominous sight and glanced in the mirror; he grimaced as he saw himself in it. He was rather pale and covered in blood; a spectacular black eye was developing behind his scratched glasses and his nose itself was all bruised.
Then he noticed something else. Something really weird.
The girl’s reflection had short black hair. But the girl”the real one, the one who was now standing in front of him, waving threateningly a limp mass of cotton drenched in cool water before his face”had brownish hair. No, not brownish”greenish. It fell in muddy strands around her pale freckled face, clashing horribly with her vivid-green eyes. He knew that face…
James suddenly raised one hand to stop the ball of wet cotton advancing towards his nose.
“Wait”Evans?” he blurted out, not bothering to hide the astonishment in his voice.
The girl raised her eyebrows at him.
“Well, yes,” she answered as she slapped his hand away and started dabbing his face with the wet cotton. “Why? Don’t tell me you had already forgotten me!”
“No, no!” answered James hastily. He had learned the hard way it wasn’t a pleasant experience to find oneself at the receiving end of Lily Evans’ wand when she was angry. “It’s just…”
The situation was tricky. He was sitting, whereas she was standing; he did not have his wand with him and he was already all beaten up, when she looked in top form. She clearly was in position of superiority. He had better not upset her if he did not want to earn another black eye. He swallowed and spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully in his attempt to avoid offending her.
“You know… as I remember you, well… your hair was… sort of… different…”
His voice trailed away, and for the first time he really hoped Evans was going to resume her nursing activities and forget he had ever said anything. He was quite sure she had had flaming red hair last time he had seen her; as a matter of fact, he and Sirius had never missed an opportunity to tease her mercilessly about her carrot-coloured head through all previous year. He was treading on thin ice.
But to his great surprise, Lily Evans’ face broke into a smile and she proudly tucked a strand of her short, horrible green hair behind her ear.
“Do you like it?” she cooed.
James gaped at her. She was acting as if she was delighted her hair had taken that mucky colour. And he was supposed to like it as well?
“Er,” he spluttered. “Well, you know, er…”
“Now you can’t call me CarrotHead anymore,” she said cheerfully.
James dumbly shook his head.
“No, I can’t,” he said truthfully. He privately thought MudHead would be far more appropriate a nickname now; but he wisely decided not to voice his thoughts aloud.
Lily Evans giggled as she resumed her mopping of his face. “I was so sick of having red hair,” she said in a light tone, as if she was chatting with a girlfriend of hers. The thought made James grimace. “It wasn’t even red. It was orange. I looked like a blazing pumpkin. Dark hair suits me much better, doesn’t it?”
James watched her blankly for a few seconds before realisation hit him. The mirror. The black-haired reflection. She thought she had”
“It’s a Muggle dyeing I mixed with that powder of dragon scale Slughorn gave me last year,” Evans babbled on. “That’s what I’ve been doing in the bathroom. It took me almost an hour. If my calculations are right”and I’m pretty sure they are”dragon scale makes the dyeing last longer.”
“Oh,” said James, willing himself not to laugh. “Er”much longer?”
“At least three to four months,” she answered with satisfaction.
James bit the inside of his cheeks to prevent himself from grinning. “Wow, really long then. You’re sure you won’t get bored of it before it fades?”
“If you had spent eleven years with people calling you CarrotHead all the time, you would be keen on changing your hair colour, too,” she retorted. “There’s no way I’m going to get back to my former orange hair.”
“Oh,” said James again, a little awkwardly. “Well… Okay then. Er, listen”that’s really nice from you to help me and all, but I think I can manage now… Actually I’d rather be on my own, if you don’t mind…”
“Oh my God, I didn’t even ask you what had happened to you,” Evans said immediately, looking concerned. “Were you bullied? Were you all alone against them? Did they hurt you really badly? Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? It’s no good keeping all that to yourself, you know, that’s what the people who beat you up want! You need to””
“Really, Evans,” James interrupted loudly. “Thanks for the offer, but I’d like to be alone right now.”
She slowly put aside the mass of damp cotton and looked at him gravely.
“Fine,” she said, so solemnly James was tempted to laugh again at the ridiculousness of it all. “But if you ever need to talk about it, I’ll be there, all right?”
“All right.”
She finally backed out of the bathroom, smiling at him in such genuine concern that James felt a slight pang of guilt for not telling her about her hair colour. When the door shut at last behind the green-haired Lily Evans, he rose and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He was feeling a little light-headed and had to grip the edge of the sink quite hard to steady himself.
“It’s not right to trick innocent students,” he said in the mirror’s direction, with a shake of his head. “That hair thing was a blow below the belt.”
“On top of her head, I’d rather say,” replied his reflection with a cheeky grin. “Appearance-consciousness is a nasty defect. You look horrible, by the way. I think you’re whiter than the sink.”
James was about to retort when someone knocked on the door.
“James? Are you in there?” asked Sirius’ muffled voice.
“Yes,” James called back. Or at least, tried to call”for it came out as a rather feeble mumble. He was feeling a bit sick, all of sudden.
“Okay, step aside,” snapped a commanding voice. Next second the door opened and a tall and rather fat girl came in, her wand in her hand. A shining badge reading the words Head Girl was pinned to her massive chest.
“How’s your nose?” asked the girl brusquely.
“Doesn’t hurt anymore,” James answered as he sat back on the stool. The ground was oddly swaying under his feet. “Just bleeds a little.”
“Did you lose a lot of blood?”
The girl’s voice echoed in the room, as if it came from very far away. James shook his head, trying to get rid of the funny whistling sound filling his ears. And why was his vision all blurred? There were colourful spots dancing in front of his eyes…
“Hey, can you hear me?”
Someone had grabbed him by the shoulder and was shaking him. James felt a vague twinge of annoyance through the fog drowning his brain. Why couldn’t they leave him alone? All he wanted now was to close his eyes, curl into a ball and sleep for a few hours… or days…
“Hey, James! Stay with us!”
James registered a slapping sound in the distance. Then his cheek started to burn. Had Sirius just slapped him? He would have to ask him for explanations… later… much later…
“Enervate!”
An electrical discharge shot through James’ body, bringing him back to consciousness for a few seconds. He wearily opened his eyes”his lids were so heavy…. How could he have ever been able to maintain them open every day, for hours at a time?
His surroundings were a light, colourful blur. He felt the cold tiled floor under him, though he did not remember ever lying down. He had a furred tongue and he could tell he was about to be engulfed once more into icy vertigo. He raised his head with some difficulty to stare into the two faces bent over him.
“I think I’m going to pass out,” he informed them in a thick voice.
Someone swore and someone else called his name in a panicky voice. But it was no longer James’ problem. His eyes fell shut once more and he let himself slide away into nothingness.
***
It was like emerging from a viscous black liquid. His limbs were heavy and inert, and his skull seemed to have been filled with lead; he doubted he would ever be able to stand up again. His mouth was dry and his tongue felt like a foreign body, swollen and lifeless. He had undeniably felt better.
He lifted one eyelid. Well, it was a start. He could vaguely distinguish an off-white ceiling from which hung what looked like an oil lamp, swinging back and forth at a steady rhythm. Obviously, he did not have his glasses on.
“Hey, the little first-year is awakening!”
A shadow drew closer and bent over him.
“You all right, Potter?” asked a girl’s voice.
James opened his other eye. “M’ not a firs’ year,” he mumbled thickly. “Secon’ year.”
The girl straightened up with a sigh of relief. From a distant point on James’ right, the first voice spoke again, “How is he?”
“He’s talking, or at least he’s trying to,” answered the girl at James’ bedside. “I think he’ll be all right. I’m not letting him get up before we get to Hogwarts, though. Can you send an owl to Madam Pomfrey? She’ll want to check on him… And try to catch the food trolley on your way. He needs to eat something or he’ll faint again.”
James registered the sound of footsteps retreating, then the slamming of a door. The girl sitting next to him rose and walked away, and he heard her rummaging in her trunk. Soon she was back at his side.
“Here,” she said as she pushed something against his lips. Taken unawares, James opened his mouth, allowing her to shove whatever she was holding into it. He recognised the taste of a Pumpkin Pasty. He started to chew with some difficulty: his jaw was curiously slack and his tongue was still dry.
“That’s all I have,” said the girl briskly. “There’s a lot of sugar in it, it should give you a fillip… Morrington”that’s the Head Boy”went to get you some lunch. By the way, I’m Rosanna Lynch, the Head Girl.”
James gave up on chewing the pasty and swallowed it whole. It was very acidic in spite of the sugar coating and he felt his eyes watering.
“How long have I been here?” he asked in a quite hoarse voice, all the while groping feebly for his glasses on the floor. Rosanna Lynch noticed his vague movements, and she obligingly picked up his glasses and placed them on his nose for him.
“Almost a half an hour. You scared us stiff,” she answered. “So, what happened to your face?”
James slowly lifted one hand and gingerly felt his nose. It wasn’t painful anymore. His eyes were both normally open “ his black eye had been healed as well, it seemed. At least he wouldn’t give Snivellus the satisfaction of showing up in the Great Hall with a face in pieces.
“I healed the worst of it,” said the Head Girl impatiently. “Did you hear my question? I need to know what happened, I have to report it to your Head of House. You had a fight, didn’t you?”
“Huh? No,” said James quickly. “Er… fell over. On the platform. Lots of”er… trolleys and people running everywhere…”
He flapped his hands around to illustrate his words. “You know, a complete confusion,” he went on hastily. “I got a few accidental kicks in the face. That’s all.”
There was no way he would be taken for a snivelling kid, complaining to the Head Girl about being bullied. The Slytherins would only be too happy to have such an opportunity to tease him.
Rosanna Lynch raised a sceptical eyebrow at him. She wasn’t buying his little story; it was time he should change the subject.
“Can I go back to my compartment, now?” he asked hopefully. “I’m feeling much better.”
“No,” said the Head Girl flatly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to have your death on my conscience. I’m keeping you here for the rest of the trip; and when we arrive, I’ll accompany you to the Hospital Wing.”
“But””
“And now,” she went on, speaking over him, “you’re going to rest. I don’t want to hear another word.”
With those words, she got to her feet and walked to the door, ignoring James’ protests. As she opened the door, she paused and turned around again.
“There’s a bathroom”the door behind you,” she said with a jerk of her chin in the direction of the bathroom. “Just don’t lock yourself in it, okay? I don’t want to be forced to break the door in case you pass out while you’re in there. Morrington should bring your lunch in a few minutes.”
And without so much as a goodbye, she withdrew and slammed the door shut behind her. James heard a key jangle in the lock, followed by the Head Girl’s footsteps retreating in the corridor.
James slumped back on the seat that served as an improvised bed. The train was now running through vast sunbathed fields lined with skinny trees and plump little bushes, meticulously pruned. The sun was still very high in the bright blue sky; the train would not arrive at Hogwarts before at least six hours, maybe more.
James heaved an exasperated sigh. What a nice way to begin his second year.
***
“Sirius, it’s time we should get off the train,” Remus ventured cautiously. He had already had to use all the persuasion he was capable of to convince Sirius to put on his Hogwarts robes, which his friend had finally agreed to do with painful slowness; the only idea of being forced to give battle a second time in order to make Sirius leave the train was discouraging him in advance.
“Oh, we have the time,” Sirius answered with nonchalance. “We can wait for a minute or two””
“No, we can’t,” Remus said tensely. “We have to get off that train now, or it’ll go back to London with us!”
“Everybody is getting out now,” retorted Sirius. “Have you seen that confusion? If we wait for the crowd to clear a little””
“Sirius,” said Remus patiently, “I don’t think James will come back to the compartment now.”
Sirius shoved his hands in his pockets, and affected to stare at the dark patch of sky visible through the rectangular window; he was irritated at Remus for guessing so quickly the reason for his obstinate lingering in the compartment. Whenever he thought that James could come back to the compartment and find it empty because his three friends hadn’t even bothered to wait for him, he almost grimaced with disgust at himself.
“You’re not sure of that,” he shot impatiently at Remus. “He could come back at the last minute for all we know!”
“A prefect told me he would be taken to the castle by the Head students,” piped up Peter, who was already cloaked and ready to go.
Remus wheeled around. “How d’you know that?” he said with audible stupefaction.
“Well, I asked while I was looking for the food trolley,” Peter answered, looking a bit worried at Remus’ reaction. “I met a sixth year with a prefect badge on his chest and I asked him if he knew””
“And you couldn’t have said that sooner, could you?” snapped Sirius. Remus privately agreed: if only Peter had had the idea of sharing that piece of information, they would have avoided wasting time.
Peter shrugged. “No one asked me,” he said simply.
Sirius rolled his eyes, but did not have the time to say anything else: the locomotive had emitted another high-pitched whistle, undoubtedly as a last warning for the remaining students aboard the Hogwarts Express”and Remus jumped in the air as if he had just received an electrical discharge. Snatching his cloak from one of the seats, he ran along the corridor, closely followed by Sirius and Peter. The three of them jumped out of the still open door; and they had just taken a few steps on the platform when every door of the train slammed shut with a loud bang.
Peter stopped and bent down, clutching a stitch in his ribs. He had the feeling he did a lot of running when he was around his friends. He did not have much time to recover, though. Half a second later, Sirius grabbed his arm and yelled in his ear, “Hurry up, Peter! We’re going to miss the carriage!”
“The what?” Peter screamed back; but Sirius and Remus were already running towards a great black diligence, standing on the road at about five hundred feet from the platform. Peter let out a moan but began trotting nonetheless as fast as his short legs could carry him, panting and wincing as his stitch felt like a dagger stuck between two ribs.
As he finally reached the waiting carriage, he dimly registered there was no horses between the shafts before Sirius seized his arm again and forcefully pulled him inside. The carriage was already full of girls, most of them older than they were, and there was no more seating available. After a few minutes of pushing, treading and apologising”from Remus”the three boys had to sit on the cold floor. As soon as they had settled, with some difficulty, the girls started chattering at the top of their voices, speaking over their heads as if they weren’t even there.
Sirius, Remus and Peter exchanged a gloomy look. What a nice way to begin their second year.
The diligence lurched at last; and soon they were bumping along the rocky road that led to Hogwarts castle.
Symphony for Quartet by Tinn Tam
Chapter Notes: In my Beta's absence, TheMusicOrTheMisery has been kind enough to edit this chapter. Thanks!