Chapter Five: Pride of a Slytherin
Harish woke on the morning of September first quite early. No one was up yet and the sun was only just peeking through the window. He lay in bed for a moment, staring at the sunlit ceiling, before getting up and grabbing clothes to wear to King's Cross Station. Then, he shook the twins.
"Wake up," he said.
The twins moaned and rolled over.
"If I can't keep sleeping, you two can't either," he snapped, slapping George.
"Fine!" George grumbled. "I'm up! C'mon Fred."
Fred rolled over (unfortunately rolling the wrong direction) and fell onto the small space of floor between his bed and George's.
"Ouch!" he cried. "I'm stuck!"
George and Harish pulled the young man off the floor and the three of them got dressed. Then, they bounded down the stairs for breakfast. Mrs. Weasley had already woken up and begun cooking. The three seventh years ate their food before returning to the twins' room. By then, people were poking their heads out their doors, trying to find last minute objects to pack, and getting dressed. The sun was much higher and the Burrow was a nest of frenzy last minute packing.
Fred and George locked their trunks and both cried, "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The trunks levitated out of the room and flew down the staircase, knocking into Ginny. Fred, George, and Harish winced as she flew down from their landing all the way to the kitchen, the trunks not far behind. As Mrs. Weasley began to shriek, Harish said, "I guess it looks as if I'll have to take mine down manually."
Ron was the last to be ready. Then, they all gathered in the living room by the fireplace. As Mr. Weasley's car had broken down, they had no way of getting to King's Cross Station by car. Mr. Weasley had thought about borrowing Ministry cars, but the Ministry was not letting him borrow so much as an empty inkwell those days, so they decided that they were to floo to the Leaky Cauldron in London, from where they would walk the rest of the way to the train station.
The three seventh years had wanted to just Apparate, but since Ron and Ginny were both under sixteen, Mrs. Weasley forced the three of them to floo with them. So, with a cry of "Diagon Alley!" they each disappeared in a flash of green flames.
Harish spun out of the fireplace in London, and walked out into the Leaky Cauldron. Having been the last person to use the floo, everyone else was gathered in front of him. The large group left the shabby pub, and Harish noticed that there were more people in the group than before. Moody, wearing a cap pulled down where his eye was hidden, had joined them as well as an old lady, that Harish discovered was Tonks.
"Why the escort?" Harish whispered.
"Dumbledore reckons Neville is the Chosen One," Fred muttered back.
"He thinks that we would be attack in broad daylight, apparently," George sniffed.
Harish shook his head. Then, he looked around. It was still early enough in the morning that a slight chill hung about the air. The sky, which was a brilliant blue, had a few fluffy clouds on the horizon, but was otherwise clear. Birds chirped overhead as they flew.
Harish breathed in deeply and lengthened his pace.
They walked on until they finally reached King's Cross Station. Once there, they went through the barrier in groups. Then, Harish and the twins hopped aboard the train, claimed an empty compartment as theirs, and stowed their luggage above them.
By the time the train pulled sluggishly out of the station, they had been joined by Daphne, Draco, Dean, Ginny, Ginny's friend Luna, and Angelina Johnson.
"Dean told me you were made Quidditch Captain," she said as she sat down beside George. Harish nodded in reply. "Cool. I was too."
Harish gave her a wide smile.
"I'll see you on the Quidditch pitch, then. After we pulverize Gryffindor, that is."
"Not a chance," she replied with her own smile.
Everyone in the compartment laughed.
"Where's Hermione?" Daphne asked.
"Up in the prefects' carriage, I suppose," Harish replied.
"Oh I forgot!" Draco exclaimed, leaping off the seat as if it bit him and clapping a hand to his forehead. "I need to be down there too!"
And he practically flew out of the compartment.
"Hermione's a prefect?" several people once he had left.
"Yes," Harish replied simply.
His eyes roamed over the others in the compartment, where they lingered over Luna for a moment. She seemed even dottier than usual that day, wearing a string of butterbeer corks as a necklace and reading her magazine, the latest edition of the Quibbler, upside down.
Harish asked, "Why is your magazine upside down?"
Luna looked up at him with her large protuberant eyes that gave her a look of permanent shock.
"I'm translating runes," she said in a dreamy voice.
"What, are the runes upside down?" Dean queried.
"No, you read them upside down," she replied in a tone as if she thought it should have been obvious before retreating back behind her magazine once more.
"So—how were your summers?" Ginny asked, changing the subject.
There were a few mumblings of "fine" and "good" from the people that hadn't stayed at the Burrow that summer. Harish snorted at the sad attempt at making conversation and looked out the window, watching as field after field passed by. Then, he began reading their new Defense book. After the first chapter, he sensed a problem, so kept reading until he finished it. The good thing about living alone in a manor full of books was that it was very easy to learn how to read entire books in only a few hours.
Hermione and Draco finally returned to Harish's compartment after the candy trolley had gone by. As they sat down Draco was whining, to no one's surprise.
"I'm so hungry," he said as Hermione stowed her trunk above her seat. "You would think—being prefects and all—they would have the decency to feed us."
"So how did your meeting go?" Ginny asked.
"It was boring," Draco said at the exact same moment Hermione replied, "It went well."
"Well," Dean said. "Who are the other prefects for our year?"
"Ron and Lavender for Gryffindor," Hermione said.
"Git," Draco muttered.
"Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott for Hufflepuff," Hermione continued obliviously. "And Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil for Ravenclaw."
"How did Ron make prefect?" Dean asked. "Surely it would have gone to someone else—like Neville."
They all shrugged.
"That's what we've been wondering all summer," Harish responded.
"I'm going to enjoy this, though," Draco said with a smirk. "I could even punish Weasley for all the stupid things he does—like making him write lines. He's so thick I could only imagine him struggling to write, 'I…must…not…look…like…a…baboon's…backside.'"
Everyone else laughed again.
As they rode farther north, the sky would become gray, before the clouds would disappear for half an hour or so and then returning again. The weather continued being undecided; after an hour or so, it started drizzling lightly. The rain slanted against the windows, pattering halfheartedly until finally it grew dark and the lanterns were lit.
"We'd better get changed," Hermione said, looking around at the magically lit lanterns.
They all nodded.
"Come on," Daphne said, leading the girls out of the compartment, her robes draped over her arm.
While the girls changed in the bathroom, the guys changed in their compartment. Then they let the girls back in and it wasn't that long before the train finally pulled to a halt. The group pushed their way out of the train and onto the platform, feeling the cool night air sting their face.
They split up as usual, each going to join their own housemates.
The seven Slytherins climbed into a carriage together and rode up to the castle in comfortable silence, each watching the castle grow nearer in the windows. The carriages rolled in between the giant winged boars and up the lawn, finally coming to a halt in front of the castle itself.
Harish looked up at the castle with mixed feelings.
It was his last year. This was the last time he would ride through those gates. The last time he would get a good look at the castle from a distance. This would be his last stay within the castle itself. As he looked up at the yellow lights shining down on them and opened the door to the carriage, he hesitated. The young man almost didn't want to get out of that carriage at all.
But, he gritted his teeth and started to get out. The ground, softened from light drizzles and dew, gave a little under the pressure of all his weight on his cane. The cane sunk an inch or so as Harish swung down onto his good leg and pulled his broken one out of the carriage in one swift motion. Then, he wrenched it out of the earth and limped into the castle, straight backed.
His friends watched him from behind, shaking their heads. None of them understood why Harish would never let them help him walk.
All except Daphne, but she didn't really count did she?