Luna shifted behind her. "Well, it's a bit late to learn from Harry. He's going to Hogwarts now."
Her voice grew desperate. "Can't I learn from you?"
Luna seemed to consider it. "You could. Although I doubt I'd be nearly as good at teaching as Harry is."
"I don't care! I mean, it's the only way isn't it? Lord Slytherin isn't going to teach me himself is he?"
"No. That's unlikely at the moment."
"Then you'll do it?"
She grasped Luna's wrists, and turned. Luna was once again her dreamy self. A massive smile plastered on her face.
"Of course I will, Alex. I've missed having you as a friend." The girl then shuffled forward and wrapped her in another minute long hug.
Slowly, Alex relaxed into it. It did feel kind of nice.
— End of Chapter Fourteen —
A/N: And there we have the final Bonus Chapter before the start of first year. Not sure when it's going to start posting, but I hope reasonably soon. Like, within the next few weeks.
A/N: It was noted by a sharp-eyed reviewer that snowy owls bark, not hoot, to which I say… Umm… that… that all magical owls are also taught HOOT in owl school, because it is the obvious lingua franca of post owls! Yeah… That's right. *Twiddles thumbs and whistles*
A/N: One review made an interesting point. When Harry recovered the horcrux ring, why doesn't he use it to assassinate Dumbledore? When I first read this, my response was, "Agh! Dammit. That's actually a really good question." I then spent a few minutes annoyed at myself for not spotting that possibility. Then I spent several more minutes trying to figure out why I didn't spot it to begin with. That's when I realised something. I didn't spot it because, to Harry, it's not at all obvious.
We've all read the Half Blood Prince. To us, using the ring to kill Dumbledore is a no brainer. But Harry hasn't read Half Blood Prince. He doesn't know exactly what would happen if Dumbles encountered it. He doesn't know the stone is the resurrection stone. And he doesn't know that Dumbledore is obsessed with the deathly hallows. In fact, during Half Blood Prince, we see several assassination attempts by Draco, all of which fail. To Harry, the ring would be like those attempts of Draco's — just one of several hundred possible methods to kill Dumbles, all of which suffer from unknown variables. Also, Harry has no real reason to declare war on anyone right now. At the moment, Harry is becoming stronger and stronger while his opponents either stagnate or ceed him ground. This is also why Harry didn't destroy Dumble's office while he had the chance. He doesn't want Dumble's attention on Lord Slytherin anymore than necessary.
I would also like to point out that Harry has yet to actually kill anyone at all. I'm not saying he wouldn't or won't. It's just not so obvious that he's desperate to bloody his hands as some readers seem to think.
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Platform Nine and 3/4 was a marvel of magical space folding. The enchantments surrounding this icon of the British magical world had to hide, not only the platform, but also the rail track, which snaked out of the station and cut its way straight through a city of eight-million muggles. After it left the city, the rail line had to stay hidden for the entire eight-hundred kilometre journey, all the way to Hogsmeade station. A thin slice of magic, indelibly cutting the country in two.
Muggle repelling charms and standard ruin-illusions would do no good here.
Figuring out a way to hide such a conspicuous tract of wizarding world territory was to be one of the greatest engineering feats of the arithmancy revolution — or rather, that's what the 1827 minister of magic, Ottaline Gambol, told her contractor, Lord Woodson Hawking. To which Lord Hawking deadpanned, "You're havin' a jape, Gambol."
Nevertheless, after nearly twenty years of work, the Noble House of Hawking did crack the problem. The solution was in reverse-expansion charms. Instead of creating more space where there was none, Woodson figured out how to create no space where there was some.
All the way up and down the country, whenever anyone crossed the five metre wide slice of land that contained the Hogwarts Express line, they bent through an undetectable, space-contraction ward, none the wiser of what just happened. New muggleborns on the Hogwarts Express would shriek in fear and delight as motorway cars barrelled straight towards the train, only to disappear mere inches from the track and instantly reappear on the opposite side.
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