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Harry Potter and the Junior Year Abroad
Greetings and Farewells
By Ishtar
Chapter Fourteen
Greetings and Farewells
Harry never remembered the trip back from Avalon to Diagon Alley; the next thing he knew, he was sitting in Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlour with Hermione determinedly pushing a spoonful of Double Double Chocolate ice cream between his lips. "Snap out of it, Harry," she was saying with some irritation. "Remus is always going on about chocolate being so good for you, it had better work now."
"Okay, okay," he said. "Sorry, I just… how did we get here?"
"You've only been moving like a zombie for the last half an hour. Did that witch do something to you? Do we have to take you to an exorcist?"
"Uh, no, I don't think so. I just got overwhelmed a little. It was worse than the day with all the Weasleys. I'm okay now. Thanks for the ice cream." He took the spoon and started feeding himself. It did make him feel better. Hermione was dubious, but let it pass. By unspoken agreement, they would not discuss what had happened in Avalon until they returned to the safety of the Burrow.
Once they had returned home, Mrs. Weasley busied herself with fixing everybody a light dinner, which Harry understood was her way of dealing with things. He plumped himself down in one of the overstuffed armchairs in the parlour. "Okay. That was one hell of a set of revelations. How soon do you want me to move out?"
"What are you talking about? You're not going anywhere," said Mr. Weasley.
"You heard what Constance said. There's some of Voldemort in me. You can't want me to stay."
"You're overreacting, Harry," said Hermione. "She didn't tell us anything we didn't know already. She told us that Voldemort gave you something. That he marked you. We've known that since second year."
"But if even Ron wonders if it'll make me evil… and if this means I really am the Heir of Slytherin …"
"You know me," said Ron. "Open mouth, insert foot, wiggle toes. No, if you were going to be evil, I think it would have shown by now, especially this last year. I was a little bothered, though, about that thing Constance said … about power. It sounded like you were both quoting something."
"It was something Voldemort said to me when he was still riding around on Quirrell's head. 'There is no good and evil, only power and those too weak to use it.' At the time, he was trying to talk me into joining him, and I thought it was his motto or something. If Constance knew it, too, it was probably a Slytherin saying."
"It's not all that different, really, from one of Albus's favourite sayings," said Mr. Weasley. "You know the one that says it's not our abilities that show what we are, but our choices."
"He told me that when we found out about the Parseltongue," said Harry.
"So maybe this birthright thing will help. If Constance was correct that Voldemort hasn't accepted it, maybe that's the 'power he knows not,'" Hermione said.
"Maybe it is. And maybe she was wrong that he hasn't accepted it. None of the spirits we met seemed to be exactly up on what's been going on in the real world."
"True enough," sighed Mr. Weasley. "But there's no point in fretting about it until you turn seventeen and can go and find out. There's still a long way to go until then. In the meantime, there's dinner and then I think bed for Harry, with a dose of Dreamless Sleep potion. A day like today will be bound to set off one of those nightmares, otherwise."
Harry couldn't argue with that.
0o0o0o0o0o0
The last week of August slipped away so rapidly that Harry couldn't grasp it; his concerns about nebulous legacies were displaced by the frenzy of packing and repacking, convinced he'd forgotten something important, changing his mind about which books he'd take with him to read on the plane, and so on. Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were in the throes of their own last-minute packing for school, so the house was in an uproar for a good four solid days. Mrs. Weasley insisted on sending a huge bundle of dried chamomile and lemon verbena herbal tea, with instructions that Harry was to drink a cup of tea with honey every night before bedtime, without fail. Harry had the nasty feeling he was going to be finding Ron's things in his trunk, and vice versa, but it couldn't be helped.
The exchange group was leaving from Heathrow Airport on Saturday morning, August 31. This meant they had to be at the Leaky Cauldron to take a bus to the airport sometime roughly around dawn. And this, in turn, meant that they either had to get up in the wee hours of the night to Floo into London, or just get there the night before and stay over. Harry and the Weasleys had decided to do the latter. They had taken rooms for two nights since Ron, Ginny and Hermione would be leaving on the train for Hogwarts the next day.
Friday afternoon, before they left for London, and after a last check of everybody's trunks, Harry brought out a stack of small packages, all carefully wrapped.
"What is this, Christmas?" asked Ron.
"These are for you all. Because you've been so wonderful to me, and until now I haven't been able to do anything for you." He started distributing packages busily, enjoying the feel, for once, of being able to give something to someone else. For Ron and Hermione there were two identical square packages, each containing a brown leather-covered journal with "A Message from Harry" written on the cover in gold letters. "I got a couple of sets of those pink ones and had them change the covers," Harry explained. "I've got the matching ones in my trunk. So you can just write me a message and I can write back and it will be a lot faster than owls."
"You didn't get me one?" Ginny asked mournfully.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know you'd want one. While we're at the Leaky, I'll run down to the stationers and get another set, okay?"
"Ooh, thank you!" she almost squeaked. "Now what's this?" She opened her own little box, pulling out a silver chain with a silver unicorn pendant. "Oh, it's lovely!"
Hermione pulled a silver phoenix pendant, with a carnelian teardrop, out of her box, and Ron gasped at the gold dragon on a twisted rope chain that was in his. Mrs. Weasley teared up at the moonstone pendant carved into a beautiful woman's face, and Fred and George both beamed as they received gold key rings with oval cabochons, malachite for Fred and tiger's eye for George. Harry kept the boxes for Mr. Weasley and Bill aside, since they'd be meeting them in London, and gave Mrs. Weasley a box for Charlie, to be passed on whenever he came home again.
"As long as we're doing presents now," said Hermione, "I got these for you." Harry started to open what was obviously a book — it was wrapped in the distinctive paper of a Muggle bookstore chain that had a branch in Ottery St. Catchpole — but she stopped him. "No, no, open that one later. When you're, um, alone." Harry raised an eyebrow at her, and she blushed furiously while he tucked it into his carry-bag. "The other one you can open now."
The small box contained the silver Aesculapius coin that Harry had found at the tree planting, now with a silver ring through the hole above the god's head, hanging on a silver Greek key patterned chain. "I thought you could wear this, for luck. And who knows, maybe it will bring you the right kind of dreams."
"I won't take it off until I come back home again," Harry promised solemnly as she clasped the chain around his neck. "Ow! What was that?" he cried as magic flared under Hermione's fingers.
"I don't know but it stung me, too… wait, where'd the clasp go?" The chain was now linked all the way around Harry's neck, with no sign of the lobster-claw clasp. "Did you do that?"
"No, I thought you did that."
"Well, I guess somebody wants to make sure you wear it," said Mrs. Weasley. "There doesn't seem to be anything dark about it, though. When we get to the Leaky, Arthur can take a look at it. It is his field of expertise, after all. Does everybody have everything? Four trunks, two owls, one cat? Off we go then …"
The fireplace at the Leaky Cauldron was seeing a lot of traffic, judging by the number of sooty footprints all over the hearth. Old Tom had even laid out a welcome mat so the soot and ash didn't get tracked out into the main room. Harry checked out the crowd in the taproom as Mrs. Weasley checked them all in; Fred and George commandeered his trunk and shoved him off toward what he presumed was a gathering of other exchange students. He saw Susan Bones and Lavender Brown sitting at one end of the long table, and waved at them. They both waved back, and Lavender motioned for him to come sit by her. That answered the question of who his Gryffindor traveling companion was going to be; he would really have preferred Parvati, but Lavender wouldn't be too bad, if he could convince her that this didn't mean he was going to be her boyfriend or something. But from the look in her eyes, she was going to take some convincing. Oh, well… He didn't see any of the Ravenclaw contingent yet, or Susan's Hufflepuff counterpart, but two Slytherins were here. At least it wasn't Malfoy. He didn't know Blaise Zabini well; the darkly handsome boy was not part of Malfoy's usual set, and was usually competent but quiet in the two classes they took together. Seated next to Zabini was Daphne Greengrass, presumably the female representative of Slytherin House and also, presumably, Blaise's girlfriend, judging by the clasped hands on the table. Blaise looked up with an unspoken question as Harry passed, and he nodded courteously in reply.
"Well, that answers that," Blaise murmured quietly to Daphne. "They wouldn't have laid this little jaunt on for anyone else. I guess we're just along for the ride."
"Maybe, maybe not," replied Daphne. "I doubt we were picked by accident, either. We're both pretty isolated by Malfoy's crowd. Remember what the Sorting Hat's said the last two years? Maybe we can use this trip to find some common ground with the others."
"It's worth a try. Anybody Malfoy hates can't be all bad."
Across the room, Ron and Hermione came down from stashing their trunks and owl cages in their rooms, and looked at the gathering at the end of the table. Lavender was dragging Harry down to sit next to her, and Susan was turned towards the pair with a smile on her face. Even Zabini leaned forward to offer a friendly greeting, and Harry replied with an uncertain smile. "It's happening already," Ron said quietly, with unhappiness in his voice. "He's not going to be part of Us anymore. He'll be part of Them for the next year."
"I know, Ron. We knew it was going to happen, but I didn't expect it to happen so fast."
Harry looked up and met her eyes, seeing the sadness there. He suddenly became aware of the expanse of table between them, jumped up and beckoned them over to join the group. He snagged a waiter in passing, and soon the entire Hogwarts crew, Ginny and Daphne's younger brother included, were merrily chatting away over bottles of butterbeer and big bowls of crisps. Even Fred and George got into it, for all they were at least two years older than the rest of the group; and when Justin Finch-Fletchley, Mandy Brocklehurst, and Michael Corner finally showed up, the party was in full swing. The assorted parents, guardians, and other adults sat back and smiled indulgently, letting the young ones cut loose one last time before school started.
At one point, Harry made a dash into Diagon Alley to pick up the message book he'd promised Ginny, even if it did have to be the embarrassing pink version, but the few who noticed that he was missing quite forgave him when they noticed he'd been to the sweet shop as well, and was freely distributing his largesse. Fred and George managed to slip some of their specialties into the pile of sweets, however, which resulted in Susan abruptly turning into a canary, and a moment later, Harry blowing multicoloured bubbles out of his mouth whenever he spoke. The canary chirped irately and looked accusingly at Harry. He shrugged, pointed at Fred and George, and said, "Don't look at me. This is all their fault," in a stream of lime-coloured bubbles.
"Harry, dear brother, you wound us," said Fred.
"Would we do something like this?" asked George.
"YES!" shouted and chirped everyone at the table in unison.
"Ah, our adoring public," Fred and George responded. "How well they know us." A few moments later, with a puff of yellow feathers, Susan returned to normal, but by that time Daphne had gotten something that turned her hair bright purple, and everybody was trying to find the joke candies and sneak them into other people's assortments. Someone managed to slip George one of his own sweets, and even he admitted it was a good joke, once he was no longer a canary. It was later agreed by all and sundry that the party would not have been nearly as good without the Weasleys.
Earlier than the young people would have liked, but far later than was probably good for them, the adults broke up the celebration and chivvied the children off to their various rooms. Harry was sharing with Ron, Fred, and George, so the party in that room continued rather later, with assorted giggles, guffaws and bangs coming from behind their door until well after midnight.
They regretted it at five the next morning, when Mrs. Weasley, with an evil grin, rousted the four of them out and down to the taproom for breakfast. At a quarter of six, as they were finishing their porridge, a short, round witch in Muggle clothes climbed on a chair and whistled through her fingers to get everybody's attention. "All right, you lot, it's time to get moving! For those of you who don't know me, I'm Emma Broomfield-Hill, and I'm the Muggle Studies Professor at Hogwarts. My husband, Kenneth Hill, and I will be your chaperones for the next year. Wave so everyone can see you, Kenneth." Mr. Hill stood and waved cheerily, and Harry stifled a snort. Mr. Hill had to be a foot and a half taller than his wife, and probably didn't weigh as much; he was wearing a blue jacket over bright yellow shirt and red tie, and for a moment Harry thought he exemplified the worst of Wizards trying to emulate Muggle fashions, but Professor Broomfield-Hill continued, "My husband is a Muggle, but has equal authority with me over the lot of you, so if you just pretend he can hex your socks off, you'll do fine. And yes, he always dresses that way. He'll be good cover for the rest of you. I see most of you have done a good job of camouflage, but we'll be checking details on clothing and trunks before we board the bus. I want you all to understand that we'll be making sure your behaviour is up to Hogwarts standards. You are young ladies and gentlemen, and there will be no hanky-panky of the sort that could reflect badly on yourselves or your school, is that clear? Let me hear a Yes, Professor, that way I'll at least know you're awake."
"Yes, Professor," they chorused dutifully.
"Good. Now, I also want it understood that if any of you have a problem, of any sort, and you need adult help to straighten it out, you should feel free to come to myself or to Mr. Hill as needed. Boys, my husband teaches physical education at a Muggle school, you'll find him very knowledgeable about the sorts of difficulties young men get into; girls, you'll come to me for the girl stuff. Are we clear on that?"
"Yes, Professor."
"Fine, then. Now, I'm going to call your names one by one, and you'll bring your trunks up to the front of the room here; Mr. Arthur Weasley of the Ministry for Magic has kindly agreed to help check your belongings and your clothing to make sure they are consistent with Muggle standards so that you will not excite comment as we travel. Here, we only have to worry about getting through London and environs to the airport; once on the plane, you will be in a safe area again. Once we land in Chicago, you will have to get through Muggle Customs and then we will take a completely Muggle airlines flight to Minneapolis, then a long bus ride to the school. You will be exhausted at the end of it, but please do try to stay on your toes until we are all safe at the Nokomis Institute. Each of you must be able to rely on all the others; if one of you causes a problem, it will be a problem for the whole group. I realize that this may be the first time some of you have travelled extensively in the Muggle world, and I hope those of you who are Muggle-born or half-bloods will assist those who have less experience with Muggle ways." She consulted a list of names on a clipboard. "Susan Bones! Bring your trunk up here, dear, now let's have a look at you…"
Susan grabbed a last piece of toast and dragged her trunk to the front of the room, blushing furiously to find herself the object of attention. Professor Broomfield-Hill looked over her clothing critically while Mr. Weasley opened her trunk. Her clothing was pronounced marginally acceptable, while Mr. Weasley performed a quick Wizzywig to disguise her school supplies. Mandy Brocklehurst was from a pureblood family, but being Ravenclaw, had done her research and had done a good job of disguising both herself and her supplies, and Lavender Brown, being the half-blood daughter of a Wizard and a Muggle, and brought up in the Muggle world, was unremarkable. She had even managed to get all her books into a Muggle carry-on which her father had enchanted in the same way as Harry's trunk, and all her clothes were in a huge duffelbag which didn't need any disguising at all. Michael Corner also came from a thoroughly mixed family, and passed for a Muggle quite nicely, and of course the Muggle-born Justin Finch-Fletchley had no difficulties. Daphne Greengrass needed a Wizzywig and some wardrobe adjustments, and of course Harry had the best disguise of all — real Muggle books and clothing in the fifth compartment of his trunk, the other four keyholes being hidden by a modest Wizzywig. With Blaise Zabini, however, they ran into real trouble. A member of one of the oldest pureblood families, he had never been abroad in the Muggle world at all, and had no idea what they wore or didn't wear. Even on casual weekends at Hogwarts, he wore traditional robes. While the contents of his trunk were easily hidden, he had no suitable clothing for the trip, and Mr. Weasley was not confident that a simple Wizzywig would hold until he was safely in Minnesota — the more people looked at it, the weaker it would get, given the extreme nature of the change in Blaise's appearance that would be required. Finally, though, a solution was discovered, when Susan Bones diffidently pointed out that Zabini and Harry were of almost the same size and build. Professor Broomfield-Hill rather hesitantly asked if Harry would be willing to loan Zabini some of his clothes, just for the trip over.
"Of course, Professor," said Harry, keying open the wardrobe section of his trunk. "Here we go … underwear, that's never been worn, so don't worry, socks, um, jeans … what colour t-shirt would you like? What about shoes?" Zabini was wearing short suede boots, the traditional footwear with robes, and those would do well enough since Harry's shoes were not the right size. The boys gathered up the chosen clothing and adjourned to Harry's room upstairs.
Harry explained the unfamiliar clothing to Zabini and helped him where necessary, resulting in the other boy becoming absolutely mortified by his ignorance of even simple things like underwear. "Don't mind it," said Harry. "I remember the first time I wore robes — it felt like I was going about in my bathrobe all the time. It feels weird to be wearing strange things at first, but you get used to it. You look good, anyway. Hell, you look better in my clothes than I do. That's not fair."
"Oh, I don't know. I think we both look about the same," said Zabini.
"Really?"
"Really. Look in the mirror. See? My hair's better, of course. But you have better eyes. There's not much difference otherwise, and I know I look damn good so you look damn good, too. Ask Brown, I'm sure she'd be willing to give you an … unbiased opinion."
"I'm the right gender, that's all it takes for Lavender," said Harry. It was making him feel odd to be looking at Zabini and himself standing so close, so he stepped away and bundled the other boy's robes up. "Let's get back down before they get impatient and leave without us."
"Potter. Before we go down … I'd just like to say thanks. I know Slytherin House hasn't treated you well over the years, and you've got no cause to be kind to me, so I appreciate your willingness to help. I'm hoping we can make a new start." He extended his hand.
Harry looked at the young dark-haired man and remembered another Slytherin with his hand extended, and what had come of it when Harry turned away. Impulsively, he reached out and clasped Zabini's hand. "Call me Harry."
"Much better," said the Professor a few moments later. "We'll have to get you some things of your own at the other end, Mr. Zabini, but this will get you there, at least. Thank you very much, Mr. Potter."
"Glad to help."
"Are we all ready now? The bus is here, we have all our luggage checked … everyone have your passports and travel documents? Zabini?"
"Got them," he said, waving them in the air for proof. Given the clothing debacle, he was very pleased that he'd at least gotten the documentation part right — thanks to his father's friends at the Ministry.
"All right, then, last goodbyes to family. I want everyone out by the bus in five minutes!"
There was a flurry of good byes, hugs and kisses in the Cauldron, and more on the sidewalk out in front as the luggage was stuffed in the rear of an ancient rental bus, and one by one they boarded. Harry got in one last hug to Ron, reminding him to give Ginny the message book Harry had left in their room, and then whispered in his ear, just before he boarded the bus, "Oh, and you were right … it should be the national sport!" With a grin, he climbed on board.
"Hey, wait!" called Ron. "You can't just say something like that and leave! Harry!"
Harry waved at him from the window of the bus, and then the doors closed, and they were off, into the sleepy dawn traffic.
"What did he say, Ron?" asked Hermione.
"Huh? Oh, nothing … just a private joke." He shook his head as the taillights of the bus vanished from view. "You dog, you," he muttered, shaking his head. "Safe journey."