"Harry," I muttered as I watched him drop down onto the grounds on some street called Mongolia Crescent. "We can't just-"
"Margo, can you just stop for two seconds?" He demanded as he pulled open his trunk and started sifting through it.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm trying to find Dad's cloak!" His voice echoed through the night and we both went deadly quiet, in fear that we would be discovered.
My idiot of a brother had just gotten us kicked out of the Dursley's house and what is the first thing he does after breaking the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry? He tries to find the stupid Invisibility Cloak our father used when he was sneaking around Hogwarts when he was our age. And it's a pretty inconvenient plan considering my brother is practically expelled already for using magic outside of school. What. An. Idiot.
I heard something behind me and my brother whipped around, holding his wand out defensively. I quickly bolted out of the way and pulled my wand out as well, shoulder to shoulder with Harry. A second later, a shadow moved and I knew that's what had spooked us. "What is that?" I said under my breath.
"I don't know."
I could hear my brothers heart beating just as loudly as my own and it freaked me out.
Then I saw it. Something was standing in a small gap between a garage and fence that had been behind us. I tried to look closely, but it was way too dark. But I knew that it had to be something out of the ordinary. It sure as heck was not just a stray cat or anything like that. Speaking of cats, Violet was freaking out in my other hand, which gave me a feeling that whatever this was was not normal. "Lumos." My brothers wand illuminates and for a split second, I see it- a dog. A big black scraggly dog and something inside me tells me to chase after it. Because something about this dog seems familiar.
'Save the rat. Kill the dog.'
The voice. The black cloak. It's coming back to me now and for some reason, I know that this is the dog that needs to go. As if controlled by something that wasn't my own conscious, I took a step towards the creatures wide, gleaming eyes. I took another step and then, BANG. Horrified, I fell onto the sidewalk, skidding both of my knees and curling up into a ball, holding my cat to my chest like she was my last hope. I could feel a huge vehicle towering over me, but I refused to open my eyes. Scared that if I did, I would be dead. I had to have been hit. There is no way I could have survived. Then I heard something. Another voice. Another somebody. "Welco- who's screaming?"
"Margo." His voice was quieter and I felt my brothers two hands pulling my arms away from my face and I looked up into his horrified face. "What are you screaming about?" He looked so worried and so very, very confusing.
"I-I don't know." I admit as I got up, stumbling over my own feet as I hugged my cat closer to me, my wand barely in the crook in my arm. My brother grabbed it just before it slipped to the concrete and I turned to stare up at the bus looming over us, with its vibrantly purple tint and all three of its levels. Boldly printed in gold were the words The Knight Bus.
Confused, I turned to look towards the sliding doors, where the conductor stood, barely standing out in his purple uniform next to the triple-decker. "Uh," he sounded like he had completely lost his train of thought, and he looked at the two of us, looking like he was trying to put two and two together and getting five. "W-welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded w-witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to g-go. My name is-"
"Stan Shunpike." I said, surprising even myself. I still wasn't used to that stupid future like power I had.
He stared back at me, horrified, and I stared back as he quickly collected himself. He looked at my brother, his eyes moving slowly up to his forehead. Oh great, we both know this routine. "Woss that on your 'ead?" Stan asked nosely.
"Nothing." My twin quickly smudged his hand over his black hair, flattening his scar. I silently thanked the world or universe- or whoever it was that had picked where my scar was- that my cat was covering my wrist and my own lightning bolt.
"Woss your name?" Stan inquired.
My twin was quick about his response and it was a stupid one at that. "Neville Longbottom."
Stan turned to me. "Hermione Granger." Sure, the two of us hadn't been friends in months, but it was the first name that came to mind. And I was smart enough not to say my own name, going along with Harry's plan.
"How much would it be for us to go to London?" Harry asked finally.
"Eleven sickle for each of you. But its more if you want-"
"We don't need your stupid hot chocolate." I spat before the words were even out of his mouth.
"Uh, okay." Stan looked absolutely horrified, and that satisfied me for reasons I couldn't quite understand.
Harry gave him the money that had once been in our parents vault and we both stepped onto the bus. We were surprised to see no seats, but instead, brass beds lining the space.
"You ave this one." Stan shoved my trunk under one bed and Harry's stuff under the one beside mine. "Ern, this is Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom." He had told the driver, a very old man who I didn't exactly trust to be behind the wheel.
"Okay, take 'er away, Ern." Stan took a seat in an armchair just as the bus sped towards something I couldn't see due to the abrupt speed we had just hit. I held onto my bedpost for dear life and Violet looked absolutely horrified.
After a few minutes, I had started to feel less of the motion sickness I had never felt before in my life and looked up to see Stan reading the Daily Prophet. A photograph of a scraggly, morose looking man stared back at Harry and I from the front cover. He looks familiar.
"That man!" My brother had beat me to it. "He was on the Muggle news!"
I feel like I've seen him somewhere else. I feel like I've met him before. But I can't remember where or why or anything else.
Come on, Margo, you can do better than that, quit being such a failure.
Stan chuckled at my twin. "Sirius Black."
I started talking, my brain not even working with it. "No, it's Sherlock Block." I had blurted it out and the two guys stared back at me.
You're such an idiot, Margo.
"He was on the Muggle news," Stan nodded at Harry and then looked at me, "It's Sirius Black." He corrected as he handed the two of us the page he was on. Harry and I each took one side of the paper and read it in unison. The more I read it, the more I had a thought burning into the back of my head that something felt strangely familiar.
'Listen to rat, kill the dog.' It pounded in my head over and over, in the same voice as the one that had spoken it. Only that didn't make sense. What did a dog have to do with a stupid prisoner who had escaped from Azkaban? What's so bad about Azkaban, anyways? Sure, there's Dementors and what not, but I highly doubt that they're any worse than the pain I already feel in my head on a daily basis.
It's a never ending battle up there and it's killing me.
