Chapter Two: At the Train Station
Harry just arrived thirty minutes before the train would leave the station. Ron and Hermione were standing at the sliding door waiting for him to get aboard.
"What took you so long, Harry?" Hermione asked, her arms folded in front of her. "You almost missed the train."
"Yeah, sorry," Harry replied, sounding apologetic. Hermione would be very disappointed to everyone if it was making on time the issue of the delay. "Ron called and told me that you told him about this new student. But, I'm only five minutes late." He smiled widely. Harry knew his excuses didn't convince Hermione at all. Harry jumped back down to get his trunk and Hedwig's cage.
As he was not looking where he was going, trying to get back and carry his luggage to the train, talking back to Hermione with her rage of him being late ("Only five minutes?!"), he didn't notice someone else went his way and he bumped into a hooded man wearing a plain black tattered robe. His books went flying above them, Harry fell on the ground on his right side, while the other managed to lie on the pavement on his back and his hood still up the head his face was never clear to Harry.
"Are you alright, Harry?" A student from Hogwarts came near Harry and helped him dust off.
"I'm fine," replied Harry groggily he sounded like he just woke up. "It's only a scratch."
Harry was slightly bleeding on his left arm as his shirt sleeve ripped open on the elbow. He could hear the other guy saying sorry. He tried to get near them but André stopped him.
"André," Harry called. "I said I'm alright. I didn't see him coming near me and I wasn't looking."
André belonged to the same Gryffindor House as Harry, Ron and Hermione. He was the kind of person Harry considered the strict and very emotional. He was born in a middle-class family in London, he was given a gift by his rich aunt a car at age eleven and got himself his own chauffeur and two chaperones. But he was a friend to Harry, and Ron. Not that quite to Hermione as he was considered a competitor academically.
"Sorry," the hooded man said again to Harry.
"You don't speak to Harry," André shouted. "It's your fault!"
"No, he didn't mean to do this," Harry explained, now standing up, picking the books and the parchments from the floor and gave them all back to the owner. "Here we go."
As he handed over the things back, the only thing he could hear clearer this time was that André was told not to go to Hogwarts. Harry was alarmed and was shocked. He didn't expect this to be told to André and with the past behaviour he showed at school, Harry assumed what would happen after that. André turned red on the face.
"Tell them I will finish school this year," André shouted, pulling Harry back to the train. "No matter what---"
"But, sir," said the hooded man who called André through his surname. "Mr. Fastenpalm."
"NO! I said no." André gave the hooded man a stare, Harry could tell he was very angry. "Come on, Harry."
"Alright," Harry replied. "You go first, man."
Harry climbed into the train, handed his train ticket to the conductor and looked for the compartment where Ron, Hermione and Neville were seated. He kept looking for a vacant place, until he found one without his friends. Ron and Hermione were inside the compartment with Professor McGonagall whom Harry couldn't shoo away because she was a teacher.
He placed his backpack on an empty seat and he intentionally locked the door, and seated inside sitting alone was André, staring seriously at the train window, without even blinking. Harry sat down and cleared his throat. André jolted.
"There you are," he said to Harry. "I thought I would be here alone for the rest of the journey."
Harry just smiled.
"He's scary you know," André added. "That guy who bumped you---my chaperone."
"Oh," Harry replied. He was about to ask André the name of that guy, when he got interrupted.
"I hope you don't mind," André said abruptly, pointing at the door. "I reckon your red-hair friend would like to join us in." He was gesturing at the door where Harry saw Ron pressing his face at the window breathing so hard the window became foggy. Harry snorted and opened the door.
"André Fastenpalm," Ron said spreading his arms widely trying to get a big hug. But André grabbed his right hand and shook it. Ron cleared his throat from embarassment. Harry smirked. "It's so great to see you."
"Yes," André said, "me, too."
"Hi, Harry," Ron said.
"What?" Harry replied, and suddenly looked away.
"Seats are not taken, I presume," Ron said trying to tell them to offer him a seat. He was standing right in front of them blocking their view from each other.
"Not at all," André said. "You can take this," he added as he took Harry's backpack and put it on the floor. Harry immediately grabbed it.
Ron started talking a lot breaking the silence in the room. He mentioned about them graduating this school year, and that exchange student from Beauxbatons Academy, which apparently not interesting for André to discuss, their memories together for the past six years and complaining about how Draco Malfoy became worst every year. It came to a point where Ron ran out of things to talk when he opened up something that made Harry and André jumped from their seat. Ron squeaked like a girl when he saw stain of blood on Harry's right elbow.
"I'm fine," Harry said sounded complaining. "Don't be such a girly."
"Well, Harry Potter," Ron said imitating Hermione's voice. "I am your friend and I am just worried."
Everyone laughed, and Ron continued, standing up and put his hands on her waist, "You need to be careful all the time, Harry," still sounding like Hermione. Ron kept on joking around telling them random things impersonating Hermione on the way she talked, or gave Harry some scolding at school.
"Harry, you need to take care of yourself and avoid being in trouble or you'll get expelled."
Harry and André couldn't help it but laugh at what Ron was doing, "You need to be this and that, blah blah blah." Then Harry's glance fixed at the door and pulled Ron back to his seat.
"What?" Ron said.
André rolled his eyes. Harry was hiding his face and leaned closer to the window. Ron didn't notice that someone came inside their compartment without them knowing because they were so busy laughing and teasing.
"Blah blah blah what, Ron?"
Ron jumped from his seat and cleared his throat and gave a small laugh back to Harry and André. He was starting to get sweaty on the face and spoke again.
"Hi, Hermione."
Hermione was standing there, her arms folded in front her and snorted back to Ron. "Get yourself ready, we're about to arrive at Hogsmeade."
And Hermione walked away. Harry and André stared at Ron they both looked like they were telling Ron he put himself into trouble.
They all came down with their school robes on. New students for the first year were shaking as they hold hands going out of the train. Harry saw them and he remembered the same experience he had six years ago when a giant hairy man went into their beach house in London and told him he was a wizard.
He could still remember everything Hagrid told him about him being magical and laughed at the sight of Dudley growing a pig's tail when Hagrid punished his cousin for being naughty for eating the whole birthday cake all by himself.
“Oy! A hair compiler!” Ron shouted when he saw Hermione took a hair brush from her bag.
Harry and André snorted. Ron was confused.
“What took you so long?” Hermione complained. “The train's almost empty and I've been looking for you everywhere!”
“I'm sorry, Hermione,” Harry said. “André---”
“André Philippe Fastenpalm,” Hermione said with emphasize on the name. Then, she walked away from them.
Ron and Harry looked at André. There was a bit of conflict between Hermione and André last year during their sixth year. It so happened that André got the highest mark on one of the subjects at school.
Everyone knew that Hermione excelled at almost every subject at school: except Defense Against the Dark Arts since it's always Harry, Herbology was Neville's and one which André went on the lead.
“W-What did I do?” André asked them, wondering. “What just happened?”
“Because of Magickology,” Ron said. “She failed to get the top mark last year because of you. Not only that, when she found out you're a nominee for the year's School Writing---”
“She envied you,” Harry inserted, “a lot.”
“She envied... me.”
Hermione went jealous about André getting the special award at the beginning of term. With his full-grown talent in Magickology, he caught the attention of their Transfiguration teacher, Professor McGonagall, on his essay. He wrote a very impressive one: “The Logic and Theories on Advanced Transfiguration: A Foreground Study at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
"Yes, you wrote that," Harry said pointing a printed copy of last year's school tabloid. "Seven full pages."
"You three!" Someone shouted ahead. "Come on now. Other Gryffindors have been waiting for you outside." It was Seamus Finnigan.
He was wearing a school robe same as the three, Harry, Ron, and André. A small gleaming badge was placed at the right hand side on his collar. With Ron's shock, he ran towards Seamus, his partially shaking index finger was pointing at his classmate's chest.
"You're a prefect now?" Ron asked. "Just when?"
"Seriously?" André added.
Harry nodded, smiling. He already knew last school year that Seamus was given the honor to be the new house prefect for the Gryffindor house.
Seamus shushed them placing his finger at André's mouth. Acting very strict and bossy, he folded his arms in front of him, ("This is unbelievable," whispered Ron) chin up, and raised an eyebrow at them. He shouted, "Five points from Gryffindor!"
"No!" The three boys chorused.