The numerous owners of ginger heads actively bustled around King's Cross station, but no one from the Weasley family could find either Harry or Hermione. Molly was worried, the children—not so much, they just searched since they were told to, though it's unlikely any of them could have clearly answered the question of why they should do this in waiting rooms and at the exit to Muggle trains. Perhaps only Ron, hopping back and forth through the passage to the magical platform, could have justified his actions by the fact that last year's situation might repeat: Harry didn't get through the barrier... Another question is, why then look for him on the other side?..
"You'd better look on the train," their father advised when they all finally stopped near the passage to the Muggle side of the platform. "Most likely they've been there for a long time."
"But how... Who will deliver them, they're all Muggles?!"
"Molly, dear, you forgot again who Potter's current mentor is? The headmaster confirmed. I think Harry could just as easily end up at Hogwarts. And Hermione... somehow she got through completely independently back in first year. And Harry's not in his first year of study. Most likely Snape simply Apparated him directly to the platform—so that on one hand, he wouldn't spoil him, and on the other—wouldn't expose him to danger. He's not a fool..."
"Snape... yes, definitely not a fool," the mother of the family confirmed with a sigh. "I still can't understand why Dumbledore suddenly made such a strange decision?!"
In the general bustle on the platform, Mr. Weasley took his youngest son aside a bit to still tell him about who Sirius Black was and what threat his escape posed for Harry. Ron explained surprisingly calmly to his father that they'd both already heard all this, but at this time the train screeched, and the boy had to jump into his carriage almost on the move. Fortunately, his brothers had already dragged all the luggage there.
***
Fred and George shoved things into an almost empty compartment where at the window dozed a single adult passenger of the train, leaning on the table. They were surprised, of course, but "Professor R. J. Lupin," as Ginny, who came in after her brothers, read on the shabby suitcase, didn't react at all.
"Look how soundly he's sleeping."
"Maybe he put up a silencing barrier?"
"Ah, probably. Well, excellent, let's settle here. Should have gotten on earlier, now there aren't any free compartments."
"And all because of Mum, 'where's Harry, where's Harry'! I bet he managed to settle in properly. Wonder if he's traveling alone or with someone? Maybe with Granger?"
"Then there's only two of them in the compartment."
"Need to squeeze in! Let's go, let's look."
"And where's Ronniekins, why did his father detain him?"
"He'll come, where will he go."
Soon disheveled Ron tumbled into the compartment, and his brothers immediately recruited him to go look for his best friend. Ginny also jumped up, but...
"Little sister, better guard the things. That... professor is strange after all."
"Who am I to you, a guard dog? Guard them yourself. And what could you have there anyway?"
"You see, what if they're there with Hermione... you might embarrass them."
"How can you?.. What..." the blushing girl sank onto the seat, not finding words—her legs simply gave out. And the nasty brothers, satisfied that they'd gotten rid of their sister who always strained them with her emotions, had already jumped out and put some charms on the door. And what could she, a second-year who her mother didn't even trust to wash dishes with spells? Only cry...
***
The Weasley brothers combed through the entire train for two hours. Of course, they would have managed faster, but they often got distracted chatting with acquaintances. The brothers didn't find Harry or Hermione in any of the open compartments, but discovered several locked doors in each of the carriages. The twins smiled meaningfully.
"Maybe they were delivered directly to school?" Ron suggested.
"Yeah, Professor Snape."
"Direct delivery of your cargo..."
"To the cold terrible Slytherin dungeons!" George howled in a sepulchral voice.
"How could you wish such a fate..."
"On your best friend?"
The train lurched, and Ron fell against a locked door, behind which something rustled, and then someone sneezed loudly. The twins for no reason started loudly pounding on the locked door, which clinked with something metallic, opened, and... on the threshold stood sleepy Harry and Hermione.
"O-o-oh," the twins howled in unison.
"O-a-u," the compartment's occupants answered just as harmoniously with a synchronized yawn, settling on their benches. "Hi. So are you coming in or what?"
"Is it o-okay?"
"Why wouldn't it be?" Harry wrinkled his brow in bewilderment, and Hermione was altogether occupied: suppressing another yawn. And then she didn't react at all.
"Together, so you slept?" Fred began.
"And would have continued with plea-auo!-sure if you hadn't woken us," Harry answered, rubbing his face with the left temple piece of his glasses imprinted on it. "Sit down then. How much time has passed?"
Hermione just as indifferently nodded to the guys and looked at her watch.
"Slept almost three hours, no-ormal..."
The twins exchanged glances and grimaced: it seems their new cool teasing simply won't be understood here. Still kids.
"What were you doing at night then, huh?"
"Where did you disappear to yesterday?"
"Mum couldn't find peace! How could you?!"
The gingers attacked the kids simultaneously, but didn't embarrass them in the slightest.
"If you really want to know something, ask one at a time. And if not, then we also have a whole wagon and a small cart of questions for you."
"What kind?" the twins asked in chorus, momentarily forgetting their favorite communication style.
"Yesterday it turned out that about Egypt..."
"Harry knows way better than us!"
"And don't you know anything about proper clothing either?" Hermione used the first question from her notebook.
"What does 'proper clothing' mean?"
Harry sighed heavily. But Hermione began the story, and in her performance it sounded like an amazing discovery. Long and detailed. And then slightly tedious—she knew how to do this. Details were, one might say, her forte.
All three ginger boys just goggled their eyes.
"You really didn't know anything about this?" Harry asked.
"Well somehow..." Ron spread his hands, and the twins silently shrugged their shoulders. "Whatever Mum put at home, that's what I wore. Did I pay attention? What for?"
For another ten minutes clever Hermione either got indignant or explained "what for," until her explanations reached the addressees. It seemed to Harry that the twins understood everything quite quickly, but Ron was slow beyond childish. He really is so strange. And in general, they supposedly wanted to "probe" him... So as soon as his friend finished her speech, Harry asked if any of them knew about the Eye of Horus. The twins turned out to be in the know, and even the younger brother listened to them with great interest.
Then Hermione inquired whether it was true that in Egypt they sold magic wands made from hippopotamus bone or ivory, and whether they'd tried to at least hold them. And in response to a small storm about how their income didn't allow it, she asked in surprise:
"So what? Who would force you to buy? Trying and choosing is free after all!"
The twins looked at the girl with respect for the first time. Why didn't this occur to them? Got completely fixated on their own poverty or what? But it's really true...
Then came Egyptian Astrological tables, sacred numbers of the Egyptians, Bastet and Osiris... And the Weasley brothers' heads spun, though the twins were very interested in amulets. Poor Ron only felt that he was beginning to gradually fall out of reality.
"These are very ancient and terrible things. And incredibly powerful magic!" he heard through his half-sleep and suddenly perked up.
"That's all Dark magic! This abomination has long been forbidden!" he exclaimed with hostility.
Harry looked expressively at his friend.
"What exactly did you mean?" she asked.
"That all ancient Egyptian magic is dark!"
"And why?"
"Because!"
"More details, Ron. For us completely stupid ones," Harry smirked.
Hermione bit her lip to keep from laughing.
"Almost everything there is based on blood—amulets, charm activation, I'm not even talking about runes! And also all sorts of sacrifices!"
"And in Gringotts, when we open an account and vault, that's also a sacrifice then?"
"We don't have vaults in..."
"Mrs. Weasley went there in front of me," the girl didn't let him finish. "When they exchanged money for me last year."
"Don't have now—so later it'll appear, what, you won't open one when you get rich?" Harry clapped his friend on the shoulder.
He absolutely didn't want to argue with this, but Ron felt his head spinning... Harry and Hermione darted to him simultaneously, and a second later he howled in pain and sat up, rubbing his upper lip.
"What are you doing?! That hurts!"
"You were all white, I thought you'd faint."
"There's such a special point to make a person come to quickly, it's right here," Hermione explained, showing it under her own nose. "Very painful."
"Like-like? Let's try," the twins got interested, and soon the compartment was filled with two more howls.
"Damn, it works! Where did you..."
"I'm the daughter of Muggle doctors, forgot?"
After a small excursion into the history of the working days of Muggle dentists, during which all the Weasleys almost continuously cringed, mentally promising themselves never to tease Granger again, Ron plaintively requested:
"Harry, tell us something, huh?"
Harry, inspired by the brothers' reaction to medical horrors, decided to continue the horror theme and introduce his listeners to... "It." Using, of course, his talent for storytelling that manifested over the summer, vividly describing characters, raising and lowering his voice, and sometimes generally switching to an ominous whisper. The brothers were moved quickly.
Hermione wasn't particularly impressed: first, she'd already watched this movie, and second, now she was more occupied with observing the neighbors, primarily Ron.
Shortly before the very end the story was interrupted: the compartment door slid aside, and Harry's main nemesis appeared on the threshold—Draco Malfoy, naturally, with his bodyguard friends. But after "It," the maliciously squinting blondish face was not at all the phenomenon that could tense the compartment's passengers. Quite the opposite: the Weasleys rejoiced and relaxed, and in Hermione's eyes flashed an unexpectedly predatory gleam, though only Harry could notice and appreciate it.
"You, Malfoy, are just what I need..." the girl drawled.
"Me?!"
Malfoy's cognitive dissonance provided considerable pleasure to some of those present. And not only the Prince of Slytherin was shocked: Crabbe and Goyle goggled their eyes at the girl and the surprisingly friendly-looking Weasleys and Potter no less.
"Well yes, you, what's unclear?" Hermione was already armed with a notebook and pencil. "Book titles where you can read about blood purity, can you remember?"
Malfoy, expecting such a question least of all, nearly lost the power of speech again.
"Trying to figure out why a Mudblood needs this knowledge?" the girl finished him off. "If someone calls you, for example, a schizothymic, you'll be offended, possibly get revenge, but you'll try to find out what to revenge for, right? What if it's actually praise? So I want to."
"Why do you need it?" Malfoy squeezed out, having completely forgotten why he came to Potter.
"To understand how this world is arranged, Malfoy. If some part of it is unknown to me—that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And your reaction to me clearly says that there's far more than one dog buried here..."
"What, to the drakkles, dog... Why me specifically?"
"Because you're smart, not some idiot, I see your grades in the rankings. And I. Want. To find out, finally, what's what! Should I know what the word they call me actually means?"
"Rea-ally? Alright, Granger. I'll order a couple of books for your enlightenment, so be it," Draco finally thawed and even remembered his position and manners.
"And if it doesn't trouble you, Malfoy, also etiquette."
"You owe me..."
"We'll settle up, don't doubt..."
"What's a schizothymic?" involuntarily slipped from his tongue.
"Should I order you a book on personality typology?" Potter interjected.
"What's that? Muggle?" Malfoy wrinkled his nose.
But Harry had already turned around, describing in literally a few phrases different temperaments and also what could be expected from people possessing them. Draco was amazed: the picture, thanks to the comments, was forming amazingly. And he knew some people... And Father... This will be useful!
"Where did you get such a thing, Potter?"
"From a book on psychology."
"Order that one for me."
"Word. Will we be even?"
***
"What was that?" Draco asked the wall of the carriage cordially when they left the compartment.
"Smart Potter," Goyle stated behind his back.
"Possible vassalage of a strong Muggleborn or acquired witch," Crabbe added. "But I'd also look at the family trees in your place. Dagworth-Grangers, in particular."
Draco turned sharply and looked at his bodyguards in shock.
"And it didn't even occur to me... Why were you pretending to be fools?"
"It's not proper for vassals. And you didn't ask."
"Well, Dad... I'll show you... Why don't I know anything?!"
***
And in the compartment at this time Ron finally took the floor. Since he promised his father, he still needed to pass on to Harry what he said. While they discussed Black, about whom Harry showed amazing calm, if not even disdain, surprising even Hermione who was about to inconspicuously poke her friend, they heard a quiet whistle.
"Sneakoscope?" Harry tensed up. The Weasley brothers spun their heads.
The train gradually slowed down until it stopped, and outside the window it darkened. The whistle became louder.
Ron pressed against the window, moving Harry aside, and they saw how throughout the entire train, stopped on a turn, the lights went out. And they also noticed some figures approaching the train directly through the air.
"What the hell is that?" escaped from Harry.
That this was really hell, not promising anything good, was somehow self-evident.
And here the Weasley brothers finally remembered that they'd left their sister all alone with some unfamiliar man, even if a professor. The first to come to, strangely enough, was Ron and immediately voiced his concerns.
"Ron! How could you! Quickly to Ginny!" Harry exclaimed, jumping up in place, but for some reason didn't run anywhere himself.
"And... you?" Ron was somehow confused.
"What about me?" Harry asked in surprise. "Whose sister is it, eh?"
"You're not going?"
"Already went once, thanks..."
Ron understood nothing, but rushed off immediately after his brothers: the twins didn't waste time on conversations and evaporated from the compartment.
Cold pulled from the corridor. Harry's hand reached for the door to close it, but it slid aside by itself, and from behind it appeared a strange figure in a black cloak whose face was hidden by a hood. Harry shoved his friend behind his back with one movement. Frosty patterns ran across the door, and the kids were hit with cold and terrible fear. Harry heard a distant piercing scream, saw a green flash and...
"Nazgûl..." Hermione whispered near his ear.
The beating of her heart echoed in his ears, and the girl's warmth behind his back seemed very-very important.
"It doesn't wheeze," Harry answered her for some reason. "Not a Nazgûl."
And the terrible creature was already reaching toward them with a disgusting slimy paw. Harry felt disgust looking at the scabs and dirt, nausea rose to his throat, but he managed to be surprised why it didn't stink, and...
"Scourgify," Hermione whispered, extending her hand with her wand.
The scabs became much fewer, the vile slime disappeared, and the creature froze as if rooted to the spot, bringing its limb to its face (or whatever was there under the hood). Apparently examining it.
The fear that had initially piled on turned out to be too strong to last long. And so it was replaced by what had driven Harry for the last two months: curiosity.
"Bones would be nicer, they're clean," he mused thoughtfully.
His friend noisily drew in air instead of answering.
"But you cleaned it well... What kind of beast are you?" Harry addressed the hole under the hood.
The boy began to peer into the place where the face should be. What, hadn't he seen scary mugs? Such things run through his brain... But the creature stopped examining its hand and again reached toward them. With the other. Even more disgusting.
"Scourgify... maxima!" the children roared with all their might.
The disgusting, obviously rotting flesh disappeared from the hand, exposing yellowish bones.
"Oh, this is already more hygienic," Hermione produced, causing her friend a nervous chuckle.
And then... The bones, not supported by ligaments, began to crumble with a quiet rustle, and the creature barely managed to catch them with its other hand, still whole for now.
"Scourgify ma..." the children together pointed their wands at the uninvited and scary visitor.
A piercing screech transitioning to ultrasound—and the black figure, pressing its hands to its chest, darted away from the carriage.
"And patch your cloak!" Harry yelled after it, forgetting even to be surprised at himself.
There was a pop, the lights came on in the train as if nothing had happened. A warm breeze from nowhere stroked their cheeks.
"Look..."
Harry lowered his eyes. A scrap of black cloak lay right near his foot. He poked it with his toe. Nothing.
"What an abomination..." Hermione whispered.
Slightly different words were on the tip of Harry's tongue. Many different words, he'd heard them at Mungo's... But there was a girl nearby, and so he went through them mentally, though for some reason he really wanted to say them aloud.
His friend looked at him attentively.
"Want to swear?"
He nodded, not surprised by her intuition. What was there to guess?
"Me too," she sighed. "Only I don't know how. Will you teach me?"
And Harry finally let himself go...
His friend also repeated some words, the most decent ones...
"And I don't know the rest."
"You don't need to," Harry sighed. The prickly lump inside was gradually melting.
"Look at that, it really did get easier!"
Harry bent down, picked up the piece of black fabric, looked at it attentively and shoved it in his pocket.
"Why do you need this filth?" his friend wrinkled her nose.
"Who knows... in potions, you know, how much all sorts of crap is used? And this is most likely a rather rare thing."
When the compartment door slid aside again, they flinched and prepared their wands together.
"How are you?" asked four gingers.
"As you see. Alive."
"Normal."
Behind the four Weasleys stood some tall adult man, pale, shaved to blueness, and was holding out to them... a chocolate bar.
"Professor Lupin," he introduced himself. "Eat, chocolate helps well after such meetings."
"Who was that?" Harry asked, forgetting about politeness.
"Hermione Granger, sir. Thank you," the girl took a piece, broke it in half and held it out to Harry, who continued to look at the professor.
"Harry Potter," he said almost automatically, taking the chocolate. "So what was it?"
"May I sit down?"
"Of course," Potter moved over, shoving the chocolate in his mouth.
Following the teacher, Ron settled on the bench. He was pale to such an extent that the freckles on his face seemed quite dark.
"Guys," the man addressed the twins, "hand out around the carriage, please, it won't trouble you, will it? Many feel bad," and held out two more chocolate bars to the twins.
They nodded and went to the neighboring compartment. When they opened the door, someone squealed there.
"Knock first! Everyone's frightened enough as it is!" Professor Lupin leaned out into the corridor.
***
And then Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny, crunching chocolate with pleasure, listened to a small but capacious mini-lecture about Dementors. For some reason during it the professor kept asking what they felt, looking especially attentively at Harry. But something stopped the kids from telling about what happened in their compartment. Maybe because the teacher didn't answer all their questions?
When the professor went to his place, and after him left the somehow offended Ginny, Ron started a conversation about Hogsmeade. Harry, trying to look sufficiently sad, informed his friend that this year he wouldn't see Hogsmeade because no one signed permission for him. Ron started to get indignant, but his friend didn't support him, and Hermione turned their conversation to choosing subjects.
"Ron, this is very important! Haven't you even thought about it? Harry's already chosen..."
When Potter listed what courses he was going to attend, the ginger nearly lost the power of speech.
"Runes? That's just mind-breaking! Harry, mate, why?!"
"Because I want to know exactly what they'll embroider on my cloak, for example."
"What? Ah..." Ron lifted his slightly frayed hem and began to examine it attentively.
"Found it!" he soon exclaimed joyfully. "I have some too."
"But I didn't have anything for two years," Hermione pronounced with emphasis.
"Well, you're Muggleborn..."
"So what, I don't need protection in your opinion?"
Ron goggled his eyes: it finally reached him.
"You need it, of course... Even... Even more than others!"
"Won't you enlighten me why no one told me about this? I have no questions for you personally, but for example, Mrs. Weasley... Couldn't she advise me anything?"
"I don't know. I'll write to her and ask, okay?"
"No need, Ron, please. I'd rather ask myself, in person, that will be right."
"Well, if you don't want to, as you wish."
"By the way, what runes do you have?"
"No idea. What difference does it make? Mum won't give anything bad!"
Harry and Hermione exchanged glances. Above there was a hoarse meow.
"Does anyone object if I let him out?" the girl asked, getting up.
Harry had nothing against it, Ron was silent, so she simply opened the carrier. The cat gracefully jumped down and looked attentively at the kids. And then tensed up and lunged at Ron, tearing with its claws at his pocket, in which the unfortunate rat desperately squealed.
Ron jumped up from indignation, but Hermione had already grabbed her pet and began to calm him down without looking at the "victim." He turned to Harry to share his indignation with him, but his friend for some reason wasn't going to share his feelings at all.
"Hey, what's the matter, you were warned, weren't you? Too lazy to put the rat away? Or can you still not make a cage for it? Maybe you forgot about it altogether?"
There was nothing to cover with. Especially after Hermione and Harry together transfigured an old sock into a cage. All that remained was to put the rat in there, which, looking at the cat, didn't think of resisting. The train was approaching Hogsmeade.