Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and Whatnot

“Come on Fred! You’re going to make me late!”

Fred came bounding down the stairs, “How will I make you late? I’m not even going with you.”

“I have to say goodbye first, duh,” I smiled.

He grinned and hugged me, lifting me off the ground, “Bye, love, carry on our traditions will ya?”

“I’ll do my best. Bye Freddy!”

He laughed and set me down.

“Alright, now come on, you really are going to be late if we don’t get to the station soon,” George said grabbing the handle of my trunk.

“Okay, okay,” I took his hand and waved to Fred as we Apparated to the train station.

We began walking to the platform, seeing lots of people I recognized also on their way.

“I still don’t see why you wanted to come all the way back out here when I could’ve dropped you off at Hogsmeade station tonight after the train arrived.”

“Because it’s tradition! I have to ride the Hogwarts Express to school!”

He chuckled, “You’re so weird”

“But you love me anyway,” I grinned at him.

“This is true” he grinned back.

We walked through the wall and stood looking at the giant scarlet train.

“See, don’t you wish you could ride it one more time?”

“Um, no, not particularly, but whatever makes you happy, love”

“Hey look! There’re your parents and Harry!”

Mr. Weasley and Harry were deep in some conversation, but we waved to Mrs. Weasley, who looked quite nervous despite having a fleet of Aurors around her. Alright, so it was only two, but it seemed a little unnecessary and I’m sure Harry hated it. She bustled over to us.

“Caroline, dear, how’ve my boys been treating you? They’re not making you work too hard I hope?”

“No, not at all Mrs. Weasley, it’s been fun actually”

“Oh, good, now be safe at school, and come visit us at Christmas won’t you?” she hugged me.

“Of course, bye Mrs. Weasley,” I hugged back.

I turned to George then.

With his hand on my waist, he said “Alright, now be good”

I raised an eyebrow and he smirked.

“Who am I kidding? Cause some mayhem and make us proud.”

“Will do,” I smiled and leaned up to kiss him.

“I’ll miss you,” I said.

He kissed me again longer before saying, “I’ll miss you too”

The whistle blew then, so I hugged him quickly before dragging my trunk to the train. I hopped on and turned around inside the door to wave to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and blow George a kiss before going to find a compartment.

As I walked down the aisles, I looked around for Harry, Ron, or Hermione. I didn’t see any of them at first, but then I remembered both Ron and Hermione were prefects this year, so they would be in a different compartment. Instead, I went looking for just Harry. It wasn’t that hard, all you had to do was follow the whispering. Poor kid, everybody was talking about him, but they didn’t want him to know, which was even more annoying. On the way, I ran into Neville and Luna.

“Hey Neville!” I said and hugged him enthusiastically, which I think threw him off a bit.

But he only blushed slightly and said, “Hi Caroline”

“How are you Luna?” I asked, hugging her as well.

“Oh, I’m fine, thank you, are you looking forward to our 6th year?” she asked airily.

We began walking in the same direction as I answered, “Definitely, what about you guys?”

Neville nodded and it was then that we saw the back of Harry’s head in front of us.

“Hi, Harry!” Neville said.

“Neville!” Harry said, turning around.

We talked idly while looking for seats and we finally found an empty compartment, which Harry hurried into. He was probably trying to hide from all the stares.

“They’re even staring at us,” said Neville to Harry, “Because we’re with you!”

“I feel like a celebrity,” I said, flipping my hair over my shoulder.

“They’re staring at you because you were at the Ministry too,” said Harry. “Our little adventure there was all over the Daily Prophet, you must’ve seen it.”

We had seen it…I’d seen more of it than I wanted to. A lot of people who came into the shop, if they recognized me from school or the paper, asked questions about it. I tried to avoid answering as best I could.

“Trevor!”

Neville had dove under the seat after his escaping toad and Luna was now wearing a pair of psychedelic glasses she got out of The Quibbler.

Then, we heard a group of girls babbling outside our compartment.

“You ask him!”

“No, you!”

“I’ll do it!”

A girl with dark hair and dark eyes pushed open the door.

“Hi, Harry, I’m Romilda, Romilda Vane.” She said boldly. “Why don’t you join us in our compartment? You don’t have to sit with them,” she added in a stage whisper, indicating the three of us.

“Yeah, we heard that honey,” I said.

She ignored me so I made a face at her.

“They’re friends of mine,” said Harry coldly.

“Oh,” she looked surprised. “Oh. Okay.”

After she left, I laughed, “Poor girl, she was so sure you were sitting here out of pity, or perhaps even by force, and would immediately fall in love with her after she saved you from what must be excruciating agony.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“People expect you to have cooler friends than us,” said Luna.

That’s what I liked about Luna, she was bluntly honest.

“You are cool,” said Harry. “None of them was at the Ministry. They didn’t fight with me.”

“We didn’t face him though,” said Neville, emerging dust-covered from under the seat with Trevor. “You did. You should hear my gran talk about you. ‘That Harry Potter’s got more backbone than the whole Ministry of Magic put together!’ She’d give anything to have you as a grandson…”

Harry looked uncomfortable and quickly changed the subject. We talked about O.W.L. results, which for the ones that got interrupted at the end of last year, we had been able to retake at the beginning of summer if we wished.

I had ended up getting O’s in Charms, Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, Potions, Arithmancy, and Transfiguration; and E’s in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Divination, and History of Magic. When I got the letter, Fred and George had joked about how much of a genius I was for getting more O.W.L.s than they did together. I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do though after school, right now I was leaning towards maybe becoming an Auror.

Harry seemed to be thinking about something.

“You all right, Harry? You look funny,” said Neville.

“Sorry – I – “

“Wrackspurt got you?” asked Luna.

“I – what?” said Harry.

“A Wrackspurt…They’re invisible. They float in through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy,” she said. “I thought I felt one zooming around in here.”

She waved her arms around like she was trying to get rid of flying insects. I watched her amusedly and grinned at Harry and Neville who were watching Luna uncomfortably and started talking about Quidditch.

A little while later, Hermione and Ron showed up at our compartment. They began talking about Draco Malfoy, who I didn’t have much interest in, but I listened anyways because Harry’s theories were always interesting.

Their conversation was interrupted when a girl came in with two rolled up parchments, “I’m supposed to deliver these to Neville Longbottom and Harry P-Potter.”

She turned red as she handed Harry’s his and then she hurried out the door.

“What is it?” Ron demanded.

“An invitation,” said Harry.

I read over his shoulder,

Harry,
I would be delighted if you would join me for a bite of lunch in compartment C.
Sincerely,
Professor H.E.F. Slughorn

Harry and Neville left for their lunch date with Slughorn, leaving the rest of us to just talk amongst ourselves. There were quite a few times when someone would come to our compartment and start asking questions about Harry and what happened at the Ministry. It got quite annoying and we mostly ignored them. About twenty minutes before we arrived at the station, Neville came back, but not Harry. Neville said only that Harry said he’d see us later.