Mannequins: Heroes and Prodigies

A while later durring the train ride Harry and Ron conjured up a wizard's chess set, and Hermione had entertained the idea of reading, like I had. Time and time again Harry's pieces on the deathly board got blown to smitherines, and Ron won plenty of times. A number of pages had been turned by both Hermione and I, and you could see the slight black tinge on our fingesr from the oils in our skin causing the ink to rub off only slightly from the pages that we had handled. The pages racked up just as quickly as the pile of dicarded wizard's chess pieces that had been demolished. In our compartment, you could not hear much more than the crinkle of flipped pages, the piece name and destination desired on the board and our breath, aside from the train itself.
At one point or another Hermione went to change and dragged Ron out of the compartment with her. I only remember this because of his protests that he had to go and Harry did not. Hermione's simple response was something to the tune of, "No, Harry does not have to leave, simply because he actually gets along with her and does not pick aimless fights with her." before dragging him out, grabbing both of their uniforms on her way out of the door.
Once they were gone and the sliding door was shut Harry put away the wizard's chess set and sat down again beside me. His caloused hands pulled my book out of my own and placed my book mark between the pages before closing it tight and setting it just inside of my trunk. I looked up at him, questions boring through my eyes, but did not speak. I knew he would explain his actions to me soon, so until then I just held an intent stare directly in his eyes.
"Listen, Esie, I'm sorry about Ron earlier. He can be really pig headed sometimes and it can just get out of control before someone has the patience to stop it. I presume that Hermione's talking to him now, also. And I want you to know, that yes we, well I mainly speak for myself but I assume Hermione feels the same, may be Ron's friends, but we're yours too now, and we're not going to abandon you. I know I won't especially, because not only are you my friend, but you're a member of the Black family that's betrayed Voldemort, and he will most likely want to recruit you or destroy you. And I will never leave anyone I know to face that monster alone."
I wanted to be polite to him, but he really had to know the facts, "Harry," I grabbed his hands in my own, "thankyou for caring about me, really, but I think I can take care of myself. I more than likely know more advanced magic and though I may lack the dueling experience, I think I'll be just fine. You alone in front of Voldemort is what worries me more than what he might do to me. Trust me Harry, I know things about the future that you don't yet, and won't for a long time. I know he's out there, I can feel his presence. And he may not be as alive as he always was, but he's still out there, lurking, waiting for the prime moment to make his grand appearance, or to strike slowly and break down our forces one by one." I stated, towards the end earning myself a far off look in my eyes, but still holding Harry's gaze.
He sqeezed my hands with the smallest amount of pressure as if to comfort me, but I just blushed and looked away, folding my hands into my lap. I never fared well with situations concerning intimacy. A sort of tension grew in the air, much to my discomfort, and I'm sure, Harry's too.
"So, do you play quiddich?" he asked me, trying to ease and dismount the tension.
"No, but I do love to watch it. Durring the summers I usually play muggle sports for entertainment. They tend to be more dangerous and you need to think harder about your conduct." I explained. Once in a while durring the summer I would play on a recreational rugby team or two because they came up everywhere. Rugby was pretty much England's sport and I must say, it was a rather fine pass-time.
Harry seemed intruiged by this, and pressed further on the nearly alien topic, "Really? What do you play? I recall my uncle and cousin veiwing a variety of sports on the television, perhaps I've seen it." he ambled on excitedly sounding.
"Well, my favorite one to play is rugby. It's a really rough sport, all body contact, and you need to think a lot. It's a huge muggle sport back home, but I also don't mind a game of football now and then. Not the American kind though." I told him with a glimmer in my eye that relayed my passion about the non-magical recreational activity.
From there on we conversed upon teams and conduct rules and nearly everything that we could think of about our newly found common ground. We were so engrossed in it, turned on our bench to face eachother fully with minimal muscle strain, that we hardly took notice of Hermione and Ron return clothed for the school arrival. We did however, notice when Hermione interupted reminding us of how Harry still needed to change, and that the time to do so was fastly running out. Not wanting to be lectured about responsibility or anything of the like, Harry shyly grabbed his trousers, oxford shirt, tie and robe and bowed out of the room, giving me a look indicating that we would finish our discussion another time, perhaps when he returned.
After Harry slid the door shut behind him and his footsteps had echoed vaguely over the lull of the train's engine and wheels on the tracks, I pulled out my nearly finished book, and continued reading at a hasty pace. I was never the type of person that could stand reading slowly, it was much too time consuming, and frankly, reading quickly gave you a better mental image and was more like having someone talk to you; easier to comprehend. In my wave of turned pages, I was all too soon finished reading, and now had a much better and more complete mind set of how animals living in the muggle world could differentiate a muggle from a witch or wizard, and how they could, sometimes, tell the good difference between the good and bad magic folk. It was quite interesting really, dating back hundreds of years it explained nearly everything that there was to know on the topic.
I laid my hand on the cover and commited every piece of information to memory. When I stood to slide the book into my trunk, I had the urge to pull out my never ending story and continue it, but I could not do that. Ron and Hermione were still here, and that would never work, I simply would not allow it. So, I sat down again, boredly, with a few sheets of paper. I would have much time to write about the fictional Amelia James that my mind had given birth too so long ago. For now, I had no need to hide anything that I would write in personal letters that I would later send to my friends that formerly attended Merlin's with me. I had a letter to my parents, Dora, Sirius, Scarletti and Dustin; in total five letters to write sometime today, and what better time to get started than the present.
Dear Sirius,
How've you been lately? I've missed you more than words can tell. But I have shocking news to bring to you. As of this term, Merlin's Academy was a threat to the students attending due to the foretold uprising of Voldemort sometime this year. None of the seer's can tell when though, because it's as though he cannot make up his mind himself, as to when. They feared he would strike there and capture it's students for his own taking, so we were all dispersed throughout the other three main magic schools. I'm on the train to Hogwarts as I write this to you. I'll admit, I'm a little bit nervous as to which house I'll be placed in though. Naturally, you'd think a Ravenclaw, seeing as my school history, but that wouldn't make sense to overload that one house with all the transfer students and the coming first years. It is still a possibility, but then there is also Hufflepuff which Dora and Father were in, and Slytherin which Mother was in. Which house were you in? You never did tell me, but I do recall all of your lovely stories that you and your friends share from your school days. It's much too unfortunate that they had to turn sour later on in life though. Well, I best be off, I still have another four letters to write sometime today. Merry travels to you Sirius.
I wrote my first letter to my, technically distant cousin, but he felt more like an uncle to me. he insisted that I simply call him Sirius though, as "Uncle Sirius" makes him feel old.
I finished another three letters before the train pulled up to it's stop and we all got off, dragging our luggage behind us, animal cages strapped to the tops of our trunks. There was a large, almost beastly looking man covered in thick, burley hair directing the students to where they needed to be. He seemed to have some authority, so I strayed slightly from Harry, Hermione and Ron, promising to meet up with them when I could again, and asked him where I might go.
"Excuse me, Sir." I said politely, looking up at him with a small smile. "You seem to have some authority here, and I couldn't help but notice you were directing first year students and returning students to where they need to go. Is that correct?"
"Why yes. My name's Rubeus Hagrid, just Hagrid please, and yes, first years into the boats, and returning students in the carriages please." he said to me kindly, with a very strong, almost foriegn sounding accent.
"My name's Estika Lynn Tonks, Hagrid. You wouldn't possibly be able to tell me where the transfer students were to go, could you?"
"Oh yes, how rude of me. Transfer students are to go with the first years, and thank you for reminding me. We haven't had transfers here in so long, I almost forgot that we had a whole lot of them this year. I hope you enjoy your stay here at Hogwarts Miss Tonks." he replied politely.
I smiled at him kindly once more and began my search for Shaine now that I knew where to go. Knowing him, he would be by the boats, so I headed in that general direction. Hopefully, we would be able to ride over together and talk a bit. I hadn't spoken to him nearly since school ended last term and I was very edging to know what he had seen. I knew something of it had to do with the World Cup, but that had not to be all of it. There just had to be more that had not occured yet. And with just our luck, we would end up in comepletely different houses, therefore annihilating any chances of spending that time together also. But I did wish for him to meet Harry, Hermione and Ron, even though Ron wasn't too fond of me. You never could tell, perhaps he and Shaine would become friends. And on that note, I began my vigorous search.