43 Chapter 40
Ron looked horrified. "I'm sorry, mate, I didn't think-"
"No. No, you didn't," Harry cut him off flatly, wiping off his tears as he got to his feet. "Well, it was…a pleasure meeting you Ron. I suppose I'll see you around at Hogwarts," He said in the same flat tone, and opening the compartment door, walked out.
Feeling confused, frustrated, and rather unbearably sad for some reason, Harry did the only thing some his age would have done when faced with such turbulent emotions.
He blamed it on someone else. More specifically, Ron.
'Well, now I know what house I don't want to be in. The one into which he goes,' Harry thought angrily as he went up the train looking for another compartment to sit one with only a boy and a bushy haired girl, he slid open the door.
"Excuse me. Can I sit in here?"
Getting a nod from the girl and the rather timid boy, Harry sat himself down beside the boy and joined in on the conversation.
"But how does that make sense!"
"It's just the way it is," Neville replied to Hermione's indignation with a shrug.
"So what're you talking about?" Harry asked.
Fifteen minutes later, with an innumerable number of facts about Quidditch stuck into his brain, Harry stood firmly on Hermione's side of the argument while Neville looked devastated at having lost another one to the anti-Quidditch campaign.
"She's right Neville. One hundred and fifty points for someone to catch a golden ball! That makes absolutely no sense!" Harry said with a shrug. He could definitely get the appeal of flying really fast, but the rules of this game were abhorrent. It was as if they took football and then went ham with it.
"You-you haven't ever seen a professional match! The chasers score fast-really fast really early and catching a snitch before an hour is extremely hard. It just adds that much more unpredictability to the game, you never really know who's going to win." Neville apparently personally abhorred flying, but much like other children of his age born into wizarding families, was incredibly passionate about Quidditch and willing do anything to defend his favorite sport.
"They won't change the game just 'cause you say so!" Neville exclaimed.
"I am the Boy-Who-Lived, you know, People will listen to me. And maybe if I can persuade them to change the game at Hogwarts, the innovation will spread." The compartment grew silent at the statement. Harry suddenly remembered that he hadn't really given them his last name.
'Oh dear.'
"Are you really?" said Hermione, her voice transforming, "I know all about you, of course I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."
"Did you?" said Harry, immediately putting a stop to her tirade. He had messed up his friendship with the first person his age he'd met because he let this kind of conversation go on for too long. He'd be damned if he made the same mistake again.
"If you did you'd also know that the only person to survive that night was me and I have never been interviewed by anybody, nor have I even tested for anything as far as I know. So, most likely, most of what you read, especially about me killing a dragon and discovering Atlantis, is a lie."
"But they're books! They wouldn't lie in them!" Hermione raised her voice indignantly.
"Wouldn't they? It was the time right after a war, Hermione," Harry said grimly, "Families were dead and children were orphaned. So these stories and so-called facts would have been printed to give hope to a broken and bleeding society. That was the truth then, and that is the truth today. It is also the only reason I've allowed them to stay on shelves and not taken their publishers to court for breaking the law. Even a lie spoken with best intentions doesn't make it the truth."
Due to reaching a logical conclusion and spreading it around, you've gained 1 Wis!
WIS-13
Hermione was staggered to a standstill. Harry reminded himself that even if they were both the same age, they had very separate upbringings and she had no Gamer's Mind to help her be objective and assess situations like Harry did. Her worldview was based on books and elders always being right. Harry had just broken one of the legs of the stool that her entire worldview stood on.
After a few silent moments, Hermione finally spoke again. "You two had better change, I expect we'll be there soon," she stood, still in shock and off balance, and walked out of the compartment, presumably to the bathroom to change.
Harry and Neville took off their jackets and pulled on their long black robes.
"You-you really scared her I think." Neville's voice had gained back his stutter after the topic of Quidditch had passed. Before Harry could answer, the compartment door slid open and three boys stepped in.
"Is it true?" he said. "They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"
"Indeed it is," said Harry. He was looking at the other boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards. Harry quickly observed them.
Gregory Goyle
Lv-3
HP-220/220
MP-100/100
Race-Wizard
Str-8
Vit-3
Dex-3
Int-2
Wis-1
Luc-4
Goyle, along with fellow Slytherin Crabbe, is best friends with Draco Malfoy. They often follow Malfoy around and do his bidding. He has the IQ of a half-dead goldfish and can be accurately described as one of the reasons to avoid inbreeding.
....
Vincent Crabbe
Lv-3
HP-220/220
MP-100/100
Race-Wizard
Str-8
Vit-3
Dex-3
Int-2
Wis-1
Luc-4
Crabbe, along with fellow Slytherin Goyle, is best friends with Draco Malfoy. They often follow Malfoy around and do his bidding. He has the IQ of a half-dead goldfish and can be accurately described as one of the reasons to avoid inbreeding.
....
Draco Malfoy
Lv-4
HP-320/320
MP-140/140
Race-Wizard
Str-5
Vit-4
Dex-4
Int-6
Wis-3
Luc-3
Draco Malfoy is a pure-blood wizard and the only heir of the Malfoy family. The son of a Death Eater, Draco was raised to believe strongly in the importance of blood purity. He wishes to be sorted into Slytherin house. Despite his father's violent torturous teaching sessions about blood purity and 'old times' Draco looks up to him and admires him.
He thinks that Harry is a great Dark wizard for killing the Dark Lord who will be to him what Lord Voldemort was to his father. He really wants to get on his good side.
....
Harry sighed.
It only made sense. He had fangirls and an unexpected and convoluted celebrity backstory. He didn't honestly know why he was surprised by conspiracy theorists.
"This is Crabbe and this is Goyle," said the pale boy carelessly, mistaking Harry's stare at his game windows for him asking who his henchmen were, "And my name's Draco Malfoy of House Malfoy."
He turned to Neville. "Heir Longbottom, glad to see you made it onto the train alright." While his words were nothing but polite, his voice held a sort of demeaning contempt that made Harry's spine tingle.
"Heir Malfoy, I suspect you came here because you wished to form an alliance with House Potter. I assure you that it will not happen unless you're entirely civil to Heir Longbottom here, who already has my friendship." Harry had read enough fantasy novels and etiquette books to know exactly what to say and in which tone to say it. And apparently, he was somehow successful, because Malfoy nodded to his bodyguards and they left the compartment.
"My apologies Heir Potter." He said. Harry simply nodded, not trusting his fantasy book knowledge to take him too far, and waved him to the seat in front him. Draco sat down.
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