Chapter 483 Boarding the Train

Chapter 483 Boarding the Train
That night, the scar on Harry's forehead continued to hurt and his stomach churned, as if some emotion was about to burst out. He repeatedly dreamed that he was alone in a dark corridor, with locked doors that were suddenly pushed open. Ron and Hermione ran out and shouted at him, "Hey, look, Harry - we're prefects now!" The bright red badges shone brightly on their chests.

"No!" Harry sat up in shock, his back soaked with sweat and his scar still aching. It was almost dawn outside the window and Ron was still asleep. He got up, put on his clothes, and sat back on the bed calmly.

"Don't think too much about it." He said to himself. This old house was full of his relatives and friends, but he still felt extremely lonely. No one could understand him. He could only talk to himself.

"The first sign of madness is talking to your head." A mysterious voice said from a blank canvas on the wall.

The house was full of things like this, but Harry ignored him and cleared the thoughts of the prefects and Dumbledore from his mind. Harry packed his suitcase, put his school robes in it, and put on his soft-soled sneakers. He comforted himself that at least he could go back to Hogwarts to study, right?

"Why did you get up so early..." Ron got up from the bed sleepily and tried to look out the window. "Well... it's really light..." He said as he climbed down from the bed reluctantly.

"It's right to get up early Harry, otherwise Mum might say we'll miss the train, and no one wants to have her lose her temper over that."

Time seemed to accelerate from this moment on, and the whole house woke up little by little. Harry heard a chaotic sound coming from outside the door. It seemed that the twins cast a spell on their boxes so that they flew downstairs, but they hit Ginny. From the hallway came Mrs. Weasley's roar and Mrs. Black's hoarse scream in the portrait.

Harry pushed open the door tiredly and walked out with his luggage under Ron's surprised gaze. Hedwig squinted in the cage, as if she had not woken up yet.

Hermione hurried to the door, looking nervous, with Crookshanks still moving in her arms. "Are you ready?"

"Almost. Is Ginny all right?" Harry asked, putting on his glasses.

"Mrs. Weasley gave her a simple bandage," said Hermione, "but now Mad-Eye is complaining that we can't leave without Sturgis Podmore, because that would mean we'd be one less guard."

(Note: At this time, the Order of the Phoenix did not know about Sturgis's arrest, which shows what kind of intelligence and logistics the Order of the Phoenix had)
"Guards?" said Harry. "We need guards at King's Cross?"

"You'll need guards to get to King's Cross Station," Hermione corrected him.

"Why?" said Harry impatiently. "I thought Voldemort was just lurking around waiting for his chance. Are you going to tell me he's going to jump out from behind a dustbin and do me the wrong thing?"

"I don't know, but that's what Mad-Eye said," said Hermione absentmindedly, glancing at her watch. "If we don't get going soon, we'll definitely miss the train..."

Before Harry could say anything, Mrs. Weasley's roar drowned out Mrs. Black's screams in the hall, "What are you still dawdling about for! Please - get down here now!"

Mrs. Black's portrait was shouting indignantly, but no one had drawn the drapery to hide her, for the noise in the hall would surely have woken her again.

Harry hurriedly dragged the box downstairs. The shaking cage woke Hedwig, who flapped her wings and chirped angrily, and the whole house was in chaos.

"Oh my God, we have to go, otherwise we will miss the train. Don't worry about Sturgis--" Mrs. Weasley shouted to Moody. Mad-Eye kept complaining about Sturgis' breach of contract and was worried about Harry's safety without a guard.

Harry did not take part in their argument. This kind of meticulous and patient protection even made him impatient. Why didn't any guard show up to protect him when he was really in trouble?

But Harry no longer wanted to think about these things. There would always be someone who would say, "I'm doing this for your own good," but no one ever cared about what he really thought.

'Harry, you follow me and Tonks,' Mrs. Weasley said, raising her voice above the roar of "Bastard! Scum! Filthy scum!" 'Put your trunk and owl down, Alastor will take care of the luggage... oh, for heaven's sake, Sirius, Dumbledore said no!'

Just as Harry was struggling to move over the boxes of all sizes piled in the hall towards Mrs. Weasley, a black dog as big as a bear appeared beside Harry.

"Oh, really..." said Mrs. Weasley desperately, "Well, you'll have to take the consequences at your own risk!"

She wrenched the door open and stepped out into the weak September sunlight. Harry and the black dog followed. The door slammed shut behind them, instantly cutting off Mrs. Black's screams.

They walked for more than 20 minutes and arrived at King's Cross Station. Nothing major happened along the way. In Harry's opinion, Moody's worries were obviously meaningless. After they entered the station, they pretended to be calm and wandered around the partition wall between the ninth and tenth platforms. When there was no one around, they leaned against the wall one by one and crossed to the nine and three-quarters platform without anyone noticing.

The Hogwarts Express was parked there as usual, spewing black steam. The platform was crowded with students and their families who were saying goodbye. Harry breathed in the familiar smell and felt his heart fly with joy. He was really going back to school...

"Look over there." Ginny gently pulled Harry's sleeve, motioning him to look at the other end of the platform.

Harry looked in the direction of her finger and saw a large group of people gathered together, as if a large family was holding a grand farewell ceremony. Compared with the noise and chaos here, that area seemed particularly quiet and orderly.

Those people were wearing the same dark green student robes, and they were undoubtedly Slytherin students. Unlike students from other colleges, they did not chat or play around casually, or be reluctant to leave in front of their families. Instead, they lined up neatly in several rows, with straight lines and consistent steps. Everyone had a calm expression on their face, and their eyes revealed confidence and self-control, as if they were not going to school, but about to embark on a serious journey.

There was no pushing or shoving, no noise, and no one broke the calm order. The team moved forward slowly, and everyone boarded the train one by one in the predetermined order, with precise and orderly movements, just like a team that had undergone rigorous training. "Malfoy?" Harry almost blurted out, almost exclaiming. His eyes quickly swept across the neat team, and then he recognized Shaylin and Draco Malfoy standing in the middle - the two were walking in the front, with steady steps and stern expressions, looking as if they were leading the team.

Harry's reaction attracted the attention of the people around him. Lupin, Sirius, and others all looked in the direction he was looking.

"Lucius' son?" Moody snorted coldly, a trace of vigilance and disdain flashed in his eyes, and he mocked in a rough voice: "The son of a rat will always be a rat, hiding his head and showing his tail, playing tricks that are not allowed to be seen in the light..."

"Professor Moody, that's not it." Hermione frowned and carefully observed the situation on the platform. Her tone was hesitant but somewhat certain. "Shaylin... He seems to be the prefect, and he is maintaining order among the Slytherin students."

Her eyes fell on the gold and red prefect badge on Xie Ling's chest. The badge sparkled in the morning light and was obviously not an ordinary decoration.

Compared to Draco, Sherin looked calmer and his eyes were sharp, as if he didn't notice the gazes from the people around him. Beside him, the Slytherin students were still queuing up quietly to get on the bus. The orderly atmosphere did not seem forced, but more like a tacit obedience.

The whistle sounded to remind everyone to get on the train. The students standing on the platform began to rush to board the train.

"Hurry up, hurry up," said Mrs. Weasley distractedly, hugging them all wildly and twice grabbing Harry to hug him. "Write... Take care... If you forget anything, we'll send for it... Now, get in the car, hurry up..."

In an instant the big black dog stood up on its hind legs and put its front paws on Harry's shoulders, but Mrs. Weasley pushed Harry towards the door and said in a low voice, "For God's sake, Sirius, you have to act more like a dog!"

"Goodbye!" Harry shouted from the open window as the train started moving, with Ron, Hermione and Ginny waving beside him. The figures of Tonks, Lupin, Moody, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley quickly shrank, leaving only the big black dog running after the window, wagging its tail. People passing by on the platform laughed at the sight of the dog chasing the train. Then the train turned a bend and Sirius disappeared.

"Well," Harry said, swaying in his place as he looked aimlessly out the window at the houses whizzing by, "shall we go find a box?" he asked.

Ron and Hermione exchanged a glance.

"Yeah," said Ron.

"We - er - Ron and I should be in the Prefects' Box," said Hermione awkwardly.

Ron was not looking at Harry; he seemed to have taken a sudden and intense interest in the nails of his left hand.

"Oh," said Harry, "ok, all right."

"I don't think we'll be there all the way," said Hermione quickly. "The letter says we're just going to receive instructions from the Head Boy and Head Girl respectively, and then patrol the corridors from time to time."

"Okay," Harry said again, "well, then I - I'll see you later."

As Hermione and Ron, dragging their trunks, carrying Crookshanks and the piglets' cages, headed for the locomotive, Harry felt a strange sense of loss. He had always been with Ron on the Hogwarts Express.

"Come on," Ginny said to him, "if we hurry we can still save them a seat."

"All right," said Harry, picking up Hedwig's cage with one hand and grasping the trunk handle with the other. They trudged along the aisle, peering through the glass doors into the boxes, which were already filled.

Harry couldn't help noticing that many people were staring at him with great interest, and several were nudging and pointing at those sitting next to them.

This happened for five cars in a row, and he remembered that the Daily Prophet had been telling its readers all summer what a liar and show-off he was, and he wondered gloomily whether these people who were staring at him and whispering to each other believed those lies.

"Give him a curse and make him have sores on his mouth."

Seeing a boy from a lower grade pointing at Harry and indicating his companions with a mocking and contemptuous smile, Harry felt as if there was a voice in his heart urging him.

"Put a spell on him and teach the little guy what respect is."

Harry stopped in front of the car door and stared at the student who was laughing at him.

"Harry?" Ginny's call suddenly brought Harry back to his senses. He turned his head, as if he had just raised his head from a basin of water, and the whole world became blurry and changed.

"Yes, let's go." He shook his head, put aside his previous thoughts, and walked towards the back of the carriage with Ginny.

In the last carriage, they met Neville Longbottom, who was rarely reliable. He reserved a compartment in advance and sincerely invited Harry and Ginny to come in.