"Professor Bark?"
The professor looked up from his desk and noticed one of his students at the door, clearly waiting for an invitation to enter. "Enter, Mr. Potter. What can I do for you today? Shouldn't you be getting ready to depart with the rest of the students for your holiday break?"
"I couldn't leave until I handed in my assignment, professor," Harry offered, sitting in the chair in front of the desk.
"I wasn't aware we had any outstanding assignment, Mr. Potter."
"It's the end of year assignment you gave out. The one to write a story from a muggle perspective."
"Ah. That one. Are you sure you want to hand it in now, Mr. Potter? You do have another six months to work on it. I realize you're an apprentice, but surely you want to take your time to provide an appropriate story."
"Actually, I'm good. An idea came to me the other night and I wrote it out. I think you'll like it. Worst case scenario, you don't like it and I have to do another one." Harry then handed over a very large scroll to the man.
"My. That's about… 25 feet of parchment if I had to guess. You've certainly been busy, Mr. Potter."
"It helps when there isn't a homicidal wizard out to kill me," Harry muttered under his breath.
"What was that, Mr. Potter?"
"Oh, I just said that I've felt motivated this year more so than in other years."
"Odd," Professor Bark said looking at the beginning of the story. "It appears the text is typed rather than hand written…"
"I know what you're going to say, professor, but I did not copy this out of a book. I found a charm which acted in accordance to a dictation standard spell I knew. The result is a printed scroll rather than a hand-written mess like I normally turn in. I figured it would be better for my grade to not force my teacher into casting a translation spell to decipher my handwriting."
"An interesting idea, Mr. Potter, and quite right. I have knocked off a grade for bad penmanship in the past. Since you are the first student to turn in this assignment, I think I shall return the favor and read this tonight and give you your grade when you return from holiday. A happy Christmas to you, Mr. Potter."
"To you too, sir."
London Express, Saturday, December 21st
Harry sat in a compartment with Susan, Padma, Edward, Pam, Hermione and Blaise. The train ride back to London had been going on for some time and it was absolutely killing Harry that he hadn't shadow traveled back to the station to meet up with his parents and siblings. Of course that would have started more questions than he wanted to answer, so he sat on the long train ride back to England. It wasn't that he was bored more than he was… well, okay, he was bored. He had friends and all, but they had insisted on doing a little revising and studying for next term along the way home. And it was all in subjects that Harry knew very well. And since there wasn't any way he was going to time travel while on a moving train, he stayed uptime.
Harry recognized his antsy feelings for what they were about half way through the ride. His power reserves were straining the suppressors again. He wasn't getting antsy about the long ride. He was getting antsy because he wanted to magic something… anything! The more complex the better. The stronger the better.
He looked out the window and noticed the sleet starting to hit the train. They were moving into a storm system as they traveled southward. Perfect.
Excusing himself, Harry went to the back of the train car and opened the door, stepping outside. Before opening the next door, Harry released a magical pulse he'd been building for a few minutes. He aimed it below the train so no one would see it. It wasn't much of a spell, and it was one the students would learn in years to come if they didn't already know it now (and he didn't put it past Hermione to study ahead). It was a modified protego charm that instead of shielding a person, now shielded the entire train itself from any sleet. Fortunately, the shield allowed air through it so the pollution the steam engine spit out wasn't contained by the spell, causing the students (and adults for that matter) to gag at the stench.
As they were only a few hours out of London, Harry threw a rider on his spell to cause it to diminish after 90 minutes so that the train would get some weather on it by the time they pulled into the station. Spell work done, he went back into his compartment and found he wasn't so bored after all. Not when he had some good friends to hang around.
That lasted all of about 10 minutes before the doors opened and everyone's favorite jerk and his goons stood in the hallway, glaring at the compartment's occupants.
"Hey, Potter," Neville said entering.
Longbottom had everyone's attention, just the way he liked it.
Harry sighed a long suffering sigh. "Yes, Longbottom? Oh, wait. Let me guess. You want to give me one last chance to hang out with you and your band of sycophants."
"Psycho-what?" Longbottom was confused.
"Close enough," Hermione agreed.
"Whatever. Yes, I wanted to give you another chance to hang out with the cool kids at Hogwarts instead of a bunch of loser and nerds."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Hmmm, let's break this down, shall we? I earn points for my house. You lose points for your house. I have friends who want to be around me for nothing more than friendship. You have people around you who want some sort of associated fame along with whatever else you have to offer. I like my friends. How about you?"
"I like my friends!"
"Including Rodriquez?"
"Sure. Even him."
"His name is Ron," Harry pointed out.
"Whatever. The point is, I'm popular. You're popular. Together we could be the two coolest kids in school."
"Gee, willy, Neville, why didn't you say so. I'll be as popular as you? And I bet I'll still be able to do your homework for you too, right?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"How about this for an answer: piss off!" Harry then pulled his wand and shot off a few sparks, indicating he meant business if Neville stayed around.
Longbottom, despite being a grade-A jerk, did understand a dismissal (he'd given enough of them to people in his short life) and with a stern glare at Harry, he backed out of the compartment and stormed off towards the front of the train.
Harry sighed again. Neville was becoming more antagonistic every day. He hated to think it, but something needed to be done about that boy. And soon.
"Harry, you're quite popular with the bullies," Padma said quietly.
....
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