Chương 13: Chapter 13

As Daphne walked across to pull her trunk and pet carrier from under the seats, Tracey could see past her to who these two short-term guests were. When her eyes alit on Harry and Hermione, they widened for a moment in apparent shock. However, she didn't say anything.

Daphne pulled her trunk out, opened it, and dumped in the combined clothing of herself, Hermione and Harry. Hesitating a moment, she pulled out a small bag of owl treats and dropped them into her pocket; before she slammed the lid shut again and locked it. Then she pushed the trunk back under the seat.

Watching her friend, in some amusement, Daphne said, "Yes, Harry Potter... Golden boy extraordinaire; and Hermione Granger."

Amused himself, Harry smiled and twinkled his fingers at her as a wave hello. Clearly, Hermione saw him do it because, the next thing he knew, he was copping an elbow to the ribs.

"Behave, Harry," she half-growled at him.

Neither entered as the train had already slowed down before coming to a stop. Daphne placed her white cat, Midnight, back in the pet carrier as she murmured gently to the feline. "Sorry, Midnight. I'll see you later tonight." Then, closing the cat inside, she slipped the pet carrier back under the seat.

Managing to avoid the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione joined Daphne, Tracey and the other two who shared the compartment for the ride in the carriage to the castle.

That wasn't easy to organise as they could see, through the crowds, both Ron and Ginny looking for them.

Harry immediately cast a rain repelling charm over the top of them all. "Repello Imber," he incanted. The other three, Harry was sure he remembered two of them from his year in Slytherin. But, couldn't remember their names.

Daphne pulled Harry out of his befuddlement by introducing them. "Harry... Hermione... this is Tracey Davis, Blaise Zabini and Horace Urquhart. Horace is in the year above us."

Davis was quite the attractive young witch, who now looked much better since she 'lost' the glasses she used to wear right through to the end of second year. Zabini was a tall, slender, dark-skinned boy; who just looked at the pair of them with interest. And, Urquhart softly smiled back with a slight nod. None of the three seemed to be bothered about Harry and Hermione riding in their carriage with them. If anything, they seemed amused by it.

"Not upset about riding with filthy snakes, Potter?" asked Tracey, quite amused.

"Nope," Harry replied with a shrug. "For a start, my name's not Weasley. Second; the only Slytherins I really don't like are Malfoy and his two butt-buddies, and Parkinson. I don't have a problem with many others."

Hesitating a moment, he said, "As long as they're not bigots, don't intend to don a white mask and or get a magical tattoo on the right forearm, I really don't care, to be honest."

Zabini looked back as if he was trying to hide that he was clearly amused by what Harry said. "And yet you allow Weasley to hang around you."

"Yeah, well; not for much longer," Harry sighed. "You'll see what I mean, soon enough."

With a small smile of her own, Daphne looked at Zabini and said, "Don't worry, Blaise. He's not joking. You'll see very soon what Harry's talking about."

"Harry?" asked Tracey, snapping a surprised look at her friend.

"Yes, Trace; Harry," replied Daphne.

Tracey just gave a very penetrating look right back at friend that promised Daphne would be getting a grilling about that very soon.

When the carriage finally stopped at the castle, Harry climbed down first, before offering his arm to assist Hermione, Daphne and Tracey down. Tracey looked surprised at the gesture.

"Are we ready for this?" he asked both Daphne and Hermione.

"Yes," both replied; with Daphne adding, "Definitely."

Harry escorted both witches in through the front doors, turned and led them into the Great Hall before they split to their own tables. As Harry led Hermione to the Gryffindor table and around to the wall side, both deliberately ignored Ron trying to wave them over and chose to sit further down. They also made sure to sit between two others, so neither Weasley could try and shift seat to sit next to them.

"Well, that avoids possible dosing attempts tonight," Hermione muttered to Harry.

"After supposedly being dosed this morning?" asked Harry, with a slight frown.

"True," replied Hermione, acknowledging Harry's point. "I suppose it is a little soon. I'm going to have to look up the potions and see just how often the dosings should occur. I can't see the Potions Queen telling Ron or Ginny to do it more often than that."

"That we've avoided sitting with either of them might tell them different," Harry muttered back.

With a shrug, Hermione said, "First thing in the morning, I hit the library."

Just then a small flock of owls flew in through the owl windows near the peak of the ceiling. Harry's first clue they'd come in was seeing a couple of students nearby opposite looking up in surprise.

Casting his own eyes towards the ceiling, he waited as six seemed to head right for him and Hermione, approaching in a stooping glide. The other two headed to the other side of the room.

Prepared, he had a few owl treats in his pocket that Daphne had handed to him on the train; after she collected them from her trunk.

The owls caused a bit of surprised comment from other students. Owls normally only arrived immediately after breakfast, each morning. So, these arriving at this time of night, surprised most.

Harry and Hermione quickly divested the owls of their letters and allowed each to take an owl treat before they flew off again. As Daphne intimated earlier, there were four for Harry and two for Hermione.

As the letters were removed, Hermione was making sure others would not be picking them up to see what they were.

Opening one of the Ministry letters, Harry was about to read it when he heard the voice of Dumbledore from opposite. "It is most unusual to receive correspondence at this time of day, young Harry." Clearly, the Headmaster had come down to find out why Harry had received owl mail at such an odd time.