The Wrong Sort

The scarlet engine gave a long whistle and the platform began to slide away. Harry watched the red-haired mother waving, and the little sister running to keep up until the train gathered speed and a bend in the track took them both from sight. Houses flickered past the window. Harry's heart was thumping. He had no idea what was waiting for him at the other end of the line, but he was quite certain it could not be worse than Privet Drive.

The compartment door rattled open and the youngest of the red-haired boys put his head in.

'Is that seat taken?' he said, nodding at the one facing Harry. 'There's nowhere left.'

Harry shook his head, and the boy sat. He shot Harry a look, then became very interested in the window, as though he hadn't looked at all. The smudge of soot his mother had been chasing was still on his nose.

'Oi, Ron.'

The twins had reappeared in the doorway.

'We're off down the train. Lee Jordan's brought a tarantula the size of a dinner plate.'

'All right,' Ron mumbled.

'We never said who we were, Harry,' said the second twin. 'Fred and George Weasley. That's our brother Ron. See you in a bit.'

'Bye,' said Harry and Ron together, and the door slid shut.

'Are you honestly Harry Potter?' said Ron, as though the question had been bursting to get out.

Harry nodded.

'Oh. Good. Only I thought Fred and George might be having me on,' said Ron. 'And have you really got the... you know...'

He pointed at Harry's forehead.

Harry lifted his fringe. Ron gazed at the lightning-shaped scar.

'So that's where You-Know-Who...?'

'Yes,' said Harry. 'I can't remember it, though.'

'Nothing at all?' said Ron eagerly.

'A lot of green light. That's all.'

'Blimey,' said Ron. He went on staring for a moment or two, then seemed to catch himself doing it and looked hastily back at the window.

'Is everyone in your family a wizard?' Harry asked. Ron was every bit as interesting to him as he was to Ron.

'Er, yeah, I think so,' said Ron. 'Mum's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but nobody mentions him.'

'Then you must know heaps of magic already.'

The Weasleys were plainly one of the old wizarding families that the pale girl in Diagon Alley had been so pleased about.

'Someone told me you were brought up by Muggles,' said Ron. 'What are they like?'

'Awful. Well, mine are. My aunt and uncle and my cousin. I don't suppose they're all like that. I'd have liked three wizard brothers.'

'Five,' said Ron, and his face fell. 'I'm the sixth of us to go to Hogwarts. It's a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have left now. Bill was Head Boy, and Charlie captained the Quidditch team. Percy's just been made a Prefect. Fred and George muck about, but their marks are good and everybody likes them. So I'm expected to do as well as all of them, and if I manage it nobody will care, because it's been done five times already. And nothing you get is ever new with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes and Charlie's old wand and Percy's old rat.'

He put a hand inside his jacket and brought out a fat grey rat, sound asleep.

'This is Scabbers. He's hopeless, he practically never wakes up. Dad bought Percy an owl for being made Prefect, but they couldn't aff... I mean, I got Scabbers.'

Ron's ears turned pink. He appeared to feel he had said too much, and went back to the window.

Harry couldn't see anything shameful in not having the money for an owl. A month ago he had never had a penny of his own, and he said so. He told Ron about Dudley's cast-off clothes, and about birthdays when his present had been a coat-hanger or a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Ron brightened considerably.

'... and I didn't know one thing about being a wizard until Hagrid turned up, or about my mum and dad, or Voldemort...'

Ron gasped.

'What?' said Harry.

'You said his name!' said Ron, who sounded horrified and deeply impressed at once. 'I'd have thought that you, of everybody...'

'I'm not showing off,' said Harry. 'Nobody ever told me you weren't supposed to. That's what I mean. There's so much I don't know.' He hesitated, then said aloud the thing that had been nagging at him for weeks. 'I'll probably be bottom of the class.'

'No, you won't. Loads of people come from Muggle families, and they pick it up fast enough.'

London had fallen away behind them while they talked. Fields rolled by now, dotted with sheep and cows, and for a while the two of them sat without speaking and watched the hedges and lanes go past.

At about half past twelve something came clanking along the corridor, and a plump, smiling witch pulled back the door.

'Fancy anything from the trolley, my loves?'

Harry, who had gone without breakfast, was on his feet at once. Ron went pink about the ears again and muttered that he had sandwiches.

Harry stepped out into the corridor. The Dursleys had never given him money for sweets, and with his pockets heavy with Galleons and Sickles he meant to buy every Mars Bar on the trolley. There were no Mars Bars. There were Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans and Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes and Liquorice Wands, and a great many other things Harry had never laid eyes on. He couldn't bear to miss any of them, so he bought some of each, and handed over eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.

Ron's eyes grew round as Harry carried the heap inside and tipped it over the empty seat.

'Bit peckish?'

'Famished,' said Harry, and bit a pumpkin pasty in half.

Ron had produced a lumpy parcel and was unwrapping it. Four sandwiches lay inside. He peeled one open and sighed.

'Corned beef. She never remembers I can't stand it.'

'I'll swap you,' said Harry, holding out a pasty. 'Here.'

'You won't like it, it's dry as anything,' said Ron. 'She hasn't much time,' he added quickly. 'Not with five of us at home.'

'Take it,' said Harry. He had never had anything to share before, and never anybody to share it with. It was a wonderful feeling, sitting with Ron and working steadily through the pasties and cakes, while the sandwiches lay forgotten on the seat.

'What are these?' said Harry, picking up a packet of Chocolate Frogs. 'They aren't real frogs?' He felt that very little would surprise him any more.

'No,' said Ron. 'Tell me which card you've got, though. I need Agrippa.'

'Card?'

'Oh, right, you wouldn't know. There's a card in every one, Famous Witches and Wizards, for collecting. I've got five hundred or so, but I can't get Agrippa or Ptolemy.'

Harry opened his frog and drew out the card. An old man looked up at him over half-moon spectacles. His nose was long and bent, and his hair and beard were silver and fell out of the picture altogether. The name beneath was Albus Dumbledore.

'So that's Dumbledore!' said Harry.

'You're not telling me you'd never heard of Dumbledore?' said Ron. 'Can I have one? I might get Agrippa. Cheers.'

Harry turned the card over.

Albus Dumbledore, present Headmaster of Hogwarts. Widely held to be the greatest wizard of the age, Professor Dumbledore is best known for overcoming the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for discovering the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and for his alchemical work with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. The Professor is fond of chamber music and tenpin bowling.

He turned it back, and nearly dropped it. The picture was empty.

'He's gone!'

'Well, he's not going to stand about all day, is he?' said Ron. 'He'll come back. Oh no, Morgana again, I've got six of her. D'you want it? You could start a collection.'

His gaze wandered to the pile of unopened frogs.

'Have as many as you like,' said Harry. 'Only, with Muggles, people in photographs stay where they are.'

'Do they? What, they never move?' Ron was astonished. 'That's mental.'

Harry watched Dumbledore stroll back into his frame and give him the smallest of smiles.

There was a knock, and the round-faced boy Harry had passed on the platform came in looking close to tears.

'Sorry,' he said. 'You haven't seen a toad?'

They shook their heads.

'I've lost him!' the boy wailed. 'He's always escaping!'

'He'll turn up,' said Harry.

'Yes,' said the boy miserably. 'Well, if you do see him...'

He went out.

'Can't think why he minds,' said Ron. 'If I had a toad I'd lose it on purpose. Still, I brought Scabbers, so I'm one to talk.'

The rat slept on in his lap.

'He could be dead and you'd never tell,' said Ron with disgust. 'I had a go at turning him yellow yesterday to liven him up. Didn't work. Here, I'll show you...'

He dug about in his trunk and came up with a wand that had seen better days. It was chipped along its length, and something white gleamed at the tip.

'The unicorn hair's nearly coming out. Anyway...'

He had only just raised it when the door opened again. The boy who had lost his toad was back, and he had brought a girl with him, already dressed in her Hogwarts robes.

'Has anybody seen a toad? Neville's lost one,' she said. Her voice was brisk and rather commanding, her brown hair stuck out in a great thick bush, and her front teeth were a little too big for her.

'We told him already, we haven't,' said Ron, but she was looking at his wand.

'Oh, are you doing magic? Go on, then, let's see.'

She sat down. Ron looked rather startled.

'Er. All right.'

He cleared his throat.

'Buttercup, custard, morning sun, make this lazy rat a yellow one.'

He flourished the wand. Scabbers remained grey and went on sleeping.

'Are you certain that's a proper spell?' said the girl. 'It isn't a very good one, is it? I've tried a few easy ones for practice and they all worked. There's no magic in my family whatsoever, so the letter was a tremendous surprise, but I was so pleased, because it's the best school of witchcraft anywhere, everyone says so. I've memorised all our set books, naturally, and I only hope that's enough. I'm Hermione Granger. Who are you?'

It all came out in a single breath.

Harry glanced at Ron and was comforted to see from his dazed expression that he hadn't memorised the set books either.

'Ron Weasley,' Ron muttered.

'Harry Potter,' said Harry.

'Are you actually?' said Hermione. 'I know all about you, of course. I bought some extra books for background, and you're in Modern Magical History, and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.'

'Am I?' said Harry faintly.

'Gracious, didn't you know? I'd have looked up every word if it were me,' said Hermione. 'Do you two know which house you'll be in? I've been asking people, and I'm hoping for Gryffindor. It sounds much the best, and they say Dumbledore was in it himself. I expect Ravenclaw would be all right too. Well, we ought to go and find Neville's toad. And you should both get changed, I should think we'll be arriving before long.'

She swept out, and the toadless boy trailed after her.

'I don't care which house I get, as long as she's not in it,' said Ron, flinging his wand back into the trunk. 'Rubbish spell. George gave it to me. I bet he knew it was a dud.'

Harry was about to answer when something pale flashed past the glass of the compartment door. It was a head of white-blonde hair, moving briskly down the corridor. Then it stopped. It came back.

The door opened, and in walked the girl from Madam Malkin's with a boy on either side of her. She was as pretty as he remembered, which irritated him. Her grey eyes went straight to Harry, and there was a great deal more interest in them than there had been in Diagon Alley.

'So it's true,' she said. 'The whole train is saying Harry Potter's in this compartment. That's you, then?'

'Yes,' said Harry. He was looking at the two boys. Both were broad and heavy and looked thoroughly unpleasant. Planted on either side of the slim, haughty girl, they might have been a pair of bodyguards.

'Oh, that's Crabbe, and that one's Goyle,' she said carelessly, seeing where his eyes had gone. 'And me you know already. I did introduce myself. Dracina Malfoy.'

Ron coughed. It sounded very like a snigger.

Dracina Malfoy rounded on him.

'Something funny about my name, is there?' She huffed, and she puffed, and then she tossed her hair and put her nose in the air. 'I needn't ask for yours. Father says a Weasley is easy to spot. Red hair, freckles, and a good many more children than they've Galleons to feed.'

She turned her back on Ron.

'Some wizarding families are a great deal better than others, Potter, as you'll find out. You wouldn't want to fall in with the wrong sort. I could show you who's who.'

She held out her hand for Harry to take. It was the same pale hand she had offered him in the robe shop, and for the second time Harry left it hanging in the air.

'I reckon I can work out the wrong sort for myself, thanks,' he said coolly.

A faint pink crept into Dracina Malfoy's pale cheeks. She huffed and puffed all over again.

'I should watch my step if I were you, Potter,' she said slowly. 'Learn some manners, or you'll end up exactly like your parents. They never knew what was good for them either. Keep company with rabble like the Weasleys and that Hagrid, and you'll turn out no better.'

Harry and Ron were both on their feet. Ron's face had gone as red as his hair.

'Go on,' he said. 'Say it once more.'

'Oh, are you going to fight us?' sneered Malfoy.

'I'll hit a girl, I don't mind,' said Ron, 'if she's being a b...'

'Get out,' said Harry loudly, cutting across him. 'Now.' He sounded a good deal braver than he felt, for Crabbe and Goyle were much bigger than he or Ron.

'But we're so comfortable here. Aren't we, boys? We've finished everything we brought, and you seem to have plenty to spare.'

Goyle reached for the Chocolate Frogs at Ron's elbow. Ron sprang at him, but before he had laid a finger on Goyle, Goyle gave a dreadful howl.

Scabbers was dangling from his hand, small sharp teeth buried in his knuckle. Crabbe and Malfoy backed away as Goyle whirled the rat round and round, bellowing. At last Scabbers flew off, struck the window and dropped, and all three of them made for the door.

Malfoy went last. She looked back over her shoulder as she left, and her eyes stayed fixed on Harry until the door frame cut him from view. It was the look of someone who has seen a thing in a shop window and has already decided to have it.

Perhaps they feared more rats were hiding among the sweets, or perhaps they had heard somebody coming, for a moment later Hermione Granger was in the doorway.

'What on earth has been happening?' she said, surveying the sweets scattered across the floor and Ron, who was lifting Scabbers by the tail.

'I think he's knocked out,' Ron said to Harry. He peered closer. 'No. I don't believe it. He's gone back to sleep.'

So he had.

'You'd met Malfoy already, then?'

Harry told him about Madam Malkin's.

'I know about her family,' said Ron darkly. 'They were among the first to come back over to our side when You-Know-Who vanished. Claimed they'd been bewitched. Dad doesn't swallow it. He says Malfoy's father never needed an excuse to join the Dark Side.' He looked round at Hermione. 'Did you want something?'

'You need to get your robes on quickly. I've been up to the front to ask the driver, and he says we're almost there. You haven't been fighting? You'll be in trouble before we've even arrived!'

'Scabbers was fighting. We weren't,' said Ron, scowling. 'D'you mind going away while we change?'

'Fine. I only came in because everybody out there is being so childish, tearing up and down the corridor,' said Hermione with a sniff. 'And there's dirt on your nose, in case you didn't know.'

Ron glowered at her back as she went.

Harry looked out of the window. The light was going. Mountains and forests stood dark beneath a deep purple sky, and the train seemed to be slowing.

'I hope she doesn't end up in the same house as us,' said Ron.

Harry wasn't certain whether he meant Hermione or Malfoy, and he didn't ask. He pulled his robes over his head, pressed his face to the cold glass, and wondered what Hogwarts would be like.