READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 22: Platform 9 3/4
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Important Notice:
I just wanted to say that despite the part at the end of this chapter the chapter itself is not shorter than usual; I reached my highest ever wordcount even without it and with it I got a whole 2263 words.
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Due to his full day it just so happened, that only in the evening Astoria noticed something wrong:
„Brother, what's that with your eye?"
Made aware of it after just a moment their mother clasped her hand before her mouth:
"Julius! Is everything okay?! Does it hurt badly?!"
…
After the ruckus died down and Astoria was calmed down and stopped crying, which she started due to their their mother's questions apparently making her think her big brother had just lost his left eye, Theo brought a mirror and Julius was surprised to see the reason he had been able to see Rachel like before but only with his left eye; it was still the slit-pupilled eye of a snake.
(Author here: Are you angry yet because I used such an overused/annoying trope?)
He even came up with a reason for it:
If one was fearful during the transformation they would oftentimes mutate, giving them characteristics of their other form even as a human.
And he, probably due to his bloodline curse, had been in so much pain before said transformation, that he automatically got a bit fearful of his animal form, just luckily not enough for serious deformations.
But in the end aside from the reactions of other people he had no problems with it, on the contrary, he was glad to be able to watch his companion even in human form.
But regarding these concerns George said he already knew a solution for it which shouldn't inconvenience him too much.
…
The next day Julius woke up when the first ray of sunlight entered his room.
How? Rachel had slept on his chest this night and when the multicoloured spectacle started inside his room Julius could not possibly have continued sleeping.
After doing a superficial morning routine, trying, to no avail, to transform without his wand and finally giving up and using his wand, he went to eat breakfast with the rest of his family, both of his sisters were already excited to see the famous platform 9 3/4 and Hogwarts Express and therefore ate quite quickly despite knowing they were't going to go earlier just because they finished eating faster.
And then George and Theo had a pleasant surprise for him:
Apparently his uncle had really wanted to have an eyepatch when he was at his age and even though he never wore it in public because of the embarrassment it was still a comfortable eyepatch made out of a black metal and with the crest of the house on it, it even had the function of allowing the wearer to see through it from inside to not hinder one's sight and it allowed the user to at least see most of the enchantments other items in his sight might have.
(Author: Clichee I know but I introduced the thing with the eye to have an excuse for his ability to see Rachel, then I needed something to cover it up and then I wanted the eyepatch to at least have some kind of reason for it's existence)
After receiving the eyepatch and asking Theo to bring him his luggage they decided to apparate just in front of the column inside which one of the entrances to platform 9 3/4 laid, again due to Julius and in this case also Astoria, wanting to take the traditional way.
At least he accepted to use a briefcase, enchanted with the extension charm, instead of the traditionally huge trunks.
After a slightly tearful farewell with is family, Julius walked to the train with George accompanying him.
"Am I right in the assumption that you are trying to steer attention my way here?", Julius couldn't believe that someone as smart as George Williams, the one leading his company for the last years in taking over a newly introduced part of the magical international economy, would do something like this without any underlying intentions, and he wasn't mistaken as it turned out.
„You're right young master, it seems you did indeed not loose this monstrous intellect of yours. Even if you hide it from you family. I just hope sometime in the future you will agree to tell them, or at least let old me tell them about your genius. But as I know you won't give me any real answer on that I just want to wish you a great time at Hogwarts, maybe there you can finally let the true you out and still have good friendships, and I want you to promise me that you will at least try to make friends. And I won't let you go before you do."
At these words Julius sighed; he had again and again failed to convince George, that the him he showed every day, was the real him.
George just continued believing he was hiding his real feelings and was only holding himself back due to his family.
"I promise George, but as I said; this is the real me, I truly am just slightly talented in magic."
After this Julius entered the train and started his search for a completely empty compartment.
After all even though he did hope to be able to find some friends he was not going to push himself onto some kids he didn't know, like or trust.
And after finding an empty compartment he entered it and, just to make sure, locked the door with magic before transforming into his snake form and laying on the comfortable seats together with Rachel, giving any person looking into the compartment through the window in the door the impression of a compartment which was out of service for some reason.
After all space was no longer a problem since the train was intensively enchanted with the extension charm following the influx of foreign students.
And since it was a good opportunity he decided to take it and see if his silent friend had something to say at after all of this.
~Do you understand me, Rachel?~
In reaction to his first words in parseltongue Julius at first didn't receive any reaction at all, only when he called her by her name could a slight twitch be seen and when Julius started speaking again he was, to his surprise interrupted by a click as the door was unlocked and someone came in.
The person who came in was a boy around Julius' age with dark skin and, and that was his most important feature in Julius' eyes, he did not hold a wand despite having just opened a magically locked door.
Coupled with his appearance and his clothes, which looked very much like the traditional garb of some of the African wizards, Julius immediately guessed he must be from Africa and had already learned a bit about wandless magic, even though that would pretty much make studying at Hogwarts useless for him.
After all Hogwarts completely refused to teach any magic besides those for wands.
~You can come out, I know you're here. There's no use in hiding.~
As soon as the boy spoke, Julius got his next surprise; the boy new parseltongue.
'I don't have much of a choice if I don't want to use force which I definitely don't. At least as the head of one of the sacred 28 I am not legally required to register myself as an animagus so I don't have to worry about Askaban right now, but I still don't really want to reveal me being one to some guy I don't even know. So do I just ignore him or do I try to flee? But fleeing is out of question, I still have my luggage here. But do I really need to just sit here in fear that he might find me or Rachel?'
While Julius was racking his brain he was suddenly interrupted by the boy.
~If you don't want to reveal how you're doing this I will just wait for a few minutes in front of the door for now, if you're ready you can call me in again.~
Julius let out a sigh of relief at that, he didn't expect some random guy to be this considerate.
After the boy had left the compartment and Julius had made sure he could not somehow look through the window he transformed back into a human and opened the door.
„Do you want to come in?"
"If you don't mind me staying inside the compartment for the ride I would love to. But we could also just talk like this and I will search for another compartment to sit in", the boy answered.
„No you can sit here, that's not a problem, just don't sit on Rachel and you're fine."
That caused the boy to become interested:
"If you talk about Rachel, do you mean the snake you talked with? And if yes, where is she?"
„The answer to your first question is yes, I will answer the second question if you answer a question of mine first: How did you know I was in here? You said you know I spoke parseltongue, but you should have been unable to hear me through the closed door and as quiet as I was. And my name is Julius Aurelius Abraxus by the way, you can call me Julius."
"Well, I can tell you the answer to that, my wand actually has a wand with a horned serpent horn core; it reacts when parseltongue is being spoken around it. And then I just had to check every compartment until I found the only locked one, all of the others were empty and open. And you can call me Habol, just Habol."
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But while Julius was unsuspectingly enjoying sitting in the iconic Hogwarts Express as well as the company of an interesting person, something was going on in the Hogwarts general forum on the mirror web.
The mirror web's system for the mirror equivalent of muggle social media was organised in a way that anyone could create a "forum" in which anyone who knew the code for it could enter, and with the extreme speed inherent to social media forums for everything appeared.
At first most of these forums were duplicate or even more but after only weeks most of these had either disappeared or became the "main forum".
-Hogwarts forum-
SEEKER - did you see what I did?! There was THE George Williams at the station!
America_Yea - @SEEKER You mean the guy in the suit standing with that woman and those little girls was actually Williams?! Could that be his family or something?
SEEKER - @America_Yea are you sure he was stabeing with them? I only saw him seeing of some dark-haired boy with an eyepatch
SEEKER - @SEEKER *standing I don't know what's wrong with my autocorrect
DaoistxjRjqE - @SEEKER before I came to the UK my grandfather made me learn about all of the sacred 28, I'm pretty sure that was the Greengrass family and the Abraxus boy even though I didn't know he had an eyepatch until now
J2407 - @DaoistxjRjqE I haven't thought about that till now but do they call themselves the 29 now or what
DaoistxjRjqE - @J2407 apparently some stuck up "I was under the control of an unforgivable" bigot said tradition was more important than facts and no one cared enough to go against him
Abhi_Garg - @DaoistxjRjqE as someone from magical Britain I can assure you that that's a pretty realistic situation in our wizengamott, I'm just waiting for the day those Malfoys or someone proposes something to make people with "impure" blood become second-class citizens again. Especially now that the grey faction has split up after Greengrasses suicide
Shadow1609 - @America_Yea let's just ignore those jealous guys above, much more important is; who was that handsome boy and could he be Williams' son? Just imagine: A pureblood of a modest family falls in love with Adorabella Greengrass and she loves him too, then they get a son and her husband drives Williams out of the country and acts as if their child was his until Williams succeeds with his business and when Greengrass finds out about it he unalives himself out of fear
America_Yea - @Shadow1609 srsly? The best you could come up with is this? What is, if he abused the child and his mother and when Williams, who had tried to leave his past behind and let his love go, learns about it, he threatens Greengrass with information about his wrongdoings and after Greengrass doesn't react he just released the information and that was actually the reason he ****** himself? I mean I wouldn't put that past someone who used the unforgivables
_ST_8244 - @America_Yea you both should shut up before you both get banned, you know who the guy is you're gossiping about? I don't think the moderators of the mirror net will appreciate you badmouthing their boss
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Hi, author here, I just wanted to say if anyone of the readers whose names I used doesn't want his name to be used like that tell me and I will change it immediately.
Thanks for reading!
PS: I think I just started my path in mastering the art of filler xD (jk I really do intend to use these parts for the plot and for reactions)
PPS: If you have anything to say about these parts from forums please tell, I would be interested to know what you think about it