For one brief moment, the great black dog reared onto its hind legs and placed its front paws on Harry’s shoulders, but Mrs. Weasley shoved Harry away toward the train door hissing, “For heaven’s sake act more like a dog, Sirius!”
“See you!” Harry called out of the open window as the train began to move, while Ron, Hermione, and Ginny waved beside him. The figures of Tonks, Lupin, Moody, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley shrank rapidly but the black dog was bounding alongside the window, wagging its tail; blurred people on the platform were laughing to see it chasing the train, and then they turned the corner, and Sirius was gone.
“He shouldn’t have come with us,” said Hermione in a worried voice.
“Oh lighten up,” said Ron, “he hasn’t seen daylight for months, poor bloke.”
“Well,” said Fred, clapping his hands together, “can’t stand around chatting all day, we’ve got business to discuss with Lee. See you later,” and he and George disappeared down the corridor to the right.
The train was gathering still more speed, so that the houses outside the window flashed past and they swayed where they stood.
“Shall we go and find a compartment, then?” Harry asked Ron and Hermione.
Ron and Hermione exchanged looks.
“Er,” said Ron.
“We’re — well — Ron and I are supposed to go into the prefect carriage,” Hermione said awkwardly.
Ron wasn’t looking at Harry; he seemed to have become intensely interested in the fingernails on his left hand.
“Oh,” said Harry. “Right. Fine.”
“I don’t think we’ll have to stay there all journey,” said Hermione quickly. “Our letters said we just get instructions from the Head Boy and Girl and then patrol the corridors from time to time.”
“Fine,” said Harry again. “Well, I-I might see you later, then.”
“Yeah, definitely,” said Ron, casting a shifty, anxious look at Harry. “It’s a pain having to go down there, I’d rather — but we have to — I mean, I’m not enjoying it, I’m not Percy,” he finished defiantly.
“I know you’re not,” said Harry and he grinned. But as Hermione and Ron dragged their trunks, Crookshanks, and a caged Pigwidgeon off toward the engine end of the train, Harry felt an odd sense of loss. He had never traveled on the Hogwarts Express without Ron.
“Come on,” Ginny told him, “if we get a move on we’ll be able to save them places.”
“Right,” said Harry, picking up Hedwig’s cage in one hand and the handle of his trunk in the other. They struggled off down the corridor, peering through the glass-paneled doors into the compartments they passed, which were already full. Harry could not help noticing that a lot of people stared back at him with great interest and that several of them nudged their neighbors and pointed him out. After he had met this behavior in five consecutive carriages he remembered that the Daily Prophet had been telling its readers all summer what a lying show-off he was. He wondered bleakly whether the people now staring and whispering believed the stories.
In the very last carriage they met Neville Longbottom, Harry’s fellow fifth-year Gryffindor, his round face shining with the effort of pulling his trunk along and maintaining a one-handed grip on his struggling toad, Trevor.
“Hi, Harry,” he panted. “Hi, Ginny. . . . Everywhere’s full. . . . I can’t find a seat . . .”
“What are you talking about?” said Ginny, who had squeezed past Neville to peer into the compartment behind him. “There’s room in this one, there’s only Loony Lovegood in here —”
Neville mumbled something about not wanting to disturb anyone.
“Don’t be silly,” said Ginny, laughing, “she’s all right.”
She slid the door open and pulled her trunk inside it. Harry and Neville followed.
“Hi, Luna,” said Ginny. “Is it okay if we take these seats?”
The girl beside the window looked up. She had straggly, waist-length, dirty-blond hair, very pale eyebrows, and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look. Harry knew at once why Neville had chosen to pass this compartment by. The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of butterbeer caps, or that she was reading a magazine upside down. Her eyes ranged over Neville and came to rest on Harry. She nodded.
“Thanks,” said Ginny, smiling at her.
Harry and Neville stowed the three trunks and Hedwig’s cage in the luggage rack and sat down. The girl called Luna watched them over her upside-down magazine, which was called The Quibbler. She did not seem to need to blink as much as normal humans. She stared and stared at Harry, who had taken the seat opposite her and now wished he had not.
“Had a good summer, Luna?” Ginny asked.
“Yes,” said Luna dreamily, without taking her eyes off Harry. “Yes, it was quite enjoyable, you know. You’re Harry Potter,” she added.
“I know I am,” said Harry.
Neville chuckled. Luna turned her pale eyes upon him instead.
“And I don’t know who you are.”
“I’m nobody,” said Neville hurriedly.
“No you’re not,” said Ginny sharply. “Neville Longbottom — Luna Lovegood. Luna’s in my year, but in Ravenclaw.”
“Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” said Luna in a singsong voice.
She raised her upside-down magazine high enough to hide her face and fell silent. Harry and Neville looked at each other with their eyebrows raised. Ginny suppressed a giggle.
The train rattled onward, speeding them out into open country. It was an odd, unsettled sort of day; one moment the carriage was full of sunlight and the next they were passing beneath ominously gray clouds.
“Guess what I got for my birthday?” said Neville.
“Another Remembrall?” said Harry, remembering the marblelike device Neville’s grandmother had sent him in an effort to improve his abysmal memory.