table with a little wizard generosity. All I have is an American ten dollar bill.' He turned back to the witch. 'You don't take American greenbacks, do you?'
She blinked and looked slightly aghast. 'American green… excuse me?'
'Drat. I thought not,' Zane said, wiggling his upturned palm towards James.
James dug in the pocket of his jeans, bemused and amazed at the boy's temerity. 'Wizard money isn't like play money, you know,' he said reproachfully, but there was a smile in his voice.
Ralph looked up from his booklet again, blinking. 'Did he just say 'drat'?'
'Oooh! Look at this!' Zane cried happily. 'Cauldron Cakes! And Licorice Wands! You wizards really know how to carry a metaphor. Us wizards, I mean. Heh!'
James paid the witch and Zane flopped back into his seat, opening a box of Licorice Wands. Assorted colors of wands were laid out in neat compartments. Zane produced a red one, brandished it, and then flicked it toward Ralph. There was a pop and a shower of tiny, purple flowers peppered the front of Ralph's tee shirt. Ralph glanced down at them.
'Better than I've gotten out of my own wand, yet,' Zane said, biting off the end of the wand with gusto.
James was surprised and pleased to find that he wasn't nervous anymore, or at least not much. He opened the box containing his own Chocolate Frog, caught the frog in the air as it leaped out, and bit its head off. He looked down into the bottom of the box and saw the face of his dad peering up at him. 'Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived', ran the caption at the bottom of the card. He took the card out of the box and handed it to Ralph.
'Here. A little something for my new Muggle-born friend,' he said as Ralph took it. Ralph hardly noticed. He was chewing, holding up one of the tiny, purple flowers. 'I don't know for sure,' he said, looking at it, 'but I think these are made out of meringue.'
After the initial rush of excitement and worry, then the whirlwind of making new acquaintances, the rest of the train ride seemed remarkably mundane. James found himself in turns either acting as a tour guide for his two new friends or having their conversation explained to him wherever they centered on Muggle life and concepts. He found it incredible that they had apparently spent a great chunk of their lives watching television. Whenever they weren't watching it, it seemed that they and their friends were playing games on it, pretending to drive racing cars or go on adventures or play sports. James had, of course, heard of television and video games, but having had mostly wizard friends, he'd assumed Muggle children only engaged in those activities when there was absolutely nothing better to do. When he asked Ralph why he'd spent so much time playing sports on the television instead of playing them in real life, Ralph merely rolled his eyes, made an exasperated noise, and then looked helplessly at Zane. Zane had clapped James on the back and said, 'James, buddy, it's a Muggle thing. You wouldn't understand.'
James, in turn, had explained as best he could about Hogwarts and the magical world. He told them about the unplottable nature of the castle, which meant it couldn't be found on any map by anyone who didn't already know its location. He described the school houses and explained the House points system Dad and Mum had told him about. He tried, as best he could, to explain Quidditch, which seemed to leave both of them confused and frustratingly unenthusiastic. Zane had had the ridiculous idea that only witches rode brooms, apparently based on a movie called The Wizard of Oz. James tried very patiently to explain that both wizards and witches rode brooms and that it wasn't at all 'a girly thing'. Zane, apparently sensing the consternation this was causing, went on to insist that all witches were supposed to have green skin and warts on their noses, and the conversation quickly deteriorated.
Just as evening was beginning to turn the sky a pale purple and silhouette the trees outside the train's windows, a tall, older boy with neatly cropped blonde hair knocked sharply on their compartment door. 'Hogsmeade Station straight ahead,' he said, leaning in with an air of brisk purpose. 'You fellows will want to be getting your school robes on.'
Zane frowned and raised his eyebrows at the boy. 'We will, will we?' he asked. 'It's almost seven o'clock. Are you quite sure?' He pronounced the word 'quite' with his ridiculous English accent. The older boy's brow darkened very slightly.
'My name is Steven Metzker. Fifth year. Prefect. And you are?'
Zane jumped up, offering the boy his hand in a parody of the gesture he'd shown James at the beginning of the trip. 'Walker. Zane Walker. Happy to meet you Mr. Prefect.'
Steven glanced down at the proffered hand, and then decided, with an apparently great effort, to go ahead and shake it. He spoke to the compartment at large as he did so. 'There will be a dinner in the Great Hall promptly upon your arrival on the school grounds. School robes are required. I will assume by your accent, Mr. Walker,' he said, retracting his hand and looking bracingly at Zane, 'that dressing for dinner is a relatively new concept. No doubt you'll catch on fast.' He caught James' eye, dropped a quick wink, and then disappeared down the corridor.
'No doubt I shall,' Zane said cheerfully.
James helped Ralph and Zane make sense of their robes. Ralph had put his on backwards, making him look to James like the youngest cleric he'd ever seen. Zane, liking the look, had turned his around on purpose, proclaiming that if it wasn't the style yet, it soon would be. Only when James had insisted that it would be disrespectful to the school and teachers did Zane reluctantly agree to turn it back around.
James had been told repeatedly and in great detail what would happen when they arrived. He knew about Hogsmeade Station, had even been there a few times when he was very young, although he had no memories of it. He knew about the boats which would ferry them across the lake and had seen dozens of pictures of the castle. Still, he discovered that none of that had quite prepared him for the grandness and solemnity of it. As the tiny boats glided across the lake, drawing V-shaped wakes on the glassy water, James stared with a kind of wonder that was perhaps even greater than that felt by those with him who hadn't come believing they knew what to expect. The sheer bulk of the castle amazed him as it rambled and clumped on the great rocky hilltop. It soared upwards in turrets and ramparts, each structural detail lit on one side by the blue of the approaching night, on the other by the golden rose of the setting sun. A galaxy of windows dotted the castle, glowing a warm yellow on the shaded sides, glittering like sunfire on the lit. The massiveness and weight of the sight seemed to press down on James with a pleasant awe, going straight through him and down, down, into its own reflection deep in the mirror of the lake.
There was one detail he hadn't expected, however. Halfway across the lake, just as conversation had begun to spring up again among the new students and they began to hoot excitedly and call to each other across the water, James noticed another boat on the lake. Unlike the ones he and his fellow first years rode in, it wasn't lit by a lantern. Nor was it approaching the castle. It was pointed away from the lights of Hogwarts, a larger boat than his own, but still small enough to be nearly lost in the dim shadows at the edge of the lake. There was one person in it, lanky and thin, almost spiderlike. James thought it looked like a woman. Just as he was about to turn away and forget the decidedly unremarkable sight, the figure looked up at him suddenly, as if aware of his curiosity. In the darkening light, he was almost sure their eyes met, and a totally unexpected coldness came over him. It was indeed a woman. Her skin was dark, her face bony, hard, with high cheeks and a sharp chin. A scarf was tied down neatly over her head, hiding most of her hair. The look on her face as she watched him watch her wasn't frightened or angry. Her face didn't seem to have any expression at all, in fact. And then she vanished. James blinked in surprise, before realizing, a moment later, that she hadn't actually vanished, she had simply been obscured behind a hedge of reeds and cattails as their boats grew further apart. He shook his head, smiled at himself for being a typically jumpy first year, and then returned his gaze to the journey ahead.
The gaggle of first years entered the courtyard with a chorus of appreciative chatter. James found himself straggling, threading almost unconsciously to the rear of the group as they climbed the steps into the brightly lit corridor. There was Mr. Filch, whom James recognized by his hair, scowl, and the cat, Mrs. Norris, which he held cradled in the crook of his arm. Here were the enchanted staircases, even now creaking and grinding into new positions to the mingled delight and trepidation of the new students. And here, finally, were the doors into the
