Hermione felt shocked at that news. "Why? How will we be able to practice without magic?"
"They don't think we can be trusted not to do magic around Muggles during the summer. Which seems odd for those of us that live in the Wizarding World year round. We don't even have any Muggles living near my house. Plus the wards keep them out of sight."
The other one of twins looked up at the blonde girl saying, "Well I found out there are some loopholes in that law. If your house has heavy duty wards the Ministry can't detect your wand being used. Also, if you can use a wand that belongs to someone over seventeen the tracing charm is gone."
"Well, that hardly seems fair," Hermione huffed. "How are the Muggle-born supposed to keep up?"
The red-haired boy shrugged. "Mum wouldn't let us use that anyway. She always takes my older brothers' wands for the summer as soon as they got home. I'd rather fly anyway."
"I am sure there must be a logical explanation," Hermione commented, more to herself then to the other students. She resolved to look up the law on her first trip to the library. Then she remembered the original purpose of her visit.
"I am helping a boy named Neville look for his toad. Have any of you seen it?" she asked. She received all negative replies; noting the girls seemed to share her opinion of owning a toad.
"Okay, I will keep looking. Thank you." Hermione moved to close the compartment door.
"Wait, one of the girls called out. "What is your name?"
Hermione felt her face blush at her rudeness. "Oh, I am sorry. I am Hermione Granger."
"Hi Hermione. I am Parvati Patil. This is my sister Padma." She indicated the bench. "That is Daphne Greengrass and Ron Weasley. And these two are Harry Potter and Anthony…"
"Tony"
"Sorry, Tony Goldstein"
Hermione focused on the boy with messy hair and glasses. "Harry Potter? Are you really? I've read all about you of course. I picked up some extra material when we went to get our class texts."
Harry frowned. "I probably read some of the same rubbish. None of them got much right and they certainly didn't get my life after my parents' murder right."
"They could not publish it if it wasn't true," Hermione protested. "I read scholarly works that had proper citations and everything. Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts even won the Golden Quill award last year! So it must be the truth."
Harry scowled at her protest. " Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts provides a blow by blow account of the fight with my parents. How would they know? The book claims 'eyewitness accounts'. My parents couldn't tell them. Voldemort (here everyone jumped a bit at the name) wasn't in any condition to tell them, and I probably just wanted my nappies changed. On top of that, I can tell you I sure didn't grow up in a hidden Potter Manor or a castle floating in the clouds."
Harry paused to grin. "Okay, the castle in the clouds one would have been cool."
Then his grin dropped away as quickly as it came. "Not one fact of my life since that night is correct in those books. That rather throws the rest of their 'facts' into question too. Doesn't it?"
Hermione was taken aback by the vehemence in the Boy-Who-Lived's voice.
"I… I am sorry," she stammered before closing the door and making her escape. She felt like such a fool. She had embarrassed herself in front of the most famous young wizard in the entire world. This wasn't a great start to her Hogwarts career.
Well, she would just help Neville find his toad and focus on her classes. Surely if she performed well in her classes they would accept her and it would all be forgotten.
....
Ron Weasley was having a wonderful time on his first trip to Hogwarts.
The day hadn't started that great. He had stayed up late the night before in his excitement of finally going to Hogwarts. Then he'd overslept and barely had time to eat enough breakfast before leaving for Kings Cross.
When they had arrived at the station, his mum had led them through the Muggle potion of the station. He didn't remember doing that before with his brothers but he reckoned his mum knew what she was doing. He was a bit concerned when she asked what the platform number was though. Was she lost?
In the end they reached the platform just before the train was due to leave. Fred and George helped get his trunk on board before leaving to see their friend Lee and his pet spider. He'd be lucky if the gits didn't put it in his bed tonight. He swore he'd kill it if they did.
He started down the train looking for a compartment. Most of them seemed to be full or had much older students in them. A few had students that were probably Second or Third years but he really wanted to sit with some students in his own year.
Finally he came across a compartment that had some First years in it. It looked a bit full but he hadn't seen anything better yet. He opened the door just as the train jerked as it started to pull out of the station.
"Do you have room for one more?" he asked.
"Come on in," a boy invited. "We were outnumbered until now."
"Tony, you would be outnumbered in a room by yourself," a blonde girl commented with a sweet smile.
"Be careful, mate," Ron warned, "when my sister smiles like that I find someplace to hide."
The blonde turned her smile on Ron. "Oh how nice. A male that has already been partially trained." The girls started to laugh while the blokes shared commiserating looks.
"So, come on in," the boy who had been silent until now. "Have a seat. The girls have been trying to scare Tony and me with rumours of the Sorting."
"Well, my brothers said we have to fight a troll but I don't believe them."
Before Ron could sit down, one of the girls changed seats to sit between the other two boys. That left the only seat left between the two girls. The blonde patted the seat next to her.
The other girl, a twin to the one that moved, smiled and said, "Have a seat. We don't bite."
"Much," the blonde added.
.....
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