Brighter Than the Sun

Chapter Forty-Two

Ron was still grumpy when the Hogwarts Express slowed down at last and finally stopped in the pitch-darkness of Hogsmeade station.

As the train doors opened, there was a rumble of thunder overhead. Hermione and I bundled up our pets in our cloaks and Ron left his dress robes over Pigwidgeon as we left the train, heads bent and eyes narrowed against the downpour. The rain was now coming down so thick and fast that it was as though buckets of ice-cold water were being emptied repeatedly over our heads.

What had Hogwarts ever done to Zeus?

"I think I'm gonna die," I said.

"What?" Ron yelled over the rain.

"I think I'm gonna die!" I shouted.

"You sank a funny guy?"

"I... THINK... I'M... GONNA... DIE!" I bellowed at him.

"WHAT?"

"UGH!" I groaned. "GET SOME HEARING AIDS, RON!"

"WHAT?"

"NOTHING!"

"Hi, Hagrid!" Harry yelled. I turned in time to see a gigantic silhouette at the far end of the platform.

"All righ', Harry?" Hagrid bellowed back, waving. "See yeh at the feast if we don' drown!"

"He can hear better than you," I told Ron, "And he's got all that hair."

"WHAT?"

I was beginning to think he was doing this on purpose.

"Oooh, I wouldn't fancy crossing the lake in this weather," said Hermione fervently, shivering as we inched slowly along the dark platform with the rest of the crowd. A hundred horseless carriages stood waiting for us outside the station. We climbed gratefully into one of them, the door shut with a snap, and a few moments later, with a great lurch, the long procession of carriages was rumbling and splashing its way up the track toward Hogwarts Castle.

Through the gates, flanked with statues of winged boars, and up the sweeping drive the carriages trundled, swaying dangerously in what was fast becoming a gale. Leaning against the window, I could see Hogwarts coming nearer, its many lighted windows blurred and shimmering behind the thick curtain of rain. Lightning flashed across the sky as the carriage came to a halt before the great oak front doors, which stood at the top of a flight of stone steps. People who had occupied the carriages in front were already hurrying up the stone steps into the castle. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I jumped down from the carriage and dashed up the steps too.

"Blimey," said Ron, shaking his head and sending water everywhere, "if that keeps up the lake's going to overflow. I'm already soak — ARRGH!"

A large, red, water-filled balloon had dropped from out of the ceiling onto Ron's head and exploded. Drenched and sputtering, Ron staggered sideways into Harry, just as a second water bomb dropped — narrowly missing Hermione and I, it burst at Harry's feet, drenching his shoes.

People all around us shrieked and started pushing one another in their efforts to get out of the line of fire. I looked up and saw, floating twenty feet above them, Peeves the Poltergeist, a little man in a bell-covered hat and orange bow tie, his wide, malicious face contorted with concentration as he took aim again.

"PEEVES!" yelled an angry voice. "Peeves, come down here at ONCE!"

Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress and head of Gryffindor House, had come dashing out of the Great Hall; she skidded on the wet floor and grabbed Hermione around the neck to stop herself from falling.