JILY - AN UNEXPECTED RETURN

35. The Train Ride

A/N:

According to the canon, Ron and Hermione are the Gryffindor house prefects. It's the same here too.

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PREVIOUSLY IN JILY RETURNS

Harry's family dropped him off at platform 9 ¾.
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Once Harry found the compartment where his friends were sitting in, he entered and stowed his trunk below the seat and put Hedwig's cage on the luggage rack above. They started talking about random stuff and about an hour into the train ride, Hermione and Ron returned from their Prefects meeting. "Any guesses who the Slytherin house prefects are?" asked Ron sarcastically. "I know one is surely Malfoy." Answered Neville. "The other one's Pansy Parkinson. I wonder what made Snape choose her. Malfoy, I can understand, as he's the top in Slytherin house from our year. But Pansy is as thick and stupid as a mountain troll." Ranted Hermione and everyone agreed to that.

Just when they were about to get back to doing what they were doing, they heard a too familiar voice as the door opened. "Potty, Mudblood, Longywarts and the too many weasels. Why don't you idiots do something to get expelled. And how does it feel to be the second best to that Weasel, Potty?"

"I'd suggest you stay away from this whole compartment, Ferret. Unless you and that girlfriend of yours want yourselves stripped off your prefect badges. And don't you dare try doing anything this year. I know that your father is a death eater. One wrong move and you'll find him in Azkaban." Warned Harry. Draco went beet red and pulled out his wand at his comment. "Stupefy" he yelled. But even before the spell reached the door, the golden trio whipped their wands out in blinding speed and yelled "Protego".

The spell rebounded and hit Malfoy. His cronies, Crabbe and Goyle got a bit worried and carried the unconscious slytherin back to their compartment. Neville shut the door and came back to his seat.

"Guys, I want to tell you something." Everyone stopped doing whatever they were doing and turned towards him. "I'm starting a study group at Hogwarts. Anyone who are in third-year or above can join. It's for all the students from all the four houses and it includes Slytherin as well Ron." He added the last statement as he saw that Ron was about to protest.

"Harry, even though Voldemort is gone, you know that the death eaters who are free might be planning on getting their revenge, right?" said Neville. "How are you going to differentiate between the ones who support them and the ones who don't?" he added.

"I've spoken to McGonagall about this. She told me that Flitwick will charm a parchment that will detect anyone carrying any mark that has been made by Voldemort's followers. Since Snape's keeping an eye on the rest of the death eaters, I think we'll know what's going on." Harry replied to his God Brother's questions. "I'll be telling you guys more about this group once I get the notices up on the house noticeboards."

Everyone nodded. The rest of the train ride went on peacefully. Harry bought a small amount of everything off the trolley when it passed by their compartment. Harry discussed about the twins' business venture as he had given his Triwizard winnings to them so that they have enough for starting out once they graduated.