Daphne nodded, but Harry, on the other hand, stiffened. He had forgotten about the Dobby situation and the fact that Longbottom was probably stuck on the other side of the barrier. The Potter scion sincerely hoped that he wouldn't follow his counterpart from the stories and break the Statute of Secrecy instead of just flooing to Hogsmeade or contacting his grandmother. That would just be ridiculous. Although, if by some miracle, he does end up going to Scotland in a flying car, that would be hilarious.
"What are you smiling about," Daphne asked, having noted his small, amused smile at the thought of Longbottom flying to Hogwarts in a car.
"Just an amusing thought. I really can have an overactive imagination," Harry remarked.
Blaise shook his head at the last Potter's eccentric behaviour and spoke up, "Although, Longbottom is really popular since last year."
Harry frowned, "I don't remember people really liking him outside of his house."
"Oh, I mean because of the House Cup," Blaise answered, "Slytherin has been winning it for years, and the moment he gets here, Longbottom snatches it. Even if Dumbledore practically handed it to him on a silver platter, it didn't really matter. The other houses are overjoyed that we didn't win for once. I heard an upperclassman in Hufflepuff saying that she's glad that we just didn't win again."
The Potter scion shrugged, "Jealous and envy are very human traits. People will always look to others to see what they do not have."
Afterwards, the discussion moved to the absolute nightmare that was Binns' class and what Lockhart's own classes were going to be like. Harry was adamant that either the man would keep to theoretical work for the upper years and would involve his books somehow in the lessons to justify requiring the students to buy them. Tracy, however, was resolute that he picked the book for their practical applications and that he was going to set up an obstacle course with scenarios from the book, while he would teach them applications of spells that they already knew.
Honestly, it wasn't a bad shout, but considering who was teaching them, Harry didn't expect much from the blonde ponce. The man was a performer, an actor, but he had no qualifications outside of his stories. He wasn't trained as an Auror, he wasn't trained as a Hit-Wizard, hell, he wasn't even a dueler. As far as his books are concerned, one day, he just decided to start going on adventures. The average Hogwarts graduate would die horribly, or at least be mutilated without having the proper training to fight dark creatures and dangerous wizards. His narrative was just unlikely. The only way the Potter scion could see his narrative working would be if Lockhart was some sort of prodigy that hid his talents in school for some reason and wasn't deemed to be particularly remarkable to be recruited by the Unspeakables or the Aurors, and just decided to go on random adventures all over the world and just write books about them.
Still, the bickering continued until the sun went down and Harry saw that they just went past Hogsmeade. He could feel his Arcane Hearing note the proximity to the Hogwarts wards and excuse himself, "Sorry, I have to go somewhere."
Harry practically ran out of the door and waited for the Diary to be overwhelmed by the wards. As expected, barely two minutes later, Harry could feel the same abominable feeling he caught in Flourish and Blotts. At least that confirmed that the Diary was in fact in the train.
The young Slytherin was following the quickly fading song of the abomination. It was far faster at adapting than it was in Diagon Alley. Was it because Riddle was already familiar with the wards? He had to have taken the book to the school after turning it into his Horcrux.
Still, Harry ran from compartment to compartment, desperate to get closer to the cursed diary and not risk his fellow students' lives. He lost count of how many people he trampled on, trying to get to what seemed like the end of the train. By the time he was almost there, the song had faded into nothing, having adapted to the castle wards. Harry knew that he was so close, that he was barely more than a few compartments away.
Frustrated beyond belief, he punched the compartment door. A young girl with long blonde hair and protuberant silver eyes opened the door to her compartment and gave him an odd look.
"Hello," the girl spoke up.
"Hello," Harry parroted back.
"Why were you hitting the compartment?" the girl asked with a dreamy tone. That girl was weird.
"I was just angry about something," Harry responded.
"Oh, I thought you might have been hunting Wrackspurts. They're very tricky buggers. I think I saw one around here…"
"No," Harry answered, "I was just angry."
"Oh, that's a shame. I would have liked it better if you were fighting the Wrackspurts. I have seen a lot of people around with infections. They're so full of negative thoughts. Oh, I haven't even introduced myself. My name is Luna Lovegood, what's yours?"
Oh, that makes a lot of sense now. Luna was coming to Hogwarts this year, "Harry Potter. You're a first year, right?"
She nodded with that weird, dreamy look on her face and Harry continued, "If you need anything, let me know. You seem like a good person."
"You're a very kind boy, Harry Potter. Don't lose that. The world needs more kind people."
"That it does, Luna Lovegood. That it does."
Harry turned and left the compartment, oddly relaxed. He was still frustrated beyond belief for not finding the Diary, but he had a lead now. He had isolated the possible culprit to the compartments he hadn't visited yet, which were around a tenth of the total ones. Having stopped being frantic, Harry walked around the following compartment, making sure to note the faces of every single person he saw. One of them was the one being possessed by Tom Riddle, after all. He didn't really know all of them, outside of a few familiar faces he had seen in the Great Hall a few times, whose names still escaped him.
He might have lost a chance at getting the Diary, but at least, he didn't come back empty handed. There was still the possibility of stopping Riddle before anyone dies. When he came back to the compartment, he was oddly smiling. He barely even batted an eyelash at the Thestrals pulling the carriages to the school. They were oddly beautiful in a dark sort of way. Alas, he was back at Hogwarts, and he couldn't wait to see what would happen next.
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