(TL: Thanks to some helpful readers, I realized Chapter 6 was missing. It's up now!)
"Harry? Harry Potter? You mean… the Harry Potter?" Ron Weasley stared at Dudley, his mouth agape, his face a mixture of shock and disbelief.
"Uh…" Dudley glanced at Harry, assuming his cousin had already made introductions.
"He just got here," Harry said with a helpless sigh.
Dudley shrugged, casually scooping up the sleeping orange cat from the seat beside him and placing it on his lap. The cat, startled awake, gave him a look of deep, existential confusion before settling down and accepting the pets he offered.
"So, you… you really are Harry Potter, aren't you?" Ron finally managed to say, his gaze shifting to the quiet, dark-haired boy sitting opposite him.
"Yeah, I'm Harry," he confirmed with a small, shy smile.
"Then… you've really got the… you know…" Ron pointed a shaky finger at his own forehead.
"Oh, yeah." Harry generously lifted his fringe, revealing the famous lightning-bolt scar.
Ron stared, mesmerized. "You're from a wizarding family, right?" Harry asked, eager to change the subject. "I saw your family at the station." The Weasleys, with their flaming red hair, were hard to miss.
"Yeah, our whole family are wizards," Ron said, snapping out of his stupor. "The Weasleys are an old wizarding family. Well, mostly. My mum's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we don't talk about him." The ice was broken, and the easy camaraderie of young boys began to fill the compartment.
"Then you must know tons of magic!" Harry said, his eyes alight with excitement.
"I heard you lived with Muggles," Ron countered, his own curiosity piqued. "What's that like?"
"Uh… it's not bad," Harry said, his eyes flicking to Dudley for a fraction of a second. A month ago, he would have launched into a bitter tirade. Now, things were different.
"Oh, right, sorry. He's your cousin," Ron said, looking awkward.
"Could you tell us about Hogwarts?" Dudley interjected smoothly, stroking his purring cat. "We're not very familiar with the school yet."
"No problem!" Ron said, glad for the change of topic. "Hogwarts is the best school in the world, I reckon. It's divided into four Houses: Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Slytherin. Each House has its own criteria for choosing students, but I don't know exactly how it works. My brother Fred told me you have to wrestle a troll."
A flicker of genuine worry crossed Harry's face. Wrestle a troll? He'd never even seen one. What if he couldn't pass the test? What if no House wanted him? The thought of being sent back to the Dursleys was more terrifying than any troll.
"Those two twins, the ones I saw on the platform, they're your brothers, right?" Dudley asked suddenly.
"Yeah, Fred and George. You saw them?"
"Mm-hmm," Dudley confirmed. "I saw them joking with your sister. My advice? Don't believe everything they tell you." The twins had the mischievous air of natural-born pranksters.
"Right," Ron said, nodding sagely. "I don't believe them either." He then launched into a detailed explanation of everything Hogwarts, from the moving staircases to the ghosts, from the Great Hall's enchanted ceiling to the glorious sport of Quidditch. These were details that couldn't be found in any book, and Dudley and Harry listened with rapt attention.
A knock on the compartment door interrupted them. A round-faced, teary-eyed boy peeked in. "Sorry to interrupt," he sniffled, "but have you seen a toad? His name is Trevor."
"No, sorry," Ron said, shaking his head.
"Okay, thank you," the boy said sadly, before closing the door and continuing his search.
"Toads went out of fashion years ago," Ron said dismissively. "If I had a toad, I'd want it to get lost." He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a fat, sleeping grey rat. "This is Scabbers. He's my brother Percy's old rat. He's mine now." Ron's ears turned a little red. "He's useless, really. Just eats and sleeps. Half the time, I'm not even sure if he's alive."
Dudley glanced at the mangy-looking rat, and his brow furrowed slightly. He felt something… off. A faint, almost imperceptible aura of malice clung to the creature.
"Can I see your rat?" Dudley asked, his tone casual. He needed a closer look. Even a flicker of that feeling was something he couldn't ignore.
"Oh, sure," Ron said, about to hand Scabbers over.
Suddenly, the sleeping rat went berserk. It began to struggle violently, letting out a series of frantic, high-pitched squeaks, its tiny body writhing in Ron's grip.
"Scabbers, what's gotten into you?" Ron exclaimed, startled, tightening his hold on the frantic animal.
"He's probably afraid of Dudley's cat," Harry suggested. Dudley was, after all, still stroking the purring orange fluffball in his lap.
"Right, right," Ron said, trying to soothe the rat. "It's okay, he's not going to eat you. Calm down." He stuffed Scabbers back into his pocket. "Sorry about that," he said to Dudley.
"It's fine," Dudley replied, though his gaze remained fixed on Ron's pocket. "I forgot I had the cat out." But he knew it wasn't the cat. He had felt the rat's terror, and it was directed at him.
He blinked, his Spirit Vision activating for a moment. A faint, spiritual glow emanated from Ron's pocket. An extraordinary creature, Dudley realized. Or at least, a magical one. The faint evil aura could mean many things—a trace picked up from something else, or perhaps an inherent trait of its species. He didn't know enough about this world's fauna to be sure.
I'll have to find an opportunity to take a closer look later, he thought, making a mental note.
At the same time, deep within Ron's pocket, the rat Scabbers trembled uncontrollably. There was a look of pure, intelligent terror in his bright black eyes. He had been seen.
***
(End of Chapter)
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