22 Yellow Moon

They arrived at King's Cross at a quarter to eleven. Mr. Weasley dashed across the road to get trolleys for their trunks and they all hurried into the station.

"Percy first," said Mrs. Weasley, looking nervously at the clock overhead, which showed they had only five minutes to disappear casually through the barrier.

Percy strode briskly forward and vanished. Mr. Weasley went next; Fred and George followed.

"I'll take Ginny and you three come right after us," Mrs. Weasley told them, grabbing Ginny's hand and setting off. In the blink of an eye they were gone.

Harry and Ron followed after them and crashed into the barrier and bounced backwards.

Arth narrowed his eyes.

"The barrier is closed?"

Arth checked his watch.

There were only two minutes left. Ron started to panic.

"What do we do? Why is the barrier closed? What do we do?"

Harry places his trolly in front of the wall and pushed with all his might, yet it had no effect.

Arth noticed curious gazed focusing on the three of them and sighed.

"Stop it you two, we are starting to draw attention to ourselves. Just calm down and let's wait for your parents to come out."

Three seconds...two seconds...one second...

"It's gone," said Ron, sounding stunned. "The train's left. What if Mum and Dad can't get back through to us? Have you got any Muggle money?"

Harry gave a hollow laughed. "The Dursleys haven't given me pocket money for about six years."

Arth checked his pockets for any spare change.

"I'm out too, damn."

Ron pressed his ear to the cold barrier.

"Can't hear a thing," he said tensely, "What're we going to do? I don't know how long it'll take Mum and Dad to get back to us."

They looked around. People were still watching them, mainly because of Hedwig's continuing screeches and Corvus sitting on Arth's shoulder.

"I think we'd better go and wait by the car," said Harry. "We're attracting too much atten —"

"Harry!" said Ron, his eyes gleaming. "The car!"

"What about it?"

"We can fly the car to Hogwarts!"

Harry hit the head of Ron.

"Are you an idiot?"

"Sorry, just said it as a joke, don't have the confidence to drive it anyways..."

Arth sighed.

"At least you have the room to joke around. We only have to stay here and wait... unless."

"Unless what?"

Arth grabbed his trolley and started to push it somewhere, Harry and Ron attempted to follow. They stopped when they walked to the back of kings cross.

"What do you think you are trying to do?" Asked Harry, genuinely curious.

Arth took out his wand before replying.

"I'm going to try to Apparate."

Ron let out a gasp.

"Are you mad? You are only twelve! You aren't allowed to Apparate until you are sixteen even if you can."

"I think I might be able too," said Arth with an obviously uncertain voice.

"What if you splinch yourself? What will you do?"

"I'll deal with it when I get to it."

Harry tilted his head in confusion.

"What is Apparate, and what is splinching?"

"Apparate is when you teleport and splinching is when you leave a part of your body behind."

Harry glance worriedly at Arth, "can you really do it?"

"Of course I can-" Arth froze. This wasn't like him. He wasn't usually this reckless, he needed to calm down.

"Maybe... we should wait?"

Arth had noticed that he was having increasingly more moments where he acted more and more reckless. And he knew the reason why.

"God damn that Dark lord who enjoys reading the mind of a child," he muttered under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing," said Arth while putting away his wand. "I just realized how stupid I was being."

They walked to back to the barrier feeling a bit gloomy with their trolleys. They sat in front of the barrier while sighing. Corvus was flying around snapping at any mosquitoes that dared to come near Arth.

Suddenly, Arth felt as though he was being stared at. He glanced up and pulled out his wand. There was a flash of red light as a small creature with large, bat-like ears and bulging green eyes the size of tennis balls fell to the floor with a stunned look.

Harry let out a yell.

"Dobby!"

Ron frowned.

"Are you talking about the mad elf that took away your birthday presents?"

"Yes! It was this elf."

"He was stoping us from entering through, he must be really determined to make sure you stay away from Hogwarts this year."

Arth nudged Dobby with his foot.

"You reckon he can take us to school? He is a house elf, and house elf's have stronger magic than wizards, in theory."

"Doesn't hurt to try, he won't hurt any of us for sure."

"He almost got me killed by the Dursley's..." Harry muttered, but still allowed Arthur to dispel the curse.

"Rennervate."

There was another flash of red light.

Dobby's eyes started to flutter as he regained consciousness. When the elf saw Harry, it immediately prostrated himself.

"Harry Potter!" said the creature in a high-pitched voice, "Dobby is happy to meet the Harry Potter here sir. However, you must not go to Hogwarts."

Ron and Arth stared at each other with dumbfounded looks.

"It is dangerous at Hogwarts this year sir, terrible things will happen."

Harry let out a sigh.

"Dobby, I need to go, Hogwarts is my life."

"It will not be Harry Potter's life when Harry Potter dies- BAD DOBBY! BAD DOBBY!"

The elf grabbed a book and started to punish himself with it.

Ron looked around nervously, but then realized that no one had seemed to know that they existed.

"What is going on-"

Arth interrupted before he could finish.

"It was me so don't mind it, now Dobby, I don't care that you need to punish yourself. Your masters aren't here so have no need for punishment. Now, tell me, why can harry not go to Hogwarts?"

Dobby turned around like a delicate doll and stared at Arth with a curious gaze.

"Sir is very interesting. Dobby has been found by sir and has been stunned by sir. Dobby does not understand how he was found? Will sir tell Dobby how he was found?"

"Instinct."

"Sir is very great, however, Harry Potter must not go to Hogwarts."

"Well we are still going to go, even if you try to stop us, Dobby."

"Dobby can't have that sir, Dobby has read sir's letters to Harry Potter. The red hair is Sir Ron and the other is sir Arthur. Dobby need for Harry Potter's friends to disappear."

Dobby gave a snap and Arth felt as if space around him was bending. He saw that Harry was trying to reach out, yet Dobby stopped Harry before he could grab onto any of them.

Arth knew what was happening, he was being Apparated.

Arth reached for his neck, where the pendant that he had received from his parent lied. The pendant transformed and turned into a chain, which Arth threw towards Harry. The chain wrapped around Harry and dragged him towards Arth.

Seeing the surprised look on Dobby's face, Arth gave a smile.

"Thanks Dobby."

In the split second they were teleporting, Harry came loose from the chain and they separated. Ron had disappeared a long time ago.

Arth landed with a crash onto the cold hard compartment floor and winced before getting up.

"I swear that that boy is innately cursed with bad luck."

Arth was going to continue his complaints about Harry when he realized that he wasn't the only one in the compartment.

"... is that you Ginny?"

"Yes, why did you appear in mid air? Did you not ride the train?"

There was a red haired girl and a somewhat unique looking blonde girl staring at him with curious gazes. Arth dusted his clothes and proceeded to sit down. He checked off all the things he had.

"The barrier closed on Harry, Ron, and me. There was a house elf blocking it, we somehow managed to trick the elf into teleporting into the train, I'm starving. Can I have some of that pumpkin pasty?"

"Of course," Ginny blushed. "It was bought with the money you gave us."

Arth took a pasty and started to munch on it. He gave a glance at the blonde haired girl and let out a smile.

"Hi, I haven't introduced myself. Arthur Kingscrown, you can call me Arth. I'm a second year. I reckon that you are a first year?"

The girl let out a smile before replying in a sing song voice.

"Luna Lovegood, What makes you think that I'm a first year?"

Arth continued to gnaw on the pasty with vigor.

"You look a bit tense, a typical sign of being nervous. If you were a second year or above, you wouldn't be nervous but excited, however, this is bit of a stretch so I needed more solid evidence, your first year books that are sticking out."

"Amazing," the girl had a glimmer in her eye. "Do you happen to be in Ravenclaw? You seem like the type of person to be in Ravenclaw. The type of person to seek out knowledge in the middle of the night when you are supposed to sleep or search for

"Wow, that's pretty accurate. However, I'm in Gryffindor."

"What a shame, you would've prospered in Ravenclaw."

"Yep, I've heard that a lot. But in the end, I was sorted into Gryffindor."

"You must have been destined to be in it, everyone has a place where they belong. Mine is to find the elusive Crumpled Horn Snorkack."

Arth was now genuinely interested in her, he took a better look. The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of Butterbeer corks. Her hair was dirty blonde and she had a constant dreamy look that made one wonder what exactly she was thinking.

"Is there something wrong? Is it a Wrackspurt... They're-"

"-invisible. They float in through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy," Arth finished while taking in a deep breath.

"Do you happen to read the Quibbler-"

"My father is the publisher and editor. Xeno-"

"-philius Lovegood, I should have known."

"...Aren't you quite the oddity? Most people consider it as a rubbish magazine," said Luna as her odd but charming smile grew larger.

"One man's trash, another-"

"-Man's treasure. How about the existence of a Crumpled Horn Snorkack and Blibbering Humdinger?"

"Many people consider them to be fake due to never being spotted, however, every year we are discovering more and more species. Just because it is not visible to the naked eye-"

"-Does not mean that they do not exist," Luna finished in perfect harmony.

Arth stared into her brilliant silver eyes and Luna stared into his eyes that carried the beauty of the night sky. They watched each other with surprised looks before bursting into laughter.

Luna was giggling in a matter while holding a smile that brought light into the compartment.

"Well, It seems that our minds have been intertwined with the strings of an unknown beast."

"Indeed, we have found a new creature that hasn't ever been seen before. My pleasure in sharing the opportunity with a delightful person such as you."

"I guess that means that we are friends."

"I agree, it seems as though we have already become friends in this short amount of time we have shared."

"Umm... what is going on? Arth? Luna? I'm confused."

"It's ok Ginny, it's something not everyone is able to understand."

Luna suddenly got up, her necklace of butter beer caps chiming like bells.

"It seems that we have almost arrived. If you do excuse me, I'm pretty sure that we should get dressed. Pleasure meeting you Arthur."

"Pleasure meeting you too Luna."

Arth watched as Luna went out of the compartment in a dreamy matter.

"...are you in love Arth?"

"...nah, just feel as though someone who can understand me has finally appeared."