Chapter 046

He frowned a bit at that last thought, even as his fingers absently turned a page. Harry couldn't help but wonder where that thought had come from. He had never really been interested in making friends. Back when he was at the muggle school he hadn't seen any point in doing so. There simply hadn't been any benefit in befriending someone when he would eventually be living in a completely different world from them anyway.

That was not to say Harry was a loner. At first, he may have been, but about a month or two after Lisa had stormed her way into his life with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop, many of his peers began looking up to him. He guessed seeing him with Lisa made him seem more approachable. And while he still didn't particularly care for any of those people, Harry would not deny he enjoyed the admiration and respect they afforded him.

It had also helped him learn to interact with others. He knew that intelligence could only get one so far. If you didn't know how to talk to people, how would you get a good job? How would you make your mark on the world? How could you gain allies willing to rally behind you when you tried to make said mark? The answer was you couldn't. Thus, Harry had thrown himself into becoming someone the other students looked up to and admired, the kind of guy you wouldn't hesitate to come up to and ask for help or advice, be it for something as simple as school, or more complex problems dealing with life issues.

But now that he was going to a school where he would be meeting people like him, perhaps it would be a good idea to have friends. Real friends. People he could actually share things with, who would stand by him not because he was a leader they were rallying behind, but because they actually cared about him.

It was a childish thought, and Harry felt a bit embarrassed to even be thinking it, but could not deny that the idea to have real friends was appealing. Because as much as he may love Lisa as the sister he never had, the simple fact of the matter was that she was not a witch. She knew nothing of magic, and as much as he wished he could inform her of its existence, knew that telling her, at least for now, would cause problems.

"Mom—geroff!"

A shout was heard over the din of noise from outside and drew Harry's attention to what looked like a rather large family of red heads. There were five in total: a plump woman with a pleasant smile on her face and motherly air about her, two older boys who looked like identical twins, a girl who looked to be around a year younger than Harry himself, and what Harry assumed was the source of the voice, a boy that looked to be around his age. He was very tall, maybe even an inch to two taller than Harry, and gangly. He had large hands and feet that looked slightly out of place on his body, and a long nose. Like the others, he too had bright red hair several shades lighter than Harry's mother's.

One of the things Harry noticed about the entire family straight from the get-go was that they seemed rather poorly off. The robes the three boys wore were worn and slightly ragged, probably second hand robes, and the trunks they were carried looked just as old. The family was probably having financial troubles. With so many kids, Harry could see why.

"Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nose?" asked one of the twins in a teasing voice. Definitely older brothers, Harry concluded, remembering how he had once read that older brothers often tend to tease their younger siblings. It was actually part of the reason he sometimes teased Lisa, because even if they weren't related, he wanted that brotherly feeling for himself.

"Shut up," the one Harry now knew as Ron groused. At that point Harry decided to stop listening—it was very rude to spy on people having what looked like a personal conversation between family, after all, and he didn't want to be like Petunia—and returned to his reading. To help with this, because even if he wasn't looking he could still hear every word being said, he put up a very basic spell on the window that muffled the voices outside. It wouldn't silencing them, but it would at least make sure Harry couldn't understand what they were saying.

It was several minutes after he had put up the muffling spell that the train started to move. Out of curiosity, he looked out the window again to see the mother of the boys waving, and the sister half-laughing, half-crying as she ran alongside the train.

For just a moment, Harry's mind superimposed an image of Lisa over the red-haired girl, and he once more felt the sting of unshed tears in his eyes. Gritting his teeth, he quickly looked away and was once more forced to meditate in order to calm down.

Leaving Lisa really was hitting him much harder than he thought it would. It seemed that, for all the preparing he had done to make his leaving easier, none of it had worked. Even now he felt an immense sense of loss, a gap in his heart where Lisa's presence had once been, and even the knowledge that he would see her during Christmas didn't seem to help.

Harry really didn't like this feeling of loss. It made him feel weak, and he had no clue how to fix it. He only hoped this terrible feeling in his heart would fade soon. He wouldn't be able to accomplish anything if he was busy mourning the loss of Lisa's presence; a loss that was only temporary.

The door to his compartment slid open and Harry's head snapped up to see the youngest son of the redheaded family walk in.

"Anyone sitting there?" he asked, pointing at the seat opposite of Harry. "Everywhere else is full?"

"Help yourself," Harry said with a small gesture towards the seat, actually glad that someone had decided to sit with him. If nothing else, the red-haired boy would prove an able distraction from his depressing thoughts.

Ron sat down. Harry absently finished the page in his book, and closed it without marking the page number down. It wasn't like he needed to do so to remember where he left off.

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