The Invasion
The first part of the journey was slow, and there seemed endless times when they had to stop at signals, and be gawped at from bridges or station platforms, and Ginny’s arms grew sore from waving.
Ginny didn’t realise at first that they were trailing another train. “I’m just pretending we’re the end of a dead long train, see,” explained Ruby. “’Cos otherwise some other train might run into us. But we’re safe enough like this.”
“So what train are we following?”
“Fifteen-oh-four to Amsterdam,” said Ruby. “Until we get through the tunnel, that is. Then we have to wait for a Paris train. Trickier in France, see. Much faster trains, which this beauty can’t keep up with.” She patted the Hogwarts Express’s steam pipe affectionately. “But that’s why you brought that box of tricks.”
Ginny remembered the brass box with a jolt of surprise. “So what’s it do?” she asked.
“Talks to the French rail network,” said Ruby. “So it knows we’re there.”
“Are they expecting us?”
“No,” admitted Ruby. “But that box will tell them all they need to know.”
“So how long is this going to take?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see, and trust your Aunty Ruby. But I’m guessing, end of tomorrow. The only problem, really, is the tunnel.”
“Because?”
“Because it’s meant to be all-electric in there. Which we aren’t, in case you hadn’t spotted that.”
“So how…?”
“Well, there’s this little blower valve, just here, which is meant to handle going through tunnels…”
“But won’t they spot us?”
“First law of Muggles,” said Ruby with a shrug. “They don’t notice nothing, most of the time.”
Ruby’s relaxed attitude didn’t stop Ginny worrying. How were they going to deny a full-sized steam engine, painted bright red? Wasn’t this going to be the biggest hole ever driven through the Statute of Secrecy? Ginny was already wanted by the Ministry, and this caper could end her up in the deepest hole of Azkaban. Why didn’t I say no?
They steamed through the grandly named Ebbsfleet International station, which was entirely deserted. Ruby was singing softly to herself; The words sounded like All by my elf, but she didn’t explain when asked. They started the long descent towards the tunnel. Without warning they were in darkness, but only for a few seconds, and they were out into the daylight again. Then Ginny could see they were approaching what was clearly a modern tunnel entrance, and the Hogwarts Express was chuffing casually under the concrete arch. Nobody had seen them.
There were occasional gaudy flashes of light, but mostly they were in darkness. Ruby produced her wand, lit it, and twiddled a valve. But the locomotive was still busily roaring, hissing and thumping around them.
“Take over,” instructed Ruby. “And watch out for red lights, OK?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Watch you doing all the work,” said Ruby. “And if you fall off your perch, ‘cos the air isn’t fresh enough, I’m ready with a Bubblehead charm for us, and each and every passenger.”
“So how many passengers are there?”
“Don’t you know?” asked Ruby.
“No! McGonagall didn’t tell me anything…!”
“Don’t you ever count the teeth before you stick your head inside?” asked Ruby in puzzlement. “So, feeling faint, or anything?”
“No,” said Ginny. “Maybe I should be, though.”
Their entrance into France was less anticlimactic.
Ginny watched as a line of overhead lights appeared, and then there were three rows of lights, then five. She could see daylight up ahead, the tunnel swelled out sideways, and they were in daylight once more. They were in a huge modern concrete area of rails and platforms and lights. Heads were turning towards them, with looks of amazement and horror. Several figures ran towards them, waving angrily.
“Wave!” said Ruby. “Wave your little arm off, and don’t forget to smile!”
Ginny glued a glassy smile onto her face and waved at everyone she could see. The faces of the running figures turned to confusion, and they slowed and stopped, and stared, as the Hogwarts Express invaded France, and steamed on past.
Ruby was diving into her sack now, and pulling out the brass box. Two of the lights on the front were burning now, one red, one green. It had a loop on top, Ginny saw now, and Ruby hung this on a hook above the firebox. “This should look after us,” said Ruby. “But if it doesn’t, they might turn all the lights red.”
“What do I do?” Ginny asked nervously, her hand still on the red lever.
“Think up some excuses,” said Ruby, unconcerned. “But if I wanted to bet, I’d go for everyone ignoring what they can’t understand.”
Ginny felt the continuing urge to keep looking out the way they’d come, in case there was someone after them. Which was stupid, she knew, but she couldn’t rid herself of the crawling feeling of being pursued.
“We’re coming into somewhere,” she said after a while. She could see the lines ahead split, and more signals appearing, and, in the distance, platforms. Further away she could see houses, factories.
The light on their track flicked to red. “I’ve got to stop,” she said nervously. “Ruby?”
Ruby was looking out the other front window, squinting at the approaching station.
“Ruby?”
Ruby looked over at her. “Well, stop, then,” she said. “Like it says.” She was hauling out her wand as Ginny pushed the red lever upwards, and the train’s heartbeat slowed majestically.
They hissed to a halt on a track in the middle of the station, away from any platforms. Distant figures were staring at them, and Ginny was waving again until their attention diminished once more. She watched a train with a huge and strange electric locomotive pull into the station and sit on a platform next to them.
“OK,” said Ruby. “See that train? When it moves, follow it.”
“Follow it how?” Ginny asked nervously.
“Well, unless you’ve found a steering wheel, I suggest you just start moving forwards. And let me do…”
“It’s moving!” Ginny said with a lurch. The train next to them was sliding down the platform.
“Go, then,” said Ruby.
“What about the red light?”
“Is it still red?”
“…Oh! No…”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Calling at… Bethune, Arras, you name it… ending up in Paris, anyway. Jammy or what? Speaking of which, are you hungry?”
“I didn’t bring any food,” Ginny said unhappily, as the train rattled across some points, and lurched in the direction of the train they were following. She was starting to feel hollow, into the bargain.
“Don’t worry,” said Ruby, confidently. “Let’s just get through this station first, though.”
As soon as they were on the track that Ruby wanted, she left Ginny to it, and disappeared down along the train. Ginny’s arms were stiff and sore now, as she gripped the red lever too tightly and stared unblinkingly at the track up ahead. She could just make out the train they were following. It got easier when she realised that there was a pattern: As the train in front passed each green signal, the signal would turn red – but immediately turn back to green. This was comforting, somehow. And there was only a pair of tracks now, so her eyes weren’t strained by trying to pick out the right signal.
So a familiar rattling sound behind her went unheeded at first, until the smell of food reached her nose.
She turned around in surprise: A house-elf, in a clean tea-towel with the Hogwarts crest, was gazing at her with huge eyes, hands on a small trolley, like the ones that used to turn up in the Room of Requirement when she was with Draco, whenever one of them felt hungry.
“Hello,” Ginny said, but tore her eyes back to the window in case she was hurrying into danger.
“You are not knowing me, Miss,” said the house-elf. “I am Latty. But I am knowing you. Miss Ruby is saying, Miss Ginny Weasley is hungry, and I am saying Yes, Miss Weasley, I remember she is liking pork pies and piccalilli and tiny tomatoes. And pumpkin juice. And afterwards apple turnovers and lemon meringue pie. And perhaps for later, chicken in cream with new potatoes, and rhubarb crumble.”
Ginny’s tastebuds were abruptly drowning in a waterfall of saliva. “Yes,” she managed. “That would be wonderful…”
“I am glad,” said Latty. “I hold plate so you can eat while you do important work. And you not be worrying about crumbs! And I brush you down before meeting.” She deftly removed a half-eaten pork pie from Ginny’s hand to allow her to cough out the flakes.
“Meeting?” Ginny coughed, and coughed again. “What meeting?”
“I am greatly honoured to take you there,” said Latty. “But Headmistress, she say eat first. Pork pie again now?”
Latty was volubly scolding Ginny as she brushed her down after lunch when Ruby returned. “Got an eating disorder, have you?” Ruby asked, observing this. Ginny glared at her, and made a point of snatching another apple turnover from the plate that Latty was holding and engulfing half of it. That invoked more coughing and crumbs.
“Can you take over now?” Ginny asked as soon as she was free of coughs, crumbs and goo. “We’re still following the same train.”
Ruby hitched an eye out of the front window and nodded. Ginny allowed Latty to lead the way.
Professor McGonagall was sitting in state in a compartment in the first carriage, surrounded by a court of lounging pupils, all with Prefect labels. They eyed up Ginny with some disbelief, and Ginny remembered she was still wearing her ridiculous elf costume, fortunately now free of flakes of turnover.
A curly-haired, dark-skinned girl grinned at her and climbed to her feet to offer Ginny her seat, opposite McGonagall.
“Well, Ginny,” said McGonagall. “At last. Not the situation I expected to meet you in, but a pleasure none the less.”
“It’s great to see you, Headmistress,” stammered Ginny, feeling unaccountably like a first-year. “But I’m not sure what’s going on here.”
McGonagall, to Ginny’s surprise, looked slightly uncomfortable. “You’ll have to forgive me,” she said. “Us. Circumstances caught us on the hop, and we needed to act quickly.”
“What circumstances, Professor?”
“Do sit down, Ginny,” urged McGonagall. “And should I be calling you Headmistress, too?”
“Ginny’s fine,” said Ginny, hot-faced, as she subsided into the seat the grinning girl had surrendered.
“Then you must call me Minerva,” said McGonagall, warmly. “I’m assuming you’ve heard that Dolores Umbridge is back?”
“Yes,” said Ginny, embarrassed once more. “And I’m sorry…”
“Sorry for what?”
“Mum… said it was my fault. Partly.”
“You’re giving yourself airs again, Headmistress,” said McGonagall, dryly. Several of the boys around the compartment snorted in amusement, and some of the girls had cat-like smiles. Ginny glared around at them. “Dolores was going to return to power, come what may. We can debate the timing at some other point. But ye’ll remember the trouble we had the last time she crossed out paths.”
“She’s not Headmistress again is she?” Ginny asked in alarm.
McGonagall shook her head. “No. But she’s just as much trouble as if she was. We have one of her mouthpieces in the office next to mine, and more ridiculous rules than you could shake a wand at. Which is trouble enough. But the latest decree was the last straw.”
“What decree?”
“Ahem,” chipped in one of the lounging boys, sounding uncannily like Dolores Umbridge. “Muggle-born children are no longer permitted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.” He was dark haired and handsome, with a superior air, and was vaguely familiar.
“Fortunately,” went on McGonagall, “We could hold her off until the end of term. But that left us with a lot of planning to do, and in a hurry. In an ideal world, I would have kept everyone informed, particularly those most affected – like yourself – but that was unfortunately not possible.”
“Um… affected how?”
McGonagall gave her a piercing stare. “I understand you already have Durmstrang under your roof,” she said. “How would you fancy getting the whole set?”
“Whole set of what?” asked Ginny in confusion.
“Schools, Ginny,” said McGonagall, dryly.
“Schools…? Wait! Hogwarts as well?” Ginny asked, aghast. “How long have I got?”
“Well,” said McGonagall, rising her eyebrows. “The time it takes this train to get to Beauxbatons. Because we have the whole school here, on this train. Every pupil, every teacher. Nearly every house-elf. Ye have some uninvited guests, Ginny.”
“The whole school?” Ginny echoed in horror. There seemed to be a large hole beneath her, and her stomach was dropping into it. Beauxbatons was already full to bursting with two grumbling schools.
“How many, exactly?” she asked, with a dry mouth.
“Two hundred and nineteen pupils…” began the dark-haired boy.
“Seventeen staff,” said the standing girl, who was leaning against the window now. “Ninety-six house-elves.”
“And three half-giants,” said the first boy, nettled at being out-trumped.
Ginny had to cringe, then. “One site,” she muttered to herself. “Three schools. Three headmistresses and one acting headmaster. Great.”
“Olympe won’t be coming,” said McGonagall, reassuringly. “And Hagrid will be staying at Hogwarts to look after the grounds. And they have Furd to look after.”
“Furd?”
“Hagrid’s daughter,” said the standing girl.
“It would have been triplets,” said a light-curly-haired boy, brightly. “But First and Fecond got stood on.” There were dry laughs from the others. An old joke, obviously.
Ginny pointed a finger at him suddenly. “I know you,” she said, accusingly. “You’re Stewart Ackerly!” Stewart had been a Ravenclaw nuisance two years below her, barely taller than her, and here he was, as tall as any of them.
He grinned at her boyishly. “Did you miss me, then?”
“Apparently I did,” said Ginny, coldly. “Remind me to get my wand checked out.” Then her face was suddenly hot; Headmistresses shouldn’t bandy childish jokes. But the others were sniggering. “Now, don’t tell me,” she said, swivelled her finger to the dark-haired lounging boy, trying to change the subject... “Malcolm… Malcolm Baddock!” she said, triumphantly.
“Head Boy,” said McGonagall, dryly.
“Seriously?” Ginny found herself saying. “Slytherin, and Head Boy?”
“Really, Ginny…” said McGonagall, scoldingly.
Baddock gave her a twisted smile, but didn’t seem to mind. “You’ve dated a Slytherin,” he said. “So I’ve heard.”
“Mr Baddock!” snapped McGonagall this time.
Ginny gave him a withering look. “Didn’t last,” she said. I must stop behaving like a schoolgirl, she told herself, but couldn’t help adding: “Scared him off.”
There was a loud yelp of laughter from Ackerly, and a smile was tugging at Baddock’s mouth.
“Erm…” She flicked her fingers as her memory came back to her. She pointed with some confidence to the girl standing. “Natalie McDonald!” she said. “Of course,” she added guiltily.
“I was hoping ye’d forgotten me,” said Natalie, but she looked pleased. Her accent, almost identical to McGonagall’s, hadn’t changed since they’d been in Gryffindor together.
“You’ve all grown,” Ginny complained. She pointed to two other girls; Both had straight, light-brown hair, and were not much taller than her. “Laura… and Emily…”
“Laura Madley,” said the sharper-faced one.
“Eleanor Branstone,” corrected the other. “Or just Pic…”
“You’re both…”
“Hufflepuff forever,” said Laura. “Yay…”
“…But I don’t recognise you two,” Ginny admitted, indicating the remaining girl, who was tall and dark-haired, and seemed awkward and ill at ease, and an even taller stick-like curly-headed boy lounging in the corner to her right.
There were snorts of laughter. “I’m hurt,” said the boy. “Deeply hurt.”
“So, who…?” Ginny started, turning towards him, feeling her face heat even further. But he didn’t help her out.
“Gryffindor?” prompted Natalie.
Oh no…
“Dennis,” said Laura, grinning. “Dennis Creevy.”
“No,” said Ginny in horror, eyeing him in disbelief.
“Professor Sprout took him on as a project,” said Stewart, boisterously. “Fed him on plant spells.”
Dennis flicked a lazy pair of upraised fingers at Ackerly, which McGonagall elected not to see, but seemed unworried by Ginny’s failure to recognise him. When she stared at his face, she could see only the barest traces of the round-faced, cherry-cheeked little boy she’d known.
Worried now, Ginny turned to the unknown girl. “I… I don’t think I know you,” she said to her.
To her relief, the girl shook her head. “I only joined the school this year,” she said. “Because I wanted to do sport first.” Her voice was velvety and classy, yet quiet and hesitant. “Until I lost a hundred-metres freestyle, and my temper, and the swimming pool started leaking. I decided to swap careers.”
“So you are…?” asked Ginny.
“Caroline Moore-Hexham,” said the girl.
“How many?” Ginny asked blankly.
“Miss Moore-Hexham is a Ravenclaw Prefect,” said McGonagall, proudly.
“So how are you going to fit everybody in?” Natalie asked. “How big is Beauxbatons?”
“Not that big,” admitted Ginny, with feeling. “Three-eighteen pupils, so bigger than Hogwarts, but not as big as Durmstrang. Three-sixty odd.” With the slowest builders on the planet, she managed not to say out loud.
“That’s huge,” said Eleanor Branstone.
“Not really,” said Ginny. “Continental system, of course, so eight years instead of seven. We start at eleven, like you, and finish a year later. And we cover more countries, don’t forget.”
“Is that your school uniform?” Stewart Ackerly asked then, in mock puzzlement.
She gave him a tight smile. “It’s a Muggle costume,” she said, shortly. “Makes us invisible.”
“Which bits?” Stewart asked, examining her.
Ginny turned to McGonagall. “Permission to Bat Bogey one of your prefects, Headmistress?” she asked.
“Granted,” said McGonagall, dryly. “Mr Ackerly, amnesty time is over. Any more and I’ll let Madame Weasley loose on you.”
“Madame Weasley?” asked Natalie, amused.
“You can call me Headmistress Weasley, McDonald,” said Ginny, loftily. She turned to McGonagall. “Um… Any more surprises, Headmistress?”
McGonagall gave her a glimmering smile. “I don’t think so, Headmistress.”
Ginny nodded, and stood. “I’d best get back,” she said. “I’ve some thinking to do.”
She pulled open the compartment door and headed back towards the engine. As she walked down the corridor, she heard Stewart Ackerly’s voice behind her.
“Ooh!” he gurgled. “She’s so cute!” There was a burst of laughter.
“Mr Ackerly!” snarled McGonagall, as the door slid shut.