Chapter 024

"No way. Those two would never pull something like this. Their pranks are funny not mean. Well...not mean unless you deserve it." Harry walked forward and ran his hands over the barrier. "It feels just like regular brick."

"What are we going to do?" Ron whimpered.

"Well I imagine the people on the other side are going to freak out about this as well so we might as well just wait for someone to figure it out and come back through."

Ron's eyes widened. "We can't! We're going to miss the train!"

Harry glared at the other boy. 'Maybe if you had packed last night we wouldn't be in this position.' He took a deep breath to calm down before speaking. "I'm sure it will be fine." The whistle sounded for 11 O'clock and Ron jumped up in a panic.

"We need to go! Dad's car is still in the lot. I can drive it and we can follow along behind the train! Come on!"

Harry slapped his hand over his face trying desperately to quell the urge to smash his face against the bricks behind him. "Steal the car and drive behind the train. You realize how insanely stupid that sounds don't you?"

"No, FLY. Come on, Harry, there's no time! If we don't hurry we won't be able to catch up!"

"You know what…no. I'm not going to sit here and argue this with you. You want to go be an idiot go ahead. Hope you don't crash or break the Statute of Secrecy or anything," Harry waved him off with his free hand.

"You're…not coming?" Ron looked genuinely confused before his face reddened. "Fine! I'll let them know you're still sitting here when I get to Hogwarts." He turned and raced out the doors with trunk in hand.

"Thank god I am friends with Hermione and not him," Harry muttered. "Come on, Hedwig. Let's go sit down over there and wait for someone to figure out how to get out of the stupid barrier. You up to taking a letter to Shiva if no one comes out after a half hour or so?" Hedwig glared at him before huffing and preening her feathers. Harry just laughed. "Okay, fine, stupid question." Harry sat down on the bench and watched the barrier to make sure he didn't miss anyone.

It was barely five minutes later when a stern looking woman in a suit with a monocle in one eye tromped into Kings Cross. Beside her was a girl who looked just a bit younger than Shiva. She must have graduated recently though Harry didn't remember her from his first year. He definitely would have noticed that short, spiky, hot pink hair. She had on jeans and a T-shirt for the Weird Sisters. The girl was hurrying to stay next the monocle woman.

"See! We missed it, Tonks," Monocle said as she glanced at the clock on the wall. She looked like she wanted to facepalm. Harry could commiserate.

"Come on, Boss, I may just be a rookie but everyone already knows I can't go ten minutes with tripping on something or another!" Pink said with a sheepish look crossing her face.

"I'm not asking you to stop being clumsy, Tonks. I'm asking you to be on time!"

"Hey, it's not my fault that Dawlish stuck those doxies there! If he didn't want to risk falling into them he shouldn't have had them on the edge of his desk!" Harry could've sworn he saw the girl's hair flicker a shade darker. Monocle sighed but the way her mouth twisted upwards Harry could tell she was fighting her laughter.

Leaning over to Hedwig, Harry whispered, "I think we found our ride, Hedwig." Hedwig twisted her head towards the two now standing by the barrier to Platform Nine and Three Quarters and scanning the crowd. She turned back to Harry and bobbed her head uttering a soft pleased sounding hoot. Harry gently stroked her feathers through the cage then gathered his trunk and stood up heading towards the newcomers.

They noticed him almost as soon as he began to move. The younger one casually pointed him out to Monocle and the older woman just sighed though it seemed genuine this time. As he drew closer she extended her hand. "Hello, I'm Amelia Bones and this is Nym – " The girl cleared her throat and threw a nasty glance at her superior. "Privileges of being the, Boss," Amelia continued with an evil grin, "next time don't make me late. As I was saying, this is Nymphadora Tonks."

Nymphadora's scowl deepened before she turned to Harry. "It's just Tonks. Couldn't help but notice your owl. Muggle-born?"

"Technically, Muggle-raised but yeah. Hello," Harry said shaking their hands.

"We're the clean-up crew," Tonks said with a satisfied nod.

"My apologies," Amelia said. "We were supposed to be here early enough to wrangle any Muggle-born or raised through the barrier who were either uninformed, forgot or were too scared to try."