Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Digi Potter ❯ Travel Pains ( Chapter 4 )

Digi Potter (for lack of a better title)

By Chyna Rose

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Digimon.

Continuity/Spoilers: Everything up to and including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; just before Harry's fifth year starts.

Warnings: None

Couples: None yet.

Author's Note: I know, this is pretty late. Finals and papers, you know. I did have it done back near the beginning of May, but I didn't have the time to transfer it from paper to Word until now. Pain to write too. Another of those chapters that seem to be more blood and sweat than creativity.

@--->--Travel Pains--<---@

The scarlet Hogwarts Express has been in service since the Victorian Era. Kenneth McLeod, the Muggle born son of a blue-collar railway worker, built the Hogwarts Express as a better way to transport large amounts of people (mainly students) to Hogsmeade and ultimately Hogwarts. With the help of his wife, Magdalene (or Maggie as he often called her), he managed to make the Hogwarts Express both elegant and functional. Aside from linking a hidden platform to Muggle train stations all across Great Britain (the colonies having their own schools closer to them), the McLeod's added a spell to ensure that the Hogwarts Express was just big enough to fit the number of passengers.

This particular bit of space accommodation, and the knowledge that there was a seat for him somewhere, did absolutely nothing to help Daisuke Motomiya. After all, somewhere was not necessarily here, and it really wasn't the train that was causing the problem. As Daisuke made his way through the train, he looked into the compartments he passed for a free seat. Yet, each compartment he had so far tried was either full or had the empty space(s) reserved for someone who wasn't him. Oh sure, in some cases they were very polite and apologetic about it, but he knew that they just didn't want him around regardless.

Eventually, he did find a seat near the back. He had, earlier, passed up an opportunity to sit with the girl who now lived next door to him and her friends for no other reason than it felt like he would be intruding on them (although they would be nice enough not to say anything about it). Not that he normally cared if he was intruding on people, or that he felt he would be kicked out if he did decide to sit there. He also had been chased out of a virtually empty compartment by an openly hostile boy around his age. Again, Daisuke would normally have foisted his company on the other boy as stubbornness was one of his hallmarks, but before he could even attempt to try again, he was forcefully pushed aside by a wall of an older boy.

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Time and the train plodded on at a steady pace. Some slept and some read, but most students simply talked with friends. The trip was just reaching that point where time stretched and distorted.

One of the aspects of long distance travel that neither science or magic have yet to combat, is the way the perception of time grossly distorts. Often this distortion manifests as the sense that the trip took longer than it actually did. This point where minuets feel like hours, the Eternity Horizon, depends on how far and how fast someone is going. It is not so much that time physically alters, but that it feels like it does. And when you get right down to it, time is only what it is perceived to be. The effects of the Eternity Horizon depend on a number of factors including an individual's current activity, boredom threshold, travel attitude, and feelings about where they are headed. For people who fall asleep before the Eternity Horizon is reached will often experience a phenomenon of accelerated time as they were not aware of both distance and time passing. Thus the Eternity Horizon got its name, as the time spent was perceived as an eternity, but the effects could drop a person into a personal hell of wondering (or asking repeatedly) are we there yet, or gently place them in a paradise which they wish would never end. It is interesting to note that the Eternity Horizon can be crossed when not in transit. If you've ever fallen asleep in class or wished someone would find you at an obligatory social function in order to put you out of your misery. In fact, one of the best ways to get a person to break is to leave them alone in a bare room without a watch, clock, or other such way to calculate the passage of time. The unfortunate side effect is that the longer it goes on, the more likely they are to go mad (which is one of the leading reasons) prisoners in Azkaban become insane). Yet it does leave one with a tactical advantage as the person put through such treatment is forced off balance. The concept of the Eternity Horizon has another, although somewhat less sinister (depending on who was using it and why), benefit. By distorting someone's sense of time, his or her sense of distance goes with it. So that they generally don't know how they got to wherever they were going unless they already had the directions. Add in a bunch of random turns and nothing to make a landmark of, and a person will become truly lost.

The trip from platform nine and three quarters to Hogsmeade Station, which takes about six and a half hours, has its usual events. At about three, a witch walks from car to car, selling snack items. At about quarter past six, word spreads to put on robes because the train was about to reach the station. The students also had their yearly rituals. For example, ever since they began attending Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabble, and Gregory Goyle would seek out and pester Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger at one point during the trip. In fact, Harry, Ron, and Hermione didn't feel like they could truly relax on the train until after the confrontation had occurred. This particular trip though, Draco spent the entire time locked in a stare down with a rather insolent dark haired first year. Harry and his friends sat in a tense sort of peace as they kept waiting for the inevitable. The lack of the annual confrontation even led them to speculate why the blonde and his goons hadn't popped up like the proverbial bad penny.

For Daisuke, the trip was somewhat pleasant. He sat with three quiet strangers, sketching. Despite his best intentions, he found himself sketching the two boys. Although Daisuke could see the beauty in any form, and he really didn't think yet in terms of attraction, he found himself drawing more pictures of guys than girls. It was a subtle thing that he didn't quite understand, but the inkling of what it meant danced around the edges of his awareness. He did, however, realize that it wouldn't be a good thing if others found out what he was drawing. Not that his resistance was a barrier to Miyako, who had decided that the silence had gone on too long to suffer further. She kept trying to peek at the sketch though both word and action.

"Well why not?"

"Because… they're not that good."

"I'll be the judge on whether they're any good."

"I never showed them to anyone."

"There's a first time for everything."

"Did anyone ever tell you that you're a very rude person?"

Instead of answering, Miyako made a last desperate bid for the pad. She made a half-lunge/grab for it, and Daisuke tried to dodge out of the way. Things didn't go exactly as either of them had planned. Miyako found herself lying across the seats without the coveted pad. Daisuke found himself sprawled on the floor also without the prize. The sketchpad in question lay open at the feet of the older blonde. Luckily for Daisuke, it was open to a picture of a cat read to pounce. Unluckily, it made Miyako want to see what else was drawn in there. But fate decided to be kind to the auburn-haired boy. Before Daisuke and Miyako could try grabbing the pad, Yamato woke up and picked it up. After closing it, he gave it to the person Tengu had indicated as the owner (Familiars such a Tengu tend to be smarter than others of their species, and in time, seem to communicate silently with their owners.). Once he had his pad back, Daisuke traded it for a book -much to Miyako's displeasure.