Toffs​

His friends forsook him adrift an unabashed corridor of ogling eyes, and in Harry arose a bitterness so forceful as to unsettle the summer's placidity that, irritatingly, for the first time since his outburst in Dumbledore's office, threatened to mushroom into manifest rage.


He battened it down desperately with vehement judders of his trunk which followed him compartment to compartment, corridor to corridor. Everywhere it seemed curtains were drawn askew, mouths agape and chattering with the full celerity of an engorged, tangled vineyard. The gazes rapacious, irresponsibly they leered, same as had judged his godfather, sentenced him, killed him—


Harry tumbled, trunk thudding to the floor. A burly hand reached out to fill his vision, which he grasped. ”Sorry, 'm bit rushed," he mumbled-


"No, no, fault was mine..." The student who'd struck him apologised, before exclaiming. "Harry Potter!"


"That's me," said Harry darkly, "now if you'll-"


"Diggory," said his assailant, quietly. "Often spoke highly of you." At that, Harry looked up. The obverse view was a kindly round face nestled in fiery curls, smile marked faintly beneath an aquiline nose. "Benji McEwan, Hufflepuff seventh form. Here, let me make it up-don't mind them-" he nodded to the gawpers "-we've got room at our compartment, and a discreet lot we are-what do you say?"


"Er," said Harry.


"I insist." McEwan ushered. "To dispense any ill-will. And here-" He swept forward his hands as though holding up a bedsheet, twirled his wand daintily, and Harry's trunk lifted with ease. It was now, impressively, feather-light.


Harry was nonplussed as the tall seventh former strode whence he came. "It's not far off," he shouted, disappearing into the bowels of the train. Harry shrugged and followed.


'Not far off' was some four carriages down, and Harry was starting to rethink his choices when they came into view of the only compartment with drapes conspicuously free of peering faces. McEwan rapped twice, thrice, then opened the door.


"Found 'er so soon?" Rang a baritone voice.


McEwan shook his head. "Els'll be fine catching it once we're there. I ran into another friendly face in need of safe harbor."


Harry squeezed past Benji to find an odd assortment of fellows. A louche bespectacled boy lay on the floor, hand frozen over a twisting house of cards as he addressed the newcomers. Closely sat a pair of intricately plaited witches looking expectantly at him, and in the farthest corner was a flaxen-haired girl who remained transfixed by a leather-bound tome on her lap.


"Everyone, you'll know Potter of course. Potter, this is Wizzy Bexley, Ravenclaw fifth. Over here at our side are Jo Caxton and her sibling Di Ormskirk, Hufflepuffs seventh and fifth, respectively. I believe you already know Daffy from your year."


The Hufflepuffs murmured greetings while Greengrass nodded briefly without turning from the scenery beyond.


"And you've met Coppersnob, o.c." Bexley smirked at him just as his cards exploded. The girls groaned as Bexley coughed out the soot.


"That's what, the third?" Ormskirk counted off.


"I'll've the hang of it," Bexley protested before fixing Harry with a mock glare. "Come in, come in. Make yourself at home. Don't mind our antics and don't mind getting burnt." He leapt up to take Harry's trunk for him.


Harry sat across one of the Hufflepuff girls, almond eyes crinkling at him beneath prominently ridged brows and pale reddish hair. "We're not really sisters, Jo and I," she confided. "But everyone says we may as have been."


Benji took Harry's side. "Usually there'd be two more, but Els's off on praepostor duty and Marlin... who knows where."


"Probably lost in his own compartment of scholastic thoughts," snorted Bexley, who'd begun flipping through a new deck of cards.


"Better to open a book yourself every once in a while," said the older Hufflepuff girl. Harry could not, indeed, see any familial resemblance between Ormskirk's angular slightness and black-haired Caxton's broad-cheeked jawline.


Bexley scoffed. Twirling his cards in a complicated display of dexterousness, he flourished a flawless disappearing act. "When I've all the power I need here at my fingertips?" He waggled.


"It boggles how you were ever sorted into Ravenclaw." Benji laughed.


Harry could not help sneaking a glance at the reticent blonde sitting stiffly apart. His only recollection of Daphne Greengrass in all his years at school was a faint association with... Parkinson?


She'd otherwise been inconspicuous in their joint classes.


"We're the TOFFs." Bexley declared. "Know what that stands for?"


Harry had a guess but, for fear of being wrong, shook his head.


"Time-off-for-fun." Bexley turned towards Greengrass. "Daffy! Why so sober! We haven't seen you all summer!"


"Yes, come and play, Wouwou," Ormskirk implored. Greenglass glared at them beyond the confines of her pages.


"We usually get away to enjoy the occasional ball," Caxton told Harry. "But Daffy's mother seems to've put her on an insane dance schedule this summer. She simply hasn't wanted to come out as a result."


"It's a complete contradiction of who we usually are." Ormskirk laughed. "I imagine you don't get much time to yourself being who you are."


"The obligations that must come with!" Caxton said. "The public wants your reassurance, and Scrimgeour claims to be working with you personally."


"Potter seems to manage well enough." Bexley said. "Sneaking off to all those adventures we hear about at term, we should've raised him Supreme Toff long ago."



"I'm not." Harry said shortly. "Working with the Minister. And it's trouble that finds me, not the other way around."


"Well, it's what he's been telling people in private." McEwan warned, "But look, we're discomfiting Potter, and I promised we wouldn't."


The conversation dispersed away from Harry, and as he sat quietly listening to the summer contrivances of his new acquaintances, his mind unguardedly extended its interest towards the oddities that, to them, comprised the quotidian.


At noon came a knock. "Come in," said Benji. The door opened to a nervous third former who shoved a scroll at Harry.


"Delivery for Harry P-potter." She exuded scarlet and turned to flee.


"Hold." Benji said mildly. He leant towards Harry. "What is it?"


"Invitation from, um, the new professor. Lunch, it says." Harry said. His viscera twisted at the thought of venturing back in the open.


It must have shown. "Best respect a professor's summons." Benji said sympathetically. "Why don't you delay till the trolley lady's passed? It'll be a bit since the storage compartment's down the other end, but if I know these gatherings, they'll be a while anyway. You."


He shook a couple sickles at the messenger. "Have a butterbeer on me and let the good professor know Mr. Potter is momentarily indisposed, will be joining him lately."


As the third former fagged off, the girls were pulling baskets from their trunks overhead.


"Snails fresh out the garden," Caxton beamed. Greengrass wrinkled her nose. "Oh, don't be like that-see, I'm already deshelling for you." Her wand levitated each delicate apart its carapace, presented in paisley and garlic butter sauce.


Ormskirk's was half parted between a rack of smoked lamb and berries dosed with honey. She exchanged with Benji, who began slicing out the lamb as Ormskirk ladened cauliflower cheese onto pewter.


Greengrass brought forth avocado deviled eggs. "From this year's Mexican plantations." She noted. "When last our American cousins visited."


"Just a snack, old sport." Winked Bexley who handed over a crock of gherkins. Harry both marveled at their efficiencies and regretted he had nothing to share.


That moment came a rapping on the door, and a tall brunette tumbled in from the corridor to land on her feet with a deftness that belied her fullness of figure.


"Am I late?" She asked breathlessly.


"Not at all." Benji said calmly, passing her a plate.


"Do start. Don't let it get cold." Ormskirk called out as she finished plating.


"Treats from the prefects' quarters." The new girl squeezed in with the other ladies, held up a kerchief which unfolded into a veritable picnic blanket filled with assorted chopped savouries. "And elderflower water. Golly was it packed to get here."


"Potter, this is our high-flyer Els Ellesmere, Ravenclaw seventh. Els, you know Potter." Benji introduced around a mouthful of lamb and cheese.


"Oh!" Ellesmere finally sighted Harry. "Hello! My friends call me Quirkes. Or Els." She added with an afterthought.


"Have you seen Marlin?" Bexley asked, crunching down noisily.


Ellesmere shook her head. "I thought you of all of us would've known. Marlin's got special dispensation for a writ of conveyance. He won't be joining us till shortly into term."


"Bloody Marlin." Bexley guffawed.


Ormskirk's eyes widened. "They give them out!”


"... details?" Caxton sounded out worriedly.


Ellesmere nixed the question. "Only that it should be brief."


"What's the big deal?" Harry asked Benji sotto voce, whose brow had furrowed.


"Writs are rarely sought and rarely given." Benji said. "When the Ministry bent the magical communities to its authority, it demanded all Hogwarts attendees ride the Express if they were to enroll for term. The only exception has ever been the most emergent of circumstances beyond the reach of wizardry."


"Or witchcraft." Sparks burst from Ellesmere's wand as she jabbed the air.


"The Bexleys've attended Hogwarts through continuous generations since the 1500s, shirked not a year through the Great Wizarding War, the Pureblood Riots, Grindelwald's Uprising, the Dragon Pox Scare of 1907, Tugskiff's Currency Rebellions, the Mandrake Fevers, the other recent Pox Scare of 1873." Bexley recited, proudly. "Not in all that time since the Great Locomotor Heist has the family been granted dispensation."


"... a wretched overreach of ministry powers," sniffed Ormskirk.


"There are functional advantages to the Express." Benji reasoned. "Not least the accumulated protections over multiple headmasters."


Caxton protested. "McEwan, for shame-" It was then the door opened for the food trolley. The party leapt to their feet, Harry following belatedly.


"Madam." Benji said warmly. "We've already prepared a spread. But it would yet improve with the usual order of pumpkin pastries." He tendered an offering of sickles.


"I could refill my stash of Drooble's." Bexley added to Benji's pile. "Great experimental utility." He snapped his fingers.


"Two cauldron cakes," submitted Greengrass. "Please."


"You boys and girls are always so delightful," giggled the trolley witch. "If there's anything else, you can find me at the front with the driver."


The door closed, and the purchasers bustled to pack away their bounties before resuming session.


"When she rolls back around," Benji said to Harry. "That's your cue." Harry continued to stare, and Benji chuckled. "Term can get so busy and with the right freezing charms, one can never have enough pastries... legend has it she makes them herself."


"Legend has it she's been here forever," Ellesmere marveled.


"My gran-gran always warned me never to cross the trolley witch." Ormskirk whispered.


Greengrass coughed. She tapped the book at her side.


Caxton snorted. "Yes. Wouwou." She turned to Benji.


“To dance


to no one else's fiddle, foster and advance

one's private self alone; before gold braid and power

with neither conscience, thought, nor spine to cower;

to move now here, now there with fancy's whim for law,

at Nature's godlike works feel ecstasy and awe,

and start before the gifts of art and joyous adoration

—there’s bliss for you! These are your rights…”


It was as though a string had been plucked and reverberated, upon whose fading Harry felt suddenly self-conscious of having been caressed by a primeval reservoir beyond his parochial ken. The compartment stirred.


"Harrington's Last..." Ormskirk murmured.


"A bit dated but serviceable." Bexley nodded.


"Fine recitation of the old words." McEwan said gravely. "I naturally cannot deny their truths, but has it occurred to you there are ways their forms might extend beyond the preserves of our grandpères?


"Take the very locomotor in our discussion. It began its existence a thing of the Ministry's. One hundred fifty years it has performed its service, absorbed the magics of generations and borne the enchantments of their headmasters. One hundred fifty years it has intermediated betwixt Hogwarts and its dearest occupants. Would its nature not align with its employ?


"How can we be completely sure the Ministry's authority holds? In such a milieu, what has it to do with our selves not to have earned any dispensations?"


The girls waffled mutinously.


"There's one amongst us now who's done it." Greengrass broke the silence. "Our second year, if I recall."


They all looked at her who was looking at Harry, whereupon ensuing fuss scattered the tenor of their prior deliberations.


"You mean-"


"Third year-"


"The flying-"


McEwan cut through. "The rumours were true?" They all peered at Harry.


Harry blinked, it'd seemed so long ago. "Yea. Yea, if you mean Ron and I flew his dad's car to Hogwarts."


Ormskirk and Caxton cackled maniacally. "Brilliant," breathed Ellesmere. Bexley seemed speechless for once.


"I didn't get a dispensation or anything, though. It was only because Malfoy's house-elf locked us outside the platform, and when we got to school Dumbledore threatened to expel us if we ever did something like that again."


"Malfoy!" A collective shudder seemed to pass through the girls. Even Greengrass frowned at that, whereas the boys waved it on.


"Lucky you didn't get suspended from term." Benji grinned admiringly.


"Where's the muggle cair now?" Bexley asked, eager.


"I thought you knew. You must've heard." Harry said.


"We did." Benji said wryly. "But we're not the sort to rely on the ragtales that ensnare the drips out there."


He waved thereabouts. "I do hope you think better of us than that."


Harry paused to that thought. "Well, we crashed it into the Whomping Willow and it went stark wild — roams around the Forbidden Forest to this day."


Bexley wiped an imaginary tear. "A beautiful story."


"There's the trolley witch making her way back." Ellesmere called out. "I should be getting back to prefects' quarters also — corridor's finally clear."


~~~~~~ Interlude


Harry lay on his back turtled up, nose throbbing as it bled. His mouth tasted iron mixed with sweat as he strained to summon his wand. Fixed fruitlessly in position, Harry focused all his shame and rage on the imagined pleasures of humiliating Malfoy's supercilious father, his contemptuous mother, the snot himself... his aunt Lestrange...


Somewhere far off window glass burst, but his wand was no closer.


The last few footsteps were echoing off when he heard the door slide open.


'Over here!' He screamed silently. 'I'm here!'


A foot snagged his side, and Daphne Greengrass tumbled awkwardly over him.


"He's over here." She pulled off his cloak as she stood. "You write the others. Reparifors." She incanted, and he felt his body relax and the bleeding slow.


"Thanks." He pushed himself into a sitting position and picked up his wand. Greengrass had been addressing Benji, who now proffered a hand to pull him up. Footsteps outside hastened closer; Bexley, Caxton, and Ormskirk stood beyond the doorway. Hermione, Ron, and Neville were with them.


"We worried when you didn't return for your things, luckily found your friends who said Zabini was with you last." Benji handed Harry a makeshift flannel. "It wasn't hard for Daffy to make the connexion from there."


Harry regarded Greengrass, who refused to look at him, with renewed gratitude.


"Come on." Hermione dabbed hurriedly at Harry's nose. "You can change once we're outside... they're about to leave." Ron and Neville heaved their trunks alongside Harry's.


Rushing onto the platform, Hermione and Ron kept glancing towards the others as though they couldn't believe such a group — with a Slytherin at that — had made Harry's rescue.


"See you get that nose taken care of and best of luck this term." Benji shook Harry's hand at they parted.


"Oh, and the toffs meet every so often — if you're inclined." He winked.


"Yea. Er. I don't think I'd mind." Harry had had an uncommon time.


The others nodded their farewells and got in their carriage.


"Potter." Greengrass spoke. He looked at her, past the tousled fringes of hair into cool grey-blue eyes.


"You have my condolences."


The words hung there arrestingly, and then she stepped away.


~~~~~ End Chapter One

 

Tag-beat errors.

Okay, where to even begin with this story? It's an incomprehensible wreck of purple prose. To quote myself:

"Purple prose is when your words become so over-embellished with adjectives, adverbs, and metaphors that it becomes difficult to understand and hurts your story. When the reader has to stop and take a minute or five to process what the fuck you just wrote, that’s purple prose"

And I had to read this many, many times to figure out what the fuck was going on. The prose is overbearing, burdensome, and does nothing to further either setting, worldbuilding, character or plot. It's just a fancy way of saying "Harry walked down the hall. He's moping"

Only to be disappointed, because fuck all happened. Harry is moping, boo hoo, he meets a bunch of posh twats, they exchange pleasantries and introductions and literally nothing else happens of note. This isn't a story, and I'm not going to pretend it is. If you told me a machine learning AI put this together by scrapping a thesaurus and bad fanfiction, I wouldn't be surprised.

It has no plot, no pacing, no interesting characters and nothing of value. That I spent more time writing this review (twelve minutes, seventeen seconds) than reading this should tell you how annoying I find this story.

0/5 shitpost.

 

If there was a joke at the end of that I would have to read it all again to find it and I am not prepared to do that. I don't mind purple prose, bit it needs to be upheld by clear sentence structure, purpose and rhythm to make it readable. Your weak structure renders this nearly unreadable. Everything is over embellished, which means nothing stands out and it all descends into a mess.

Also I am going to guess you are not British. I have never met anyone who talks half way out of an Enid Blyton book. Your use of 'posh' British vernacular is distractingly wrong.

I am not sure what any of this had to do with Daphne other than the fact she was physically present.

This feels overly negative. I doing thing there is anything particularly wrong with being wordy, but there is a lot of invisible scafolding that underpins a good florid writing style. If this is something you want to emulate. I would concentrate on improving that more in the future rather than adding more words to your vocabulary.

2/5 Thank you for entering.