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( chapter four !)
THERE WAS A DEFINITE END-OF-HOLIDAYS GLOOM IN THE AIR WHEN JULIANNA AWOKE THAT MORNING.
heavy rain was still splattering against the windows as the girl got dressed in the morning into some mom jeans and a a grey sweater. breakfast was more simple that morning: just a few slices of toast, eggs and some sausages.
mrs weasley had braved the telephone in the village post office to order three ordinary muggle taxis to take them into london. "arthur tried to borrow ministry cars for us," mrs weasley whispered to harry and julianna as they stood in the rain-washed yard, watching the taxi drivers heaving six heavy hogwarts trunks into their cars. "but unfortunately there weren't any to spare — oh dear. . . they don't look happy, do they?"
neither harry nor jules would like to tell mrs weasley that muggle taxi drivers rarely transported overexcited owls, and pigwidgeon was making an earsplitting racket. nor did it help that a number of filibuster's fabulous no-heat, wet-start fireworks went off unexpectedly when fred's trunk sprang open, causing the driver carrying it to yell with fright and pain as crookshanks clawed his way up the man's leg, and then jules' frog, mr sparkles, hopped up onto his bald head.
the journey was uncomfortable, owing to the fact that they were jammed in the back of the taxis with their trunks. even worse, crookshanks took quite a while to recover from the fireworks, and by the time they entered london, harry, ron, julianna and hermione were all severely scratched. they were very relieved to get out at king's cross, even though the rain was coming down harder than ever, and they got soaked carrying their trunks across the busy road and into the station.
they were all used to getting onto platform nine and three-quarters by now. it was a simple matter of walking straight through the apparently solid barrier dividing platforms nine and ten. the only tricky part was doing this in an unobtrusive way, so as to avoid attracting muggle attention.
they did it in groups today; harry, ron, jules and hermione went first. they leaned casually against the barrier, chatting unconcernedly, and slid sideways through it. and as they did so, platform nine and three-quarters materialized in front of them.
the hogwarts express, a gleaming scarlet steam engine, was already there, clouds of steam billowing from it — through which the many hogwarts students and parents on the platform appeared like dark ghosts. pigwidgeon became noisier than ever in response to the hooting of many owls through the mist.
they all set off to find seats, and were soon stowing their luggage in a compartment halfway along the train. afterwards, they then hopped back down onto the platform to say goodbye to mrs weasley, bill, and charlie.
