Wot In The Harri Potter?

3 - The Mood

I wake up at five o'clock in the morning, too excited and nervous to go back to sleep.

The owl - which Hagrid had insisted on buying me after sinking twenty pints - starts hooting in her cage and I hiss at her to shut up. I do not want to give Uncle Vernon any reason not to drive me to Kings Cross Station.

Although, I'm pretty sure my aunt and uncle cannot wait to get rid of me, why else would he have agreed?

Dudley comes with us so that Uncle Vernon can take him to see the surgeon about his tail. I am grateful to have him there at the station whilst I search in vain for platform nine and three-quarters.

"Well, there you are, girl," my uncle says with a nasty grin on his face. "Platform nine - platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?"

My face flames as I stand there with my owl cage and huge heavy trunk. This is humiliating.

"Have a good term," Uncle Vernon says with an even nastier smile. And, without another word, he drags Dudley away, leaving me standing alone as Dudley offers me a sympathetic wave goodbye.

I mouth to him that I'll write, but from where, I no longer know.

Sighing, I sit down on my trunk, not even bothering to ask the passing station guard for help. What is the point? There is clearly no such platform as the one shown on my ticket.

But then again, there must be some way to get to this Hogwarts. I recall the white-blond haired boy in Madam Malkin's. I look up and down the platform, hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of him.

At that moment a group of people pass just behind me and I catch a few words of what they are saying.

"-packed with Muggles, of course-"

I swing round. The speaker is a plump woman who is talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them are pulling along a trunk like mine - and they have an owl.

My heart hammering, I jump up and follow after them, laden down with my own luggage. I watch in awe as one by one, they run through a wall. When it is just the mother and the youngest looking of the sons left, I make my move.

"Excuse me," I say to the woman.

"Hullo, dear," she says. "First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too."

I glance at the boy standing next to her. He is tall, thin and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet and a long nose.

"Yes," I say hurriedly, looking back to the woman. "The thing is, I don't know how to-"

"How to get on the platform?" She finishes for me kindly, and I nod.

She makes Ron go next, showing me how it's done. Looks simple enough.

I follow suit, and find myself gasping - for instead of crashing painfully into a solid brick wall - I find myself standing on a bustling platform where a scarlet steam engine is waiting.

The boy, Ron, is nowhere to be seen, already swallowed up in the vast crowd before me. But I'm okay, I think - it's pretty clear what I have to do now.

I somehow manage to maneuver myself through the throng of people, the sound of excited chatter quite deafening. Families are tearfully hugging one another, loving parents reeling off last minute instructions to their children. Seeing as I have no one there to hug me goodbye and remind me to brush my teeth every night, I decide to hop onto the train and get myself settled.

Finding an empty compartment near the end of the train, I take a seat next to the window where I can observe the shenagans going on down across the platform.