(HOGWARTS MYSTERY) Janelle Morgan -- Year 1: The Forbidden Corridor

Chapter 4: The Journey to Hogwarts

The moment I had stepped through the barrier of Platform Nine and Three Quarters, it was like a new chapter was beginning its new cycle in my life. It was like I'd suddenly become a grownup—despite being eleven years old—and was about to board a train and move out of Mum's house for good, even though it was only for the school year. Still, a year seemed like a lifetime away.

The Hogwarts Express was exactly as I remembered it when my brother went to Hogwarts for his first year, with its huge conical funnels giving out smoke from the massive scarlet engine. Above the sign that read 'Hogwarts Express, 11:00, Platform Nine and Three Quarters', a large brown and white-spotted owl hooted over the heads of several witches and wizards seeing their children off to school. I saw several children and teens sticking their heads out of the windows, waving and chatting to their families excitedly. Some children and teens were dressed in colorful robes and the casual school robes with the tie showing the color of the House they were representing, and others wore just plain everyday wear, such as jeans and hoodies, giving me the impression that they were coming from Muggle families or simply from the Muggle towns their Wizard families lived in. I had decided to wear jeans, my favorite red cardigan over a cream-colored top, and comfortable running shoes on the train, though Mum insisted I change before getting to school—I was supposed to wear my school robes with a plain black Hogwarts tie from the Hogsmeade platform to school. I told her I would change in the carriage on the train on the way.

"Have a safe and magical first year, Jane," Mum whispered in my hair while she squeezed me goodbye. "Send me an owl every day."

I told her I wasn't going to send an owl every day as that would make me homesick, but I promised her I would write to her as often as I could.

After I gave her one last hug, I brought my trunk to the back of the train where a strikingly handsome wizard who looked no older than twenty-five was loading several other trunks onto the train with the Levitating Charm, a charm that I couldn't wait to learn at Hogwarts. After that, I hopped on board and stood at the window for several minutes, watching the train pull out of King's Cross Station and eventually out of London.

After about half an hour of watching nothing but countryside moving past the window, my legs were starting to feel numb from standing for so long. I had ultimately decided to search for a carriage that wasn't too full for me to sit and rest my legs—Mum told me it was a long walk to the castle from the platform, although it wasn't that bad of a walk to the lake, where, as a first-year, we would take a boat to the castle.

For several minutes, I was walking through the train cars, trying to find a compartment that occupied less than four people, but the majority of the compartments were already fully packed, probably since we left King's Cross. Probably should've gone ahead and taken a seat ages ago, I thought dismally as I uncomfortably stretched my aching legs.

"Hey, Dora, you want my Pumpkin Pasty?" I saw a girl with strawberry-blond hair ask a short girl with bright pink hair in the compartment to my left. "I filled up on Chocolate Frogs."

"Her name's not Dora, Kathy," said another girl with astonishingly pale skin, "it's Nymphadora."

The girl with the magenta hair sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. "How many times must I tell you guys not to call me by those names?" she said as though she had had people call her by those names several times and was fed up with hearing them. "For the last time, it's just Tonks! Get it right for once!"

"Sorry, my bad!" the blond girl, Kathy, said, raising her hands up in surrender. "You want my Pasty or not?"

"Fine, hand it over," Magenta Girl—Tonks—sighed, seeming annoyed, as she reluctantly reached out for the treat.