Star of Gryffindor - Book 1

Chapter 3 - There Is No Platform 9 3/4

If anyone is wondering which year I've set this in, I think the obvious answer is 2017. Duh. I mean, that's when Albus Severus Potter started his first year at Hogwarts. So this fanfic is present day...sort of...only two years off. And if it turns out that iPhones are obsolete in 2017, I'll come back and change that. I'll try to keep the references to pop culture things that won't be obsolete in two years, though.

By the way, did you know that you can look up what time the sun will rise? In London? On September 1, 2017? I do now.

Ok that was long, let's just get to the chapter!

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I woke up bright and early. Literally. Four thirty in the morning. But I couldn't fall back asleep, so at five thirty I finally decided to just get up, because staying in bed was boring and I wasn't going to sleep.

I rolled out of bed and stumbled, bleary-eyed, over to the window. Pushing back the curtains revealed that the sky still thought it was night. I was exhausted, but my brain refused to believe the evidence right in front of my eyes that the world was not awake yet. Mentally, I had been up for hours.

After I got ready, I did an extensive search of my tiny room for wayward belongings, but everything was already packed neatly in my trunk. My new cloak was flung over the back of a chair, ready for when I would put it on. Anastasia was sleeping soundly in her cage at the foot of my bed. I ended up pacing back and forth across the width of my room for a good hour before I heard signs of life downstairs.

I glanced at my watch. 6:30. Probably not too early to head downstairs.

It took ten minutes to drag my trunk to the stairs. I was trying to figure out how to get it down the stairs when an elderly witch passed me in the hall. She smiled kindly, uttered a charm, whisked her wand a bit, and my trunk rose several inches off the ground and floated down the stairs.

"Thanks!" I called over my shoulder as I chased after my trunk, which neatly set itself down with a thunk at the bottom of the stairs.

The only people in the pub itself were the landlady, Hannah Longbottom, and her husband. For a second, I wondered why he was up so early, but then I remembered something Albus told me. He was the herbology professor at Hogwarts, so of course he'd probably been getting ready to go. They both greeted me kindly as I dragged my trunk through the door, and Professor Longbottom walked over to help me.

"Excited for your first day?" Professor Longbottom asked as he set my trunk down next to my seat. Hannah produced a plate of bacon and eggs as I nodded eagerly. I was beyond excited, actually.

"How'd you sleep, dear?" Hannah asked, setting out two plates for herself and her husband across the table from me.

"Pretty well," I lied, but unfortunately, I was a rather terrible liar. Hannah raised an eyebrow, looking amused, but didn't say anything.

"Do you have any kids at Hogwarts?" I asked after a minute. Professor Longbottom looked about Professor Potter's age, so maybe he had kids going to Hogwarts as well.

Professor Longbottom nodded. "Two, actually. Arthur is in your year, and Andrew is a third year."

"And two more coming next year," Hannah said, beaming at nothing in particular. Was that what most mothers looked like when they talked about their kids? For some reason, I had a hard time comprehending a loving mother.

At that moment, four kids trudged into the room, looking incredibly tired. The two boys looked ecstatic in spite of the tiredness, though, and the younger boy bounced into the chair next to mine.