Hogsmeade Station 🚂 HP Location Guide

[7] King's Cross Station

Harry Potter: "It looks like King's Cross station. Except a lot cleaner and empty, and there are no trains as far as I can see."

Albus Dumbledore: "King's Cross station! Good gracious, really?"

— Harry and Dumbledore while in Limbo.

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INTRODUCTION:

King's Cross Station is considered one of the main train stations to serve London, England. Students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry take the scarlet steam engine named the Hogwarts Express to Hogwarts from Platform 9¾ on 1 September at 11 AM sharp. To get to Platform 9 3/4, you run straight at the wall between 9 and 10. It also serves as a major intercity and commuter rail hub for Muggles going to North London or Yorkshire and the North East and Scotland.

LOCATION:

This station is located in London, England.

KNOWN PLATFORMS:

Platform 4

Platform 4 had trains coming direct from Watton-at-Stone northbound direct to St Neots.

Platform 7

Platform 7 had trains headed northbound direct to York via the East Coast Main Line.

Platform 7½

Platform 7½ offers a long-distance train, similar to the Muggle Orient Express, off to wizard-only villages in continental Europe.

Platforms 9 & 10

Platforms nine and ten are the Muggle platforms on either side of the barrier through which wizards and witches must walk into in order to get onto Platform 9¾.

Platform 9¾

Platform 9¾ is the platform from which the Hogwarts Express may be boarded on September 1st. The platform has a sign hanging over it, reading: Hogwarts Express, eleven o'clock, and there is a wrought iron archway bearing the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters over the entry/exit to the platform. At the conclusion of the school year, the Hogwarts Express returns to King's Cross bringing the students of Hogwarts back for their summer holidays. It can be assumed that the sign over the platform changes on the day the train returns from Hogwarts.

Other hidden platforms

Other concealed platforms may be opened on an as-required-basis, for instance for large, one-off events such as Celestina Warbeck concerts, or, perhaps, the Quidditch World Cup.

NOTES FROM THE ADMINS:

•When Ottaline Gambol commandeered a Muggle train to serve as the new mode of transport for Hogwarts students, she also had constructed a small station in the wizarding village of Hogsmeade: a necessary adjunct to the train.

•It was Evangeline Orpington, Minister from 1849-1855, who hit upon the solution of adding a concealed platform at the newly built King's Cross station, which would be accessible only to witches and wizards. There are usually a number of plain-clothed Ministry of Magic employees on hand to deal with any inconvenient Muggle memories that may need altering at the start and end of each Hogwarts term.

•J. K. Rowling chose King's Cross Station as the portal that would take Harry to Hogwarts because this was where her parents met on a train to Scotland.

•When writing the Harry Potter books, J. K. Rowling was thinking of Euston train station when she was describing platforms 9 and 10. At King's Cross station, platforms 9 and 10 only offer services on London commuter rail (currently operated by Great Northern and running to North London, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire) and are separate to the rest of the station. More importantly, there is nothing between platforms 9 and 10 at the real King's Cross - the platforms exist either side of two parallel railway lines, hence why during the films, platforms 4 and 5 are used. However, Euston station also has it's platforms 9 and 10 existing either side of of two parallel railway lines, and those platforms are only served by suburban and commuter rail services (operated by London Overground and London Midland respectively) too.

•It is possible that King's Cross was the place Harry "chose" to meet Dumbledore because the station symbolised Harry's entrance into the wizarding world, or rather, the border that separates the wizarding and Muggle worlds, or also because death is culturally known as "the last travel". Since trains are used to travel, this is a viable theory. However, Harry never "took the train" to the other side.

•In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, when Harry first meets the Weasleys at King's Cross Station, Mrs Weasley asked her children "Now, what's the platform number?" This is unusual as not only had she gone to Hogwarts herself, but by this time so had five of her seven children (with two of them completing their education), and she would have gone through the barrier many times. Of course, Mrs Weasley could have been just testing her children if they knew where to go. Possibly, J.K. Rowling wrote this just to make sure that Harry was talking with the right people.

•At the real King's Cross, there is half of a luggage cart in the western departures concourse (it has moved at least twice), and there is a sign that says Platform 9¾ so tourists can take pictures as if they are disappearing into the barrier.

•The Harry Potter Shop at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters is found at the real King's Cross Station in London, England.

•The exterior shots seen in the movies are of neighbouring St Pancras, whose Gothic style was considered far more impressive than the 1960s look that the station then had - King's Cross has since undergone a major renovation.