Fortune of Fate (A female Harry Potter fanfiction)

[9]

  Rose's last month with the Dursleys wasn't fun.

   They ignored her completely! 

  The Dursleys were half scared and half furious, so they acted as if Rose's chair was empty.

   Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia didn't shut Rose in her cupboard, force her to do anything, or shout at her- they didn't speak to her at all. And although this was an improvement in many ways, it got depressing after a while.

  Rose kept to her room, with her new owl to keep her company. She had decided to call her Hedwig, a name she found in Hogwarts a History. 

  Her new books were very interesting, in fact, Rose had decided to memorize most of them due to her spare time. Honestly, it was lucky Aunt Petunia didn't come vacuum anymore since Hedwig kept bringing dead mice over. 

  Every day, before going to sleep, Rose ticked off another day on the piece of paper she had pinned to the wall, counting down the days until September the first.

   Rose had spoken to her guardians about going to London for King's cross station. Since the Dursleys have to go to London anyways for Dursley's pigtail removal, they agreed. Although they thought it was absolute rubbish that the platform was nine and three-quarters.

  Rose woke at five o'clock the next morning and was too excited and nervous to sleep. She got up and put on her jeans and top because she didn't want to walk into the station with her wizard's robes- she'd change on the train.

   She checked her list again to make sure she had everything she needed, saw that Hedwig was shut safely in her cage, and then paced in her room, waiting for the Dursleys to wake up.

  Two and a half hours later, Rose and the Dursleys had safely arrived at King's Cross station at half past ten.

   Uncle Vernon had dumped Rose's trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for her. Rose thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face.

   "Well, there you are, girl. Platform nine— platform ten.your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?" He was of course, right. There was only a wall in the middle, separating both platforms. 

  "Have a good term." said uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. The Dursleys were all laughing at her as they drove away. 

  Rose rolled her eyes at them, but was nervous, what on earth was she going to do? Of course, she would have to ask someone, she was starting to attract a lot of attention because of Hedwig.

  She passed a guard, but didn't dare to mention the platform, he would have thought she was loony! Rose tried not to panic, she had checked, but unfortunately, there were no trains that left at eleven o'clock. 

  At that moment a group of people passed just behind Rose and she heard a few words of why they were saying. "—packed with Muggles, of course—" Rose swung round. The speaker was a plumb woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Rose's in front of them.- and they had an owl.

  Rose watched as the family argued. "Now, what's the platform number?" Said the boys' mother. "Nine and three-quarters!" Piped a girl, also red-headed, who was holding his hand. "Mum, can't I go.."

  "You're not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first." What looked like the oldest boy marched towards platforms nine and ten. Rose watched, careful not to blink in case she missed it- but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him, and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.