I don't own Harry Potter!


The plastic chairs were hard and uncomfortable. They were especially uncomfortable because Harry's was crowded with packages full of presents for Dudley and there wasn't enough room left over for him, even though he was a tiny six-year-old.

Luckily, though, he had enough imagination to forget about his aunt, uncle, and cousin for a little while. He watched the train pull out of the station and imagined that he was on it, on his way somewhere else without Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. Dudley might come, but only if he would let Harry play with him. Maybe they could be knights, protecting an enormous castle from dragons. He was just imagining the feast they'd have to celebrate their victory when he heard a woman scolding her sons.

"Fred! George! That is no way to behave in a public place!" The woman had a very red face, with hair to match. Actually, the entire group did. There were four boys, a girl, and a man, too. Even though their mother was angry with them, Harry was jealous of whichever ones Fred and George were. They all looked like they belonged together. Harry knew he didn't match his aunt, uncle, or cousin, but he didn't mind. He didn't much want to match them, anyway.

The other family filed into the waiting area and sat in a row facing Harry and the Dursleys. The two twins started whispering to each other. The girl pointed out funny things to her other brother, who she kept calling "Won." Their father was discussing turnstiles with the oldest son, who was trying his best to look interested.

"Boys! Why don't you act more like your older brothers? Bill would never misbehave like you two," the mother said as the twins started rolling pennies across the cement floor. "But Mum, Bill isn't here anymore," one of them said. "Neither is Charlie," the other said. "Don't you remember? They're at Hogwarts!"

For some reason, at that point Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon seized up and looked at each other. Harry noticed and wondered if their stomachs were sick. He hoped that they would be able to get home on time. He hoped that they wouldn't start being meaner than before.

"Ten minutes, Petunia," Uncle Vernon muttered, his face slowly turning purple. "We've only ten minutes." Aunt Petunia nodded stiffly.

Another family came to sit in the waiting area, a family with only one girl. She had brown hair and large teeth. As soon as she sat down, she opened her book and started reading it, her legs swinging under the chair.

"Did you enjoy London, Hermione?" her mother asked her, pushing her bushy hair behind her little ear. The girl nodded, barely looking up from her book. "Thank you for the book," she said politely. Her parents exchanged amused looks.

Harry wondered if Hermione ever felt lonely, being the only child in her family. Dudley wasn't much company, but Harry couldn't imagine being all alone with only Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. He knew that he didn't have any real siblings, though, and wondered what his life would have been like if his parents had lived. He hoped his father would have played catch with him, and his mother would have read books to him...even those fairy books that he always pretended were for sissies.

A train arrived at platform six, and the large family gathered their things and left. Soon after that, Hermione and her parents left to get on another train. When the train came to bring Harry and the Dursleys back to Surrey, they passed the seats where the red-haired family had been sitting before. One of the pennies that the twins had been rolling was shining in the fluorescent light of the station, and Harry stooped to pick it up.

He never noticed that it didn't have the Queen on the back.