A/N: Beater 2 checking in for Round 6 of the QLFC. I do not own this world or the characters in it.
Prompts: 1. "So... what exactly is that?"; 3. Time was running out; and 12. keyhole. My selected genre was adventure.
Enjoy!
Time was running out. It was September the first. A fine day to be living in London. The air was crisp, the summer heat fading, and there were people dressed up in ghastly outfits sprinkling the streets leading to King's Cross Station.
I sell tickets, see? I sell them to everyone who enters that station looking for a train to catch. But not one of those cloak-wearing, broom-carrying freaks ever comes up to my counter!
I first starting noticing it four years ago when a young lad came up to me and asked if we were having a costume party. I laughed; what else could I do? He was just a young thing, noticing a handful of people with silly, long robes courting trunks around. It didn't mean anything then. But after the lad left me, I saw it. Feather hats, walking canes, brooms, caged owls, large trunks. It was a sea of people coming into my station, not buying any tickets, and waltzing around like they owned the place.
I wrote it off that first year. I didn't even think about it again until September the first the next year. When the strangeness began again, I was only vaguely aware. Then another lad came up to my window and asked where Platform 9 ¾ was. 9 ¾! I thought he was pulling my leg, which I don't particularly mind usually, and I told him so. He looked right near ready to cry, so I said to him that there was no such thing as Platform 9 ¾, and he'd be better off ringing his mummy to get him to the right place.
Right then a woman, dressed in strange mauve-colored robes, came up to the window, took the boy by the hand, and called me a mugger… A mugger, I tell you! While she walked away to join her own daughter standing off in the corner with a broom in one hand and a cat curled under the other, I remembered the people creeping around King's Cross the year before. After that, I kept my eyes open.
On September first last year, there were more than enough costumed people. They popped up again right before the Christmas holidays, but not nearly as many as September first. In fact, I counted, and I only saw forty-four people dressed in long robes last Christmas instead of practical things, like coats and hats and scarves.
So this year, I was ready, and time was running out. Many of them had already trickled in, and I noticed that they were slowly beginning to thin out.
"Shirley," I turned to my co-worker. She was a young one, maybe 23. She took this ticketing job as a summer thing, part time while she was off from university, and I know her days were coming to an end. For a moment, I thought briefly about letting her in on my plan, but then I thought against it. "I'm gonna take my break early today. You think you can handle the booth?"
"'Course!" She slid some tickets out to a family of three dressed appropriately for the day. Shorts on the daughter. iPhone headphones plugged in her ears. Her parents both in jeans. The man in a button down. Normal. "Hey, Puck, you see that over there? It's like you always say…"
I turned. Shirley pointed toward a pair of kids, each clutching a broom to their chests. They had on long black robes. I could see that they are open in the front, revealing normal wear—a Beatles t-shirt on the girl, a Tony Hawk emblem on the boy. A thin stick protruded from the girl's hand. The boy turned to her, and she quickly stashed the stick up her sleeve.
"Weird, huh?" Shirley laughed. "I've seen a bunch of people like 'em all day. You know, you've always gone on and on about September first, but I didn't believe you. Sorry 'bout that. Maybe there's a cleaners' convention? The number of brooms getting on trains today is through the roof."
I peered out the window. Only a few dozen of them remained. "Any buy our tickets?"
"Nope," she laughed again. "Now that you've said it, not a one bought a ticket from me."
"Yeah," and I left her with that.
As I waited patiently by a large wall near platform 8, a sea of strange families rushed passed me. One man was even in a fez! Then, I saw him again. The lad looking for 9¾! He was older, definitely, and he didn't look near tears this time. He was on his own with just a cart. He had a large trunk, a broom, a ferret in a cage, and what looked like one of those black robes draped over the wooden trunk.
If I stepped out in front of him, I wonder if he'd remember me…
Instead, I tailed him. He was whistling to himself, a song I didn't quite know, but that wasn't unusual; none of the kids these days have decent music.
The boy stopped in front of platform 9. He looked to his right. Then to his left. He began to turn around, his blonde hair whipping about with his motions, and I jumped behind a large pole. When I peeked back around, I almost screamed bloody murder. He was running full bore toward the wall.
Just as I reentered visibility, he vanished. I stood there, arm outstretched, the words I was about to scream dying on my lips.
Slowly, I approached the wall by platform 9. I touched the hard brick, running my hands down the uneven surface. I walked around the wall, thinking I might find the boy standing on the other side. Nothing. On the side he disappeared on, I pushed against the wall. Solid as, well, bricks.
"There must be a keyhole somewhere…" I muttered under my breath. When I couldn't locate it, however, I felt like walking back to Shirley and pretending I had seen nothing at all. I probably was so absorbed in the workings of September first, that I imagined everything. In fact, I was just starting to convince myself that nothing was out of the ordinary, that I had imagined the boy vanishing into the wall, when a little hand pulled on my coat tail.
I turned to see a small girl with bright blue eyes and brown hair. She smiled, and I noticed two of her front teeth were missing, one on the top row and one on the bottom. "Yes?"
She was in a green dress littered with glitter. There was a blue pom-pom stuck to one shoulder of the dress, however it was missing on the other side.
"It doesn't have a keyhole. It doesn't work like that," she said.
"Then… then how did he do it? How'd he get in there?!"
"Are you a muggle, sir?" she asked in a squeaky voice.
"Am I a what?" I cocked an eyebrow. A muggle… muggle… where had I heard that before? And then it hit me; mugger. The woman from two years ago had called me a muggle, not a mugger. "What is muggle?"
"You, obviously!" she giggled and stuck out her hand. "I'm Ella. I'm here with my mum and dad. We're sending Charlie off to school."
"My name's Arnold Puck. Most people just call me Puck, though, " I placed my hand in hers. She swung it back and forth instead of shaking it up and down. The motion caused the little blue pom-pom to squeak, and I fell backwards into the brick wall when I noticed the blasted thing had eyes! "What-what is that?!"
"Oh, this is Paul." She picked up the ruddy thing and extended it out to me to see.
"So… what exactly is that?" I tried again.
"He's a pygmy puff. Charlie gave him to me for Christmas last year. He bought it at Hogsmeade."
My brow furrowed. "Is that online?"
Just then, we heard a woman call out for my new friend Ella. She turned, her sleek brown hair flaring about wildly. When she turned back toward me, she looked stunned. "Uh oh. Mum doesn't like when I talk to strangers. Specially muggles. I get into too much trouble that way."
She swiftly turned, and I saw her walk back towards platform 8, the blue pom-pom bouncing along on her shoulder.
"Wait! Please!" I called. I must've looked like a ruddy fool. What grown man cries out to a kid like that? I probably looked right pervy indeed, because a rather tall woman shot me a dirty look. I didn't care though; that girl knew about the wall, and I needed answers.
Ella turned toward me again.
"The wall!" I said. "How do I get through the wall?"
"You really want to get in there?" she asked me. I nodded vigorously, feeling like quite the fool. How many grown man are reduced to this? Begging for answers from that of a child? Fight or flight began to kick in then, and I felt panic rise like a lump of phlegm in my throat. One glance around me, however, brought me back to my mission.
It was September the first, and everyone was dressed like it was a day at the circus. I even saw a pointy hat on a bloke about three feet away from me. He had a glowing red ball in his hand and a look of absolute confusion on his face.
Looking back at Ella, I nodded. She clapped her hands and said in a sing-song voice, "Oh it'll be the best adventure ever!"
She grabbed my hand and led me toward her family. We stopped short, and Ella turned to me with a very serious look in her eyes. "I'm going to help you hide under the sheet Charlie uses to cover his things."
Before I could ask what she meant, Ella dashed over to her family. The woman—thin and round in the face—chastised her daughter. "Ella Marie Finnegan. You do not wander off. You understand me?"
"Yes, mum. I was only getting to the platform before you!" Ella motioned for me to come over and then burst into laughing hysterics.
Her father, a stout man, turned toward his wife and daughter. The boy with them—Charlie—was also staring at his sister. None of them paid any mind to me as I slipped underneath the sheet draped over Charlie's cart.
In a few moments, we were rolling. Panic, once again seized me, and I thought that I was making a terrible mistake. What was I doing? This was illegal; it was wrong and actually quite pervy if I got caught.
I was just about to roll out from underneath the sheet when I was hit with an overwhelming need to vomit. My body felt like it was being squeezed into a very tight space, and I was fairly certain my head was going to explode.
There was a buzzing coming from outside. I heard Ella's mother murmur, "What do you think it is, Seamus?"
"Don't know…"
I rolled out from under the sheet, and the woman screamed. Ella began telling her to calm down. That she had brought me here. The buzzing continued.
I soon noticed that it was coming from above, like a swarm of bees. I lied on the ground, staring up at a sign that read "Platform 9 ¾."
I couldn't help myself; I laughed. I laughed and laughed, until I noticed I was surrounded by men in blue uniforms. They were Victorian-styled, and I couldn't help but laugh harder. I was surrounded by the strange folk. Everywhere I looked.
The train whistled, and I saw it was the only bloody train in the whole bloody station. "Hogwart's Express?" I laughed. "What kind of name is that? Pig pimples, anybody? Ham blemishes?"
I was hoisted to my feet, and a man with dark hair and glasses pointed a finely carved stick at me.
"What you going to do? Poke me?" I asked. "You're going to poke me?"
"Who are you?" he asked.
I tried to calm myself. I realized I was not in the best of situations anymore, and my head still felt like it was being squeezed. The buzzing had yet to stop. "Me? Who are you?"
He squinted at me, but only for a second. "My name's Harry Potter… mean anything to you?"
"No… should it?" I answered as earnestly as I could.
"He's my friend Puck," Ella chimed in from her mother's arms. "He's a muggle!"
Harry Potter flicked his stick toward me, and I was out.
######
September the second. I stumbled into the station. My hangover from the night before still had me wobbly on my legs.
Shirley was waiting with a coffee cup just for me. She really was a nice girl. I was sad she'd be heading out in a week or so.
"What happened to you yesterday?" she asked me.
"Nothing," I said. I had taken the day off and ended up at the bar with some friends. Nothing special, and definitely not something I was going to share with a co-worker.
"You missed out, Puck," she smiled. "You always said September first brought the weirdo's to the station."
"Ah!" I said, slipping down into my chair. "I forgot about them! How could I forget. I'd've never taken the day off if I'd've remembered."
Shirley knew just how fascinated I was with the people who came out on the first day of September every year. You see, every single year people dressed up in ghastly outfits sprinkle the streets leading to King's Cross Station and not one of those cloak-wearing, broom carrying freaks ever comes up to my counter for a ticket.
I first starting noticing it four years ago, and I was ready for them this year. I suppose I must have forgotten though.
"Damn," I say. "Suppose it's an adventure for next year then."