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Avis Wolfeschlegelstein's Particularly Uninteresting Guide to Hogwarts

A particularly lanky man in his mid-thirties, with blonde hair stood beside a small girl with rounded shoulders and two not so proportional ponytails falling down her shoulders. Her unsure blue eyes reflected his, as they looked at each other with uncertainty. Together the odd pair stood outside of King Cross Station, dwarfed in comparison of the ancient train station.

"Well here goes nothing." The blonde man pushed up his rounded spectacles, broadened his chest and held out his hand to the child. "Ready Avis?"

Avis, a girl no more than 11, took the slender fingers of her guardian as an answer. The two headed for the large doors and were sucked in with the rest of the crowd, like water through a broken window.

The blonde man, Ted, looked down at the piece of parchment where one ticket was attached, white with red writing, and looked up, skimming the signs for a Platform 9 3/4 – but to no avail. He looked down helplessly at the girl beside him, but she looked at helpless as he felt, her eyes wide as she watched the many people around her. Avis was not accustomed to crowds, let alone the city in general. Boarding school was going to be difficult for her to adjust to.

"I don't suppose you know which way we should go?" Ted asked half-heartedly. Looking at his watch, he grimaced. 10:52. They only had 8 minutes until the train left.

"That way," Avis said in her small voice, pointing to their left.

"Have to start somewhere eh?" Ted asked chuckling, and guiding her to the left. Avis just nodded, letting him think it was a random choice, and not the fact that she had seen the sign indicating that platforms 5 – 10 were to the left.

The two passed many people on their way towards platform 9, and none of them seemed very magical. When Avis got her letter, she wasn't very surprised. Things had been happening – at school, at home, at the park. She just hadn't told Ted about them, she never wanted to worry him or make herself a pest. She didn't know why her biological parents had put her up for adoption, but she was determined not to let it happen again. She would be the perfect daughter, and now that was made easier by going off to Hogwords…or whatever the school was called, Avis couldn't really remember.

By the time they made it to platform 9, the clock showed 10:55. Ted looked around anxiously, looking for anything that might show them the way. They'd no idea where platform 9 ¾ could be. They could have been on the wrong side of the station for all they knew. It was Avis that spotted the answer. In her peripheral vision, she saw a couple disappear into the brick wall that held the sign Platform 10. Thinking it to be a fluke, Avis' mind immediately wrote it off as a trick of the light. But as she turned to investigate, she watched another man with a young boy walk confidently into the wall of Platform 10, a large trunk with a screeching owl trailing after.

Without hesitating, Avis grabbed hold on Ted's hand and steered him through the brick wall. Ted only realized where they were heading only moments before he was pulled through the brick wall, yelling in protest and in fear of being humiliated by running to a brick wall in the middle of the train station.

On the other side of that wall, Avis and Ted were greeted by a cloud of smoke. Coughing they followed the couple that had gone ahead in front of them. As Ted tried to wrap his mind around the world they had just entered, Avis shot forward, pushing her trunk towards the rest of the luggage and jumped onto the steps, only glancing back to see Ted pushing his glasses up his nose and brushing the wall with his hand as if it was a rare archeological find. He looked up just in time to hear the clock chime 11 and watch Avis wave one last wave before the doors closed.

A thought popped into Avis' head as the train started to move, and she needed to talk to Ted before it was too late. Running to a random compartment, Avis plowed through the startled 7th years and attempted to pull down the window. At her struggle, a tall dark haired boy, unlatched the window and pushed it up, just as the train was passing Ted. He smiled excitedly up at her. "Can I have an owl!" She called to him, worried he wouldn't hear her. Ted's eyebrows raised in surprise, and he opened his mouth to reply, but the train had turned and he was lost, along with the rest of King Cross Station.

Avis sighed in disappointment, and thanked the 7th years, as she retreated back into the hall. "Wait," The dark haired boy called. Avis turned around and was met by kind honey-colored eyes. "Do you have anywhere to sit?"

Avis thought about lying. She was old enough to feel embarrassed about her loneliness. But she wasn't the kind of person to let those kinds of things get to her. There was absolutely nothing wrong with being along. If she hadn't been alone, she never would have met Ted, and her life would have been completely different – and she didn't want that.

"No," Avis said simply.

"Follow me," the boy said, striding confidently past her, his golden badge gleaming as he passed her. "I'm Edmund, though everyone calls me Eddie. Eddie Bethel. And you are?"

"I'm Avis. Just Avis." Avis had never really taken to Ted's last name – Wolfeschlegelstein. It was a mouthful for an adult, Avis had just given up trying after the first incident.

"Well Avis Just Avis, my younger sister is a first year as well."

"How do you know I'm a first year?" Avis asked quickly. Eddie gave her a humorous look and Avis slumped her shoulders. "Never mind."

"My sister is really shy, and I can't seem to get her to talk to anyone. And since you don't know anyone, nor have anywhere to sit, I figured throwing you together can't cause any harm." Eddie stopped, a hard look crossing his face. "Unless you're a trouble maker. Because if you are, we'll turn around right now and you'll never see my sister. She can't handle trouble makers, they're worse than the plague." He said dramatically, crouching down to her level.

"I'm innocent." Avis said matching his drama and fluttering her long eyelashes.

"Careful where you flutter those things," Eddie said smiling. "Can't have every guy falling over themselves before we even get to Hogwarts." Avis blushed profusely at this, letting her hair curtain her face. Back in London, boys were running away from her, not showering her with compliments. "Ah, here we are." Eddie reached over Avis' head and opened the compartment door. Inside, alone, sat a girl with long dark hair, parted in the middle perfectly. Her honey-eyes, the exact same shade as Eddie's, were strained on a thick book in her hands. Above her head, hanging from the luggage racks, hung a slim, tawny owl. It's eyes were closed and it hung upside down, just like a bat would.

"Avis Just Avis, meet my sister Jean Bethel. And her identity-confused Owl, Nala." Jean looked up and smiled shyly, sinking deeper behind her book. "She's embarrassed by me, so I'll just leave you two alone." Eddie gave Avis an encouraging push forward and left, clicking the door shut as he went.

Awkwardly, Avis took the seat opposite of Jean and laid her hands in her lap. When her and Ted were packing they hadn't thought about anything for the train ride. The silence thickened between the two as Jean seemed to have forgotten Avis and was sucked into her book. The bat sleeping owl continued to stay comatose, and Avis looked around the compartment, desperate to find something to sate her boredom.

"Funny how trains don't have seatbelts." Avis thought aloud. She let her small hands feel around the fabric seats. When she heard no reply from the girl across from her, she looked up at Jean. Jean was watching her from behind her book, meekishly.

"You're strange." Jean said in an indifferent tone.

"So are you." Avis said calmly. She had been called a lot of things back home. Strange was by far the nicest.

At these few words the two girls became best friends. Very few words were said the rest of the ride to Hogwarts, but a feeling had taken each of the girls and bound them together. They were both alone on this journey. Even though Jean had her brother, the two obviously weren't close. Avis was completely alone, with no one but an eccentric guardian back in a small flat above a pizza place. They were both alone, and they were both used to it. That loneliness connected them in a way nothing else could.

"Do you like to read?" Jean asked shortly after the strange comment.

"Do you like to breathe?" Avis asked sarcastically, hoping her point was made. Jean smile and set her book down, standing till she reached the bag above her head. At this, Nala, the owl, awakened and fell straight down from where she clung, like an icicle suddenly loosed from the roof's edge. She fell right into the seat where Jean had sat, and with a surprised quack of a duck, flew up and cradled herself in Avis' lap, falling back into a comatose sleep, as if nothing had happened.

"You're lucky she likes you." Jean said, glancing over her shoulder as she shuffled through her bag to find one of the many books she had packed.

"Lucky?" Avis asked.

"Last time that happened, she nearly plucked out my brother's eyes." Jean let out an 'ahah' when she laid her hands on the thick book with intricate carving. Bringing it to her chest, jean returned to her sitting position and handed the book to Avis. Avis took it carefully, considerate of the viciously sleeping owl in her lap. As she read the title, Avis smiled. "The complete works of Nancy Drew?"

"You've never read it?" Jean asked appalled.

"Oh no I have." Avis reassured the suddenly frantic girl. At this, Jean's wide eyes shrunk back to their normal size and she smoothed her dark hair, as it had frizzed at the stress of Avis' possible unfamiliarity with Nancy Drew. "It's just very…" Avis fumbled for the right word.

"Muggle." Jean finished for her. Avis nodded.

"Exactly."