September 1st
The Hogwarts Express
A girl stumbled through the brick wall onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters, coming to a sudden stop and lurching over the handle of the metal trolley, which was carrying a large battered trunk and several parcels wrapped in brown paper. Regaining her balance, she looked up and gasped. Right there, across the platform, was a gleaming scarlet steam engine. The Hogwarts Express.
Soon, more people were appearing from King's Cross Station through the magical entryway behind the girl and almost bumping into her, as she was still standing only a few metres away, her eyes transfixed on the train. Her eyes, a silvery grey, were staring, but not really looking. They seemed to twinkle, as she stood there, unmoving, as people rushed this way and that all around her.
The platform was full of people swarming around in frenzy like bees in a hive – parents hurrying their children towards the train, ushering them onboard frantically.
Given a quick glance, it might have seemed like an ordinary station, but looking more closely, all of these people were obviously not ordinary. They were wizards, blending in with the Muggles in London. Or trying.
Their clothes, although being ordinary Muggle clothing, of course, were not what real Muggles would ever wear. Not without getting some funny looks, anyway. For some magic folk, what they were wearing was simply outdated or mismatched. But other people's fashion problems were a lot more serious...
Atop one particular woman's head was a hat that appeared to have a stuffed vulture attached to the front, while the handbag she clutched was shiny and bright red. She held it with one hand and used the other to wave goodbye to a round-faced boy boarding the train. One family seemed to be dressed all in black. At the bottom of the station, one child had just arrived with his parents, who were dressed very oddly indeed – the father was wearing a smart baby-blue blouse with a ruffled front, teamed with a pair of leather sandals that had feathers and beads fastened to them, and his wife wore a simple polo shirt, but with a purple-yellow-blue-red-and-every-other-colour-of-t he-rainbow necktie bound tightly under the buttoned up collar of her top.
If you listened to what they were saying, you could hear them talking about strange things, things that didn't make any sense to anyone who wasn't a wizard. One man was wishing his son good luck in his "Qudditch" matches, and two girls were chatting about what they had purchased recently from "Diagon Alley". A woman was telling her red-headed twins, "do not be bewitching any more snowballs to fly at any teachers' heads this year!" before ushering them quickly onto the train and saying goodbye to her other two children, who also had bright red hair.
This girl was no exception to the strange assortment of people here. She might have looked like a normal young girl, but if you looked closer - at her tiny earrings shaped like radishes hiding amid her dirty-blonde hair, at her nails spotted and striped with vibrant polish or realized she was wearing a pair of jeans half-covered in patches of floral fabric, which she had apparently sown on herself, you would see she was just as peculiar as everyone else.
She was still standing there, in the way, dazed, a few minutes later when a man appeared behind her and stood by her side, a man who looked as distant and dreamy as she did. He stood there for a moment, almost mirroring her exactly.
"Luna!" the man exclaimed suddenly, as if remembering something. "The time..." He raised his arm and stared at his bare wrist blankly for a moment, then frowned. "Oh…" he muttered. Slowly, he looked about, at the train, the bustling crowds, and then, turning completely around, he bent his neck back severely to look up at a clock attached high up on the bricks above them.
The girl twisted her head around to see what he was looking at.
"Oh my!" Luna's father exclaimed, jumping back around to face the train. "11:58! Quick, you need to board…" He took hold of the trolley his daughter had been gripping and hurried it up the platform, Luna rushing after him. They stopped at the first door. "Right, my dear, you've got everything, yes?"
"I think so…" Luna said, in a high, dreamy voice, turning to her father and nodding slowly.
"Don't be nervous, my dear… you'll be fine. I'll see you soon in the holidays, yes?" Luna's father picked up her trunk with a grunt and shoved it onto the train while she gathered her parcels from the trolley and put them under her arm, before jumping onboard.
"Okay." Luna smiled and reached down to kiss her father goodbye.
Suddenly there was a loud blow of a whistle, and in a matter of seconds, Luna was alone on the train, turning from the closing doors and wandering down the corridor, dragging her trunk behind her.