Chapter One

"MOM!"I yelled.

"C'mon, just let me get it," she complained.

"It's fine!" I whined, "Now let's go I don't want to be late!"

Ugh! We were already late! I knew she didn't want me to go, but was she desperate enough to keep me from my flight!

Fourteen Hours Later

Erin- Well I'm finally here. In London. All alone. In a train station. Yippee.

It was tough saying goodbye to them, after all the longest I've been on my own is two weeks, and that was only in another state now I'm all the way over the Atlantic! But now their gone and I'm on my way looking for platform… 9 and ¾? Well no matter, it must be around here somewhere. Let's see… platform 8… platform 9… platform 10. Hmmm. If it's anything like Diagon Alley it must be magically protected. Ugh. What a headache.

I leaned in on the brick divider under the nine sign pulling my cart with me and was very surprised when it caved in! It took a second for my eyes to adjust but then I saw it. The engraved sign Hogwarts Express. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"May I take your luggage?" I heard in a cheery British accent. I turned around to see a man in a pristine uniform smiling at me.

"Um, yes, thank you." I smiled back. I grabbed my pet bat's cage and hurried aboard the train. Snowflake, named after the white speckles on her head, screeched in her cage. The other kids looked at her like she was some disease. Apparently cats were more in style for girls and rats for boys. Whatever, I was used to standing out from the crowd. It seems snowflake had her own kind of magic because all of the seats on the train suddenly filled up. Except one.

"Excuse me," I said in my own American accent. "May I sit here everyone seems to mind snowflake." I said holding up the silent bat.

"You have a bat?" The thin boy with shaggy black hair and large rimmed glasses asked.

"Yes…" I replied, "Is that a problem?"

"No, no, not at all! I just didn't know anyone who had one. It's actually pretty cool. By the way, I'm Harry Potter. What's your name?"

"I'm Erin Morndel."

"Like Tristan Morndel, the famous soccer player?"

"He's my cousin."

"Wow."

"Yeah, I'd never even met him until about a day ago. He was really nice; did you know he's a wizard?"

"Really?" He sounded amazed.

"Yeah, he's the one who took me to Diagon Alley, so I could get all the stuff on the list."

We heard a knock on the door and looked over to see a boy with red hair standing there with a pitiful looking rat in his hand. "Do you mind if I sit in here, everywhere else is full?"

"Not at all." Harry and I said in unison.

"I'm Ron Weasley, by the way, and this," he said holding up the rat, "is Scabbers."

"My name is Erin Morndel."

"And I'm Harry Potter."

Ron's eyes bulged like he'd seen a ghost. "You're Harry Potter?" Harry nodded clearly confused. Ron lowered his voice to a whisper, "Do you really have the scar?" Harry laughed and pulled up his bangs. There was a large lightning bolt shaped scar in the middle of his forehead. "Wicked!" Ron said.

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "Where'd you get that from?"

Ron's eyes almost popped out of his head. "You mean you don't know who this is?!!"

I was a bit confused. "He's Harry Potter, right?"

"Well, yes, but have you ever heard of him before?"

I could feel my temper rising. "No, should I have?"

Snowflake, who up until then had been sleeping in her cage on the shelf above Ron's head, sensed the distress in my voice and started screeching. Ron let out a squeal equally as high-pitched and jumped off his seat.

"Bloody hell!" Ron yelled.

Harry and I erupted into laughter. "Ron, meet Snowflake, Snowflake this is Ron."

"Don't bats eat rats?" Ron asked.

"She's a fruit bat, Scabbers should be fine." He looked relieved.

"So anyway, maybe Harry should tell you why he's so famous in the wizarding world." Ron said.

I looked at Harry. "Well, I only know a little of it myself." he said. "But I can tell you what I do know. Apparently there was an evil wizard called Lord Voldemort." Ron winced. "He was so bad no one even says his name. Well anyway this dark lord came into my house one night and killed my parents, he tried to kill me too, when I was just a baby, but for some reason the spell backfired and he only gave me this scar."

"That's terrible!" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, the really awful part is that I have to live with my aunt and uncle who are extremely opposed to magic to say the least, I'm just a thorn in their side."

"I'm so sorry!" I reached other and hugged him. He stiffened so I immediately let go. "Sorry again, I'm a hugger." I said with an apologetic grin.

"That's alright." Harry said grinning. I could see the faintest hint of a blush on his cheeks.

After that Harry, Ron, and I just talked for a while. I found out Ron had five older brothers and one younger sister. And that Harry had a snowy owl named Hedwig who was currently asleep and Harry didn't want to wake her up. When the trolley cart came by me and Harry bought sweets for all of us.

"Can you guys do any magic on purpose?" I asked half-way through my chocolate frog. Harry shook his head.

"George taught me one on how to turn Scabbers yellow." Ron said. He cleared his throat and started the spell. "Sunshine, daisies-"

"Excuse me," came a voice from the doorway. We all looked up to see a girl with long light brown wavy hair and somewhat large buck teeth standing in the aisle. "Have any of you seen a toad, a boy named Neville lost one." She looked over at Ron. "Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it then."

Ron cleared his throat again and repeated the spell, swishing his wand around as he spoke, "Sunshine, daisies, lemon mellow, turn this stupid, fat rat yellow!" Scabbers gave an indignant squeak and fell backwards.

"Are you sure that's a real spell? I've only done a few myself but they've all worked for me." She walked over near Harry. "For example," she pointed her wand in between Harry's eyes and said, "Oculus Repairo" the tape shot off of Harry's glasses and the frame was fixed.

"Whoa." Harry said.

"I know who you are! You're Harry Potter! I'm Hermione Granger, pleasure to meet you." The girl said while violently shaking his hand. She turned and looked at Ron. "And you are…?"

"Ron Weasley."

"Pleasure." Hermione replied. She turned to me "What's your name?"

"I'm Erin Morndel. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too. Well, I better help look for Neville's toad again see you later. By the way you guys might want to change into your robes; I expect we'll be arriving soon." Then she left.

We all sat there in silence for a while not really knowing what to say. "Well, she seemed nice." I finally said.

"Speak for yourself." Ron replied.

With that in mind, we got into our robes and awaited our arrival. Which, as Hermione had earlier predicted, came very soon.