Chapter 1

Hi. I'm Eleanor Jackson. I have long brown hair cut in choppy layers that always seem to find a way into my face. I have bright green eyes and freckles on the bridge of my nose and on my cheeks. My face is long and thin and ends in a pointed jaw. I'm shorter than everybody else, and while I was eleven, people still found a way to mistake me for an eight year old. Nothing special about me, right? Wrong. I'm a witch. And this is the story of everything between then and now.

I could see the train station nearing and the nervousness in the pit of my stomach was out of control. Soon I would be on m way to a place I had been dreaming of since my parents told me I was a witch. Mind you, it had only been 2 months ago on my birthday, but it felt like a lifetime. My parents had already taken me to get all my supplies for this school year at Hogwarts. It was all so new to me, and it had only just struck me that I would have to be making all new friends. The butterflies grew larger. I had never been that good at making friends, and I was pretty sure that making friends with witches and wizards would be much harder. They all probably knew they were magical before me, and they probably grew up with their mom or dad doing magic sometime.

As my dad pulled into the parking lot, I felt like I might be sick. I pushed my cart into the station with my cat, Tucker, trotting along beside me. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, Platform 9. Wait, Platform 10. No, it said Platform 9 ¾. I was really confused, but I said goodbye to my parents and headed to platform 9 anyway.

At Platform 9, there was a tall man with a brown scruffy beard standing below the sing for the platform. He saw my trunk and my cat and started walking towards me. He had a pleasant smile, and was wearing a coat that came all the way to the floor. He bent down next to me and asked, "First year?" in a hushed tone.

I nodded at him, wondering how he knew.

"Do you know how to get to Platform 9 ¾?"

I answered by shaking my head.

"That's fine, my son is a first year, too. Watch him." He gestured to a tall boy with a pointed nose and kind, smiling eyes. He looked a lot like his father.

The boy waved at me then started pushing his cart towards the barrier in between Platform 9 and 10. He started running and I began to worry about him hitting the wall; but the boy kept on going, straight towards the solid brick barrier, and before I knew it, he ran into it. But he just vanished; there was no crash or anything, he was just gone!

"Ok, you go ahead and try it, then. Just run straight up to the barrier. You'll be on the other side in no time." The man told me.

"Are you mad?!" I exclaimed. No way was I going to run into a brick wall!

"No! Of course not! Watch me do it, then. But you have to come after me, or I'm coming back for you." After that, the man walked straight for the barrier, just like the boy did, and when he reached it, he didn't stop; he just walked right through it. The wall had swallowed him whole!

I had no other available choice at the moment, so I went ahead and started to push my cart towards the wall. I tried not to think about what I was doing as I started into a run. When I met the wall, I pushed into it and I was in darkness; just for a moment, and then I arrived at the other side. There was a huge gleaming black and red train sitting on the tracks. The words "Hogwarts Express" were painted on the side in gold. There were kids boarding it on every entrance. I couldn't see the end of the train it was so long.

The man and his son were waiting for me a couple feet away. "Good, you decided to come! I was afraid you would run off!" The older man said to me. "This is Jonathan, my son. He'll show you onto the train in a second." He started saying goodbye to his son, so I looked around and gave them some privacy.

I saw so many different kinds of animals; there were owls in cages on people's trolley's, cats following kids around, even some toads here and there. I had almost gotten an owl, they're so beautiful, but I had always wanted a cat, and Tucker was perfect. He was midnight black with electrical blue eyes. He was just barely old enough to be a full-grown ct, but he still somewhat looked like a kitten. I spotted a boy with a rat, too. He had bright red hair, along with every other person in his family. He was saying goodbye to his mom and dad when Jonathan tapped me on the shoulder and told me it was time to get on the train.

We waved goodbye to his dad, and climbed aboard. We walked down the isle of small cabin rooms and found one that was empty except for a small blonde girl. We opened the door and asked her if we could join her for the ride to Hogwarts.

"Sure!" She said, eagerly scooting her stuff aside for us to sit down. Jonathan and I put our stuff above the seats. "What are your names?" She asked us, her blue eyes looking us over, taking us in.

"I'm Jonathan Peak." Jonathan said, holding out his hand for her to shake.

"And I'm Eleanor Jackson." I shook her hand also.

"Oh, those are lovely names. I'm Alice Thompson. Nice to meet you! I'm so excited to be going to Hogwarts, I've been thinking about it ever since I was a kid, I can't believe I'm actually about to be on my way! My mom told me all about it…" And Alice kept talking to Jonathan and I, and we kept listening. It was nice, her talking. I wasn't a big talker myself, and she was so pleasant to listen to. She talked a lot, but it never bothered me. She had talked about almost every subject; her owl, the books we would be using at Hogwarts, what the food would be like; when she got interrupted by a knock on the cabin door. It was the red-haired boy I had seen earlier.

"Can I sit here? Everywhere else is full." He had a freckled face, and green eyes. His hair was shaggy, and sticking up in some parts, like he couldn't control it.

"Why of course! What's your name?" Alice asked him.

"Charlie. Weasley." Charlie put his stuff up and sat down next to me.

"I'm Alice Thompson." She smiled at him.

"Oh." Charlie looked expectantly at Jonathan.

"Oh yeah, I'm Jonathan Peak."

"And I'm Eleanor Jackson." I smiled and shook his hand.

"Nice to meet you all." He said, beaming at all of us.

"So what house does everybody think they'll be in?" Alice asked us.

Jonathan was the first to answer. "I don't know. I think I'll be fine with whatever house they put me in."

"I want to be in Gryffindor, but I don't know if that'll be what they put me in." Charlie answered.

"I want to be in Ravenclaw. I think that's the best house, personally." Alice said. "What about you, Eleanor?"

"Sorry, what houses are there?" I felt so silly asking that question, but I had no idea what they were talking about. I knew there were separate houses, but I didn't know what they were called, much less, what they were about!

"Oh. Are your parents not wizards? That's fine! Well, according to "Hogwarts, A History", Gryffindor is for the brave at heart. They're daring and chivalrous, too. Hufflepuff's are patient and loyal, and also just and true. Ravenclaw's are witty and wise, and Slytherin's are cunning, ambitious and sly." Alice explained to me.

"Oh. Well, I have no idea what I'll be put in. Hufflepuff's seem nice, but I don't think I would be put in there. I'm sure I would be fine with whatever." I told everybody.

"Well, whatever I'm in, I certainly don't want to be in Slytherin." Jonathan said.

"Why? It seems an interesting house." I asked him.

"My older brother warned me about them. He said they were horrible, and their headmaster is cruel."

"I'm sure most of that is just rumor, don't you think? How bad could they be, really?" I didn't understand how people could talk about how wonderful this school was, and a fourth of the students be unbearable.

"Well, I guess we'll all just have to find out when we get there, won't we?" Alice said, trying to cheer everybody up. "Speaking of, we should probably get our robes on, we'll most likely bee there soon."

"But the sweets trolley hasn't even come yet! My dad gave me money for it!" Jonathan insisted.

"Oh. Well I'm going to get my robes on anyway. Eleanor, you want to?" She asked me.

"Sure." I replied.

"We'll be right back. See you." Alice stepped out into the isle with her bag of clothes and I quickly followed.

I was eager to get out of the small cabin, and leave my embarrassment behind. We made our way to the girl's lavatory and stepped inside. We quickly changed into our robes and stuffed our other clothes into our bags. As we made our way back, Alice tried to strike up conversation.

"Jonathan seems nice. You think so?"

I thought for a moment. "Yeah, I guess so. Why?"

"Oh, no reason." We walked in silence for a moment. "And Charlie does too. He's quiet, don't you think?"

"Hm? Oh, sure." After that, Alice didn't try to talk to me anymore.

When we got back to the cabin, Jonathan told us, "You missed the sweets trolley! I got enough for everyone though. Want some?"

"I would love some!" Alice replied, immediately.

"I'm fine, I'm not that hungry anyway." I told him.

I sat down on my seat, which was thankfully by the window, and sat down. I wasn't really in the mood for talking anymore, I was just nervous about getting sorted into my house. I made some friends already, and they all seemed nice enough; though Jonathan kind of got on my nerves. I hoped I would be able to make friends in whichever house I got put into. I wondered if maybe Alice and I would be in the same house, though I doubted it, we were hardly anything alike. I closed my eyes and listened to everybody else talking and I was soon fast asleep, dreaming about what Hogwarts would be like.

"Eleanor?" Someone was shaking me. "Eleanor!"

"What?" I sat up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

Charlie stood over me. "You fell asleep. We're here! It's time to get off the train, Eleanor!" He looked extremely excited.

"Oh, how long was I out?" I asked him.

"About 2 hours." He told me as he helped me get my trunk down from overhead. "You didn't miss much though. Well, except the sunset. Alice went on and on about it." He rolled is eyes at me.

"Thanks." I laughed. "Well, I'm glad I wasn't awake for that."

"You should be." He smiled at me. "It took us a while to realize you were asleep, we kept on talking to each other as if you were part of the conversation and Alice finally asked you a question and you never answered, and then she realized you weren't awake!"

"Speaking of Alice, where is she? And Jonathan?" I wondered.

"They went on out, they said they wanted to be one of the first people out, so I stayed back and woke you up."

"Oh, thanks."

"Anytime. We should probably go now, it looks like most everybody is off the train."

"Ok."

We went down the isle of with a couple of other first years that were lagging behind. When we got off the train, there was a man waiting for us on the platform. But this wasn't just some old guy; he was huge. He was wearing a thick fur coat, and his face was almost all the way covered up by his bushy hair and beard. Charlie and I gawked at him.

"Firs' years, follow me!" The man bellowed over and over again.

Charlie and I followed the man towards a lake with small boats ready to be boarded. Charlie, me, and two other kids that I didn't know got into one of them. As soon as we got settled, the boat pushed off on its own, and we started sailing towards the castle looming overhead. Alice had talked about what it would look like some on the train, but I had hardly paid attention. Whatever she said, it was nothing compared to what was before us, it was a mansion times 50, and it was beautiful. I made a mental note to write a letter to my mom about it, she would have loved to see it.

"Wow." Charlie said, sitting behind me.

"It's beautiful." I whispered.

I couldn't believe it, I was finally at Hogwarts.

A/N – Thanks for reading! Please review :D