I felt my fingers tighten around my mum's hand as we caught our first glimpse of 'Platform 9 and ¾'. Our little family came to a stop.
'What? Where?' murmured my dad, looking from the letter in his hand, back to the blank and very solid looking plastic barrier between platforms 9 and 10. Petunia grinned at me vindictively, her eyes glittering with triumph.
'Well Lily? Where is this platform? Seems to me it doesn't exist!' she laughed, looking at mum and dad.
I looked up at mum anxiously. She smiled.
'We'll find it,' she said gently.
'Mr Dumbledore said nothing about this Rose,' Dad piped up, causing my stomach, which had momentarily unclenched, to clench all over again. They all looked at me a little expectantly. Inside my head my brain was in overdrive. Did they expect me to know where everything is when I'd never even been here before?
'Sev!' I said after a few minutes of furious thought, 'He'll know how to get on there!'
At this mum and dad suddenly looked a little uneasy.
'Severus dear? Well if we can…'
'JAMES! Oh for goodness sake, he's wandered off again. JAMES!' mum was interrupted by a woman with a strong Irish accent who swept past us, wearing a long green cloak. A cloak?
'I don't know why we just didn't apparate dear,' a middle aged man in a large hat spoke at her side, 'That would've been a much easier way to get onto platform 9 and ¾. I've always hated this running through walls rubbish, makes me queasy.'
My heart leapt.
'Excuse me!' my mum had obviously heard too. I was swept along as my mum pulled me through the crowd towards the lady with the green cloak. She turned as my mum tapped her on the shoulder.
I noted, with some surprise, the jeans and jumper she wore under the flamboyant outerwear. She was pretty in an average kind of way, with a round face and smiling hazel eyes, but it was her hair, which impressed me most.
It was a vivid red, almost the exact shade of mine. I grinned at the woman and she grinned back. Us redheads gotta stick together.
'Can I help?' she asked. Her husband looked back to where we stood and came over. He also wore a combination of things you might see in a fancy dress shop and normal clothes. Thinning dark hair peeped out from beneath the ludicrous hat and wire rimmed glasses perched atop a long nose, magnifying his pale blue eyes.
Petunia looked worried, shrinking back behind the trolley carrying my trunk, but I stepped forward, eager to meet anyone from my new world.
'Hogwarts?' the man asked in a cheery voice, 'and muggles by the looks of it. Don't worry! We'll help you along.'
My mum smiled gratefully at him and walked beside the couple, pulling me along with her:
'I'm Rose Evans and this is my husband Alan, and our two girls Petunia and Lily. We are so grateful about this. I'm afraid we were a little lost!'
'Not to worry!' replied the dark haired man, 'It's difficult for all first timers. I'm Charlie Potter and this is my wife Dorea and our son James… James?' He turned to glance around. Dorea turned to him exasperatedly.
'He's run off again Charlie! I swear its like we've been slipping a forgetfulness draft in his Quidditch flakes every morning!' she turned to my mum, 'Sorry about this. Our son James is about to start Hogwarts just this year.'
'Me too!' I piped up, grinning up at the lady with the fiery hair. She smiled gently.
'Well you seem like a sensible girl.,' She lowered her head to mine and whispered conspiratorially in my ear, 'You talk some sense into my boy won't you?' She pulled her head back and winked at me. I grinned and felt myself blush.
'Gotcha!' yelled Charlie, making us all jump. He wheeled around, revealing a small struggling boy, with a shock of black hair, firmly attached by the collar to Charlie's hand. Charlie dusted him off and set him on the ground, keeping the hand firmly on his shoulder.
I smiled at him, eager to make a new friend. He scowled back at me, a hand jumping up to his hair, mussing it up so it stuck up even more erratically than it had before.
Dorea leapt forward, something flashing in her hand and it was a moment before I realised that it was a metal comb. She set about attacking James' hair with it.
'Ow! Mum! Get off!' He scrambled away from her as she advanced on him.
'I don't care whether you're copying that new 'Weird brothers' band or not…'
' "Weird Sisters"' James muttered under his breath,
'It is your first day at Hogwarts and by Merlin's wand your hair WILL LIE FLAT!' Dorea screamed the last few words, her chest rising and falling as if she'd run a race. Passers by watched this outburst obviously caused, I decided, by this horrible boy standing before me.
He looked a lot like his father, with a long nose, glasses and of course the hair; but he had his mother's kind, hazel eyes, despite the sulky look he had plastered to his face at that moment.
'What do you want red?' he hissed at me in a low voice, obviously catching me staring. I blushed.
'Nothing,' I said quickly, 'I'm Lily Evans. I'm starting here this year.'
He snorted, disregarding my outstretched hand and looking to my other, which was still clasped firmly by mum.
'I'd never have guessed.' He said sarcastically. He looked in annoyance to his mum for a second and pink tinged his cheeks slightly. He reached up his hand and messed up his hair again. I rolled my eyes. Hurt pride was no reason to be rude.
'Whats up with this then?' he asked, flicking my plait. I blushed. My hair and my eyes had always been a great source of embarrassment to me. 'You look like your head's on fire,' he snickered, 'Or,' he conceded, taking my bright green eyes into account, 'like Christmas has come early.' He winked at me and I glared back awkwardly. I seemed to have lost my voice along the way.
'Do you support the Chudley Cannons?' he asked suddenly, then erupted into laughter at his own joke. I felt the famous Lily Evans anger well up in my belly.
'I'm sure that comment would sting a lot more if I knew who the Chudley Cannons were,' I spat back at him, 'Now will you please leave me and my hair alone. I did not come here to have my day spoilt by silly little twerps like you. Why don't you go and get mummy to brush your hair again because believe me, whoever these 'Weird Sisters' are, copying them is not a good look for you. It was nice to meet you Mr and Mrs Potter. Come on mum.'
I flicked my hair around and flounced away from the Potters, pulling my mum towards Sev who waved from the other side of the platform, hoping I'd never had to see, or speak to, James Potter again.