"Have a good term," Uncle Vernon spoke, the genial tone of his words undercut by the wholly nasty smile that now seemed to be firmly engraved into the thick folds of his face. Without waiting another moment or speaking another word, the visibly gleeful man, obviously relishing the situation, turned and walked away. Harry watched as he did, himself frozen where he stood, and was only able to refocus on the situation at hand after Vernon had rejoined the rest of the Dursleys at his car and, all three laughing loud enough that Harry could hear the uproar even from within the bustling crowds of the station, drove away. He simply stood there, entirely unsure of what to do, as the travelers and commuters around him moved to and fro, casting a good deal of funny looks in his direction. For that, Harry couldn't blame them- if not for the experiences of the previous month, he too would have given Hedwig, a massive and stark-white owl, at least a second glance.
He immediately decided that it would be best to ask around, rather than just stand there, doing nothing. "Pardon me," he managed to ask as clearly he could to a passing security guard, "do you know where the train to Hogwarts is?"
The man, tall and with a bushy mustache, looked around and then down, registering the question with pause. "I've never heard of anything called Hogwarts. Is that a village, somewhere?" he answered Harry's question, clearly a bit miffed.
"Um, no," Harry answered. He was very conscious of how he must have looked. He debated whether or not to mention that Hogwarts was a school, but concluded that if the man had never heard of it, doing so would be little help. And the platform, nine and three quarters? The whole thing was beginning to feel a bit like a prank.
The guard, clearly off-put by the unhelpful answer, nonetheless tried again, "Well, do you know what part of the country this Hogwarts is in?"
Harry looked down at his feet. No, he didn't. Where was it? Somewhere in Wales? "No, I don't," he answered, once again, he knew, unhelpfully.
At this, the guard seemed upset. "Boy, I can't help you if you don't tell me anything."
"Where's the train that leaves at eleven o'clock?" Harry tried. At the look on the man's face as well as his curt, dismissive, and audibly annoyed response that, no, there wasn't any train leaving at eleven o'clock, Harry was left hapless. The man strode away, muttering something under his breath as he did, thus leaving Harry alone, still clueless.
Soon, Harry began to worry and felt himself bordering on a panic. The big clock above the information board read that the time was only ten minutes until eleven, when the train was supposed to depart. Hagrid, Harry found himself believing, must have forgotten to tell him something important, about some button to push or some brick to hit. He had just started to fiddle with the clasp on his trunk in order to fish out his wand, which he intended to tap around against the inspector's stand or the bricks on the columns, like Hagrid had with the entrance to Diagon Alley, when something began tapping against him near the bottom of his boney shoulder blade.
In immediate response, Harry jumped around and confirmed his suspicions, that it was a finger. The previously tapping finger was, of course, attached to a person, one shorter than him and with flaming red hair cascading in long waves around her face, over her shoulders, and, Harry assumed, down her back. His eyes met hers, a bright and excited brown, and Harry couldn't quite manage out any word in response.
Fortunately for him, she could. "You're looking for the platform, aren't you?"
Harry looked her over for a moment with suspicion. If there was some big joke going on, she didn't seem like the sort to be in on it. "Nine and three quarters?" he questioned, slowly, somewhere between fearfully dreading and gleefully anticipating the response.
"That's the one!" the red-haired girl affirmed cheerfully. "The owl gives it away. You muggle-born? I wouldn't think you'd have much trouble finding it otherwise."
"Uh, what?" was all Harry was able to manage out before a plump, warm-looking woman with the same red hair as the girl in front of him had hurried over and put her arm securely around the shoulder of the girl. Harry quickly assumed that they were mother and daughter.
"Hello, dear," the woman beamed at him. "First time at Hogwarts, trying to find the platform? This is Ginny's first year, too," she continued, giving the girl, evidently named Ginny, a squeeze.
Ginny looked a bit uncomfortable. Harry rubbed the back of his head. "Er, yes, what gave it away?"
"The owl," she smiled. "That one's beautiful, isn't it, Ginny?"
"Yes, Mom," the girl managed out, shying away.
"We've got one of our own, over there," the mother kept on, returning her attention to Harry for a brief second before looking over and gesturing at a messy gathering of boys, each with the same red color of hair as the mother and daughter in front of Harry. Harry saw the owl the woman was referring to, but in the next brief second, she spoke again, her tone dramatically changed and her focus completely diverted away from Harry. "Fred! George! You two put your brother down this instant!" she snapped loud enough to garner startled looks from many passers-by.
Harry shifted his gaze from the caged owl to the two identical looking boys, whom he assumed to be Fred and George. Between the two was a third, much smaller looking boy, being hoisted into the air by the first two, each of whom had a firm hold of one the third boy's upper arm. From what Harry could tell, they had been trying to lift the third boy onto the top of one of their trolleys. A fourth boy, the oldest looking of the red-heads, looked on. At the sound of their mother's voice, the twins stopped their movements but kept their grip on the third, leaving him dangling in mid-air.
"He asked us to, mom!" one of the red-haired twins responded, indignant.
"Wanted to ride through the barrier, fast-like," the other added.
At that, the mother turned away from the scene, gave the girl, Ginny, a meaningful look, and then turned back and hurried over to deal with the situation. Harry, too, turned his attention towards Ginny, who had a smirk across his lips. "Do they do stuff like that often?" Harry asked.
"Like you wouldn't believe," the girl answered.
She and Harry looked at each other for several long moments, both of them, Harry, at least, entirely unsure of what to say to each other. Over a little bit away, the mother was talking to the boys, her hands on her hips. Harry watched for a moment, before once again turning his attention back to the red-haired girl, whose expression had become contemplative. "So where is the platform? There's not much time," Harry asked, gesturing his head towards a nearby clock, which read only six minutes until the eleventh hour.
"There," the girl, Ginny, said, gesturing to where the eldest-looking of the brothers, he himself evidently aware of the little amount of time left, was hurriedly pushing his trolley towards one of the barriers between platforms nine and ten. One moment, he was there, and the next, he was nowhere to be seen. Harry blinked, and Ginny gave a giggle. The eldest was soon followed by one of the twins, who, too, just vanished at a point, and that twin was in turn followed by the other, who was pushing not only his trolley, but the third boy who was sitting at its front, hands held forward in the air. It was not long before all the red-haired boys in the area were gone from sight, leaving Harry with only Ginny, and her mother, who was returning from the scene of the attempted, and then, apparently, permitted, crime.
"Well, Ginny," she started, sounding flustered and with an annoyed expression on her face, "there's not much time left. Come on."
The mother, looking distracted, moved to walk away, but Ginny grabbed ahold of one of her sleeves and, when she had her mother's attention, gestured towards Harry. "He doesn't know how to get onto the platform, Mom."
"Oh?" the mother said. She turned her gaze onto Harry. Then, she moved around, so that she was at his side, and pointed towards one of the brick barriers, the same one that the boys had vanished while running towards. "Do you see that barrier, between platforms nine and teen?" she asked.
Harry nodded.
"All you have to walk straight at it. Don't stop, don't be scared that you'll crash into it, you won't, that's very important. If you're nervous, it's probably best to do it at a bit of a run, no second guessing."
Harry nodded again. He moved, took a firm grasp of the handles of his trolley, and pushed it into line with the barrier. He took a breath, and was about to start moving forwards towards the brick, when the red-haired girl hurled into his view and jump on top of his trolley. She nestled herself next to Hedwig's cage, and then turned her head to hive Harry an expectant look. "If Ron gets to do it, then so do I," she insisted.
Harry turned around to look at the mother, who was standing next to what Harry guessed to be Ginny's trolley, who gave a warm, if hesitant, nod of her head. With another breath, Harry pushed forward, first with his arms and then with his legs. Before long, he was running, pushing both his trolley and the girl on top of it forward at speed. Her hair flew backwards, obscuring his vision of the barrier for a brief moment, but before he could even half second thoughts and worry about the possibility of crashing, his surroundings had changed. His trolley, and the girl on top of it, were still there, but instead of the sleek-looking diesel engines lit by natural sunlight was a scarlet-painted steam engine, warmed by something resembling candlelight. A low level of steam hung over the platform, and above it Harry could make out the clumping of red-heads from earlier. Ginny jumped off of the trolley, spared him a glance, and then rushed to meet her siblings.
With a second glance at the train, noting that the first several compartments were full, Harry turned around to where the barrier should have been and saw instead a dark iron archway, the worlds Platform Nine and Three-Quarters written across it. Harry smiled, and as he did, the mother emerged through, Ginny's trolley in tow. She gave Harry a brief, friendly smile, before making her way to where her kids were gathered.
Deciding that there couldn't be much time left until the train departed and that he really didn't want to have gotten through everything just to be stranded on the platform, Harry made his way down along it, keeping his eyes on the windows of the train compartments, looking for an empty one to sit in. Hedwig hooted at another owl, who hooted back with what sounded like indignation, and Harry overheard a boy complaining of having lost his toad, again. He decided to give Hedwig a pat through the bars her cage, glad that he didn't have to worry about losing her. She gave a gentle hoot in response and lowered her gaze.
It took Harry a while to find an empty compartment, one only being discovered near to the very end of the train. Harry stopped his trolley and made to transfer his possessions. First was Hedwig, who was easy enough to transfer into the compartment, but next was the heavy trunk containing the rest of his belongings. With a heft, a shove, a heave, and a drag, Harry managed to get it off of his trolley, over the gap between the platform, and past the first of the train doors. The steps, however, posed a challenge of another level- several attempts served only to prove that Harry was far from strong enough to complete the task. To his amazement, however, not long after a failed third attempt, the trunk began to levitate, floating upwards and then up the stairs, towards a retreating Harry, who got out of its away. Pressed against the wall, his trunk floating past him, Harry looked back out onto the platform, where the mother had her wand out and pointed in his direction. It was not too difficult to put two and two together, and Harry gave her a thankful smile and a wave, which she returned.
When the trunk was finished with its journey and was resting on the floor of the train's main corridor, Harry sat himself down, gave the mother another thankful wave, and combed his fingers up and through his messy, and now sweaty, hair, trying to draw some of it out away from his eyes. He noticed, barely, a change in the mother's expression from heartfelt to shock, but thought little of it, and just barely registered the girl walking up beside her. No, at that moment, all Harry wanted was to get his trunk out of the corridor, to sit down, and to get out of London and towards Hogwarts.
The train's whistle sounded, a warning, prompting Harry to get up and move himself and his luggage into a corner of the empty compartment in which he had left Hedwig previously. The spot by the window seemed most appealing, and so Harry took it and looked out through the glass. He could see the youngest of the red-haired boys talking animatedly to his mother, complaining about something, and the twins, accompanied by a dark-skinned boy with dreadlocks, starting to sprint down the length of the platform as a second train whistle sounded. Harry couldn't help but smile- he'd managed to get on before they did. It was comforting.
It was also fun to watch the younger boy, Ron, Harry deduced, gesture towards his stomach in an attempt to pull his mother away from the vantage point from which she was watching the train as it began to pull away from the station. It was only as the two were about to disappear from view that the mother finally turned to her son. Harry saw her reach inside a bag and pull out something he assumed to be food, but the next moment, before the boy, Ron, would presumably get the morsel, the train had rounded a corner and the platform was no longer in sight.
Harry smiled. He then began to wonder how to pass the time, and how much of it there would be to pass, when there was a knock on the compartment door. A look towards the glass barrier revealed the red-haired girl, Ginny, looking expectantly at him. Harry, realizing that he had locked the door, got up from his seat and unlocked it, allowing her in before returning to his spot. Ginny took the one next to him, and looked at Harry expectantly. "I'm Ginny. Ginny Weasley," she said.
Harry noticed that she sounded more reserved, or maybe more nervous, than earlier. "I know," he replied with as friendly a smile as he could muster. "Harry," he contorted his body to extend his hand to the girl beside him. Her eyes widened at his words, and then widened even further at the offered handshake. She took it, but only barely, before withdrawing.
"And your, um, surname?" Ginny asked.
"Potter," Harry answered.
She gave out a sound that was strongly resembled a squeak. "So Mom was right," she muttered, now doing anything but making eye contact.
Harry looked at her quizzically. "Right about what?"
"She said you had the scar, that you're Harry Potter," she continued to mutter.
The red-head's actions were rather confusing. "Last I checked," he pondered. "And nobody's ever told me otherwise."
At that, though after a long moment of silence, Ginny laughed and looked up, back at Harry with her brown eyes. It was a high-pitched, happy laugh that gave Harry a warm feeling somewhere in his chest. "Well, Harry Potter, I'm Ginny Weasley."
"As has been established," Harry gave a smile, and got one in return.
"Do you mind if I see it?" Ginny asked, looking at Harry's hair-covered forehead.
Harry pulled up his bangs to show the scar.
Ginny stared at it, almost long enough to make Harry rather uncomfortable, before gathering himself and asking another question. "Does it hurt?"
"Not really," Harry shrugged.
"Can I, can I touch it?"
Harry blinked. He strongly considered saying no, find the girl's attention to be a bit much, but the look on her face and in her eyes, a cross between embarrassment and fascination, forced his hand. "Sure, though just the once."
And so, Ginny reached out and very briefly pressed her small finger, the same one, Harry realized, with which she had tapped his shoulder, against the jagged scar before recoiling sharply and muttering an apology. "I'm so sorry, you can't possibly like this sort of thing," she once again muttered, once more looking down at her feet.
"It's okay," Harry reassured her. "Now that I think about it, I've gotten stranger reactions. Not that I understood what they actually meant at the time, mind you."
Ginny seemed to be about to ask another question when her twin brothers announced their presence just beyond the open doorway. "So Mom was right?" one of them asked.
"Yeah, I can see the scar," said the other.
"So you're Harry Potter," the first stated.
"Boy-who-lived," said the other.
"So I've been told," Harry muttered. He did not miss the look of sympathy Ginny shot at him, nor did he miss the glare she sent towards her brothers.
"Well, as thanks for your service, we'll let you alone with our sister," the first of the twins announced, sending Ginny a teasing grin as he did, garnering a brutally red blush in reponse.
"And Lee Jordan's tarantula calls," the second twin informed Ginny.
The two left as quickly as they appeared, leaving silence in their wake. Harry felt a blush burning on his cheeks from the comment from the first of the twins, and Ginny turned towards him. "I'm sorry about that."
"It's not too bad," Harry shrugged. "Just a bit strange. Not used to it."
Ginny didn't seem able to stop the question from bursting out. "So you did kill You-Know-Who?"
Harry shrugged again. "Yes, I suppose, but I can't remember any of it. Just a lot of green light. So your whole family is wizards?" he pushed, eager to change the topic to something more interesting.
"My Mom and I are witches," Ginny glared, "but yeah, we're all magic."
"That has to be loads of fun, right? Growing up all around magic? I really wish I got to grow up in a family like that, four brothers, magic. My aunt and uncle are horrible. They hate magic."
"Six brothers, actually. Percy and Fred and George, they're the ones attending right now. Ron's the younger- he'll be going to Hogwarts next year. But Bill and Charlie have already graduated. One works for Gringotts, the other with dragons!" Ginny blurted out, her excitement evident.
"Dragons? Wait, six brothers?" Harry asked, feeling a bit mortified. He had to imagine that it wasn't the greatest, being the only sister of six brothers. Not as bad as Dudley, probably, certainly not as bad as six Dudleys. Harry physically shivered at the thought, earning a raised eyebrow from Ginny.
"It's pretty horrible, yes," she stated, nonchalantly. "Though I get the feeling that you had it worse."
Harry laughed a dry, relaxing laugh. "Probably. My cousin is just awful. He really likes to hit things."
"Even you?" Ginny asked. Now, her tone sounded a bit different to Harry's ears, but he shrugged it off.
"When he could manage to catch me. But I'm pretty fast, so that wasn't often."
Ginny only nodded in response. For several minutes, the two just sat in silence. Harry watched out the window as the buildings grew shorter and shorter and eventually disappeared entirely, leaving in their wake nothing but rolling fields of grass, cows, and sheep. Ginny watched him.
"Don't worry about being the worst in the class, or anything," she finally said, breaking the silence.
"What?" Harry responded, pulling his cheek from its spot pressed against the window pane.
"Mom told me to tell you that you'll probably be worrying that you don't know anything, and to tell you that when she went to school, some of the best students were muggleborn."
How she'd guessed what he had been thinking, Harry would never know. But, what she said felt nonetheless good to hear. "You're probably right. I mean, my mom was muggleborn, right? And Hagrid seemed to think she was good at magic."
Ginny just smiled that bright smile of hers and reached out to give him a gentle pat on his shoulder. It comforted him more than any words could.
For several more minutes after that, the two sat in a further comfortable silence, it persisting until a commotion of clattering came from the corridor and attracted the immediate attention of both Harry and Ginny, followed by the entrance of a woman who appeared very intent on handing out treats. Harry saw Ginny gazing wistfully at the cart, looking very much like she wanted to buy it all, and so he jumped from his seat, ready to buy himself and her most of everything.
"How much can I get for a galleon?" he asked the confectioner, whose responding smile was wide enough cross an ocean.
It was when Harry returned to his spot by the window and next to Ginny, however, that the red-headed girl herself grew a smile. This one, much Harry's dismay, was much less genial and much more mischievous.
With both arms, Ginny pushed him across the compartment as he tried to sit down. In the process, Harry dropped all of the assorted candies and treats that he had been carrying, leaving them for Ginny to easily gather and secure. When he finally managed to gather himself on the opposite row of seats, Harry saw that Ginny had pulled out her wand, a sleek and pretty looking thing which she was soon pointing at him. "Go get yours out of your trunk, Potter," she ordered, cheerily.
Uneased, Harry did as he was told and sat down in the seat opposite Ginny, then shooting at her as nasty a glare as he could manage. He was very much hungry, and she had just taken all of his food, which he had been intending to share. "Now, here's what we're going to do. I've read some stuff, and Fred and George taught me a couple spells. I'll going to teach them to you," she said with a smile. "Show you that you really can do this stuff."
"Why'd you have to push me, then?" Harry replied, a little angry, but mostly confused.
"I needed to get a hold of this stuff," Ginny shrugged, very clearly putting on a show, and enjoying it. She opened up one of the boxes of jelly beans and pulled a handful out. She picked a few out, and ate them one by one, and tossed the rest over to Harry. Their colors were a bit strange, but he was very hungry, so he tossed them all in his mouth. Immediately after the first bite, he recoiled, the abhorrent tastes of earwax, sour milk, and rotten egg ambushing his tongue. Harry shot Ginny a look of betrayal, who waved her hand in response. "Every flavored beans, Harry," she casually explained, "I wasn't going to eat those, and who'd want to let food go to waste?"
"Now," Ginny continued without pause, "I'm going to toss you another, a good one, and you're going to make it a lot bigger." The witch did as she said she was going to, and Harry found himself looking at an oily black candy in the palm of his non-wand holding hand.
"How am I going to make it bigger?" Harry asked.
"The engorgement charm," Ginny beamed. "Fred and George used it on Ron's nose last week, while he was sleeping. Even Dad couldn't stop laughing when he came downstairs."
Ginny then set about explaining the word for the spell, engorgio, she claimed, and the mostly circular hand movement required. In demonstration, she placed a jelly bean of her own on the seat next to hers. It took her, much to Harry's relief, three attempts to get the charm working right, the first attempt producing nothing, the second producing a brief flash of blue light followed by a less brief and mostly fruitless discussion, at Harry's questioning, of what it meant to actually do magic, and only the third resulting on Ginny enlarging the small candy into the size of an apple. Harry watched in amazement as she treated it accordingly, lifting the treat to her mouth and tearing a chunk out of it.
"Now you go," Ginny prodded. Harry did as she had, and put the black bean on the seat beside him. He said the word, engorgio, exactly as Ginny had, and he did the wand movement, but nothing happened. He tried again, and then a third time, with nothing happening. After the fourth attempt resulted in no blue light and no larger a jelly bean, Harry threw himself back in frustration.
"I can't do it," he complained to Ginny, who had a thoughtful expression on her face.
"Do you want to do the magic, or do you want to make the bean bigger?" she asked.
"What does that matter?" Harry asked.
Ginny looked to be on the verge of answering when another voice, not much different from hers, came in from the hallway. "Oh, intent is really important when casting spells. I was taking notes from The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One, and it mentioned this in some of the theory, that it's really very important to truly want to cast spell you're casting. It said that it doesn't always hold true, like when spells misfire, but for a wizard to properly channel his magic, it's generally good to truly know and understand what it is you're trying to do!"
Both Harry and Ginny simply stared at the girl now standing in the open doorway to their compartment. She was smiling, showing off a pair of very prominent front teeth, and her bushy brown hair was disheveled. In her eyes, however, there was an incredible amount of excitement.
"What?" was all Harry could manage out.
"I'm Hermione Granger," the girl said with her hand outstretched, "I'm trying to find a toad, Neville's lost his, have you seen it? And yes, I couldn't help but see that you're trying to do magic, and overhear what you," she looked at Ginny, "were saying," she beamed.
"So, answer my question, Potter," Ginny continued. Harry noticed a flash go across Hermione's face as he looked from her to the redhead sitting across from him. "Like, are you just trying to cast the spell to cast the spell, or are you trying to make the bean bigger?"
Harry nodded, declining to verbally answer Ginny's question, and with determined nods to both Ginny and this new girl, Hermione, returned his focus to the candy. "Engorgio," he stated, very firmly, performing the wand movement as well as he could manage and thinking very hard of how great it would be to see the bean grow, to show that he could do it. To his immense relief as well as satisfaction, the circle of blue light that Ginny had managed to produce before came out from his own wand, and the jelly bean within began to grow. It shook and wobbled and at times looked like it was about to tear itself apart, but eventually it reached the apple-size that Ginny had managed, and Harry pulled back his wand.
Hermione started clapping and sat herself down next to Ginny, letting the other girl know that she wanted a jelly bean of her own to try. Meanwhile, Harry picked up his jelly bean, gave Ginny a wink, and bit into it as though it were an apple, just as she had. His first reaction was that the flavor had to be something he'd never had before, something oily and rich, a bit fishy, and very strange. His second reaction was that it was a pretty weak flavor, as if watered down. He commented on this, to which Ginny just shrugged, while the bushy-haired new arrival looked up from her almost-started attempt of her own. "The engorgement was probably imperfect. I read that you have to be very precise when doing this sort of stuff with food," Hermione lectured.
The bushy-haired intruder then did as Ginny and Harry had mad managed to do, except she was able to get the spell to work on the first attempt. Her bean, of a very dark brown color, had grown even larger, and quite a bit more smoothly, than Harry's own attempt. Hermione examined the candy for a moment, and then bit into it enthusiastically. Immediately, she recoiled, looking at the candy with betrayal etched across her features. "It tastes like mud!" she exclaimed.
"Are you surprised? It's every flavor beans, Granger," Ginny drawled. "You're just lucky that brown was just mud. Believe me, it could have been much worse."
Harry laughed, and nodded as Hermione looked at him with horror. "Why would anybody make candy like that?" she questioned, and then turned on Ginny. "You gave me that one specifically, didn't you?" A hint of hurt was there to be heard in her tone.
"Might have been chocolate," Ginny shrugged.
"Speaking of chocolate," Harry started, "Ginny, toss me one of those chocolate frog things. Looks interesting."
She did as Harry asked, picking one out for herself. With a tentative glance towards Harry, which he answered with a smile and a nod, Hermione, too, reached out and grabbed something, though Harry was too focused on his candy to see exactly what. The frog that had been previously contained within the packaging had gotten free and begun jumping around the room. As Hermione bit into was seemed like some sort of pastry, or small cake, and Ginny bit into the head of her frog while reading whatever it was on the packaging, Harry was forced to try and catch his. He had to get out of his seat and jump around, much as the frog was doing, but, eventually, he managed to get the animated chocolate into his grasp. Harry looked up and met Ginny's gaze as he settled back into his new seat, the redhead having given her container to Hermione for the girl to read as she finished with what Harry now saw to be a cauldron cake.
"Engorge that bugger, Harry," Ginny encouraged him, a wild look in her eyes. Harry noticed that Hermione responded to that, her eyes drawn to his forehead. He might have felt something about the attention under different circumstances, but as it was, he was too focused on holding down the charmed chocolate to give the bushy haired girl much thought. He had more success on the frog than he had on the bean, and was soon holding an engorged piece of chocolate much like a Bond villain would hold a cat.
Ginny giggled and opened up another pack of every flavor beans, having already finished with the first one. "Having fun reading those, Hermione?" she questioned the witch beside her, who had since finished with the cauldron cake and begun tearing through several packs of chocolate frogs. She, Harry noticed with some resentment, had, like Ginny, not had close to as much trouble as he did keeping the sweet beasts under control.
"Reading what?" Harry asked.
"Chocolate frogs come with collectible cards- Ron loves them. They've got famous witches and wizards, and some short biography about them," Ginny explained.
"Some of these really are fascinating," Hermione added. "Though you'd think they could into a bit more detail on some," she frowned.
"Who was on yours, Harry?" Ginny asked, grimacing as she immediately afterwards ate a misjudged bean.
Harry lifted the hand he'd been using to pet his engorged frog and used it to grab the card that he'd discarded to the empty seat next to his. "It's Dumbledore!" he exclaimed. "Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling," he read.
"Alchemy?" Ginny asked, a weird look on her face. "Dumbledore's an alchemist? Dad was just saying how you don't see many of them around these days. Do you think he'd teach me?"
"I don't know," Harry shrugged. He really had no idea.
"Upper years can sometimes take it as an elective," Hermione noted. "It says so in Hogwarts, a History."
The conversation continued as the three eleven-year olds tore through the mound of candy between them, progressing from the brief mention of alchemy to a longer discussion of gold, then to a much lengthier discussion of what they thought Hogwarts would be like, and finally turning to some sport called quidditch, about which Ginny spoke with a startling passion. That lead to a discussion of the school's houses, which in turn led to each of the three deciding that, yes, Gryffindor was most certainly the best of the four.
That discussion, however, was truncated a bit early by the arrival of a pudgy-faced boy in the doorway. "Trevor!" he exclaimed, moving forward briefly before realizing that the toad-shaped mass still being petted in Harry's arms was just a very large chocolate frog. Harry simply shrugged at the confusion, and at long last took a bit out of the creature, but Hermione, he noticed, looked mortified.
"Oh, I'm so sorry Neville, I know I was supposed to be trying to help you find your toad but then I just saw Harry and Ginny here trying to do some magic and it just looked so interesting and I got caught up in it all and we talked and oh Neville I'm sorry," she spilled out, for which Ginny gave her a very weird look, seemingly mindful that only Harry see it.
Hermione and Neville talked briefly, about what Harry cared little, and then the pudgy boy left, leaving Hermione standing in the doorway. "It's getting dark outside, you know, we'll be getting there soon. You two had better change into your school robes, I'm going to go get into mine and then help out Neville. He's lost his toad."
With that, she left, leaving nothing behind in her wake. Harry and Ginny laughed with each other and separated, briefly, to change into their school robes. Ginny went off down the train to wherever it was that she had left her trunk, and Harry stayed in his compartment. It was a bit bothersome, having to maneuver around the various wrappers and containers leftover from the candied feast, but, even with several stumbles slowing him down, Harry managed to get into his full school attire by the time Ginny returned.
The moment she had, a voice, sounding much clearer than any intercom system, rung out from seemingly nowhere. "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately," it announced.
Harry looked at his luggage, Hedwig, her cage, and the very heavy trunk, and gave off a sigh of relief that caught a look from Ginny. "Your mom had to levitate it up the steps for me," he explained. "I don't suppose you can do that?"
Ginny shook her head, a friendly smile on her face. "You nervous?" she asked.
Harry took a moment to consider the question. "Not as much as I could be," he decided.
A comfortable silence settled over the two then, not being broken by either even after the train had come to a complete stop. Neither Harry nor Ginny said even a single word as they filed, Ginny in the lead, out, first into the corridor, then down the short set of steps, and then, finally, onto a barely lit platform along with the rest of the students, some of whom were looking around trying to find someone, some of whom were trying to force their way through the crowd towards some destination, and some of whom were chatting animatedly with friends, carrying on with conversations started on the train.
Ginny's elbow broke Harry's reverie, jabbing into his side to gain his attention. "Look," she pointed towards a familiar-looking silver-blond haired boy whose face was suffering from a severe outbreak of boils. "You think someone hexed him?"
"Someone hexed him," a third, masculine voice emerged from somewhere close behind Harry.
"I'm someone," admitted a fourth, very similar to the third. "We were in the compartment across from him, see, and he was sounding annoying. Then he said that he wanted to introduce himself to Harry Potter, and, well, I'd promised to leave you alone with my sister, didn't I?"
The twins once again disappeared as quickly as they had arrived, leaving Harry quite confused and Ginny with a very annoyed expression covering her features. "Don't let them bother you," a red-haired boy with a large P on his chest said, evidently not having heard the admission. "Hagrid should be here soon to take you first years to the castle. And good luck, Ginny, with the sorting."
"Thanks, Percy," Ginny murmured to the now-departing prefect, whom Harry then recognized as the oldest of her brothers from the station.
Then, a booming voice that Harry immediately recognized as Hagrid's cut through the lightening chatter. "Firs' years, firs' years, over here! All right there, Harry?"
Ginny cast a curious look at Harry for the directed acknowledgement of him by the giant of a man, and then the two fell in line with all the other first years, following after a bobbing lamp that, soon enough, led them to a lake shore and the small fleet of boats stationed there. Four to a boat, the instruction was, and so Harry and Ginny soon found themselves sharing space with two other girls whose names Harry did not know as they sat and watched as they and the rest of the fleet glided silently across perfectly still water, moving ever closer towards the gargantuan mass of walls, turrets, and towers that loomed high above.