Chapter 2 – The Hogwarts Express
Cole scowled at his reflection, his green eyes locked upon the bird's nest that was his hair. Madam Taft had already tried numerous gels and sprays to tame it over the three years that he had lived under her roof, but all to no avail. Leanne had offered to shave it off, but he had refused the offer and Madam Taft had scolded Leanne for even suggesting such a thing, as he would have looked even more like the 'hoodlum that he is' without hair. It was about the only thing that he and Madam Taft agreed on: incorrigible hair was better than no hair.
"Cole!"
Cole's scowl became more pronounced and he glared darkly at his unruly locks. He picked up his comb and attempted to comb his hair into something that appeared vaguely respectable. It was a last ditch effort, but it was all that he could do. He wanted to make a good first impression, not look like the troublemaker Madam Taft claimed him to be.
His efforts, however, were useless.
"Cole Trafalgar!"
"Coming, Madam Taft," Cole yelled back and ceased his attempt to make his hair lie flat. If anything, he was making it even messier. "Perhaps if I grew it out, it wouldn't be so bad," he muttered, while glaring one last time at his mutinous hair. Long hair had seemed to be a dignified look for men in the Wizarding World, unlike the general opinion of men with long hair in Muggle society.
"Boy, don't make me come up there!"
"I'll be down in a minute, Madam Taft!" Cole pocketed his comb with defeat and left the closet-sized, plain white walled bathroom at a leisurely pace, knowing exactly why Madam Taft was yelling, but also knowing that the the cabby would wait, as the man, or perhaps woman, was probably enjoying a nice smoke break and stretching his or her legs a bit.
Upon entering his small bedroom, Cole crossed the worn floorboards over to the lone, narrow window on the far wall that overlooked the street. Sure enough, he saw a black cab pulled against the kerb and its cabby – a lean, blond man – leaning back against the hood of the cab with a cigarette in hand and a lazy air about his person.
Cole turned away from the window and looked about his room, his eyes passing over his creaky bed, rickety nightstand, and old wardrobe. His eyes settled upon his beat up, third-hand trunk that rested near his bedroom door and was packed with not only his Hogwarts things, but with his every worldly possession, few though they may be.
Cole had no intention of ever returning to Madam Taft's house, or the Muggle World for that matter. Over the last month and a half, he had spent nearly his every waking moment in his room reading his books. He had found A History of Magic to be most informative in its depiction of the Wizarding World. He wasn't just heading off to a boarding school that taught magic, he had quickly deduced. No, he was joining an entire magical population with its own culture, history, and laws, which had been hidden from the Muggles, or rather non-magical humans, at the end of the seventeenth century. He was to become a citizen of an entirely different state, in essence at the very least, as the magicals had their own Ministry and a Wizengamot, which was basically their version of Parliament, and for all intents and purposes, their system of government in the UK was wholly separate from the Muggles' government.
The way Cole saw things, he was a wizard and was head off to a wizard's boarding school, where he was going to live for the majority of the next seven years, therefore making him an offial citizen of the Wizarding World. As he had no family to keep him tied to the Muggle World, he belonged entirely with his own kind. He had no business with and did not belong in the Muggle World, where everyone feared or condemned him for being different … for being magical.
"Cole!"
Cole sighed at hearing Leanne's yell. The girl was very eager for him to leave, nearly as eager as Madam Taft had become after the old bat had accepted that he was going to slip through her fingers and there wasn't a thing she could do about it. Professor Cornfoot had made that point very clear upon their return from Diagon Alley. For as long as Cole accepted his place at Hogwarts, Cole would attend the school and receive a full education. Nothing and no one could stop him from doing so, short of him getting himself expelled.
"The cab isn't going to wait forever!"
Cole tossed his comb and toothbrush into his trunk and shut the lid with ease, seeing as it was barely three-quarters full. He grabbed the trunk's end handle nearest him and pulled the trunk out of his room and towards the stairs with jerky motions, fighting the trunk's weight. On every stair, the trunk hit with a loud thump, as he wrestled it down the stairs, while attempting to prevent it from overtaking him. By the time he reached the entrance hall, he was panting from the exertion.
"About time," Madam Taft said snidely from where she stood with Leanne, the blond girl standing straight-backed at Madam Taft's left and looking down her nose at Cole as well.
Adam was nowhere to be found. Not that Cole was all that surprised, considering that he hadn't been on speaking terms with the boy since Professor Cornfoot's visit.
Cole finished pulling his trunk up the hall and out of the house, as Madam Taft directed Leanne to hold the door open for him. The two watched him tug his trunk from the stoop down onto the kerb in silence. 'You will not be missed,' their eyes said to him.
"Let me help with that, lad." The cabby rushed forward – stomping out the butt of his cigarette, as he did so – and grabbed the end of the trunk that Cole had so far let drag and scrape along the ground. With the morning sun beating down upon their backs, he and Cole lifted the trunk into the boot of his cab.
When Cole looked back at the Edwardian townhouse, the front door was closed and no face looked out at him from one of the lace curtained windows in the sitting room or from one of the upstairs bedroom windows either. Cole's resolve to never return strengthened. I won't miss you either, he thought vehemently.
"King's Cross?" the cabby asked for confirmation of Cole's destination.
"Yes, sir," Cole said and took his place in the backseat of the cab with purpose and determination, while the cabby stepped around him to resume his seat at the wheel.
As the cab pulled from the kerb and accelerated, Cole fidget with the cuff of his faded denim jacket. He was nervous, despite his eagerness to leave his non-magical life behind. He had seen a lot of wondrous and completely mind boggling magic in Diagon Alley. He had read about even more magic in his books. He feared that his lack of knowledge when it came to magic and the Wizarding World in general would alienate him among his peers, as his magic had alienated him in the Muggle World.
As Cole watched buildings pass him by out his passenger window, he vowed to himself, not for the first time, to learn all that he could about the Wizarding World and magic and rid himself of his ignorance. He would make the Wizarding World his home.
I will, Cole promised fiercely.
When the cab finally pulled to a stop outside King's Cross Station a good twenty minutes later, Cole thanked the cabby and paid his fair with the pounds Madam Taft had given him at breakfast for the exact purpose. The cabby smiled at the generous tip and helped Cole retrieve his trunk from the boot and put it onto a cart. They parted ways with the cabby discussing his fair with an elderly couple leaving the station, as Cole pushed his loaded cart towards through the station's entrance.
The crowd inside King's Cross Station was moving this way and that. Everyone seemed to know where they were going and what they need to do to get there. While trying not to run over or bump into anyone, Cole turned his attention to locating Platform 9 ¾. He pushed into the crowd, attempting to blend with the travelers around him, despite not knowing exactly where he was going or what he needed to do to get there. Professor Cornfoot had told him that the platform was hidden between platforms 9 and 10 and that all he had to do was walk through the barrier between them. Personally, Cole though it sounded like madness to walk through a solid wall of brick and mortar, but he had no other choice but to trust the professor's information.
Once Cole had located platforms 9 and 10, he hesitated and stared hard at the very solid looking barrier that he was to walk through. The image of him crashing his cart into the bricks and looking like an idiot who had lost control of his cart held him rooted to where he stood. It wasn't so much that he feared the embarrassment of looking like a fool, but rather feared the disappointment that the wall would be as solid as it looked. A small part of him was still in denial that, after ten long years of being treated like the scourge of the Earth and handed off from one foster home to the next, he had an escape, a place to belong.
Upon taking a few moments to work himself up to it, Cole put one foot in front of the other and forced himself to approach the barrier. He made sure that no one was watching him, before taking a single, purposeful stride forward, pushing the front of his cart into the barrier. Surprisingly, or rather unsurprisingly, the cart didn't crash into the brick, but sunk right into it. He took another step and another and suddenly he emerged right through the wall onto a busy platform filled with adults and children all moving about excitably, wishing each other well, and loading trunks, owls, and various other animals and items of cargo onto a long passenger train pulled by a great, red steam engine with the words 'Hogwarts Express' written down its side. A sign, which read 'Platform 9 ¾" hung proudly off of the nearest column.
Cole grinned, feeling anticipation and triumph surge through him and quash his nerves. He pushed his trunk laden cart into the crowd of his fellow magicals with far less apprehension than he had moving among the Muggles on the other side of the barrier. As he moved down the platform, searching for a relatively empty car to board, he noted that some of the people on the platform were dressed in traditional wizard robes, while most were dressed in Muggle attire and a few others were dress in what should be Muggle attire but looked too strange to be consider normal wear for any Muggle . He looked on with envy, as he passed a squat mother hugging her clearly embarrassed son goodbye, while the father of the family clasped another of their sons on the shoulder and wished the older boy a good year and reminded him to keep his grades up and to look out for his younger brother.
Cole boarded the last car. For the most part it was empty, and the very end cabin was empty entirely. He didn't feel up to trying to secure a spot in one of the already occupied cabins, so he claimed the end cabin for his own. Just like at school plays and other family oriented events that he had been forced to participate in at his primary school, watching all the parents hugging and kissing their children goodbye had left him feeling lousy. He stored his trunk under the left bench seat with lackluster and sat down on the bench with his back turned to the window and his feet up on the seat.
Cole let out a breath of relief when the departure whistle blew and the train began to move. He couldn't say how long he sat staring at and fiddling with the frayed cuff of his denim jacket, as the train chugged along, but after a time, the door to his cabin slid open and broke him out of his reveries. He looked up to see a elderly woman smiling at him with a cart full of sweets beside her.
"Anything off the trolley, dear?" she asked kindly.
"No, ma'am." Cole shook his head. He only had 7 sickles and a knut and had no intention of spending what little money he had until he absolutely had to.
The woman gave him another smile, before sliding the cabin door back shut.
Cole heard the cart rattle along, as she headed back up the train. As her intrusion had disrupted his brooding, he found himself unable to return to his state of inactivity. He didn't generally remain idle, unless he had something to be upset or concerned about and needed the time to think. He preferred to be engaged in something – physically or mentally, it didn't much matter to him. Boredom was the bane of his existence, as well as a usual precursor to trouble when it came to him.
Restless, due to the fact that his nervousness and anticipation had returned full force, Cole glanced to the door of his cabin, contemplating the notion of exploring the train and attempting to meet the other students in his year. He discarded the notion with the narrowing of his eyes. He didn't particularly care to appear like he was out searching for friends. He had learned many hard truths throughout his young life and one of the most prominent ones was to never show weakness.
Cole had never really had friends and wouldn't mind gaining a few, but to go out searching for friends would be to show weakness, he knew, as it would show that he cared about having friends, and showing that he wanted friends, while not currently having any, would only give whatever bullies he may encounter something to tease him about. He'd rather not give out free ammunition, seeing as the impression he got from his readings and trip to Diagon Alley over the summer was that his Muggle-born status would be right up there with his orphan status in already making him prime target for abuse.
Instead, Cole retrieved his copy of Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling from his trunk and settled back in his seat. The book was probably the most useful of all his textbooks to familiarize himself with thoroughly before his classes began.
Cole had made sure to read the first few chapters of all his textbooks, instead of focusing on one or two in particular and ignoring the less intriguing subjects, though he had spent considerable time studying his A History of Magic text in comparison to his other books in an effort to better familiarize himself with the Wizarding World. Nonetheless, out of all of his books, he had conculded that Magical Theory discussed the brunt of the magic he'd be learning in his classes over the next seven years in a general overview of the principles of magic at its base nature through its application by incantation and wand movements. The gargantuan text encompassed the theory behind charms, transfigurations, hexes, counter-jinxes, and the wand work that went into potion making and the light touch of spells needed in herbology, as well as the basic organic regeneration that was part of nearly all healing spells. It rarely discussed a specific spell – at least not in the few chapters that he had read so far – but rather focused on what made all spellwork of a subject effective.
Cole couldn't imagine trying to get along in his classes without having read at least a sizable portion of what Adalbert Waffling had to say about magical theory, as he imagined that he'd no sooner be able to transfigure a beetle into a button than be able to brew a decent potion.
Cole barely noticed that the afternoon slipped away into the evening. He was aware, though, when the sunlight streaming in through his cabin window dimmed enough that the lamps inside his cabin lit up with a golden glow that cast across the page he'd been reading. A little over a half-hour latter, he was caught off guard by the announcement that the train was approaching Hogsmeade Station.
Cole replaced Magical Theory and One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi in his trunk and removed a plain set of black robes and his wizard's hat in trade. He took off and added his denim jacket to his trunk, before closing and stowing it back under his seat. He slipped his robes over his tattered t-shirt and trousers and secured his hat on his head somewhat self-consciously. He felt a twinge ridiculous with a pointed hat perched atop his head and was just thankful that the modern wizard robes were open down the front, instead of dress-like as they had been up to a few decades ago. He would have felt even more ridiculous if he had been forced to wear the older style robes.
When the train pulled into Hogsmeade Station with the sounding of its whistle and the grinding of its brakes, Cole was quick to disembark with the rest of his peers. However, once on the platform the older students headed off to queue up for what appeared to be horseless carriages, while a massive man that Cole knew without a doubt was the largest man he had ever seen called for the first years.
"C'mon, follow me – any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!" the man said in thick Scottish accent, as Cole and a few others approached him cautiously. He was at least twice as tall as most of the six and seventh years and nearly three times as wide.
Cole felt reassured that he wasn't the only one frightened, as he took note of his fellow year mates' reaction to the man. The blond girl beside him wasn't even trying to hide her fright. He didn't blame her, as the man was not only massive, but muscular and sort of brutish looking. He could no doubt squash any one of them like a bug, if he were so inclined. The man didn't, though, and instead led the weary group of first years down a sloped, muddy path.
Cole slipped and slid more than the others around him due to the tread on his trainers being so worn that it had become nearly nonexistent. He apologized obligatorily to a blond boy, who sneered at him and demanded that he get his filthy hands off of him when he had accidentally crashed into him and was forced to grab hold of the boy's arm to regain his balance.
Eventually, the group found themselves back on level ground and were led around a bend of bushes with ancient looking trees rising all around them. Cole wasn't sure what kind of trees they were for how dark it was with only the stars and a waning moon lighting their way. All he did know was that they were ridiculously tall with thick roots popping in and out of the ground, which made walking without tripping every few paces difficult.
After another minute of stumbling over fat roots and small boulders and twitching at every sound that came from the tickets around them, Cole heard exclamations of wonder from his year mates ahead of him, as a break in the undergrowth became apparent and a clearing became visible beyond it. Upon reaching the clearing himself, Cole's breath caught. The sight was something that ought to have only existed in a fairy tale, utterly fantastical. The smooth, glassy water of the lake spread out before him reflected the stars and moon, as well as the mystical castle that rose form its cliffed shore opposite the clearing. The castle's windows were lit brilliantly, and its many towering turrets reached for the night sky with prestige and an everlasting visage.
This is Hogwarts, my new home, Cole thought with awe, his eyes fixed on the castle.
"No more'n four to a boat!" the massive man instructed, pulling Cole form his staring and causing him to take note of the many boats lined up along the pebbled shore and the fact that a majority of his year mates had already claimed a seat in one boat or another.
Cole frowned at seeing his limited seating options, the most apparent was an open spot next to the blond boy that he had nearly toppled back on the path. He walked further down the line of boats, hoping to find better prospects, and felt a wash of relief at seeing that a boat on the far end of the shore was only half occupied by two boys, one dark haired and the other tawny haired. The dark haired boy waved him over in an obvious invitation for him to join them. Cole smiled and quickly did so.
"Everyone in?" their escort asked expectantly, just as Cole settled himself. "Right then – FORWARD!"
All at once, the boats jutted forward without causing even a single ripple in the water's glassy surface, floating out into the the lake soundlessly and propelled by magic alone. The group of first years and their escort glided along in equal silence, the first years' eyes fixed upon the ever approaching castle.
As the castle grew bigger and bigger, Cole felt his awe double and a sense of disbelief regarding the turn his life had taken overwhelmed him. He was magic, Hogwarts Castle and the boat he sailed in were magic, and he'd soon be learning all about magic. He had always know that he was different, that he possessed the gift of magic, but never had he dreamed that his life would lead him to this.
By the time the boats docked in an underground cove, Cole was buzzing with nearly uncontrollable excitement, his nervousness nearly all but forgotten. He was one of the first to rush after the massive man, who held his lamp aloft to light their way up a passageway in the rocks. They climbed and climbed, their footfalls scuffling along. After what felt like forever, but was most likely only a few minutes, they emerged onto a manicured lawn at the base of the castle. From this vantage point, the castle felt somewhat imposing and Cole realized with a start that the castle was much larger than it had appeared from the lake.
"Everyone here?" the massive man asked, as he gathered the first years on the flagstone stairs before a pair of huge, oak doors closing off the castle to them. He scanned the students with beady black eyes. Satisfied he turned to the doors and raised a meaty fist.
Thump! Thump! Thump! He knocked three times in quick succession.
