Disclaimer: I own nothing.

/wat

Hermione couldn't tell if she was nervous, excited, or both. Hogwarts! She was finally going. She and her parents had spotted a wizard family and followed them through the gateway to Platform 9 ¾, and now they didn't know what to do. Well, that was not exactly correct. The Grangers knew they had to kiss their daughter goodbye, lug her trunk onto that beautiful red steam engine, and leave the way they came, but as it was they could only gawk.

"This is amazing," Hermione said under her breath, her eyes jumping from magical family to magical family, mentally taking notes on their customs and apparent social norms. There was so much to learn here.

During this excited session of observation, Hermione's keen eyes spotted something peculiar behind a brick pillar. One moment, a red-clad wizard was passing normally. But as soon as he was gone, there seemed to be a portal of some sort opening. It was like space itself was being ripped open. Inside, she could see it was a muddled mess of black, purple, and other dark colors.

Before she could even close her mouth, a boy popped out. Judging by his age and his trunk, he was a Hogwarts student. He was a funny character – just a short little boy, in black pants and a yellow-gold vest, with a smart little bow tie. Hermione watched, fascinated, as he appeared to speak at the portal. It closed, and the boy swaggered toward the Hogwarts Express as if he did so every other morning.

Hermione wondered if he did. If so, there was a lot more to this magical world she could ever have dreamed possible.

She was satisfied to see him hop onto the train. Maybe she could ask him things on the way to Hogwarts?

Hermione shared a tearful goodbye with her parents, and at ten fifty-five o'clock, she hopped onto the Hogwarts Express. Driven by her curiosity, Hermione immediately began searching for the strange Hogwarts student. Unsurprisingly, it did not take long at all. She found him lounging alone in a compartment, humming quietly to himself.

"Excuse me, may I sit here? Thanks," she said busily, not waiting for a response. She wasted no time putting her trunk on the luggage rack, and sat across from the boy. Hermione extended her hand. "My name's Hermione Granger."

The boy looked at her, and as Hermione's eyes passed over his forehead, she realized who he was. "My goodness, you're Harry Potter," Hermione breathed. Her enthusiasm increased tenfold. She practically launched herself across the compartment to sit beside him. "I've read all about you, how you killed You-Know-Who when you were just a baby-"

She was interrupted by a fond laugh. "Talking about how many people I've killed right off the bat, eh? I like that in a woman," Harry Potter snickered. His accent was foreign to Hermione – she identified it as American.

"Have you been staying in America all these years? Did you stay with wizards and witches? What are they like over there?" she asked hurriedly.

Hermione vaguely noted how he seemed to never blink and had a perpetual smile. Eye contact and a pleasant expression? How nice. "I stayed in a strange little town called Gravity Falls, Oregon," he said airily. Harry moved on before Hermione could pester him further. "Do you want a hand?"

She was perplexed. "A hand? What makes you-?" Before the question was completely articulated, Harry Potter, the esteemed Boy-Who-Lived, seemed to produce a twitching, bleeding, human hand out of nowhere.

When he tapped her on the nose with it, her scream was heard throughout the Hogwarts Express. However, it was mistaken for the train's whistle, which at that moment screeched loudly to indicate that they were, in fact, going to Hogwarts.

It was going to be a long ride.