September 1st rolled around pretty quickly. Of course, by the time it had rolled around, I was ready. I had read all of my school books at least three times. My father had also bought me several books outside of the list. He knows I like to read, and plus he wanted me to catch up on the Wizarding Community as much as I could.

We arrived at King's cross 15 minutes before the train left. I looked at my ticket, which said Platform 9 ¾. I blinked, trying to clear the odd image from my mind. I re-read the ticket.

"Dad, Platform 9 ¾? There is no such thing!"

My Dad frowned a bit, and took the ticket.

"9 ¾…? Hm…" He murmured, and scratched his head.

"Dad?! Don't you remember?" He looked at me and shook his head. I checked my watch. 10 minutes left. I couldn't stand to be late for anything, so I took a deep gulp of breath. That only helped me a little, so I turned around to the column that was beside me, and kicked it in order to release some of my anxiety.

I fell through.

It was quite a sight to see. I was sprawled across the cold stone, with a circle of people staring down at me. I grimaced as I rolled over onto my stomach to get up. A long black cane came into my view, and I looked up. A long haired blonde man in a black cloak was looming over me. His face was expressionless, and while I was still gaping at him in awe and humiliation, he shook the cane as if to urge me on. I took the edge of the cane, and pulled myself up so I wouldn't disappoint him in not using his assistance. I brushed myself off, and he looked me up and down as if to inspect me.

"What's your name?" He sneered.

"Um… My name is Anna Murray. "I retorted with a wry grin. He slammed his cane down. He sighed, and clenched his teeth together before speaking. This stranger was very annoyed with me, and I smiled innocently.

"Murray, you say? You're father-?"
"Went to Hogwarts. Yes."

I felt a hand clasp on my shoulders, and I knew that it was my father. I didn't flinch, and my eyes were sort of squinted. I was trying o figure this man out, and I didn't like the looks of him.

"Luscious!" My father said with delight. Luscious gave a half sneer half smile to my dad.

"Charles. Pleased to see you. This is your daughter?" I still didn't take my eyes off of him, and he didn't take his eyes off of me. He did not infact sound pleased.

"Yes, yes it is. Isn't she lovely? Take's after her mother. Oh, Good Lord! Look at the time! You must be off! Don't worry about the luggage, I will handle it. Off you go. Write to me!"

I turned to my dad, kissed him on the cheek, and told him that I would. Then I ran to the train, just as it was leaving. I jumped on the small metal staircase as the train slowly began to pull forward. I turned around and held on the railings and watched my father disappear slowly behind me. The wind made my dark chocolate hair whip in front of my face, and it both bothered me and chilled me. I took a deep breath, and stepped inside the warm hallways of the train.

I was immediately confronted with a tear-faced boy. His face was wet from crying, and I asked him what was wrong.

"TREVORRRRRR!!!!!" He wailed. I shrunk back a few inches, but then got down on my knees to get closer to him: He was sitting against the wall with his knees under his chin, slightly rocking forwards and backwards.

"What's your name?" I asked gently.

"Nev-Nev-Nev-Neville- L-L-Longbottom." He finally managed to choke out through all of the crying and tears and sobbing. He gasped after those two words like it was a strain just for him to breathe.

"Neville. Now, calm down. Calm down!" I said, gently at first. When he failed to do anything besides increase his spluttering and moaning, I said it in a more commanding tone. This seemed to get his attention. "Now, who exactly is Trevor?" Neville sniffed for a few moments more, and then finally managed to choke something out.

"He's- m-m-my t-t-t-oad! M-my Uncle Algie g-g-gave him t-t-o m-m-e…" Neville continued, on and on. I drifted off until he stopped talking, and finally until his sniffling was minimal. I took his hand and helped him up.

"Okay Neville, we are going to go look for Trevor now. He can't be very far. Do you remember the last time that you saw him?"

We searched the entire train from top to bottom. We didn't find anything that remotely looked like a toad. The only animal that we found was a rat, but that was soon scooped up by a cursing, tall, red haired boy. He looked at me, holding Neville's hand and such, with him crying.

"Do you need something?" I asked, exasperated.

"No." He said, and gave a weak smile. I could tell that he was trying not to laugh. I shoved past him, Neville trailing behind me, with me still clutching onto his hand. "What did I do?!" He asked, even more exasperated than I was before. I ignored him, and kept on walking. Since we weren't finding anything, I turned to Neville, who was no longer crying. Well… That was an overstatement. He started bawling again when we had searched the train entirely twice.

"Looks like we are going to have to look in the compartments now," I frowned. That meant socializing with people, in which I was currently too overwhelmed to do. But for the sake of Neville, I forced myself to get over my social anxiety. We walked to the front of the train, and opened the first compartment. And then the next. And then the next. It was very monotonous, and every compartment received the same results.

I opened the door to the compartment that we were at, and entered.

"Excuse me, but have any of you happened upon a toad?" I asked.

"A toad?" One girl jumped up. She had bushy hair, and I immediately recognized her from the girl who smiled at me from the robe shop.

"Trevor, actually," I said, looking around at Neville.

"No, I haven't. But I'll be happy to help you look!" the girl said eagerly. "My name is Hermione Granger, and I'm a first year."

"Anna Murray, pleased to meet you."

So we, the trio, set off to find a strange boy's toad.
"Are you a first year?" She asked me, after searching yet another compartment.

"Yes." I answered simply. What else could I say? I wasn't very good at conversation. "I think it will go faster if you take that side of the train," I pointed all the way down to the end of the train, "and I start where we are, and we just work our way towards each other. She looked sort of upset with herself for not thinking of that before me, but she consented and made her way down the end of the train.

I opened the next compartment door, and entered.

"Well, what do you want?" a boy, with white blonde hair sneered at me. I tried to hold back being aggressive as much as I could.

"Just wondering if you have seen a toad?" I smiled, but had no heart in it. The boy laughed, and so did his friends.

"Ha! Is that your boyfriend? A Longbottom?" He stood, and put his hands in his pant's pocket. He looked at my hand in Neville's, and laughed even more. I took a step towards him, not letting go of the still, ever sniffling Neville.

"Look, have you seen a toad, or not? Or can you not see anything below the ceiling because your nose is so high in the air?"

"Ooh," multiple voices cackled throughout the compartment. The blonde one stepped forward, and offered me his hand.

"Malfoy. Draco, Malfoy." What is this, a James Bond movie?

"Anna Murray," I responded, taking his offered hand, and shook it. Neville wimpered.

"Look," I whispered to him, "He isn't going to shut-up until he finds his toad. Have you seen it?"

"No, don't believe we have," Drace snickered, and turned back to his cronies. They laughed.

"Neville, I suggest you leave for a few minutes, okay?" He looked at me, pitifully, and I ushered him out. "Go on."

Once the compartment door was closed, I turned to Malfoy.

"Take a seat," He said, sarcastically. I did so anyways. I took them all in. A hard faced girl, and two large, muscular, stupid looking boys. Malfoy introduced them to me.

"Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle," he said, pointing to each one. The girl fluttered her eyelashes at Malfoy, and I almost threw up in my mouth. I leaned forward and put my elboys on my knees, using my hands to talk a little.

"Look, Draco, cut the crap. What did you do with the toad?"

"Toad? What toad?"

"I know you took it!" I said, standing up immediately. Control your temper…

Malfoy continued to sit, and Crabbe popped his knuckles. I glared at him, and he just smiled.

"You'll get yours, Draco" I snarled. He laughed, and I walked out the compartment door.

"Malfoy took it," I said to Neville. He wailed, and I continued to speak. "Where is your compartment? I'll take you back, and later I can ask one of the teachers if they found anything, okay? I'm sure that we will find Trevor." I led Neville back to his compartment, and seeing as there was no room inside of that one, I looked around for another one. I looked inside the next room to see if there were any open seats, and to my delight there were! I entered.

"Care if I join you?" I asked, and smiled at a black haired boy with green eyes. He smiled back, and I turned to look at the other fellow. "Oh." He didn't smile back. Looked like he was still mad about earlier. I held out my hand to the friendlier of the two.

"Anna Murray"

"Harry Potter, nice to meet you! And this is er," He paused, looking at the red haired boy, waiting for him to say something. When he realized he wasn't even going to meet my eyes, he finished, "This is Ron Weasley." Ron didn't look happy. I sat down next to Ron, so I wouldn't have to look at him. I smiled again at Harry, but as he was about to speak, a loud clattering came from outside the compartment and the doors slid open. A cute, old woman with smiling dimples, peeked her head in.

"Anything off the cart, dears?" she smiled. I turned to Harry.

"What's good in the Wizarding world?"

He shrugged.

"I dunno. Never knew of it until just a while back." I raised my eyebrows, and walked to the trolley. Harry followed me, and asked for Mars Bars. The woman laughed, and said that they didn't carry them. I looked around at all the amazing candy.

"One of everything, please" Harry and I said at the same time. We laughed together, and I asked the lady for an extra pumpkin pasty. We paid her, and hauled the goods back into the cart. I threw the extra pumpkin pasty at him, and he caught it.

"To make amends. For earlier." I said, flashing him a small smile. He gave in, and took a bite.

"Hungry are you?" Ron asked Harry.

"Starving!" he replied.

"No breakfast, eh?" I inquired.

"Are you kidding me? I was way to excited to eat. Plus my Aunt and Uncle really didn't offer me anything to eat. They were just glad to be rid of me.." He continued. I listened intently.

"You said that you hadn't known about the Wizarding world?"

"Yeah, the bloke's been cooped up. Don't you know who he is?" Ron asked, wide eyed with amazement. I smiled.

"Harry Potter, of course." I replied, with a hint of sarcasm bleeding through into my voice.

"No, no, no!" The boy with the red hair said.

"So this isn't Harry Potter?" I asked, skeptically.

"Yes, it is Harry Potter! But listen," Ron said, and thus he filled me in on the story of his life.

"So this Voldemort character? What about him?"

"Don't say his name aloud! It's bad luck!" Ron frowned.

"Sorry. So… Wait, what am I supposed to call him if I can't say his name?" I asked.

"Apparently you're supposed to say 'You-know-who'," Harry piped in. I nodded.

"He's the dark Lord, the most powerful wizard of all. Except for Dumbledore of course!" Ron continued on, telling me about the dark wizard. He finished his story by taking his final bite out of his pumpkin pasty.

"Thanks for the information." I said, finally tasting some of the Wizarding candy. I had been so absorbed in his story that I had forgotten about my food until I looked down to see it spread around me. I picked up the pumpkin pasty. "Urgh. This is nasty!" I turned to Ron, "You want it?"

He snatched it out of my hands, and took a bite.

"What kinda accent is that anyways?" he asked through a mouthful of food.

"American."

"So, you said that you had never heard of the Wizarding world either?"

"Yeah, apparently my dad, Charles, fell in love with a… what do you call 'em? Oh, yeah. A veela," A gasp from Ron. "They got married, and apparently she was killed by some dark magic soon after she had me. So he took to America to get away from it all, and gave up magic entirely.

"Gave up magic?!" Ron asked, astounded.

"Yeah. So I grew up like a, er, Muggle? I think that's it. Anyways, so he was offered a job at Oxford about a year ago, and then I got accepted into Hogwarts."

Ron was still stuck on the giving up magic part, along with the veela.

"What's a veela?" Harry inquisited.

"Beats me," I replied, taking a bite out of a chocolate frog.

"I'll tell you what they are! They're these beautiful, lovely creatures. Don't make them mad though…" Ron shuddered.

Harry and Ron then forgot about the veelas, and had an intense conversation about chocolate frogs. Harry got Dumbledore, and I got Agrippa.

"A German bloke, I got. Says he was imprisoned for his writings. This is your guy, right Ron?" And with that, I tossed him the card.

"Thanks Anna, you're a life saver! Been looking for him ever since I was six!" He said, and greedily looked at it, "Fred and George are going to explode with jealousy!"

"Who are Fred and George?" I asked, confused.

"Oh, they are just my brothers. Twins. They think they're a riot! Well, I guess they are…" Ron went on. "George did teach me a spell though, want to see it?" We both nodded, eager to see some magic.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," Hermione burst through the door, without even knocking. I jumped back, startled. Suddenly I remembered.

"Hermione! I forgot to tell you! Malfoy took it, and he won't admit to it, so there isn't anything that we can do about it. Suppose we get a teacher in on it, once we arrive?"

"Of course, of course," She said to me, absent mindedly. She was to busy staring at Ron's wand. "Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it then," and with that, Hermione sat down next to Harry.

"Er—alright," Ron replied, uneasily. He cleared his throat dramatically, and I stifled a giggle.

"Sunshine, daises, butter mellow,

Turn this stupid fat rat yellow."

The rat, which I later come to know as Scabbers, didn't move.

"Are you sure that's a real spell? Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family is magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard— I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough—I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

I stared at her, my mouth slightly open, before I let out a shocked single laugh. She didn't look at me, but kept her eyes on the two boys, waiting for them to reply.

Finally, Ron muttered, "Ron Weasley."
"Harry Potter."

"Are you really?" Said Hermione, taken aback, "I know all about you, of

course—I just got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."

"Am I?" ask Harry. The look on his face was one of extreme confusion. Hermione

chattered on, something about houses, and finally, she said, "You three had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon," and with that, Hermione Granger departed.

"How come you didn't introduce yourself?" Harry asked after the compartment door slid to a close.

"We've met before."

"If I were you," said Ron, looking at me, "I would stay are far away from her as possible. She's bad news, I tell you."

Harry and Ron began to talk about Ron's family, and finally Quidditch, in which I was extremely interested.

"Uh-huh," I said, looking unconvinced. I turned to Ron, eagerly, and smiled. "Still want to turn him yellow?" I asked, pointing at Scabbers. I took out my wand, and thought for a second. Let's see here…

I flicked my wand, and after saying an incantation, Scabbers turned into a violent shade of neon yellow. As the compartment door started to slide open again, I tucked my wand away, just in time for Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle to enter.

"Is it true?" Malfoy pried, "They're saying all down this train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"

"Yes," said Harry. I could tell he wanted them gone, because of his short answer, and the obvious expression that was played across his face.

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," Malfoy said, uncaringly as he motioned toward each one with his head. "And my name's Malfoy. Draco Malfoy." There he goes again with the James Bond thing. I coughed, trying to hide a laugh. Drace turned to Ron, thinking it was him who coughed.

"Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

"Your daddy told you? I suppose you're really close to him, huh?" I said, standing up, hopefully making it up to Ron for not saying that it was me who coughed. I looked to Ron, and he nodded. Malfoy ignored me, but Crabbe shoved me on the floor. I quickly jumped back up, and pulled out my wand.

"No need to be hasty!" Malfoy choked out, obviously petrified. Then he realized that I was a first year, and laughed. "You think that you can hurt me with that?" I shook my head, and smiled.

"No, but I certainly know what I can do with it. I can shove it up you're little—"

"You'll soon find out some Wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort." I was shoved on the ground, again, and this time I didn't get up. I just looked anxiously at Harry. Ron stood, and was going to help me up, when Malfoy stuck out his hand for Harry to shake. "You really want to be seen with the like of these two?" He jeered.

Harry looked at his hand, and stood. He extended his hand, and right about when Malfoy was about to take it, turned and offered it to me. I smiled, and stood up.

"I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks." He said, coolly. Malfoy turned a nice shade of pink. Malfoy continued to insult us, when finally he took a step too far.

"Say that again," Ron said, angry.

"Oh, you're going to fight us, are you?" He sneered, as the other two stood up to stand next to me. Harry was in the middle, and Ron and I were flanking him. The numbers were even, but Crabbe and Goyle were a lot bigger than Ron and I. Goyle reached towards the chocolate frogs, and Scabbers took a flying leap at him before Ron could even touch him. He let out a yelp, and danced like we were shooting his feet.

"That's right, be gone with you!" I yelled, as Goyle finally shook the rat off, and the three ran out of the room. We looked at each other, but didn't laugh. Hermione came in.

"What has been going on?" She asked, loudly. Nobody bothered to answer her.

"I think he's been knocked out," Ron said to nobody in particular. This made Hermione look at Scabbers.

"How did you do that? Make him yellow, I mean." she asked, stunned. Ron started to say something, but I cut him off.

"Turns out the spell wasn't a dud after all!" I said, happily. She still looked amazed, and upset that she wasn't the one to turn him yellow.

After that, Ron decided that Scabbers was merely sleeping, and Harry explained where he first encountered Malfoy. Ron turned to Hermione, as if he just remembered that she was there.

"Can we help you with something?" He asked, sarcastic and exasperated. She didn't look phased.

"You'd better hurry up and put your robes on, I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there. You haven't been fighting, have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there!"

Ron eventually ushered her out, and we put our robes on. A voice came over the PA system. If the train had a PA system that is…

"We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

"Well, I guess this is it!" I said, nervously, as the train came to a halt.

Thanks for reading! I really enjoy writing these, but I also enjoy comments as well. They help motivate and structure my writing, so commenting will most likely help more chapters get up faster.