On The Hogwarts Express

It was 10.30 by the time we arrived at King's Cross Station and managed to find a parking space. My parents got out of the car and put the trunk on a trolley. We pushed it through the car park and into the station. When we reached platform nine we looked around. Some people were boarding a train nearby so the platform was quite crowded. There were several stone columns between platform nine and ten. I asked my parents which one they thought we had to walk through and from what direction. Dad suggested we should discreetly try each column from this side by pushing the trolley against them. If that didn't work we would watch out for other people trying to get onto the platform and copy them. The first two columns we pushed the trolley against nothing happened. When we pushed it against the third column the trolley went straight through the wall and we followed.

The platform we found ourselves on was crowded with students, their families and their pets. Next to the platform was a long, steam train with a sign saying Hogwarts Express on the front. We wandered through the crowd looking for an empty compartment on the train. My parents were soaking up the atmosphere on the platform. My dad was grinning and clearly enjoying himself watching all the magical people interact but mum seemed overwhelmed and kept staring at anything remotely different. We eventually found a free compartment and put my luggage in the rack. My parents stayed in the compartment with me until the whistle blew. Then they gave me a big hug a said goodbye. They got off the train and I went to the window to wave to them. A minute later the train started moving. I waved until they were out of sight and then sat down with a smile. This was it, I was off to Hogwarts!

After a few minutes I started to get nervous again so got changed into my school robes and then got my book out to calm down. The book I had chosen for the trip was Hogwarts: A History. It was a bit dull in places but was full of lots of fun facts about Hogwarts. I had been reading for a few hours when I decided to go for a walk around the train. I wasn't sure if someone brought around the sweets for buying or if we had to go to a certain part of the train to buy them, Professor McGonagall had only said that I would be able to buy some.

As I walked through the train I saw lots of compartments full of students laughing and joking with each other. Clearly they were older students who had already made friends. I wondered where all the other first years were. When I opened the next door I saw a young boy who looked quite upset. I decided he must be a first year so went to talk to him. I found out his name was Neville and that he had lost his toad but was too nervous to ask for help finding it. I asked him if he knew where to go to buy some sweets. He was just about to answer when a voice from behind me announced that everyone knew a lady came around with a trolley full of sweets and how stupid did someone have to be not to know that. I turned around and saw a blond boy smirking at me from inside his compartment. His two bulky friends who looked a bit gormless laughed as if on cue. The blond boy then started muttering about mud or dirt or something being allowed in Hogwarts. Whatever it was it didn't make any sense whatever he was saying. Neville told me to ignore him. I decided to do just that the boy clearly wasn't very friendly.

As we were walking down the corridor I saw the sweet trolley coming. I asked Neville if he wanted anything and he said he wanted a chocolate frog. When we reached the sweet trolley I saw a couple of boys laughing together in a compartment slightly further down the train. They looked friendly and as if they might be first years so I sent Neville to see if they wanted to join us to search for his toad. Neville seemed nervous and asked why I couldn't go instead. I told him they might think girls are boring so be less likely to join us if I asked. Neville went off to speak to the boys and I looked at the sweets on the trolley. There were lots of strange sweets but no muggle ones which seemed a bit rude considering how many students came from a muggle background. Clearly they weren't very inclusive. I got a couple of chocolate frogs for Neville and a box of every flavour beans for myself.

Neville came back soon after looking quite despondent. He said the boys were fairly dismissive of him and when he left they were laughing about the fact he had a toad. I didn't know if Neville was just being dramatic so I said I would go with him this time. I also gave him the chocolate frogs I bought and he looked for some money to pay for them. I told him not to worry about it. Neville looked shocked that someone was being kind to him. I don't think he is used to having friends either.

We headed to the compartment where the two boys were. When we arrived at their compartment the red haired boy had his wand out about to do some magic. I thought he might be from a magical family so know lots of magic. I was eager to see what he could do so asked him to show me. It turned out I was wrong about him knowing lots of magic, what he said was a rhyme. Anyone who even opened the schoolbooks would know that wasn't a real spell. All the spells in the books were Latin based. I told him about having read all the books and tried some spells and then introduced myself. His name was Ron and his friend was Harry (not just any Harry, he was Harry Potter). I had read about Harry in several books so told him the titles so he could find out what the books said about him. He was wearing muggle clothes that didn't fit very well so I assumed he had grown up in the muggle world like me so would probably not know everything written about him. It seemed like it was news to him that he was in any book, which was quite surprising for me I would have found out everything people were saying about me before I had to face them. To break the ice I asked which house they wanted to be in. From reading some of my books I had decided Gryffindor sounded the best for me. I suddenly remembered Neville was still with me and the other boys hadn't spoken to him once since we had arrived, which seemed a bit rude. I made the excuse of looking for Neville's toad so we could leave.

We headed back to my compartment keeping an eye out for the toad as we went however unfortunately we didn't see it. We collected Neville's luggage on the way. Neville was quite upset that his toad had gone missing but he did say it had happened before when he was at home. I told him we would find the toad at some point. If it went missing regularly it would probably find its own way back and if it didn't come back we would find it when the train stopped. It would probably be easier then as there would be fewer places for it to hide when everyone got off. Neville relaxed then and we ate our sweets and talked for a bit Neville wanted to be in Gryffindor too but it was because his family had all been placed there.

It had started getting dark outside so I left the compartment so Neville could change. I decided to go and ask the driver how long it would be until we arrived. As I was coming back I heard some crashes coming from one of the compartments. As I approached the compartment the blond boy and his friends came barrelling out. I knew they weren't nice people so I decided to check on the people in the compartment. It turned out to be Harry and Ron's compartment. The places looked like a disaster area. There were sweets and things all over the seats and the floor. Also both boys were clearly riled up. I asked if they had been fighting. They pretty much ignored me. Ron was more interested in his rat. Eventually one said that Scabbers had been fighting not them. I assumed Scabbers was the rat. I told them the train would be arriving soon and then they told me to leave because they wanted to get changed.

I went back to Neville as the train started slowing. We looked out of the window to see if we could see Hogwarts but it had gotten quite dark by then so we couldn't see much of anything. When the train stopped we decided we would tell a teacher about Neville's toad going missing. We got off the train and were met by a giant of a man called Hagrid. In the end we didn't have to worry about Neville's toad. We had to travel to the school across a lake in small boats. Neville's toad appeared in one of the boats. Who knows how it got there. After the boat trip we walked up some step to the school and were met by Professor McGonagall.

2 updates in a day! I am on a role. Don't expect this to last though. I haven't done any writing in a few years. I generally prefer reading stories.