TONI'S POV

The first thing which barred my eyes when I entered the station was the whitest smoke I had ever seen coming out from the engine of a train. I glanced at the wall behind me for a moment, from where I had magically appeared from King's Cross Station. It felt as if I just….you know…went THROUGH the wall. Super-weird. I know.

I looked around me. Parents were bustling along and trying to push their children into the train before it leaves. Some kids were running around, playing. You know the little ones. Some children gave goodbye hugs and kisses to their family members and siblings.

I looked at my watch. It was 10.56 am. I had exactly four minutes to get on the train. I looked around helplessly. Then I decided to follow some girls who looked like they were about my age. They were walking briskly towards the 5th coach where people were depositing their trunks and owls. THANK GOD, I don't have to carry that load.

After that, the girls simply got into the next coach to join their friends.

'Here goes nothing' I thought. And then followed the girls into the adjacent coach.

Just as soon as Toni entered the coach no. 6, the train moved an inch forward, signaling its departure. She closed the door behind her. The girls she was following proceeded towards the left corridor. Toni thought that it would be bad if she went after them. Therefore, she took a step forward in becoming independent and moved towards the right corridor.

As she kept walking, Toni realized that most of the compartments were taken away by groups of friends. People kept staring through the glass doors from inside the compartment when she passed them, as if she was some sort of an alien.

It may have been only a couple of minutes, but it seemed hours to Toni, that she was walking through the corridor of the moving train. At last, she found an empty compartment at the very end of the train.

Toni pushed aside the glass door and entered inside. She settled down beside the window after closing the door behind her. She threw her bag-pack on the seat opposite her, and took out her IPod and headphones from her jacket pocket. After inserting the head phones into her ears, she started listening to a song called Skinny Love by an artist called Birdy. Toni began to relax after gazing out at the beautiful scenery of Britain from the window. Finally, her tension began to release from all the pores of her body.

After a few minutes, she took out a book from her bag called The Lost Symbol written by Dan Brown and started reading it. She barely got to finish reading the 1st line of the book, when someone knocked on the glass door of her compartment.

"You can come in." said Toni.

Two boys and one girl entered. They must have been 12 or 13 years old. The girl was fairly thin with long, curly and bushy brown hair, and she was holding an orange cat with squashed face. One of the boys had flaming red hair, as if it was on fire! He had a pretty confused expression on his face, and was holding a rat. Okay….that's awesomely weird. And the other boy had dark hair and was wearing roundish, circular glasses. He looked unexpectedly familiar. He also held a cage which had a snowy, white owl sitting inside it.

The brown-haired girl spoke first. "We're really sorry to disturb you. But we couldn't find an empty compartment. This is the only one left. Can we sit here? It's totally full everywhere else." The two boys nodded in agreement.

A part of Toni wanted to relax and sit alone. But the other, major part wanted to make friends in this new school. Lucky for her that 3 came knocking on the door of her compartment. So, she was happy that she would make a few friends on the train.

"Yeah sure. Why not?" replied Toni while removing her bag from the seat in front of her and keeping it beside her.

TONI'S POV

The three of them entered and the red-haired boy closed the door behind them. The brown-haired girl and the dark-haired boy sat in front, facing me. And the red-haired boy, hesitatingly, sat beside me. The girl's cat bounced from her mistress' hands and settled under the seats to take a small nap. The red-haired boy kept is small wooden rat-cage beside him. And the boy wearing glasses put his owl cage on the luggage rack above.

No one talked for the next few moments. An awkward silence was present. A few seconds later, the brown-haired girl made the first move, again. "Hi. I'm Hermione, Hermione Granger." She thrust her right hand towards me.

"I'm Toni Swan. Nice to meet you!" I replied, while completing the handshake, and gave her a sincere smile.

After seeing me smile, Hermione lightened up a little bit and proceeded to introduce me to her two friends.

"That's Ron, or Ronald Weasley!" Hermione motioned towards her red-headed friend sitting beside me.

I gave him my most loving smile, and then shook hands. "Hi!"

Hermione pointed towards her dark haired friend sitting in front of me. "This is the famous Harry Potter!"

"Nice to meet you Harry. But can I ask why he is famous?"

Harry's friends looked at me as if I had eaten cow dung or something.

With incredulous expressions, Hermione and Ron asked together, "You don't know who he is?"

I looked at Harry. He had a pretty concerned expression on his face. Then I looked at his friends' faces. I answered flatly, "Nope. Who is he?"

Before Ron could reply to my innocently asked question, Hermione gaped at me. "What's that stuffed in your ears? Is it what I think it is?"

After a few seconds, I realized that she was talking about my IPod headphones. "Um….that's the headset to my IPod...-"

"I know what it is!" cried Hermione. "But this means only one thing…you're a -"

"A MUGGLE-BORN!" shouted Ron and Harry together.

"Wha….why did you guys have to shout like that?!" fumed Hermione.

"You have a pretty annoying habit of answering questions all the time. It's very irritating." replied Ron. Harry nodded his head in agreement.

"Oh please Ronald; there have been many an occasion that you…. -"continued Hermione.

Hermione and Ron started arguing. I was beginning to realize that they did this often. I glanced at Harry who had a sheepish smile across his face. He looked clearly ashamed of the behavior of his two friends. I gave him an it's-okay-I-don't-mind-anything smile. He loosened up a bit.

"WILL YOU STOP FIGHTING? GOD….what is wrong with both of you?!" bellowed Harry. Their reaction was instant. They immediately stopped fighting. I'm guessing Harry does this often.

"We have very much established that she is a muggle-born. Now stop bickering. We owe it to Toni to tell her about the wizarding world, because it is very much obvious from her vacant expressions that she has no idea why she's going to Hogwarts. She gave us a place to sit. We have to help. Now we can't do this mate, if you starting engaging in small fights with her every five minutes."

Ron glanced at Hermione, who was looking the other way with her arms crossed, and then he looked at me. "I'm really sorry for that. Lost my nerve a bit, that's all." He elbowed Hermione to apologize to me.

"I'm sorry. Ron can be a big prat at times." Hermione said.

"It's okay. I didn't mind at all. In fact, I found it very amusing." I said.

Ron and Hermione looked at me in a confused manner. Harry and I began to laugh loudly. "Now, could anyone seriously tell me what this Muggle born thing is?"

Obviously, Hermione started to talk, while the other two looked on. "In the wizarding world, humans having no magical powers are called Muggles. When two muggles give birth to a child with magical powers, that child is known as a muggle-born."