Disclaimer: Want to, but still, own nothing.

Two days later found Laurie standing in the train station between platforms nine and ten. There was no Platform Nine and Three Quarters. At least not to the Muggle eye.

"Where are you Amber?" Laurie muttered to herself. She was thirty minutes early and waiting for some wizard or witch to show her how to get onto the platform. It was so like the magical world, to forget to tell someone how to get to a magical place, assuming you know how. But you know what they say about those who assume.

She was waiting ten minutes before she heard the first promising thing. "You'd think these Muggles would learn…" All of a sudden Mr. and Mrs. Grant appeared around the corner with Amber following dragging her trolley. Dylan was in his basket perched precariously on her trunk.

Amber was the first to see Laurie and quickly moved toward her.

"I realized after we left that we didn't tell you how to get on the platform. We came early in order to catch you up."

"Yeah, I realized when I saw no sign for the platform that I was missing some rather vital information," Laurie laughed. The group moved to the wall and Amber told her how to get through. They went to lean on it nonchalantly and were quickly pulled onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

"Wow." Laurie looked at the scarlet steam engine. It was beautiful. Steam poured from the engine and students and parents were milling about saying their farewells.

The platform was filled with the screeching of owls and Laurie quickly went to the cage she recently bought for Darcy.

"Don't you dare start joining them. You're better than that."

She scratched his head through the silver bars and turned to join Amber on her trek to find an empty compartment. It wasn't long before they found one in the back of the train. They unloaded their stuff and then went back out to tell Amber's parents goodbye.

"It was nice meeting you both," Laurie said as she received hugs from both Mr and Mrs. Grant.

"It was truly our pleasure," Mrs. Grant said. "I hope you both have a wonderful time."

Laurie and Amber quickly went to their compartment as the whistle was blowing and waved out their window to Amber's parents.

The train started moving a few minutes after the whistle and Laurie set Darcy's cage on the floor in front of her. The compartment slowly filled with Amber's friends and Laurie was introduced to them all.

"This is Nancy Prewitt," indicating a shorter dark girl. "And Holly Lewis," gesturing to a blonde girl with glasses. "They're both in my house as well as," but she was cut off by a thump outside their compartment and the sudden opening of the door.

"Lily!"

"You made it! I thought you were sitting somewhere else," the girl named Nancy said.

"No, I got caught in the corridor by Potter and he wouldn't let me pass." The other girls giggled and Lily looked over at Laurie. "Is this your pen friend, Amber?"

"Yeah, this is Laurie. Laurie, this is Lily Evans – brightest girl of our year."

Lily was thin and had beautiful auburn hair. She was really pretty and Laurie bet she was the prettiest girl in the year too.

Lily ignored her friend's last statement. "It's nice to finally meet you. We've all heard a lot about you and your school. What was the name again?" Lily asked as she stored her things on the rack above.

"Um, The Southeastern Academy of Sorcery. It's in northern Florida, or South Georgia. No one's really sure which side of the state line it is."

"And you're in our year?" Holly asked as Lily sat down across from Laurie.

"Yep. Fifth year." Laurie said.

"Is it true that house elves are on the way of being freed over in the States?" Nancy asked.

"Yeah. The Wizarding Congress is going to look over a bill and pass it, but the President could always veto it. He's done that before."

"But with the equality issue being such a big topic don't you think he'd pass it?"

"Most likely but, as it is, he has no idea of most of the things that go on in the wizarding world as he's a Muggle. But he's a good one. One of the best. He'll do the right thing."

"But do the house elves want to be freed?" Lily asked.

"I'm not sure. They would still work for their respective masters, though they'd be employers after the law was changed. If a house elf wanted money they would be paid and they are able to wear clothes instead of pillow cases and the like," Laurie said. Her family never had a house elf, but she knew people who did and they were always rather lenient toward them anyway. The law wouldn't make that big of a difference.

"Could you imagine putting that idea to the house elves at Hogwarts? I think they'd faint – literally," Amber added. "They have this thing about being honor bound and those house elves who leave the simple life of a normal house elf are somewhat scorned by the others."

"That's awful." Laurie frowned.

"We should move to more intriguing ideas than the house elf liberation in the States," Lily said as she leaned back into her bench seat.

"So what did Potter stop you for?" Holly asked, smiling mischievously.

"That was a topic that I wasn't going to suggest," Lily muttered. Then aloud, "You know him. Trying to be impressive when he's really just an -" But she was cut off from telling what he really was by the door opening and revealing a couple boys, one leaning on the doorjamb.

"What do you want?" Lily asked scowling at the boy.

Laurie thought he was cute, but she suspected that he knew he was. His hair was tussled as if the wind had suddenly blown through it and her wore glasses. His robes were a bit rumpled from sitting on them, or maybe he just pulled them out of his trunk.

"I'm just coming around with my friend, Moony, to check on everything. So how's everything?" he asked giving the compartment a suave smirk.

"Oh goodness! Get out, you know we're fine." Lily pushed the boy out of the doorway and shut the door, quickly locking it behind him. "What an idiot."

"Who was that?" Laurie asked as Lily returned to her seat in a huff.

"That was James Potter. The most stuck up, arrogant boy in the whole of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Oh, so he's the one who stopped you earlier."

"The same."

"Sorry." Laurie made a face at the door whose shades were now down. "If you guys don't mind, I'm gonna try and sleep a bit, so I don't fall asleep during dinner. This whole time change thing is throwing me for a loop."

"Sure, we'll try to talk quietly," Amber said and started a conversation on what her father did while he was working in France for the Ministry of Magic. He was some sort of foreign diplomat for the Ministry of Magic.

But that was all she heard before she drifted off into sleep, hearing the first drops of rain splatter the window and the rolls of thunder in the distance.

Laurie really didn't like being shaken awake, she decided. It was annoying and disconcerting. It also interrupted perfectly good dreams about absolutely nothing.

But she was still being shaken and now she was hearing her name.

"Laurie. Come on get up, we're almost there. We've got to change into our robes." She tried to move but her mind was still warm and fuzzy with the dream and it was hard to relinquish something so relaxing.

"Laurynce Thomas! Come on!"

That did it. She was awake and her eyes shot open and her head whipped around to face Amber who had already donned her robes. She shot her friend a look and uncurled from her position. She could tell that they had started to slow down and so she quickly grabbed her robes from her trunk and tossed them over her clothes. They were a dark midnight blue color and she noticed that everyone else's were black.

"Oh bother." She quickly muttered a spell and changed the color to black so she wouldn't stand out in the crowd of students. The robes were made of a different material, but that really didn't matter as long as they were the same color.

"That was a beautiful color. Do all the students wear that color or do they wear house colors?" Holly asked as she straightened her glasses which were knocked askew when she changed.

"We all wear the blue robes. We have too many houses to wear different colors, it would make people sick."

"How many houses do you have?" This came from Nancy who was adjusting the sleeves of her robes.
"We have seven houses. They're named after the different dragon breeds."

"Which one are you in?" Lily asked.

"Romanian Longhorn."

"Aren't they on the brink of extinction?"

"Yeah, but there are efforts being put forth to increase the herds. The school's founder was once a dragon keeper or something and decided to name the houses after his favorites."

"Makes sense, I guess." That came from Amber who was now standing. "We're stopping."

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