I am really, really sorry for changing the way you enter Platform 9 ¾. I view this as almost a sacred aspect of HP; they even have a memorial to it in the station! But logically it didn't make sense, so it had to go.

I also noted something that seemed to be passed over in the books: Muggle-raised kids were told of Magic on their 11th birthday, which happens on different times of the year, but they all start Hogwarts at the same time.

I finally get to use the word "loo" in a sentence. What a great word.

The next month was an uneventful one for Harry. He spent the entire time locked away in his room. The idea behind getting your books early, one of the documents had said, was to give you time to read ahead and prepare for the first day of school. They also made it clear he was not to try any magic or there would be pretty severe consequences. He left his wand in the trunk he had purchased from Wiseacres Wizarding Equipment. Magical trunks were very useful in that the inside was much bigger than the outside, which gave Harry plenty of room for the rest of the items he had purchased during his trip with Hagrid.

So Harry spent the entire next month reading his books furiously. The books on magical spells seemed the most interesting, but were fairly useless without a wand. So instead Harry read the only slightly less interesting books about magical beasts and herbs. Harry figured these were things children from wizarding families would know, so it was his best way to catch up. His only company was his owl named Hedwig, named after St. Hedwig of Silesia who, according to A History of Magic, had started the first owl post in Poland. He left her cage door and his window open so she could fly free if she wanted. She kept bringing him dead mice, though, and put them next to him as if expecting praise or thanks.

On the first day of September, Harry rose early in the morning. He surely would not miss the most important train ride of his life. He took the first train to London, then the tube to King's Cross Station. This should have been very difficult to do, but Harry's trunk was, through some enchantment, surprisingly light, so he carried it along with Hedwig's cage easily. He did not dare put Hedwig in the trunk, because he didn't know if the trunk would contain enough oxygen and didn't want to try it out. When he arrived at King's Cross Station, he was not surprised that he could not find Platform 9 ¾. The papers Hagrid had given him said to "ask the old guard", and sure enough an ancient old man in an official-looking uniform sat on a chair right between platforms 9 and 10. Harry wanted to ask the man about the platform, but didn't want to sound like an idiot if this was the wrong person.

"Excuse me, sir. Is there a platform around here?"

"Lookin for the Hogwarts platform? It's right here, see?"

Harry was glad the man knew what he was talking about. He looked where he was pointing. Somehow, where it looked like there had been only brick before, he saw an archway leading to a platform! It must have been disguised the same way as the Leaky Cauldron; until someone showed it to you, your eyes passed right over it. Harry thanked the guard and passed through.

He had arrived early, so he bought and read a copy of The Daily Prophet, the magical newspaper. Harry knew from his illustrated textbooks that Wizards had a way of making pictures move, but it was still fascinating to him. He hardly even read the words in the paper, because they were so uninteresting compared to the pictures. Soon, the time was coming to board the train which was guided by a beautiful bright scarlet steam engine. The train seemed rather small, but Harry noticed as he entered that it, like many things in Magical Britain, was much bigger on the inside than the outside. Harry had always been a loner, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to sit by the Malfoy boy even if he had seen him, so he found a compartment by himself. He removed a few textbooks from the trunk to read on the ride, then easily lifted it along with Hedwig's cage into the luggage rack. He was halfway through the chapter on Bubotubers when the compartment door slid open and a young redheaded boy stepped in.

"Is this seat taken?"

Ron and Harry clicked immediately. Harry was glad he put Hedwig's cage on the luggage rack, because it would surely see Ron's rat Scabbers as a meal and possibly a present for Harry. Ron seemed to be a little depressed, which Harry could not understand. How could you possibly be depressed in a world where, for 2 Sickles you can buy bubblegum and blow a bubble a metre in diameter, as Ron was currently demonstrating? The candy did seem to cheer Ron up a bit, as candy usually does to people who are feeling down. Ron told Harry all about Quidditch, and Harry could not wait to see his first match. Football, on broomsticks? And, to make it better, there is a magically enchanted ball trying to knock everyone off! How did they come up with this stuff?

Then they met Hermione. She seemed a bit bossy, but again Harry was not being very picky about who his friends would be at the moment.

"I already read and memorized my books. I wanted to try the magic, but that would be breaking the rules, and I'm certainly not going to do that. Have you read all of the course material yet?"

Ron responded in the negative. Harry had the impression that wizarding children either knew all about magic from the start, or else had no interest in learning about it before they had to, as Harry had in his Muggle classes. This contrasted with the insatiable desire that Harry, and it seemed Hermione also, had to learn as much about magic as possible.

"How on earth did you memorize eight books in a month? That's impossible."

"A month? I got my books almost a year ago, on the day I turned eleven. Professor Flitwick arrived at my house and explained magic to my parents and I, then brought me to Diagon Alley. And I memorized twelve books, not eight. Professor Flitwick showed me some extra books I should read to learn the magical culture. You were in three of them, Harry Potter."

Well this hardly seemed fair. Not only did Harry not grow up in a wizarding family, but even the rest of the Muggle-raised children got their books before him! And to top it off, although he would not have traded his day with Hagrid for anything, he wished he had gotten advice on extra books to buy.

"What house do you think you will be in? Professor Flitwick says I'm Ravenclaw to the core."

Ron said that every Weasley in history had been a Gryffindor, and he therefore had no real choice in the matter. Harry didn't know much about the houses, so Ron explained the differences, but Harry guessed he might be simplifying it a bit. "Smart kids in Ravenclaw, dumb kids in Hufflepuff. Evil kids in Slytherin, nice kids in Gryffindor".

"Ron! That is not nice! Hufflepuff is not for dumb kids, it is a house for those who value hard work and loyalty". She really did sound like a textbook. Harry understood the argument she was making, but wasn't going to get in the middle of it. Ron looked like he wanted to argue the point, but mumbled something under his breath instead. Hermione, after realizing there was no more possibility of intellectual discourse in this cabin, left after a few seconds.

A while later, the Malfoy boy came in. He was surrounded by two boys who, from the comic books Harry read after stealing them from Dudley, would best be described as "minions". They were both ugly, thickset, and did not look very intelligent.

"Hello Mr. Malfoy" said Harry, with a touch of irony. He didn't know the kids first name, so he tried to pass it off as a joke.

"Malfoy? How do you know the Malfoy's?" Ron looked at Harry like he grew an extra eye on his forehead.

"Jealous, Weasley? I know I am. We can't all have a pet rat like that one, after all." The minions sniggered. "And it's Draco, but everyone calls me Malfoy, of course. These are Crabbe and Goyle." Malfoy gestured behind him. He then turned to Harry. "Potter, you should know: not all wizarding families are created equal. I certainly would not want The-Boy-Who-Lived to be ostracized at school because he is associated with a Weasley. I can certainly help you with that, if you would like". Malfoy stuck out his hand to Harry.

"Thank you for the offer, Malfoy, but I am not particularly fond of people who tell me who I can or can't hang out with" Friends are one thing, but this kid was becoming too much.

"Fine, Potter. Do as you wish. But know that hanging out with riff-raff like this one will rub off on you."

Ron stood and put his nose two inches from Malfoy's. "Say that again". Harry was impressed, considering that Malfoy was flanked by two eleven-year-olds who were probably already shaving. The tall minion reached his arm towards Ron's neck, but before he even touched Ron, he screamed in pain. Ron's rat had bitten into his finger, hard. The boy screamed and shook his hand frantically.

"Stop waving your hand, you idiot" said the shorter goon. "We can zap it off if you just stop moving!" Harry guessed the shorter boy was the smarter of the two, although he realized that quite possibly anyone was smarter than the boy currently hitting his hand against the wall trying to dislodge the rat. Finally, Scabbers let go, and the three boys left, scowling.

The conductor announced that they were approaching Hogwarts. Harry had changed into his robes in the loo the second he arrived on Platform 9 ¾, but he waited for Ron to change, and then they left the train to start their first year of school.