is...is this...is this a new chapter!?

no way

you must be lying

this can't possibly be a new chapter.

it's been too long

she gave up on this fanfiction ages ago

who would even remember this fanfiction even exists

no one

it is impossible that this is a new-

Lucy's mind, however preoccupied with thoughts of her long disappeared -and more than likely dead- sister, was flooded with questions.

Mostly just one, really.

Where in this god-forsaken monstrosity of a train station was platform nine-and-goddamn-three-quarters.

Despite the platform's number being clearly inscribed on their ticket, it was clearly not inscribed on anything else in the large train station, and the group of mages had already spent a considerable 20 minutes searching for it. Being that it took them at least ten minutes to run to the station, they had probably less than 30 minutes to make it to the train before it left. Usually, this would not be a problem at Kings Cross station, seeing as they were already at the station, and one would assume it should be relatively easy to find the correct train platform, being numbered and whatnot, but despite this well backed logic, they were still hopelessly lost.

Erza had attempted, with mounting aggression, to ask for the platform's location from the porters nearby several times, but was told several times in return that there was no such thing, and that this joke was getting quite old, and that, indeed, they did not expect the older children to involve themselves in this joke, and that they expect more from you, young lady.

Erza very nearly lost her temper.

"You would think our employer would tell us where to find the platform! How do they expect us to reach their school if we can't even board their blasted train?" She muttered angrily, stalking around the barrier between platform nine and ten, as if she was hoping for some sort of sign from the heavens telling her what to do.

Gray and Lucy sat hopelessly on a nearby bench, laden with luggage and receiving a few curious looks from the passers-by because of the sheer amount of it all.

"Maybe they just thought we would be able to find it on our own?" Natsu said as he returned from the bathroom. He watched for a moment as Erza paced in circles around the barrier before she registered his words, stopped, and turned towards him from her spot in front of the large "9".

"How could they possibly think we could find it without help? We've asked all over and everyone seems to think we're playing some sort of child's prank! If even the employees don't know about it, how in the name of the spirits are we supposed to figure it out?" She said, crossing her arms across her chest with a huff.

Natsu walked around her, flipping her hair as he went; it was a rare occasion that she dressed in civilian clothing instead of her standard armour, and with it came the joy of her hair having been pulled back into a fiery red pony tail - he simply couldn't resist. She was not amused by his playing, and she followed his movements with her eyes narrowed in an angry glare, not unlike an irate cat.

He came to a stop immediately next to the barrier, not touching it, but close enough to lean on if his feet got tired.

"Maybe it's a test or something? To see if we're qualified?"

"They know we're qualified, Natsu. We've communicated before the mission, they know what we're capable of and that's why they hired us. Why would they test us now?" she said, giving him a pointed look.

"But why would they purposefully not give us the location of the platform if it was this hard to find?" Gray questioned from his spot on the left side of the bench.

Lucy gave him a thoughtful look, and then spoke at large. "Maybe they just didn't think it was this hard to find? Maybe we're missing something that should be obvious?"

Erza tilted her head a bit to the left in thought. After a moment, her head popped back to the upright position and she began to pace around the barrier again, muttering small observations and theories to herself as she went. Natsu moved to lean back on the barrier...

"Maybe they just forgo-OAH"

...and promptly fell through the wall as if it was not there. Lucy squeaked and jumped up from the bench, mucking through their luggage to make her way to the spot where Natsu had previously been standing. Erza's head popped around the corner from the other side of the barrier.

"What was that, Natsu? I- Natsu?"

"Erza, he-Natsu feel through the wall!" Gray said, standing up, but not leaving their luggage. He looked around, but not a single person around them batted an eyelash at their friend's sudden disappearance. "Did no one notice that?" he muttered to himself.

"I see!" Erza said. Gray turned his attention back to Erza and Lucy. Erza grinned. This was her sign from the heavens.

"It must be some sort of teleportation device, or spacial distortion!" She said happily. "Gather up the luggage-be careful that's the one Happy is sleeping in-and follow me, I think we've found the platform!" They all picked up their generous amount of luggage and gathered in front of the barrier. They looked around to make sure no civilians were looking, and walked right into and through the wall.

"-OAH"

Natsu fell hard on his bottom, momentarily stunned by the fact that the wall was gone. He took a moment to pull his wits about him, then stood up, rubbing his bottom, and looked at the sight before him. Instead of a train immediately in front of him like there was before, there was simply a wall. A wall and the deafening sound of hundreds of voices behind him. He turned around.

Before him lay a train boarding platform, filled with people in robes hugging and talking and milling about. There also stood a large red train, labelled "The Hogwarts Express" in brilliant gold lettering, being boarded by many adolescents and teenagers as they waved their goodbyes to their parents and caught up with their friends. Overhead was a sign that very clearly said "Platform 9 3/4".

This was it. Twenty minutes before departure and they had finally found it.

Natsu turned and was about to attempt to go back through the wall and tell the others when his three friends, laden with baggage, strode through the barrier. Despite looking quite ridiculous holding all of their things in such a way, they had come through the wall in an exponentially more graceful fashion than Natsu himself had done.

He was jealous.

However, Lucy looked entirely overwhelmed by the weight of the luggage she held, and so he moved past his jealousy to approach her and take almost all of the bags she had been burdened with. He grinned at her, and she gave her thanks, absent mindedly massaging her right arm where there were small, quickly fading red marks from where the bags had previously pressed into her skin. Lucy, now holding only two bags -one in her right hand and the other under her arm- took the lead.

"Well, it's a big crowd, but we need to get on that train before there's no free compartments, so we'll have to do our best and stay together!" She announced to her friends, as if she was talking to a group of six-year-olds. "Want to hold hands?" She said, turning to look smugly at Gray.

"Ha, ha. Very funny. Unlike you I don't have a knight in shining pink armor to carry my bags for me, so I don't have any free hands for you to hold, princess." He said, giving her a playful glare. Erza snorted.

"You could always hold his pecks. Seems he lost his shirt somewhere." She said. Natsu laughed, and Gray chocked slightly.

"What!?"

"Well, let's get a move on. We can't stand around forever." Lucy said. She strode forward, her friends close behind her, arguing about Gray's missing shirt. Lucy hoped no one would notice it, but it was wishful thinking. She walked along, lazily sliding through people's minds as she went. Indeed, there were many people who noticed that Gray was quite conspicuously without a shirt, and Lucy snickered at the rather large amount who didn't mind at all.

They pushed through the crowd of students and parents, making their way towards the train. A tall blonde woman bumped into Lucy, quickly apologizing and continuing on her way. When they reached their destination, they sidled carefully up the steps and onto the train, making sure not to drop anything, as they weren't completely sure anymore which bag Happy was currently occupying, and they didn't want to take any chances.

The corridors inside were narrow, but as long as they stayed mostly clear of students, the group could pass through without too much trouble. Lucy looked through the windows in the doors of the compartments as they passed each one, hoping to find an empty one so they could finally relieve themselves of their heavy burdens.

Near the middle of the train, they finally came across an empty compartment, and Lucy stopped short, reaching out with her free hand to slide it open and hold it for her three friends to enter.

When they all got in and slid the door closed, they set down their bags and called out for Happy. They heard a muffled voice from within one of the bags Erza had been carrying, and she reached down and unzipped the top, allowing Happy to dart out of the bag, stretching his wings, and taking in a huge gasp of breath.

He looked wide-eyed at Natsu for a short moment, and then rushed him, knocking him clear off his feet and into one of the cushy seats behind him.

"I am never, ever going back in one of those bags again." He said, relief filling his voice.

No one had the heart to point out that he would indeed have to go back into a bag during their trip back home.

The five of them picked up their bags and loaded them into the shelves above their seats, and when the compartment was clear again, they all sat down and breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Lucy closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat. Gray sat next to her, looking out the window, observing the families saying their final goodbyes and good lucks as the last passengers boarded the train. It was going to depart soon, and she remembered with a jolt that she needed to cut off the sensation of motion sickness in Natsu's mind before it began to move. She worked her way into his mind and began trying to find the pain center of his brain, but for some reason she couldn't find it. She opened her eyes and looked at him. He was conversing happily with his best friend, who was sitting on his lap.

'Maybe it was the positive emotion? It is pretty bright and busy in his head right now.' She thought. She closed her eyes and delved back in, searching more insistently, only just barely hearing the yelps of pain Natsu was voicing outside of her consciousness. If her eyes were open, she would have seen him holding his forehead with his eyes scrunched shut as he tried to fight off the sudden headache.

The train began to move, and Natsu hunched over with the added pain in his stomach. Lucy began desperate in his mind, she wanted him to be able to experience the train ride with her. She began to lose her concentration when Gray tried to shake her awake.

Well, it was too late now. She couldn't find the pain center of his mind, but she did realize that what was blocking her was no longer a bright haze of excitement, but now dark clouds of pain. With no choice, she forced him into unconsciousness.

She opened her eyes to see Gray looking at her worriedly, and to the suspicious look on Erza's face. Lucy feigned innocence, and Gray gave her a questioning look.

"What happened?" She asked.

"He suddenly got a headache, and when the train started moving he got his usual motion sickness." Erza replied. "But then he just lost consciousness."

At this, Lucy was truly confused. "A...a headache? Why would he get a headache?" She said, puzzled. She looked at Gray, hoping for answers, but he shrugged. A headache? Did she do that? then, with dawning clarity she remembered hearing Natsu yelping and cursing in pain as she searched through his mind. Oh dear. She had hurt him.

She felt terrible.

"I don't know." Erza said, staring suspiciously, but otherwise dropping the subject. She looked out the window, her eyes glazing over in thought.

Lucy, realizing she had somehow just barely gotten by without being caught, relaxed slightly. She listened to the many thoughts of the students on the train. Many, she chuckled, were about that good looking man who wasn't wearing a shirt. Many others were about various things they had done over summer, or about what would come about during the year. But some were about the Heroine, Lily Potter. The Girl-Who-Lived. The Chosen One. The girl who defeated You-Know-Who. Lucy felt butterflies in the pit of her stomach when she thought about Lily Potter. But, of course, she couldn't be Lily. She couldn't be Lucy's sister. That Lily was long gone.

She reached into her pocket to pull out the Leo key. Looking at it and tracing its' carved designs helped calm her nerves.

She felt in her pocket for the key, but she felt something else inside too.

Lucy pulled out the key, as well as a small, folded piece of paper that was not in her pocket when she got up that morning. She opened the paper. Maybe it was some sort of little map of the station she picked up and forgot about earlier in the day?

It was not a map. In fact, it had very little on it. Reading the two words written in ink on the page, she knew she did not put the paper in her pocket.

She gasped, and dropped the paper on the ground, covering her mouth with her hands, tears welling in her eyes. Gray, Erza, and Happy all jumped up, asking her what was wrong.

They looked at the paper sitting on the floor. The paper their friend was crying over.

Two words sat innocently on the page.

She's Alive.

Phew! End of the chapter! Well, it took me eighteen thousand years to update this, but it's here now and I hope you enjoyed it!

i'm sort of tired, so if I messed up on anything, or if anything is confusing, please feel free to let me know or ask any questions you want!

EDIT: I went through and tried to fix any mistakes I could find, but if I missed something, please let me know! I'm also quite sure I probably wrote the characters wrong, and I'm currently working on that by re-reading the manga. Hopefully they'll be more in character next chapter, but I can't make any concrete promises, as I'm not the best at portraying other people's characters well, but this is really good practice for me, so I will forge on!

Also, I can't believe I haven't mentioned it before now, and I'm sure many of you have figured it out (maybe I'm not giving you all enough credit), but just to be sure that you all know, Lucy and Lily WILL NOT have those extra special godlike powers like in the last version of this story. Lucy will only have the extra power of mind magic. In case you were wondering exactly what she can do with her powers, I have taken a lot of examples from Professor Charles Xavier from X-Men. Lily will otherwise simply be a stellar spirit Mage like her sister.

Also! In answer to a reviewer asking about Lily's identity, she is basically a female Harry Potter, named for her "mother", only she's really not related to the potter family at all-the real girl-who-lived didn't live at all.

sorry for any confusion about that! I suppose I forget that other people can't read minds, and that I haven't actually specified something's anywhere. I'm a bit scatterbrained, so I apologize for the inconvenience haha

Thank you a million times over for reading!