Chapter 3: disappearance
31 July, 1991
I didn't even know this was my birthday until I was nine. Vernon and Petunia always told me that only good boys get birthdays. Wicked boys like me didn't deserve them. Dudley got birthday parties and stacks of presents. Harry got locked in his cupboard for a week with one meal a day and two bathroom breaks like the prisoner he was.
I never knew what I did that displeased them so much. At some point I just…gave up trying to make them happy.
This year, I actually had a rather good time on my birthday. The house at Godric's Hollow didn't take long at all to patch up thanks to a crew from Sweden. They even comped me a security enchantment array.
Being the Boy-Who-Lived comes with perks that I'm fully willing to take advantage of.
For my eleventh birthday, I spent the evening in my new sitting room, which I've fully stocked with bookshelves stacked with everything I need to know about this world.
I start at Hogwarts in a month.
When I do, I'll be ready.
-H
…
Normally, Albus enjoyed a leisurely walk around the Hogwarts grounds. The gently rolling hills and moss-covered trees had a timeless, storied feel to them that seemed to transport him back to his own days as a student. So much in the world had changed (very little for the better) but he could always count on Hogwarts to remain steadfast and unwavering in the face of the rigors of progress. Today, though, he had little time to appreciate the verdant scenery. Hagrid was very nearly about to leave, and Albus hoped to catch him in time to relay another task.
He really depended too much on the man, but Hagrid shouldered the responsibilities gladly.
Near the edge of the forest a lone hut stood with its door thrown open to coax a balmy summer breeze inside. Passing by a pen full of chickens that clucked and fussed at his arrival, Albus spared a glance at the pumpkin patch near Hagrid's door. It was the gamekeeper's pride and joy, and the Great Hall's Halloween decorations just wouldn't be the same without the massive gourds grown by him.
"Professor Dumbledore, sir," Hagrid's voice spoke, deferential and fervent as usual, and Albus turned his gaze up…and up still.
Rubeus Hagrid was an imposing man, standing nearly three meters tall and burly to boot. Even during his Hogwarts years, he had dwarfed most of his professors, and Albus remembered well the day he had had to be excused from quidditch lessons because no broom could lift his considerable weight. With a shaggy mane of black hair and a robust beard that covered half his chest, one could have been forgiven for mistaking him for a wild man that had simply taken up residence on the grounds.
For all his intimidating appearance, however, he was one of the kindest people Albus had ever known.
"I was jes' leavin', sir," Hagrid said, descending the steps from his doorway with heavy footfalls that made the wood creak and pulling shut the massive front door behind him. "Fang's pinin', always does when I go somewheres."
A plaintive whine came from inside, and Albus could just make out the sight of a massive snout pressing to the lower half of the window on Hagrid's door, steaming up the glass as it sniffed feverishly.
"I'm afraid, Hagrid, I must ask of you another favor," Albus said. "Could I trouble you to make an extra stop while you're out today?"
"No trouble at all, sir," Hagrid said with a shake of his head. "Glad teh be of any help I can."
"Would you kindly stop by Number 4, Privet Drive during your travels today?" Albus asked. "Just to check up on Harry."
"Those Dursleys aren' givin' 'im trouble, are they?" Hagrid asked with a growl, his expression darkening. "I could…talk ter them if yeh wan', sir."
"That won't be necessary, Hagrid," Albus insisted. "All you must do is ensure Harry is there and in good health. I'm sure he has plenty of questions about Hogwarts that you'll be able to answer as well."
At that, Hagrid puffed out his chest with pride. He was always pleased when Albus complimented his understanding of the magical world; so many people assumed him a wild savage, but Albus knew Hagrid had hidden depths and knowledge that would shock even some of the Hogwarts staff.
This made him an excellent asset in Albus's ongoing efforts.
"Yeh got th' right man fer the job, Professor," Hagrid said. "I won' let yeh down, no sir."
"You never have, Hagrid, and I'm confident you never will," Albus said. "Now, I won't keep you. Good luck."
"Right-o, Professor, I'll be off then," Hagrid said. Albus watched him disappear into the trees of the Forbidden Forest, no doubt to hop a thestral to his destination. When Hagrid had gone, Albus drew a letter from his pocket, unfolding it and consulting once more the lined notebook paper on which Arabella Figg had written in neatly-penned letters:
Albus,
I'm not sure if this warrants a letter, but I figured it was better to err on the side of caution. I haven't seen Harry in a few days. I don't think this is like last time, either. The Dursleys went out for dinner last night and didn't ask me to watch over him while they were out. If he's gone, they're not fussed about trying to find him. Judging by how they were dressed, this could even be a celebration.
Hoping to hear from you,
Arabella Doreen Figg
Albus could never understand why she insisted on signing her full name each time; he knew no other person named Arabella. In any case, the letter was troubling, especially in the context of Harry Potter's already troubling situation. He had gone to Diagon Alley ahead of schedule and somehow navigated his entrance into the magical world without assistance, and now he had gone off the radar, so to speak. Albus had been expecting him to return to the Dursleys' in due course, but Harry, it seemed had other plans.
Albus was growing tired of Harry's other plans.
…
"Mail call, Mr. Potter," Tommy said, brandishing a stack of magazines as he and Turkish made their way into the small kitchen at the Potter Cottage in Godric's Hollow. With its exposed flagstone floors and floral-patterned wallpaper (complete with a rustic dark wood wainscoting to match the counters), the room (and the whole cottage, in fact) reminded Turkish of an old biddy's retirement home, albeit one that had recently come under new occupation.
Currently, that occupant was reading the morning paper while taking a cup of tea. Every time they visited, Turkish wondered if Harry Potter wasn't actually a fifty-year-old man in a child's body. When he wasn't sitting by the fireplace reading a book, he was sitting in the kitchen over the paper. The boy loved to read, claimed it kept him focused, whatever that meant. Turkish preferred a good football game after a novel, but to each his own.
The kid was paying the bills; he could do whatever he cared to in his leisure time.
"Magazines?" Harry asked, looking up from the paper as Tommy dropped a stack of mail onto the table, including about seven issues of various quarterly and weekly publications. Reaching to pluck the top one from the stack, he scanned the cover with those scarily flat eyes of his. "Old magazines."
"Thought you might like 'em," Tommy said. "We were cleaning out one of the bedrooms, found a whole bunch of these. Figured you'd appreciate the, uh, historical insight, as it were."
"You figured correct," Harry said, drawing another magazine from the stack. This was an issue of an American magazine called Artificers' Monthly. The front showed a moving image of a man shifting and smiling nervously out, a headline below him reading: 'Edison Enchanted! How Paul Edison Sloane is bringing technology and magic together!'.
"Edison…" Harry muttered. "As in Thomas Edison?"
"Yeah, yeah, that's his great grandson," Tommy said. "Muggle-born wizard, if you can believe it. Great granddad invented electricity, he gets born with magical powers."
"Thomas Edison didn't invent electricity, he discovered it," Turkish said. "Not like 'e just clapped his hands and there it was."
"Whatever, the point is, Paul Edison Sloane revolutionized the magical world of America, made these adapters that let muggle things like radios and TVs work even in magic-thick areas," Tommy said, tapping the magazine. "You could get an Edison Electronics TV and set it up in your common room, watch channels from all over the country."
"Why don't they do that, then?" Harry asked.
"Because the purebloods run the show around here," Turkish said. "And they say anything muggle-made isn't worth spitting at, and that includes muggle-born witches and wizards like Tommy and me. They'd rather spend days waiting on an owl to deliver a letter or stick their head in a fireplace to have a conversation instead of sending an e-mail or using a cell phone that can call anywhere on the continent."
"So they'll turn down an obviously superior means of communication because the person that came up with it is a muggle?"
"And thanks to the nature of politics, they can pay off the Ministry, keep them from making any official policy allowing the stuff," Turkish said. "So no regulations on prices, no import protection, no incentives for anyone to actually buy in bulk and sell to the masses. And even if you do get the occasional brave soul to give a go at selling it, he's shamed out of business by a bunch of pureblood nonces and their notions of 'superiority'."
"Turkish tried to open a stereo shop when we first graduated," Tommy explained. "Made it about two weeks before it closed up."
"Inbred bastards wouldn't know good business if it swiped their Death Eater masks of their faces," Turkish grumbled.
"Hmm," Harry noised, staring at the magazine cover. "Is there a catalog you can order this stuff from internationally?"
"You could probably mail Edison Electronics and have them send you one," Turkish shrugged. "I could take care of that for you, even. As your dutiful employee."
"Your work ethic is commendable," Harry said with a wry quirk of the lips. Turkish had never seen the boy crack a smile; the fact that he was emoting at all was downright shocking. He turned his gaze back down to the magazine, humming thoughtfully at the name it was addressed to. "Hard to believe a pureblood mass-murderer was into muggle technology."
"Sirius Black?" Turkish asked. "We went to school with him, Tommy and me. Never talked to the bloke, though."
"He's my godfather," Harry said matter-of-factly, still staring at the cover. "According to my parents' will, he was supposed to take me in if they died. Instead, he's the one who betrayed them and got them killed in the first place."
"Ironic," Tommy said, and Turkish smacked him in the arm. Harry only nodded.
"Very," he said. "Got away with it, too. Didn't he escape from Azkaban after only a year?"
"Yeah, scandal that was," Turkish said. "No one ever found out how."
"Where'd he go?" Harry asked.
"That's the question everyone in the Ministry was askin' for months after," Tommy said. "I figure he went to America. They'll let just about anyone in from over here."
"Anyone trying to get away from a bunch of backward-thinking bigots who take pride in marrying their third cousins," Turkish said, tapping the magazine. "Any case, we've darkened your doorstep enough. Just wanted to pop by, drop those off, see if you need anything dealt with."
"Just that catalog," Harry said. "I'd like to see if I can't get a few things to take along to Hogwarts."
"Spice up the experience, I get it," Turkish said, standing along with Tommy. "I'll send the letter out straightaway."
"Drawing room's next," Tommy said on the way to the door. "As usual, we'll keep the good stuff, let you go through it first."
"Has Borgin been giving you guys the runaround with the prices at all?" Harry asked. "He seemed kind of…sleazy when I met him."
"Well, he is, sleazy as they come," Turkish said. "Lucky we know how to deal with him. See you around, Mr. Potter."
"Have fun," Harry said, waving at them and standing from the table with his teacup in hand. Turkish wondered briefly what he got up to when they weren't around, what Harry Potter's life was like during his solitary moments. He was mum as to what his lot had been like before, but Turkish gathered that it hadn't been that great. One thing was sure, whatever Harry Potter had been made to endure for the last ten years, it had left an impression.
And it sure didn't seem like a very good one.
…
The house hadn't been this peaceful since before Dudley had been born, Vernon mused to himself. His son was out galivanting with his friends and getting into the sort of trouble only youth could dredge up, Petunia was humming happily to herself while tidying up, and Vernon was halfway to dozing in his chair on this sunny summer afternoon. With a glass of Petunia's ice-cold lemonade and the remote both within arm's reach, he saw no reason to get up any time soon, especially with the midday news block going strong.
And best of all, the little freak had scampered off without even needing to be asked. At first it had seemed too good to be true, but after a few days without him mucking up their lives, Vernon was quite happy to count him gone for good and wash his hands of that weirdness. After all, they hadn't kicked him out, had they? He'd left all on his own, tail between his legs. He was probably off getting himself twisted up in some insanity that only his kind could conjure.
With luck, they wouldn't be troubled by any of that nonsense again.
The doorbell sounded, and Vernon grumbled to himself.
"Petunia, would you mind – "
"Getting the door for my rather comfortable husband?" Petunia asked, smirking at Vernon as she passed by the archway leading into the living room. "Of course, dear."
Vernon chuckled to himself, relaxing further into his chair and considering switching over to see if there was a game happening. Only when he heard the sound of the door opening followed by a sharp gasp did he sit forward. When Petunia's voice urgently called his name, he heaved himself out of his chair with a groan, ready to give a piece of his mind to whoever dared perturb his wife.
"If you're here to sell us another ruddy vacuum, you can shove it up – "
Vernon broke off abruptly, simply unable to form more words at the sight of a truly massive man utterly filling the doorway. With his voluminously hairy coat and equally hairy countenance, Vernon wondered for a moment if he was simply a very large vagrant that had wandered into their neighborhood. But his size made it obvious that he wasn't an entirely normal human.
He had to be one of that lot.
"I must demand you vacate these premises at once!" Vernon shouted. "Your…kind aren't welcome in this home or this neighborhood!"
"Oh, dry up, you great prune," the giant man said, dipping his shaggy head in to step into the entryway. The top of his head brushed the decorative light fixture hanging from the high ceiling, and Petunia looked ready to faint at the muddy state of his boots on her clean floor. "Yeh know who I am and why I'm 'ere. Where's Harry?"
"You likely know better than us," Vernon said, scurrying past the man to shut the door. The neighbors would be flapping their gums for weeks about this man showing up on their doorstep! Would these freaks' torture of them never cease!? "He scarpered out of here a few days ago, haven't seen him since. Frankly, we're glad to be shot of him!"
"Yeh let him run off?" the giant man asked. "Dumbledore trusted yeh, 'e did, an' yeh jes – "
"That crackpot dumped that freak on our doorstep, he inflicted that boy on our household!" Vernon said. "We were perfectly happy before you – "
Vernon stopped when the giant leveled the tip of a luridly pink umbrella to his nose. Despite the ridiculousness of his chosen weapon, a cold shiver of fear ran up his spine. Was this some poor man's magic stick? Was Vernon about to be the victim of some…some spell?
"Do not insult Albus Dumbledore in front o' me," the giant said in a voice of frightening calm.
"Get out of my house," Vernon spat back with a bluster he definitely didn't feel. He was tired of these…people ruining his peace and quiet, imposing themselves on his life. The boy had run off, and he was being harangued for it?
Where was the justice?
Slowly, the shaggy man lowered his umbrella, glaring at the pair for a moment more before reaching back to open the door. His big meaty fist couldn't find the handle, however, and he wound up simply punching it open to fall outward on its hinges.
"We'll be in touch," he said as he stepped back outside.
"Feel free to ring us beforehand next time," Vernon told him. "We'll plan a shopping trip."
With one last backward sneer, the giant man made his way down the street, seeming to disappear the moment Vernon averted his eyes. A few curious neighbors were peeking out of their doors or peering over their shrubberies to gawp at the exchanged, but Vernon merely waved at them.
"Afternoon," he said to the closest one. "Vagabonds have no sense of decorum, I tell you. Had to threaten to call the police to get him to leave."
"Big fella, though, wasn't he?" his neighbor pointed out.
"Must have some sort of disorder, like that French wrestler," Vernon said with a shake of his head as he turned to regard his door. They would have to call someone to fix it before they went to bed, or Petunia wouldn't be able to sleep a wink. Perhaps they could send the bill to this Albus Dumbledore and have him actually contribute something to the household besides a drooling parasite.
"We should consider installing a security camera," Vernon told his wife, who sighed.
"It wouldn't help," she said. "They have ways around that sort of thing."
"Then what are we supposed to do, Petunia?" Vernon asked, mounting the stairs and making his way back inside. "Roll over and show our bellies every time they decide we've done something wrong? The problem with their type is they don't respect us! They see us as beneath them, something to be disregarded and looked down on."
"Well, you're only right," Petunia said. "But there's not very well much we can do about it. The boy is gone, and from the sound of things, they've no idea where he is, either. So let's just hope it stays that way and they decide to bother someone else about it."
"And in the meantime," Vernon said, recovering some of his mood from before, "I do believe I'll take a refill of lemonade while I watch my game."
"You'll call someone about the door?" Petunia asked.
"Of course, dear," Vernon said, already lumbering toward his chair. "Bring me the phone, and I'll give 'em a call once I've sat back down."
Settling back into a chair which groaned along with him, Vernon took up the remote and switched over to see the latest round of the NatWest Trophy only just beginning. Surrey was playing—quite a talking point among the neighborhood—and they were a favorite to go to Lord's next week. Vernon had considered placing a flutter on the match with the neighbor lads, but he was no betting man and didn't fancy picking up the habit.
He briefly wondered what sort of sports those freaks played. Probably some madness involving broomsticks and exploding balls. But there was no point in dwelling on such things.
It was time for his life to well and truly go back to normal.
…
"D'you think he's really eleven?" Tommy asked as he lowered a silver snuffbox into the box of sellable merchandise. "I can't believe a kid that acts like this is really a kid. Could be some bloke polyjuiced as him or…mind-swapped or something."
"Mind-swapped?" Turkish asked with an incredulous look. "You been readin' those sci-fi books of yours before bedtime again?"
"All I'm saying is, kid that age should be running around and climbing trees, playing tag with his friends, like," Tommy said. "Instead, he's reading books by the fireplace with a cuppa, talking finance with his hired hands, sending out notarized letters to Albus bugging Dumbledore himself to get his invisibility cloak back. That's not what a kid does when he's ten going eleven."
"D'you remember what we were doing when we were ten?" Turkish asked, taking a drag from his cigarette and letting a plume of smoke into the air. "Running letters for Yardies, stealing cartons of cigarettes off trucks. Not exactly the wholesome childhood scene."
"Well, yeah, but we didn't exactly grow up in the wholesome childhood environment…oh…"
"Yeah, 'oh'," Turkish said. "However Harry Potter grew up, it obviously wasn't good news, and it just as obviously left an impression on him. If that means we can make a few galleons playing housekeeper and bringing him the mail, so long as he's happy, I'm not overly fussed about the nature of his mannerisms, as it were."
"Oi, what about this one?" Tommy said, holding the chain to a large golden locket with a snake emblazoned on it. He brandished it at Turkish, who watched it dangle left and right before taking it up and examining it. "Bit gaudy, y'think?"
"Let's keep this one," Turkish said. "He might wanna get it appraised before he messes around trying to sell it. 'Sides, that snake means it could be Sally Slytherin's. That's worth a pretty penny, if it is."
"D'you think maybe he's being imperiused by someone?" Tommy asked as he lowered the locket into the box they were planning to take back their diminutive boss. "That'd explain the eyes. Creepy, aren't they?"
"Gringotts has ways of detecting that sort of thing," Turkish insisted. "You think they wouldn't want to make sure every rich pureblood in the British Isles doesn't get befuddled into emptying their vaults? Our boss is a weird kid, but he seems friendly enough, and he's willing to pay us a lot of money to be his good little regents. We play our cards right, no more slot machines, no more illegal dueling rings. Three hundred galleons a week, Tommy. For that much, I'm willing to ask exactly zero questions. And you should be, too."
"…He's a nice kid, ain't 'e?" Tommy said.
"Proper charming, he is," Turkish said, clapping Tommy on the shoulder. "And he's expecting us to have this drawing room spick and span 'fore the end of the day. So what say we stop speculating about whatever manner of mental trauma he's gone through and get to sorting out this mess?"
"Yeah, fine," he said. "Think I saw some doxies in the curtains. We'll have to call in a crew, have the room fumigated."
"Reckon we'll have to have the whole place fumigated," Turkish said. "Let's finish sorting everything out and then worry about extermination."
"I do like to procrastinate," Tommy nodded.
"That's the spirit."
…
The cottage at Godric's Hollow had been a simple project, a matter of fixing up the hole that had been blown in the ground-floor nursery and reapplying a smattering of wards standard to most wizard houses within muggle territory. After two days of work by a dedicated crew, it had been deemed perfectly livable for an eleven-year-old boy looking for a picturesque home to get away from the complications of life as one of the most famous wizards in Europe.
Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, however, was a different tale.
While the Potter Cottage had been relatively harmless—the home to a doomed young couple looking for a place to quietly raise their infant son—the townhouse tucked away in Grimmauld Place had been the ancestral home to one of the most prominent pureblood families in Europe, top five of the Sacred Twenty-Eight lineages. As such, it had been packed with all sorts of dark artefacts, a cesspool of evil energy that had attracted every manner of unsavory dark creature one could imagine. Boggarts had found their way into plenty of nooks and crannies, ready to confront unsuspecting witches and wizards with their deepest-seeded fears, and doxies littered the curtains and drapes hung about the place in the hopes of snapping at fingers and noshing on noses.
As such, the home required a distinctly more zealous approach.
While Turkish and Tommy were happy to sift through the remnants of the Black family's extensive collection of vile and villainous odds and ends—every item added to the box of sellables was galleons in their pocket, per Mr. Potter's arrangement with them—they weren't keen to risk the integrity of their fingers and faces (or in the case of a boggart, their mental stability) when a perfectly purchasable alternative was available.
Thus, once everything had been meticulously arranged into items either given over to Mr. Potter for consideration or sold to Belford Borgin for an aggressively-negotiated but perfectly fair price, Turkish and Tommy were happy to turn the townhouse over to Finster's Fumigation, which boasted an unparalleled penchant for pest elimination. Or your galleons back.
In their three-hundred and seventy-four years of operation, they had apparently only had to refund three customers. But really, when you had a basilisk squatting in your basement, pest control wasn't exactly the smartest avenue to pursue.
Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, for all its dark and foreboding atmosphere, was par for the course in Fulton Finster's line of work. In fact, upon laying eyes on the task ahead of him (doxy-infested curtains, boggart-laden cupboards, and a gaggle of ghouls squatting in the attic), he had gotten positively giddy and waived his usual fee for repeat sessions, citing this particular task as a personal challenge.
Turkish hadn't questioned his fervor; everyone had their vices, and Fulton Finster seemed to really enjoy his line of work. Why burst his bubble?
The pest-control expert had had to revisit the home twice to really ensure that every last dark and shadowed corner was free of whatever unpleasantness could have taken up residence, but his sense of professional duty would not abide leaving the work unfinished, and young Mr. Potter had been so impressed that he had seen fit to personally endorse Fulton Finster's business. Subsequently, every advertisement and pamphlet carried a message from Harry Potter himself, proclaiming Finster's Fumigation to be the only authority in pest-control.
In the following weeks, Mr. Finster saw a 300% boost in business.
He also received a letter from an extremely interested Albus Dumbledore, asking him exactly what sort of service he had provided for Young Mr. Potter. Unfortunately for the headmaster, a confidentiality clause and the handsome bonus payment provided by the young heir to the Potter and Black fortunes kept his lips sealed, and Albus couldn't pursue this line if inquiry without coming across as overly pushy.
For the moment, Albus Dumbledore was well and truly out of the loop.
And he did not like being there.
…
It wasn't long before August gave way to September, and the morning of the first dawned bright and cloudless. Under the relentlessly cheery light of a gorgeous late-summer day, Hermione Granger sat in the back of her father's brand-new Bentley Continental R, staring out the window as Charing Cross Road sped by. A tumult of emotions churned in the eleven-year-old's stomach, threatening to push forth Mum's painstakingly-cooked breakfast of turkey and spinach egg-white omelets. Every second spent in her parents' company felt like a countdown, a timer ticking away at the last moments she had with them. Logically, she knew she would see them again, but she would never again be their little girl, their dearest daughter. She would spend the next ten months (well, nine and three-quarters—could that be the reasoning for the name of the platform!?) learning her part in a completely different world, one utterly detached from Mum and Dad and one they could never fully understand.
It was a frightening prospect, to imagine being away from them for so very long and then returning to them someone totally different. Would they even recognize her when she was done, would they still understand that she was their daughter and some magical girl weaving spells and spinning incantations?
As ever, Mum had the exact answer she needed.
"Remember, dear," she said as they pulled into the parking lot. "You will always have your Mum and Dad to come back to. Whatever spells you learn, whatever magic you figure out, you'll always, always be our little girl."
"And I don't want to see any letters a week in asking us to come and get you, because my daughter is no quitter," Dad added. "You'll knock 'em dead at that school, you'll teach them the proper way to work magic. I know it."
Hermione tried to speak, but a lump of emotion had settled into her throat, tears welling in her eyes. Truly, beyond any possible doubt, she had the absolute best parents.
"Come along, dear," Dad said, and the three of them all climbed from the car. "Let's not make you late. That'd sure be an embarrassing letter to send to that McGonagall woman."
"I don't think I'd be able to show my face once they did manage to get me there," Hermione said. "If I can't even manage punctuality, I've no business learning magic."
Dad dragged a trolley out to the car, and they loaded Hermione's trunk aboard, as well as a few bags of books and stationery. Mum and Dad had asked for weekly letters at least, but Hermione was sure she would be sending them along daily, or at least every two.
Inside, King's Cross was an impressive sight. Hermione had been through a few times before (once to visit Paris and once on the first leg of a journey to see her grandfather in Sutton Bonington), but the high sweeping ceiling and constant bustle never ceased to amaze her. The rumble of arriving and departing trains, the screech and hiss of brakes, the constant burble of chatter, it was a frenetic energy that seemed a magic all its own.
"Alright, so this Platform Nine and Three-Quarters," Dad said. "Does it appear, like the way into Diagon Alley, or…?"
"From what I've read, I'm to go at the wall between Nine and Ten, and I'll just…slip right through," Hermione said. "I don't think muggles are allowed on the platform, though. Safety concerns and all that."
"Then…I suppose we'll be seeing you off from here," Mom said in a choked voice as they slowed to a stop between the two platforms. She turned and peered down at Hermione with shining eyes. "My wonderful magical girl."
"Mum, if you start crying, I'll start crying," Hermione cautioned her, and Mum let a shaky laugh as she pulled Hermione into a hug, squeezing her in a way that no one but Mum was able. Pulling away, she turned and was immediately treated to the same from Dad, who placed a peck on top of her head.
"You'll spell circles around them, pumpkin, I just know it," he said. "Those magic folk don't know what's about to hit 'em."
"I love you," Hermione said, stepping away from the hug and reaching back to place a hand on her trolley. "I promise I'll write. First thing when I get to my dormitory. I'll tell you everything."
"Don't leave anything out," Mum agreed. "I want a five-page dissertation."
"Maybe send me the abridged version," Dad added, and Hermione giggled, resisting the urge to dive in for another hug. She couldn't stand here and mope all day; it was time to take the next, massive step in her life.
Taking a deep breath, she turned and gripped the handle of her trolley, pushing it forward toward the wall between the two platforms. Despite knowing she would breeze right through (it was simply inconceivable that this could all be some elaborate plot to humiliate her in front of the entirety of King's Cross), she still couldn't help but wince a bit as she neared the barrier, ready for the jarring sensation of her trolley colliding with solid brick.
Instead, the wall seemed to wisp around her, and after a brief moment of pitch blackness, she emerged onto the platform.
"Oh my goodness," she breathed, slowing to a stop before moving away in case anyone else came dashing through.
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was gorgeous, an old stone tunnel sporting a beautiful scarlet steam engine right out of the early 1900s. As Hermione watched, it belched forth a massive plume of steam that engulfed the platform, likely causing havoc for those with glasses. The platform itself was a riot of activity as students of all ages mingled and caught up, situating their trunks and finding seats before all the good ones were taken.
With one more deep breath, Hermione gripped her trolley and pressed onward.
Hogwarts awaited.
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