When Harry stepped through the convergence at Platform 6 ¾, Other than the moment of looming bricks that quickly faded, there was no real sensation of travel: just like stepping through the sling portals or doors between sanctums on Earth, space had been truly folded.

The big shock was simply the difference in environment. One moment, they'd been in the middle of a huge building in the center of one of the largest cities on the planet, and the next they were outside on a single stonework slab with only a wooden awning for cover from the cool misty rain and dense arboreal forest that surrounded the train station. A single, cherry-red locomotive waited beside the station on its only train track. Up a hill, they could make out sparse dwellings of an ancient style: the village that had grown up to service the station.

A large bonfire had been set on the other end of the train platform, and every few moments it flared green as a family stepped out of the fire with a spiral of sparks reminiscent of the sling ring portals, the children of the families dragging their own luggage. "If they have magical transport here, why don't they just go all the way to the school?" Harry asked.

"Oh! I know!" Hermione jumped in, before Cho could answer, "It's because Hogwarts is deep in some of the most magical territory of Vanaheim, and heavily warded besides. You have to be very skilled and powerful to get all the way there and not go off course."

"There are also a few routes reserved for the Ministry," Cho added, grudgingly impressed at Hermione's understanding. "Are you going to be in Ravenclaw?" she asked.

"Maybe. Though I read that Headmaster Dumbledore was Gryffindor and he's the greatest living wizard on Vanaheim," Hermione shrugged.

"I think I might be in Ravenclaw," Padma volunteered.

"Traitor," Parvati told her sister, jokingly.

Though he was getting a little overwhelmed by Hermione's need to regurgitate information, and had been thinking about trying to extricate himself, her mention that she might be a Gryffindor caused him to reconsider. At the very least, she could be a housemate for seven years so there was no reason to antagonize her. "Should we get on?" he asked, instead.

Cho made sure they found a compartment together and then went to find her own friends. Everyone worked together to get their trunks onto the racks, as Hermione explained, "The Hogwarts Express is fully steam-powered, so is about the only piece of technology that works on Vanaheim. It was accidentally transported from London when the convergence first happened, before the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj could get the portal stabilized and reduced to just platform 6 ¾. They decided it was a more useful method of getting students to Hogwarts than the days-long wagon train they used before it, so took the effort to install over 200 miles of tracks."

"Nearly two centuries old and it shows," Harry joked, finding the early-1800s-era train extremely quaint compared to the cutting edge modes of transportation he'd been raised around. He'd even flown on Tony's private jet and ridden in a few of his sports cars on more than one occasion. But despite showing its ancient design sensibilities, the train was at least well-maintained. The plush interior of the individual cabin left room for all five kids, though it might become cramped for more than four of the larger teens.

As they chose seats, the lingering tween fear of cooties served to break up the original separation between those that had come from Kamar-Taj and those that had been waiting in London. The girls took one side of the cabin, and the boys the other.

Looking for something to talk about in the now tensely-gender-segregated compartment, Hermione observed, "I guess those coming from Vanaheim don't have to worry so much about the barrier shutting," as they all watched a large family of redheads rush out of the bonfire and race to the train, already building up steam. Her watch (a mechanical one she'd have to remember to wind) suggested it was already past 11 on the Midgard side. With quick farewells to their parents and little sister, the four boys of various sizes rushed to various points on the train, the last of the arrivals, as the Hogwarts Express began to roll away from the station and into the primeval forest.

Only a minute later, the smallest redheaded boy knocked at their door, having observed their empty seat and asked, "Anyone sitting there? Everywhere else is full." The cabin gave a group shrug and helped the boy put his trunk up. "I'm Ron Weasley," he introduced himself, sitting next to Harry, who was in the middle seat after allowing Dean the window.

The rest of the kids introduced themselves around the compartment, and Harry's eyes narrowed as he said his name and Ron immediately looked at his forehead, where he'd taken to letting his hair fall over the tell-tale scar. Hardly anyone had ever mentioned the scar in elementary school. He suddenly regretted sitting right next to the new boy as Ron moved way too deep into his personal space.

"You mean Harry Potter?" Ron asked, trying to peer under Harry's bangs. "And have you really got… you know?"

Harry shot the girls a look across the way and Hermione suddenly got why Padma had shut her up earlier. This kind of casual inspection like Harry was an animal in the zoo made it obvious why he might not be interested in being a celebrity. Harry grudgingly flipped up his hair to briefly show his lightning-rune-shaped scar and then let it fall, saying, "Yes. But please. I'm just a kid like you. I didn't ask to be famous because I didn't die with my parents."

"But that's where You-Know-Who—?"

"Are your whole family magical?" Hermione jumped in, seeing Harry sigh. "Only I heard that it wasn't guaranteed to breed true, even in highly magical families. It looked like you have three brothers that are all wizards too?"

"Five, actually," Ron was distracted by the question, and explained, "I'm the sixth in my family to go to Hogwarts. My oldest two brothers already graduated. Ginny, too. She's starting next year. But, yeah, the main family hasn't had a lot of squibs. I have an uncle who is. He became a bookkeeper."

"Is that normal?" Dean asked. "Is almost everyone that lives here a wizard?"

"Oh, no," Ron explained. Hermione winked at Harry that the boy seemed to have been distracted, and he smiled back at her. "Most of the farmers, and artisans, and warriors aren't magic. Like anywhere, I suppose. But it's hard to join the Ministry if you're not magical, because our wizards are the only ones that can stand up to the other realms, really. You've gotta be something special, like Hogun the Grim, to make it without magic. And some squibs don't like how they're treated, having to live without magic after they grew up with it."

"So it's like the nobility, on Earth," Hermione summarized. "Does anyone from the other classes ever become a wizard?"

"Sure," Ron shrugged. "But they're probably related to a wizard somewhere. It's not like on Asgard where there's the royal family and then everyone else. Well, I guess there are some families that act like those that haven't been magical for generations shouldn't count."

With Ron lacking the political vocabulary to discuss social mobility or explain that the population of Vanaheim was actually tiny compared to that of Midgard, such that everyone was fairly closely related, the conversation kind of stalled out after that, but at least Harry's celebrity had been safely bypassed. Eventually Ron realized everyone else was from Midgard, and so they started taking turns explaining things to him, most of which he didn't really believe fully.

"My dad's on the Ministry team that polices accidental crosses between the realms, and the only Midgard stuff we get that does much of anything is guns," Ron explained his disbelief. "He has a lot of gadgets in the shed that he got from travelers that just kind of sit there and don't do anything unless he enchants them."

"Actually, that reminds me," Harry said, standing up and asking for help getting his trunk open. He took out the bag of items he'd bought at the goblin market. "I believe Earth technology doesn't work, but surely some alien tech has to? If I can just figure out something that works, maybe Tony can figure out how to get my laptop working."

"Tony?" Hermione asked.

Harry realized that admitting he knew Tony Stark wouldn't help his not-a-celebrity case and just hedged, "My aunt's boss. He's really smart with technology." He started trying to turn the various gadgets on and none of them worked. "Well that sucks."

"It's the eckeltricity," Ron suggested. "Only Asgard items work here, and they're basically half magic anyway. That's what keeps aliens from invading us. The boats they need to sail through space can't make it here, and their weapons don't work if they find some way in anyway."

Harry sighed, "Yeah, that's what everyone told me, but I hoped… And I know if I could tell Tony about it, he'd probably be able to come up with some way to test why it doesn't work at least. Maybe come up with some alternate power source. I mean, steam power clearly works… but I guess even if you could, you'd have to completely recreate transistors and circuits and chips from the ground up…"

"Are you sure you're not going to be a Ravenclaw?" Padma grinned, as Harry's ramble had clearly lost Ron, Dean, and her sister, at least. Hermione was looking at him speculatively, as well, not having pegged the boy as having any academic interest.

"Nah," Harry waved off. "I'm not smart, smart. I just went to a private school that was big on the sciences, and, like I said, my aunt's boss is a genius so you pick stuff up."

"And have you compared yourself to anyone other than geniuses?" Padma asked, still working hard at getting someone else she knew in her house.

Harry shrugged and hunched a little, unfamiliar with anyone thinking he was that bright. Sure, he was at a private school made up of the kids of mostly tech millionaires, so it was pretty tough, but he wasn't anywhere near the top of his class. And he'd always thought of himself as at least an order of magnitude dumber than Tony.

He didn't have a lot of introspection about the fact that he was an 11-year-old that knew what an "order of magnitude" was.

This discussion was interrupted by a woman with a food cart outside. Based on the angle of the sun, it must be midday here, and it was a little surprising that it wasn't that far off from the same time in London. Harry had crossed so many time zones in the last 24 hours that he wasn't sure what meal his internal clock was set to, but he decided he was starving anyway and bought food for the entire cabin against everyone's objections that they could pay for their own (or Ron's that he'd brought a sandwich).

He'd later reflect that tossing around gold like water was perhaps not the best way to avoid his celebrity image.

While most of the food was decent but easy-traveling and simple food like meat pies, the Midgardian children were surprised to find mass-produced candy for dessert. They had chocolate frogs that were briefly animated to hop around, jelly beans in a disgusting variety of flavors, an interesting focus on pumpkin flavors, and stranger fare. "I guess you don't really need electricity to run a printing press," Hermione realized, impressed by the color-printed packaging. It stood out as unusual in the basically-a-fantasy-movie world they'd agreed to go to school in.

Ron was shocked to find the whole compartment staring at him like he was a dog that had just done a very impressive trick. Maybe Midgardians weren't as backwards as everyone thought.

Not long after they finished their lunch and snacks, a small, round-faced boy that looked like he'd been crying knocked and opened their compartment door, asking, "Sorry, but have any of you seen a toad at all?" They all shook their heads, and he wailed, "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"

"He'll turn up," Harry offered, wondering if there was a practical benefit to having a toad as a familiar compared to a more mobile one like Hedwig.

"We'll help you look for him!" Hermione offered.

"You… you will?" the boy asked.

"Yeah," Parvati agreed, standing. "It'll be a great excuse to meet other people, if nothing else."

"We'll hold down the cabin," Padma just shook her head at her twin's gregariousness. The boys nodded at the out. Three trying to squeeze down the aisles already seemed like a lot.

As the two girls left to help find the toad, Harry took the opportunity to move across to the other side of the cabin, asking, "Do toads make good familiars?"

"Probably better than mine," Ron said, withdrawing a mangy-looking, fat, and very-unconscious rat from a robe pocket. "He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference. I think toads are supposed to be good for practicing spells and potions on? They're really durable. I tried casting a spell on Scabbers to turn him yellow. Thought it would make him more interesting, and that didn't even work." He withdrew a battered-looking wand from his trunk. The metal core was visible in places through the scratched up wooden veneer. "I'll show you, look–"

"How do you already have your wand?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," Dean added. "The giant guy said I wouldn't get mine until school."

"Mr. Ollivander is a dwarf, not a giant," Padma corrected. "But, yes, same for Parvati and me."

Ron blushed slightly, and admitted, "I didn't get a custom wand from Ollivanders. A lot of the older families like mine have so many left over from relatives that we just pick one that works."

"Oh," Padma nodded. "Do those work well? Mr. Ollivander made it sound like they had to be very carefully calibrated to the energies of the wizard or witch."

Ron just shrugged, tacitly admitting that they probably didn't. "Maybe that's why the spell didn't work. I wish I had a better familiar than Scabbers, though. Even a toad."

"I didn't even get a familiar," Dean shrugged. "Mom didn't think I was ready for a pet."

"Same," Padma agreed.

"I got an owl, but mostly just so I could write home to my aunt. And contact people during holidays, I guess," Harry explained.

That seemed to make Ron feel a little better. "I guess he's pretty easy to carry around," he decided. "If I can just bond with him, maybe I'll have him on hand to do familiar magic. Percy never did, though." Off of their looks, he explained, "He belonged to my older brother, Percy. But Percy's a prefect this year, so got an owl as a present and gave me Scabbers."

"I get a lot of hand-me-downs from my cousins," Dean consoled him. "Some of them are cool, but sometimes it just feels like your parents don't want to buy you anything new." The child of a single mother, he could tell that the other kids from Earth probably didn't understand what it was like to be from a family that struggled, financially.

"Maybe you'll start getting the cool hand-me-downs now that your oldest brothers have graduated?" Padma suggested, trying to help. "Do they do anything interesting?"

"Yeah, maybe," Ron allowed. "Charlie's a dragon handler, so maybe I can get him to let me have any used armor he has that isn't too singed. Bill's really tall, so it would be a while before any of his stuff would fit me. He works as a curse breaker for Gringotts. Oh! Did you hear about the break-in at Gringotts?"

The others shook their heads. "Hagrid said it was the most secure bank in the universe, or something," Harry remembered. "Seemed pretty tough. What'd they take?"

"Nothing, that's what's odd. Got in and out without getting caught or seeming to take anything. When something like this happens, everyone's worried it's Death Eaters or something." The others vaguely recognized the name for the death cult that had been the other side in the recent war that Harry got credit for ending.

"Could just be an alien with high-tech gear," Harry suggested. "After all, it's not just magic that works in the market, right?"

That spurred a fun conversation about how they'd all break into Gringotts with technology from science fiction movies. Ron tried to keep up but wasn't totally sure if these "lightsabers" that everyone else agreed would automatically get them in were actually something Midgardians had invented.

They were interrupted in the debate about whether Gringotts would be able to protect against the starship Enterprise's transporter beams by the door to the compartment opening to three kids who were not Hermione, Parvati, and the toad boy returning. Instead, the pale child Harry had met at Madam Malkin's was in the doorway, flanked by two chubby boys that might be intimidatingly large someday.

"They're talking about it all the way up and down the train. Is it true? Are you Harry Potter?" the spoiled child drawled. Harry hadn't really noticed before, but the kid must have just slathered on the product to get such an 80s-chic slicked back effect for his hair.

Harry sighed. He wasn't sure if Hermione or Parvati had slipped, or someone else had figured it out. He nodded, not even bothering to correct his last name to Potts. It seemed like a losing battle.

"I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Oh, and this is Crabbe and Goyle," he indicated his entourage. Ron choked while trying to hide a snicker, and Draco asked, "Something funny? No need to ask who you are. Red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford: must be a Weasley."

Before Ron could get too red in the face, Harry butted in, "I've seen this movie! By the end, Ron's stolen your girlfriend and beaten you out for the ski championships."

Dean and Padma laughed, and some of Ron's need to fight back died down as he didn't get what Harry was talking about, but could tell that he was making fun of Malfoy. "What?" Malfoy started to get pink as Ron's flush faded. "I don't… have a girlfriend. And what's a ski championship?"

"What I'm saying, Hair Gel," Harry said, drawing on how Tony liked to establish dominance with off-putting nicknames, "is that you're coming on like the bad guy in a cheesy sports movie. Next thing you know, someone's going to be all, 'Sweep the leg, Draco!'"

"Put him in a body bag!" Dean added. Even Padma seemed lost at that point, not really familiar with every American movie that had come out over a decade before she was born.

"Are those… spells?" Draco asked, certain he was being made fun of but not understanding how. Trying to regain control, he said, "I just came back here to tell you, Potter, that some wizarding families are much better than others, and you don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort."

"You want to try that a different way?" Dean asked, dangerously. After growing up black in New York, he was clearly not ready to also have to deal with space racists.

"Yeah, that's a really bad look," Padma agreed, who'd been worried about the secret caste system in Vanir culture that she was walking into.

"Maybe come back when you've thought about why insulting everyone you meet isn't the best way to make friends?" Harry suggested.

Draco looked like he was about to make things worse when Hermione's voice called down, "We're almost there! Oh, hello. Can we get by?"

Thoroughly wrong-footed by now being outnumbered two-to-one as Hermione and Parvati waited impatiently at their flank, Draco sneered and got out, "We'll revisit this later, Potter!" before attempting to stalk off. This exit was immediately ruined by having to manage his two goons squeezing around the girls in the narrow train aisle.

"Those boys didn't seem friendly when we were looking for Neville's toad," Parvati suggested, once they'd gotten back in and Draco's entourage had gone.

"Apparently, they have rich English racists in Vanaheim, too," Padma informed her sister with an eyeroll.

Perhaps trying to breeze past her own share of native British colonizer guilt, Hermione suggested, "We better change into robes. The boys can go in the hallway with their backs turned while we change in here?"

That was easier said than done, but the six were properly dressed by the time the train pulled into the station. Harry's bespoke robes had arrived via UPS a week before he left, with Madam Malkin somehow getting the package inserted into the Midgardian parcel delivery service. The Vanaheim style of robe wasn't that different than those worn by the Masters of the Mystic Arts: tailored close to the torso and arms with long skirts open in the front over flowing pants. While the school guidelines had suggested darker colors for students, they'd had leeway on materials and exact shades, so they looked somber but not like a group of necromancers.

The train began to slow to a stop, and a voice, presumably that of the conductor, echoed through the cars. "We're about to stop at Hogsmeade station. Leave your luggage on board. It will be moved for you."

All the kids, even Ron, were excited: they were about to see Hogwarts.