Chapter 4 - The Hogwarts Express
The morning or September 1st Hazel put on the best clothes that she could find in her closet, a red shirt with a dragon flying across it and a pain of jeans. It was better than the Stonewall High grey uniforms that she would have had to wear if she wasn't going to Hogwarts - that was for sure. Actually, anything was better than the Stonewall High uniforms.
Mary, thankfully, hadn't made a breakfast quite as large as the last one she had made and they managed to eat it all for breakfast and not for any other meal. But, even so, they were still as full as they could get without exploding when they were finished with the breakfast. Pancakes, waffles, fruit, orange juice, grape juice, jam, jelly, and cocoa weren't a small breakfast by any means.
Hazel ran frantically around the house making sure she hadn't forgot to pack anything. Being 1,000 miles away from home meant that Mary or John couldn't just drive something over if she forgot it. Actually, she didn't think that anyone could drive her something. It seemed to Hazel that the castle was anti-muggled or something.
"Whatever." Hazel muttered.
As they piled into the car Hazel noticed that the people down the road in number 4 Privet Drive were getting into a car as well, and they loaded in a trunk and an empty cage that looked like the owl cages she had seen in Diagon Alley, but it must have been coincidence because the inhabitants of number 4 were the most obnoxious people that could ever have walked the planet. There were only three of them and they were all out of proportion. Two of them were far too wide to be normal and the woman was far, far too thin to be healthy and the woman was nosy. She was always peaking out of the window. The other two could be found, every day without without fail, sitting in the kitchen, watching TV, and making frequent stops to the refrigerator and the pantry to replenish their stock on the table. Maybe they were going to a trip, but she couldn't see where they could go with that fat boy in their car. He seemed to take up most of the back seat in the car and even so, he seemed to need MORE room. Hazel shook her head as she watched. How someone could eat that much was a mystery to her.
As they drove on Hazel began to notice that Hedwig, the beautiful snowy white owl, was following the car that the fat kid had gotten into. She was flying perfectly with the car and turned exactly with the car. She thought this was odd, but tucked that matter into the back of her mind for later, along with the millions of other questions, ideas, and things in her mind. Her mind was either stuffed to the maximum capacity or so empty that it seemed to buzz.
Before she knew it, they were at King's Cross Station. As she pulled out her ticket she remembered her problem. How was it possible to get on Platform 9 ¾? It didn't exist, did it? How could there be ¾ of a platform? Would there then be ¾ of a train to meet her at ¾ of a platform?
Okay, stop asking questions. Hazel told herself. It does no good.
One of the people that worked at the train station, a trolley boy, shoved a cart in her face and stalked off. Hazel stood stunned for a minute and she slowly started rubbing her sore ribs.
Mary and John hugged her warmly. As John looked at his watch he gasped.
"We have to go honey." He said quickly. "Have a good time at Hogwarts and send us letters, alright?" Then they dashed off together to get into the car before they were late for something, leaving Hazel stranded in the train station. Hazel stood there and contemplated what had just happened. Why did people always ignore her? That or ditch her.
Lost. Hazel thought bitterly. I'm Lost.
She began pushing her cart around looking for platforms nine or ten, because 9 ¾ should be somewhere near the middle of the two. That much she knew, and that was about all she knew.
The station was packed with people getting on trains. There was a line for the train to France, and many men were looking at tickets and dashing about trying to find their train. Women were shushing their babies and some workers were trying to drive golf carts through the mass mob of people. Children were screaming that they wanted ice cream or candies. She even saw some people running on the tops of trains, their hats clapped to their heads, and trying desperately to find the correct train, which, Hazel reflected, must have been hard because the train's numbers were written on the side of the trains. There was thick smog in the air from all of the trains that had come and gone, and not to mention all of the people that were smoking.
Hazel fished her grey bucket hat out of her trunk, before snapping it closed, and rolled her hair up into it so she wouldn't be starred at for her too long hair. She realized that there were not very many people that had four-foot long hair.
She looked up and saw Hedwig the owl soaring over her head. It was the first being that she had recognized in the whole train station. She wondered why Hedwig was here, and she wondered whether Hedwig could help her. Maybe. Maybe.
"Hedwig!" She cooed to the owl, catching her attention. She dug into her pockets and pulled out a packet of owl treats that she had gotten at Diagon Alley. Hedwig soared down to her at once, begging for a treat.
"Hold on," Hazel said, snatching up the owl treats from the inside of her trunk. "You show me how to get onto Platform 9 ¾ then I give you the whole packet. Deal?" The owl hooted in response and began to fly towards Platform 10.
No, not platform 10. Platform 9 ¾!! Hazel screamed in her mind.
Hazel was now sprinting; with some difficulty due to the fact she was dragging her cart behind her, to keep up with the owl. The cart was click clacking on every concrete seam as she ran. Hedwig seemed to know her way around here now, because she flew expertly the whole time, and didn't seem to need to take any time to look around. Hazel looked down at her feet for a second, to make sure she wasn't going to slip and fall, and when she looked up Hedwig was gone.
Hazel looked up and left and right and about everywhere she could while staying in the same spot. But Hedwig wasn't in sight. She seemed to just be gone. Simply out of the universe.
"Well, she can't have vanished through the wall." Hazel said sarcastically. She sat down on a bench feeling a little discouraged.
"Maybe she's in an alternate universe." Hazel joked, as she felt more discouraged than she ever could have felt before she had followed Hedwig on some wild goose - or owl - chase.
Eyes now stinging from the smog floating like clouds around the station, Hazel blinked the tears out of her eyes and snatched her sunglasses from her pocket and slipped them on. They protected her eyes from some of the smog, but not all of it. Not even close to all of it. But at least she could see now.
Hazel looked desperately at her watch. It was 10:57 and if she didn't figure out how to get on the train soon, she would miss it, and miss her chance to learn more magic, and to find out about her past, to find out about her parents. To find out about who she really was.
"Come along Ronald." Said a motherly voice. Hazel jumped. "You first."
"Aw, Mum! Don't be a spoilsport! Let the really-" a red-haired boy began.
"Extremely-" another boy said. He looked exactly like the first.
"Super-"
"Um, duper-"
"Superstar go first!" The last boy finished. He had an evil grin on his face the perfectly matched the grin of the boy next to him.
"Who would I do that to, Fred? Any why?" The mother-like figure asked. She was pleasantly plump and she looked like a nice woman, but at the moment she looked slightly angry.
"Because, he's Harry Potter."
Hazel had to clap her hand to her mouth to keep from almost yelling. Feeling faint, Hazel staggered over to a wall and leaned against it. That woman COULDN'T have said, 'Harry Potter', because it just wasn't possible. There was no Harry Potter.
There IS NO Harry Potter, it's just a coincidence that there is a boy with the same last name and the fact that the people that she had seen when she had been stuck in the wall had said Hazel and Harry Potter, and -
Hazel gave up trying to reason with herself, because she was losing. There was no way that she could deny the fact that there really did seem to be a boy named Harry Potter, and she couldn't deny that Potter wasn't a common last name. Hazel craned her neck trying to see if she could catch a glimpse of the boy, but all she could see was a sea of red hair and freckles.
Besides, Hazel reasoned, up until a few weeks ago, Hazel Potter didn't exist as far as she was concerned.
Sighing, Hazel remembered the predicament she still had. How DID you get onto the platform? As she stood, watching, she watched one of the boys start driving his trolley towards the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Hazel watched him, waiting to see the moment when the trolley would meet the solid panel of wall, but there was never a sickening thud or even a yell and all she saw was the boy disappear. Hazel wrinkled her brow and thought it over for a minute.
"Of course," Hazel whispered. "Platform 9 ¾ . . ." Hazel remained hidden until all of the red haired people had gone and then she herself went, very cautiously, through the barrier which she soon realized wasn't very easy because it was hard not to notice someone going through a barrier.
There wasn't even a slight feeling in her body as she went through the barrier, but the disembodied feeling left seconds after she had come out of the barrier and in front of her now was, instead of a brick wall, a giant scarlet steam engine that said in silver lettering, The Hogwarts Express.
Nervously Hazel pushed her sunglasses up her nose as she walked towards the men that were taking luggage from students.
"Excuse me, Sir, where do you want me to take my stuff?" Hazel asked, even though she could see them chucking piles of luggage into the train.
"Right here," the man said as he roughly grabbed and then threw her luggage in a pile.
"Thanks for breaking all of my stuff," Hazel muttered as she walked away. Everything was confusing her and she didn't know how much more she could learn before she couldn't take in any more information. Maybe she would go insane at 15 and set a world record for being the first teenager to go completely batty.
Everything was happening at such a rate that she couldn't take it much longer. Hazel wanted to just crawl away and hide from everything - magic, Voldemort, her true identity and especially the weird visions she'd been seeing both in her dreams and in that wall at Diagon Alley.
Hazel walked into the last car and began the long search for a place to sit. There were people that didn't look inviting to sit with, and there were some people that seemed as if they would kill her if she were to disturb them now. As she reached the last car in the train she looked in the window and she saw a red-haired boy and a bushy-haired girl that looked like Hermione. They were both pulling a hood over a third boy and she couldn't see who he was. She was about to reach over and open the door when-
"HEY! I haven't seen you around here. Who are you? I'm Paravati Patil. Would you like to sit with me and my few friends?" Before Hazel had time to answer she was being lead - or rather, drug - down the many cars and pulled into a compartment.
It turned out that a 'few friends' was the understatement of the century. There were at least 20 girls crammed in the small, five person compartment. Hazel took a small gasp and was thankful for the fact that she wasn't claustrophobic.
"HEY!" Paravati yelled into the crowd. "THIS IS A NEW STUDENT AND THIS IS THE NEWEST MEMBER OF WITCHLY GIRLS WEEKLY!" The sea of girls screamed and began showering Hazel with presents. Handkerchiefs, necklaces, bracelets, rings, headscarves, tiaras, and even someone's shirt. A large something cascaded down onto her head and Hazel staggered, trying to regain her balance. Blinking, Hazel looked around for her attacker and found a sneering face inches away from hers.
"So, is it true?" the boy asked. He had silvery blonde hair and a pointed face. He was grinning maliciously at her and she didn't like the look in his eyes.
"Is what true?" Hazel asked scornfully as she rubbed her now sore head. He hit hard.
"That you're another Mudblood here to scum up the school." Hazel frowned slightly. Mudblood. the word seemed familiar to her but she wasn't sure where she had heard the word before. There was an instant uproar of words in the compartment though. About three girls were rolling up their sleeves threateningly and many others were glaring angrily at the boy. Something about the way he looked made her think of his name.
"No. I'm not a 'mudblood'." Hazel said sweetly. Pretending to be nice.
"Good. Then what are you?" He asked angrily as he glared at her.
"Well, I'm not quite sure, but I CAN tell you what I'm not. I'm not a 'mudblood', I'm not a Jerk, and I'm most definitely not a Malfoy. Who would want to be a Malfoy anyway?"
His eyes narrowed and he took a step back to size her up. He looked over her and, if possible, his eyes narrowed even less.
"I don't like your cheek."
Hazel laughed derisively. "MY cheek? Ha. You should talk." With one last sneer the boy left and nearly half of the girls in the compartment were regarding Hazel with a wary eye.
"WHAT?" Hazel said and she didn't even try to hide the annoyance in her voice.
"You're NOT a new student, are you? I mean, you knew Draco Malfoy and you knew what a Mudblood was and - and - " Hazel could tell that Paravati was searching desperately for some reason to suspect that she wasn't new and she was failing miserably.
"Oh, well, I had this information page sent to me," Hazel lied quickly. "And - uh - there was one letter from a student in each house - ya'know, Gryffindor and Slytherin - and so I got tips from someone in each house and I was warned in all of the letters about Draco Malfoy and he was described, so, yeah. . ." This excuse seemed to work for all of the girls except one girl that had fiery red hair.
"What?" Hazel whispered to her as the rest of the girls got back to talking of the hot guy of the week which Hazel suspected really did change every week,
"You look like someone else that I know." The girl said slowly. "But I can't quite figure out who."
Oh my god, Hazel thought, she knows, She knows that I am Harry's twin. I hope he doesn't go here.
"Listen," Hazel hissed. "Come outside and I'll talk to you, but not in here." The girl nodded slowly and reluctantly and followed her out of the compartment. She kept looking back as if she was expecting everyone to come back out with them.
"Okay, so, who, exactly, do I look like?" Hazel said suddenly after a short silence.
"Well. . ." the girl said. She thought for a minute or two and then she "You look like a guy named Harry - " Hazel gasped.
"-Potter," the girl finished. The girl looked her over a few times and then pulled off her sunglasses and hat. Hazel knew that the girl was putting two and two together. "Okay, this is too weird. Who ARE you? Tell me now," the girl said threateningly and she pulled out her wand.
"Don't make me do it. Don't." Hazel backed away slowly as though she were a rogue tiger.
"I'm Hazel - " Hazel didn't know what to say. Should she tell this girl her real name?
"Hazel what?" Hazel whipped around making sure that there wasn't anyone else around.
"How do I know that I can trust you?" the girl looked startled.
"My name's Ginny Weasley. That's all you need to know. All I need to know is your whole name as well. I gave you mine, you give me yours. Okay?" Hazel considered what she was going to say next.
That name, Hazel thought. I have heard it before, but how? Hazel specifically felt her stomach turn upside down and her mind became empty of everything except a dull buzzing noise. Hazel's feelings must have showed on her face because Ginny asked her if something was wrong.
"I-I know this sounds strange, but I've heard your name before. It's like I've lived another life before, but it's, like, through a dream or something. It's like I've seen this," Hazel gestured around to her. "Before. And, I know this doesn't make sense, but," Hazel paused. "I think I know you."
"But how do you-are you a psychic or a psycho?" Hazel felt too panic- stricken to laugh. She was about to say something when she heard loud bangs and the train suddenly seemed to stop. It jolted so suddenly that she was thrown around the hall. She wildly looked around for Ginny or anyone that she knew but she couldn't see anyone she recognized. She heard laughing and she turned to look in the compartment that it was coming from.
~~~~
"C'mon Sirius, you CAN'T be serious!" one boy was laughing. Hazel felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end. Had he said Sirius? As in Sirius Black? And that boy looked like the sandy-haired man (she noticed as she peeked into the compartment's window) that she had seen - but with less grey hairs and worry lines - in the vision as Hagrid had pulled her out of the wall in Diagon Alley. Could these people be the same people?
Hazel tried to slide open the door, but her hand went through the door. Hazel pulled her hand out and tried again to open the door. Her hand slid through the door once more. Slowly and skeptically, Hazel walked through the compartment door into the compartment where five people sat and surprisingly enough, they all looked like the people she had seen before when she had been stuck in the wall at Diagon Alley.
"You CAN'T be serious, Sirius." The sandy-haired boy said. "You mean to tell me that Snape has the hots for Lily, THAT Lily?" he said, gesturing wildly towards the fiery redhead next to him. Sirius's grin couldn't have been bigger.
"Woah, woah, woah!" James said. "No slimy haired grease ball is getting Lily." James said protectively at the same time that the red haired girl, Lily, said,
"It couldn't be me. Besides, what kind of idiot do you think I'd have to be to like Severus?"
"If Snape wants her, he's gonna have to go through ME." James said loudly and boldly. He sounded so stupid when he said it though that the other four members of the compartment, not counting Hazel, burst out with laughter.
Lily laughed the hardest. "Oh, James, you know I'd NEVER, EVER go out with Severus-"
"Snape." James automatically corrected her.
"Whatever. The point is, that you're the only guy that likes me." Lily said pointedly. "Or at least it's you're the only guy that likes me that I like."
"Yea," Sirius muttered in what he thought was a quiet voice, but obviously wasn't. "And the only guy who is thick enough to put up with her ranting."
"I heard that, Sirius." A devious smile lit up Lily's face. "Or, should I say Padfoot?" All four of the boys in the compartment looked alarmed and before Hazel could hear what they were going to say next the compartment faded and she found herself sitting in the same compartment as Hermione and two other boys. All three of their lines of vision were locked on her.
"Uh, hi! Just - um - dropping in!" Hazel said as she fled for the door. She hoped Hermione wouldn't recognize her with her hat and sunglasses on.
"Wait!" One of the boys said. "You can stay here." He reached out and took her hand to help her up. She looked at the speaker. He had bright green eyes, unruly black hair, steel, black-rimmed glasses, and he was really skinny and - he looked like HER. Hazel instantly drew back her hand from his grip as though she had been electrically shocked. How was it possible for someone to look like. . .her. . .? The boy looked at his hand and let out a small gasp.
Slowly, Hazel looked at her hand too. There was a perfect crescent moon imprinted on her hand and it was glowing like the cheap glow-in-the- dark chalk that Mary and John had bought for her when she was little. Hazel quickly shoved her hand in her pocket and stood up.
"Nicemeetingyou.Ihavetogo,I'llseeyouatschool.Bye." Hazel said this all very fast and she was sure that she looked guilty. She knew she was being rude but she was frightened. How many people ever meet someone that looks exactly like them and then when they touch it leaves a freakish, glowing residue on your hand that you don't even recognize.
Hazel sprinted down the hall of the train trying to find somewhere to hide until they made it to the train station. Hazel, not looking where she was going, ran smack into someone with a heart-sickening thud.
"Oh my God, are you okay?" Hazel asked the person who groggily murmured an answer.
"What happened?" The boy asked thickly.
"I ran into you. I'm sorry, are you gonna be alright?" Hazel persisted. It would be just her luck if she happened to give some kid a concussion the day before school and classes started. Then she could be hauled somewhere for her motives to be questioned. Yea, she'd make lots of friends that way.
"Um, I think I'll be alright if you pay me back." The boy said in the same thick voice. Hazel blinked and looked at the boy as if he was nuts.
"Ex-excuse me?" Hazel said. Even she heard the loud note of surprise in her voice.
"I'll be alright if you go out with me to the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmead when we go there in two weekends."
"And." Hazel said, trying to stall for time to think of what to say next. "What if I don't?"
"Then you miss a very nice date with a good-looking date and I'll report you to Dumbledore and Snape."
"Done deal." When he mentioned Snape, he didn't need to say anything else. So what if it was only one date? After that, she'd be home free and everything would be back to normal.
The boy grinned.
"The name's Flak." He said. "And my favorite number is 30. My girls are expected to pay for anything and everything that they want and they must sign a contract." Hazel blinked, her brain a little slow on the uptake. This Flak guy talked so fast that all of the words seemed to be strung together into one, complicated word.
"Oh-" Flak continued as though he had just remembered something, which he had.
"And on no accounts are my sleeves to be touched, okay?"
Interesting request, Hazel thought.
"Um, okay, whatever," Hazel said slowly.
"Great." Then Flak started to walk off but decided against it and kissed her cheek. "Later, babe." Hazel waited until he walked away before she started frantically rubbing her cheek with her hand.
"Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!" Hazel whined as she continued to rub her cheek. Panic stricken, Hazel spit in her hand and continued to rub her face.
"I got kissed, by a guy, that is really freaky, AND HE'S A SLYTHERIN." Hazel shivered at the thought. Why had he told her all of those odd things though? Why did it matter what his favorite number was or that his sleeve wasn't to be moved?
"Whatever," Hazel said. "After the worst Hogsmead weekend ever it'll be over."
"And, like, then, like he said, like, 'hey babe' and I was, like, hey dude, and like, he like, said like, well, yo, I'll see ya around, and like, I like almost like fainted!" Paravati's friend finished saying. Hazel sat near the window staring out it and trying to ignore the conversation going on next to her, which wasn't that, hard. When the 'sentence enhancer' "like" is used it's not hard to lose the meaning of the sentence three or four "likes" into it. Hazel had begun measuring the length of their conversations in "LN's" or "Like Numbers".
"Like, oh my gosh!" another girl squealed.
"Ugh," Hazel moaned as she pulled her hat down over her ears farther.
Once again the train jerked, but this time it was for real. The train pulled up to a station and Hazel checked her watch. It said it was ten o'clock, which meant she had been on the train for eleven hours.
"Yeesh." Hazel said to herself as she followed the crowd of mass confusion towards some carriages that looked as though the needed horses, but there weren't any horses in sight.
"Hmm." before Hazel could think much more she was drug into a carriage with Paravati, Lavender, and Ginny.
"Have you seen how cute Dean is becoming?" Lavender gushed. And that was the start of the worst carriage ride Hazel had ever had. As her mind began to wander from the conversation at hand to other matters, Hazel completely lost conciseness of what was happening around her.
Slowly, a pink mist began to creep up Hazel's feet and started winding around her ankles. Hazel continued to watch the mist creep up her body and smiled slightly. A new adventure, maybe it'd give her enough power to conquer the free world and then she could explore alternate universes. The sense of power was enlightening.
The mist continued to creep up her body and it was about at her waist when her conscience kicked in. What if this was a bad thing? What if she would lose consciousness and never be able to come back or what if she was dying and she wasn't even trying not to.
Instead of fighting against the mist as Hazel wanted to, she found that she couldn't control anything except her mind and even that was becoming a burden. She found it harder and harder to think the thoughts that she wanted to and more and more of her thoughts became thoughts of death and killing. Suddenly, everyone in the carriage didn't deserve to live. They were burdens to the world, and they contributed nothing to the wizarding world. They must be diminished.
Hazel felt herself pull out her wand and when she was sure that things would be happening completely the wrong way and she would end up in Azkaban for killing the other three girls, the pink mist started to recede and fade out.
Breathing a sigh of relief both from the receding mist and the realization that she could control herself and her mind once again, Hazel pocketed her wand. That was the last thing she wanted to have to explain.
As the carriages pulled up to the sweeping front lawn of the Hogwarts castle all of the students began piling out and Hazel got the first look of how many people there really would be. Hundreds of students were slowly marching towards the grand staircase the led to the Entrance Hall.
Hazel gave up trying to count the people when, every three minutes, she was interrupted by chattering from Paravati, Lavender, and their "gang". Hazel was still trying to figure out what they'd said ten minutes ago. When she tried to listen to them they seemed to be speaking another language.
Hazel lapsed back into silence. It was too hard trying to speak the same language as they were. Hazel began thinking again. Why did she look exactly like that guy in that compartment? Was he Harry? Her brother Harry? How did she even know she still had a brother? Harry could have died years ago, but then that would explain why people were so unwilling to tell her things about Harry.
As she was almost in the school Hazel looked around her and realized that she was the only person that wasn't dressed in the Hogwarts uniform.
"Ugh." Hazel said and at the same time she forced both of her palms down towards the ground and her clothes shifted from the muggle clothes she had been wearing to her Hogwarts uniform. Everything was put on as neatly as a dolls clothes.
"I gotta remember that one." Hazel muttered as she raced to catch up to the girls. If she was going to have to make friends, she figured that she'd have to learn to speak the same language first.
Authors Notes:
Sorry it's been so long since I last updated! I've been so busy and everything for so long, but now I'm back in action, so expect Chapter 5 in two or three weeks tops.
Thanks for being patient!!!
Saryen
The morning or September 1st Hazel put on the best clothes that she could find in her closet, a red shirt with a dragon flying across it and a pain of jeans. It was better than the Stonewall High grey uniforms that she would have had to wear if she wasn't going to Hogwarts - that was for sure. Actually, anything was better than the Stonewall High uniforms.
Mary, thankfully, hadn't made a breakfast quite as large as the last one she had made and they managed to eat it all for breakfast and not for any other meal. But, even so, they were still as full as they could get without exploding when they were finished with the breakfast. Pancakes, waffles, fruit, orange juice, grape juice, jam, jelly, and cocoa weren't a small breakfast by any means.
Hazel ran frantically around the house making sure she hadn't forgot to pack anything. Being 1,000 miles away from home meant that Mary or John couldn't just drive something over if she forgot it. Actually, she didn't think that anyone could drive her something. It seemed to Hazel that the castle was anti-muggled or something.
"Whatever." Hazel muttered.
As they piled into the car Hazel noticed that the people down the road in number 4 Privet Drive were getting into a car as well, and they loaded in a trunk and an empty cage that looked like the owl cages she had seen in Diagon Alley, but it must have been coincidence because the inhabitants of number 4 were the most obnoxious people that could ever have walked the planet. There were only three of them and they were all out of proportion. Two of them were far too wide to be normal and the woman was far, far too thin to be healthy and the woman was nosy. She was always peaking out of the window. The other two could be found, every day without without fail, sitting in the kitchen, watching TV, and making frequent stops to the refrigerator and the pantry to replenish their stock on the table. Maybe they were going to a trip, but she couldn't see where they could go with that fat boy in their car. He seemed to take up most of the back seat in the car and even so, he seemed to need MORE room. Hazel shook her head as she watched. How someone could eat that much was a mystery to her.
As they drove on Hazel began to notice that Hedwig, the beautiful snowy white owl, was following the car that the fat kid had gotten into. She was flying perfectly with the car and turned exactly with the car. She thought this was odd, but tucked that matter into the back of her mind for later, along with the millions of other questions, ideas, and things in her mind. Her mind was either stuffed to the maximum capacity or so empty that it seemed to buzz.
Before she knew it, they were at King's Cross Station. As she pulled out her ticket she remembered her problem. How was it possible to get on Platform 9 ¾? It didn't exist, did it? How could there be ¾ of a platform? Would there then be ¾ of a train to meet her at ¾ of a platform?
Okay, stop asking questions. Hazel told herself. It does no good.
One of the people that worked at the train station, a trolley boy, shoved a cart in her face and stalked off. Hazel stood stunned for a minute and she slowly started rubbing her sore ribs.
Mary and John hugged her warmly. As John looked at his watch he gasped.
"We have to go honey." He said quickly. "Have a good time at Hogwarts and send us letters, alright?" Then they dashed off together to get into the car before they were late for something, leaving Hazel stranded in the train station. Hazel stood there and contemplated what had just happened. Why did people always ignore her? That or ditch her.
Lost. Hazel thought bitterly. I'm Lost.
She began pushing her cart around looking for platforms nine or ten, because 9 ¾ should be somewhere near the middle of the two. That much she knew, and that was about all she knew.
The station was packed with people getting on trains. There was a line for the train to France, and many men were looking at tickets and dashing about trying to find their train. Women were shushing their babies and some workers were trying to drive golf carts through the mass mob of people. Children were screaming that they wanted ice cream or candies. She even saw some people running on the tops of trains, their hats clapped to their heads, and trying desperately to find the correct train, which, Hazel reflected, must have been hard because the train's numbers were written on the side of the trains. There was thick smog in the air from all of the trains that had come and gone, and not to mention all of the people that were smoking.
Hazel fished her grey bucket hat out of her trunk, before snapping it closed, and rolled her hair up into it so she wouldn't be starred at for her too long hair. She realized that there were not very many people that had four-foot long hair.
She looked up and saw Hedwig the owl soaring over her head. It was the first being that she had recognized in the whole train station. She wondered why Hedwig was here, and she wondered whether Hedwig could help her. Maybe. Maybe.
"Hedwig!" She cooed to the owl, catching her attention. She dug into her pockets and pulled out a packet of owl treats that she had gotten at Diagon Alley. Hedwig soared down to her at once, begging for a treat.
"Hold on," Hazel said, snatching up the owl treats from the inside of her trunk. "You show me how to get onto Platform 9 ¾ then I give you the whole packet. Deal?" The owl hooted in response and began to fly towards Platform 10.
No, not platform 10. Platform 9 ¾!! Hazel screamed in her mind.
Hazel was now sprinting; with some difficulty due to the fact she was dragging her cart behind her, to keep up with the owl. The cart was click clacking on every concrete seam as she ran. Hedwig seemed to know her way around here now, because she flew expertly the whole time, and didn't seem to need to take any time to look around. Hazel looked down at her feet for a second, to make sure she wasn't going to slip and fall, and when she looked up Hedwig was gone.
Hazel looked up and left and right and about everywhere she could while staying in the same spot. But Hedwig wasn't in sight. She seemed to just be gone. Simply out of the universe.
"Well, she can't have vanished through the wall." Hazel said sarcastically. She sat down on a bench feeling a little discouraged.
"Maybe she's in an alternate universe." Hazel joked, as she felt more discouraged than she ever could have felt before she had followed Hedwig on some wild goose - or owl - chase.
Eyes now stinging from the smog floating like clouds around the station, Hazel blinked the tears out of her eyes and snatched her sunglasses from her pocket and slipped them on. They protected her eyes from some of the smog, but not all of it. Not even close to all of it. But at least she could see now.
Hazel looked desperately at her watch. It was 10:57 and if she didn't figure out how to get on the train soon, she would miss it, and miss her chance to learn more magic, and to find out about her past, to find out about her parents. To find out about who she really was.
"Come along Ronald." Said a motherly voice. Hazel jumped. "You first."
"Aw, Mum! Don't be a spoilsport! Let the really-" a red-haired boy began.
"Extremely-" another boy said. He looked exactly like the first.
"Super-"
"Um, duper-"
"Superstar go first!" The last boy finished. He had an evil grin on his face the perfectly matched the grin of the boy next to him.
"Who would I do that to, Fred? Any why?" The mother-like figure asked. She was pleasantly plump and she looked like a nice woman, but at the moment she looked slightly angry.
"Because, he's Harry Potter."
Hazel had to clap her hand to her mouth to keep from almost yelling. Feeling faint, Hazel staggered over to a wall and leaned against it. That woman COULDN'T have said, 'Harry Potter', because it just wasn't possible. There was no Harry Potter.
There IS NO Harry Potter, it's just a coincidence that there is a boy with the same last name and the fact that the people that she had seen when she had been stuck in the wall had said Hazel and Harry Potter, and -
Hazel gave up trying to reason with herself, because she was losing. There was no way that she could deny the fact that there really did seem to be a boy named Harry Potter, and she couldn't deny that Potter wasn't a common last name. Hazel craned her neck trying to see if she could catch a glimpse of the boy, but all she could see was a sea of red hair and freckles.
Besides, Hazel reasoned, up until a few weeks ago, Hazel Potter didn't exist as far as she was concerned.
Sighing, Hazel remembered the predicament she still had. How DID you get onto the platform? As she stood, watching, she watched one of the boys start driving his trolley towards the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Hazel watched him, waiting to see the moment when the trolley would meet the solid panel of wall, but there was never a sickening thud or even a yell and all she saw was the boy disappear. Hazel wrinkled her brow and thought it over for a minute.
"Of course," Hazel whispered. "Platform 9 ¾ . . ." Hazel remained hidden until all of the red haired people had gone and then she herself went, very cautiously, through the barrier which she soon realized wasn't very easy because it was hard not to notice someone going through a barrier.
There wasn't even a slight feeling in her body as she went through the barrier, but the disembodied feeling left seconds after she had come out of the barrier and in front of her now was, instead of a brick wall, a giant scarlet steam engine that said in silver lettering, The Hogwarts Express.
Nervously Hazel pushed her sunglasses up her nose as she walked towards the men that were taking luggage from students.
"Excuse me, Sir, where do you want me to take my stuff?" Hazel asked, even though she could see them chucking piles of luggage into the train.
"Right here," the man said as he roughly grabbed and then threw her luggage in a pile.
"Thanks for breaking all of my stuff," Hazel muttered as she walked away. Everything was confusing her and she didn't know how much more she could learn before she couldn't take in any more information. Maybe she would go insane at 15 and set a world record for being the first teenager to go completely batty.
Everything was happening at such a rate that she couldn't take it much longer. Hazel wanted to just crawl away and hide from everything - magic, Voldemort, her true identity and especially the weird visions she'd been seeing both in her dreams and in that wall at Diagon Alley.
Hazel walked into the last car and began the long search for a place to sit. There were people that didn't look inviting to sit with, and there were some people that seemed as if they would kill her if she were to disturb them now. As she reached the last car in the train she looked in the window and she saw a red-haired boy and a bushy-haired girl that looked like Hermione. They were both pulling a hood over a third boy and she couldn't see who he was. She was about to reach over and open the door when-
"HEY! I haven't seen you around here. Who are you? I'm Paravati Patil. Would you like to sit with me and my few friends?" Before Hazel had time to answer she was being lead - or rather, drug - down the many cars and pulled into a compartment.
It turned out that a 'few friends' was the understatement of the century. There were at least 20 girls crammed in the small, five person compartment. Hazel took a small gasp and was thankful for the fact that she wasn't claustrophobic.
"HEY!" Paravati yelled into the crowd. "THIS IS A NEW STUDENT AND THIS IS THE NEWEST MEMBER OF WITCHLY GIRLS WEEKLY!" The sea of girls screamed and began showering Hazel with presents. Handkerchiefs, necklaces, bracelets, rings, headscarves, tiaras, and even someone's shirt. A large something cascaded down onto her head and Hazel staggered, trying to regain her balance. Blinking, Hazel looked around for her attacker and found a sneering face inches away from hers.
"So, is it true?" the boy asked. He had silvery blonde hair and a pointed face. He was grinning maliciously at her and she didn't like the look in his eyes.
"Is what true?" Hazel asked scornfully as she rubbed her now sore head. He hit hard.
"That you're another Mudblood here to scum up the school." Hazel frowned slightly. Mudblood. the word seemed familiar to her but she wasn't sure where she had heard the word before. There was an instant uproar of words in the compartment though. About three girls were rolling up their sleeves threateningly and many others were glaring angrily at the boy. Something about the way he looked made her think of his name.
"No. I'm not a 'mudblood'." Hazel said sweetly. Pretending to be nice.
"Good. Then what are you?" He asked angrily as he glared at her.
"Well, I'm not quite sure, but I CAN tell you what I'm not. I'm not a 'mudblood', I'm not a Jerk, and I'm most definitely not a Malfoy. Who would want to be a Malfoy anyway?"
His eyes narrowed and he took a step back to size her up. He looked over her and, if possible, his eyes narrowed even less.
"I don't like your cheek."
Hazel laughed derisively. "MY cheek? Ha. You should talk." With one last sneer the boy left and nearly half of the girls in the compartment were regarding Hazel with a wary eye.
"WHAT?" Hazel said and she didn't even try to hide the annoyance in her voice.
"You're NOT a new student, are you? I mean, you knew Draco Malfoy and you knew what a Mudblood was and - and - " Hazel could tell that Paravati was searching desperately for some reason to suspect that she wasn't new and she was failing miserably.
"Oh, well, I had this information page sent to me," Hazel lied quickly. "And - uh - there was one letter from a student in each house - ya'know, Gryffindor and Slytherin - and so I got tips from someone in each house and I was warned in all of the letters about Draco Malfoy and he was described, so, yeah. . ." This excuse seemed to work for all of the girls except one girl that had fiery red hair.
"What?" Hazel whispered to her as the rest of the girls got back to talking of the hot guy of the week which Hazel suspected really did change every week,
"You look like someone else that I know." The girl said slowly. "But I can't quite figure out who."
Oh my god, Hazel thought, she knows, She knows that I am Harry's twin. I hope he doesn't go here.
"Listen," Hazel hissed. "Come outside and I'll talk to you, but not in here." The girl nodded slowly and reluctantly and followed her out of the compartment. She kept looking back as if she was expecting everyone to come back out with them.
"Okay, so, who, exactly, do I look like?" Hazel said suddenly after a short silence.
"Well. . ." the girl said. She thought for a minute or two and then she "You look like a guy named Harry - " Hazel gasped.
"-Potter," the girl finished. The girl looked her over a few times and then pulled off her sunglasses and hat. Hazel knew that the girl was putting two and two together. "Okay, this is too weird. Who ARE you? Tell me now," the girl said threateningly and she pulled out her wand.
"Don't make me do it. Don't." Hazel backed away slowly as though she were a rogue tiger.
"I'm Hazel - " Hazel didn't know what to say. Should she tell this girl her real name?
"Hazel what?" Hazel whipped around making sure that there wasn't anyone else around.
"How do I know that I can trust you?" the girl looked startled.
"My name's Ginny Weasley. That's all you need to know. All I need to know is your whole name as well. I gave you mine, you give me yours. Okay?" Hazel considered what she was going to say next.
That name, Hazel thought. I have heard it before, but how? Hazel specifically felt her stomach turn upside down and her mind became empty of everything except a dull buzzing noise. Hazel's feelings must have showed on her face because Ginny asked her if something was wrong.
"I-I know this sounds strange, but I've heard your name before. It's like I've lived another life before, but it's, like, through a dream or something. It's like I've seen this," Hazel gestured around to her. "Before. And, I know this doesn't make sense, but," Hazel paused. "I think I know you."
"But how do you-are you a psychic or a psycho?" Hazel felt too panic- stricken to laugh. She was about to say something when she heard loud bangs and the train suddenly seemed to stop. It jolted so suddenly that she was thrown around the hall. She wildly looked around for Ginny or anyone that she knew but she couldn't see anyone she recognized. She heard laughing and she turned to look in the compartment that it was coming from.
~~~~
"C'mon Sirius, you CAN'T be serious!" one boy was laughing. Hazel felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end. Had he said Sirius? As in Sirius Black? And that boy looked like the sandy-haired man (she noticed as she peeked into the compartment's window) that she had seen - but with less grey hairs and worry lines - in the vision as Hagrid had pulled her out of the wall in Diagon Alley. Could these people be the same people?
Hazel tried to slide open the door, but her hand went through the door. Hazel pulled her hand out and tried again to open the door. Her hand slid through the door once more. Slowly and skeptically, Hazel walked through the compartment door into the compartment where five people sat and surprisingly enough, they all looked like the people she had seen before when she had been stuck in the wall at Diagon Alley.
"You CAN'T be serious, Sirius." The sandy-haired boy said. "You mean to tell me that Snape has the hots for Lily, THAT Lily?" he said, gesturing wildly towards the fiery redhead next to him. Sirius's grin couldn't have been bigger.
"Woah, woah, woah!" James said. "No slimy haired grease ball is getting Lily." James said protectively at the same time that the red haired girl, Lily, said,
"It couldn't be me. Besides, what kind of idiot do you think I'd have to be to like Severus?"
"If Snape wants her, he's gonna have to go through ME." James said loudly and boldly. He sounded so stupid when he said it though that the other four members of the compartment, not counting Hazel, burst out with laughter.
Lily laughed the hardest. "Oh, James, you know I'd NEVER, EVER go out with Severus-"
"Snape." James automatically corrected her.
"Whatever. The point is, that you're the only guy that likes me." Lily said pointedly. "Or at least it's you're the only guy that likes me that I like."
"Yea," Sirius muttered in what he thought was a quiet voice, but obviously wasn't. "And the only guy who is thick enough to put up with her ranting."
"I heard that, Sirius." A devious smile lit up Lily's face. "Or, should I say Padfoot?" All four of the boys in the compartment looked alarmed and before Hazel could hear what they were going to say next the compartment faded and she found herself sitting in the same compartment as Hermione and two other boys. All three of their lines of vision were locked on her.
"Uh, hi! Just - um - dropping in!" Hazel said as she fled for the door. She hoped Hermione wouldn't recognize her with her hat and sunglasses on.
"Wait!" One of the boys said. "You can stay here." He reached out and took her hand to help her up. She looked at the speaker. He had bright green eyes, unruly black hair, steel, black-rimmed glasses, and he was really skinny and - he looked like HER. Hazel instantly drew back her hand from his grip as though she had been electrically shocked. How was it possible for someone to look like. . .her. . .? The boy looked at his hand and let out a small gasp.
Slowly, Hazel looked at her hand too. There was a perfect crescent moon imprinted on her hand and it was glowing like the cheap glow-in-the- dark chalk that Mary and John had bought for her when she was little. Hazel quickly shoved her hand in her pocket and stood up.
"Nicemeetingyou.Ihavetogo,I'llseeyouatschool.Bye." Hazel said this all very fast and she was sure that she looked guilty. She knew she was being rude but she was frightened. How many people ever meet someone that looks exactly like them and then when they touch it leaves a freakish, glowing residue on your hand that you don't even recognize.
Hazel sprinted down the hall of the train trying to find somewhere to hide until they made it to the train station. Hazel, not looking where she was going, ran smack into someone with a heart-sickening thud.
"Oh my God, are you okay?" Hazel asked the person who groggily murmured an answer.
"What happened?" The boy asked thickly.
"I ran into you. I'm sorry, are you gonna be alright?" Hazel persisted. It would be just her luck if she happened to give some kid a concussion the day before school and classes started. Then she could be hauled somewhere for her motives to be questioned. Yea, she'd make lots of friends that way.
"Um, I think I'll be alright if you pay me back." The boy said in the same thick voice. Hazel blinked and looked at the boy as if he was nuts.
"Ex-excuse me?" Hazel said. Even she heard the loud note of surprise in her voice.
"I'll be alright if you go out with me to the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmead when we go there in two weekends."
"And." Hazel said, trying to stall for time to think of what to say next. "What if I don't?"
"Then you miss a very nice date with a good-looking date and I'll report you to Dumbledore and Snape."
"Done deal." When he mentioned Snape, he didn't need to say anything else. So what if it was only one date? After that, she'd be home free and everything would be back to normal.
The boy grinned.
"The name's Flak." He said. "And my favorite number is 30. My girls are expected to pay for anything and everything that they want and they must sign a contract." Hazel blinked, her brain a little slow on the uptake. This Flak guy talked so fast that all of the words seemed to be strung together into one, complicated word.
"Oh-" Flak continued as though he had just remembered something, which he had.
"And on no accounts are my sleeves to be touched, okay?"
Interesting request, Hazel thought.
"Um, okay, whatever," Hazel said slowly.
"Great." Then Flak started to walk off but decided against it and kissed her cheek. "Later, babe." Hazel waited until he walked away before she started frantically rubbing her cheek with her hand.
"Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!" Hazel whined as she continued to rub her cheek. Panic stricken, Hazel spit in her hand and continued to rub her face.
"I got kissed, by a guy, that is really freaky, AND HE'S A SLYTHERIN." Hazel shivered at the thought. Why had he told her all of those odd things though? Why did it matter what his favorite number was or that his sleeve wasn't to be moved?
"Whatever," Hazel said. "After the worst Hogsmead weekend ever it'll be over."
"And, like, then, like he said, like, 'hey babe' and I was, like, hey dude, and like, he like, said like, well, yo, I'll see ya around, and like, I like almost like fainted!" Paravati's friend finished saying. Hazel sat near the window staring out it and trying to ignore the conversation going on next to her, which wasn't that, hard. When the 'sentence enhancer' "like" is used it's not hard to lose the meaning of the sentence three or four "likes" into it. Hazel had begun measuring the length of their conversations in "LN's" or "Like Numbers".
"Like, oh my gosh!" another girl squealed.
"Ugh," Hazel moaned as she pulled her hat down over her ears farther.
Once again the train jerked, but this time it was for real. The train pulled up to a station and Hazel checked her watch. It said it was ten o'clock, which meant she had been on the train for eleven hours.
"Yeesh." Hazel said to herself as she followed the crowd of mass confusion towards some carriages that looked as though the needed horses, but there weren't any horses in sight.
"Hmm." before Hazel could think much more she was drug into a carriage with Paravati, Lavender, and Ginny.
"Have you seen how cute Dean is becoming?" Lavender gushed. And that was the start of the worst carriage ride Hazel had ever had. As her mind began to wander from the conversation at hand to other matters, Hazel completely lost conciseness of what was happening around her.
Slowly, a pink mist began to creep up Hazel's feet and started winding around her ankles. Hazel continued to watch the mist creep up her body and smiled slightly. A new adventure, maybe it'd give her enough power to conquer the free world and then she could explore alternate universes. The sense of power was enlightening.
The mist continued to creep up her body and it was about at her waist when her conscience kicked in. What if this was a bad thing? What if she would lose consciousness and never be able to come back or what if she was dying and she wasn't even trying not to.
Instead of fighting against the mist as Hazel wanted to, she found that she couldn't control anything except her mind and even that was becoming a burden. She found it harder and harder to think the thoughts that she wanted to and more and more of her thoughts became thoughts of death and killing. Suddenly, everyone in the carriage didn't deserve to live. They were burdens to the world, and they contributed nothing to the wizarding world. They must be diminished.
Hazel felt herself pull out her wand and when she was sure that things would be happening completely the wrong way and she would end up in Azkaban for killing the other three girls, the pink mist started to recede and fade out.
Breathing a sigh of relief both from the receding mist and the realization that she could control herself and her mind once again, Hazel pocketed her wand. That was the last thing she wanted to have to explain.
As the carriages pulled up to the sweeping front lawn of the Hogwarts castle all of the students began piling out and Hazel got the first look of how many people there really would be. Hundreds of students were slowly marching towards the grand staircase the led to the Entrance Hall.
Hazel gave up trying to count the people when, every three minutes, she was interrupted by chattering from Paravati, Lavender, and their "gang". Hazel was still trying to figure out what they'd said ten minutes ago. When she tried to listen to them they seemed to be speaking another language.
Hazel lapsed back into silence. It was too hard trying to speak the same language as they were. Hazel began thinking again. Why did she look exactly like that guy in that compartment? Was he Harry? Her brother Harry? How did she even know she still had a brother? Harry could have died years ago, but then that would explain why people were so unwilling to tell her things about Harry.
As she was almost in the school Hazel looked around her and realized that she was the only person that wasn't dressed in the Hogwarts uniform.
"Ugh." Hazel said and at the same time she forced both of her palms down towards the ground and her clothes shifted from the muggle clothes she had been wearing to her Hogwarts uniform. Everything was put on as neatly as a dolls clothes.
"I gotta remember that one." Hazel muttered as she raced to catch up to the girls. If she was going to have to make friends, she figured that she'd have to learn to speak the same language first.
Authors Notes:
Sorry it's been so long since I last updated! I've been so busy and everything for so long, but now I'm back in action, so expect Chapter 5 in two or three weeks tops.
Thanks for being patient!!!
Saryen