The Tale of Tom

Chapter Twelve: Platform Nine and Three-Quarters

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Tom blearily opened his eyes to the dim morning light. What time is it? he thought, sitting up in his bed and looking at the clock. Six-thirty? No wonder its so dark! Wait...why am I up so early? Tom continued to think, sorting out his thoughts. Oh, I leave for Hogwarts today. I guess my body just refused to let me sleep in.

Swinging his feet over the side of his bed, he reached for his tattered Hogwarts letter and pulled out the train ticket. Leave from Platform Nine at Eleven 'o clock, he thought to himself, reading the ticket. But in the back of Tom's mind, something was nagging him. Was the three-quarters really a typo? And, after all, what type of typo was that? Maybe an errand comma or period, but all of the letters of three-quarters? Maybe the person making the ticket had been reading from two separate sheets and mixed them up. Or maybe at the King's Cross Station they used quarters and halves in their station numbers. After all, he'd never been there before.

Yesterday evening, Tom had been given yet another map by Miss O'Flannery, this one leading to the Kings Cross Station. It was a bit further away than Diagon Alley, but Tom thought he could get to it in an hour and a half, walking, that is. That meant he'd probably leave at about 8, 8:30, or 9. Tom had a feeling it could be anyone of those times, depending on how restless he was.

For the umpteenth time, Tom decided to check that his trunk was fully packed. He slid it carefully out from its spot underneath his bed, and, checking that his roommate was still snoring peacefully, opened it. Everything was neatly in its spot and the all of the clothes were still folded. Tom supposed that things would shift when he walked with it, but you couldn't plan for everything. Okay, I really have everything. I'm really going to Hogwarts, he thought excitedly. The paranoid side of him kept thinking that somebody was going to pop up when he was at the Kings Cross and say "Ha ha! Gotcha! You're not a wizard after all, just a good-for-nothing orphan."

Shoving the trunk beneath his bed, until closer to the departure time, Tom began pacing the room nervously. Would he do well? Could he actually have friends? Could he get away from his ever-haunting orphan background? As many times as Tom asked himself these questions, no answer seemed to prevail amongst the confusion.

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"Can I write you?"

"Of course you can."

"I'll miss you, Tom."

"I'll miss you too, Rose," Tom said, wishing he could just leave. It wasn't the big deal everybody seemed to be making it out to be. After all, he would be returning next summer, much to his unhappiness.

"Bye, Tom!" the orphanage seemed to call as a whole, as he finally started off. Tom waved behind him but didn't say any words. After all, people come and people go. It's all just part of life, no point in getting attached.

Tom stopped at the end of the block, looking back at the orphanage one last time. Relatively nearby it, another group of children played. He recognized them as a group of children who had gone to his school and constantly teased him.

"When I come back," Tom whispered under his breath, "I'll be different than all of you. I'll be better than all of you. I'll be a wizard."

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How much farther?!? Tom exasperatedly thought. He was starting to worry he might miss the train. Of course, he had no way of knowing what time it was, but to him it seemed an unthinkable amount of time had passed.

"Just. A. Couple. More. Blocks," Tom panted to himself, heaving the trunk alongside him. He was now in a more business-oriented district, and getting many strange looks. Inwardly, Tom hardly blamed them. An eleven-year old, carrying a trunk, with no parents in sight, was more than a bit out of the ordinary. Outwardly, he was unhappy he seemed to be attracting so much attention.

Tom stopped at a busy intersection and sat down on his trunk as the cars whizzed by. One, two, three, he attempted to count them, but decided rather on simply closing his eyes. The sound of passing by automobiles stopped and, having heaved his weighted trunk off the ground again, he crossed the street with the rest of the masses.

Hearing the sound of a steam train leaving made Tom have energy, once again. After all, if he could hear the trains coming and going from the Kings Cross Station then he must be relatively close to it.

After several more minutes (about 5) Tom finally arrived to the Kings Cross. Or at least one side of it. He silently cursed as he walked several more blocks to reach the entrance.

"Finally!" he panted, setting his trunk down and giving his weary arms a short rest. Removing the train ticket from his pocket, Tom glanced down at it once more. "Platform 9, eleven o'clock," he muttered under his breath.

Not daring to catch his breath for too long, lest the train leave soon, Tom quickly grabbed his trunk once again. Platform nine, platform nine, he thought to himself as he looked up at the numbers prominently displayed over the stations. Six, seven, eight. Ah, here it is. Platform Nine. Tom set his trunk on its end and took a deep breath. The nearby clock read 10:23. So I'm actually a half hour early, he thought, trying to ignore the nagging feeling that platform nine was not the correct platform. After a short bit of waiting, he decided to find out if his fears had any grounding, and approached the ticket booth.

"Excuse me?" Tom started.

The woman behind the ticket counter looked up. "Look, kid, go back to your parents."

Tom remained unfazed by her implied insult. "May you please inform me whether or not the eleven o'clock train has come in yet?"

The ticket lady's expression became one of confusion. "I can check," she said, flipping through a stack of papers, "But I don't think there is an eleven o'clock train."

As the woman continued flipping through papers, Tom silently smiled to himself. Evidently the fact he had not backed down and been respectful had earned her trust.

"Just as I thought. There's no eleven o'clock train. There's a twelve o'clock. Is that the one you're thinking of?"

Tom frowned and slowly replied, "No, I don' think so. My ticket says eleven o'clock. What about the train leaving from platform nine?"

She ruffled through more papers. "Well, we had one leave from there at eight thirty, and the next one leaves at twelve thirty."

"Er--are you sure?"

"Yes." The woman looked at Tom. "Say, kid, where are your parents?"

Tom quickly formed a lie to the question that seemed to forever accompany him. "Oh, I was staying with my Aunt here, but now I'm going back up north to my Mum and Dad."

The woman nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. "Well, sorry kid. I can't think of anything."

"Are there--are there half-stations?" Tom cautiously asked.

"You mean like eight and a half, nine and half?"

Tom nodded.

The woman shook her head. "I'm sorry. Good luck," she added as Tom dejectedly turned away.

Somehow his feet lead him to platform nine and ten once again. "They must be here," he desperately whispered to himself. Nine, ten, nine, ten. Give it up, Tom, he thought to himself. There is no platform nine and three-quarters and there is no train coming to platform nine. It was all somebody's sick idea of a joke. But Tom's inner conscience wouldn't let him give up that easily.

He started to think what he could possibly do, and whether or not the train had left early, or whether nine and three-quarters really meant platform ten, or whether the train was simply going to be late by an hour and a half.

Tom's thoughts were interrupted when a business man stepped on Tom's foot and yelled, "Get out of the way, kid!"

Scowling, Tom decided that maybe in the middle of a crowd was not the best place to think. He picked up his trunk for the hundredth time and decided to stand by a wall, where he could think in peace.

Ten-forty, Tom desperately thought as he went to lean against the closest wall, the wall between platforms nine and ten. Still holding his trunk, Tom made to lean against the wall, but, he found to his utter surprise, there was nothing there. He seemed to have simply fallen into the wall. Flinging his arms out in a miserable attempt to keep himself from falling, he saw that rather he had not fallen into the wall but through the wall. Finally, he hit the hard concrete below him. Tom was positive time had slowed its pace as he fell.

Quickly shoving his trunk off him and standing up, he looked around. There were many people--around student age, Tom noticed--milling about and a red train next to the platform. Looking back where he had come from, he saw a sign that said "Platform Nine and Three-Quarters." So there was a platform nine and three-quarters! In front of him was yet another sign, but this one said "Hogwarts Express, eleven o'clock."

Tom was so busy taking in his surroundings he didn't notice a girl break off from her group of friends and head toward him.

"Are you alright?" she asked, making Tom jump slightly.

Tom replied with the first thing that came to mind. "Huh?"

The girl, she appeared to be about fifteen, simply smiled and said, "It looked like you took a bit of a fall."

Tom winced. He had been hoping nobody had seen him. If the girl noticed she didn't say anything. Instead, she held her out her hand. "Mary Berger. I'm a fifth year prefect."

"Tom Riddle," he said, shaking her hand. "I'm starting my first year," Tom added.

"I'm guessing you're Muggle-born, like me," she said with a smile.

Tom paused, right before he spoke. As reluctant as he was to reveal his ignorance, he'd have to some time. "Actually, I don't know what a Muggle is."

"You probably are Muggle-born, then," Mary said, her smile remaining in place. "A Muggle is a non-magical person. Somebody who is Muggle-born comes from an entirely non-magical heritage.

Tom nodded in understanding. "But I know my Mum was a witch." Several days after he had received his Hogwarts letter his curiosity had gotten the best of him and he had asked Miss O'Flannery if either (or both) of his parents were magical. She replied that his mother had been a very powerful witch, but changed the subject when it came to his father; like she always did.

But now Tom regretted saying anything. The teenage girl was looking at him with a look of curiosity, a look he had gotten so many times. Desperate to draw attention away from his questionable parentage, Tom searched for a question to ask, and found one.

"How do Muggles find out they're magical?"

The prefect's face instantly lit up. "It's quiet interesting, actually. You see, when all wizards and witches are younger, even if they don't know about it, they have magical power within them. And if they're feeling a particularly strong emotion then often times this magic shows itself. The Ministry (or Hogwarts, I'm not quite sure) senses this underage magic and records the child under a list of all the wizards and witches and, when they're old enough, they're sent a letter of acceptation from Hogwarts."

Tom analyzed what she had just said. "Wait, what do you mean the magic shows itself?"

"Just, like, little things." The Hogwarts prefect was stumbling over the words in her excitement to explain it. Tom had a feeling nobody had ever asked her about this area she knew so much about it. "Like, let me think of an example. Alright, here's one. If the child is mad that their sibling got a toy they didn't, then that toy may suddenly disappear, or mysteriously break, or disappear from their sibling's room and appear in their room. Things like that."

Something long forgotten was stirring in the depths of Tom's mind. "What if the child was scared, or angry?"

"Well, if they're angry, then something nearby where they're focusing their anger might break, or shatter. That's just one example. If they're scared, then they may suddenly find themselves far away from the situation or they might, like, be protected from any harm, as though they had a big bubble around them or something."

Tom nodded. The puzzle pieces seemed to be creeping closer to each other. "And if, for example, the child is in a fight, then they might not be able to be touched?"

Mary nodded. "Exactly."

"Are there ever people who do this type of accidental magic once or twice but it turns out they aren't wizards?"

The girl shook her head. "Never. If they do magic even once then it means they're a witch or a wizard."

Tom nodded at Mary as the puzzle pieces snapped together. They were both silent for a while until Mary said, "Do you want to hear about the four different houses?"

Really, Tom didn't particularly care about whatever houses were, but he could tell Mary was itching to explain Hogwarts to somebody. And Tom just happened to be that lucky somebody. "What are houses?"

"Well," she started, "There are four main houses. You're sorted into one of the houses and that's where your dorm is, who you have your classes with, etc. You have the same house for all seven years you're at Hogwarts." Tom nodded along while she said this. "Each house is known for the qualities most prominent in it. Ravenclaw is famous for being smart, Gryffandor for being courageous, Hufflepuff for being loyal and hard-working, and Slytherin, well, they're just trouble. You'll want to avoid them. They've produced more dark wizards than one can count. I'm in the--"

"Wait, what do you mean, 'dark wizards'?" Tom asked skeptically.

"You know," she said, immediately abandoning the tangent she had just started off on. "Just, bad news. Evil."

"What do you mean 'evil'?" Tom said, with a smile one might give to somebody in an insane asylum.

"They're evil. What part of that don't you understand?" Mary said, starting to get annoyed.

"What makes a wizard 'evil'?" Tom said, his voice heavy with doubt.

"They use a lot of dark, evil, spells and curses."

He gave a smile to Mary that one might give a child who was saying the moon was made out of green cheese. "So there are 'evil' spells?"

"Of course!" she exclaimed. She was clearly becoming annoyed.

"You honestly believe that?" Tom said, looking at her.

"And what, you don't?" Mary said hotly.

"I stopped believing in faerie tales when I was five years old."

"What's that supposed to mean?!" her face was becoming flushed; the calmer Tom was, the angrier she became.

"Evil doesn't really exist. It's just a thing of fairy tales. Same thing as good. Yes, there are people who aren't very nice, but it doesn't mean they're evil."

The prefect was sputtering indignantly.

"Good and evil is a thing of stories and fairy tales. True good and evil does not exist, rather there are shades of neutrality."

Mary was still sputtering but she managed to form a thought. "You--you--you're evil!" she finished, maybe not quite believing the words, but saying them in an attempt to hurt Tom.

"You mean because I think for myself as opposed to listening to what everybody else says about good and evil?"

At this the fifth year opened and closed her mouth with no sound emitting, rather like a goldfish gasping for air. "You--you little--" she started. "You're going to be sorted into Slytherin! I just know it!" the prefect screeched. Tom knew this was supposed to be an insult but he also knew she was just randomly saying things, unnerved. "You little--" he could tell she was considering using a not-so-nice word here "--you little hooligan!" the prefect finished, storming back to her group of friends.

Tom couldn't help smiling. Yes, he felt a bit guilty, but he had just won in a small battle of wits with someone four years his senior. And he truly did believe that only neutrality existed.

At this point yet somebody else approached Tom. "I saw you defending yourself," the young boy said, nodding toward the girl Tom had just finished talking with. "It's good to see someone stands up for themselves. You'd be surprised how many people just let themselves be walked all over."

Tom couldn't help but smile as he replied. Nobody had ever given him a compliment, especially saying he was strong. Normally he as called weak and cowardly. "Thanks," Tom said with a small nod of the head.

They both said nothing for a moment until the other boy spoke. "Myron Nex," he said, extending his hand.

"Tom Riddle," he replied shaking the boy's hand.

"Riddle?" the boy said looking at Tom. "I haven't heard that surname before. Are you pure-blood?"

Tom had no idea what a pure-blood was. He knew some people were Muggle-born, so he figured pure-blood was probably a reference to your heritage. Quickly reaching a conclusion of what would be best he replied. "Yes, I am."

Nex smiled. "Say, do you want to drop your trunk off in my compartment?"

"Sure," Tom said, lifting his heavy trunk off the ground. "Where is it?"

"Towards the end of the train. Here I'll take an end," Nex said, referring to the trunk.

They quickly reached his compartment and deposited the trunk. "How long until the train leaves?" Tom asked glancing around for a clock.

"Probably about five minutes," Nex replied. At this a whistle sounded. "Or not," he quickly added to his previous comment.

Both of the boys took a seat opposite of each other as the train started moving. Tom pressed his forehead to the window and watched as the train slowly gained speed, many families waving to their children. He tried not to dwell on it, and, for once, succeeded. House after house whizzed by as Tom closed his eyes, reviewing what had happened so far this day. At least I finally solved that problem which was bugging me, or subconsciously bugging me, rather. Very interesting. I guess Rose is a witch.

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Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, nor his world.

Disclaimer Two: Disclaimer two you ask? Yes, immensely confusing. Alright, here's the story. So, I was trying to figure out, realistically, about how long it'd take Tom to walk to the train station. (If you don't feel like a particularly boring disclaimer just skip this.) It's a 20 minute walk from Grimmauld Place, but a three and a half hour drive from Privet Drive, so I was more than a bit confused. To solve this, I decided to try and find out where Vauxhall road was, figuring that it had to be fairly close to where Tom lived. So I found this map at: Basically, that map is where I got the rough amount of time it took Tom to get to the Kings Cross. And, I guess I have to say I don't own it, 'cause I don't. I suppose that also means I don't own the distances/time but I'm not going to go that deep. Basically that's where I got the rough time from. And while I'm here I'm going to stick in another disclaimer. Once again, I'm not quite sure what I'm saying I don't own but I'm saying it anyway. In future chapters, whenever I mention characters ages or what not (including McGonagalls) this is where I got them: Of course, there are other additional time lines, but that one is the one during Tom's life. However, I would also like to say that I came up with some of Tom's dates on my own. Turns out I did my math wrong, but somehow it still worked out. shrugs So once again, I don't own that timeline and I suppose I'm giving credit it to them, same as the map. So its not so much a disclaimer as a...credit giver? Dunno. I'm too tired to really think. And, yes, I asked if I could use the dates and they said yes. They said some other stuff, too, that I didn't quite get, hence this horribly long disclaimer/credit-giver. Review: this is to keep J.K. Rowling from suing me for borrowing her characters and to keep Harry Potter Lexicon from suing me for forgiving to give them credit. And now, now its time for the Author's Note. Yes. It's not over yet. Save yourself while you can.

A/N: Okay, expect this to be the last chapter before school. I thought about making it longer but, well, as I write this its late at night, I need to wake up early tomorrow, and this one of my last free stretches of time. So instead I'm going to do the sorting and actual train ride in another, shorter chapter. Maybe I'll combine the two, eventually. This also reminds me that I am planning on, eventually, combining several of the earlier chapters as they are so short. I will probably combine Chapters 2 and 3 and Chapters 4, 5 and 6. If and when I do this, I'll leave Chapter Seven and One alone. Why? You ask? I have my reasons. Feel free to ask and I shall state them, for now, I feel that any of you actually reading this note would scream in terror were I to make it any longer. So, anyway, in theory once I do this, it'll make the story, three chapters shorter, I think. I'll state in my profile when I'm gonna do it. Probably once the Document Manager actually starts to like me. And, no, the name "Mary" is of no reference to "Mary-Sue" so don't ask. I didn't even think about that until she had already served her entire purpose. And, next chapter, (which is presumably when the sorting will occur, although I won't guarantee anything) I probably won't have a song to go with the hat. I started to write a song, I really did. It ended up being one line long. So, needless to say, I'm not going to use it. Maybe sometime in the distant future, if I can actually think of a good song, I'll post one. But don't count on it. Wow. You've actually read this far! I feel like you deserve a prize, or something. Here, one teeny scrap of information about chapter twelve: Myron has a brother. Reading this entire note probably wasn't worth that but, well. Congratulations. You have nerves of steel being able to make it this far. And, as always, my profile will dictate when the next update is coming aaaaand: Please review!!