Chapter Three: The Trip on the Chattanooga Choochoo- Erm, I mean Hogwarts Express.

The Gorsson family woke up bright and early to get to King's Cross station. Mungo had packed all of his school supplies, except for his robes, which he put in a paper bag.

They got in their car, and parked it next to a blue Ford Anglia when they arrived at the station. They went to the platforms, and Mr. Gorsson started talking.

"All right. We need to get on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters."

"How is there a-" Mungo started.

"Quiet boy. You just have to walk through the platform barrier. Just go ahead, Mungo, and don't get frightened. Close your eyes if need be." Mr. Gorsson said, and he gave Mungo a little shove toward the Platform. Mungo over balanced, and fell into the platform barrier. He landed with a painful smack on the ground, instead of hitting the hard brick. Mungo picked himself up, and dusted his front off. Suddenly behind him appeared his parents, and they knocked him to the ground again.

"Oh, blast, sorry Mungo." Mr. Gorsson said, helping Mungo up.

"Tha's okay, da'. We better goo an' find a seat, the train's leavin' soon!" Mungo gathered up his bags and headed to the train.

"Bye mum! Bye Da'!" he called over his shoulder.

"Bye Mungo!" they yelled back as a fleet of red-haired people came through the portal.

Mungo bustled into the train; heaving his suitcase so hard he thought he busted something. He rolled it along the train, looking for a semi-empty compartment. He finally found somewhere with only two people in it, two boys. One had a green badge with a serpent, and the other had a blue one with a bird of some sort. Both were glaring at each other with hatred.

"Erm, could I sit here? Every-" Mungo started, but the boy with the eagle badge said,

"Don't start with the 'everywhere else is full' gig. I know perfectly well there's plenty of other compartments that has a seat open." He then returned to glaring at the other boy.

"What, you noble Ravenclaws don't have a hospitable spirit? Sit down, make yourself at home." The boy with the green badge said with a sneer. Mungo sat down uncomfortably.

"You only said that to make me look bad, you'd have kicked him out before I did." The 'Ravenclaw' said.

"No, we Slytherins have an HONEST form of hospitality. Unlike certain scum who steal from my suitcase."

"I wasn't stealing, the suitcase popped open when it fell, and I was putting the stuff back in, and pausing a moment to admire your Sneakoscope."

"Which was going off-"

"Because I pulled a prank on a third-year when I was getting in."

"Well, only dishonest scum play pranks on third years."

"What about people who play pranks on first-years? What about that sticking charm you put on that seat?"

"Stickin' charm!?" Mungo interjected, being somewhat alarmed He tried to get up, but he was stuck to the seat.

Both the boys started laughing comradely.

"Oh, did you see the look on his face, Ben?" The Ravenclaw said, chuckling.

"Priceless, priceless." The Slytherin said, leaning on his friend.

"Undo the charm!" Mungo said angrily.

"What are you going to do? You don't know anything!" The Ravenclaw said.

"Ah, I knoo one thing," Mungo dug in his pockets with difficulty, and produced a vial of thick clear liquid.

"Take bubotuber pus!" Mungo said as he uncorked the bottle and flung the contents at the two boys. It landed on their faces and they shouted in shock as boils sprung up all over their faces. They ran out shrieking, leaving Mungo all by himself. Stuck to the seat.

The compartment door slid open and a lady with a cart poked her head in.

"Do you want something off of the cart, dear?" She asked.

"Na thanks," He said before he gave it any thought. A while later, he wasn't so sure. His stomach rumbled with hunger, but he was stuck to the seat and couldn't move anywhere.

He tried hopping a bit, but the people in the next compartment heard him and told him to stop practicing jumping jacks. He tried pulling himself up by hanging on to the luggage rack, but his arms were too short.

Suddenly something zoomed past his window. With an instinctive jerk, Mungo leaped up with a terrible ripping sound to stare out the window.

Outside, a blue Ford Anglia was swirling around- in midair. Mungo saw the door open, and out fell a boy, barely managing to catch onto the door handle.

"Stupid Potter and his publicity stunts." Mungo said. Then he noticed he was free from the seat, even though he had a gaping hole in his pants.

"Thank ye, Potter." Mungo whispered. He pulled on his school robes, no one would notice then. He looked outside the window again and saw that Potter wasn't there anymore.

"Blast, he fell." Mungo said. He sat on the seat again (not the one he had been on,) and thought on life. How sudden it must be, one minute flying over the landscape as happy as you could be, and then plummeting to your doom. Sad, really. Someone should tidy up the lines of Fate and so on.

Mungo's stomach growled, and he got up to find the trolley lady, but the train lurched and a disembodied voice called out:

"Hogsmeade Station, leave your bags, they will be taken separately."

Mungo got his wand and made sure that his possessions were in his bags, and then joined the teeming crowd in the corridor. Mungo arrived outside the train with a few more bruises than when he had gotten on, and then a thundering voice sounded behind him:

"Firs' years this way! Firs' years follow me!"

Mungo stood in shock for a minute, his face the mask of fear and, basically, too many things happening in one day. He was snapped out of it when he saw a horde of students come walking towards him, a mass of eleven-year-old flesh and bone. Mungo started and followed a giant hairy thing, which he presumed was the person that he was supposed to be following.

The big hairy thing, henceforth known as the BHT until we find out that he's really Hagrid, led him and Mungo and his fellow first-years to a fleet of small boats with lanterns in the prow. Mungo gulped.

"Inter the boats, inter the boats!" The BHT commanded. Mungo climbed clumsily into a boat, followed by several other children.

"Off we go." The BHT roared, and the boats sailed forward. Mungo immediately went into a depressive slump. He could just imagine hosts of cold, slimy fish staring up at the bottoms of the boats, with cold, glossy eyes, dead and without feeling. Mungo shuddered and curled into a little ball, thinking how much he hated life.

Then Hogwarts appeared in view. Mungo's eyes widened, awestruck. His depression left, and elation filled his being. He felt like it was his, he felt like… He felt like he had seen it every day of his life.

Then the castle disappeared behind some trees, and the depression returned. He sat like that until he noticed that the boat had stopped. They were in some kind of alcove, with stairs and huge doors at the top of them.

Mungo hustled with the rest of the first-years after the BHT, and he knocked on the doors with a huge fist. The doors opened, and revealed a tall, elderly woman with a thin face and tight bun.