The sun blazed down on Christina and her family as they wound their way through the crowds to platform nine and three quarters. Becky and Renee were singing and holding hands, twirling around Christina, who was becoming more and more nervous by the second. A bead of sweat dripped down the back of Christina's neck. Horrified, she ran her hand through her hair. It would be horrible to be all sweaty and disgusting when she met her peers for the first time. The whole car ride to the station, Christina had compulsively checked her appearance in the car mirror. Mr. Johnson had finally become so irritated at the velcro noise of the mirror being opened and closed that he forbid Christina from opening it anymore, the car swirving dangerously in the process of his reprimand.
Christina nervously played with the latch of her bag, snapping it and unsnapping it as she walked. Finally, they arrived at platform nine, and looking to the left, saw that platform ten stood there without any platforms in between. Christina opened her mouth to point this out, but her father spoke before she got the chance.
"Of course, there will be muggle protection on it. Well, lets just wait and see what other wizarding folk do to get in." The only downside of this suggestion, however, was that they had been quite early to arrive at the station, having left an hour before the train was supposed to leave, and so no witches or wizards were entering the platform yet.
They stood in the sun for a few minutes before Christina sighed, and, accepting that they would be waiting around for a while, dragged her trunk over to a spot of shade and sat down on it. The last thing she needed was for her to be in the sun long enough to sweat off her makeup, or perhaps become so damp with perspiration that she was shiny. Christina shuddered at the thought.
After about twenty minutes had passed, a boy in his late teens came into view, pushing a trunk along on a cart. An older woman accompanied him, looking quite irritated at the weather, and gazing disapprovingly around at the passing Muggles. Christina spotted the trunk first, and then the woman, put two and two together, and came to the conclusion that the boy was a wizard and off to Hogwarts, like herself. She pointed this out to her mother and father and they watched the pair casually approach the brick wall between platforms nine and ten.
The boy didn't show any sign of slowing down as he neared the wall, in fact, he didnt even blink as it drew nearer and nearer. Christina, expected to hear a clang! as his cart hit the wall, was surprised to see him walk right through it. Then she laughed.
"Of course! We could've walked right through it, all this time!" She shook her head at her father, who was looking sheepish, and stood up.
"We'll see you for Christmas," said Christina's mother, drawing Christina into a tight hug. "Dad will see you off the train--the girls and I will wait for him here--we wouldn't want to clog up the platform." She released Christina as Becky and Renee skipped over to bid their farewells as well.
"'Bye, Chrissie!" said Renee, hugging her warmly. "Send us letters!" She kissed Christina on the cheek.
"Yeah, letters!" added Becky, looking reluctant to hug her big sister. She really wasn't the touchy-feely type.
"Aw, come on Becks," coaxed Christina, "I'm going away for the whole year! Give me a good bye hug!" Becky grinned sheepishly and hugged her. Christina ruffled her two sister's hair.
"Have fun, be careful, make good choices!" her mother was saying. "Now, off you go! You want to get a nice seat on the train!" She gave Christina a last hug and ushered her off to her father, who lifted the trunk and preceeded through the brick wall.
Christina gave her family one last wave and followed him.
The platform had several families on it, bidding their children safe journeys and waving to those that were already on the train. Hot steam rose from the train and drifted around lazily as sunlight glinted off it's deep red finish.
"Well, this is where I leave you kiddo," said Mr. Johnson, ruffling his daughters hair, much to Christina's horror.
"Dad! You'll mess up my hair!"she hissed, hurriedly trying to fix it before anyone saw her. Her father chuckled.
"Have a good year, Chrissie! Write if you need anything...see you at Christmas!" He gave her a hug and departed back through the wall, leaving Christina standing on the platform, holding one end of her trunk in one hand and her bag in the other.
The train wasn't too crowded. Christina dragged her trunk down the train corridor for a while before finally entering an empty compartment. She slid her trunk under her seat and sat down, looking out the window onto the platform below. A few minutes passed, and the platform became quite crowded with families and students and owls and trunks being pushed every which way. Christina watched them, thinking...these were the people she would be spending the remaining of her child hood with...she wondered for a moment if she would make any friends, before pushing the thought out of her mind. Of course she would make friends. Still, she was nervous.
Ten minutes later, at 12:00, the train gave a loud toot! and steam billowed from the steampipe. Christina could feel the engine working to get the train moving, and stared out the window as the platform began to slowly inch away from her. Soon it was gone.
Christina could hear people shuffling around in the corridor, and before she knew it, the compartment door was sliding open. Her breath caught in her throat--she was about to meet someone new--in the doorway stood a pretty brown-haired girl with large brown eyes; a blonde girl stood a ways behind her.
"Oh," said the brunette, her mouth opening in slight surprise, "We're sorry. We didn't realize this compartment was already in use..."
"Oh," it was Christina's turn to say, "its no problem--you can sit here, if you want." She added the if you want part quickly, fearing that she had been too aggressive. However, the brunette smiled and said "thanks". She entered the compartment and flopped down in the seat opposite Christina, motioning for the other girl to follow. She did so, glancing at Christina, quickly looking her up and down.
"I'm Rachel," the brunette said to Christina. Christina wondered wildly whether she ought to shake hands with the girl, before deciding that that was too formal.
"I'm Christina," she replied, smiling nervously. A few seconds of silence passed in which Christina glanced at the other blonde girl, wondering whether or not she was going to introduce herself.
"My name's Sarah," the girl finally said. Christina smiled at her. She didn't know why she kept smiling--it was as if her body automatically smiled at being introduced to new people. She guessed her nervousness had overcome her usual attitude and so she was being instinctually polite.
"What year are you in?" asked Rachel. Christina quickly looked back over at her.
"Um--I'll be in fourth year."
"Really? I haven't seen you before, I don't think," said Rachel. "What house are you in?"
"Oh...I don't know...I just moved from America. I'm new here."
Rachel's eyes lit up. "Serious?"
"Yeah," Christina said, happy that she was actually beginning to have a conversation with someone.
"What house do you think you'll be in?" said Sarah suddenly. Christina was surprised to hear her input into the conversation.
"Er...what are houses?" Christina felt very stupid asking, but as when Rachel had first asked the question she had imagined several actual residential houses in her head, she figured she would have to find out sooner or later.
The girl called Sarah looked absolutely shocked. Christina thought it was rather rude. Rachel seemed to think so, too, because she threw her friend a disaproving look and smiled at Christina.
"Houses are like...I don't know...families, I suppose. There are four of them--each house has its own common room and dormitories and stuff--it's the people you'll live in close quarters with. The houses are Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor."
"What one are you in?"
"Me? I'm in Gryffindor," said Rachel happily, leaning back in her seat. "The best house, you know. Anyways," Rachel continued, "Gryffindor is for brave, beautiful, wonderful people"--she grinned superiorly--"Ravenclaw is for clever people, Hufflepuff is for particularily friendly people, and Slytherin is for bitches. It's all a very organized group. Gryffindors, we're the good guys, so obviously we hate the Slytherins...they're mostly evil. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff--well--no one really cares about them, so--"
"Excuse me," said Sarah, sniffing, "I'm in Ravenclaw, and people most certainly care about us. We're the most intelligent house, Rachel."
Rachel opened her mouth to reply right as the compartment door slid open again. In the doorway stood a girl with chin-length brown hair. "Oh--hi, Amanda," she said, and Christina could have sworn she detected disapointment in her voice.
"Hi," Amanda said. "Sarah, I've been looking for you--me and Beth got a compartment farther down the hall." Sarah stood up.
"Nice meeting you, Christina. See you, Rachel," and left with the girl called Amanda. A few moments of silence followed their departure.
"Amanda's in Gryffindor, too," Rachel said finally. "Her and Beth and Sarah all grew up in the same neighborhood, so they were all best friends before they started school. Beth and Sarah both got sorted into Ravenclaw but Amanda got put in Gryffindor, so basically, she's kind of a bitch. Mad about being seperated from her friends--I expect she feels rather left out. But she's made it through three years so far. Don't know why she was put in Gryffindor, myself--but the Sorting Hat is always right, so I won't worry about that."
"...The Sorting Hat?" Christina questioned.
"Oh--well--it's this hat that you put on that tells you what house you should be in. You'll probably get sorted tonight with the first years."
"Oh."
More silence.
"If Sarah's in a different house, how did you make friends with her?" Christina asked, trying to keep the conversation going.
Rachel shrugged. "More like aqquaintences. I had two weeks of detentions with her right before the end of last year, so we got to know each other. She was just the first person I saw on the train so we went to sit down together.
Christina wanted to ask what Rachel had done that had got her in detention for two weeks, but she decided against it. Instead, she asked, "Who's your best friend?"
Rachel sighed, frowning. "Well, her name was Kaitlyn, but her mom went kind of psycho, hates Dumbledore, see...she pulled Kaityln out of school and so she's homeschooled now."
"Oh."
They passed the rest of the train ride making polite conversation, and changed into their robes as the skies outside the train began to darken. As the train pulled into the station, Christina was overwhelmed with a wave of nervousness again.