I really don't know about the style of this but thought I'd share for opinions on it. It's a cross between my usual writing style and Paul Magrs' Fox Soames writing in his book To the Devil-A Diva! which I highly recommend. Anyway, does it work? Or not? And how's the punchline?
One boards the train at Platform 9 and 3/4. The Hogwarts Express is a striking engine and the platform itself is bustling with students meeting and greeting after a potential summer apart. We climb the steps and seat ourselves at the very front of the train. One must wait until the train has pulled away before taking a stroll through it's numerous carriages and observing it's varied passengers.
Carriage one is full of the normal First Years, excited and babbling nervously at each other. There are a couple of concerned prefects abiding by their duties and keeping an eye on Hogwarts' youngest. The next carriage is a mixture. Mainly prefects, talking and laughing together without concern for their charges. The atmosphere becomes more relaxed as one progresses through the carriages. Second and third years sprawled out across the seats, lazily chucking food at each other; fourth years reading and chatting quietly. A normal, if cramped vision of school life and hierarchy.
In the seventh carriage along we find Hogwarts' most organised mischief makers. Taking up most of the car. Look in one compartment; James Potter is entertaining a group of young women, Lily Evans notably absent. In another, Remus Lupin is reading and occasionally flicking small balls of paper at a sleeping Pettigrew with a smile on his face. He looks as his watch and snaps his book shut as one passes. In the final carriage is Sirius Black, otherwise engaged. Make way as Lupin raps on the glass, smiling with a twinkle in his eye. Black sits up, cool and unruffled, very unlike the girl who looks up from beside him. Sixth year prefect Penny Williams, looking less than perfect as she blushes bright red and adjusts her school blouse while Remus is invited in to sit down. Suffice to say that Lupin declines the offer with raised eyebrows and simply delivers his message. Penny, still blushing, hastily gathers her robes together and leaves, ignoring Sirius' wave. Remus shakes his head and takes a seat opposite his friend, who is chuckling lightly.
"She's been writing to me all summer," he says with a wink.