Chapter 3: The Train

Beth spent a few more days in Diagon Alley shopping for school supplies. She was getting increasingly nervous about going to Hogwarts as the days passed. Everyone reacted to her as if she'd always been here, even though she'd just arrived a few days ago. She'd already met a few of her classmates who had greeted her with warm smiles and idle talk about Transfiguration and how neat it was that Beth was going to be taking her animagus test once she got out of school.

Beth smiled back and tried to follow the conversations but it was apparent that either she had dreamt her other life or she had replaced a girl who looked, sounded, spoke like, and had the same name as she did. Beth knew she was going to have to find a way to fill those shoes and it would be a hard pair of shoes to fill. It seemed that she was very smart and good at Transfiguration and something of a hand at Divination.

Beth spent a great deal of time pouring over her textbooks. She'd bought all she would need for this year as well as several of the required books for younger students. Without regard for any Ministry people who might object, Beth started practicing magic. She was relieved that most of the basic charms seemed to come easily enough to her. She managed Lumos and Nox on her second try and Accio on her fourth.

She tried a few other charms with mixed success and felt brave enough to move onto Potions. She knew that she didn't have enough ingredients for some of the more advanced potions but she thought she could at least manage a few of the simple ones.

Her first try was a simple potion for curing boils and according to all the descriptions in the book that one came out ok, but then she moved onto another potion which ended disastrously.

Balboa yawned from where he was stretched out on the bed as smoke poured from what was left of her cauldron.

"This is going to be terrible." She said to the cat who was taking extreme interest in one paw. "How am I supposed to survive Professor Snape's class if I can't do the easy potions?"

Balboa didn't seem inclined to answer as he rolled over onto his back and stuck his paws in the air. She sighed as he stared at her with his luminous yellow eyes, and all of a sudden the answer flashed into her mind. "Don't add the wormwood while the bubbles are purple, you silly girl." Beth stared at Balboa who started purring loudly.

"I'll try that." She said slowly. The answer had been so simple, of course you didn't add the wormwood while the bubbles were purple, any fool knew that you waited until they had turned clear, or at the very least a light pink! She shook her head to clear it from all the strange thoughts. How could she possibly have known that? "I'll just move onto Transfiguration then." She muttered.

Transfiguration proved to be too easy. She turned a match stick into a needle on her first try and everything she tried after that came easily. "I can see why I have a knack for this." She told Balboa as the borrowed teapot, now a small, rather dull looking tortoise, crawled slowly across the bed. She waved her wand and it morphed back into a chipped grey teapot that she had borrowed from Tom, the innkeeper.

"I guess all I have left is to try Divination." Beth said as she checked her list.

The day of the train ride to Hogwarts dawned clear and cool. Beth packed up her trunk with her school robes on top and joined a few other students as they piled onto the Knight Bus and headed towards King's Cross Station.

She heaved her trunk onto the bus and pushed it into the rack. It was difficult to move around once the bus started to move but Beth managed to get herself into her seat and pry Balboa painfully from her shoulders and settle him onto her lap. She scanned the other armchairs for the faces of the other Ravenclaws she'd seen in Diagon Alley but she couldn't find anyone that she recognized.

It was pretty daunting to be sitting on a bus full of people that up until a few days ago had been just letters on a page in a book. It was downright unnerving to be going to Hogwarts where she was apparently well known. However she had very little time to think once the bus really started moving. She clutched the arms of her seat as Balboa howled and dug his claws into her legs as the bus jolted into its full speed sending the armchairs sliding across the floor and slamming into each other like bumper cars at a carnival.

The Knight Bus finally deposited them between several other buses at King's Cross Station. The other students chatted cheerfully as they traded potions for bruises, claimed carriages, loaded their trunks, bags, and animal cages and headed towards the entrance to the station. Beth tried not to lag behind, pushing the luggage cart into the station and following the other students through the barrier between platforms nine and ten.

Beth stared around at the platform and a lump settled in her stomach. It was bustling with students and she forgotten that she would need to share a compartment. She looked up at the big clock and saw she had nearly twenty minutes before the train departed. Maybe she could get in and find one before anyone else, that way anyone who knew her would find her instead of her having to find them. She pushed her cart up to one of the doors and hauled her things onto the train.

Puffing and straining she managed to get her trunk into the luggage rack of an empty compartment and settled into her seat with Balboa in her lap. She eased the curtain on the window back a bit so she could stare out at the throng of students and parents milling around on the platform. She spotted four heads of flaming red hair which she assumed were the Weasleys and a small crowd of students hovering around one student who was trying to make his way towards the train.

"That must be Harry Potter." She told Balboa as she tried to relax and not get up every few minutes and peer frantically down the corridor. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the door of her compartment slid open and two girls walked in, dragging their trunks. Beth got up to help them put their trunks into the overhead racks.

"Thanks, Beth," said the first girl. She had long brown hair hanging down around her lean face.

"You're here early," said the second, she had dark brown, almost black hair that was tied back into a pony tail.

"I wanted to get an empty compartment." Beth said with a nervous smile.

"You got a cat!" The second girl squealed. "You'd been talking about it for ages! Look, Abby, she finally managed to get a cat!"

"His name's Balboa." Beth said, relieved that she at least knew one name now. Abby was the girl with the lean face and brown hair, hopefully she would be able to remember that.

"It's nice not to have to share a compartment with Luna again this year, I mean, I don't mind her." The second girl was saying quickly as she changed the subject once again. "But that damn magazine, Quibbler, is it?" Beth and Abby nodded slowly. "Yeah," the second girl continued. "It's just so far out there!"

Abby laughed as she sat down. Beth was relieved as the two girls started a discussion about their summer months. Beth answered truthfully about most of her summer, almost forgetting that along with getting dropped into the Harry Potter books, she'd gone back in time nearly two months.

"It must be really something living with muggles." The second girl said, her name was Helen, and the first girl's full name was Abigail. They had been joined by two others, a dark skinned girl named Hestia and a rather pale skinny blonde girl named Jonquil.

"You get used to it." Beth said with a nervous grin.

Beth was getting more and more comfortable as time passed and green fields zoomed by through the windows and so when the food cart went by Beth treated everyone to a pumpkin pasty and a round of chocolate frog cards.

"Give your cards to me, if you don't want 'em, my little brother collects them." Hestia said, as she gathered up her own and Abby's.

Beth debated if she wanted to start her own collection. "Do you happen to know which one's your brother has already? I think I'd like to start a small collection."

Hestia nodded. "Oh yeah, sure he tells me all the time." She tossed several back at Beth. "I need to keep a few doubles through, he trades them around."

"You're too nice to your brother." Jonquil said handing over her own cards as Hestia shrugged again.

Beth sorted through the small pile of cards. Some of the pictures smiled, others waved, one or two winked, and a few had left their frames. She'd really be able to prove that she'd been here now, and if she ever got home she could show everyone… Her thoughts paused abruptly as a cold chill crept down into her stomach. What if she never got home? She stared at Balboa who was staring back up at her purring as usual. She quickly pushed the thought out of her head. Of course she would get home, and if she'd gone back in time one month to get here surely on the way back she could go back like she'd spent no time at all. A year might here might only be a few minutes or a few hours. Balboa purred louder and Beth rejoined the conversation which was still centered on Chocolate Frog cards.

It seemed like no time at all before they were all changing into their school robes and leaving the train to board the strange horseless carriages that carried them to the castle. Beth stuck close to the Hestia who was still arguing with Jonquil on whether or not Hestia was being too nice to her little brother.

On the train classes had seemed a comfortable and distant thing and now that they were approaching the castle and the welcome feast the prospect of classes not to mention her meeting with Dumbledore were all suddenly frightening realities. She had decided, at some point, to simply explain that she had no idea why she was here but she wasn't who everyone thought she was and that it was all some grand mistake. Now that she was greeting more and more of her classmates she was beginning to wonder if Dumbledore would even believe her.

As they took their places at the Ravenclaw table Abby related a story from last year in which Beth featured prominently.

"It was so scary! I mean I thought it was detention for sure, but then Beth just transfigured a dust bunny into a real rabbit and Mrs. Norris chased it instead of us!"

Everyone laughed but Beth just gave them a distracted and worried smile. She had heard several stories already about what she had been like in her first year, how cute and eager she had been and how easily she had picked up magic.

Beth looked down at her place at the table, secretly wishing that she could skip the Sorting and get straight onto dinner, because she could just nod and smile with food in her mouth; it would save her from answering questions. There wasn't any food on the shining clean plate but instead a folded piece of parchment written in a familiar slanting hand.

Miss Burke,

As soon as you've settled into your room, please come to my office.

Albus Dumbledore

Beth swallowed hard and stuffed the note into her robes before any of her classmates saw it. She managed to distract herself a little bit during the Sorting by cheering for the students as they were sorted into Ravenclaw. Then during the feast she distracted herself by enjoying the wealth of delicious food and then deserts that appeared on the table.

Once the feast was over she listened half-heartedly to the announcements and then followed Hestia and Abby to the Ravenclaw tower. She did her best to pick out landmarks and then listened very closely for the password that would allow her entrance through one of four identical doors set into a thick stone wall. It seemed that when the password was changed the door that opened also changed and you had to be quick since they had a tendency to snap closed in a split second.

Beth followed Hestia up the stairs and into their round room where Helen and Jonquil were already sitting on their beds chatting about the upcoming term. Beth took a few moments to arrange her quills and a few other things in her nightstand while Balboa washed himself on her bed. She shuffled through her trunk several times, moving her socks from one side to the other until she felt she couldn't put it off any longer. She swallowed hard and turned back towards the door, staring at it as if it would take her hand off in a moment.

"Where are you going?" Helen asked as Beth took her first few steps towards the door.

"Uhh," Beth tried to think of an excuse. "I have to go speak with Headmaster Dumbledore." She said after a few moments of fast thinking that yielded nothing.

"Why do you have to speak to the Headmaster?" Jonquil was digging through her trunk and piling her schoolbooks on the floor.

"I need to talk about some of my classes." Beth said almost hopefully. Balboa finished washing himself and trotted across the room and stood, waiting, at Beth's feet.

Helen shrugged. "I can't imagine you can get anything changed this late."

Beth shrugged as she opened the door. "It's not about changing things." Beth said, "I just need to straighten a few things up." She said quickly and hurried out the door, down the stairs, through the blue walled common room and into the hallway.

She stared up and down the corridor for a few minutes before she realized that she had no idea where Dumbledore's office was located in relation to where she was now. Balboa started trotting away and Beth followed him.

"I suppose you'll lead me to the kitchens first." She told the cat as he trotted in front of her with his tail held high. Beth followed anyway, staring at the moving portraits that they passed. A suit of armor saluted her smartly as it clanged by and a few straggling students nodded pleasantly as they headed towards their rooms.

Beth did her best to smile as a few students greeted her by name. Beth stumbled through small talk and chats about summer vacation, making a mental note to try and hear their names but soon she had too many to even begin to remember. She heaved a heavy sigh as she nearly tripped over Balboa who had suddenly stopped.

Beth looked around and noticed that they were standing in front of a statue of an extremely ugly stone gargoyle. She stared at it in disbelief for a few moments as she wondered how Balboa had managed to lead her straight here when the statue leapt to one side and allowed a stone door to open.

Hagrid, the giant ground's keeper was ducking through the archway. "Thank yeh, Headmaster." He said. "Get on it righ' away, I will." He noticed Beth just in time to avoid knocking her down. "Sorry, didn' see yeh there."

"Ahh, Miss Burke." Dumbledore was standing on the stairs just inside the door. He beamed at them both. "Yes, Hagrid, I'll talk with you more in a few days." He waved the giant man down the corridor. "Please come in, Miss Burke." Dumbledore smiled and waved her towards the stairs.