Eleven-year-old Harry Potter was excited when he finally managed to cross the barrier onto Platform 9¾. He was glad to be going to a school where Dudley and his mates couldn't get to him and use him as a punching bag, but for the past few weeks Harry had been nervous about coming to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: what would the other students be like? What classes would he have to take? What was the school like? Would he still have to take normal classes like social studies and science? And most importantly, would the other kids like him and accept him?

That last question had worried Harry so much over the past few weeks that Harry could hardly keep himself away from his bathroom mirror. Every time he saw himself in that mirror, he saw every physical flaw suddenly enhanced: the back of his hair wouldn't lie flat; there were random freckles on his cheeks; and most of all, that lightening-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. That scar had bothered Harry the most, until finally Harry decided to use Nutriderm Plus twice a day on the accursed scar, and within two weeks the scar had disappeared. The back of his jet-black hair still stood up, but Harry was much happier now that his scar was gone. He looked like he hadn't taken a knife to his forehead as a kid, at least.

Now as Harry boarded the Hogwarts express with his scar-less forehead, he searched for a compartment. All of the compartments seemed to be full until Harry found an empty one near the back of the train. He stowed his trunk in the overhead compartment and sat down next to the window, positioned so that he would be moving backwards when the train took off and he could watch the Dursely home disappear into the distance.

The door to Harry's compartment suddenly slid open, revealing a rather tall, red-headed eleven-year-old boy. "Do you mind?" the red-head asked. "Everywhere else is full."

"Not at all!" Harry said eagerly, gesturing towards all the empty chairs in his compartment.

The boy stowed his trunk and took the seat across from Harry, introducing himself. "I'm Ron. Ron Weasely. And you are…?"

"Oh, Harry. Harry Potter."

Ron did a double take. "Did you say 'Harry Potter'?" he asked curiously. When Harry nodded, Ron started trying to get a look at Harry's forehead which was hidden by a great deal of his bangs. Failing, Ron just decided to ask straight out. "Do you have a scar?" he asked?

Harry smiled and shook his head, lifting his bangs for Ron to see the clear skin. "Not anymore," he said proudly.

"Well then you can't be Harry Potter!" said Ron. "Harry Potter has a lightening-bolt scar on his forehead from when You-Know-Who tried to do him in as a baby!"

Harry smiled again and shook his head. "I used a Muggle ointment to make the scar go away," he explained. "I didn't want to show up on the first day at a new school with a scar on my forehead."

"There's no way the Muggles would ever be able to make something like that," Ron insisted, crossing his arms. "Who are you really?"

Harry was stunned. He hadn't known his scar was proof of his identity! Was every witch and wizard identified by some bodily flaw? Harry thought. But that doesn't seem right… Then again, Harry thought, Hagrid did constantly look at my forehead when he came to give me my invitation to the school…

"I really am Harry Potter!" Harry insisted.

"Fine," Ron said angrily. "Lie to me about who you are. I don't care." Then, changing the subject, he asked, "So what house do you think you'll be put in?"

"Erm… house?" Harry asked, confused. He had been under the impression that they were going to a school!

"Wow, mate, where have you been living?" Ron asked curiously.

"With my Muggle aunt and uncle," Harry explained.

"Still going on with the 'I'm Harry Potter' bit, eh?" Ron stabbed, but then explained about the houses anyway. "We'll be staying in houses, or dormitories. They're kind of like teams; you go to classes with the people in your house, you can join the house Quidditch team, you eat with your house. But you also do things with other houses."

"What houses are there?"

"Well, there are four of them. I think Hufflepuff's a bit of a joke. Nearly everyone who comes out of Slytherin turns out to be a dark witch or wizard… even You-Know-Who was in Slytherin…. Ravenclaw's okay, but I want to be in Gryffindor. My whole family has always been in Gryffindor so I don't know what I'll do if I don't get in…"

"I don't know which house I'll be put in. How do you even get put into a house?" Harry asked nervously.

"I don't know," Ron said, now nervous himself. "Fred and George—my two older brothers—told me you have to wrestle a troll, and how well you do determines which house you get put into. But I don't think that's true because then there would be a lot less students, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Harry agreed, still miffed that Ron wouldn't believe him about his identity.

The train started moving. The two boys spent the whole train ride talking about where they'd come from—although Ron still didn't believe Harry when he said he was Harry Potter, and therefore didn't quite believe that Harry had grown up with his Muggle aunt, uncle, and fat cousin—and their worries about the school. Sometime during the ride, the door to the compartment slid open once again, this time revealing a girl with extremely bushy hair.

"Oh, hello," the girl said, distracted. She was looking at the floor and behind the boy's legs to see behind the seats, searching for something. "Have either of you seen a toad? Neville lost his and I'm trying to help him find it…" Then the girl seemed to actually notice the boys for the first time and said, hands on her hips, "You two had better get into your robes. I spoke to the conductor and he said we're almost at the school."

"We're getting to it!" Ron said hotly. "We don't need a girl to tell us what to do?"

"Oh you don't, do you?" the girl said defensively. "Well, obviously you do, so I'll just sit here until you two put your robes on."

"No way!" Ron said. "You're a girl! You can't sit in here while we put our robes on!"

"Have you even seen your robes?" the girl asked. "You just put them on over your clothes."

Ron muttered something about his robes being second-hand, as if it explained his not knowing that the robes went over his clothes. "So who're you?" he asked while pulling the black robe on.

"I'm Hermione Granger," the girl said. "And you must be a Weasely; I ran into some of your brothers while I was looking for Neville's toad, and you look just like them. And you…" Hermione turned to look at Harry, who had finished putting his robes on and was sitting next to the window again, next to Hermione. "I don't think I know you."

"I'm Harry Potter," Harry introduced, hoping this girl would help Ron realize who he was.

"But you can't be!" Harry's bubble of hope broke when Hermione spoke those words. "You don't have a scar!"

"What is it with people? Why is everyone so obsessed with that bloody scar?" Harry shouted, annoyed. "I had a scar, but I got rid of it with a bit of this Muggle ointment: Nutriderm Plus."

Hermione began examining Harry thoroughly, as if she wasn't quite sure she believed him. "Where do you live?" she asked suspiciously.

"I live on Privet Drive with Muggles: my aunt Petunia and my uncle Vernon, and their son Dudley!"

"What about your parents?"

"Well, my aunt had always told me that they had been killed in a car accident, but then when Hagrid came and brought me my invitation to Hogwarts he told me that they had been killed by this dark wizard named—."

"You are Harry Potter!" Hermione exclaimed.

"You believe him?" Ron asked, eyebrows raised. "How can you believe him?"

"Well," Hermione began, her tone implying that she was beginning a rather long explanation, "he says that he lives with his aunt and uncle, who are Muggles. Also, he says that he has always been told that his parents died in a car crash and no wizard would say that because half the witches and wizards our age don't even know what a car is. And then he mentioned Hagrid, who I read is the gamekeeper at Hogwarts, so if he actually knows Hagrid and Hagrid really did tell him how his parents died, then he would have to be Harry Potter, wouldn't he?"

"Erm," Ron said, thoroughly confused. "If you say so…"

Hermione left the room, suddenly remembering that she was supposed to be helping Neville look for his toad.

"She's a weird one," Ron said, buttoning his robes.

"I don't know," Harry said. "She actually believed me."

"You can't blame me for that!" Ron exclaimed. "All my life it's been the Great Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, with his lightening-bolt scar as his trademark. You can't blame me for not knowing who you are. It's you who went and used that Muggle ointment."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Harry mumbled, not so sure about it anymore. "Do you know any ways to make it come back?" he asked Ron, hoping the boy would know a spell or two that could make his scar return.

"Sorry, mate," Ron said as the train came to a full stop. "The only spell I know is one Fred and George taught me, and it doesn't even work."

The two boys got off the train, following the half-giant Hagrid over to a long dock that held a lot of small boats tied to the shore. Harry and Ron paired up with Neville and Hermione and rowed across the lake to the school. When they made it across the lake, Professor McGonagall met the students in the hallway outside the Great Hall. She welcomed all of the students to Hogwarts and asked them to wait outside until the rest of the school was settled and the teachers were ready to begin the sorting ceremony. After a few tense minutes, Professor McGonagall came back to the students and told them to follow her up to the front of the Great Hall, where a three-legged stool held a tattered wizard's hat.

The hat sung a funny little song about the four houses of Hogwarts, describing the students in them. When it was finished, Professor McGonagall took a long scroll and began reading names down the list. Hermione Granger was put into Gryffindor house, and the list when smoothly until—"Harry Potter!" cried Professor McGonagall.

Harry stepped forward, aware that everyone in the Great Hall was now trying to get a look at Harry's forehead, and sat down on the three-legged stool. Professor McGonagall put the hat down on Harry's head and Harry heard the kids near the front of the Great Hall muttering, "But that can't be Harry Potter; he hasn't got a scar!"

"Ignore them," a voice said, the same voice that had sung the song: the Sorting Hat was talking to Harry! "You are Harry Potter; I can see it in your mind… now let's see… yes, you've got the right sort of characteristics that would thrive in Slytherin House…"

"No!" Harry muttered. "Not Slytherin!" Harry didn't want to be a part of a house that turned out mostly dark wizards. "Not Slytherin!"

"Not Slytherin, you say?" the Hat asked. "Well, then, I shall put you in GRYFFINDOR!"

There was a tremendous amount of applause from the Gryffindor table while Harry went to take his seat, but the applause came to a sudden halt when he sat down, and the whole table seemed to wave with whispers: "That's not Harry Potter…"

Harry flattened his bangs over his forehead, trying to hide the bare space of skin that stretched across it, and wished that his scar would miraculously reappear there. The rest of the sorting continued as usual, and Ron ended up sitting next to Harry after the hat placed him in Gryffindor.

Professor Dumbledore made a speech welcoming the students back to school and warning them against going into the Forbidden Forest—Go figure Harry thought, Who would have thought we were allowed to visit the FORBIDDEN Forest?—and from going up to the third floor corridor. This drew a lot of attention because apparently the students had been allowed to visit the third floor corridor in previous years. While everyone was talking about this strange news, Harry looked up at the staff table and looked at all of the teachers. Two of the teachers—one with greasy hair and another with a weird turban on his head—sat talking together. The one with greasy hair kept glancing at Harry throughout the meal. The one with the turban, like the other teachers, just ignored Harry.

Throughout dinner, Harry found himself constantly being interrogated by his fellow students. It seemed that, without his scar, no one believed that Harry really was Harry Potter. They began to call him all sorts of names, from "impersonator" to "traitor". The only ones who would stand up for Harry's identity were Ron and Hermione. Harry mentally reminded himself to thank them later.

Percy, the prefect in charge of making sure the Gryffindor first-years knew where they were going AND another one of Ron's older brothers—apparently Ron had five older brothers, two of whom had already left Hogwarts—led them to the Gryffindor common room and showed them where their dormitories were. Harry and Ron raced three other boys—named Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan, and Neville Longbottom—up the stairs to the first-year boys' dormitories. They chose beds and began setting up their stuff.

"So when are you going to tell everyone who you really are?" Dean asked, tacking a stationary photograph of a Muggle football (in America, that would be soccer) team to the wall. "I mean, there's no way you're really Harry Potter."

Harry shrugged, too tired to get into this game again and knowing that there was no way he could convince Dean or any of the other boys—who were undoubtedly thinking the same thing—of the truth within the next hour. Instead, Harry lied down and shut the curtains around his four-poster bed and went to sleep, glad to hear Ron explaining—using Hermione's words, verbatim—the reasons why Harry really was Harry Potter.