Harry Potter spent the rest of the summer reading. Books weren't an unusual thing to find in his hands in the first place, but this summer, for the first time, he hadn't any chores to do. Oh, that had been a fight (between his aunt and uncle). In fact, it was so much of a fight that Dudley had crept down to where Harry was (with the door a crack open to his cupboard), and hid beside him, quietly listening. Dudley'd never heard his parents fight before, and that apparently warranted a bit of spying.

At the end of it all, Aunt Petunia had told him curtly that he'd need to do chores next summer, and that she'd pick out ones appropriate for a twelve-year-old. Harry Potter knew what that meant - it meant that he'd be doing ALL the chores, not just the ones a six year old might be let to do. Not that he particularly minded. He had a (somehow?) safe home here, and Aunt Petunia was doing him a good turn by giving him the rest of the summer off.

Harry had an entire new culture to learn, new history, not to mention the magic. Not that he was allowed to touch his wand (Aunt Petunia had carefully hidden it in a place that Harry could pick in a jiffy if he needed to - but, more importantly, that Uncle Vernon didn't know about. It was usually used to store Biscoffs).

Harry was here at King Street Station, and he was so nervous he was finding it hard to breath. He had walked to platform 9, and then to platform 10, and hadn't been able to find platform 9 and 3/4. Harry knew that if he somehow managed to miss the train, someone would probably show up... sooner or later (he had read all about point me spells, since they were in first year Charms).

Still, Harry'd prefer not to look any more ungrateful than he already did (he was looking to get into Gryffindor, not Hufflepuff, where such appelations would probably have never been applied to him.). And so he watched carefully, striding quickly towards the pack of redheads who were carrying owls, hoping that he hadn't guessed wrong (surely Muggle owls would have their eyes closed. Surely?).

"Excuse me," Harry Potter said, as the whole lot of them turned toward him. "Can you tell me how to get to Platform 9 and three quarters?"

The warm matron smiled at him and said, "Of course. You need to go straight through that pillar. Don't worry, it won't hurt."

Harry Potter looked at her and gulped.

The youngest (younger than Harry, she looked, and that was something, as Harry was often mistaken for eight or nine years) piped up, "Best if you take it at a run, if you're scared."

Harry Potter shot her a heated look, saying huffily, "I'm never scared." That was a flat out lie, of course, but it sounded like something a Gryffindor would say. And then Harry was running, praying that they weren't trying to trick him (they'd only just met him, even Dudley had taken a year before he thought about tripping Harry...). Harry shut his eyes as he ran flat out at the pillar, stumbling forward surprised as he entered the Magic Platform without any resistance.

There, he heard some older students chuckling at him, before one of them goodnaturedly stretched out an arm, asking, "First time?"

Harry Potter forced himself to grasp the arm (grasping it so firmly, in fact, that the other boy winced. Harry did not want to be dropped, even from two feet off the ground). "Yes, how'd you know?"

"Nobody else'd stumble quite like that." the dark haired boy said, "Now, we'd best get you out of the way, before the next group comes through." As Harry tried to step out of the way, he found himself embroiled in the mass of redheads that he had met earlier. "Thanks!" he called at the dark haired boy, even as he was swept toward the train (which was quite a feat, considering his trunk was heavy enough that he had trouble moving it.)**

**twins.

[a/n: and, hey, we found the train! ]