Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in anyway.

Note: Because I like to address my reviews, especially when I get questions, I wanted to take a brief moment to answer someone. I was asked, after the last chapter, whether Whitney would become friends with Draco and become a Slytherin. The simple answer is no. After meeting Draco in Diagon Alley, she hasn't discounted him. They even bonded. However, Draco as a child is a little monster. He's mean, judgmental, and just a jerk. It's fun to be mean to the Dursleys, but Draco will eventually be very mean to someone who doesn't deserve it, and it will color Whitney's opinion of him.

I don't typically like to give out spoilers like this, but I also don't want anyone to read this and become very disappointed later when they find out that Draco's still a prat, and Harry/Whitney is still the hero.

As always, please review.

/-wujy

Chapter Five – The Beginning of a Journey

The last two weeks with the Dursleys were more miserable than any fourteen days Whitney could remember having ever experienced. Vernon was angrier than usual, Petunia was more watchful than ever, and Dudley was whinier, if that was possible. To Whitney's great delight, she learned that part of this was due to the fact that Hagrid had hexed Dudley with a pig's tail! She'd had to excuse herself to her cupboard in order to regain her composure before she could look at Dudley again without feeling the gleeful urge to laugh in his face.

Aside from that momentary pleasure, however, Whitney made her best effort to stay out of everyone's way when possible, and do whatever they asked as quickly as she could. It was never quick enough, though, and she earned a few kicks from her uncle and cousin, but the hope of Hogwarts was enough to get her through each day.

Asking her aunt and uncle for a ride to King's Cross Station also turned out to be a rather unpleasant experience. After telling her exactly where she could put her school admission and train ticket collectively, Vernon had snatched the boarding pass from his young niece's hands and torn it in half. Whitney felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as he did so, but the ticket simply mended itself as the pieces fluttered to the floor. This did nothing to improve Vernon's mood.

Angrily, he had then ripped it into tiny pieces only to have a brand new one reappear later in his oatmeal. Stuffing it down the garbage disposal wasn't effective either and only resulted in the jamming of the disposal and the reappearance of the ticket tucked under the collar of his shirt.

Finally giving up, he thrust the ticket back at her and said, "Keep this thing to yourself, frea—"

He stopped in midsentence as his watery eyes caught something on the ticket and he smiled. It wasn't an altogether cheery smile, though. In fact, it was almost predatory. Whitney looked up at him nervously, but he only said, "I'll take you to the train station, girl," and tossed the ticket on the floor at her feet. As he walked away, fuming, she thought she heard him mutter something like, 'Nonexistent garbage."

She wasn't sure how to respond to his sudden compliance and anger, so she didn't, and only retreated once more back to the cupboard under the stairs where she spent a great deal of her time until the first of September.

When the first did come around, Whitney's uncle was unusually helpful in making certain that she wasn't forgetting a single book or scrap of clothing and ordered a grumpy Dudley to help her put her things in the car. To her amusement, she noticed Dudley actively keeping himself turned just so that his rear was never exposed to her, and he occasionally rearranged his trousers where the tail Hagrid had given him was. She smiled to herself, but didn't prod her already upset cousin by asking him about it as much as she dearly wanted to.

Vernon was humming slightly when all four of them piled into his company car with Whitney's owl and took off for London. He turned back to check on Whitney every now and again, eyeing her with a nasty look that turned her excitement at leaving into a heavy, worried weight in her stomach. She had the sinking feeling that Vernon was happy about something that was going to ruin the rest of her day, and realized that it wasn't entirely unlikely that he was going to drive her into the middle of London and simply leave her with her magic books and a wand.

Whitney suddenly became very uncomfortable sitting in the car, and it wasn't just because she was squished against Dudley's overhanging love handles every time Vernon turned left. She considered briefly jumping out of the car as it came to a stop at a traffic light, but there was no way to do so without hurting the owl, which was sitting in the cage on Whitney's lap. She would also then have to walk all the way back to Little Whinging by herself, and she wasn't even sure how to get back from where she was. She was now at the mercy of her smug uncle. Her grip tightened on the owl's cage as she silently waited for the car to stop.

"Here it is!" Vernon said, his voice booming in the little car as it came to a stop. He laughed out loud to himself as he stepped out and yanked Whitney's luggage from the trunk, dropping it onto the sidewalk. He laughed again, a deep chuckle from his belly that sounded evil in its intent. Whitney got out of the car then, maintaining her hold on the owl's cage, and Vernon got back in behind the wheel and drove off, still laughing.

Whitney's stomach began to fill with lead as she watched the car drive off, leaving her on a busy street with no idea where she should go. She rotated on the spot next to her luggage, peering around the pedestrians who were eyeing her owl warily but without much curiosity. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the sign for King's Cross Station. They hadn't left her in the middle of the city after all!

They had, however, left her with too much luggage to carry on her own. She chewed on her bottom lip slightly as she considered how to get into the station with her trunk and the owl's cage. She could ask someone to help her, she reasoned, but there was really no telling who was trustworthy and who wasn't in the city, so she resorted to a two-part system. She would sit the owl's cage down, drag her trunk for a few feet, and then retrieve the owl's cage and repeat the process. It was slow going but, when she finally reached the entrance to King's Cross, a young man came over to her and helped her set the trunk on a trolley. He left her to wrestle with the cage on her own though, not willing to earn the wrath of the owl which nipped his hand when he tried to pick her up.

"Wotcher!" he cried out, yanking his hand back from the cage and walking off, looking offended.

"Sorry!" Whitney called after him. "And thank you!"

Looking a little guilty, she began pushing her trolley, which was unwieldy for a girl her size and kept veering off in the wrong direction. She pushed it out of the way for a moment to take a look at her train ticket. "Come on, come on, come on, come on," she chanted under her breath as she tried to find the platform number. Her heart sank when she did.

"Nine and… three quarters?" she breathed out loud to herself. "Oh, no. This… this must be a joke," she said, feeling tears threaten her eyes. "This must be a… a really cruel joke."

She sniffed and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve hastily, trying to hold off the tears. The gravity of the situation was hitting her and she knew all too well that she was an eleven-year-old girl with no Muggle money, a trunk full of spells and magic supplies, an angry own in a cage, and no idea how to get back to Privet Drive. She was just about to succumb to silent sobs when a voice nearby caught her attention.

"—packed with Muggles, of course," the voice was saying.

Whitney's eyes snapped up, looking for its source, a short, red-haired woman who was leading a series of red-haired children all pushing trunks similar to her own. One of them even had an owl cage on top of his trunk like she did. With no thoughts to her trolley, she left her trunk behind her and ran over in a hurry, wiping stray tears from her face with one hand.

"Excuse me!" she called, running up to the woman. "Excuse me!"

The woman stopped and turned to her, looking down matronly. "Can I help you, dear?" she asked. "Are you lost?"

"N-not exactly," Whitney said, her face turning red now as she had the woman's full attention. "I just… I heard you talking about… I thought you could help me." Her sentence ended in a little of a mumble as she presented her ticket for the train to Hogwarts.

"Oh, my!" the woman said, smiling as she saw the ticket. "You must be a first year," she said kindly. "Where are your school things, dear? You don't expect to go without any of your supplies?"

Whitney sniffed, looking relieved and pointed over to where she'd left her things. "I just didn't want you to leave without… without me," she said, clearing her throat and trying to contain herself. Like my aunt and uncle, she thought, but didn't say.

The woman gave her a pitying look and snapped a finger at two identical boys who went over and fetched the trolley and owl. They returned, looking very cheery and Whitney thanked them rather sheepishly, taking the owl back from them while one of them pushed her trolley and his own.

"The platform's easy, once you've seen it done, dear," the woman said. "Percy, you go first," she said, motioning to one of her children who seemed to be the oldest. Looking slightly smug, the boy pushed his own trolley toward the barrier between platforms 9 and 10. A moment later, he had disappeared.

Whitney wiped at her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things, but it really looked like he had just vanished.

"You just go straight through the barrier," the woman explained, "and the train is on the other side. Best take a run if you're nervous. Fred and George, you next," she said, gesturing to the twins who had fetched her things. They took her luggage cart along with them and she was grateful. She was sure she'd have spilled her trunk onto the ground had she been forced to work against the wonky wheels.

"You can give it a go, if you want," the woman said to her. "Just don't stop in the middle, or you'll run right into the wall."

Whitney nodded, but looked doubtful. She took her owl's cage in hand and began to walk toward the barrier. Her step picked up as she drew closer until she was running full on at the wall. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her arm, sure she was about to earn a concussion for all her trouble was worth. When no crash came, she lowered her arm and opened her eyes, which immediately widened in surprise.

"It's real…" she said to herself, almost crying with relief that it hadn't all been a very splendid dream.

"'Course it's real," two voices said in unison off to her left. She looked over and smiled a little nervously at the twins who were waiting for her.

"We loaded your trunk onto the train for you," one of them said to her, though she wasn't sure if it was Fred or George.

Whitney looked almost confused by this, but stammered out a quick, "Th-thanks, very much."

"Just get on the train there," the second one said, pointing to one of the doors.

"And go two compartments down and to the left," said the first again.

"It's in there," they said together before jogging off.

Whitney smiled and hugged the owl's cage tightly. The nameless owl squawked, a bit annoyed, and Whitney lessened her grip, walking onto the train where the boys had indicated. She had been a little suspicious of their sincerity at first, but her trunk was in the compartment and appeared to still be locked. She sat down on one of the seats and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and enjoying her first moment of peace since… well, since as far as she could remember.