A/N: To be as perfectly honest as the most honest thing in HonestLand, this chapter was a gateway chapter. If we never venture into the McMartin's home again, I'll be a happy girl.

If you'd like to review, you can tell me things in that review. Also, they had roast for dinner. Roast.

The barn owl, Eldin, hooted happily from atop the cabinets in Mrs. McMartin's kitchen.

She cast glances to it between cutting up potatoes. There it was; an owl. And owl in her kitchen. If there was any other sort of sign that this all was real, and her daughter would be leaving to study magic at a school for witches, she doubted if it could be more juxtaposing than this one.

Eldin gave another hoot before awkwardly spreading his wings as much as he could in the small space. His favorite perch had just wandered into the kitchen.

"Mum, when's dinner going to be ready?" The eleven-year-old girl didn't break stride when her owl settled noisily onto her small shoulder. She had in her hand a curious object that hiccupped tiny gold sparks occasionally. Since she got it two weeks ago, her wand left her hand only when she ate, washed, or slept.

Mrs. McMartin considered cooking deliberately slow. Tomorrow morning she and Aileen's father would be taking her to King's Cross station, with Richard along too, of course. And then every dinner until Christmas would be for two.

She tried to imagine what sort of adventures –or perils- awaited her only child at this Hogwarts school. Richard had assured her it was "safer even than Gringotts" but she didn't know what that was. He tried again to explain it, comparing it all at once to an ordinary boarding school, a zoo, and a dream. This only served to make her more nervous.

Everyone was seated around the table, Mr. and Mrs. McMartin, Richard, Aileen, and even Eldin, who had traded his perch on the girl's shoulder for the back of her chair.

"… and dragons are real too! Did you know that, Dad? You guys must have known that, Richard must have told you. Mom, did you know that dragons were real? Well, guess what's in my wand? It's made of er, ash wood and it's got a real dragon heartstring in it! From a real dragon!" Aileen paused only to stuff her mouth with a roast potato. "Also, the Houses, remember, the Houses I told you about? Richard was in er, Ravenclaw, weren't you, Richard?"

The man nodded, listening to her babble with amusement.

"I met this girl before; she said she'd be in Slith… S… Slytherin because, er, she could do anything she wanted or something like that. And the books, Mum, the books are so big, they're enormous! I don't know how I'll ever remember all of everything that's in, that's in them, they're so big! Also, flying classes! I'll learn how to ride a broom, I saw some incredible-looking onces in Dra, er, Diagon Alley but Richard said first-years normally don't get their own brooms. And dragons are really real!" She shoveled in another mouthful.

The McMartins had heard this same speech about two dozen times already. But each telling got faster and more inarticulate than the last, which meant the girl was getting more and more nervous as the day came. Today, being August 31, was the day of the most frazzled retelling yet. Mrs. McMartin didn't trust herself to speak. Her husband had known Richard Crenshaw since before they were married, but this other world of wizards and magic and dragons… It just felt fake. But a quick glance at her daughter's trunk full of spellbooks, wizard robes, and potion ingredients constantly proved otherwise.

The station was phenomenally normal.

Aileen shot an accusatory glance to Richard, just behind her. He'd said there was a giant scarlet steam engine with the Hogwarts crest on the front. He said there'd be owls flying around and cats getting underfoot. He said there'd be noise and excitement and magical candy. She remembered that part distinctly. And most importantly, he said there are countless other witches and wizards, who'd all be transported to Hogwarts on the same train.

So far, since saying a (rather long, actually) goodbye to her parents, all she saw were normal, disappointing trains, typical dumb pigeons, rubbish, rubbish, and also rubbish.

He put a hand on her shoulder between platforms nine and ten. Aileen and Eldin both swiveled around. In Eldin's case, just his head swiveled.

"What?"

He cocked an eyebrow at her and then looked pointedly at the dividing barrier.

The girl scowled at him, the barrier, then him, then the barrier again. "What?"

In answer, the man looked quickly around to be sure they weren't being watched, and then casually strolled, hands in his pockets, right through the barrier. He did not come back out.

Taking this to mean she was supposed to follow, Aileen clenched her tongue between her teeth, narrowed her speckled blue eyes, and made a very obvious beeline for the wall.

She experienced an entirely foreign sense of unreality as her whole body tensed yet kept moving. Her legs kept the same mad, uneven pace all the way through the solid object until she reached the other side.

"You didn't look out for Muggles, you couldn't have been more conspicuous, and what the devil is going on with your face?" Richard startled her, directly on the other side of the barrier and staring disapprovingly down at her, ready with a list of admonitions. "But you have made it to Platform 9 ¾."

"Was I smoke?" Aileen asked breathlessly, remembering to pull her tongue back inside her mouth. "Or was the barrier smoke? Was anything smoke? I smell smoke. Oh, look!" She'd caught sight of the train, wheeling her cart boisterously past Richard and into the throng. She lurched back on her heels sharply to bring the cart to a rough halt before the Hogwarts Express. "It's wicked," she breathed.

"And about to leave," murmured Richard to himself, frowning at his pocket watch. He closed it with a decisive snap. "My dear, this is where we say good-bye."

Aileen ogled up at him. "Forever?"

"Yes," he said gravely. "NO. Of course not, in what conceivable way would that be the case?"

"Oh," the girl said, looking down. "Right."

"Yes, well." He stood, towering above her, unsure of what to do next.

She suddenly lashed out with her fist and punched him on the arm. "BYE." She then rattled off down along the platform before anything else could happen. Eldin's excited hooting became lost amidst the kerfuffle.

Richard stood, clasping his arm where she'd hit him. It had been a good punch. "Just like her father, that one."

He allowed himself a smile.

She was inside the train and therefore invisible to anyone outside it. That made it quite alright that she had her nosed mashed right up against the glass.

First of all, what Courtney saw had horrified her. Right before her eyes, well, right on the other side of the glass which was right before her eyes, she'd witnessed McMartin actually strike Mr. Crenshaw! How could a girl like that even live on the same planet as people like him?

She stepped shortly away from the window, clutching her wand tightly. A few angry red sparks shot from the end. And to think she'd have to pretend to be friends with that barbarian. Her glance shifted out the window to the receding figure of Mr. Crenshaw. The things she did for love.

A long-haired tortoiseshell cat wound around her ankles sinuously. Absently, she picked the cat up and stroked it. "It's not going to be easy, Moria," she warned softly. "But McMartin is the only link we have to Mr. Crenshaw. And when I get older, I'll have to marry someone respected. I have to. Only," she pushed her nose into the cat's soft, dappled fur, "we'll have to teach him to stop mixing with the common crowd."

Moria purred, the soft rumbling comforting against Courtney's cheek. She placed the cat on her trunk and wheeled down along the train, looking for an empty compartment. There were so many people, varying in age from eleven to seventeen. She kept her eyes open as she walked as properly as she knew how, swiftly scanning the inside of the open compartments. Some plain-looking girls, these she tolerated. A few round-faced boys who looked far too short for eleven. These she ignored entirely. It was the good-looking girls she wasn't fond of. A fifteen year old girl she passed sat with her friends, animatedly describing something apparently hilarious. Courtney instantly hated their girlish laughter and wanted to slam their compartment door shut before anyone else could hear it.

Maybe she should get some studying done on the train. She wanted to set herself apart from the crowd early, to let everyone know who was in charge. That is, if she could find a compartment that wasn't partially filled with juvenile morons and lower-class tragedies.

Courtney got more annoyed with each step she took. Toward the back of the train, the students only got older. And somehow, less mature. It was baffling. She finally had to turn around and head back the way she came because some complete berk thought a stink bomb would be an appropriate item to explode on a train. Why weren't these teenage savages anything like Richard?

The blonde girl flounced along self-righteously, flicking her hair as if she had a nervous twitch. If any of that absurdly inappropriate stink bomb got its smell in her hair… Her father would hear about this.