Chapter 6 – A Discovery on Platform 9 ¾

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept out of the twins' way for the rest of the month that remained until September 1, and Dudley clutched his bottom in fear every time he saw one of them. Laura thought it was funny for a while, but it started to get depressing being ignored after a while.

So Laura spent most of her time shut in the twins' room with her owl, which she had named Ebony, reading all of her schoolbooks, and practicing a few simple spells. She wanted to visit Jade, to tell her about everything that had happened, but Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon wouldn't let her leave the house. Now, she was rereading her Charms book, and trying to get the pencil on her desk to fly.

"Wingardium Leviosa" she chanted, focusing on the incantation. The pencil twitched on the desk. "Wingardium Leviosa", she repeated. The pencil twitched again, but this time it raised two, four, six feet into the air, and hovered near the ceiling. Laura smiled.

She practiced a few more charms, and then opened her potions textbook.

That was how Laura spent the next few weeks. Finally, the day before she was supposed to leave for Hogwarts, Harry tapped her awake.

"What's up?" she said groggily.

"It's the ticket," he replied nervously. "It says we're supposed to take the train to Platform Nine… and Three Quarters."

She sat up straight and stared at the ticket that Harry was holding for several moments. Then she said, "We'll probably be able to ask another wizard when we get there." She looked up. "We have to get there first though."

Harry went downstairs to ask Uncle Vernon for a lift to Kings Cross tomorrow, while Laura started packing. Harry came up a few minutes later laughing. "The only reason he's willing to take us is because they're taking Dudley to get his tail removed anyway."

They woke up early the next day and got in the car with their aunt, uncle, and Dudley. They reached King's Cross Station at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped Harry and Laura's trunks onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for them. Laura thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face.

"Well, there you are. Platform nine — platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?"

He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all.

"Have a good term," said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Both of them turned and saw the Dursleys drive away. All three of them were laughing.

Harry was about to stop a passing guard to ask how to get onto the platform, but Laura stopped him. "Are you crazy?" she hissed. "I doubt he's even heard of Hogwarts. There's got to be some other way."

Just then a large group of people, all with flaming red hair, passed by, and Laura heard a little of what they were saying.

"-packed with Muggles, of course-"

The twins spun around. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Laura and Harry's (which she had made Harry push) – and they had an owl. Hearts hammering, the twins followed after them. They stopped and so did the twins, just near enough to hear what they were saying.

"Now, what's the platform number?" said the boys' mother

"Nine and three-quarters!" piped a small girl, also redheaded, who was holding her hand. "Mom, can't I go…"

"You're not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first."

What looked like the oldest boy marched toward platforms nine and ten. Laura watched carefully, but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him. By the time they had cleared away, the boy had vanished.

"Fred, you next," the plump woman said.

"I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you tell I'm George?"

"Sorry, George, dear."

"Only joking, I am Fred."

Laura grinned. These boys were twins, and not only that; they were practical jokers as well. Yes, I just might just have to get to know these two.

The boy's twin told him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he had gone. The third brother, who was the second brother's twin, walked briskly toward the barrier. He was almost there, and then, quite suddenly, he wasn't anywhere.

Mystified, Laura walked over to the woman. "Excuse me," she said.

"Hello, dear," the woman responded. "First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new too." She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin, and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.

"Yes," said Laura. "The thing is, my brother and I aren't quite sure how to get onto the platform".

The woman looked over at Harry, who was standing quietly by the luggage cart, and smiled. "Not to worry dears. All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."

"Genius…" beamed Laura. "Thank you," she said to the woman. Laura turned around and started walking towards the barrier, Harry at her heels. She looked at him and saw he had his eyes shut tight, then looked back at the wall, which was one foot away. There was a sensation like walking through a curtain of slightly warm water, and the two of them were through the barrier. Laura looked around the platform. There was a scarlet steam engine waiting, with a sign overhead that said Hogwarts' Express, eleven o'clock. There was an iron archway where the barrier had been with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it.

She looked over Harry, who had a giant smile on his face. She found herself grinning with him too. She grabbed his hand and pulled him over towards the train. They passed a round-faced boy named Neville who had lost his toad, and a boy with dreadlocks surrounded by a small crowd. They pressed through the crowd until they found an empty compartment at the end of the train. Laura climbed aboard and took Hedwig and Ebony's cages as Harry passed them up, and tried and failed to help him heave up the heavy trunks.

"Want a hand?" asked one of the red-haired twins he'd followed through the barrier.

"Yes, please," they said together.

"Oy, Fred! C'mere and help!"

With the help of Fred and George, they lifted the two trunks and tucked them away into a corner of the compartment.

"Thanks," said Harry, pushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes.

"What's that?" said one of the redheaded twins suddenly, pointing at Harry's lightning scar.

"Blimey," said the other twin. "Are you-?"

"He is," said the first twin. "Aren't you?" he added to Harry.

"What?" asked Harry.

"Harry Potter." Chorused the twins.

"Oh, him," said Harry, looking slightly flustered. "I mean, yes, I am."

"Goodness Harry, forgetting your own name, now?" Laura asked, watching Harry turn even redder.

Fred and George turned to look at her. "And you must be Laura," the one on the left said in something like awe.

The one on the right started to say something, but was interrupted by a voice that came floating in through the train's open door.

"Fred? George?" it called. "Are you there?"

With a last look at Harry, the red-haired boys hopped off the train. Harry opened his mouth, but Laura shushed him, took off her wig and put it on the seat, and sat down near the window listening to the red-haired family on the platform. The mother was rubbing the youngest boy's – Ron's – nose.

"Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie?" said one of the twins, and Laura grinned.

"Shut up," said Ron.

"Where's Percy?" said their mother.

"He's coming now."

The oldest boy came striding into sight. He had already changed into his billowing black Hogwarts robes, and Harry noticed a red and gold badge on his chest with the letter P on it.

"That means he's a prefect," Laura whispered to Harry. "They're sort of like the student leaders."

Laura turned to listen again just as Percy said, "Can't stay long, Mother. I'm up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves-"

"Oh, are you a prefect, Percy?" interrupted one of the twins, with an air of great surprise. "You should have said something, we had no idea."

"Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it," said the other twin. "Once-"

"Or twice-"

"A minute-"

"All summer-"

Laura's grin grew wider and wider with every word.

"Oh, shut up," said Percy the Prefect.

"How come Percy gets new robes, anyway?" said one of the twins.

"Because he's a prefect," said their mother fondly. "All right, dear, well, have a good term — send me an owl when you get there."

She kissed Percy on the cheek and he left. Then she turned to the twins.

"Now, you two — this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you've — you've blown up a toilet or —"

Laura laughed "Oh, think of the pranks I can pull this year! All of the new materials I have to use! You know, blowing up a toilet would be kind of fun…"

"Blown up a toilet?" said one of the twins. "We've never blown up a toilet."

"Great idea though, thanks, Mom," said the other.

"It's not funny. And look after Ron."

"Don't worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us."

"Shut up," said Ron again. He was almost as tall as the twins already and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.

"Hey, Mom, guess what? Guess who we just met on the train? You know that black-haired boy and girl who was near us in the station? Know who they are?"

"Who?"

"Harry and Laura Potter."

Laura and Harry listened as the little girl's voice asked, "Oh, Mom, can I go on the train and see Harry, Mom, please…"

Laura smirked at Harry who was blushing furiously. She guessed that he had never thought about what being famous meant.

"You've already seen him, Ginny, and the poor children aren't things you goggle at in a zoo. Are they really, Fred? How do you know?"

"Asked them. Saw their scars. They're really there – like lightning."

"Poor dears – no wonder they were alone, I wondered. Laura was ever so polite when she asked how to get onto the platform."

"Never mind that, do you think one of them remembers what You-Know-Who looks like?"

As the mother became very stern, Laura let her mind wander. She didn't know what Voldemort looked like. She probably would have asked questions if she had, Aunt Petunia's anti-question act or not. Laura had just stood up to get a book from her trunk, when the compartment door slid open and a girl walked in who could have been Laura's reflection. The new girl looked exactly like her, with the same emerald green eyes covered by glasses, and the same wavy black hair. In fact, the only difference between the two of them was that Laura's hair reached her waist, and this girl's was cut just at her shoulders.

"Oh, there you are!" the new girl squealed. "I've been looking all over, I thought that maybe Hagrid forgot to tell you how to get onto the platform, and then you wouldn't have come!" The girl launched herself at Laura, wrapping her into a hug.

Laura shot a look at Harry, who was staring open mouthed at the girl, and said in a slightly confused voice, "Er- Who are you?"

The girl frowned slightly, finally letting go of Laura. "I'm your sister. Nancy."

Laura raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" she asked. But then she remembered that sneering blone boy from the shop in Diagon Alley, asking where her sister was. Could it be true? Could they actually be triplets, instead of twins?

The girl's frown was more pronounced, and Laura noticed that she also had a lightning bolt scar on her forehead. "You mean you don't know? Didn't our Aunt Petunia tell you?"

"Ah," Laura smirked. "There lies the problem. You see, our dearest Aunt Petunia decided that she wouldn't tell us anything; we had no idea that magic existed until Hagrid came and told us."

Nancy had her mouth open in horror. "You didn't know?" She sat down, and Laura sat next to her.

"Nope," Harry said from where he was still sitting in the corner of the compartment, his eyes also resting on Nancy's scar. "Why didn't you have to suffer through the Dursley's then?"

Nancy sighed. "Dumbledore thought you would know. He was really upset when Hagrid came back and told him about you not knowing about magic. But he still thought Aunt Petunia would have told you about me. You see, the night our parents died, Hagrid went to get us from our parents' house in Godric's Hollow; it was blown up because of the curse rebounding, I think. He only found you two, and he brought you two to our aunt and uncle's house.

"Dumbledore went looking for me after leaving a letter for our aunt and uncle. He met Professor Trelawney, the Divination professor at Hogwarts, there, and she had helped him look. They had finally found me buried under a collapsed piece of the ceiling, when Professor Trelawney made a prediction – and this was a real one, mind you, not the one's you get from palm reading and crystal balls. Dumbledore showed me the memory of it in his Pensieve.

"Trelawney said: 'The undiscovered triplet lies under the wreckage of her prior home, not with her brother and sister… for if the third of the three is taken to the other two, by the time their magic would have revealed, only three of the six would remain in the safety of the house protected by blood… though once all three begin to learn control over their magic, all of them may reside at the place of their relatives without danger.'

"Well I could hardly join you, could I? Dumbledore wasn't sure whether or it meant the Dursley's would die, or the three of us would have, or they would have taken us to an orphanage, or we would have run away, or… well you get the point. None of them would be good. So I lived at Hogwarts. Dumbledore wanted me to ride the train so I could meet you guys though. I still wish you would have known about me before."

Laura said, "You and me both. Nice to meet you, sis."

"Do you really live at Hogwarts?" asked Harry.

"Yeah." Nancy said excitedly. "It's really cool. I know all of the teachers. Professor Snape, the potions teacher at Hogwarts, doesn't really like me much though. He doesn't really like anyone, come to think of it."

Just then the youngest redheaded boy came in.

"Anyone sitting there?" he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Harry. "Everywhere else is full."

The three of them shook their heads, and the boy sat down. He glanced at the three of them and looked quickly out of the window. He still had the black mark on his nose.

"Hey, Ron."

The twins were back.

"Listen, we're going down to the middle of the train – Lee Jordon's got a giant tarantula down there."

"Right," mumbled Ron.

"Harry, Laura," said the other twin, "did we introduce ourselves? Fred and George Weasley. And this is Ron, our brother. "Nice to see you again, Nancy. See you later, then."

"Bye," the triplets and Ron said. The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.

"I know Fred and George from school," Nancy explained. "They frequently wander the castle at night; best pranksters ever."

"So you're really the Potters, then?" Ron asked after a moment.

They nodded.

"Oh – well, I thought it might be one of Fred and George's jokes," said Ron.

Nancy laughed, "I can see where you would get that from.

"Have you really got – you know…" Ron said after a moment, and he pointed at their foreheads.

They pulled their bangs off of their foreheads to reveal the lightning scars. Ron stared. Slightly uncomfortable, Laura turned to Nancy.

"So you'll be living with us next summer, with our Aunt and Uncle, right?" she asked.

"Yeah," Said Nancy.

"You two live with the Muggles, right?" Ron asked Harry, probably feeling the most comfortable talking to the other boy.

"Yup. Though I hate to break it to you Nancy," Harry said, glancing over at Nancy. "They're not exactly the kindest people you'll ever meet. No, scratch that. They're downright horrible."

"Yeah," Laura added, for Ron's benefit, "They never even told us that we were magical until the letters started arriving, and even then he kept burning them. Eventually Hagrid showed up, gave Dudley a pig's tail, and told us." She grinned. "Best day of my life."

"That… wow." Ron seemed lost for words, knowing that the two of the wizarding world's saviors didn't even know magic existed, let alone how famous they were.

Harry changed the subject. "What's it like, having three older wizarding brothers?"

"Five," said Ron, gloomily. "I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left – Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Percy's a Prefect now, and Fred and George mess around a lot but they're really funny and everyone likes them."

"I remember Charlie," laughed Nancy. "He was the one that went on to Romania to study dragons, right?"

"Yeah," said Ron, slightly surprised. "Bill's a Curse Breaker for Gringotts. Did you hear? It's been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don't suppose you get that with the Muggles – someone tried to rob a high security vault."

Harry and Laura stared, and Nancy said, "I know! And they've gotten away too, that's what makes it such big news. I don't know why, but all of the teachers at the school seemed especially upset by it, but also relieved too."

"Well, my dad reckons that they didn't take anything, that might by why. 'Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who's behind it."

"Voldemort?" asked Laura. As Ron jumped about a foot in the air, she asked, "What happened?"

"You said You-Know-Who's name!" said Ron, sounding both shocked and impressed. "I'd have thought you, of all people-"

"I'm not trying to be brave or anything," said Laura. "I just don't see the problem. 'Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself'.

Ron stared. "What?"

"Never mind. It's not like he's going to come back from the dead and materialize in the compartment if I say his name, is he? I mean, we killed him didn't we?"

Ron shivered and changed the subject.

Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, "Anything off the cart, dears?"

Harry, who hadn't had any breakfast, leapt to his feet, but Ron's ears went pink and he muttered that he'd brought sandwiches. Harry went out into the corridor.

Harry and Laura had never had any money for candy with the Dursleys, and now that he had pockets rattling with gold and silver he was ready to buy as many Mars Bars as he could carry — but the woman didn't have Mars Bars. What she did have were Bettie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs. Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things Harry had never seen in his life. Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything for him and Laura and paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.

Ron stared as Harry brought it all back into the compartment and tipped it into an empty seat.

"Hungry, are you?"

"Starving," said Harry, taking a large bite out of a pumpkin pasty.

"We didn't have breakfast," said Laura, opening a Chocolate Frog. "You want one?" she asked Ron, who had pulled out a lumpy sandwich, and Nancy.

"Sure," said Nancy, but Ron turned red.

"Go on, have a Chocolate Frog… they aren't really frogs, are they?"

"No," said Nancy. "But see what the card is. They have cards in them to collect of famous witches and wizards."

"Cool," Laura said, pulling open the packaging and looking at the card. The man on the card wore half-moon glasses, had a long, crooked nose, and flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache. Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore. "So this is Dumbledore." She turned over the card and read:

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS

Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicholas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.

Laura turned the card back over and saw, to her astonishment, that Dumbledore's face had disappeared. But then she remembered the pictures in the books that she had been reading over the summer, and they moved too.

There was a knock on the door of the compartment and the round-faced boy Harry had passed on platform nine and three-quarters came in, followed by a girl who was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.

"No." said Laura. "But I can help you look if you like."

"Yeah, I'll come too," said Nancy.

"I'm going to stay here with Ron," said Harry.

"Bye guys," they said, and exited the compartment.

"I'm Hermione Granger," the girl said. "And this is Neville Longbottom. Who are you?"

"Nancy Potter," said Nancy. "This is my sister Laura."

"Are you really," said Hermione, while Neville looked away pointedly. Laura felt a rush of gratitude towards him; he probably understood that she didn't want attention. Hermione continued, "I know all about you, of course – I got a few extra books, for background reading; I'm Muggle born. You're in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and-"

"Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century," Laura interrupted, somewhat annoyed. "I got some extra books too; my Aunt and Uncle didn't tell me or my brother anything about magic."

Nancy and Laura talked while they helped Hermione and Neville search the train for the toad.

Eventually they walked into one compartment that had three boys in it, including the one from the robes' shop in Diagon Alley. He looked up when they entered, and looked at Nancy and Laura with interest.

"So it's true, then?" he said. "They're saying all down the train that the Potters were coming to Hogwarts. I suppose I didn't quite believe you in Diagon Alley…"

"Yes," both Potters said. Laura looked over to the other boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean.

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where she was looking. "And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." His gaze wandered over Hermione and Neville, who were standing right outside the compartment. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there." Draco held out his hand to shake with Laura, but she didn't take it. Instead she looked out the window, while Nancy spoke.

"No thank you. Hermione and Neville are nice. We were actually looking for an escaped pet, but it doesn't seem to be in here. We'll be leaving now."

The four of them walked out of the compartment, and as soon as the door closed, Laura exclaimed, "What an arrogant prat!"

"You know I normally wouldn't say things like that," said Neville quietly, "but in this case I would have to agree. Some people like Malfoy think that they're better than everyone else because they're pureblood. It's disgusting."

Hermione nodded. "He looked at me like I was dirt."

A voice echoed though the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train; it will be taken to the school separately. The four of them hustled to change, and pushed towards the door of the train with the rest of the school when it finally stopped at the station.

A lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a familiar voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

Hagrid's big hairy face peered over the sea of heads. Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Laura thought that there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville sniffed once or twice.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud, "Oooooh!"

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Laura and Nancy got into a boat with Hermione and Neville, and Harry and Ron got into the boat next to theirs with two other first years.

"Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then — FORWARD!"

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

"Trevor!" Neville cried blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle. They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.

"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?"

Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.