After what felt like ages to Beth, September 1st finally arrived. She could hardly keep still on their way to King's Cross, although Auntie Em didn't seem bothered in the slightest. If anything, she was almost as enthusiastic as Beth.

"Platform 9 ¾, right?" Beth asked for the millionth time as they stepped inside the station, holding Phoebe's cage to her chest. 9 ¾ seemed like an odd number for a platform, but when she had asked Auntie Em if the British usually counted by fractions and if that was why she had to do them in math, Auntie Em had laughed and said that no, 9 ¾ was entirely a magical thing. It was her new favorite number, Beth had decided, although she was vaguely disappointed when Auntie Em told her that the number likely would not mark the platform, since Muggles were not supposed to know that the platform was there. She looked around carefully as they walked towards platform 9, just in case there were other magically numbered platforms that might be visible to non-Muggles.

"Yes, and here we are," Auntie Em answered, coming to a halt between platforms 9 and 10. "And we have got," she looked down at her watch, "about an hour to spare."

Beth stared at the wall intently. "I don't see it," she said, panic starting to rise in her chest. If she couldn't see it, maybe she wasn't a witch after all. Auntie Em had opened her mouth to respond when an older woman and a rather timid looking boy who looked to be around Beth's age brushed past them.

"Come now, Neville, you must not miss the train," the woman said rather severely.

"But Gran, it's not leaving for another hour!" the boy protested, struggling to keep hold of a curious frog attempting to escape his grasp.

"Better early than late," she said, and together they walked straight into the wall and vanished.

Beth's mouth fell open.

"There we go," Auntie Em said. She turned to Beth. "Are you ready?"

Beth hesitated, shrinking back. "I'm not sure," she admitted, her eyes glued to the seemingly solid wall in front of her. The boy and his grandmother had charged through it as though it were the most normal thing in the world, but she wasn't sure she could do the same.

"What if I can't do it?" she asked in a small voice.

Auntie Em looked startled. "Do what?"

"Go through the wall," Beth said, her voice nearly a whisper.

Her aunt smiled and wrapped an arm around Beth's shoulder. "Oh! Right. Well, Beth, think about it this way. Walking through a wall is the first of all the cool magical things you'll get to do, and you're not even at school yet."

Beth mustered a smile, but Auntie Em could see that she wasn't convinced.

"What is it, Beth?" she asked, more seriously this time.

Beth concentrated on her shoes, trying to put together all the worries in her head. After what felt like ages, Auntie Em broke the silence.

"This isn't like the fairies in Peter Pan, you know. You don't have to believe in the wall for it to let you through," Auntie Em said and hugged Beth to her side. "You don't have to run headlong into it, either. I'll be right next to you, don't worry."

At that, Beth brightened. She had been worried that the wall wouldn't let her through, and she still was, at least a little bit, but she had to admit that she was curious, too. Would her hand disappear when she touched the wall? How long would it take for them to go through? Together, she and Auntie Em took one step forward, and then another, and another, and before Beth could give in to her apprehension as the wall drew closer, she suddenly found herself on the other side.

"See? Nothing to it!"

The station was quite empty. The boy and his grandmother were nowhere in sight, but there were a few other families scattered around. Beth turned in a circle and wondered how long it would take for the station to fill. Phoebe clucked as her cage swung in Beth's hand.

"I suppose we probably didn't need to be this early," Auntie Em observed. "Thank goodness I got coffee. Let's plant ourselves on that bench over there and people-watch until it's time to board."

She took Beth's elbow gently and guided her to a bench against a pillar near the train as Beth looked around, wide-eyed.

"Do all train stations look like this?" Beth asked, setting Phoebe's cage on the bench next to her. She sat on the edge of her seat and took her hot chocolate as Auntie Em handed it to her. She blew on it before taking a sip.

Auntie Em shrugged. "More or less, at least until all the people get here. You should get a sweet from one of the trolleys if you see one."

Beth spent the next half hour looking for a sweets trolley as more and more people began to arrive. She found watching people emerge from the wall to be particularly interesting. Some crashed through as though they had run at a breakneck speed. Others appeared slowly, with first a hand pushing through the wall and the rest of the body following gradually. Beth suggested that these more cautious folk might be Muggles and Muggle-borns, too, and Auntie Em agreed that that was quite likely. Soon the train station was bustling with more witches and wizards than Beth could have imagined, but Auntie Em seemed oddly at home. The bench that they were sitting on shook as her leg bounced as it always did when she was excited, and for once Beth really wished that she would stop as her own anxiety grew. What if she didn't make any friends? She didn't know anyone, and she had never been any good at making friends at home. And what if she was horrible at magic? What if she didn't belong at Hogwarts?

But then she remembered Professor Sprout, and how kind she had been, and she felt slightly comforted. At least she would have one friendly face there.

"I think it's time for you to board," Auntie Em said when the crowd began to thin and the loudspeaker announced that the train was scheduled to leave in fifteen minutes. She nudged Beth with her shoulder. "Are you ready?"

Beth nodded with more resolution than she actually felt. As nervous as she was, she was going to have to brace herself for the year ahead if she wanted to be a witch, she thought. Auntie Em jumped to her feet and held her hand out so that Beth could hoist herself up, narrowly avoiding Phoebe's cage as it swung precariously in Beth's grip. Beth let go of her aunt's hand reluctantly to pick up her suitcase, and together they approached the train.