Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine, except the OCs. The rest belong to JK Rowling. Who isn't me, by the way.
Author's Note: This might be the last chapter for a while, as I'm getting a bit busier from now on, but I'll update when I can. Enjoy...
The rest of the holiday passed without incident (The Dursleys returned the next day, Dudley clutching his bottom) and before long it was September the 1st. Luke packed away his new books and robes in a battered old school trunk that had once belonged to David, and sat on his bed, examining his new wand for what to David felt like the hundredth time. Although he was underage, the Trace would not work while he was with his father, and so under David's supervision he had attempted a few basic spells.
His new wand was twelve inches long and made of birch, with a phoenix feather core- "Very nice, excellent at Charms," Mr Ollivander had said. Bearing this in mind, David had tried to teach Luke the Colour Change Charm.
"Okay," he said, "Hold the wand firmly, point it at that feather, and say 'Multicofors'. Now, while you're doing it, you have to visualise the object you're casting it on, and imagine it in whatever colour you want it to turn."
Luke did as he was told. "Multicolofors," he said, flustered, as he jabbed at the feather with his wand. It twitched slightly, and then began to grow. David tapped it with his own wand and it returned to its original size. "Try again," he said encouragingly.
"Multicofors," Luke said, more confident. There was a flash of light, and the feather changed to a daffodil yellow colour. Luke grinned.
"Well done, Luke. That was very good. Now, what about..."
"JUST GET IN THE RUDDY CAR! AND SHUT THAT OWL UP!" David was interrupted by a shout from outside. Both Campbells looked out of the window to where Vernon Dursley was attempting to fit Harry's school trunk, Harry, Dudley, and a rather ruffled-looking snowy owl into his car.
"Do you need a hand?" David asked, poking his head around the front door.
Vernon looked at him as if he had just suggested he might want to eat his own foot. "No, I do not." And with that, he got in the car and drove away.
"Dad, shouldn't we be going as well?" Luke asked, dragging his trunk through from the hall.
"Yes, I suppose. We can use the Floo Network." Seeing Luke struggling with his trunk, he pointed his wand at it and said "Locomotor." The trunk rose a few inches off of the floor and followed Luke back into the living room.
David packed some money for food on the train, and eventually managed to convince his rather morose new owl, Archimedes, to get into his cage. Then, as before, they both took a handful of emerald powder from the tin on the mantelpiece and threw it into the fire. "What do I need to say?" Luke looked questioningly at his father.
"Kings Cross Station," David replied, handing him Archimedes' cage with his one free hand and motioning with his wand for the enchanted trunk to follow them. Luke vanished into the flames, and soon they both emerged in a small, dark room. In one corner sat an elderly wizard, who looked up as they arrived and smiled genially at them.
"Hogwarts, is it?" he asked.
Luke nodded. "Right this way, then, sirs," the old wizard said, leading them to the door and opening it for them. "Platform 9¾ is just over on your left, sirs. And might I say how nice it is to see you. Not many people use the Floo entrance these days."
David smiled at him. "I suppose it's a bit hard to bring your luggage with you through the Floo." The wizard nodded sadly. "David Campbell," David said, holding out his hand.
"Morgan, sir. Alan Morgan."
"Very nice to meet you, Mr Morgan." David and Luke left the room and found themselves on a station platform. Looking behind him, Luke realised that the door they had come through had vanished. He turned back just in time to see someone disappear behind- no, through- the barrier between the two platforms.
"Dad!" He exclaimed, pointing at it. "Over there!"
David followed his outstretched finger and saw what he meant. "Yes, that's it. Let's go." They headed over to the barrier and Luke prepared to go through. He decided it would be better to run. Five metres to go... Four metres to go... Three... Two... One...
"Excuse me?"
Luke was distracted as a voice called out and he missed the barrier, skidding past and coming to a halt some distance past it. He turned his trolley around and headed back to his father. Standing with him were a friendly-looking man and woman, and a girl of around Luke's own age. The man was saying something to David.
"Ah, yes," David was replying as Luke got closer. "All you have to do is walk through the barrier. Don't be nervous, it's quite safe. Ah, Luke. I thought you'd gone through?"
"...missed," said Luke quietly as the girl stared at him rather inquisitively.
"This is Mr and Mrs Granger, Luke. I'm just helping them get through to the platform. They're Muggles, you know."
The girl walked up to Luke. "I'm Hermione," she said rather formally. "Hermione Granger."
"Luke," he replied. "do you want to go through, then? We should get a good seat on the train."
Hermione nodded and took hold of her trolley. Luke lined himself up with the barrier and started running. A moment later, a strange feeling swept over him and he found himself on a busy station platform. On the track, a scarlet steam engine sat, students bustling on and off it as they loaded their luggage on or looked to meet their friends. He looked behind him and saw Hermione emerge from the solid wall, looking surprised but excited by the new world she had found herself in. A moment later, David and the Grangers appeared too, the Muggles looking just as amazed as their daughter.
"It must be weird," Luke said, "all of this?"
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked him.
"Well, magic," he replied. "Dad's shown me some of those Muggle machines- pieceys, I think they're called, and they seemed strange to me, but... I'm used to walking through walls and Apparating and Floo Powder and stuff. If you never had those things growing up, you must think this is all really... weird."
"It is a bit... But I've read all of my textbooks at least once each, so I think I have a fairly good idea of at least the fundamental aspects of magic. It's Hogwarts I'm most looking forward to- Hogwarts: A History was my favourite of all of the textbooks."
Luke grinned. "Come on, let's find a carriage."
"I'll just go and say goodbye to my parents first- I won't be seeing them until Christmas, after all." Hermione rushed off to where her parents stood looking bemusedly at the assortment of people on the packed platform. David left them to say their goodbyes and wandered over to Luke.
"So, are you nervous?"
"A bit," Luke replied, "but it's exciting, isn't it? And I promise I'll write every week, and I won't get in trouble and I'll do my best in lessons and everything."
"You took the words right out of my mouth," David said, embracing his son. "Good luck, Luke."
"See you at Christmas, Dad," Luke said, as David lifted his trunk onto the train and handed him Archimedes' cage. Hermione hurried back over and stood at Luke's side as they both waved at their parents and went to find seats. There was an empty carriage about halfway down the train, and between them they managed to lodge their trunks in the compartments over their seats. They took the two seats near the window, opposite each other across the table, and looked out onto the platform to find their parents again. As they watched, seven people erupted from the barrier in the wall in quick succession. The first three had vivid red hair. The fourth was Harry Potter. Luke pressed his face against the glass to get a better look.
"Look! It's Harry Potter!" He exclaimed, motioning for Hermione to look.
"Oh, he's the boy who Vol-"
"Don't say his name!" Luke hissed.
"Oh... Sorry." Hermione looked embarrassed at having slipped up. "It's You-Know-Who, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. But I think that sounds a bit formal usually."
"Right. I'll try and remember that. Anyway," she continued, opening her trunk and extracting a copy of Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century. "I got this, for a bit of background reading. I didn't want to stick out for not knowing about current events and such. It must be such an advantage, growing up in a wizarding family."
"Not really," Luke reassured her. "There's loads of people who don't know about magic or anything, and they do fine at Hogwarts. I mean, that's why we're here, isn't it? To learn magic? I only know one spell at the moment, and I only learnt that this morning. You'll fit in fine."
"Well, I have read the spell books and learned a few, but I haven't actually tried any."
"Why don't you have a go now?"
"Oh, no, I couldn't! What about the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Wizardry?"
"Nobody'll know. We're in a busy station, there's loads of adults around who'll mask the trace."
"Oh, alright," said Hermione, grudgingly. "Alohomora!" She jabbed her wand at the trunk above them on the rack. The padlock she had replaced after retrieving the book sprung open.
"Well done," said Luke. "What else do you know?"
"Oh, only a few. The..." Before she could say anything more, there was a timid knock on the door. Luke and Hermione turned to see a scared round face looking in at them.
It opened the door and asked, "Er... can I come in here? I can't find another carriage..."
Luke and Hermione nodded, and the young boy entered and sat next to Hermione. "Hermione Granger," she said by way of introduction, "and this is Luke Campbell."
The shy-looking boy looked at both of them, then said "Er... Neville. Neville L... Longbottom."
"Pleased to meet you, Neville," Luke said, as Archimedes gave a screech.
"Oh, is that your owl?" Neville asked, looking rather jealous. "I've only got a toad. And I keep losing him..." He pulled a toad from his pocket and laid it on the table. "His name's Trevor," he said.
At that moment, the train gave a loud whistle and began to move. Luke, Hermione and Neville gave their families one last wave before they faded out of sight into the mist.
The journey passed rather quickly after that, with Neville and Luke taking in turns to tell Hermione about their favourite parts of the wizarding world, and with her telling them about things she had read in one of her books. Hermione invariably knew more about magic than either of the two pure-bloods, and so when the food trolley came the boys seized upon it as an opportunity to show her that she didn't know everything.
"Anything from the trolley?" The plump witch asked as Neville opened the door for her.
"Alright, Hermione. Try and order without seeing what's there," Luke challenged.
"Oh, okay then. Er... can I have a Pumpkin Pasty and some Every Flavour Beans, please?"
Luke and Neville stared at her, dumbfounded.
"How do you know so much?" Neville was astounded.
"Well, I didn't want to stand out. I just thought I should read up on things so that I knew what other people were talking about."
"And that 'reading up' involved sweets?"
"Of course! Although the one thing I must admit I can't quite see the appeal in is- is it pronounced Quidditch? I've only ever seen it written down. But it's like football, I suppose- everyone just seems to get so competitive over these things."
Of course, the mention of Quidditch set the boys off again, although Neville admitted he much preferred watching to playing it. "The only time I ever got on a broom," he said, shuddering at the memory, "I couldn't stop it and I ended up in a pond three miles away."
Luke stifled a laugh.
"Oh, no! Where's Trevor!" Neville looked down at the table which, although it contained several Pumpkin Pasties, Every Flavour Beans, and Chocolate Frogs, was most definitely toad-less.
"Look around, he can't have got far," said Hermione, looking under the table. "He'll be around somewhere. It's not as if he could have got off of the train."
After a search of the cabin proved useless, Luke suggested that Trevor may have escaped when the door was open for the food trolley. Neville yelped and scurried out to search the rest of the train.
"I wonder how much further it is to Hogwarts," said Hermione. "I think it's somewhere in Scotland, so it's bound to be quite a journey, even by train."
"You could always ask the driver?" suggested Luke.
Hermione nodded and went to ask. While she was gone, Luke decided to change into his Hogwarts robes. She arrived back not long later, and said, "Only about half an hour to go now, we'd better get- oh." She had noticed that Luke had already changed. "Well, she continued, you go and look for Neville's toad, and I'll be there in a minute."
Luke headed down the length of the train, peeking into each cabin as he passed, but he was scared to go in any of them. Everyone looked so much bigger than him! He found Neville at the other end of the train, looking rather tearful at having lost his toad, so they walked back down the train and found Hermione. "Have you not found him?" she asked.
Neville shook his head sadly.
"Well, have you asked anyone? Actually gone into any of the carriages?"
Another no.
"Come on, then." She led them back down the train, again, and began knocking on doors and asking people if they had seen a toad anywhere. The first two cabins were full of Ravenclaw girls, the third contained some first-year boys who had not seen Trevor, and the fourth was almost entirely filled by two enormous short-haired boys who looked like rhinos in robes. They sat on one side of the compartment. Lounging on the other, and scowling at Hermione, was a blond-haired boy who looked as if someone had just wafted dragon dung under his nose. Hermione shut the door without saying a word.
The next compartment, when Hermione flung open the door, was occupied by two small boys who Luke assumed were first-years. Then, he realised, one of them was Harry. The other was red-haired and pointing a wand at a sleepy-looking rat.
"Has anyone seen a toad?" Hermione asked them, "Neville's lost one."
"We've already told him we haven't seen it," the red-haired boy retaliated, but then Hermione noticed the wand in his hand.
"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then." She sat down at the table and watched the wand intently.
"Er- all right." The boy cleared his throat.
"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,
Turn this stupid fat rat yellow."
He wiggled his wand and nearly poked the rat, but nothing happened.
"Are you sure that's a real spell?" asked Hermione. "It didn't work very well, did it?"
Luke looked at the boy, who was gazing at her with a mixture of curiosity, indignation, and terror. "My dad taught me a colour-change spell earlier. Shall I try it?"
"Er... All right, then."
Luke got his wand out and pointed it at the rat, which was still sleeping. "Multicofors," he said, gesturing with his wand and picturing in his mind's eye the rat turning yellow. The red-haired boy gave a gasp of amazement, and Luke saw that the rat had indeed turned a sickly butter colour. He repeated the spell and it returned to normal.
"That," the red-haired boy said, "was awesome."
"Well, anyway," said Hermione, "do any of you know which house you'll be in? I've been asking around and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best, I hear Dumbledore himself was one, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad..."
"All my family are in Gryffindor," Ron said. "I don't suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin"
"That's the house Voldemort was in?" Harry asked, then grimaced as he realised he had said the dreaded name. Luke noticed that Hermione winced slightly when Harry said the word- she was becoming more used to the wizarding world already.
"So what was that spell?" Ron asked Luke, who along with Neville had entered the cabin and sat down.
"Oh, er... Multicofors."
"Multicofors," Ron repeated, pointing his wand at his rat, but nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing.
"So," said Harry, trying to deflect attention away from Ron's lack of success, "what do your brothers do now that they've left Hogwarts?"
Ron stopped muttering 'Multicofors' and replied "Well, Charlie's in Romania studying dragons and Bill's in Africa doing something for Gringotts. Did you hear about Gringotts? It's been all over the Daily Prophet."
Luke and Neville nodded, but Hermione and Harry looked blank.
"There was a break-in," said Neville, "someone tried to get into a high-security vault."
"Really?" asked Harry, "what happened to them?"
"They haven't been caught," said Ron. "That's why it's such big news. My dad said it must've been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts, but they didn't take anything. That's what's so strange about it."
"Everyone's getting really scared because they think it might have been You-Know-Who," added Neville. "But they always do. He was around for so long that it's hard for people to forget."
"Well, you don't remember him, do you?" asked Hermione. "None of us do, we were all too young when... When Harry defeated him."
"I didn't defeat him," Harry protested, "I don't remember any more than you do. I mean, I thought I was a Muggle for ten years. I don't even know what You-Know-Who looks like."
Luke, who had been staring out of the window while the others were talking, snapped his head around suddenly to face them. His eyes were glazed over.
A tall, pale figure, red eyes glinting in the light of a thousand lamps. He raises his wand and points it straight at a dark-haired young man. There is a flash of green light.
"Luke? Luke! Are you okay?" Hermione asked, clutching his arm.
Luke blinked and looked around. Everyone was staring at him. "Yeah... Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "Neville, can you lock that door?"
Neville reached over and turned the doorknob so that nobody could get into the cabin from the outside. A moment later, three boys appeared in the corridor outside and rattled the handle. After a while, they gave up and walked away again.
"What was that about?" Ron asked.
"I... don't know," said Luke truthfully. He was just as confused as anyone else.
"Well, we can worry about that later," said Hermione. "The train's nearly at Hogwarts and we still haven't found Neville's toad. We'd better go and have another look. Harry, Ron, you change into your Hogwarts robes."
She stood up and unlocked the door with Alohomora. Luke and Neville followed her.
"My gran'll kill me if I've lost Trevor," Neville whimpered as they walked down the corridor to search the rest of the train.
"Oh, don't worry," said Luke offhandedly, "he'll turn up on the boats."
"What boats?" Neville asked.
Luke said nothing.
There, that wasn't too bad. Hope you enjoyed, please review if you did. Thanks!