Mr. Granger drove his family to Kings Cross Station on the first of September. The sun beat down its blazing hot rays, and even the small sprinkle of clouds in the bright blue sky seemed to droop with sweat and exhaustion. Sadness seemed to coat the drive, wafting in through the slightly ajar windows; Hermione anxiously recited the Introduction to Hogwarts, A History under her breath, while her parents, silent, tried to keep from succumbing to tears—they wouldn't see their only daughter again until the Christmas holidays.
Hermione spent the two weeks between her trip to Diagon Alley and her drive to Kings Cross reading all new her fascinating schoolbooks—she now knew them so well that she could recite whole pages by heart. Admittedly, out of curiosity, she'd tried a few simple charms in the secrecy of her bedroom; she shrunk a few skirts and socks, wishing she could do the same to her front teeth without her parents noticing, and spent about ten minutes before bed each night floating a heavy book in front of her while she read. A few times, the book crashed painfully onto her thin legs, but she had the hang of the charm eventually. After her dreadful experience in Diagon Alley, she believed that only by knowing the information described in her books so well it came to her as second nature could she properly fit in with the magically brought up children, and she grew desperate to prove herself. Hermione remained determined to belong somewhere, and the wizarding world could become her best shot.
To outsiders, Hermione's suitcase probably could have carried any number of things including magazines, research journals, or a bag of crisps, but she smiled to herself wondering what the nearby old woman grumbling loudly about traffic would say about her trunk full of potions ingredients and spell books. She and her parents ambled through Kings Cross Station, searching for the barrier between Platform 9 and Platform 10, where Professor McGonagall said they'd need to cross straight through "solid wall" and out onto Platform 9¾. The prospect of running at a solid brick wall daunted Hermione, but she and her parents did it anyway—the not-so-solid brick wall revelation didn't seem as far-fetched as, well, flying broomsticks after all. So, when the Grangers finally situated themselves in front of the large brick barrier, Hermione gathered her wits about her and rushed hastily at the brick. The collision any sane person would have expected never came.
Hermione gasped. Her brown eyes swept around a vast glittering platform, perusing over an ocean of people with hundreds of trolleys just like hers. A large clock told her she was half an hour ahead of the eleven o'clock departure time, but many witches and wizards already crowded Platform 9¾. Whole families of children hustled onto the train to claim compartments for themselves and their friends, carrying owls, rats, toads, and cats, many dressed in "muggle clothes," as, according to McGonagall, the Ministry suggests for people to do while in parts of Kings Cross accessible to non-magical people, but others obviously hadn't even tried, as they already clad themselves in robes of midnight black—the Hogwarts school uniform.
A scarlet steam engine glittered in the station, dark gray smoke curling up from it like the body of a large snake. Hermione saw that students started boarding the grand Hogwarts Express, and, after saying a rather tear-jerking goodbye to her parents, she strode boldly onto it, joining the throng of Hogwarts students rushing onto the train. She found herself an empty compartment just as the warning bell sounded, and immediately changed into her new Hogwarts robes. Relaxing at last, Hermione picked up the book Hogwarts, A History, and began reading about the very train she sat in. How perfect, thought Hermione, that she should be taken from one world into another on a bustling howling train, a flame red portal between her childhood at 8 Heathgate in London, and her new home at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
She'd been reading for a while, when she heard a small grunt from the corridor.
"Er, hello," a round-faced boy sputtered from outside the open door of her compartment, "You don't mind me sitting here do you? I've been up and down the train looking for good company, but every where's full."
Hermione smiled and nodded. The boy smiled in relief and strode to sit across from her, his trunk following clumsily behind him. He seemed rather distraught, she noticed, searching his pockets over and over again for something. Hermione knew what. She'd overheard him talking to an old woman who looked to be his grandmother on the platform a few minutes earlier—he seemed to have lost his toad. Not wanting to weird him out with her knowing this information, she decided to introduce herself. It was so exciting, meeting someone from an actual wizarding family, and if this stranger wasn't from one of those, she didn't know who could be. His grandmother was fashioned in deep magenta robes with a distinctively decorated hat with what Hermione suspected to be a vulture atop it—what's more, she was carrying a wand.
"Hello, I'm reading Hogwarts, A History, fascinating book—don't you think? Bathilda Bagshot really seems to know everything there is to know about the school. Of course, I'm sure there's much more to read by her—this is only just my first year at Hogwarts. Oh, I'm Hermione Granger, who are you?" She held out her hand.
"Uh," replied Neville, blankly, "I'm not quite sure what that is, really, but it sounds quite nice. I'm Neville Longbottom, and this is my first year too... Has everyone read that? I didn't know we were s'posed to." He took her outstretched hand and shook it, glancing nervously at the book in her other. Hermione was confused for a moment, she thought for sure everyone had already read Hogwarts, A History. Though she didn't know for sure herself, she assured Neville it was probably fine he hadn't already read it, and he relaxed a little.
"Actually, erm, Hermione…I've lost my toad… Trevor… could you help me look around? He keeps getting away from me!"
As the train made its last solid whistle and cleared away from Kings Cross Station, a trail of smoke billowing behind it, the two searched around their compartment and out in the busy corridor. After a while, Hermione took a break to change into her Hogwarts robes, not wanting to be the only one still wearing muggle clothes, but returned shortly to continue searching. Occasionally, she received rude glances, getting shoved around by the many people running up and down the aisle. They were so childish; Hermione had to constantly keep herself from rolling her eyes at them. She expected much better behavior coming from people dealing with such power as magic. Some of the jinxes she saw in The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection were hardly anything boisterous children should be learning about. As the two neared the end of the train on their search, Neville's toad still hadn't turned up, and the expression of defeat plastered across the boy's face told Hermione he'd almost lost hope in the search. He'd poked his head into a few compartments, but no one seemed to have seen Trevor. However, he hadn't asked everyone, she was sure. Wanting to return to her seat to finish re-reading Hogwarts, A History but not willing to leave a dejected Neville to search on his own, Hermione took initiative.
"Maybe you should try asking the people in here," Hermione suggested, and audaciously slid open the door to the nearest compartment, pulling Neville around to stand beside her.
"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one."
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