Disclaimer 1: This is fanfic. That means I do not own any of it. I just borrow it to play with for a little while and let people see the pathetic results if they really want to.
Disclaimer 2: I'm not making any money from it. It's just for fun.
Disclaimer 3: What isn't borrowed is all made up. None of this is real or most likely at all realistic. Please don't trust any of the information in here. Most likely you know more about whatever I'm writing about than I do.
Disclaimer 4: Attitudes, views and opinions expressed by the characters or in the story are not necessarily those of the author. Even when writing Science Fiction or Fantasy I do not tend to attempt to create perfect/better worlds in which everybody gets a happy end ... or whatever is best for them. Please accept that some characters will have a bad ending or be unhappy.
Disclaimer 5: I intend no insult to anyone. If I offend anyone I'm very sorry. Please understand that it was an accident as I tend to be very clumsy in these things.
Notes: Hold on! Draco wasn't raised by Lucius, so why would he have anything against Muggle borns?
Harry No. 5 and the Philosopher's Stone
Chapter 6: The Journey from Platform Nine and Three Quarters
Their hovercar took them to a decrepit old building that the city planners had apparently forgotten to pull down when it had stopped being productive.
"This is King's Cross Station," Hagrid explained as he unloaded their luggage. "It was a really important railway station in its day and it is still traditional for Hogwarts students to depart here when they go to the school."
"What's railway?" Justin asked looking around the empty, decaying hall in fascinated disgust.
"Train," Hermione explained. "You know, like Thomas the tank engine. It was the first forerunner of hovercars, even before the cars that needed drivers."
"Oh!" exclaimed Justin.
"Hermione is smart." stated Harry.
"Oh yes," Hagrid agreed. "I bet she'll do really great at Hogwarts, our Hermione."
Hermione beamed with pride at so much praise. At the primary institute the adults would have frowned and said that, why yes, Hermione was a smart little girl, but it wasn't really important how smart one was and much more that one was diligent and productive and that it was very unbecoming of a mere child to be proud of one of their tiny achievements.
But then Hagrid probably assumed that Hermione was diligent and productive as well as smart and had been raised better than to get too full of herself.
"Let's see now," Hagrid murmured. "Where was it again? Ah yes, there: See that wall between platform nine and that platform where it says 0 because the 1 fell off? That's the entrance to platform nine and three quarters. Our bus is waiting there."
"Oh," said Harry. The wall looked very solid. "How do we get there?"
"We just walk through," Hagrid announced and led the way.
The children looked at each other nervously and Harry hastily grabbed a hold of Hagrid's huge furry coat and closed his eyes before they hit the wall. There was no collision. They simply kept moving and suddenly Harry heard the familiar sounds of many children nearby.
He opened his eyes and found that he was on a strange bit of ... road he assumed as there was a sleek red bus with the inscription 'Hogwarts Express' parked in the middle of it.
Several other adults approached Hagrid to ask whether all had gone well and cast curious glances at Harry. One of them, a stern looking old woman, collected binders from Hagrid and the others and asked where he had left the car while a tiny old man offered to assist them with their luggage. He waved his wand and the suitcases lifted off the luggage trolley and flew to the bus' luggage compartment, which opened just as miraculously to let them inside.
"Wow! Thank you!" Harry exclaimed.
"Will we learn how to do that, too?" Hermione asked eagerly.
"Why yes of course, eventually," the tiny man replied. "But we'll start with something easier. The first thing I'll teach you to do is to levitate a feather."
"To what?" Harry asked.
"Make it fly," the man explained. "That's pretty hard at first, but once you get the hang of it, it will be much easier to make other things fly."
"Like suitcases!" Justin exclaimed.
"Yes, like suitcases," the man confirmed.
And then he wished them a good journey and disappeared with a pop. Harry, Justin and Hermione stared.
"Well then," said Hagrid. "Get aboard and pick out your beds. We're leaving as soon as I've got everybody settled."
Beds? Yes indeed, instead of one floor of rows of seats, the Hogwarts Express had three floors of rows of beds.
The lower two were both full, but in the back of the last floor they finally found three unoccupied beds next to each other and made themselves comfortable.
Soon afterwards the bus began to hover and move out of the station.
For a while they just watched the landscape move by and wondered what Hogwarts would be like. Of course Harry and Justin were going to be dorm mates having come from the same primary institute, but would Hermione's dorm be very far away?
After a while four boys who were wearing white dresses instead of shirts and trousers approached them.
"There are four houses," one with red hair told them.
"And we get sorted into them," another whose hair was so blond it looked almost white added.
"But we don't know how," said the tallest one.
"The nurses said it isn't at all dangerous and doesn't hurt a bit, though," the blond one assured them and then added. "I'm Draco. He's Ron and he's Gregory and he's Vincent. We're from the Magical Primary Institute, so we know."
"Hi, I'm Harry," said Harry. "And she's Hermione, and he's Justin. We're from South-East England Primary Institute."
"You're Harry?" Ron asked excitedly. "That Harry? Do you really have a scar?"
Harry showed them the lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead that Hagrid had recognised him by, and they admired it a lot. Then they settled down on the foot ends of Harry's and Justin's beds and told them all they knew and imagined about the houses.
When they got hungry Justin got out his sweets and handed them around and later Hermione found the names of the houses in Hogwarts a History and told them that they were those of the four founders of the school.
"Excuse me, have you seen a toad?" a boy none of them had ever seen before asked.
"No," they all said shaking their heads.
"What's your name?" Draco added, but the boy had already moved on.
"He probably only just bought his toad," Hermione said when Draco seemed to feel insulted. "I hope he finds him soon."
Meanwhile it had grown dark outside and they soon stopped, but by a lake rather than in front of the large modern institute building that Harry had expected.
Hagrid directed them into boats and the boy who'd been looking for his toad earlier joined Harry, Justin and Hermione in theirs, now happily clutching his toad.
"I'm Neville," he told them. "And I'm from North London Primary Institute."
"Look," Hagrid shouted for all to hear. "There is Hogwarts!"
Harry gasped. Hogwarts Secondary Institute was in a Medieval castle! He'd never seen anything so magnificent before.
Soon they had crossed the lake and Hagrid led them up to the impressive building. He knocked on the door and it was opened by the same old woman they'd seen at Kings Cross Station earlier that day.
"The first years, Professor McGonagall."