Chapter 9

Harry had wavered between excitement and wariness at the prospect of meeting other magical people ever since he had received his Hogwarts letter and realized what it meant. The idea of finding acceptance amongst other freaks had made him hopeful for the first time in his life, fantasies of belonging and friendship keeping him company while he fulfilled his chores or lay in his lonely cupboard.

Until that awful day when Dudley had stolen his letter and everything had gone to hell.

The next month he had spent it worrying about what would happen if the people from the magical school learned that he had killed his uncle, sort of tortured his cousin, and kept busy over the summer robbing houses and picking pockets. He couldn't imagine any headmaster —unless it was one running a reformatory— admitting a delinquent like him in his school, so being rejected was the first consequence he could expect if they knew what he had done. They might turn him away even if they didn't, since he hadn't confirmed his attendance by 'owl' and he hadn't managed to procure any of the required equipment.

Depressing as it would be to be denied a place in the magical school, over the last few weeks Harry had been more increasingly worried about other possible consequences. He wasn't really afraid of being handed over to the police —at this point he was pretty confident that he could handle himself against any normal people and escape from any normal prison—, but it made him uneasy the possibility that they might use magic against him, to lock him up in some place he couldn't escape from or hurt him in some way he couldn't defend against with his rudimentary power. The things he could do were probably just silly magic tricks compared to what grown wizards who had spent years learning magic properly could do, after all, and much as Harry wanted to meet other freaks like him he wasn't looking forward to lose the advantage he currently had by putting himself at the mercy of more powerful sorcerers.

Discovering Platform Nine and Three-Quarters —which was clearly located in a parallel world or dimension—, had simultaneously reassured him and made him more wary, since it seemed less likely that the people from the magical school would know about Uncle Vernon if they existed in another world, but also seemed more likely that they would deal with him themselves instead of handing him over to the police of the normal dimension. The uncertainty regarding what he might find had kept Harry awake for more and more hours every night as September 1st approached, sometimes imagining the magical world as a safe haven for unwanted kids like him and other times picturing it as a scary place ruled by ruthless wizards or cackling old witches with warts on their noses; sometimes fearing to stumble into a crazy world where some foul-tempered queen would shout 'off with his head' a soon as he was recognized, while others he painfully dreamed with a land where everyone would be nice and he could start over.

None of his wild imaginations prepared him for the reality he was confronted to when the magical platform began to fill up with people the morning of the first of September, though.

The reality that magical people were just... normal people.

Of course, they weren't normal in the sense that Uncle Vernon had always used the word. The way most of them dressed, with colourful robes and oddly shaped hats, or ill-matched clothes that had gone out of fashion half a century ago, would have been enough reason for his uncle to change his mind about boarding the same train or even standing at the same platform, and Aunt Petunia would have probably fainted if she had seen people walking through walls or appearing out of thin air. It also wasn't exactly normal for adults to discuss goblins or cauldrons regulations while they waited for the train to depart, or for kids to argue about broomsticks the way Dudley and Piers often argued about racing bicycles.

After two hours of observation, however, Harry had arrived to the conclusion that, magic and oddities aside, these people were just normal parents or relatives escorting their normal children to the station to send them off to boarding school. Parents that fussed over their sons and daughters, admonishing and counselling them, promising to write and hugging them goodbye with tears in their eyes. Kids happy to be reunited with their friends, laughing and bickering with their siblings, annoyed with their parents' fussing and scolding.

Platform Nine and Three-Quarter had filled up with families, all very different from one another but with the common denominator of children being reassured, looked after, and unmistakably loved.

It was a thousand times worse than going to the zoo.

Harry watched through the window of his compartment all that he could never be nor have, envy and anguish drilling burning holes in his stomach and heart. What he was feeling wasn't anything new, to be sure, he had grown up feeling this way, but for some reason it hurt more now. Maybe because he had naively believed this time would be different, that for once his magic would make him normal or at least that he wouldn't feel like a freak surrounded by people who could do freakish things too.

He had been stupid. And he was being stupid now, lamenting his lack of a family to see him off when he had much more serious problems to worry about.

Annoyed with himself, Harry swallowed his bitterness and forced himself to stay detached while he observed the comings and goings on the platform, trying to pick up as many clues and ideas as possible in case this was the closest to Hogwarts and magical people he could get. He saw a round-faced boy standing with who was probably his grandmother —a very scary-looking old woman wearing a really creepy hat—, and through the window came in the sound of the boy's distressed voice as he complained about his missing toad. A red-haired family walked past in a hurry, the mother dragging a little girl while four bickering older boys pushed their carts through the platform, one of them carrying a cage with an owl as well. Another family had just popped out of nowhere in the corner Harry had mentally designated 'teleportation area', the dignified father wearing splendid magenta robes with some sort of flowery pattern that somehow didn't make him look ridiculous nor queer —the man actually sneered at a group of relatively normal-dressed people standing close by as if they looked ridiculous.

Harry was eager to learn how to do that teleporting thing himself, since it seemed like a very useful skill to have when one was on the run, but he wasn't sure he would risk blindly experimenting with his own physical presence. Even after all the practice he had had he still found magic rather unpredictable and hard to control, which was why as a general rule he didn't try things that could potentially kill him. He certainly wouldn't jump off a building to see if he could fly again, no matter how attracting the idea of flying was, and he hesitated to try the teleportation too even though he was pretty sure that he had already done it once by accident (it was a better explanation to how he had ended up in the roof of his school than a supernatural jump he couldn't remember making).

The recently appeared family moved closer to the train, and he watched with interest as the father pointed a stick at his daughter's trunk to make it float ahead of them. Harry wasn't impressed by the display of magic —he could make things float too—, but he wondered once again about the wand. The first time he had read the word 'wand' in his Hogwarts letter, before he even believed the whole thing was real, he had been thrilled by the idea of having one because he had imagined the magic coming out of it, but now that he knew the magic was inside one and could be used at will he didn't understand what the wand was for. Pointing a stick to do magic seemed completely unnecessary and even impractical, since it gave away that the person was about to do something, and yet every single wizard or witch Harry had seen performing magic that morning had been wielding a wand at the time.

Harry sighed. Unnecessary it might seem, but he couldn't deny to himself that he would really like to have a magic wand like everyone else. And robes, and a pointy hat, and a trunk full of cauldrons and books of magic. To his frustration, however, he hadn't managed to find any place where they sold that kind of stuff. The Platform had been completely empty when he had entered the first time, and it had remained deserted until early this morning when the Hogwarts Express had arrived in a cloud of steam and smoke. Harry had tried in vain to breach the invisible barrier at the end of the shed to access the rest of the magical world, and he had also failed to locate any other dimensional portals across the city.

His bitter thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a whistle, and Harry felt his insides churn and his heart race as parents hurriedly hugged their children and urged them to climb aboard. There were tears in many faces, smiles, hands waving, younger siblings running to keep up with the train as it began to move... He couldn't believe that he was really on board of the Hogwarts Express, which was gathering speed as it approached the end of the Platform, rolling away towards some mysterious magical dimension...

Harry released the breath he had been holding when the train went smoothly through the invisible barrier instead of crashing against it as he had half-expected. He had already seen the Hogwarts Express going through it early that morning, but after two weeks bouncing against that segment of air his brain had learned to expect a solid consistency, and part of him had been convinced he would never be able to get past it —he had tried to use his magic in all the ways that had occurred to him, at his maximum power, and yet the invisible barrier had remained unscathed. It made him terribly anxious to know that magical barriers like that one existed, panic rising inside him whenever he imagined himself locked up inside a prison built entirely with unbreachable walls, and his anxiety only increased at the realization that if they could make things like that they might have other magics too powerful for Harry to counter, things other wizards could do to him that he would be unable to stop. The same fear came back to him over and over again: what if they stripped him of his magic? What would he do then? Harry could not live without power, not ever again.

He jumped to his feet and almost attacked by reflex when the door of his compartment suddenly opened, belatedly realizing that the intruder wasn't tall enough to be a ticket inspector or a magical policeman. Of course aboard this train kids were probably also a threat to him, since they all must have magic, but the red-haired boy regarding him warily from the doorway seemed to be just a passenger looking for an empty seat. Before Harry could put himself together enough to say anything or invite him to share his compartment, however, the boy seemed to think better of it and dragged his trunk away muttering under his breath something that sounded very much like 'nutcase'.

Feeling simultaneously relieved and disappointed, Harry slid the door closed —resisting the urge to lock it, which might cause someone to complain and draw train guards to his compartment— and slumped back on his seat. That boy had seemed about his age, harmless and humble in appearance, and he might have been a good source of information if only Harry hadn't scared him off like he had scared off the last ten people that had poked their heads into his compartment. Most had been older, yes, but there had been a few others close to his age that might have become his friends if he had tried to be friendly instead of acting like a paranoid criminal.

They would have asked questions, though, which Harry would rather avoid seeing that he wasn't even sure how to introduce himself. He had made up a fake identity and a background story for himself, and he was confident that not even Aunt Petunia would be able to recognize him under his disguise, but he feared it would not be too hard for the headmaster of the school to make the connection between the one student who hadn't confirmed his attendance and the mysterious student who had showed up without an invitation. Harry had no real way of explaining how he knew about Hogwarts and the magical Platform without admitting having received an acceptance letter, after all, and he might make things worse fabricating explanations without knowing if sorcerers had magical ways to identify people or lies —at the very least, they might be able to force him to speak the truth, just like Harry could sometimes force people to do whatever he wanted them to do. Even if he wasn't suspected, the deception might cost him the chance of being admitted into Hogwarts, since unlike Harry Potter his alias had not been offered a place in the magical school and might be turned away just because. The decision would be straightforward if he could be sure that he would be rejected or imprisoned if he went as himself, but his name and crime hadn't been reported in the news so perhaps no one knew what he had done and it wasn't necessary to lie about who he was...

His thoughts had drifted again and he was wondering about the lack of wondrous landscapes on this side of the invisible barrier —he could swear that the train was slithering its way through London rather than through some fantastical world— when the door opened again. Harry turned his attention to the new intruders, trying his best not to react like a nutcase this time even though he immediately sensed the copper-haired boy standing in the doorway wasn't as harmless as the previous visitor.

"Oi! This one's empty!" exclaimed the boy in a victorious tone. He seemed a few years older than Harry, or at least taller and much better fed, and there was something about his eyes and mouth that made Harry instantly dislike him. He didn't like the way the boy strolled into the compartment as if he owned the place either.

"You call this empty?" drawled another boy as he dragged his trunk in and looked for a place to put down an owl cage he was carrying. "What's that by the window, then?"

"It's only a newbie," said the first one dismissively, fixing a threatening look on Harry. "And he's just about to leave, right?"

Harry clenched his fists. He knew he should avoid a confrontation and just go, but this boy reminded him too much of Dudley, which made extremely easy to reach for his deepest magic and extremely hard to keep himself from using it.

"Are you dim?" sneered the jerk. "This is our compartment now, so you better clear off."

"Don't be an arse, Cormac," said a third boy who had just appeared in the doorway. "What if he's sorted into Gryffindor?"

"Or he might be someone important," suggested the owl boy, examining Harry critically. "I heard there's a Malfoy starting this year, and you don't want to mess with those people."

"Slimy snakes don't get free passes," said the one named Cormac, cracking his knuckles and giving Harry a really ugly look. "No matter how important they think themselves."

Harry could feel magic and adrenaline rushing through him. After all the nasty people he had dealt with on the streets he was hardly intimidated by cracked knuckles and a scowling baby face, but these fancy prats must be wizards like him so he kept a wary eye on their hands in case they pulled out magic wands from some pocket. It wasn't a foolproof strategy, since he knew perfectly well that wands were not really necessary to do magic, but he thought burning to ashes any stick they pointed at him would be a good first thing to do if it came to a fight. At least that would take away whatever advantage wands might give them, if any.

"Your father would tell you not to-"

"Malfoys are blonder," interrupted the third boy as he hoisted his own trunk into the luggage rack. He might have called his friend an arse, but plainly he had no objection with taking over the compartment. "And they would rather go starkers than dress like Muggles."

"True," said the first jerk with a laugh, eyeing Harry more carefully and sneering again. "If this midget is a pureblood I'll eat a pound of doxy eggs. Oi, you, what's your last name?"

"That's none of your business," said Harry coldly, climbing to his feet and slinging his bag over his shoulder with deliberately slow motions. He would go because he decided to go, not because anyone kicked him out. "You can have the compartment, though, I don't want it anymore."

He headed for the door, but of course the jerk moved to block his path, looming over him and flexing his muscles just the way Dudley used to do. Great. He hadn't even been admitted into Hogwarts yet and he already had bullies.

"Let him go, Cormac. We'll get in trouble if he tells a Prefect."

"I asked who you are," demanded the idiot named Cormac in a dangerous tone, completely ignoring his friend's cautious advice. "You will not go anywhere until you answer."

No, not bullies. Enemies. Harry didn't intend to ever be bullied again, and now he had the power to make sure of that.

"I'm someone you don't want to mess with," he hissed, shaking with the effort not to strike the arsehole with his magic and make him flail and scream in pain like Dudley. "Now move out of the way, or I will force you."

"I would like to see a little imp like you try," sneered the bully, stepping closer and raising an arm as if to shove him.

He didn't get to touch him, of course, and Harry discovered with relief and satisfaction that other supposed wizards were just as susceptible to magic and to pain as normal people.

It wasn't the same he had done to Dudley, nor the same he had done to some other buggers who had tried to touch him over the last month. Angry magic, as he called it, always came out differently, and this time it seemed to break the bully's hand or burn it from the inside out judging by the way the boy cradled it and screamed about it. Harry didn't stay to inquire about the effects of his magic, though, not when other people might be drawn by the noise and the bully's friends were rushing forward to intervene. They both found themselves slammed against the train's windows before they could get too close, and next thing Harry was running out the compartment and down the corridor, dodging people and ignoring admonishing calls as he put as much distance as possible from the scene of his latest crime.

Harry locked himself in a bathroom three carriages away and pressed his forehead against the mirror while he waited for his heart to stop racing. As his mind cleared from fear and anger and the thrill of power, he began to berate himself for recklessly getting into a fight with other wizards —all of them older, bigger and possibly more powerful than him— over a stupid compartment. That arsehole would have let him go without issue if Harry had just kept his head down and pretended to be a weak little boy easy to intimidate. Now he would have to hide from them for the rest of the train ride, and at Hogwarts too, since it was unlikely they would underestimate him again and next time they might directly use magic to retaliate instead of just flexing muscles.

He banged his head against the mirror again. Idiot. He had to keep a low profile, go unnoticed, avoid questions and confrontations and stupid people that made him angry. And he had to stay in control, not allow his magic do whatever it wanted, else he might end up murdering someone else and losing whatever chance he might have of attending Hogwarts. More importantly, he might lose his freedom. His power. Everything.

Heaving a sigh, Harry finally looked up and concentrated on his self-image. A minute later his hair had darkened, and his eyebrows and eyelids had changed to match it, the end result so much more bearable to his own eyes that he felt almost grateful to the jerk for making the alteration necessary. He had chosen blond because it was the furthest thing from his real hair colour and no one who knew what he really looked like would be able to imagine him that way, but being blond like Dudley actually made him nauseous, and he was deeply relieved that he would not have to spend years avoiding his own reflection. The darker hair concealed the scar better, besides, which was another advantage, and this particular colour might make other bullies hesitate before messing with him.

Harry examined his reflection critically and felt satisfied with the new look, which was all the more reason to not screw this up again. He couldn't afford to change disguises all the time when the people that surrounded him would remain the same. Right now nobody knew him, so he could get away with changing his hair one last time, but he couldn't do it every time he got in trouble. This was already risky, since he couldn't change the shape of his face, nor his voice, nor his eyes, nor who he was behind his eyes... he would have to be very careful not to meet that jerk's gaze again, just in case Harry gave himself away looking at him as if he wanted to break all the rest of his bones.

As he adjusted his fringe to make sure the scar wasn't visible, he considered again dropping the charade and changing his hair back to normal. He knew going to Hogwarts as Harry Potter would be risky, but he wasn't confident at all that going as someone else would work, and what if it wasn't really necessary? Maybe no one knew anything and all he had to do was show up with his magical supplies... which he still didn't know where to get, by the way, or when he would have the opportunity to go get them. If he reached Hogwarts without robes he would stand out immediately —he had already seen many students changed into the uniform, which suggested they would be expected to arrive to the school wearing black robes—, and he feared once there he might not be able to go out shopping without asking permission or help from the headmaster, which would draw too much attention to himself and risk inquiries about his home situation.

He could find everything he needed right here, though, he reflected. There were hundreds of students aboard the train, each and every one of them carrying a trunk full of robes, magical books and cauldrons, and they all seemed to have wands in their pockets. It might be as easy to steal from them as it had been to steal from random people in London... Harry felt appalled at the idea of taking from freaks like him the things they needed to learn magic, but he wouldn't feel bad at all stealing from bullies, on the contrary, and he knew just where to find one of those. That Cormac jerk and his friends were older, but they might still have their first year books with them, and Harry could shrink their robes to fit him, and some things seemed to be common to all years. The letter had said that all the pupil's clothes must carry name tags, though, and wands and cauldrons probably had serial numbers or were identified some other way too, which would make possible to track the stolen items down to him...

Harry hadn't yet managed to decide anything about anything when someone knocked at the door and urged him to free the bathroom, which forced him to focus on his most immediate problems. Whatever he decided to do, right now his priority was to not be recognized by his new bullies/enemies, so he quickly turned his jacket inside out and did a little magic on his rucksack to make it look different before finally emerging from the tiny toilet. There were many students coming and going in the corridor, so no one paid much attention to his aimless wandering, and no one seemed to suspect him of having completely altered his appearance in the last ten minutes. He figured the safest course would be to find another compartment, though, and to mingle with other people so the jerk and his friends would not be able to find him so easily. Harry hoped his new red-haired look would protect him somewhat —bullies might stay away if they thought he had a bunch of older brothers ready to jump in his defence—, but he still wanted to get out of the open corridor as soon as possible.

To his luck, he found a suitable hideout in the next carriage, where he was admitted with an indifferent shrug into a compartment occupied by two people who were unlikely to pay any attention to him. One of them was a boy who was asleep and drooling against the window, the other an older girl with headphones on who barely looked up from the book she was reading when he asked her if he could sit there. The reception was not exactly welcoming, but Harry liked people who left him alone, so he closed the door behind him and gladly settled next to a very mistrustful cat that hissed something unintelligible in response to his greeting.

Ignoring the ill-tempered animal, Harry leaned back on his seat and stole a glance at the girl. He had chosen this compartment precisely because his fellow travellers were unlikely to bother him with questions, absorbed as they were in their respective activities, but unfortunately that meant he couldn't ask questions either. And he itched to ask the girl where she had bought that book, and whether she could talk with her cat the way he could talk with snakes, and how had she managed to make her walkman work. Harry had two walkmans, one stolen and one brand new, but so far he hadn't been able to listen to a single song, and at this point he was pretty sure that the problem was his magic. Electric things just didn't work when he was holding them. Even most clocks and wristwatches stopped ticking when he came too close, lights and TVs tended to flicker when he walked by, and bus drivers often had to restart the engine when he climbed aboard, not managing it until he had moved to sit at the back. Harry had thought it was a freak thing, but this girl must be a witch or sorceress too and yet her walkman worked for her, which meant either that she knew some trick he didn't, or that Harry was a lot more freakish than these people.

He didn't dare bothering the girl with what were probably dumb questions, but he did interrupt her again to ask if she knew how long the trip to Hogwarts would take, and relaxed a little when she informed him —with an ill-tempered attitude resembling her cat's—that they would arrive shortly after nightfall. That meant that he had over eight hours to make a decision about his name and to steal magical supplies if he decided to take that risk. He could even afford a nap, he thought drowsily, feeling himself lulled to sleep by the vibrations of the train, the exhaustion from his sleepless night and from all the magic he had done rapidly catching up with him. It wasn't easy for Harry to lower his guard when he wasn't alone in a secure refuge, and part of his brain refused to turn off knowing that three angry wizard bullies were probably ransacking the entire train looking for him, but he knew he would need to be well rested to be able to deal with whatever came next, and this compartment seemed a safe enough place to close his eyes for a little bit...

He woke up with a start after what felt like five minutes but might have been hours for all he knew. The first thing he did was to check that his hair had not reverted to black in his sleep, and just in case he channelled his magic towards his eyebrows to make sure they were the right colour too.

"Anything from the cart, dears?"

Harry blinked several times to bring his sight into focus, and saw that there was a smiling, dimpled woman standing in the doorway. It took him a moment to recognize her —he had seen her chatting with the train conductor early that morning— and yet another to process what she had said. Meanwhile the other boy in the compartment had woken up as well and had jumped from his seat to buy something from the cart, and Harry followed with interest when weird candy names like Cauldron Cakes and Licorice Wands reached his ears.

He couldn't make any sense of the price tags, though, and he had a very bad feeling when he saw that the other boy was paying with unfamiliar-looking coins. A feeling that solidified when he tried to offer pounds as payment and the woman shook her head.

"I'm sorry, dear, no Muggle money," she said with a regretful expression. "But here, have a Pumpkin Pasty."

Harry was left standing there with a charity pasty in his hand and anxiety slowly growing inside him.

He had heard the word 'Muggle' several times that morning, sometimes referring to people and others to objects, but only now he understood what it meant.

Normal. As in non-magical.

Muggle were normal people, normal clothes, normal money.

And none of that was admitted in this world. Ordinary people couldn't even see the magical Platform in King's Cross; regular clothes were sneered at by those wearing robes; and the British pound had no value on this side of the brick barrier.

Which meant that Harry was once again poor. He had more money than Dudley had ever dreamed with, and yet he couldn't even buy a candy here.

He fled the compartment before the other boy could take pity on him too and throw him another pasty as if he were a starved dog. Harry had a sandwich and several nutrition bars in his bag, so he wasn't going to go hungry today, and he didn't really give a damn about candies. What worried him was how he was going to pay for the school tuition —assuming he was admitted as a student—, and how was he going to buy anything in this world. He could steal his supplies from other students, but money... he doubted there was enough magical money aboard this train to pay for the tuition of a fancy magical school. He would need access to deeper pockets than children's to steal as much as he probably needed, and time-

"...can't believe that Harry Potter..."

Harry came to an abrupt halt.

"My aunt told me," said a voice flowing through the open door of a nearby compartment. "He's our same age, so everyone expects him to come to Hogwarts this year."

"He must be in the train right now, do you realize?" exclaimed another girl in an excited tone. "We might have walked right past him in the Platform!"

"Do you think it's true, about the scar?" asked someone else.

"It is. A friend of my dad's saw him once, he said it truly is shaped like a lightning bolt, right there on his forehead."

"Never mind the scar, do you think he really..." the girl dropped her voice, "...kill him?"

Harry stood frozen in the middle of the corridor, his panic too intense to even run away.

They knew.

"Obviously he did," drawled a boy. "The question is not if, but how. My grandfather says only a very powerful dark wizard could have killed him, so Harry Potter might be more dangerous than..."

"Excuse me, have you seen a toad?"

Harry jumped and almost lashed out with his magic when someone spoke right next to him, but somehow he managed to keep a relatively calm facade as he turned to face the person who had addressed him.

"What?"

"I've missed my toad," said an anguished round-face boy. "His name is Trevor, have you seen it?"

Feeling his heart still pounding wildly against his chest, Harry made an effort to focus on the boy, who looked vaguely familiar. He thought he recognized him from King's Cross.

"Hum... no, sorry," he said. "Are you sure it's on the train? I heard you say back in the Platform that you couldn't find it, maybe it got left behind..."

The boy looked on the verge of tears as he shook his head.

"No, I had found him before climbing on board, but then I lost him again," he said miserably. "He never goes away for so long."

Harry didn't know what to say, and frankly he couldn't care too much about a toad right now.

"I'm sure it'll turn up," he offered finally in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. "I... I'll keep an eye out for it."

The round-faced boy mumbled something that might have been a thank you and shuffled away, desperately scanning the floor in search of his beloved pet as he walked. Harry just stood there, watching him with a conflicting mixture of pity and resentment —at least that boy had a pet to lose, and probably a wand too, and a cauldron, and-

Harry shook his head to clear it from all those bitter, useless thoughts, and he effectively forgot all about boy and toad when the conversation he had just overheard suddenly sprang back into his mind making panic rush through him again.

They knew.

Everybody here knew what he had done. They knew what he really looked like, and that he was on the train. They were probably waiting to arrest him the instant he put a foot inside the school.

After verifying that the people inside the compartment had moved on to discuss another subject —something about kwiditch and kwafles whatever those things might be—, Harry anxiously flattened his fringe to make sure his scar was not visible and rushed away in the opposite direction the toadless boy had gone, keeping an eye out for train inspectors and bullies rather than for toads.

He had known it was a possibility that the magical people knew he had killed Uncle Vernon, but it was different to know for certain, especially since the kids back there had said something about Harry Potter being dangerous and dark. Going as himself was definitely not an option, then, and he wasn't sure he was willing to risk his freedom going under guise either, not when it seemed highly unlikely anyone would allow him to explain if his true identity was discovered. Perhaps he should abort the Hogwarts plan altogether, get off this train at the first opportunity and go back to a world where his money had value and people couldn't hurt him. This whole thing was turning out to be too risky and stressful, and the truth was that Harry no longer felt so excited about going to Hogwarts. He was interested, of course, eager to learn how to do things like teleporting, flying or conjuring food, but he probably could learn all that on his own if he had access to books of magic, or if he took a few more risks experimenting. The main reason why he had wanted to find the magical world had been to meet other freaks like him, people who accepted him and understood what it was like to be different and unwanted, but these people... these people weren't like him.

Harry ached to go back to London, to rescue the boa constrictor from the zoo and escape together to Brazil or some other warm place. Just the two of them, free and safe, without secrets nor judgements nor anyone trying to lock them up.

Could he go back, though? He had only managed to cross the invisible barrier that separated Platform Nine and Three-Quarters from the rest of the magical world because he had been aboard the Hogwarts Express, what if he couldn't cross it in the other direction either unless he was riding a train? A train that might not go back until the end of the school year. Was he trapped on this side of the barrier? Harry had desperately wanted to come here, but now he felt afraid and anxious separated from the real world, unable to buy food, wanted for murder and cut off from his only friend. And he was confused, too, because the countryside flying past the windows didn't look any different from the normal British countryside Harry had seen plenty times on his travels. Maybe he wasn't in the magical world yet? Or was this a parallel dimension that looked exactly the same?

"I've missed my toad, I've missed my toad, waaah, waahh!"

Harry stopped in his tracks again, this time outside a compartment from which it came the sound of laughter and jeering.

"Can you imagine having to share a dorm with that fat little cry-baby? I think I'd leave."

There was more laughter and sounds of agreement. Harry risked a peek into the compartment, and felt his magic boil inside him at the sight of a blond boy swinging a toad by the leg as if it were something disgusting before sending it flying towards a girl, who shrieked and jumped out of the way instead of catching it. The toad fell with a thud to the floor and tried to make a run for it, but another boy caught it and hurled it back to the blond one, who teased the girl a little more before dumping it inside a cauldron and trapping it with a large book.

Harry was furious. He could feel his magic spread all over his body like an electric current, burning deep inside him, urging him to give free rein to his anger... or perhaps it was his anger urging him to give free rein to his magic, to lose all restraints and use his power to turn laughter into screams.

Why were there so many bullies everywhere?

Why couldn't they find something to do that didn't involve mistreating helpless animals or mocking and hurting other people?

A little voice at the back of his mind reminded him that he had hurt people and enjoyed it too, but he pushed that uncomfortable thought aside. It wasn't the same. Harry had never hurt anyone who hadn't tried to hurt him first or done something to deserve it, and he would never do anything to an innocent toad that wasn't even a threat to him. He might be dark and dangerous and murderous, but at least he wasn't a bully. He was better than them.

And yet they would get to go to Hogwarts and learn magic, while Harry...

He leaned against the corridor wall and took a deep breath, tuning out the boisterous sounds coming from the nearby compartment and letting sadness wash out his anger.

Harry wasn't going to Hogwarts. It had been a fool's dream, he realized now, and on some level he had known it all along. The risk was too high, the obstacles too many, and while he could still try to find a way... he wasn't sure he wanted to anymore. He didn't want to go to a school with these people, nor to live always in disguise, unable to be himself and afraid of being recognized and arrested at any moment. Besides, that blond boy had said something about sharing a dorm, a prospect that filled Harry with all sorts of anxiety —even if he didn't have to worry about losing control in his sleep and waking up with black hair, he would rather go back to his cupboard than sleep in the same room with a known bully who could do magic too. Harry wasn't looking forward to having adults again telling him what he could or could not do either, scolding him all the time and punishing him for unfair things like Uncle Vernon or his teachers in primary school had always done. He had been willing to put up with all that to learn magic, but he didn't really want to have people controlling him, and he was feeling more and more certain by the second that learning magic from other sorcerers wasn't worth all the risks and drawbacks.

Harry felt all his muscles and even his magic relax as the decision of calling this whole thing off solidified inside him. A new plan took form in his mind, and suddenly it was as if he were riding a different train, one aboard which he could breathe, and control things, and act without worrying about what teachers or headmasters or other students would say or do. He was no longer afraid, no longer anxious, no longer uncertain, and the people around him were no longer potential schoolmates or friends —or bullies—, but sources of information, magical supplies and money.

It was sad, but also liberating. He was still in danger, yes, but as long as he kept up his disguise and didn't get into any more trouble there was no reason why he couldn't just get what he needed and move on, like he had done countless times over the last month.

He would not give up his freedom nor his power. He would get off this train full of bullies at the first opportunity and explore the magical dimension on his own, go back to the real world to pick up his boa friend if he could, and continue his search for some place, some people, he truly belonged to. That was the new plan.

First, though...

Ignoring his recent determination of not getting into any more trouble, Harry retreated to the end of the carriage and, after checking that there weren't train guards or older students with authority badges in sight, focused his magic on calling the abducted toad to him. He heard exclamations of shock, a loud thump that made him wince (the poor animal must have hit the wall or door on its way out of the compartment), and then a round green thing was flying straight to him through the nearly empty corridor.

First he had to track down the round-face boy, he thought with a bitter sense of triumph as he snatched the toad from midair and broke into a run again.