Harry's last month with the Dursleys wasn't fun. True, Dudley was now so scared of Harry he wouldn't stay in the same room, while Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't shut Harry in his cupboard, force him to do anything, or shout at him - in fact, they didn't speak to him at all. Half terrified, half furious, they acted as though any chair with Harry in it were empty. Although this was an improvement in many ways, it did become a bit depressing after a while.

Harry kept to his room, his black cat keeping him company (Professor McGonagall was quite proud when he wanted to buy a cat). He decided to name his cat Carina after a star he saw in an astronomy book he bought. Though he loved the cats to bits and the cat was surprisingly clingy to him, she was a menace to other people, almost biting Dudley's leg off the first day she came. Safe to say, Harry rewarded Carina with extra food she graciously accepted.

So most of his days were spent doing some chores, reading the term books and the extra books he bought with Carina on his lap, and daydreaming about Hogwarts.

On the last day of August he thought he'd better speak to his aunt and uncle about getting to King's Cross station the next day, so he went down to the living room where they were watching a quiz show on television. He cleared his throat to let them know he was there, and Dudley screamed and ran from the room.

"Uncle Vernon?", Harry got a grunt in response.

"Er… I need a ride to Kings Cross, would you be able to give me a lift?", A grunt, He'll take that as a yes.

"Thanks", Harry started to go up the stairs when he heard Uncle Vernon speak.

"Funny way to get to a wizards' school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?"

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Where is this school anyway?", Uncle Vernon asked.

"Its in Scotland, but you don't need to know that. Just get me to Kings Cross at 11 and I'll go to platform nine and three-quarters myself.", Harry stated, staring at Carina who was now coming down the stairs.

His Aunt and Uncle stared.

"Platform what?"

"Nine and three-quarters."

"Don't speak rubbish.", Uncle Vernon chided. "There is no nine and three-quarters."

"Yeah, for muggles."

"Barking," said Uncle Vernon, "howling mad, the lot of them. You'll see. You just wait. All right, we'll take you to King's Cross. We're going up to London tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn't bother."

"Why are you going to London?", Harry replied, trying to keep things friendly but his tone didn't help since Uncle Vernon's eyes narrowed.

"Well, your little demon over there- ", he pointed to Carina who was rubbing against Harry's leg while purring. "- scratched Dudley's leg, we have to go to the hospital."

Harry pursed his lips to hide a smile and then looked at Carina who innocently looked up, still rubbing on Harry's leg. He kneeled down and picked Carina up before going up the stairs.

-

Harry woke at five o'clock the next morning and was too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. He got up and pulled on his jeans because he didn't want to walk into the station in his wizard's robes - he'd change on the train. He checked his Hogwarts list yet again to make sure he had everything he needed, saw that Carina was shut safely in her cage, and then paced the room, waiting for the Dursleys to get up. Two hours later, Harry's huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the Dursleys' car, Aunt Petunia had talked Dudley into sitting next to Harry, and they had set off.

They reached King's Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped Harry's trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for him. Harry thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face.

"Well, there you are, boy. Platform nine - platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?"

He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all.

"Have a good term," said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Harry turned and saw the Dursleys drive away. All three of them were laughing. Harry rolled his eyes and ran over to the wall between platform nine and ten, closing his eyes tightly.

he opened his eyes. A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven O'clock. Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it, He had done it.

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs (If he let Carina walk around like that, she would cause mayhem). Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.

The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. Harry pushed his cart off down the platform in search of an empty seat. He passed a round-faced boy with a peculiar scar who was saying, "Gran, I've lost my toad again."

"Oh, Neville," he heard the old woman sigh.

Harry sped up until he found an empty compartment near the end of the train. He put Carina inside first and then started to shove and heave his trunk toward the train door. He tried to lift it up the steps but could hardly raise one end and twice he dropped it painfully on his foot.

"Want a hand?", It was a red-haired teen he had seen enter through the platform a few minutes after him.

"Yes, please.", Harry said.

"Oy, Fred! C'mere and help!"

With the help of the twins, his trunk was safely tucked in the compartment.

"Thanks.", Harry said, looking down on the floor.

"No problem!", They replied in unison (Seriously, that was weird) and hopped off the train.

Harry went in the compartment and sat cross legged near the window, opening Carina's cage. Carina stretched and jumped on Harry's lap, looking up at him. He brought out a book and started reading, absently petting Carina.

After a while, the compartment door flew open and a younger red-head was standing at the doorframe, "Hey, can I sit here? Everywhere else is full."

"Go ahead.", Harry replied, pointed at the seat opposite him and the boy sat down. He glanced at Harry and then looked quickly out of the window, pretending he hadn't looked. Harry saw he had a black mark on his nose.

"Hey, Ron.", The twins were back.

"Listen, we're going down the middle of the train - Lee Jordan's got a giant tarantula down there."

"Right," mumbled Ron.

"You're Harry Potter, correct?", The twins asked, receiving a nod. "Our name is Fred and George Weasley, and that's our brother Ron. See you around.", and they exited the compartment.

"Are you really Harry Potter?" Ron blurted out.

Harry nodded.

"Oh, I'm sorry for your parents. They were close to my parents, they used to visit them often.", Ron said, looking down.

"Are all your family wizards?"

"Er - Yes, I think so," said Ron. "I think Mom's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him."

"So you must know loads of magic already.", Harry said as Ron shrugged.

"Do you live with muggles?", Harry nodded. "What are they like?", Ron asked.

"Horrible -well, not all of them. My aunt and uncle and cousin are, though. Wish I'd had two wizard brothers."

"Five," said Ron. For some reason, he was looking gloomy. "I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie have already left - Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy's a prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."

Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat gray rat, which was asleep as Harry checked to make sure Carina was asleep.

"His name's Scabbers and he's useless, he hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn't aff - I mean, I got Scabbers instead."

Ron's ears went pink. He seemed to think he'd said too much, because he went back to staring out of the window.

Truth be told, Harry didn't feel any sympathy, and maybe there was something wrong with him. But of course, he couldn't tell him that so he feigned an apologetic expression and quickly reassured him.

"That's alright! I didn't have any money until a month ago and its alright to not have money, I mean, I would trade all of my money to have brothers like yours.", he smiled, silently drowning in guilt when he saw Ron's grateful look.

While they had been talking, the train had carried them out of London. Now they were speeding past fields full of cows and sheep. They were quiet for a time, watching the fields and lanes flick past.

Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, "Anything off the cart, dears?"

Harry, who didn't have any breakfast, leapt up to his feet, making Carina hiss and scratch his arm as she was sitting on his lap, but he didn't pay attention and walked forward to the cart.

He had never had any money for candy with the Dursleys, and now that he had pockets rattling with gold and silver he was ready to buy as many Mars Bars as he could carry - but the woman didn't have Mars Bars. What she did have were Bettie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs. Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice Wands, and a number of other strange things Harry had never seen in his life. Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything and paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.

Ron stared as Harry tipped the candy onto an empty seat in the compartment.

"Hungry, aren't you?", Ron asked, to which Harry replied, "Starving."

Ron had taken out a lumpy package and unwrapped it. There were four sandwiches inside. He pulled one of them apart and said, "She always forgets I don't like corned beef."

"You can have some of mine", Harry said, tossing a chocolate frog and a pumpkin pastry.

"What are these?" Harry asked Ron, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs. "They're not really frogs, are they?" He was starting to feel that nothing would surprise him.

"No," said Ron. "But see what the card is. I'm missing Agrippa."

Harry tilted his head in confusion and slowly unwrapped the frog, taking a bite off the head. It tasted like high quality milk chocolate (Even though Harry preferred dark chocolate) and then he checked the card.

It showed a man's face. He wore half- moon glasses, had a long, crooked nose, and flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache. Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore.

"So this is Dumbledore!"

"Don't tell me you have never heard of Dumbledore before!", Ron said, unwrapping his chocolate frog.

Harry read the contents of the card he collected, his thirst for knowledge increasing tenfold.

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
Current Headmaster Of Hogwarts: School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry

Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.

Harry turned the card back over and saw, to his astonishment, that Dumbledore's face had disappeared. "He's gone!"

"Well, you can't expect him to hang around all day," said Ron. "He'll be back. No, I've got Morgana again and I've got about six of her... do you want it? You can start collecting."

Harry smiled genuinely for the first time since the morning and took the card, thanking Ron.

Ron's eyes strayed to the pile of Chocolate Frogs waiting to be unwrapped.

"Help yourself and if you get a duplicate, can you give it to me? ," said Harry. "But in, you know, the Muggle world, people just stay put in photos."

"Do they? What, they don't move at all?" Ron sounded amazed. "Weird!"

Harry stared as Dumbledore sidled back into the picture on his card and gave him a small smile. Ron was more interested in eating the frogs than looking at the Famous Witches and Wizards cards, but Harry couldn't keep his eyes off them. Soon he had not only Dumbledore and Morgana, but Hengist of Woodcroft, Alberic Grunnion, Circe, Paracelsus, and Merlin. He finally tore his eyes away from the druidess Cliodna, who was scratching her nose, to open a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.

"You want to be careful with those," Ron warned Harry. "When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor - you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a booger flavored one once."

Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a corner. "Bleaaargh - see? Sprouts."

They had a good time eating Every Flavor Beans. Harry got toast, coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, sardine, and kept telling Ron to smell the beans to avoid the really weird flavors like a pepper one Harry couldn't decipher the smell of.

The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills.

There was a knock on the door of their compartment and the round-faced boy Harry had passed on platform nine and threequarters came in. He looked tearful but Ron looked surprised and a bit confused.

"Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad at all?"

"Blimey! Are you Neville Longbottom?", Ron asked, his eyes glinting as Harry rolled his eyes.

"Uhm… Yes, I am.", Neville replied, rubbing his shoes against the floor.

"Do you have the scar?", Ron asked, to which Neville gingerly pushed back his hair to reveal a scar which looked a bit like lightening. "Bloody hell.", Ron murmured.

"We don't know where your toad is Neville.", Harry said, petting Carina who was hissing at Neville.

"I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"

"He'll turn up", Harry tried to say empathetically.

"Yes," said the boy miserably. "Well, if you see him...", He left.

Ron opened his mouth to say something but Harry silenced him with a glare.

"Don't know why he's so bothered," said Ron nervously. "If I'd brought a toad, I'd lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can't talk.", Harry hummed in response.

"He might have died and you wouldn't know the difference," said Ron in disgust. "I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn't work. I'll show you, look..."

He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking wand. It was chipped in places and something white was glinting at the end.

"Unicorn hair's nearly poking out. Anyway"

He had just raised his 'wand when the compartment door slid open again. Neville was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth. "We've already told him we haven't seen it," said Ron, but the girl wasn't listening, she was looking at the wand in his hand.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then." She sat down. Ron looked taken aback.

"Er - all right." He cleared his throat.

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.", The spell didn't do anything, the rat just stayed grey and boring.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" said the girl. "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard - I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough - I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you.", she said this very fast.

"Well, Spells are usually in Ancient Languages like Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Egyptian. English spells don't work often because its not an ancient language, and it doesn't have a magical property as most ancient languages were forged by Wixen. My name is Harry Potter, to answer your question.", Harry said, waving his arms around with wide eyes, clearly passionate about the subject.

"I'm Ron Weasley", Ron muttered as Hermione smiled at Harry, clearly grateful of the new information.

"Do either of you know what 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 in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad... Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon.", and she left the compartment.

"Whatever house I'm in, I hope she's not in it," said Ron. He threw his wand back into his trunk. "Stupid spell - George gave it to me; bet he knew it was a dud."

"What house are your brothers in?" asked Harry.

"My whole family was in Gryffindor. I suppose the other houses aren't too bad but just imagine getting in Slytherin.", He said irritably.

"Hmm.", Harry hummed, petting Carina in between the ears as she snoozed around the packets of Chocolate Frogs.

"So what do your oldest brothers do now that they've left, anyway?", Harry tried to change the subject.

"Charlie's in Romania studying dragons, and Bill's in Africa doing something for Gringotts," said Ron. "Did you hear about Gringotts? It's been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don't suppose you get that with the Muggles - someone tried to rob a high security vault." Harry raised an eyebrow at that, Professor McGonagall told him that only a fool would steal from Gringotts.

"Did they get caught?"

"No, that's the strange part. And the goblins aren't answering any questions!", Ron slammed his fist on the compartment table lightly.

"What's your Quidditch team?" Ron asked.

"Uhm… I don't have one.", Harry admitted.

Blimey! How did you not know? It's the best sport in the world -" And he was off, explaining all about the four balls and the positions of the seven players, describing famous games he'd been to with his brothers and the broomstick he'd like to get if he had the money. He had just been explaining the finer points when Hermione Granger came in again, looking frustrated.

"you both better change to your uniform. I asked the conductor how long it would take and there are only five minutes left.", Hermione rambled.

"Would you mind leaving while we change?", Ron asked with a scowl.

"All right - I only came in here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors," said Hermione in a sniffy voice. "And you've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?"

Ron glared at her as she left. Harry peered out of the window. It was getting dark. He could see mountains and forests under a deep purple sky. The train did seem to be slowing down.

He and Ron took off their jackets and pulled on their long black robes. Ron's were a bit short for him, you could see his sneakers underneath them and Carina jumped on Harry's shoulder, rubbing on his neck for warmth making him smile.

A voice echoed through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately." Harry's stomach lurched with excitement and Ron, he saw, looked pale under his freckles. They crammed their pockets with the last of the sweets and joined the crowd thronging the corridor.

The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Harry shivered in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

"C'mon, follow me - any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville sniffed once or twice.

"Ye' all get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

"Oooh!"

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black take. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry and Ron were followed into their boat by Neville and Hermione (Who was admiring Harry's cat). "Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then - FORWARD!"

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?" said Hagrid, who was checking the boats as people climbed out of them.

"Trevor!" cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, Oak front door. "Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?" Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door…