“I know about the map, Lupin! Give it to me!”
“Over my dead body!”
“What about your friend, he’s not very willing to give up *his* body for the map!”
“Leave Peter alone.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll catch him alone someday when he doesn’t have his big friends to stick up for him. I’ll tell Filch about the map, and he’ll get it.”
“You have no proof, Snape. Quadra!” The map vanished from the young mans hands. Who were these people? What kind of a word is Quadra? 13 year old Meghan Rose wondered to herself. It must just be a simple trick, no one could make a piece of paper disappear in mid air—.
“The joke’s on you again, Severus.” A new boy had just entered the platform, he had somewhat shaggy hair, it was black. Molly shifted behind the concrete pillar she was hiding behind. “Number one, this is not the place, any Muggle could see you here.” Muggle? “The odds are against you.” ‘The Stupid Git’ boy sneered and left. “Up, Peter.” The first boy said, the one that was called Lupin, was it? “We best be getting on to platform 9 and ¾.” What? There is no platform 9 and ¾! Lupin reached for the smaller boys hand.
“Thank you, Remus, Sirius. I-I didn’t think he was going to… but with you here he had to…”
“Don’t listen to Snape any more, that monkey, he’s too bad for his own good.” Peter looked ruffled.
Meghan decided to follow these boys—to that place they were going. She was supposed to go to her Aunt Bertha’s house, on the other side of England. She hated her Aunt Bertha, she was always brooding about cleanliness. Meghan pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. She doubted weather there *was* really a platform 9 and ¾, but it was something to do, anyway. Silently she followed the three boys off of the opening platform. She stayed hidden in the shadows as much as she could, and when they were on the crowded lane, it was hard to follow the boys.
Had her eyes just deceived her—or had those boys just walked into a solid wall? She walked to where the boys had been standing and put her hand on the smooth concrete. It passed right through! This was amazing! She pulled her hand out again, quickly, and put it back through. This was bogus. She decided to take a chance, and took one step forward. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, it was to see a platform. Platform 9 and ¾! A scarlet steam engine was ‘tooting’ loudly about 100 feet ahead. The boys from before were only 20 feet in front of her, and another boy had joined them. What was this place? She had just been at Kings Cross, and this—this defiantly wasn’t it! Meghan looked around for familiar faces, there were none.
The boys were boarding the steam engine—should she follow? It couldn’t hurt, she could just take it back to Kings Cross if she didn’t know where she was when the trip was over. Meghan pulled her small trunk up to the scarlet engine, two men helped her board. Meghan looked in several compartments, most were full. The first she came across that wasn’t only occupied a girl, about her age, maybe older—it was hard to tell. All Meghan could tell about her was that she was dressed *really* strange. There was a pointed hat on the seat next to her, and she was wearing what looked like a Halloween witches costume, except made with special care. She had raven hair, and beautiful dark eyes.
“Hello.” Said the girl, “You can sit here if you want to. I’ll help you with your trunk.”
“Oh, thank you.” Meghan said, and let the girl help her.
“I’m Minerva McGongall, what’s your name?”
“Meghan Rose.” She said, somewhat timidly.
“Are you a new first year? How old are you?”
“13…”
“Oh, so you must be a transfer, 3rd year right? Me too, I’m really excited about Hogsmead visits this year.”
“Hogsmead?” said Meghan, confused.
“Yes, where did you come from any way? Well, since you obviously don’t know, Hogsmead is the only totally magic establishment in Britain. You better put your robes on now, while the compartment is empty.”
“My robes?”
“You don’t have any yet? Oh, I see, your waiting to buy some. That’s okay, I’m sure Dippet will understand.” Meghan didn’t even ask who Dumbledore was. A Magic establishment? Magic wasn’t real… It was beginning to seem that maybe magic was real…
A new girl had entered their compartment. She was short, and had blond-red hair.
“Hi Minnie,” she said when she entered.
“Hello, sit, Lily. This is Meghan Rose, she’s a transfer.” Minerva said, Lily reached out her hand to Meghan. Meghan took it, and sat back in her seat. The Steam Engine had began to move.
“I’m so happy to be getting back to school.” Lily said. “I wrote you this summer, telling you that my parents didn’t want me to come back to Hogwarts, didn’t I?” Lily asked Minerva. She nodded. Meghan decided that if this was a magic community, then she should learn as much about it as she could right now, before she got to wherever they were going. So- Meghan spent the next half hour listening to Minerva and Lily’s small talk. Lily evidently was Muggle born. Which, Meghan found out was a person with no magic in them at all (her for instance). Minerva was a pure blood, and they were headed to their 3rd year at Hogwarts, school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And now, so was Meghan. But what was she supposed to do when she showed no magic abilities?
There was a knock on the compartment door, and one of the boys Meghan had been watching earlier came in. Remus Lupin who had sandy blond/brown hair, and was about 5’6, came in and sat down for a brief moment. “Lily, James wants to know if you’ll come sit with us. He er—wanted to send Peter for you but Sirius told him how much you don’t like—.”
“*Why* didn’t he come himself?”
“Oh, c’mon you know James…”
“Okay, me and Minnie will come… do you want to come Meghan…?”
“sure—all right,”
“Great, let’s go—Snape can have this compartment. I’ll help you with your trunks.”
“Hey Remus!” Called a voice from inside one compartment. “Oh no…” Remus said
“Arthur…” Minerva trailed off
“er—.” Meghan managed to squeak out, who was Arthur?
“We can’t talk now, Arthur—we’re um, getting something to eat…”
“Okay, I’ll see you at the castle then!”
Meghan heard Remus mutter something that sounded strangely like “…never again…” they then entered the compartment, the largest one on the train, it could seat up to eight. All the boys, Meghan had seen before, if only briefly at the station. The rough black hared boy was sitting next to another black hared boy, that was only a bit smaller. He had glasses and introduced himself as James. Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettegrew also introduced themselves, but of course, Meghan already knew who they were. Meghan didn’t tell them this, for it would probably get questions that she didn’t feel like answering at the moment.
“Anything from the cart, dears?” said a woman at the doorway. She was pushing a cart with different foods on it. Foods that Meghan had never seen before. Immediately everyone in the compartment except Meghan, who didn’t know the new foods.
“Don’t you want anything, darling?” said the woman.
Meghan looked at the cart again, shrugged and picked up a—what was it, small cake. She bought some jelly beans—or were they? And a cup of – orange juice? The woman left, and Meghan tried out some of the things she bought. She was about to try the jellybeans when Remus spoke up.
“You’ll want to be careful with those. Bernie Bolts Every Flavored Beans…”
“Yeah, um, Remus got a um, well, actually we don’t know what it was,” Minerva said
“But it was really disgusting.”
“—and he’s been prejudice against them for awhile now…” “really disgusting…”
“Oh, I think we’re slowing down…” Minerva said. “I can’t wait to see what house you’ll be sorted into.”
“Sorted?” Meghan asked, growing ridged.
“Yeah, you put the sorting hat on, and it decides where you should be….” Uh-Oh. The hat knew what you were like? What if it knew she was a---what was it? Muggle? “Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt, and I’m sure you’ll be in Ravenclaw or Gryffindor…”
“Don’t be so sure, remember it wanted to but Sirius into Huffelpuff…” Remus said Sirius grew red. “He had to argue with it to change him to Gryffindor, he had it sitting on his head for like…10 minutes!”
“I know!” James said “It only took me and Minny a few minutes…but Remus was fast…it was like bang! And it yelled Gryffindor.”
“What house are you in, Lily?”
“Ravenclaw…”
The Hogwarts Express had stopped and they were curtly told to leave their belongings on the train. They exited to windy weather that was chilling and crisp. Meghan was still running the fact of the sorting over in her head, when they came up on the castle. It was magnificent. The most wonderful thing that Meghan had ever seen. They entered to a voice calling. “First years, this way. First years to be sorted, this way please.” A tiny little man said his voice carrying over the sea of pointed hats.
“You’d better go with the first years, that way you can be sorted. But wait—are you registered?”
“No.” Meghan shook her head, hoping it would get her out of the sorting.
“Okay, see that man up there? That’s Professor Dumbledore, transfiguration teacher, go to him, he’ll take you to Dippet’s office. He’ll register you.” Minerva said, pointing to a man with half moon glasses and silver beard and mustache.
“O-Okay.” Meghan said, and pushed her way through the crowd.