The Hogwarts Express

Harry spent the month before school started in relative comfort with the Dursley family.

Although Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia truly disliked magic and anything connected to it, they had long known there was something unusual about Harry. This merely confirmed it.

They had already been reluctant to offend Harry when he possessed strange abilities, and now they were even less willing to do so.

Apart from Harry himself, Dudley was the most excited about the whole affair.

Although Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were very unwilling to let Dudley get involved with anything connected to magic, they lived under the same roof. Since Harry made no particular effort to hide it, it was almost impossible for Dudley not to notice.

"Oh, Harry, can you conjure up such-and-such for me?" That was what Dudley said most often that month.

The answer, however, was always no. After enough refusals, Dudley lost much of his interest in magic. As far as he was concerned, if it couldn't do this or that, magic wasn't all that impressive.

Harry was a little embarrassed. He didn't know whether magic could fulfill Dudley's requests. He only knew that he couldn't. After all, he was a fledgling who hadn't even set foot in the wizarding world-not even a proper novice yet. Harry felt ashamed that he had given Dudley such a low opinion of the wizarding world.

Still, Harry did try a few spells successfully, such as Alohomora-he no longer took keys when he went out; Lumos-torches no longer served any purpose either; and the Levitation Charm-Dudley absolutely loved that one. Harry could briefly float him in the air, as though he were swimming.

The only drawback was that Harry couldn't keep it up for long. He suspected that his magical power was still too weak.

Yet none of his books, including his first-year textbooks, mentioned terms such as magical power, which Harry found rather strange.

According to Hagrid, once first-year students started school, something called the Trace would be placed on them. After that, the Ministry of Magic would detect any magic they used. The Ministry of Magic was the governing body of the wizarding world, and under its current regulations, young wizards under seventeen were not allowed to use magic anywhere outside school.

Harry thought that rule was bullshit, but Hagrid had been very serious when he explained it, so Harry made a note of it. Fortunately, that restriction didn't apply during the month or so before school started, giving Harry a chance to show off his skills in front of Dudley.

On September first, Uncle Vernon drove Harry to King's Cross Station in London.

Harry had originally wanted to take the Knight Bus, but abandoned the idea after some thought. Hagrid had told him to avoid revealing magic in front of ordinary people whenever possible, and Harry wasn't sure whether summoning the Knight Bus in broad daylight would count.

A bus that suddenly appeared and then suddenly vanished would be rather conspicuous.

Early that morning, Uncle Vernon took Harry to London.

Dudley cried and shouted that he wanted to go too, but was stopped. He also had to report to his new school that day. Harry reckoned Dudley would make a fuss at home for several days over this, unless Aunt Petunia agreed to buy him a few things she normally refused to get.

Without knowing beforehand, it would have been hard to imagine that King's Cross Station had a train bound for the wizarding world.

Hagrid was quite a contradictory sort of person.

Call him careless, and yet he had remembered to give Harry a birthday present on July thirty-first-Harry's birthday.

It was a beautiful snowy owl. Harry had originally wanted to name her Jennifer or Fisher, after his two favorite actresses. But while leafing through his History of Magic textbook, he had decided that Hedwig sounded better.

Yet call Hagrid attentive, and he had forgotten to tell Harry about the platform.

Fortunately, Harry had guessed that wizards couldn't possibly take the same train as ordinary people, and had looked up the relevant information in advance.

There was quite a lot about Hogwarts in the book. According to it, Hogwarts was the oldest magic school still in existence. Since the school was concealed by magic, it could only be reached through specific means.

In earlier times, they had used a magical item called a Portkey, but nowadays that had been replaced by a train.

Since the wizarding world was kept secret from ordinary people, the platform was concealed as well, even though it was located inside a human railway station. A special method was needed to enter it.

Harry arrived at the station early. He saw quite a few children laden with bags and bundles just like him, and accompanied by strange animals. Some were alone, while others were with their parents, and they all passed through a wall on one of the platforms.

What Harry found interesting was that nobody except him seemed to notice this strange sight at all. Although the station wasn't particularly crowded, it wasn't empty either, and walking into a pillar and disappearing was hardly an everyday occurrence.

The Confundus Charm!

This was a spell Harry had learned about from Hagrid and his History of Magic textbook. None of his other textbooks, including the one for Charms, contained it.

Harry guessed it must be a fairly advanced spell. According to Hagrid, the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron had been placed under a Confundus Charm, so ordinary people never noticed its shabby little door.

Presumably, the wall between platforms nine and ten had been enchanted in a similar way, making ordinary people ignore it completely.

Although Harry felt sure his guess was right, he still made an effort to choose a moment when the fewest people nearby were paying attention before passing through the wall. There was no particular sensation; it was like walking through a tunnel. Then Harry saw a scarlet steam engine bearing a sign that read "Hogwarts Express."