Chapter 47

The Muggle bus and the invisible platform

On the last morning of August, the kitchen at Number Four, Privet Drive smelled of frying bacon. Harry stared blankly at the scorch marks on his toast. Dudley's breakfast had a whole fried egg, its yolk resting in the middle of the toast like a little sun, while a corner was missing from Harry's slice, as though a mouse had nibbled it, and a few suspicious crumbs clung to its edge. But today Uncle Vernon hadn't slammed the newspaper in his face, and Aunt Petunia had even added half a sugar cube to his cup. The cloying sweetness made Harry's fingers unconsciously rub the Vibranium amulet in his pocket.

Hailey had given him the amulet last year. It was copper and shaped like a gear, supposedly made from discarded experimental materials from the Leicester family, and could warn him in a crisis. Now it lay quietly against Harry's palm, yet it gave him an inexplicable sense of reassurance.

"There's a bus to the London railway station at nine sharp," Uncle Vernon said suddenly, poking a dent in the Muggle timetable with a fat finger. The paper gave a pained groan. "Don't expect us to take you to the station. Drag your trunk to the bus stop yourself." His beard quivered, but instead of bellowing "You're not going to that wizard school" as he had in previous years, he merely pushed a crumpled ten-pound note across the table. A few crisp crumbs clung to its edge. "Don't let the neighbors see you looking like a freak, especially that old Mrs. Jones. Her telescope can make out the holes in your socks."

Harry's nails dug into his palm. Last Wednesday, when Dudley had been chased by an out-of-control lawn mower, Harry had instinctively used the "Muggle-style magic" Hailey had taught him-actually Vibranium powder mixed with pepper-to create a cloud of confusing smoke, allowing his cousin to escape. From that day on, the Dursley family's attitude had grown strange: Aunt Petunia no longer hid his wand in a pickle jar, instead placing it neatly under his bed; even Dudley would leave half a bag of crisps outside his door when he played video games, although he pretended every time that he had dropped it by accident.

"Thanks," he said quietly. His fingertips had just touched the note when a silver shape suddenly flashed past the window. Hedwig landed on the clothesline with a plane-tree leaf in her beak. A tiny locomotive had been drawn on the leaf in Vibranium powder, and exactly three rings of smoke rose from its chimney, like a miniature string of pearls.

Harry's heart gave a sudden leap. Three smoke rings were the signal he and Hailey had agreed on, meaning "Muggle transport plan three." He quickly stuffed the toast into his mouth, crumbs falling onto his chest, grabbed his canvas bag and rushed toward the stairs. Behind him, Aunt Petunia muttered, "Don't drag your trunk across the carpet, it'll leave marks... Dudley's skateboard left a streak on it last time, and it took ages to rub out."

The attic floor creaked beneath his feet, as if complaining under a burden it could hardly bear. Harry knelt before a loose floorboard and lifted the cover of the secret compartment where he kept his letters. There was one more plane-tree leaf inside than there had been yesterday, with a silver hair tied around its stem. It was Dobby's. A simple map had been drawn on the back of the leaf with a burnt twig: the bus stop on the corner of Privet Drive was circled in red, with "9¾" written beside it and a little smiling face nearby, as if to encourage him.

"The bus at nine forty-five," he murmured to the map, suddenly remembering what Hailey had told him about the pattern of Muggle bus timetables. "Exactly an hour and fifteen minutes to King's Cross Station in London, just in time for the train." He sprinkled Vibranium powder on the axles of his trunk. It was a little trick Hailey's father had taught him: it could make magical objects invisible in the Muggle world while making the wheels turn as smoothly as if they had been buttered. It worked even better than a magical Levitation Charm, and Muggles wouldn't notice.

As he dragged his trunk downstairs, Dudley was staring blankly at a racing game on the television, turning the steering wheel at random. When Harry's boots crossed the entrance-hall carpet, his cousin suddenly said in a muffled voice, "There's a convenience store near the bus stop. They sell chilled cola." His ears were as red as beetroots, but his eyes never left the screen, where his racing car had just hurtled off the track. "Don't tell Mum and Dad I spoke to you, or they'll think I've caught your 'weird disease.'"

Harry paused. He saw half of a yellowing football card sticking out of Dudley's school uniform pocket, its corners polished shiny from handling. It was a Premier League commemorative card Dudley had pestered Uncle Vernon to buy with his pocket money at a Muggle supermarket last year. Harry had laughed at his cousin for being childish at the time, but now that he thought about it, it might have been the only thing with a little warmth in this house.

The bench at the bus stop was still damp with dew; sitting on it felt like sitting on a wet towel. Harry hid his trunk behind a privet bush. The Vibranium powder made it look like a pile of ordinary fallen leaves to Muggles, and even the shrewdest stray cat didn't give it a second glance. When the bus driver in a blue uniform stopped at the stop, he glanced at Harry and suddenly said, "Young man, your backpack's not zipped up properly." As Harry looked down, he glimpsed the badge pinned to the driver's chest—a faded military insignia, with a tiny lightning bolt engraved on its edge.

The design struck his memory like an electric current. In a photograph of the demolition site at the Ministry of Magic's former premises, printed on the front page of last week's Daily Prophet, an identical insignia had been etched into an old plaque in a corner. Hailey had joked at the time, "That lightning bolt is even more crooked than your scar."

As the bus passed through London, Harry counted the clock towers flashing past the window. When the nine o'clock chimes rang out, his canvas bag suddenly vibrated faintly. It was the Muggle digital watch Hailey had given him: the little train drawn in Vibranium powder on the inside of its face had begun to flash. Her father had modified the watch so it could receive magical signals of a particular frequency, and now its hands were pointing frantically northwest, like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

"Next stop, King's Cross Station." As the announcement sounded, Harry saw a new water mark on the window, as if someone had drawn a smiling face with a finger. Its mouth was crooked and wobbly, very much like the kind Ron drew. He grabbed his trunk and rushed off the bus. The Vibranium axles made almost no sound on the pavement; only the plane-tree leaf in his pocket rustled, as if Dobby were muttering, "Hurry, hurry, don't be late."

The wall between platforms nine and ten was colder than he remembered, like a huge block of ice to the touch. Harry took a deep breath and charged at the brick wall, prepared to give it a try. Just as he thought he was about to crash into it, familiar red steam suddenly appeared before his eyes. The Hogwarts Express's chimney was puffing out white mist, and Ron's excited shout came from a carriage window: "Harry! Here! We're over here!"

The Weasley family's red Ford Anglia was parked nearby. George was stuffing a bag of exploding Ton-Tongue Toffees into Fred's pocket, and the two of them were grinning like Gnomes who had stolen some cream. As Harry dragged his trunk across the platform, he heard a faint click behind him. The Vibranium amulet was growing hot, as if responding to a blessing hidden in the steam.

"What took you so long?" Hermione's parchment notebook rustled on her lap. A piece of dried lavender was stuck to the edge of a page, something Eileen had taught her to use to stay alert. "We thought Dobby was going to cause trouble again. George even had Ton-Tongue Toffees ready for him."

Harry was just about to speak when he suddenly saw a flash of silver-green feathers behind a pillar in the corner of the platform. The tip of one of Dobby's large ears poked out from behind it, then immediately disappeared when he saw Harry looking over, leaving only half a piece of gingerbread dusted with Vibranium powder on the ground. It had the same snake-shaped icing pattern as the moldy piece in Hailey's canvas bag, but this piece was still fresh, giving off the sweet scent of cinnamon and honey.

"It's a long story." Harry took a bite of the gingerbread. A hint of salty bitterness mingled with the cloying sweetness, as if someone's tears had fallen on the icing. "But I think the journey back to school this year was much easier than last year's."

As the train whistled, he saw the bus driver in the blue uniform buying a newspaper at the chilled cola stand Dudley had mentioned. The driver looked up and winked in his direction. The headline on the newspaper's front page appeared and disappeared in the steam: "Local boy bravely saves companion, declines media interview." Dudley's face was blurred in the photograph, but his clumsy posture was unmistakably familiar.

Harry smiled and waved, then turned and boarded the train. The steam outside the window gradually dispersed, revealing the clock tower above the platform, its hands pointing to exactly eleven o'clock. He touched the plane-tree leaf in his pocket; the toothed edge pressed against his palm, like a warm secret. Perhaps there had never been such a clear boundary between the Muggle world and the magical world, just as this train could always set off on the most magical journey from the most ordinary platform. And this year, he had a feeling the journey would be more exciting than ever before. After all, with plane-tree leaves that carried secret signals, gingerbread concealing clues, and a group of friends willing to use Muggle logic to solve magical puzzles, even the trickiest Dark Magic couldn't stand in the way of their mixed-up ingenuity.

As Hailey often said, "No matter how powerful magic is, it still has to obey the conservation of energy; no matter how cunning a snake is, it can't escape the meshing of gears." And they were the key component about to jam the gears of darkness.