At Kings Cross Station an odd pair hurried along platform nine. At the lead was a short, middle-aged woman with an irregularly-tall, pointed, purple hat pressed down on her wild birds-nest of wispy white hair. She had crinkles at the corners of her bright, silver eyes and a round face that was twisted into an expression of worry and stress. Her dress was a deep shade of purple and had frilly violet ruffs at her cuffs and collar. She had pointy black shoes that clacked loudly with each quick step and lavender coloured leggings. She abruptly halted to bow up and down five times and quickly ask,
‘How-do-you-do? How-do-you-do? How-do-you-do? How-do-you-do? How-do-you-do?’ Tipping her hat off five times to five people that strolled pass before rushing off again. ‘Come along Elijah! You’ll miss the train!’ She called over her shoulder.
A small, skinny boy appeared from around a brick column, pushing a heavily burdened trolley that wheels squeaked in protest at every slight turn. He had curly blackish-brown hair cut close at the sides and light, creamy, coppery-bronze coloured skin. His freckled face wasn’t the best to look at, with sticky-out ears and a hooked nose, but he had wonderful deep golden eyes, the rich colour of dark honey. He was thirteen years old but looked about ten. He wore tattered grey sneakers that may have once been white, navy blue sweatpants and a grey long-sleeved GAP shirt. The heavy trolley he pushed was piled high with strange curiosities: a black iron cauldron the size of large pumpkin, a stack of tatty-old leather-bound books, a large birdcage with an old ragged-looking grey owl and many other bits and bobs.
An important looking man holding a briefcase briskly walked past and the strange woman in purple gave out an exasperated sigh, turned around, rushed towards the man and stopped right in front of him to bow, take off her tall hat and ask, ‘How-do-you-do?’
‘Aurora? What are you doing?’ Asked they trolley-pushing-boy, Elijah. The woman in purple, Aurora was her name, whispered urgently: ‘I’m trying to ‘blend in’, y’know- muggle customs, now hurry up!’ Elijah tried to stress the fact that the muggle society wasn’t actually that different to the wizarding world but Aurora was not in the mood to listen. People turned to look, whether it was how strange they acted, the middle-aged-woman stopping to bow to every single person and saying ‘how do you do’ and taking off her tall pointed hat, or the fact that the boy’s trolley was piled high with strange objects including an old owl that was half asleep but still tried to bite a small girl who tried to pet it through the cage.
‘There it is!’ Aurora told Elijah. She pointed at a brick column. The short woman brushed a tear from the corner of her eye. She swept Elijah up into a tight hug. ‘Have a wonderful time at Hogwarts, darling, I know you’ll enjoy it.’ Elijah smiled nervously and nodded. She released him before planting a wet kiss on his cheek.
‘Just run through!’ She urged him. Elijah looked around to make sure that no one was looking, then took a quick breath before pushing the heavy trolley through. He ran through and disappeared. It was a curious feeling, like falling horizontally, but holding your breath as if you were underwater. He reappeared onto another platform just before he felt like his air would run out.
His heart leaped out of his chest as a white elephant stampeded towards him.
Back on platform nine, the same girl who had tried to pat the owl tugged at her mother's hand and said that she saw a boy disappear! Her mother told her to stop being ridiculous.
Elijah looked around him in awe. The white elephant charged pass him, followed by a parade, a display of many creatures, all whispy and white. Unicorns, cheetahs, a giraffe, even a dragon- a Norwegian Ridgeback that flew over the heads of the many people crowded on the platform- moved through the witches and wizards. The animals, were not in fact actual live animals, but animations. Clouds of steam given life. A tall but ancient, thin woman with a large smile on her wrinkled face was controlling the stampede of creatures, magical or not, with the movements of an orchestra conductor, using her wand to transform the shapeless, billowing clouds into wonderful moving animals.
The steam came from a large, red train towering in front of him. ‘The Hogwarts Express’ was written elegantly along the side of the sleek locomotive. He looked at the sign above his head. Platform 9 ¾. Suddenly, Aurora appeared from behind him and tumbled onto his trolley, sending his cases flying. The old owl gave a squawk of outrage. ‘Sorry, Gertrude.’ Aurora apologised to the owl. She saw Elijah staring at the old thin woman and her creatures of cloud with wonder. Aurora smiled then said, nodding her head towards the woman: ‘Headmistress Mcgonagall.’ She glanced at her watch (it was the only muggle thing that she owned) and started. ‘Elijah! Hurry along now, the train will leave in a few minutes!’ She bent down to give him a peck on the cheek.
Platform 9 ¾ was bursting with colour and noise, parents clustered down the long platform waving off their children. Elijah pushed his trolley through the crowd of adults. He walked past red carriage after red carriage, poking his head in through the door and asking if there were any spare seats. The kids would take one look at him and say, ‘No sorry, the carriage’s full.’. Suddenly, a thin, piercing whistle sounded from the head of the locomotive. Elijah heard the pistons start to slide and pump up and down. ‘Quick! Into the train!’ Squawked Aurora. She quickly opened up the nearest door and they started throwing his luggage into the train car. Elijah jumped in just as the door closed shut. The beautiful steam train began moving. Slowly at first, almost gliding along the train tracks before it began to gather speed, shiny pistons pumping furiously. Elijah smiled out the window and waved at Aurora. ‘Bye! Bye Aurora! Bye!’ She wiped a tear from her eye and waved back before the turbulence from the train stole her purple hat from her head and whisked the pointy, elongated thing away.
Elijah peered down the carriage. He slowly walked through, looking into each compartment to see if there was an unused seat. All the kids would smirk at him and tell him to find one somewhere else. A compartment full of children in Hufflepuff robes felt sorry for him and said that he could swap with one of them if he liked. ‘No thank you, it's fine.’ He said as an empathetic blonde girl got up to offer him her seat. After not finding a seat in the whole carriage, Elijah decided to sit in the doorway at the rear of the carriage. He piled his luggage in the corner and sat on the carpeted floor with his knees tucked under his chin, watching the countryside blur pass.
Elijah’s shirt began to wriggle, he put his hand down his shirt and pulled out a black ferret. ‘Sorry Bartholomeus.’ Elijah said to the ferret. It made a sort of squeak/meow then squirmed out of his hand, scurried up his arm and pushed itself under his collar and wrapped its long flexible body around Elijah’s neck.
‘Would you like anything sweet, dear?’ Asked a kindly voice. Elijah looked up and saw a young, portly witch looking down at him, a thin trolley filled with draws of candy and piled high with muffins and sweets in front of here. Elijah shook his head sadly. The kind witch smiled then bent down and handed him an individually wrapped sweet. ‘Here you go.’ She winked before moving on through the carriage.
Elijah looked at the sweet in his hand. It was about the size of his thumb and had a pink wrapper spun around it. Across the wrapping, written in yellow, curling calligraphy was: Fizzing Whizzbee. He twirled open the crinkling wrapper and the sweet rolled out into the palm of his hand. It was shaped like some sort of insect and was the pink colour of candy floss. Elijah gave it tentative lick. It tasted wonderful. Similar to muggle sherbet but more juicy and fresh. He popped the whole thing in his mouth and bit down, it crumbled into a bubbling powder. Elijah felt light inside. Happy and light. Like all his worries had been removed. Elijah smiled and giggled. Then after a few seconds he burst out laughing. Hysterically laughing. He then started to rise off the ground as he laughed. Not stand up. Float up. He bumped against the ceiling and hovered a few feet off the ground, laughing. He floated around, defying gravity. The owl in his cage cocked its head up at him with mild curiosity. He spun around his small, lonely area at the rear of the carriage, pushing off the walls with his feet and slowly flying around near the ceiling. His ferret, Bartholomeus, squeaked and buried itself into the safety of Elijah’s top. After about twenty minutes Elijah began to slowly float back down. It took another fifteen minutes for the effects to wear off- he could still jump a metre into the air and float weightlessly to the floor of the train. He was smiling for the rest of the trip.
