the boy that could have been

Platform 9 and 3/4

Surrounded by a loving family for the first time in his life, Harry became happier than he had ever been, and the next few weeks flew past. A lot of things in his life were still unexplained, but he had grown accustomed to the idea of magic, and his parents had even taught him a little bit to prepare him for school. They'd gone shopping in a wonderful place called Diagon Alley, and been met with a lot of stares, whispers and pointing, all of which left Harry very confused. His parents had then reluctantly explained a bit more to him.

From what he understood, when he was a baby, some evil dude called Voldemort had tried to kill him, and for the last ten years everybody thought that he had also killed James and Lily - which obviously wasn't the case, but either nobody knew what had happened, or nobody wanted to tell him. Sirius, or Uncle Padfoot as he was now known, had been accused of blowing up a street and killing a bunch of Muggles (which was what the magic people called the non-magic people), as well as one of his and James' old school friends. However, as James and Lily were actually alive and this Dumbledore guy was very powerful, they were able to prove his innocence. It was all a bit confusing, but basically, they were four of the most famous people in the wizarding world. Harry was the only known person to survive the Killing Curse and had somehow wiped out Voldemort, his parents had returned from the dead (and had been very well-known before hand due to what James coined their 'epic dose of awesomeness'), and most people still thought that Sirius was a mass murderer on the loose.

Although many things were still a mystery to him, Harry had learnt a lot over the last few weeks, and he'd managed to grow really close with his parents and Sirius. You'd have thought that it would take some time for them all to adjust due to the rather confusing events of the past ten years, but they seemed to have a 'platonic bond' (according to a very dreamy-looking James after a glass or two of firewhiskey). It had been mere days before Harry felt comfortable enough to call them 'mum' and 'dad', and James and Sirius wasted no time in teaching him as many pranks and tricks as possible (which Lily highly disapproved of, but as Harry also spent time with her learning about Hogwarts, lessons and was clearly a nice human being, she didn't interfere).

Harry had quickly grown accustomed to his new and improved life, but before he knew it, it was time to go away to school. The letter that Vernon had so desperately tried to prevent him from seeing turned out to be a letter from Hogwarts, or 'the best place on earth'. He was a bit wary about leaving so soon after meeting his parents, but they assured him that Hogwarts would be like home to him, and they'd see him soon for the Christmas holidays anyway.

So, on September the 1st, Harry found himself on the platform at Kings Cross Station, with his parents either side of him and Sirius (who, along with James, could apparently turn into animals) in dog form bounding along beside him. Sadly, James had yet to reveal what animal he was, but Sirius seemed to almost prefer being a dog.

"Would it really have been so hard to come as a human, Black?" Sighed Lily. In response, Sirius cocked his leg up a bin and had a wee, causing Harry and James to break into uncontrollable laughter and Lily to give a strong enough growl to rival Padfoot himself (who then hastily found a waiting room and changed back to a man).

The three of them had told Harry as much about Hogwarts as possible, but one thing that they'd refused to share was how to get onto the platform that Harry was pretty sure didn't exist. Now that they'd arrived, he had confirmed that there was in fact no such thing as Platform 9 and 3/4. When he told Lily this, however, he was met with only laughter (which was to be expected from the men, but he was a little bit hurt that Lily wasn't kinder).

"Follow me, my deer baby." James said, winking at Sirius and earning another bark-like laugh. Harry was a bit confused, but he shrugged it off and watched earnestly as his father ran towards a wall. Was he going mad? As in, more mad than usual? Surely even wizards feel the pain of running at a wall!