MAGIC AND MYSTERY

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Part 2

The scene changed to show Harry walking into the living room where Petunia, Vernon and Dudley were watching tv, unaware of the wizard's presence. Harry cleared his throat, and Dudley screamed, running from the room.

"Pussy."

"Er—Uncle Vernon?" Vernon grunted. "Er—I need to be at King's Cross tomorrow to—to go to Hogwarts." Vernon grunted again. "Would it be all right if you gave me a lift?" Grunt. "Thank you."

"Resorting to caveman communication with muggles? Weird."

Harry turned to go upstairs when his uncle spoke. "Funny way to get to a wizards' school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?" Harry didn't say anything.

The hall burst into laughter.

"Where is this school, anyway?"

"I don't know," Harry realized. He pulled the ticket Hagrid had given him out of his pocket. "I just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o'clock," he read.

His aunt and uncle stared. "Platform what?"

"Nine and three-quarters."

"Don't talk rubbish," Vernon grunted. "There is no platform nine and three-quarters."

"It's on my ticket."

"Barking," Vernon insisted. "Howling mad, the lot of them. You'll see. You just wait. All right, we'll take you to King's Cross. We're going up to London tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn't bother."

"Why are you going to London?" Harry asked curiously.

"Taking Dudley to the hospital," Vernon growled. "Got to have that ruddy tail removed before he goes to Smeltings."

The screen changed to the next morning, Harry's huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the Dursleys' car, Petunia had talked Dudley into sitting next to Harry, and they had set off. They reached King's Cross at half past ten. Vernon dumped Harry's trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for him.

"He actually did something for him."

Vernon stopped dead facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face. "Well, there you are, boy. Platform nine—platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?"

There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all. "Have a good term," Vernon said with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Harry turned and saw the Dursleys drive away. All three of them were laughing.

"Petunia knows how to get through though," James pointed out, and Lily groaned.

Harry looked panicked. He stopped a passing guard, but didn't mention platform nine and three-quarters. The guard had never heard of Hogwarts and when Harry couldn't even tell him what part of the country it was in, he started to get annoyed. Harry then asked for the train that left at eleven o'clock, but the guard said there wasn't one. In the end the guard strode away, muttering about time wasters

At that moment a group of people passed just behind him and he caught a few words of what they were saying. "—packed with Muggles, of course—"

The Weasleys all grinned, exchanging looks of happiness.

Harry swung round. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Harry's in front of him. Harry pushed his cart after them. They stopped and so did he, just near enough to hear what they were saying. "Now, what's the platform number?" the boys' mother asked.