Bitter Rivals Sweet Love

The Journey From Platform 9 &3/4 (1)

The twins' last month with the Dursleys wasn't fun. True, Dudley was now so
scared of the two he wouldn't stay in the same room, while Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't shut them in the tiny cupboard, force them to do anything, or shout at them -- in fact, they didn't speak to the two at all. Half terrified, half furious, they acted as though any chair with Harry and Azalea in it were empty. Although this was an improvement in many ways, it did
become a bit depressing after a while.
Harry and Azzy kept to their room, with their new owls and each other for company. Harry had decided to call his owl, a snowy white female Hedwig, a name he had found in A History of Magic while Azzy named hers Raven. Their school books were very interesting. They lay on their beds reading late into the night, Hedwig and Raven swooping in and out of the open window as they both pleased. It was lucky that Aunt Petunia didn't come in to vacuum anymore, because Hedwig kept bringing back dead mice. Every night before the twins went to sleep, Harry ticked off another day on the piece of paper he had pinned to the wall, counting down to September the first.
On the last day of August they thought they'd better speak to his aunt and
uncle about getting to King's Cross station the next day, so they went down to the living room where they were watching a quiz show on television. Azzy cleared her throat to let them know they were there, and
Dudley screamed and ran from the room.
"Er -- Uncle Vernon?"

Uncle Vernon grunted to show he was listening.

"Er -- We need to be at King's Cross tomorrow to -- to go to Hogwarts."

Uncle Vernon grunted again.
"Would it be all right if you gave us a lift?"
Grunt. The Potters supposed that meant yes.
"Thank you."
They were about to go back upstairs when Uncle Vernon actually spoke.
"Funny way to get to a wizards' school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?"
The Potters didn't say anything.
"Where is this school, anyway?"
"We don't know," said Harry, realizing this for the first time. He pulled the ticket Hagrid had given them out of his pocket. "We 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." Azzy replied confidently
"Don't talk rubbish," said Uncle Vernon. "There is no platform nine and three-quarters."
"Yes there is! It's on our ticket." Azzy replied
"Barking," said Uncle Vernon, "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, trying to keep things friendly.
"Taking Dudley to the hospital," growled Uncle Vernon. "Got to have that ruddy tail removed before he goes to Smeltings."
The twins woke at five o'clock the next morning and were too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. They got up and pulled on their Muggle clothes because they didn't want to walk into the station in their wizard's robes -- they'd change on the train. Harry checked his Hogwarts list yet again to make sure they had everything they needed, saw that Hedwig and Raven were shut safely in their cages, and then paced the room, Azzy muttering silently to herself all the things that could go wrong, waiting for the Dursleys to get up. Two hours later, the twins' huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the
Dursleys' car, Aunt Petunia had talked Dudley into sitting next to the Potters, and they had set off. They reached King's Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped Harry's and Azzy's
trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for them. Azalea thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face.
"Well, there you are, you two. Platform nine -- platform ten. Your platform
should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?"
He was quite right, of course. 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," said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Harry turned and saw the Dursleys drive away. All three of them were laughing. The twins' mouth went rather dry. What on
earth were they going to do? They were starting to attract a lot of funny looks, because of Hedwig and Raven. He'd have to ask someone. He stopped a passing guard, but didn't dare mention platform nine and
three-quarters. The guard had never heard of Hogwarts and when the twins couldn't even tell him what part of the country it was in, he started to get annoyed, as though they were being stupid on purpose. Getting
desperate, Azzy 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. The twins were now trying hard not to panic. According to the large clock over the arrivals board, they had ten minutes left to get on the train to Hogwarts and they had no idea how to do it; they were stranded in the middle of a station with trunks they could hardly lift, pockets full of wizard money, and a large owl.
Hagrid must have forgotten to tell them something they had to do, like
tapping the third brick on the left to get into Diagon Alley.
"Hey this might sound stupid but what if we have to get our wands and tap the ticket inspector's stand?" Azzy says feeling nervous and borderline anxiety
"You think?" Harry says equally tensed
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 --"
Harry and Azzy 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 and Azzy's in front of them -- and they had an owl. Heart hammering, Azzy pushed her cart after them. They stopped and so did she, just near enough to hear what they were saying.
"Now, what's the platform number?" said the boys' mother. "Nine and three-quarters!" piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was
holding her hand, "Mom, can't I go... "
"You're not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first."
What looked like the oldest boy marched toward platforms nine and ten.
Harry and Azalea watched, careful not to blink in case they missed it -- but just as
the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large
crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him and by the time the last
backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.
"Fred, you next," the plump woman said.
"I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy. "Honestly, woman, you call
yourself our mother? Cant you tell I'm George?"
"Sorry, George, dear."
"Only joking, I am Fred," said the boy, and off he went. His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he had gone -- but how had he done it?
Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier he was almost there -- and then, quite suddenly, he wasn't anywhere.
There was nothing else for it.
"Excuse me," Harry said to the plump woman.
"Hello, dears," she said. "First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too."
She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin, and
gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.
"Yes," said Harry. "The thing is -- the thing is, we don't know how to--"
"How to get onto the platform?" she said kindly, and the twins nodded.
"Not to worry," she said. "All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a
run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."
"Er -- okay," said Azalea. She pushed her trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.
She started to walk toward it. People jostled her on their way to platforms nine and ten. Azalea walked more quickly. She was going to smash right into that barrier and then she'd be in trouble -- leaning forward
on his cart, she broke into a heavy run -- the barrier was coming nearer
and nearer -- she wouldn't be able to stop -- the cart was out of control
-- she was a foot away -- she closed his eyes ready for the crash --
It didn't come... she kept on running... he opened his eyes. A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven O'clock. Azzy looked behind her twin and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the
words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it, the two of them had done it. Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and
the scraping of heavy trunks. The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats.
Harry pushed his cart off down the platform in search of an empty seat.
He passed a round-faced boy who was saying, "Gran, I've lost my toad
again."
"Oh, Neville," he heard the old woman sigh.
A boy with dreadlocks was surrounded by a small crowd.
"Give us a look, Lee, go on."
The boy lifted the lid of a box in his arms, and the people around him
shrieked and yelled as something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.
The twins pressed on through the crowd until they found an empty compartment
near the end of the train. They put Hedwig and Raven inside first and then started
to shove and heave their trunks toward the train door. They tried to lift it up the steps but could hardly raise one end and twice Azalea dropped it painfully on Harry's foot.
"Want a hand?" It was one of the red-haired twins he'd followed through the barrier.