Fears | June Potter and the Haunting Voice | Book 1

Chapter Two; The Hogwarts Express

Chapter Two; The Hogwarts Express

  The end of the summer vacation came too quickly for June's liking. She had enjoyed the camping trip the four had taken the week before, and although she was excited to go to Hogwarts, she was enjoying the summer with the Grangers. June awoke at six in the morning the next day, and instead of leaving her bedroom, June checked her schools' list to make sure she had everything. She then pulled on her everyday clothes opting to change on the train. An hour later, both June's and Hermione's huge and heavy trunks had been loaded into the Grangers' car.

  They reached King's Cross at half-past ten, Wendell and Monica help the girls trunks on to a trolley. Hermione had caught the Hogwarts Express the previous year, so June understood the inner working on getting onto platform nine and three-quarters, which wasn't visible to the Muggle eye. It was only tricky part was getting in undetected. The four quickly walked through the solid barrier dividing platform nine and ten once there was a brief opening in between train boarding. And quickly they vanished from the Muggle side of the train station and arrived on the magical train platform.

  A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign hung overhead read Hogwarts Express, 11 o'clock. June looked behind her and saw a wrought-iron archway where the ticket box had been, with the Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every colour wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to each other in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of the 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. June and Hermione pushed their trolley off down the platform in search of an empty seat. Soon they found an open compartment, and put their things in, Hermoine got distracted by a few girls in her year and started to talk to them.

  The train began to move, and Hermoine got very worried since she hadn't seen Harry or Ron get on the train and didn't know where they were. Houses flashed past the window and June felt a great leap of excitement. She didn't know exactly where she was going, but she was happy she was going.

  "What if they missed the train?" Hermione asked out loud, to no one in particular.

  "I'm sure the school has something in place for students that miss the train if they did." June tried to reason. 

  "What if they do something stupid and get themselves in trouble, or expelled." Hermione worried, then exclaimed. "Oh, June, I don't want them expelled, "

  While they had been talking, and worrying for the boys, the train had carried them out of London. Now they were speeding past fields full of cows and sheep. June watched the fields and lanes flick past, calming her nerves for starting at her new school, and the worry Hermione was helping built for Harry and Ron

  Around half-past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, "Anything off the trolley, dears?"

  June got to her feet after Hermoine muttered a no thanks, to deep in her dread for the boys, June was ready to buy her favourite sweets from the muggle world, but the woman wasn't selling any of those sweets. What she did have were Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Liquorice Wands and a number of other strange things June had never seen in her life. She got some of everything and paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts, incase Hermoine got hungry at some point in the journey.