A Changed Lestrange (1-2) (under editing)

3: Platform Nine And Three-Quarters

Ashton's last month at the orphanage was not fun in the slightest. Mr Williams continued to mock the boy senselessly about being a wizard ("You got a magical mirror?") but Ashton really didn't care. The other kids just treated him like they usually did — they just acted as if he didn't exist, which he was absolutely fine with, though the treatment did feel unusually depressing by the end of it all.

Ashton, as usual, kept to his room, with his new books and wand for company. He had read through Hogwarts: A History, an additional book Dumbledore had suggested he get from Flourish and Blotts, and it was an absolutely fascinating read.

He found out a lot of new things about Hogwarts: the fact that the ceiling in the Great Hall was enchanted to look like the sky outside, the fact that you could not Apparate or Disapparate — another form of magical transportation, where you travelled instantly from one place to another, and could not master before the age of seventeen, which he found out to be the age of adulthood in the wizarding world. He presumed that was how Dumbledore disappeared from Diagon Alley when they went there.

Every night before Ashton went to sleep, he ticked off another day on the piece of paper he had pinned to the wall, counting down the days until September the first.

On the last day of August, he thought it best to figure out how he was going to get there. There was not a time early enough to get up to take the bus or train to King's Cross from Dronfield, so he thought his only option would be to ask Mr Williams to drive him there.

He knocked on the office door, where Mr Williams was sat begrudgingly. He seemed to be writing something down on his notepad, but Ashton couldn't peer over the disintegrating computer he had in front of him.

Mr Williams made a loud grunting noise, which Ashton supposed meant he had heard him. He slowly opened the door and Mr Williams peered up, a very moody expression on his face.

"What?" he asked.

"Er — so, I need to be at King's Cross station tomorrow for — er — to go to, erm, the... wizarding school."

Mr Williams' lip curled aggressively, as he stared Ashton down.

"And why," he said blankly. "Exactly should I care?"

"Because I need a lift to get there, don't I? It'd take about three hours to get from here to King's Cross."

"Well, that sounds like your problem," said Mr Williams.

"It's actually your problem," said Ashton. "Think about it this way — if you don't drive me to King's Cross, I won't go to Hogwarts, which means I'll be stuck here for the next seven years, and with no secondary school to go to, and with enrolment slots at these schools so few and far between —"

Mr Williams' eyes narrowed for a brief moment and then they opened wide as he realised what Ashton was saying.

"All right, all right, I'll take you to King's Cross," he scowled. "But this better be the last time you bother me about this school of yours, boy. Get that Dunderbore feller to lend you one of them magic carpets or something."

Ashton rolled his eyes and left. He'd got what he'd wanted anyway, and had just one more night to wait before he would be taken away from the dump of an orphanage for a good nine months.

***

Ashton woke at five-thirty the next morning and was too relieved and excited to go back to bed. He got up, the floorboard making an inevitably loud creaking noise, and pulled on his jeans because he thought better than marching into the station with wizard's robes on — he could wear them on the train. He re-checked his Hogwarts list to make sure he had everything that he needed, and sat down on his bed, deciding to read The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 to pass the time. That didn't take long, so he decided to tackle Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for the third time. That took him to seven in the morning, and Mr Williams was waiting downstairs, looking as perturbed as he always did. Ashton's huge, heavy trunk had been loaded in to Mr Williams' car, and they had set off.