The Other Castellan

Platform Nine and Three Quarters

Chapter 3: Platform Nine and Three Quarters

  Lucas's last few months were, uneventful to put it lightly. A better word would be torture. Absolute torture. With nothing to do, he had finished all of his textbooks in the first week and would've given anything to have a monster attack him. At least it would have kept him occupied. The only thing he had to do other than reading was to create a story for Draco Malfoy and get his appearance straight. 

  He counted down the days until September the first, but by that day, he was really starting to regret his decision. He would manipulate the Mist to make Harry believe that he saw him like this in Madam Malkin's, but seriously, what was he thinking?

  He had chosen for his hair to be slicked back with approximately 5 whole barrels of hair gel (just joking). Everything else he could handle, but why did he choose for his hair to be slicked back like that? Just why? Oh, right! Because he thought I'd be fun!

  "I'll be lucky if I'm not laughed at," Lucas muttered to himself as he dumped his trunk onto a trolley and pushed it towards platforms nine and ten. He was wearing jeans and a light blue sweater over his faded Camp Half-Blood t-shirt. He had already used the Mist to change his appearance, hence the muttering.

  "Right," he said as he got to the platforms. "Just walk through the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Not the weirdest thing that's ever happened. If Thalia's spirit can create a border around camp to prevent mortals and monsters walking in, why can't a wall be some sort of gateway?"

  Lucas gripped the handle tightly, heart pounding. He walked towards it, people jostling him as he went. People. Seems that wherever he went, people were always in a hurry. He kept walking, having complete faith in Hecate. This was magic, for Zeus's sake. It wouldn't let something like logic stop it. 

  All of a sudden, he was no longer in Kings Cross station. 

  A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform filled with people. A sign above him said Hogwarts Express, 11 o'clock. Lucas glanced behind him, and where the barrier was, had been replaced by a wrought-iron archway, with the words Platform 9 3/4 written on it. He had done it. He had found platform 9 3/4.

  Smoke from the engine drifted lazily above the heads of the chatty crowd, while cats of every colour wound here and there, between their legs. Owls hooted to each other disgruntled, over the babble and scraping of the trunks.

  The first few carriages were already full of students, some looking out of the windows to talk with their families, some fighting and bickering over seats. Lucas pushed his trolley down the platform, trying to find an empty compartment. Preferably away from the purebloods. The Weasleys were fine, based on what Hecate told him, but the others? Not so much. 

  Lucas pressed through the crowd when he found an almost empty compartment in the middle of the train. There was only one boy sitting in it. He looked about two years older than him and he had dreadlocks.

  "Can I sit here?" Lucas asked him, having pushed his trunk onto the train, with Willow sitting on it. 

  He looked at him. "Sure," he responded casually. "Need a hand?"

  "It's fine," Lucas said. "I can handle it." He dumped Willow onto the seat, then picked up the trunk by one side and dragged it to the corner of the compartment.