"I think so?" she says, bouncing a bit.

“It’ll be great,” Hagrid says.  “Now, this,” he says, and produces a slip of golden paper from one of his many pockets, “is your train ticket.  I can hold onto it for you for now, but you’ll have to keep it with you once you’re on the platform.”

She nods, seriously. "I'll try really hard."

Grin.  “I trust yeh.  You remember the schedule for tomorrow?”

She grins back. "Yeah. We're getting there early, right? So you have time to floo to Hogwarts?"

"That's right," he says.  "You're sure you're okay on the platform on your own?"

"Yeah, I am."

Grin.  "Train leaves at eleven o'clock sharp, remember."

"I will. I'll get on it early."

"Good plan," he says, and stretches.  "Well, it's getting late, and I've got some knitting I oughta get done before bed."

"Okay." She settles in with one of her history books for the night.

They're up bright and early the next morning.  As Hagrid helps her pack, he asks, "Now, we could take Tom's Floo to King's Cross - Platform Nine-And-Three-Quarters has a floo station as well as a train station.  But we've got plenty of time if you'd prefer to go the muggle way."

"I think I would, yeah, like to go the muggle way."

"Fine with me.  Don't much care for travelling by Floo, if I'm honest."

She nods. "It's - weird."

"It takes some getting used to, that's for sure."

They do have plenty of time, for a leisurely walk and a ride on the Underground to muggle King's Cross.

"Well, here we are," Hagrid says once they're on the muggle platform.

"Cool!" she says, looking around. "So - the platform's between nine and ten?"

"That's right," he says.  "Now, to get to Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, what you've got to do is walk straight at the barrier between Nine and Ten."  He points.  "Muggles can't get through it, but you and I can."

"Okay," she says, nodding seriously. "Will anyone notice me walking through?"

"Well, you shouldn't try to get someone's attention while you're going through, but if you're quick-like and not too loud about it you'll be okay."

"Okay. I'll be careful."

Grin.  "All right.  Wanna go first?"

"Yeah!"

He takes a step back, so he's beside the barrier, and bows extravagantly, and extends an arm toward the barrier in invitation.

She grins and pushes her cart through.

Whoosh!  Straight through the brick wall like breaching the surface of water, except both sides are air.

From the other side the barrier looks like an iron archway, but with a blurry translucent curtain of brick-and-mortar that ripples like water in her wake.  She can't make out details, but she can see the shapes of muggles walking back and forth, and of Hagrid walking toward the barrier after her.  It looks a bit like breaching the surface of water, too, when he walks through it.

Cool!!!

She walks a bit past the entry area, so anyone coming through won't risk bumping into her.

Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters isn't quite as grand and abustle as Diagon Alley was, but it's got a few attractions beyond just space to wait for the train.  Mostly wizarding restaurants, but there's a few little market stalls hawking newspapers, and one or two places for students to pick up school supplies or toiletries they may have forgotten to pack.  On the other side of the tracks, accessible by a high bridge and steep stairs, is a line of green-burning Floo fireplaces.

So cool!!!

She stares around, a bit fascinated. Not as much as she would've been a month ago, but, still.

Wizarding stuff is just great.

Hagrid grins as he checks his pocketwatch.

"Train'll be here in about an hour, and it leaves another hour after that.  Got some pocket money for yeh - " and he hands over a jingling coin purse - "and yer train ticket."

"Okay! Thanks." She takes both, stowing them carefully.

"Happy to help out," he says.  "Right - I should be off.  Got everything you need?"

She checks her pockets and mentally inventories her trunk. "I think I do."

"S'pose we'll see each other at Hogwarts, then."  He sticks out a hand.  "Pleasure meeting you, Harriet."

She shakes his hand. "Pleasure meeting you, Hagrid."

And he's off.  If she sticks around to watch him go, she'll see him wave at her as the Floo-fire swallows him.

She waves, then goes to explore the platform and shops. The restaurants look interesting...

Candy, it seems, is where wizarding food differs most from muggle food, though there's at least a few things she doesn't recognize wherever she looks, and most places are serving a beverage called "pumpkin juice."

Hagrid was right - it is in fact about an hour's wait before the Hogwarts Express arrives.

Pumpkin juice is really good. She loves it, though she's careful with her money and careful not to fill herself up.

She gets on the Hogwarts Express pretty promptly after it arrives.

Then she'll have her pick of compartments, and have plenty of time to sit and read on her own before anyone else shows up!

She picks a corner one near the front, putting her trunk away carefully and pulling out Hogwarts: A History to read.

Through the window she can see the platform filling up with wizarding families, milling about, patronizing the food court, or - as it gets closer and closer to eleven - hugging and kissing goodbye, and getting onto the train.  Most everyone passes over her compartment.

There's a knock at the sliding door, though, just as the train is departing.

"Come in?" she calls.

The door slides open, and in walks a bushy-haired girl about Harriet's age, pulling a trunk of her own and already dressed in her wizard robes.

"Excuse me," she says, "do you mind if I sit with you?  The other compartments are all full."

"That's okay!" She hasn't actually taken over all the seats; still, she nudges her things a bit closer to her to give the girl more options.

"Thank you," she says, and heaves her trunk into one of the overhead compartments and sits down opposite Harriet.  "I'm Hermione Granger."

"I'm Harriet Evans."

"It's nice to meet you," Hermione says.  She peers at the book in Harriet's lap.  "Are you reading Hogwarts: A History?"

"Yeah!" She holds it up - it's one of the later volumes of the unabridged edition, even. "Did you know the original ward stones were laid with lost ancient runes? And some headmasters have tried to add on to them since - that's why most really modern muggle technologies don't work, someone was trying to block lightning strikes on grounds really clumsily - "

She doesn't really understand all the nitty details there but the broad strokes are so cool.

Hermione bounces a little.  "I didn't know that's why electricity doesn't work in Hogwarts!  I've only read the abridged edition, we couldn't afford the better one.  Have you finished your copy?"

"I haven't finished this one, but I've got one of the earlier volumes with me, if you wanna see it? And the library at Hogwarts maybe has more..."

Bounce bounce!  "I'd love to see it!"

She gets up to dig through her trunk, producing: a book!

Eeeee!  Hermione takes it and buries her nose in it.

Co-reading is a lot of fun!

If Hermione's not too immersed (when it'd be rude to interrupt her) Harriet shares some Cool Facts from her own book, excitement bubbling up in her chest.

Hermione is Pretty Immersed, but once or twice there are opportune times to share a cool fact, which she receives eagerly!

Harriet's a bit less immersed, and enjoys any cool facts Hermione has.

They can pass quite a bit of time this way.

Eventually there's a knock at the compartment door again.

Harriet's easier to interrupt.

"Come in?" she calls.

The door slides open to reveal a plump woman pushing a cart stacked high with candy.  "Anything off the trolley, dears?"

She eyes it, biting her lip. She's not much one for sweets...

"Hermione?" she asks, in case her companion hasn't noticed the interruption yet.

She looks up from her book and takes a look at the trolley, and sighs a little.

"I wish I could get some of everything," she says wistfully.  "Wizarding sweets look fascinating... I had a box of Every Flavor Beans when I went to Diagon Alley, but I never got to try anything else."

Well science seems like a good use of the pocket money she didn't end up spending much of.

Harriet points to the trolley and says, "Can I get two of everything?"

"Are you sure you can afford that?" Hermione asks, sounding a bit concerned.

"Probably? My guardian helped me get pocket money from my - I guess trust fund? And I don't think he knows how expensive candy is..." Still though just to sanity check - price?

It's a good whack of galleons, more than most kids are probably spending on candy today, but it's within Harriet's budget.

She doesn't think she has anything else to spend it on... Yeah she'll take it.

Hermione's eyes go a bit wide when she sees Harriet casually pull out so much gold.  "Thank you!"

"It's no problem!"

Grin!

They investigate the haul together.  Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and Cauldron Cakes and Licorice Wands and Chocolate Frogs (which she may recognize from her hospital visit) and a million other things...

"Do you eat many wizard sweets?" Hermione asks.

"Nah. I had a Chocolate Frog once..." Oh wait didn't she have that card... "And I had a card from it that I put - somewhere - probably in my trunk... Forgot to read it."

"I've heard about chocolate frogs," Hermione says.  "The cards sound interesting, though I haven't read one yet... are they really enchanted to try to hop away from you?"

"Yeah. They're not super fast? But it's kinda annoying..."

Hermione opens her chocolate frog, and startles a little when it darts away from her and makes a valiant leap clear out of the train window.

"Well, it's interesting," she says, a little primly, "but it seems like more trouble than it's worth if it just tastes like ordinary chocolate."

Giggle.

"Yeah, it does. Just normal milk chocolate."

Grin!  "The cards are interesting!  Though I'm not sure they'd be worth having to deal with the frogs either once you started getting repeats..."

She skims the back of her card, then holds it out to Harriet.  "Do you want to see?"

"Sure!" She takes it.

"NICHOLAS FLAMEL," reads the little pentagonal card, "1330-1507," with a little picture of a squat bushy-bearded man framed under the label.

As she looks at the picture, it makes eye contact with her and blinks.

Kinda weird... Still, she smiles at it, and flips it over to read the back.

“One of the most celebrated alchemists in wizarding history, Nicholas Flamel is the first and only known wizard to have successfully created the Philosopher’s Stone, used to create that cornerstone of modern magical medicine, the Elixir of Life.  Flamel created nine Philosopher’s Stones in his life, and donated them to magical hospitals in every part of the world.  One such stone has remained in Britain even to this day.”

Huh! "That's really neat!"

"It is!  Muggles have myths about the Philosopher's Stone, but they say the Elixir of Life is supposed to make you immortal, I wonder how they got that mixed up..."

"Maybe like a game of telephone? Live longer and healthier gets turned into forever..."

"Maybe!  I think there were myths about it before Nicholas Flamel made one, but maybe wizards knew what it was supposed to do?  And muggles were disconnected enough from the wizard world to get the garbled version, or to garble it themselves."

"Or it could've been Nicholas Flamel was inspired by the stories... I heard about that happening with science fiction and engineers."

"That could be," she says pensively.  "I think the stories would've had to come from some sort of real magic, still, since science fiction comes from real science... but there could've been stories that inspired both the muggle myths and the real Stone, you're right."

Nod! "Though some science fiction is only kinda science..."

"That's true," she says thoughtfully.  "But isn't it more likely to inspire real engineers the closer it is to real science?"

Nod. "Yeah, I guess so."

She turns back to the pile of candies.  "Have you tried Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans?  They're much better than nonmagical jelly beans, they taste just like a bite of the real thing and they're not limited to just fruit flavors."

"I haven't! Those sound cool."

Grin.  "They're on the cart, we should each have a box."  She looks through her share of the candy haul for hers.

She does too! Maybe savory jelly beans will taste better than sugary ones...

Jelly bean?

Steak and kidney pudding!  It tastes and feels exactly like the bean transformed into a bite of steak and kidney pudding once she put it in her mouth.

Hermione finds her box, and pulls out a jelly bean, and inspects it; and retrieves a pencil and a neatly folded piece of paper from... a pocket inside the sleeve of her robes?  Maybe that's where wizards put their pockets... and unfolds the paper and jots down a little note.  She pops the jelly bean into her mouth, and chews thoughtfully, and swallows, and jots down another note.

Paper and pencil is smart!

She reports her finding, and then hums thoughtfully. "The texture's even there, too, it doesn't feel like a jelly bean..."

"I know, it's remarkable," she says.  "Technically it's supposed to be a surprise every time but I like knowing what it's going to taste like, so I've been taking notes.  Usually the colors and the flavors match up the same way."

"Huh! Yeah, my jellybean did look a bit steak ish..."

Hermione nods.  "They don't always look like what they're flavored as but they do a lot."

She takes out another every-flavor-bean, then makes a face.  She clears off a patch of seat next to her and dumps them all out, then starts picking them up one by one and sorting them, either into the original box or into her now-empty chocolate frog container.  Every so often her eyes flick to the chart and study it for a moment.

"You can have the ones I recognize, if you like, once I'm done sorting them," she says.

"Okay. Are some bad?"

"Not in this box," she says.  "I've seen boxes with joke flavors, but this box says it just has things that taste nice."

"Oh. So there's themed boxes?"

"There's breakfast ones and dinner ones and some holiday themed ones.  There's some boxes where you don't know if you're getting something gross, but I'm not interested in trying those," she says primly.  "And there are probably more kinds of theme that I don't know about, I've only been in a wizard sweet shop once." 

Nod! "There's a lot!"

"There are!  I suppose Every-Flavor Beans are very popular."

"Or wizards really like candy."

She giggles.  "That could be!  I'd really like candy too if it could taste like whatever you wanted it to."

"Yeah! I don't like a lot of sugary stuff... But savory candies are cool."

"They are!"  She sorts a few more beans into the recognized and unrecognized boxes, then pops one of the former into her mouth.

She glances at Harriet.  "You can have most of the ones I recognize," she amends.

Giggle.

She tries a few, then turns to the rest of the pile. "I shouldn't fill up if we're gonna keep looking at these..."

"I think the beans are less filling than they seem like they'd be while you're eating them," Hermione says.  "But they'll keep okay too.  And there's supposed to be a big feast once we got to Hogwarts, I heard, so that's another reason to save room."

"Oh, yeah! That sounds cool." Having a lot of food available consistently is still so weird. But good.

Sort sort sort.  "I'm looking forward to it.  We've had plenty of tasty meals at home but we've never had anything we called a feast, I'm excited to see what that's like."

"I wonder if there'll be magical food..."

"Maybe!  If the candy's magical, it would make sense for other food to be magical too.  And I think there's some kinds of magical plants and animals that are edible, but I don't know how different those are from muggle food."

Nod! "Especially for a big feast... It'd be weird if they just did normal stuff, y'know?"

"It would."  Grin.  "I can't wait."

The Every-Flavor Beans are sorted now!  "Do you want me to sit next to you so we can both look at the list?"

"Okay."

She changes seats, next to Harriet with her Beans Chart between them resting on her copy of Hogwarts: A History, and hands over the chocolate-frog-box-repurposed-as-bean-container.

She tries as broad a sampling as she can manage without getting full! It's all very weird and cool.

Hermione's notes in the Bean Appearance column are usually thorough enough for Harriet to know what she's getting into!

Knock knock, again.

"Come in?" she calls.

A little blond boy who looks on the verge of tears slides open the compartment door.  "Have you seen a toad?"

She shakes her head. "No, not one loose..."

Wibble.  "I just turned my back for a second - but he must have run off - "

Hermione hops to her feet, crisp and businesslike.  "How many compartments have you checked?"

"Just the ones on this car," the boy says.

"We can help you," Harriet says, also getting to her feet.

"...would you?"

Hermione nods firmly.

Nod! "Absolutely."

Shy grin.  "Thanks."

She grins back. "It's no problem."

"Should we stay together to look, or split up?"

Hermione taps her chin pensively.  "If we're just going down the train in a line I don't think there's much point in splitting up...?"

She nods. "That makes sense, yeah."

"All right."  She nods smartly.  "So our first stop's the next car, then."

"Yeah. And we can ask people if they've seen a toad... Someone must've."

"That's a good idea, Harriet."  And she marches off down the train car's corridor, toward the door.

She follows.

No one in the next car has seen Trevor the toad, as it turns out, or the car after that.  No one's up for helping them look, either.

Awwww. That's sad. But looking's not too tiring...

Hermione seems as determined as ever, certainly.  Knock knock.

Laughter from within the compartment subsides, and a red-haired boy slides open the door.  "What's up?"

"We're looking for a lost toad."

The boy glances back at his friends, who look to be sharing between the three of them a pretty decent candy haul.  "Anyone seen a toad?"

The other boys shake their heads.

"No," he says to Harriet, "sorry."

"Okay. We'll keep looking. Thanks." And turn to keep going.

"If you see him, would you let us know?" Hermione says; she's taken to asking this the last few compartments.  "We won't be hard to find, if we're not in the corridor we'll be up in front."

The boy nods and shuts the door.  As they're leaving, they can hear him talking to his friends: "Don't know why they're bothering, if my mum'd gotten me a toad I'd lose it as fast as I could.  Mind you, I got Scabbers..."

- Wow what a jerk.

She nudges Neville. "We'll keep looking. Bet Trevor's found a ton of candy crickets or something."

"That boy seemed terribly rude to me," Hermione says.  "I doubt he'd have been much help anyway."

Small smile.

She nods, seriously. "We'll find someone nicer and helpful."

Hermione frowns pensively.  "Actually, I wonder if it might be best to go looking for a prefect.  They might be able to cast a scrying-spell that could find Trevor more easily than just checking manually.  And I suppose if someone found him, the prefect's car would be where they'd take him."

"Oh, that's a good idea! Do you know where they are?"

"There's a prefects-only car in the front of the train," Hermione says.  "At least some of them should be there, I think."

" - And we've been walking back..."

"We'll just have to backtrack," Hermione says.  "We haven't gone too far."

She nods. "Yeah."

So off they march, back toward the front of the train.

Harriet knocks when they get to the prefect's compartment.

The door slides open, and reveals a woman (or at least a girl a good few years older than them) in blue-trimmed robes.  "Can I help you?" she asks.

"Uh, maybe," she says. "Neville lost his toad, Trevor, and we haven't been able to find him..."

"Oh dear," the prefect says.  "Well, no one's come by with a lost toad today, but I might be able to try a scry... do you have anything he's touched?  Were you holding him with your bare hands recently?"

Neville holds out his hand...

...and the prefect presses the tip of her wand to a few spots, in sequence, frowning pensively.  After a moment, she raises her wand up, and a little glinting point of blue-white light forms on the tip.  She taps her wand smartly with one finger, and the light-droplet hops off her wand and swoops out the door and down the hall.

"That should be back in a minute or two," she says.  "You can wait here, if you'd like."

Harriet nods. "I'm okay waiting."

"So am I."

Neville nods.

And, not even a minute later, the blob returns - 

Followed immediately by a knock on the prefects' compartment's door.

Prefect pokes the point of light out of the air with her wand, and makes a face like trying to blink away a bright afterimage; and then smiles, and opens the door.

There is:

A boy, about the same age as Harriet and her friends, firmly holding: Trevor!

"I found this toad..." he says, holding up his cargo. "I think he belongs to someone..."

"That's Trevor!" Neville exclaims.

"Oh - is he yours?"

"He is, I lost him."

"We've been looking for him."

"Oh, good - well, it's good I found you guys so fast - not good you lost him - uh." He holds out Trevor.

Little grin, as he takes Trevor from him.  "Thank you.  ...I'm Neville Longbottom."

"I'm Ami Auberon. It's nice to meet you. Who're your friends?"

"I'm Harriet Evans."

"Hermione Granger," she says matter-of-factly, and extends a hand formally to shake.

He shakes her hand firmly.

"It's nice to meet you too, Ami," Hermione says.  "Thanks for finding our friend's toad."

(Neville gives another shy little grin at the word "friend.")

"You're welcome! I'm just glad I found you so fast..."

"It all worked out pretty well, looks like," the prefect says kindly.  "You kids wanna head back?  Don't let me keep you."

She glances at her friends, nodding a bit. She's unsure how to check with Hermione if it's okay to invite the boys back to their compartment...

Hermione has no such qualms, apparently: "Would you like to sit with us?" she asks boldly.  "If that's all right with Harriet."

"It is."

"That sounds nice! My compartment is really crowded..."

"I'd like to, too," says Neville.  "Should we go get our luggage first...?"

"I read our luggage is collected separately and taken to our dormitories for us, so I think it should be okay if you leave it where it is."

"I've heard that, too."

"All right," says Neville.  "I'll follow you?"

She nods and leads the way back to her and Hermione's compartment.

Neville sits down opposite Harriet.

Ami sits down across from Hermione.

Hermione promptly busies herself with her Every Flavor Beans Diagram.

"What're you working on?"

"I'm taking notes on what different Every Flavor Beans taste like," she says, not looking up from her notes.  (Not in a condescending or dismissive way, though; her eyes just happen to be otherwise occupied.)

"Based on color?"

"Color, patterning, apparent texture," she says.  "Most of them are consistent."

"Huh. I've never noticed before... A chart's a cool idea." Also Ravenclaw for sure, but that might be rude to say.

"Thanks," she says.  "Have you had them a lot?"

"Some! They're not my favorite, though."

"Are you from a wizard family, then?"

"Yeah. A pretty old one."

"I was raised by muggles," Hermione says conversationally.  "I've only ever been to the wizarding world once before now, when Professor McGonagall took me to Diagon Alley to buy my school supplies, so I don't know much about what it's like.  Do your parents do a lot of magic?"

"My great uncle does. He's a Healer at Saint Mungo's, and he's gotten the whole family estate warded and anchored so it's bigger inside than it looks outside, especially the grounds and stuff."

"That sounds fascinating," she says.  "A lot of wizarding places are bigger on the insides, aren't they?  Or it seems that way to me, anyway."

He brightens a bit. "Yeah! I don't know all the details yet, but there's some cool things you can do with it..."

He's apparently rather happy to expound on this at length.

Hermione is, indeed, fascinated!

Neville smiles a bit shyly at Harriet.  "Could I have some of your Every-Flavor Beans?"

Shy smile back! 

"Sure..." She leans over to pour some in Neville's hand.

Grin!  " - there aren't any joke ones in here, are there?"

"No! I think it's just one of the home cooking ones..." She shows him the box, which does in fact indicate it's not a joke box.

"Thanks," he says.  Nom.  "Did you grow up in the wizarding world?  If you don't mind me asking..."

She shakes her head. "No. I grew up with muggles. Though I've been staying in the wizarding world the last month..."

"I don't think I've ever met someone who was raised by muggles before... do you mind if I ask some things about the muggle world?"

She shakes her head. "I don't mind."

"What are muggles like?"

"...People? That's - I dunno. Kinda broad?"

"I guess I wouldn't know what to say if someone asked me what wizards are like," Neville says.  "But I've heard muggles like things to be a lot... tidier, and less flashy, than wizards.  Do you think that's true?"

"Depends on where you live I guess? And maybe age... Muggle cities are flashier than muggle suburbs, the people in the suburbs all like looking the same and being neat and having perfect houses, and the people in the cities sometimes like being weird... Kid stuff is usually flashier than grown up stuff. And foreign stuff sometimes is really flashy, I think everyone else thinks the British are kinda boring..."

Neville giggles a little.  "Grown-up wizard stuff is sometimes differently flashy than kid stuff but I don't think it's any less.  Wizards like showing off, or that's what my Gran says anyway."

Grin. "Muggles like to show off, too. Just usually they're showing off money or stuff."

"I think gold is part of what wizards are showing off, when they show off," says Neville.  "Sometimes they're showing off being able to do powerful magic, too.  But either way they do it by being creative."

Nod. "Muggles also like to show off good taste... Maybe because the really colorful clothes are cheaper? All the expensive stuff's in boring colors."

He giggles again.  "I think lots of wizards think of 'good taste' as a boring muggle thing."

She giggles too. "Bet wizards just call it something different." Then she imagines muggles and wizards looking down their noses at each other and giggles more.

He laughs a bit at her laughing so much!

She decides to try to explain what's so funny.

"I bet you could introduce a really snobby wizard and muggle to each other and they'd both complain about the other being an uncultured boor," she says between giggles.

Heee that is pretty funny!  He laughs.  Er, continues laughing.

She just keeps giggling.

Meanwhile:

"Do you know what House you're hoping for?" Hermione asks.  "I've read about them all and I think I'd be happy with any of them, though of course I've only read about them, I don't think I have the full perspective on them I'd have if I'd grown up around wizards..."

He hums. "People disagree lots about which House is best, too - my dad's a Ravenclaw, and I guess I wanna be like him? He helps people a lot, and I want to help people. Mom was a Hufflepuff, though, and my birth dad was a Gryffindor... My older brothers are Gryffindors, too, and my sister's a Slytherin, though she's apprenticing with grandma so I don't see her a lot..." He frowns. "Most families have a kinda consistent House, but ours doesn't. Dad says all the Houses were meant to be equal."

"It does sound like the sort of thing of which there's not supposed to be a best," she says, with the knowledgeable tone of someone who has heard that sort of thing from grownups a great deal and has gradually picked up the pattern.  "I think I'd like to be in Gryffindor, though, myself, that was the house Dumbledore was in and he sounds a terrific role model from what I've read of him.  I think I could see myself in any of them, though."

"You've been striking me as very Ravenclaw. They have their own dorm library, you know."

"Ravenclaw also sounds nice," she says.  "And I do like the idea of a dorm library..."

"Maybe if you get sorted into Gryffindor you can make one."

"That sounds like a fun project."

"Yeah."

Along trundles the Hogwarts Express, winding through idyllic countryside; and in time it approaches Hogsmeade Station.