[Hogwarts Between] NOW, here's the real post.

[Tashayar McCarthy]

Patrick McCartney <hogsmeade at squaredbee.com> wrote:    
--- Tashayar McCarthy 
wrote:

> Amber leaned on the car door armrest by the window
> watching the scenery move by. Now, after learning
> all the things she'd only read about in books was
> real and she was in it, a car was a boring hunk of
> metal going forty miles an hour. She closed her eyes
> and pictured the thing she'd be dreaming of ever
> since she saw it, riding a broom. She saw herself
> sweeping threw the air arms outstretched. The
> red-haired child closed her eyes and lifted her face
> to the sky, feeling the rush of wind brush her
> throat and fly into the distance behind her. The
> broom bumped up and back down and Amber’s imaginary
> dream was gone. She cursed under her breath at the
> car for ruining her fun but gave up taking it out on
> the car, knowing it wouldn’t get her anywhere, and
> leaned back on the armrest. 
> Kings Cross was far away from where Amber lived.
> It was four hours by car, but in Amber’s world it
> must have been at least seven. All the excitement
> made the car ride feel like they were going about
> two miles per hour, each stoplight was painful and
> each bump in the road was a dream killer. Then the
> buildings started to get bigger and London was in
> sight, Amber exploded. She started to talk
> constantly about what her grandfather thought was
> going to happen, where they were going to go, (even
> though she knew) if anyone else they knew was a
> witch/wizard, and any other question you can think
> of about wizardry and didn’t wait for an answer, she
> just needed something to do.
> The car rolled into the large parking lot with the
> steady stream of words following. The old car
> screeched to a stop and Amber burst out the doors
> and landed on all fours, ready to kiss the ground. A
> few of the people gave a side glance but many kids
> just stopped and stared, mouths agape, before their
> busy mothers pushed them toward the station. Amber’s
> grandfather made his way around the car and offered
> a hand to his granddaughter. Amber got up on her own
> and bolted to the sliding doors at the entrance;
> Phil stayed behind and got the suitcases. 
> “Come back and get your things, love!” he called
> holding one of the lighter bags in the air. She had
> almost forgot! Her heart wanted to continue inside
> but her legs thought otherwise. She turned and ran
> back regardless of the excitement gripping her
> chest. Amber carried the two smaller bags and her
> grandfather rolled the large suitcase filled with
> all a witch needs to learn magic. 
> Amber followed her guardian threw the maze of
> trains and people with no idea of where they were
> going. Her grandfather turned suddenly and headed
> straight for a large barrier with the number nine on
> one side and the number ten on the other. He kept
> walking until he got right next to it and vanished.
> Amber stopped abruptly. This didn’t make since,
> Amber thought, it’s just solid wall. She reached her
> hand out to touch the wall but nothing touched her
> fingertips. Just air. Then the lighting of the room
> suddenly changed and when Amber looked around to see
> what had happened, she was somewhere else. The
> pillar now said 9 ¾.

( Sorry, a correction was made to what Amber saw. )


The sudden brightness of the sunlight, after the time
walking through the dark train station, hurt Amber’s
eyes. As her vision adjusted she looked out onto a
wide platform made of planks of wood painted blue. 
The platform extended about twelve feet in front of
her and ended with a drop-off. The railroad tracks
emerged from the left corner of the platform and
trailed off into the distant green hills. Beyond the
platform the shadows of cumulus clouds moved across a
field of grass and trees.

The air smelled of currants and honey. It was very
quiet. Only the sounds of the nearby birds could be
heard.

To her right the platform ended less than a couple of
yards away. Beyond that was a tall wooden fence
painted black with bright orange stars. She could not
tell how tall the fence was since she could not see
how far off the ground the platform was, but the top
of the fence was well over the height of her
grandfather. The space between the platform and the
fence was filled in with overgrown bushes and weeds. 
The leaves were green, silver, yellow, purple, and
red. It was hard to tell if the wind was whipping the
leaves around or they were constantly beating each
other on their own.

To her left the platform continued about twenty-five
feet beyond where she stood. There were two large
square wooden beams, in a row, painted red, holding up
the right end of a small roof over the edge of the
platform. The shading roof had blue trim and yellow
roofing tiles. It extended to back beyond the corner
of a building that was behind her.

Behind her was the red brick side wall of a building
that was twenty-five feet wide. On it were many
extremely old faded and broken signs for things such
as a tea company from India, a cruise liner, and a
London insurance company. Newer posters existed for
Ollivander’s Wands, a Zonko’s joke shop, and a
Honeyduke’s candy shop. There were also layers of
schedules pasted on top of each other. The wall above
her was almost two stories high ending in a flat roof.

Other than her grandfather she could only see one
other person – a boy maybe a little older than she
was. He was standing at the edge of the platform, to
the left, holding the end of his trunk and moving his
head back and forth as if he was looking for
something.

A train could not be seen.



   
   
  Amber looked back and fourth many times then waved her hand threw the air to see if the train was invisible. The wizarding world holds many things she had never heard before, so she was just checking to see if invisiblity was one of them. She turned to the boy on the other end of the platform and called out "Oi! Are we late or something!?"

       
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