Chapter 11 — The Train Has No Assigned Seats

Harry came towards me with Hedwig’s cage in one hand and a grin which suggested the journey to the station had improved considerably since he left his uncle. No Dursley followed him through the barrier. I waited while he found a route between a trunk, two students embracing and a cat which appeared to have decided the platform belonged to it.

‘You made it,’ I said. ‘I was ready to blame your uncle if the train left without you.’

‘He drove off as soon as he’d dropped me outside.’ Harry shifted the cage to his other hand. ‘Saved us having to say much. The rest of my things are in the bag you gave me, but I’m not putting Hedwig in there.’

‘Good. I don’t think she’d appreciate being packed beside a cauldron.’ Hedwig clicked her beak at me, apparently objecting to the suggestion even in that form. I looked along the platform for somebody who knew what to do with an owl cage during a train journey.

A porter showed Harry where it could be secured. Hedwig tolerated being handed over, though she continued watching us until we boarded. We went up into a corridor of polished wood and brass, lined with compartments whose doors offered no helpful suggestion of where we were supposed to sit.

I checked my ticket again. There was no seat number, leaving us to try doors and hope the train contained room for everyone. Harry found an empty compartment before I could develop this into a complaint about the school’s organisational priorities. We took the seats by the window and looked back at the platform.

Families were still saying goodbye. A woman adjusted her son’s collar while he tried to look at somebody behind her, and older students leant from carriage windows to call to friends. Harry followed one scene after another. After what he had told me about home, I could understand why he might want to keep looking.

‘We’ll do this every year,’ I said. ‘By the end you’ll probably complain about the seats and how long it takes.’

‘I won’t,’ Harry replied. He settled closer to the glass, unconvinced by my prediction. ‘I’ve been waiting for this since Hagrid told me about the school.’

‘Then remind me when I complain.’ I turned towards the platform again as the whistle sounded. Somewhere beyond the barrier Emma would be on her way back through the station. I hoped the first letter I sent her would contain more useful reassurance than my packing arrangements.

The train began moving, carrying us past the last waving families and out among the roofs of London. Houses gradually gave way to open stretches and then fields. For a while Harry and I watched without needing to talk, interrupted only by the occasional noise from the corridor. One of those noises became a knock at our door.

A red-haired boy stood outside with a battered case. ‘Can I sit here?’ he asked. ‘Everywhere else I’ve tried is full.’

‘Come in,’ I said, moving my folded robes off the spare seat. ‘Unless Harry booked the whole compartment without telling me, there’s plenty of room.’

‘I didn’t,’ Harry assured him. The boy brought his case inside and sat opposite us, looking relieved to have stopped searching.

‘Ron Weasley,’ he said. ‘Thanks. I was beginning to think I’d have to stand all the way.’

The name caught in the same uncertain collection of memories as Harry’s and Hermione’s. Red hair had stayed with me more clearly than anything useful about the person, and looking at Ron didn’t improve matters. I introduced myself, then turned towards Harry so he could do the same.

‘Harry Potter,’ he said, and Ron’s attention moved straight to his forehead. He looked away, apparently aware that he was staring, then looked back before he could help himself.

‘You’re really Harry Potter?’ Ron asked. ‘They said you were coming this year. Have you actually got the scar?’

Harry pushed his fringe aside briefly. Ron’s eyes widened, and I recognised the direction this introduction was taking from our day in Diagon Alley. Before the scar became the only thing we talked about, I asked Ron whether all his family were magical. Perhaps he could tell us something about the school beyond what we had read.

‘All of them,’ he said. ‘Mum and Dad, my brothers. I’ve got five older brothers and a little sister. Bill and Charlie have left school. Percy’s a prefect now, and Fred and George are still here.’

‘Five?’ Harry asked. ‘Does that mean you know everything about Hogwarts already?’

‘It means everything I’ve got belonged to one of them first,’ Ron said. He indicated his case, then pulled at a sleeve with the expertise of someone who had considered the evidence many times. ‘Robes, books. Even my rat was Percy’s.’

‘Scabbers,’ Ron said, taking a fat grey rat from his jacket. The rat opened one eye, found nothing in the compartment worth remaining awake for and settled back into Ron’s hand. His coat was patchy, and he looked old enough to have developed firm opinions about being disturbed.

‘Does he do much?’ I asked. So far his most impressive achievement was sleeping through the movement of the train.

‘That, mostly,’ Ron said. ‘And eating. Percy got something better, so I’ve got him.’ He put Scabbers somewhere comfortable and returned to explaining what it was like having so many brothers.

Nothing about the rat brought a useful memory with it. Ron’s stories were more interesting anyway: who had left a book in what condition, what Percy expected of everyone now he had a badge and which account of Hogwarts he wasn’t sure he ought to trust. I knew some of the history from reading. Ron knew what having magic around the house was like, and Harry and I kept interrupting to ask about things he considered ordinary.

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Near midday a trolley rattled along the corridor. The witch pushing it offered food, and Ron immediately took out a squashed package to show that he had brought his own. His eyes stayed on the trolley while she described what was available. I decided that trying the magical version of a train lunch was a reasonable use of my money.

‘One of everything that looks interesting,’ I said. The selection rapidly exceeded the available space on the seat, giving Harry a reason to start moving our things before the witch had finished handing it over.

‘One of everything?’ Ron asked. He was still holding his sandwiches, looking from the trolley to me as though he wanted to check that he had heard correctly.

‘Research,’ I said. ‘I can’t spend seven years here without knowing what the food does.’

‘He says that about experiments too,’ Harry told Ron. ‘It doesn’t always end well.’ He helped me arrange pumpkin pasties, cauldron cakes, Chocolate Frogs and brightly coloured sweets into something approaching a meal.

I offered Ron a pasty. When he reminded me about the sandwiches, I asked to trade for half of one, because I was curious about what he had brought as well. That seemed to make the exchange more comfortable. He handed it over and began explaining the food Harry and I were now trying to open.

‘Careful with those beans,’ he said. ‘Every flavour means every flavour. You don’t want to find that out with a mouthful.’

I chose a brown one anyway. The taste of cold mutton reached me before I had finished the first bite, and I spat it into a napkin. Ron’s warning became considerably more impressive in retrospect. He started laughing when I asked who had decided that sheep needed a place among the sweets.

Harry had opened a Chocolate Frog. It jumped from his hand to the window, making him reach after it in surprise while Ron explained that the movement was part of the enchantment. The collectable card mattered more, apparently. Harry took it out and discovered that its pictured wizard had already left the frame.

‘He’ll come back,’ Ron said. ‘Who have you got?’

‘Dumbledore.’ Harry turned the card over to read about him. ‘That’s the headmaster, isn’t it?’

Ron confirmed it, and Harry read the short account aloud. There were references to Grindelwald, alchemy and somebody called Nicolas Flamel, followed by details of hobbies which sounded unexpectedly ordinary. I knew Dumbledore’s name already. Most of the other information would have to wait until I understood why it mattered.

‘Tenpin bowling?’ Harry repeated. He looked at me for help, apparently expecting a magical explanation after the rest of the card.

‘Bowling, I think,’ I said. ‘Unless they’ve changed the rules here. After the beans, I’m reluctant to make assumptions.’

Ron was opening another Frog. He told us that he already had six Dumbledores, which led to a discussion about whether being the greatest wizard of the age ought to make a card harder to find. By the time we had dealt with lunch, there were wrappers, disputed sweets and considerably more cards than we had started with. We tidied enough space to sit comfortably and let the journey carry on around the conversation.

Fields and hills passed the window through the afternoon. We talked about the school, stopped to watch something outside and returned to comparing what we had heard. When the door next slid open, a girl with bushy brown hair stood there in school robes, looking into the compartment with purpose. She saw me before she had finished asking about a toad.

‘Oswald?’ Hermione said. ‘From the surgery. I didn’t know you were coming to Hogwarts.’

‘Hello, Hermione. I wasn’t in much of a state to discuss future plans that morning.’ I remembered the numb lip and hoped she wouldn’t provide the others with too detailed an account. ‘You were looking for a toad?’

‘A boy called Neville has lost one,’ she said. ‘Has anybody seen it?’

Harry said we hadn’t, and she looked briefly disappointed before introducing herself. Ron gave his name through the last of something he had found among the wrappers. Harry introduced himself next, and Hermione’s attention sharpened with a familiarity I was beginning to recognise.

‘Harry Potter?’ she asked. ‘I’ve read about you. There are references in several modern histories.’

‘He’s been getting that all day,’ I said. I kept my tone light, but Harry had stopped looking pleased by recognition some time ago. ‘You may know more about the entries than he does.’

‘I wasn’t trying to be rude.’ Hermione looked from me to Harry. ‘I just hadn’t expected to meet you on the train.’ She began explaining which books she had found him in, and Harry listened with the slightly helpless expression he wore when somebody told him another thing he was famous for.

Ron asked whether her family were magical. ‘My parents are dentists,’ she said. ‘Oswald was a patient. That’s how we met.’

Harry turned towards me. ‘The girl from the clinic?’ he asked, clearly remembering one of my accounts of that particular ordeal.

‘The same one,’ I said. ‘And my tooth was considerably less cooperative than I’m being now.’ Hermione ignored that in favour of Ron’s next question about what she had already learnt of Hogwarts.

She had read a great deal. Ron began with the confidence of somebody whose brothers had spent years telling him about the school, then found the conversation moving into details they had apparently omitted. When she reached the four Houses, he supplied family information of his own, but Hermione had another question ready before he had properly finished. I could see him becoming annoyed at not getting enough room to answer.

There was no shortage of useful things either of them might know. There was, however, a toad still missing while we listened to a discussion which looked capable of occupying the rest of the journey. I waited for a gap and asked Hermione whether Neville was searching the other end of the train.

‘Trevor,’ she said, remembering the purpose of her visit. ‘Yes, I should keep looking. If you see him, take him to compartment twenty. That’s where Neville is.’

She got up immediately. At the door she noticed our folded robes and advised us to change soon, because an older student had told her we were getting close. Then she went back into the corridor, still looking into corners as she continued her search.

Ron let out a breath once the door was shut. ‘Does she always know that much?’ he asked. ‘I hardly got to finish anything.’

‘I’ve only met her once before,’ I said. ‘I was busy recovering from dental work at the time. It wasn’t a thorough assessment.’

Harry laughed and reached for another Chocolate Frog. Ron began gathering the wrappers beside him, muttering that having read all the histories didn’t mean you had to explain them at once. I couldn’t entirely disagree, although I hoped Neville appreciated how determined she was about finding his pet.

Outside, the light had turned gold over the hills. I pulled my robes towards me and tried to imagine what the next few hours would involve. Harry’s name had arrived at Hogwarts ahead of him, while Ron had five brothers’ worth of expectations to contend with. I had my parents’ old place in this world and very little idea of what anyone expected their son to become.

The uncertainty had seemed easier to enjoy while the school was still far away. Now it was close enough that we needed to dress for it, and I discovered I wanted another few minutes in the compartment before finding out. I unfolded the black fabric anyway. Whatever waited at the other end of the journey, I had chosen to come and meet it.