Orli turned and rolled her eyes dramatically at the tactless redhead.
Mrs. Weasley gave her an apologetic smile and irritably smacked Ron on the back of his head. "Sorry, sweetheart... Ron! Mind your manners!"
London's traffic was so terrible that despite Orli's rush, she still ran right into the Weasley family.
Her original plan had been to board early, find an empty compartment, lock the door, catch up on sleep, and contemplate whether to join Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw.
But when she saw the mass of red hair on the platform, her heart instinctively sank.
Sure enough, just as the Weasley boys began queuing to enter the platform, a familiar bespectacled boy emerged behind them, beginning to recite the lines Orli knew all too well:
"Excuse me, ma'am, I wanted to ask..."
Oh, Merlin.
Orli rubbed her throbbing temples, feeling her recently subsided migraine threatening to return.
---
The Platform 9¾ was chaos before departure - adults, children, train whistles, billowing steam, running pets... resembling a Chinese New Year travel rush.
Orli quietly slipped away from the Weasleys and the famous Harry Potter when no one was looking, then struggled through the crowd searching for an empty compartment.
She clutched her trunk to her chest with her rather thin arms, hoping it would at least hold together until reaching the dormitory, rather than falling apart and spilling underwear and socks everywhere. This slowed her progress even more.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
"Hey! Escaping first-year!"
Someone tapped Orli's right shoulder from behind, but when she turned, no one was there.
"Oh... what a classic trick..."
Orli muttered as she turned back to her left, unsurprised to find the Weasley twins doubled over with laughter.
"Hi! That was our stupid little brother earlier, really sorry, he meant no harm."
"Perhaps you'd like some Bertie Bott's? Pumpkin flavor? Honey? Merlin help you if you get bogey flavor."
One of the twins extended his hand, pulling out a handful of sweaty, colorful beans from his pocket. But knowing them as she did, Orli suspected they were probably all bogey or dirt flavored, possibly mixed with some of their experimental prank items.
"Oh right, forgot to introduce ourselves - I'm Fred, he's George."
The other tall boy winked, nudging his brother with his shoulder.
"First-year, what's your name?"
Orli finally found a gap in their rapid-fire chatter to interject:
"You're George, and he's Fred. I'm Orli Waters. No thanks on the beans, and I wasn't angry before... but the crucial issue right now is that you're blocking the way..."
The twins turned around to find another first-year - the bespectacled boy from the platform - standing awkwardly in the narrow train corridor, holding a heavy trunk and a fat white owl.
All three stared at him, making the boy's ears turn pink.
"Sorry, but this might be the last empty compartment..." Harry Potter pointed at the compartment behind Orli, asking somewhat timidly, "Perhaps you wouldn't mind..."
"Oh, come in!" Fred moved aside, pushing both Potter and Orli into the compartment, then he and George efficiently stowed away both first-years' luggage.
Orli had no idea how things had progressed so naturally to this point. Only when the twins recognized the boy with the lightning scar as the Savior and ran out announcing it loud enough for the whole platform to hear, did she resign herself to sharing a compartment with the protagonist.
And as the departure whistle sounded, Ron too squeezed into the compartment.