The parents of Luna Yue were quite concerned about their fourteen-year-old daughter.

Ever since her tenth birthday, when Mr Yue gifted her a simple-looking book set, she had been reading nonstop and chattering on and on about the obviously fictional contents. Especially before her eleventh birthday, she had persistently waited and hoped for a “Hogwarts acceptance letter” — whatever in the world that was. Even when the letter, as expected, didn’t arrive, she convinced herself that the only reason she did not get accepted was that she lived too far away.

When the summer of Luna’s fourteenth year arrived, she was more excited than ever because Mrs Yue had finally listened to her constant nagging and booked a trip to London, where her favourite book series took place. She was about to start high school very soon, so her unfound beliefs were starting to get troublesome. They were hoping that gently letting down Luna’s hopes by showing her the “wizarding world” wasn’t real would bring her head out of the clouds and make her focus on the real world — and study hard to get a good job in the future.

So when they finally took Luna and her sister to London, they planned to let her decide where to go and what to do for the entire trip. Surely a hidden world of wizards who cast magic spells couldn’t be real, so naturally, it would be better for her to find that out for herself.

The first few days of their summer trip were spent exploring all the “Harry Potter” related places. But, much to Luna’s disappointment, they were merely tourist attractions, boasting about being the setting of the famous book series. Sure, the “wizarding” snacks and souvenirs looked good, but the cheap trinkets were surely not even close to authentic.

The more they searched, the more disheartened Luna seemed to become. It saddened Mrs and Mr Yue, but that is what’s good for her, they told themselves.

While visiting the last supposedly “magical” site, they accidentally bumped into a crowd of strange-looking people.

By strange, it didn’t mean they were dressed oddly or wore peculiar expressions on their faces, but rather, their fashion choices were… quite interesting. Luna had seen each of their outfits in a magazine of some sort, matched exactly from the shoes to the accessories. But what was even stranger was that their clothes didn’t seem to match their personalities at all. Luna realised she was staring at a jolly-looking man with a potbelly and bouncy moustache dressed in black leather and silver chains before she quickly glanced away.

Mr Yue had accidentally walked into one of them — a red-haired man, causing him to stumble and a pouch to fall out of his pocket.

“I’m so sorry,” Mr Yue said hurriedly, kneeling to pick up the man’s dropped belongings.

A large number of strange coins seemed to have spilt out of the pouch, making a mess of gold, silver, and bronze on the cobbled ground. Luna hurried to help her father, despite the stranger insisting that it wasn’t necessary.

Once they had finally scooped the coins back into the pouch, Luna held up the final coin, examining the strange pictures and words carved into the gold metal.

“Are these souvenirs for sale?” she asked the person who’d dropped them.

“S-souvenirs?” His eyes widened.

Luna nodded. “A Harry Potter souvenir. How much is it for one of each?” she said, holding up the coin.

“A H-harry Potter souvenir?” The man glanced around at his companions, who were looking strangely anxious. “Ummm… F-fifteen pounds?”

“Really?” Luna grinned, pulling out the money from her pocket and counting out fifteen pounds. It was a lot cheaper than the ones other people sold, and the coins felt a lot more authentic. “Thank you!” The transaction was made and Luna left, only to get scolded by her parents for wasting money on some cheap, useless souvenirs.

A couple of days later, after they’d visited the imitation “Leaky Cauldron”, the Harry Potter Fair with a “Make Your Own Wand” stand, and an alleyway said to be the inspiration for the book series, it was the first of September and the last day of their trip.

And Mr and Mrs Yue were quite concerned about how Luna wanted to spend their last day in London.

She woke everyone up at seven in the morning, badgering them to get ready quickly, and they left the hotel an hour later. After a short walk, the four of them arrived at King’s Cross, the train station that was famous for being the location of the Hogwarts Express, the very train that took students to Hogwarts every first of September.

They bought fresh breakfast platters from a small diner nearby and settled down on a bench close to the boarding platforms, preparing to wait three more hours, according to Luna.

Mr Yue, Mrs Yue, and Luna’s older sister immediately pulled out their phones while eating their toast, bacon, and fried eggs. Meanwhile, Luna sported a large pair of binoculars, completely disregarding the food on her lap.

Passerbys stared at her peculiar behaviour, but she didn’t care. She gazed into the gap between platforms nine and ten, then looked around at the people walking, hunting for any signs of magic — perhaps a wand sticking out of a pocket, an overly large trunk, or even an owl.

An hour had passed, and Luna was still glancing around, her tired arms free from the binoculars and her head propped up on her hands. Mr and Mrs Yue were growing impatient, and with a quick look at each other, they mutually decided to try and talk her out of this foolishness.

But before they could even open their mouths, Luna jumped up and decided to walk around King’s Cross to explore the area.

“I’m going to walk around — and don’t worry if I’m not back for a while. Bye!” And with just a wave, Luna walked off into the crowds of people by herself.

She spent nearly an hour walking around the entire train station, examining every corner, and knocked on the walls between platforms nine and ten, where a crowd of people wearing Harry Potter merchandise had gathered. Some of the tourists were questioning a ticket guard, and Luna couldn’t help but overhear their conversation.

“Excuse me, is there a train that leaves at eleven o’clock?” a woman wearing a cheap “wizarding” robe asked.

The ticket guard answered, “Yes.”

“Is it the Hogwarts Express?”

The ticket guard sighed and rolled his eyes as if he’d been asked that question multiple times already. “No, it is not.”

After the crowd of people had moved away, Luna approached the ticket guard, trying not to seem as irritating as the other Harry Potter fans.

“Um… excuse me, sir?” she asked timidly.

He looked down and replied, “Yes, how may I help you?”

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“I-is there a place where I can see the leaving times for the trains?”

“Why yes. If you take a left over there, you can find a large board on the wall that has all the information,” he gestured in that direction.

“Thank you!” Luna smiled, and he nodded in return.

She followed the ticket guard’s directions and found the electronic board with the train schedule. Examining it, she noticed that a train seemed to leave King’s Cross station every ten minutes, except… at ten past ten. The train to Hogwarts must be leaving at that time! In the Harry Potter books, there weren’t any trains that left at eleven o’clock because that was the time for the Hogwarts Express. Now all there was left for Luna to do was to find the right platform.

Since everyone who’d read Harry Potter books would obviously know about it, they must’ve changed where the platform was. However, she couldn’t possibly stick her hand into every wall between every platform — and others must have tried that before. She tilted her wrist and read the time on her watch. She had less than fifteen minutes until it was ten past ten, and she had no way of finding the platform.

Just as Luna was losing hope, she spotted someone familiar. It was the man who had sold her the Harry Potter coins the other day! He was dressed in another bizarre outfit, and he was escorting a little girl with red pigtails, who was carrying a large, covered birdcage.

Luna pulled out her phone and sent a quick message to her sister, telling her to tell their parents that she would meet them back at the hotel later that day. Then, she quietly followed the man and the girl, pretending to be scrolling through her phone.

The man led the girl, who looked like she was about two years younger than Luna, to an old map board that was thrown away in a dark corner. Map boards were no longer used because everything they did could be done online now, so no one paid them any attention anymore. Luna wondered what they could be doing with the old, dirty map board when they met up with another family in that corner of the station. She stood nearby, close enough to hear most of their conversation but far enough away to seem inconspicuous.

“This new way is so inconvenient,” a woman was saying. “Back in our day, all we had to do was walk through the barrier.”

The man with the little girl checked his watch and said, “We’d better get going, the train is going to leave soon.” He turned to the girl. “Just put your thumb on the space between platforms nine and ten, that’s how you do it.”

“I know, Father. You’ve told me so many times.”

After a moment, the small pair of legs that were standing with the group disappeared. Luna blinked. She didn’t see that incorrectly, right? That little girl definitely disappeared, just like that. Soon afterwards, the girl’s father disappeared as well. Luna watched out of the corner of her eye as the entire party took turns and disappeared, right in front of the old map board. She looked around at all the people walking past. No one had noticed the disappearance of five people. They all just hustled along, not even bothering to glance at the musty corner of the station. Her heart pounded as she waited a few moments before walking to face the map board and extending her hand towards it. There was a little gap between two marks symbolising platforms nine and ten on the map, and she held her breath as she pressed her thumb to the blank space, like how the man had instructed.

A while passed and nothing had happened. Luna’s high hopes fell. Was it because the barrier only allowed witches and wizards through? But how would the parents of Muggle-borns see their children off? Perhaps… it was all just some trick her imagination came up with.

But a moment later, she blinked at the tears starting to form in her eyes, and the scene around her melted into something very different.

As the white smoke around her cleared away, Luna found herself standing in front of a map board again, but this time, on a platform labelled Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. She looked around and saw numerous people boarding onto a scarlet-coloured train, children waving goodbye to their parents and meeting up with friends. The golden letters on the side of the train wrote Hogwarts Express, and some people were already dressed in black robes. Luna had to blink several times and pinch herself before believing the scene that met her eyes.

She had finally found it! She found the wizarding community! She found the way to get to Hogwarts! And she — had less than five minutes before the train left for Hogwarts. Without a moment of hesitation, she stepped off of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters and jumped onto the train.

The interior of the train was just how Luna had imagined it. In fact, it was so similar to the one depicted in the Harry Potter movies that she wondered if it was all just one big prank, and she hadn’t really discovered the wizarding world. But, there was no mistaking the magical map board for anything other than magic, and there was no reason for anyone to set up something so intricate and detailed just to make a fool out of someone as insignificant as herself.

She walked past numerous doors with little glass windows leading to different compartments filled with people. It was difficult to find an empty compartment, and she had to search all the way to the very end of the train. She had just squeezed past a very crowded spot in the train where everyone seemed to be gathered around one compartment when she spotted someone with pale brown hair inside, surrounded by admirers. It was obvious that that was the “popular” group. Apparently, the school social status was just as important in wizarding schools as in Muggle schools.

Finally finding an empty compartment, she slid the door shut behind her and sat down with a sigh. Thinking back to the loud crowd of students she’d passed, she knew she shouldn’t talk to that sort of people. In fact, she shouldn’t talk to anyone, if she could help it. The other students will probably find out that she didn’t belong here, and she will probably get in big trouble. Socialising with people and making herself known would make it even harder to delay the inevitable. It would be much simpler to act like a loner — a nobody — not that it would be hard. After all, life is easier when no one knows who you are.

Her plan of avoiding people was going surprisingly well. After the train had set off, no one came into or even looked inside her compartment. Of course, choosing the last compartment at the very end of the train had its perks. For the first hour of the train ride, she watched the scenery outside of the window as the bustling city of London turned into even rows of crops in the countryside. Then, getting bored, she pulled out her phone. However, she should’ve known better than to attempt to use it. The amount of magic around her — although she almost couldn’t believe it — was enough to cause electronic devices to malfunction and shut down. Her phone screen gave a feeble flash before it went dead. So instead, Luna pulled a book from the small backpack she’d brought and began reading. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. She had already read all seven of the books five times and she could recite all the spells and facts in them by heart, but her interest in those books never dimmed. Every time she reread those books, she would discover new details and connections she hadn’t noticed before, and she would be able to go through the thrill of the wizarding world yet again. Luna looked around at the compartment she was sitting in and the window, which flashed speeding scenes of the countryside slowly turning into the unexplored wilderness. Who knew she would be able to experience what eleven-year-old Harry felt, riding the Hogwarts Express and going to Hogwarts for the first time?

A while past noon, the trolley-lady began pushing her cart of sweets through the carriages, and Luna got the first pick, as she started out with the end of the train. When the woman knocked on her door, Luna was beyond excited to see what sorts of magical sweets she would be able to taste — until she realised she had no money.

“Could you wait for just a moment please?” she called to the trolley-lady, and she smiled and nodded in response.

Luna dug around in her backpack, but all she had was paper bills, which the trolley-lady surely wouldn’t accept. Just as she was about to shake her head to not purchase anything, despite her rumbling stomach, her fingers brushed on three coins at the very bottom of her bag. A Galleon, Sickle, and Knut! If that man was indeed a wizard, then this must be real wizarding money! It also meant she may have unknowingly robbed a wizard… But the hunger in her stomach drove away the guilt she felt. With the measly amount of coins in her hand, she approached the trolley, looking forward to trying authentic Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans.

To her surprise, along with all the interesting sweets she’d read about, the wizarding sweet shops must’ve concocted even more delicious snacks. Countless desserts she’d never even heard about filled the shelves of the cart. Along with Chocolate Frogs and Pumpkin Pasties, there were rolls of Chocolate Thread, stacks of Sugar Notes, cups of No-Melt Ice Cream, bottles of Flavoured Air, packs of Ice Puffs, and countless other sweets that she’d never read about before.

She was reluctant to spend the only Galleon she had, so instead, she bought as many things as she could with the Sickle and Knut. At the end of her haul, she had a small armful of sweets that she’d carefully selected, and she began to finally satisfy her ravenous hunger.

The chocolate frog tasted much richer and more delicious than the overpriced ones she’d bought from Harry Potter fairs, and the card inside was more interesting than she’d expected. She was hoping to get Dumbledore’s Chocolate Frog card, but she got Godric Gryffindor instead, which she wasn’t unhappy with, of course. Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans looked very much like jelly beans, but she was sure that they were different from the ordinary Muggle kinds. She packed those and some other sweets into her backpack, in case she got hungry later.

The food kept Luna busy for quite a while, and before she had even started on her pumpkin pasty, she realised that the scenery outside of the train had already turned into dark, woodland forests, and tall, snowy mountains. The train would be arriving at Hogwarts soon, so she had to start planning what to do. Perhaps she could sneak away from the train and explore Hogsmeade instead? But where would she stay the night, with so little money in her pockets? And plus, Hogwarts was where she really wanted to go. She might have to sneak in with the students. But she hadn’t anything to change into. She’d be spotted for sure, but perhaps the oversized, black jacket she had in her backpack could pass for black robes in the dim light? It was her only option.

Luna packed the leftover sweets into her backpack and pulled the jacket over her head just as the Hogwarts Express rolled to a stop in Hogsmeade Station.