Unnoticed

I have been visiting my mother in London over the summer. School starts tomorrow. I am taking the train from King's Cross Station. This year I will start teaching at Stonewall High, the local comprehensive, instead of the primary school.

It is nearly 11:00, and my train leaves at 11:15. I begin to walk towards platform nine.

Something is at the edge of my vision. I turn to look at it.

A family, all with red hair. I've seen them before.

Parents - I recognise the woman - a boy with glasses, twins - I've seen them as well - a boy with black hair and glasses, holding an owl in a cage - I know I've seen him somewhere, but where? - a young girl, and a boy, the same age as the black-haired boy. He carries a rat.

They are the same people I saw a few years ago, the ones with magic, though there are more of them. And the black-haired boy - where have I seen him before?

The rat is the same too, though he used to belong to the oldest boy. It isn't a rat.

Peter Pettigrew.

That was what he called him.

"Percy first," says the mother, looking anxiously at the clock. The oldest boy walks toward the barrier between platforms nine and ten. The barrier - he walked through it before -

I move closer to the platform, where I can see the barrier but am still hidden, and where I can still hear them.

The boy walks through the barrier - I am hardly surprised now - then the father, then the twins.

"I'll take Ginny and you two come right after us," says the mother to the two younger boys. She and the girl disappear through the barrier.

"Let's go together, we've only got a minute, says the red-haired boy. The boy with black hair - where have I seen him before? - checks his owl's cage and they run toward the barrier.

CRASH.

The boys fall backward. The owl falls off the trolley, squawking. A guard yells, "What in blazes d'you think you're doing?"

"Lost control of the trolley, gasps the black-haired boy, and I recognise him. A few years ago, he was caught on the school roofs, and before that he had turned Ester's wig blue. Potter, wasn't it?

The red-haired boy picks up the owl. People are muttering something about cruelty to animals.

"Why can't we get through?" whispers Potter.

"I dunno - We're going to miss the train. I don't understand why the gateway's sealed itself..."

The black-haired boy carefully wheels the trolley around and pushes it straight into the barrier. Nothing happens.

The clock strikes eleven.

"It's gone," says the red-haired boy. "The train's left. What if Mum and Dad can't get back through to us? Have you got any Muggle money?"

"The Dursleys haven't given me pocket money for about six years," Potter answers with a hollow laugh. Now I remember. He was living with his aunt and uncle, by the school records.

The red-haired boy presses his ear to the barrier. ""Can't hear a thing. What're we going to do? I don't know how long it will take Mum and Dad to get back to us."

"I think we'd better go and wait by the car. We're attracting to much attention -"

"Harry! The car!"

"What about it?"

"We can fly the car to Hogwarts!" Fly the car?

"But I thought -"

"We're stuck, right?" the red-haired boy whispers. "And we've got to get to school, haven't we? And even under-age wizards are allowed to use magic if it's a real emergency, section nineteen or something of the Restriction of Thingy..."

"Can you fly it?"

"No problem." He turn's his trolley to face the exit. "C'mon, let's go, if we hurry we'll be able to follow the Hogwarts Express."

And they leave.

My, you can learn amazing things by overhearing conversations...

* * *

Katherine frowned at the papers in front of her. She was writing out a lesson plan for the next school year. She looked at the clock.

Nearly eleven. She'd better stop - she didn't know why she'd stayed up until now. She had the rest of the summer to work on her lesson plan...

Something - she would never know quite what - made her look through her curtains, out the window.

By the light of the street lamp, she saw a boy sitting against her garden wall. He was in the shadows, so she couldn't make out much more of him, but surely there was something familiar about him...

There was a trunk next to him. He opened it and searched through it, but then almost immediately stood, looking around. There was something she couldn't quite place about him...

He turned back to his trunk - and turned around again. He stared into the gap between her garage and the fence, a little away from her window.

A light appeared.

The boy was holding a stick with light at the tip, not fire, but light ... It was the same kind of stick that the man had held when she first saw him - the man who had been on the news, who was innocent...

But these thoughts were driven out of her head as she recognised the boy hold the stick - it was the boy who had been caught on the school roof, and who had - she grinned - turned Ester's wig blue. Harry Potter - wasn't that his name? And last summer, at King's Cross Station...

She tried to look at what he saw, but she couldn't quite see it from her window. It must have been frightening, though, because he stepped back, hit his trunk, and fell into the gutter.

He rolled back onto the pavement - and a huge, purple, triple-decker bus appeared where he had been with a loud BANG that Katherine could hear through her window. She could just make out the words The Knight Bus spelled in gold letters on the windscreen.

A young man in a purple uniform jumped out of the bus and began to speak loudly. Katharine quietly opened the window.

"- to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Stan Shunpike and I will be your conductor this eve -"

The conductor suddenly noticed the boy - Potter - on the sidewalk. Harry leapt to his feet, grabbing his wand - it couldn't be anything else.

"What were you doin' down there?" Stan Shunpike asked.

"Fell over," said Harry.

"'Choo fall over for?"

"I didn't do it on purpose." Harry suddenly turned to look at Katharine's garage, apparently remembering what he had seen.

"'Choo lookin' at?"

Harry pointed between Katharine's fence and garage. "There was a big black thing ... like a dog ... but massive..." So that's what he saw...

"Woss that on your 'ead?" Stan Shunpike asked suddenly.

"Nothing," Harry said, but he quickly flattened his hair over his forehead.

"Woss your name?"

"Neville Longbottom." What? But I'm sure it was Harry Potter... "So - so this bus, did you say it goes anywhere?"

"Yep, anywhere you like, long's it's on land. Can't do nuffink underwater. 'Ere, you did flag us down, dincha? Stuck out your wand 'and, dincha?"

"Yes - listen, how much would it be to get to London?"

"Eleven Sickles," What? "but for firteen you get 'ot chocolate, and for fifteen you get a toofbrush in the colour of your choice." Interesting service.

The boy - she wasn't sure what his name was now - searched around in his trunk and pulled out some silver. Apparently Sickles were coins. Then he and the conductor lifted his trunk - which Katharine noticed had a birdcage balanced on top - into the bus. The doors shut. There was another loud BANG, and the bus vanished.

Very odd.

Katharine shut the window.

Just before she left the room, she glanced out of another window that showed the area between her fence and the garage.

She could have sworn she saw a huge, black dog walking into the shadows.