Stranger to Destiny

It wasn't going to be easy, she'd known that going in. Somehow though, walking through the barrier, waving goodbye to her foster parents, and seeing platform nine and three-quarters materialize in front of her made the whole thing seem impossible as opposed to simply "not easy". She had never been one to shirk from a challenge, though, so the prospect of something being "impossible" only urged her forward, towards the Hogwarts Express.

The platform was a battlefield, with screeching owls, meowing cats, and croaking frogs to supply the ammunition sounds. Soldiers in robes or poor attempts at muggle clothing ran towards the train, waved goodbye to their parents, or grunted and muttered to themselves while lugging an unnecessarily large trunk towards one of the open doors onto the train.

She glanced at the clock, two minutes. She placed her owl --bereft of a cage-- on her shoulder and rolled her trunk, receiving many an envious glance from those who weren't smart enough to have thought of getting a trunk with wheels, towards one of the doors and lifted it with little effort --it wasn't very heavy, having no books in it yet-- onto the train. She then began making her way down the train, looking for an empty compartment.

She was still looking as the train began to move, and she wasn't the only one. Several people passed her, mostly students younger than her who still found pleasure in running and screaming in public. In fact, most of the school was younger than her. She was joining Hogwarts at the beginning of her sixth year, her first year of being in a proper school. Her mother had home-schooled her, and then her foster parents had taken up the task; but Dumbledore had "highly recommended" she go into a proper school, so here she was.

It was about three minutes after the train had started moving that she came across an empty compartment, what must have been the last one on the train. She loaded her trunk onto the racks above the seats and moved her owl from her shoulder to her lap as she sat down by the window. The black screech owl hooted softly as she stroked it, the flecks of silver in its feathers glistening in the light. Her owl, Arget, opened one piercing eye and gazed up at her, before falling asleep against her hand.

What felt like hours later a lady with a cart came past her compartment selling snacks. She bought a little bit of everything and spent as long as she could eating it all, trying to make the time pass faster. Immune to her boredom, the train was bustling with activity. Screams and shouts could be heard is the aisles, generally followed by parades of people running past her compartment at full tilt. She could hear talking and laughing from the compartments around hers, but short of talking to herself, she would have no fun of the sort. She contented herself with listening for a while and, after assuring herself it was all meaningless schoolchildren gossip, sank back into the listlessly dull confines of her mind. Forlorn blue eyes surveyed the green pastures and hills that passed by in blurs as the train sped towards Hogwarts. She leaned her head against the window. It was going to be a long ride.