I hope to create an entire Series based on this.
This is Book 1 of hopefully a Four book Series.
This will be possible if you like the book and support it.
If by the time we reach 50 chapters, we reach the top 20 in various rankings, then I will confirm the Second book.
Hope you all like this. Do support.
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King's Cross Station was chaos.
Edmund had seen it before, in his old life, but seeing it and being in it were two different things. The great glass roof arched overhead, letting in shafts of pale September light. The platforms were crowded with travellers, with families saying goodbye, with porters pushing carts piled high with luggage. The noise was overwhelming—the hiss of steam engines, the shouts of vendors, the screech of whistles.
Mr. Thornbury was waiting for him at the entrance, a thin man in a dark suit with a face that seemed designed for frowning. He looked at Edmund, at the trunk, at the owl cage, and nodded once.
"Platform Nine and Three-Quarters," he said. "Follow me."
They walked through the station, weaving between travellers and luggage carts. Edmund kept his eyes open, looking for the tell-tale signs of magical families—the old-fashioned robes beneath Muggle coats, the trunks that seemed too heavy for children to carry, the owls in cages. He saw a boy with a toad peeking out of his pocket. He saw a girl with bright red hair arguing with a man who was trying to lift a trunk the size of a small car. He saw, in the distance, a family with the unmistakable pale blond hair that would later be associated with the Malfoys—though this was Septimus Malfoy, Edmund guessed, or his father, the generation before Abraxas.
And then they were at the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten.
Mr. Thornbury stopped. "You know what to do?"
"Yes," Edmund said. He had read about it a hundred times. He had watched Harry Potter do it on a screen. But reading and watching were not the same as doing.
"Then go," Mr. Thornbury said. "I will wait here until you have passed through."
Edmund took a breath. He pushed his trolley forward, watching the barrier approach, and kept walking.
---
For one horrible moment, he thought it wouldn't work. The brick wall rushed toward him, solid and real, and his body screamed at him to stop. But he didn't stop. He closed his eyes—
and opened them to a different world.
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was everything he had imagined and nothing like it at all.
The train was there, the scarlet Hogwarts Express, steam hissing from its engine, the platform crowded with families and students. But the platform was smaller than he had expected, more intimate, the space between the train and the wall barely wide enough for the crowds that pressed against it. Children in robes ran between their parents, laughing, calling to friends. Parents hugged their children, some tearful, some brisk. Owls hooted from cages, cats meowed from baskets, and somewhere in the crowd, a boy was trying to convince his mother that he did not need to wear his new robes until they were on the train.
Edmund stood at the edge of it all, frozen for a moment, overwhelmed by the reality of it. He was here. He was really here.
He found an empty compartment near the back of the train, wrestling his trunk onto the luggage rack with the help of a passing prefect who looked too young to be in charge of anything. Perseus's cage went on the seat beside him, the owl already settling in for the journey. He sat by the window and watched the platform fill.
---
The compartment door slid open. Arthur Merrythought stood in the doorway, his face bright with excitement, a toad perched placidly on his shoulder.
"Edmund! I've been looking everywhere. Grandmother said you'd be near the back." He dropped onto the seat opposite, his trunk levitating behind him—levitating, Edmund noticed, without a wand. "Did you see the Malfoys? They were looking important as always. And the Greengrasses—that cousin of yours was there. And someone brought a peacock. A peacock! On the train!"
Edmund laughed. It was the first time he had laughed in weeks, and it felt good. "A peacock?"
"A white one. It bit a man. I think it belonged to the Malfoys. That's exactly the sort of thing they'd do." Arthur settled into his seat, pulling a bag of sweets from his pocket. "Want a licorice wand?"
---
The train began to move. Edmund watched London slide away, the buildings thinning, the green of the countryside spreading out beneath a grey sky. Arthur talked—about his grandmother, about the spells he had been practicing, about the rumors he had heard regarding the new Defence professor—and Edmund listened, content to let the noise wash over him.
He thought about the journey ahead. Seven years at Hogwarts. Seven years to learn, to grow, to become someone who could build the school the system wanted. It felt like a lifetime. It felt like no time at all.
The system's interface pulsed at the edge of his vision, but he did not summon it. There would be time enough for tasks and objectives later. For now, he was just a boy on a train, heading to a school he had dreamed about for as long as he could remember.
---
The compartment door opened again. This time, it was a girl—dark hair, serious face, robes that looked like they had been pressed that morning. She looked at Edmund, then at Arthur, then at the empty seats.
"Do you mind?" she asked. "Everywhere else is full."
"Go ahead," Arthur said, gesturing to the seat beside him. "I'm Arthur Merrythought. This is Edmund Prince."
"Astrid Greengrass," she said, sitting down. She did not offer more.
Edmund studied her. Greengrass. Sebastian Greengrass's cousin, the one from Madam Malkin's who had rolled her eyes at her cousin's posturing. Up close, she was older than he had thought—perhaps eleven like them, but with the quiet confidence of someone who had grown up in the magical world and took it for granted. In the books, the Greengrass family had remained neutral during both wars, and Daphne Greengrass had been a minor character in Harry's year. This was her ancestor, Edmund realized.
"You're Sebastian's cousin," Edmund said.
She looked at him sharply. "You know Sebastian?"
"We met in Diagon Alley. He was very... opinionated."
Something flickered across her face—amusement, perhaps, or relief. "That's one word for it."
Arthur leaned forward. "What house do you think you'll be in?"
"Ravenclaw," she said, without hesitation. "My mother was a Ravenclaw. My father was a Slytherin, but I'd rather not follow that tradition." She glanced at Edmund. "What about you?"
He had been thinking about this for months. In his old life, he had always wondered what house he would be in—Gryffindor for courage, Ravenclaw for intelligence, Hufflepuff for loyalty, Slytherin for ambition. But now that he was here, now that it was real, the question felt different.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "I suppose I'll find out tonight."
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The trolley witch came by at midday. Edmund bought a stack of Chocolate Frogs and a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and the three of them ate in companionable silence, trading cards and gagging on unfortunate bean flavors. Arthur got a card of Morgan le Fay, which he declared "boring." Astrid got Merlin, which she tucked into her pocket with a satisfied nod. Edmund got a card of a witch he didn't recognize—a stern-faced woman named Elfrida Clagg, who had been Chief of the Wizengamot in the fourteenth century—and set it aside for later.
As he was closing the Chocolate Frog box, a boy passed by their compartment, glancing in through the glass door. He was tall for his age, with pale blond hair and a sharp, aristocratic face that reminded Edmund of the Malfoys he had seen on the platform. The boy's eyes lingered on Edmund for a moment—assessing, calculating—and then he moved on.
"Who was that?" Arthur asked.
"Malfoy," Astrid said, her voice flat. "Abraxas Malfoy. His grandfather is on the Hogwarts Board of Governors. His family thinks they own half the wizarding world."
Edmund filed the name away. Abraxas Malfoy—Draco's grandfather, the one who had been a close associate of Tom Riddle before Voldemort's rise. In this era, he was just another first-year, a boy with a famous name and an inflated sense of importance.
"He looked at you," Arthur said to Edmund. "Do you know him?"
"No," Edmund said. "But I know his type."
Arthur nodded sagely, as if he understood perfectly. Astrid said nothing, but her eyes followed the direction Malfoy had gone, her expression unreadable.
---
The afternoon wore on. Arthur fell asleep against the window, his toad tucked into his pocket. Astrid read her book—*Advanced Potion-Making*, Edmund noticed, which seemed ambitious for a first-year—and Edmund watched the world go by.
He thought about the system. About the school he was supposed to build. About the children the Book of Admittance missed, the children who fell through the cracks. About the years stretching ahead of him, full of possibility and danger.
He thought about the Blackwood Valley, hidden in the Highlands, waiting for someone to claim it. He was not ready. Not yet. But one day, he would be.
The train began to slow. Arthur stirred, blinking. Astrid closed her book. Outside the window, the sky had deepened to a bruised purple, and in the distance, Edmund could see lights—the lights of Hogsmeade station.
"We're here," Arthur said, his voice thick with sleep and excitement.
Edmund gathered his things. His wand was in his pocket, his journal in his bag, Perseus in her cage. He was ready.
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