Billows of steam and cigarette smoke clouded Tzipporah’s vision as she pushed through the congested station, searching wildly for the correct platform.
Ten minutes until it leaves, she moaned internally, her eyes sweeping the large numbers posted above the adjoining platforms. She could see numbers nine and ten, but there simply was no nine and three-quarters. It did not exist, and she could not board a train whose platform did not exist.
“Can you see it, Malchus?” Tzipporah cried over the screeching of the pistons, turning sharply to face the harried-looking servant who was hefting her trunk. Malchus was her father’s manservant, and had been sent with her on the train across Switzerland and France, and the boat across the English Channel. Wearily, Malchus set down the trunk and wiped his brow.
“It seem to me there is not a platform between these two,” he burred in his disjointed English. Hearing it made Tzipporah thankful that her father had always insisted on her practicing English at home; now she spoke fluently and almost without an accent, unlike Malchus. “Perhaps your ticket not right.”
Tzipporah pulled the parchment ticket from her coat pocket and read it over again. Platform 9 ¾ was printed quite clearly across the top in red letters. As Tzipporah put the ticket away, she ran her fingers over the wand also concealed in her pocket. I must find that train, she thought desperately. It must be here.
Suddenly Tzipporah felt a great shove from behind and found herself sprawled upon the grimy floor, with Malchus staring stupidly down at her. She tried to get back up and experienced a burning pain in her ankle.
“Ach!”
Tzipporah crumpled again, biting back the Austrian curses that sprang to mind as fire shot down her leg.
“Laird, Patrick, look what you’ve done!”
Tzipporah looked up in time to see a redheaded girl offering Tzipporah a hand; she took it, and was pulled to her feet, where she balanced clumsily with all her weight on her left leg.
“I’m real sorry. It was me brother Patrick that hit you,” said the girl; Tzipporah could barely understand her unfamiliar brogue. “He was running at the platform and didn’t see you till it was too late. Is your ankle banjaxed? Me mum can fix it for you if you want. C’mover here.” And the girl pulled a limping Tzipporah after her, Malchus scrambling to catch up.
The girl led Tzipporah to a woman who shared her smile and red hair.
“Mum, this is….” The girl seemed to notice for the first time that there had been no introductions.
“Tzipporah Stein,” offered Tzipporah, wondering how this woman could possibly fix her ankle in the middle of a busy train station. Now I'm really going to be late.
“Sip-pour-aah?” The girl struggled with the name. “Hmm…mind if I use Zippie? It’s much easier to say. Me name’s Millie, Millie MacDougal. This is me mum, she’s a Healer at St. Mungo’s Hospital.”
“Millie, hush!”
But something had been jogged in Tzipporah’s memory. Didn’t Professor Dumbledore mention Healers? Does that mean this woman and her daughter are witches?
“What did I do wrong, Mum? I was just trying to help after Patrick knocked her down “”
“I’ve told you a thousand times, Millie,” hissed Mrs. MacDougal so quietly that Tzipporah could barely hear her. “We can’t be spilling our secrets to every Muggle that comes by!”
“I’m not a Muggle!” Tzipporah burst out. “I’m a witch!”
Millie and her mother spun around.
“Are you traveling on the Hogwarts Express?” continued Tzipporah. “Because I can’t find the platform, and I would be much obliged if you could direct me.”
“Of course, dear,” said Mrs. MacDougal, her smile slowly resurfacing as she overcame her surprise. “Just let me mend that ankle of yours first.” She whipped out a wand and muttered something as she tapped Tzipporah’s leg. Immediately the burning pain disappeared and Tzipporah shifted her weight back gratefully.
“Thank you,” she said gratefully to the mother and daughter. Millie gave her a friendly grin in return, and took her hand.
“Come with us, the platform’s right here.”
Millie pulled Tzipporah only a few feet, and stopped in front of the solid brick wall dividing platforms nine and ten. Mrs. MacDougal and Malchus followed them obediently.
“This is the platform?” Tzipporah looked skeptically at the red bricks.
“Just watch,” ordered Millie. “I did this last year when I came with me brother.”
Millie took her trunk from the cart her mother had pushed over and leaned casually against the bricks. For a moment, nothing seemed to be happening. Then she was sliding, sliding straight through the wall “ and was gone! Tzipporah stared in wonder.
“Your turn,” Mrs. MacDougal smiled reassuringly as Malchus handed Tzipporah her trunk. “Just do what Millie did, it isn’t hard.”
“Tell Tateh I got there safely,” Tzipporah instructed Malchus, who nodded silently before departing into the crowd. Gripping her trunk firmly, Tzipporah mimicked Millie’s casual lean against the wall and felt herself passing through the brick as though it was as thin as mist, thin as air….
The sound of owls hooting made Tzipporah open her eyes. She was standing on the platform, and around her were dozens of families with children, loading trunks and hugging goodbye as a scarlet engine belched grey smoke above their heads. Tzipporah felt a surge of loneliness as she watched a father kiss his little daughter on the top of her head and send her off to the train.
“There you are, Zippie! Come on.”
Millie yanked Tzipporah towards an empty compartment on the train, sending an encouraging smile over her shoulder.
I wonder how frightened and miserable I must look, Tzipporah thought as she dropped her trunk next to Millie’s and sat down across from her. Nervously, she twirled a curl around her finger as she watched Millie wave goodbye to her mother from the window. Then the train was moving, chugging and huffing, expelling a thick trail of steam as it accelerated. The families left on the platform blurred into streams of color as they flashed by, and then the train was out in the sunshine, passing neat green farms and fields. They were on their way.
“Mind if we sit in here?”
Two girls stood in the doorway of the compartment, waiting uncertainly with trunks in hand.
“’Course we don’t!” said Millie happily, springing to her feet to drag them inside. “I’m Millie MacDougal, and this is me friend Zippie Stein. What’d be your names?”
“I’m Clarice Durmond,” said the girl who had spoken in the doorway. She had short brown hair in a stylish bob and wore clothes which Tzipporah could tell were very expensive, though Muggle-fashioned, like her own. She sat down beside Tzipporah, looking like she was still overawed by the new world she had found herself a part of. I know just how she feels, Tzipporah thought to herself.
“Phyllis Morley, pleased to meet you,” said the second girl, her cornrows swinging across her dark-skinned face as she flopped down into an empty seat. She looked as comfortable as if she rode trains to magic schools every day, and already wore her Hogwarts robes. “Gosh, I’m beat, and it’s not even midday! The drive from Wiltshire took hours. Where’d you all come from?”
“London,” said Clarice shyly, twisting her wand in her hands. “I only had to take a taxi.”
“Well I’m more knackered than you both! I had to take a train here, all the way from Dublin,” announced Millie impressively; the other girls looked surprised.
“Isn’t there a wizarding school in Ireland?” Phyllis asked. “I’m sure I’ve heard of one.”
“Oh, of course there’s the Kiltimagh School, but me mum wants me to get the best education, so she’s sending me and me brother here.”
“What about you, Zip? Where’re you from?” said Clarice.
“Vienna,” said Tzipporah quietly.
“What, Vienna, Austria?”
“That’s so far! Did you take the train to London?”
“You must have crossed the channel, too! Were you alone the whole time? Was it terribly scary?”
“Why’d you come so far? There must be a closer school…”
Tzipporah didn’t try to stop the flow of commentary from the other girls. After a minute of very loud questions being asked, they seemed to realize that they were not getting any answers.
“Zip, are you all right?” asked Millie.
Tzipporah didn’t know what had come over her. The stress of days of travel and crushing homesickness enveloped her in one dark moment. I want to go home, was all she could think. I don’t care about magic, I don’t care about these girls, I don’t care about Hogwarts! I just want to go home to Vienna, to Tateh.
Something on Tzipporah’s face prompted Millie to act.
“Why don’t you two girls go out and find the lunch trolley. I’m starving, and I don’t know how long it’ll be before it gets down this end.” Obligingly, Phyllis and Clarice left, and Millie slid into the seat next to Tzipporah.
“Don’t worry,” she said, putting an arm around Tzipporah’s shoulders. “It’ll get better. Me brother Patrick says that once you’ve seen Hogwarts, you never think of going home at all.”
Oh God, I hope she’s right, Tzipporah thought dejectedly. Dumbledore said the same thing. But how can they know?
The compartment door opened again, this time revealing several boys who looked to be older than first-years.
“Oh no, this one’s full of girls…” grumbled one.
“There are only two, it’s not so bad.” His friend pushed past him and walked up to Tzipporah and Millie. “Is it all right if we sit in here?”
“Actually, there are already four of us,” said Millie, looking the boy up and down. “And besides, I know who you are. You’re Edward Potter! I’ll not be sharing a compartment with the son of a British admiral!”
Edward Potter looked stunned at her furious outburst, and Tzipporah didn’t blame him. What is Millie so mad about? She wondered. What could his father have done that was so awful?
“Millie,” said Tzipporah, “you can’t blame the son for the sins of the father.” These words from one of Rabbi Herzl’s last sermons before her departure sprang to mind unbidden.
“Thank you,” said Edward, looking at Tzipporah. “That’s just what I think. I can’t help whatever it is my father did.”
“Please get him out of here, Zip,” said Millie coldly, turning to face the window. “I can’t be in the same room with this heir of oppression.”
Tzipporah felt that her new friend was being a bit dramatic. Still, she may be the only friend I make, she reminded herself, and stood up to chivvy the boys away.
“Sorry,” she apologized to Edward, who shrugged and returned to his friends in the corridor. Before shutting the door, he turned back to Tzipporah.
“Hey, I didn’t catch your name. Mine’s Edward Potter, but I guess that Irish girl in there made that pretty clear.”
“I’m really sorry about Millie,” said Tzipporah, glancing back over her shoulder at the redhead, who was still staring haughtily out the window. “My name is Tzipporah Stein.”
“Tzipporah.” Unlike the others, Edward could pronounce her name almost perfectly. “Hmm. Well, I’ll see you around, if you end up in Gryffindor.”
“Gryffindor?”
“You don’t know about Gryffindor? It’s one of the four Hogwarts houses “”
“Zippie! Stop fraternizing with the enemy!” Millie interjected sharply from within the compartment.
“I’d better go.” Edward shot Tzipporah a half-smile and shut the door behind him.
“Millie, what was that all about?” Tzipporah asked as she sat back down. Millie looked at her as if she had never heard anything so unbelievable in her life.
“Don’t you know about the Irish fight for liberty against the British?” she gasped. “Haven’t you ever heard of the Irish War of Independence or the Irish Free State? Merlin, but I didn’t think you were an eejit!”
For the first time in her life, Tzipporah wished she had paid more attention to world events.
“The British oppressed the Irish for ages,” began Millie with the air of someone giving a very simple explanation to a child. “Then a few decades ago all the Irish got together and started to fight for freedom. For a long time, we couldn’t get rights, we were just dying. And Edward Potter’s father was one of the leading admirals in the British Navy that was killing all our brave boys, like me ma’s brothers! We got our independence, but so many died…and we don’t forget, or forgive.” Millie growled her last words threateningly, glaring at the door through which Edward Potter had entered and exited. Tzipporah thought it would be best if she did not mention him again.
A few minutes later Phyllis and Clarice returned, carrying with them a pile of intriguing sweets. The remainder of the trip was uneventful, with the exception of Clarice’s violent bout of sneezing upon eating a pepper-flavored Bertie Bott’s bean. As the sun set beyond the ever more untamed countryside, the girls changed into their black Hogwarts robes and hats, already chattering like old friends.
“I do hope we’re all in the same house,” said Phyllis as the train began to slow down. Outside the window Tzipporah could see the approaching lights of what Millie had told her was Hogsmeade Station.
“We will be together, don’t you think?” said Clarice nervously. “I don’t know if I can make friends all over again,” she added with a timid smile.
“Don’t worry,” Millie assured her, “we’ll all stay friends no matter what houses we end up in.”
As the Hogwarts Express shuddered to a halt, Tzipporah prayed that her new friend was right.
Chapter Endnotes: Hope you like my OC's, as they're going to be around for quite a while. Here's an excerpt from the song I wrote for the sorting hat, coming next chapter: