"Miss Moon, the platform is right through the wall. You just have to walk through it." The professor gestured at a stretch of the barrier. He was here to ensure that Amy actually knew how to get on the train which was going great right now. Actually, a lot of the muggle borns got the treatment; those who proved to be especially skeptical about the presence of magic, or at least when Amy had refused to believe there was a platform 9 3/4 and asked for someone to prove it to her, she'd been told to meet him at the station. Amy was sure he's lost his mind.
"That's solid brick!" Amy spluttered.
"You can't just walk through it!"Right at that moment a boy a few years older than her walked right through the barrier and vanished.
"It's still impossible!" She declared, as the professor gave her an amused look and they walked through to see the crowds of students and the scarlet steam engine.
"Just get on the train fairly soon. I never met someone who protested about the barrier like that before, so you've only got about ten minutes. I'd get aboard right away if I were you."
Amy nodded and headed straight away to the train. Her parents helped her load her trunk aboard, and then Amy hopped off to stand just next to the door (to be ahead of the crowds) and say good bye to them, and also to look around at the mass of students and try to guess who her friends would end up being. There wasn't a lot to go on.
Atticus was probably the only student to have either bought or learned to open the Monster Book of Monsters. Most people saw books with eyes and thought that was unnatural. He'd thought it was a quite elegant way to represent its contents, and he'd stroked a finger down its spine almost instinctively. It wasn't even the set textbook (Atticus was sure you would have to be mad to set it as such) but he had taken a liking to it. And even he had resorted to belting it up and shoving it deep in his trunk for the journey.
It kept making grumbling noises, and he was fairly sure the grumbles would continue all the way to Hogwarts.
Atticus had chosen a carriage already, near the back of the train, and away from most of his year mates. This was at least in part caused because the book had started making loud chomping noises when he had gotten close to his friends. Atticus was really hoping he had secured that belt tight enough now.
It was just him in the compartment, but he always got on the train early. His dad was a muggle expert and he said trains always left at the wrong time so he'd had it drilled into him to always get into muggle transport early.
Amadea, his cat, lay sprawled out on the seat next to him, purring contentedly.
(I'll add crushes, tags etc to the quotes box as they emerge)