Kings Cross
It was the early morning of September 1st 1971, and Remus was met by a nice woman on the steps outside of the home. She introduced herself to Matron and Remus as Professor McGonagall, Remus liked her, Matron seemed displeased but left him with her anyways. She also had a funny smell but she smelt a lot better than Professor Dumbledore, and a bonus was that she didn’t have a strange dense air around her. This was good for Remus, he hated traveling at the best of times but this was a week before the moon and being stuck on a train for over 8 hours was not ideal, but alas it was what had to be done or he may never leave there.
"Now Lupin, you have your trunk correct" McGonagall asked, she used a polite tone with him, he didn’t understand why.
"Yes professor, I do. Its rather heavy though," Remus replied.
"Don’t worry about that, give it here"
Remus gave her his trunk, she tapped it with what Remus thought was a stick.
"What was that for, what did you do to my trunk?" he asked rather alarmed, taking a step back almost losing his footing.
"Oh, my dear Lupin, this is my wand I used it to make your trunk lighter, you should have one" she still used a calm gentle tone but never appeared to be undermining or mocking him.
"I am meant to have one?" Remus walked over to a bush and picked up a stick, "What something like this?"
"No, it is not that simple my dear, I wish it was." McGonagall said trying not to laugh, "I have this for you, it will last for now till you get you own one, this was your fathers wand. You are not allowed to use it outside of Hogwarts till you are 17. So for now put somewhere safe, we don’t want to lose it do we? And here is your ticket you will need it to get to platform 9 3/4, understand."
"Yes professor." Remus replied gently taking the wand and putting it in his pocket.
McGonagall then walked towards the gates with Remus following closely behind, they walked down the path and to a bus which was nothing like a bus he’d ever seen before. It was very strange for it was purple, had at least 2 floors and it had a sign saying the ‘Knight Bus’. Even with the words dancing he could read this sign, maybe it’s because it’s so big or maybe it’s because its magic he thought. This was a day of firsts for Remus he had never been on a bus before. They had never been allowed to use public transport at the home, not that they went out much, it was too much of a risk according to Matron, this was never understood by Remus as a group of children walking down narrow roads seems like more of a hazard. As soon as he had stepped foot on the bus his trunk was taken off him and he was passing through the Welsh countryside at a great speed.
"Where are we going" Remus asked "also how are we going this quick"
"This Remus is the Knight Bus, it is the fastest way to get to our destination." Replied McGonagall.
"Ok, but where is our destination," Remus responded, "Kings Cross?"
"Indeed, Mr Lupin we are heading to Kings Cross for you have a train to catch." McGonagall instructed to a conductor on board that that was their intended destination.
Only 20 minutes later they appeared outside of Kings Cross. McGonagall tapped on Remus’ shoulder indicating this was their stop. Remus slowly picked up his trunk, which came at him rather quick as he was not anticipating it to be that light, and slowly walked off the bus not wanting the bus ride to end. He finally joined McGonagall on the pavement outside of Kings Cross Station.
Kings Cross was packed full of people, Remus had never seen so many people in one place. The smells and the sounds were all so strong and new. The moment he stepped foot in the station he was immediately overwhelmed, McGonagall had disappeared leaving him all on his own.
He looked around for a platform attendant but they were all busy, instead he found a woman who had a sweet face there was a child who looked to be Remus’ age with her. The boy had jet black hair, dark brown eyes, and skin the colour of chocolate. How Remus would kill for some chocolate right now.
"Excuse me, do you know where platform 9 ¾ is?" Remus asked, his thick Welsh accent coating the words beautifully, but it was difficult to hear in the station.
"Pardon, platform 9 3/4. Yeah we are heading that way too. Follow us" The nice lady replied. "James Fleamont Potter. You come back here now." She shouted after the boy who was wandering off into the busy crowd. James ran back quickly to the woman, and met Remus’ eyes with confusion.
"James, I would like you to meet… wait, what is your name, I never asked." She asked
"My name is Remus Lupin, ma’am"
"Right, my name is Euphemia. Should we get you to the train then before you are both late."
They started walking towards platform 9, there was no sign for a platform called 9 ¾. This confused Remus, but Euphemia seemed unfazed by the lack of platform so he had no choice but to trust her.
"Here we are, the entrance to the platform," she said indicating to a wall, "We can do this together, ok. Remus put your trunk on the trolley here and hold on to the handle, James do the same."
Remus did as he was told and as soon as his hand was on the trolley they had stepped through the wall, which was not a wall at all.