Chapter 3
By the time Harry and Hagrid had finished shopping, night had long since fallen. Harry had his glasses, and everything else the Healer had told him to get, including 'muggleborn orientation pamphlets' from every shop. He'd conceded to Hagrid that he wouldn't really get a solid gold cauldron, or a book of curses - but he hadn't really meant to buy the gold cauldron anyway, only to admire it, and besides, he had an owl-order form from Flourish & Blotts. He could send off for all the extra books he wanted, later, without upsetting Hagrid - who was a genuinely nice man, Harry thought. It had been very kind of him to get Harry his owl, and to see Harry onto the train.
By the time the train got into Little Whinging Station, it was after one in the morning; the station building was closed, and there was an open gate leading from the platform to the car park. A couple of other people got off the train, but they seemed too tired to pay much notice to Harry. He'd already let the owl out of her cage, put the cage in the trunk, and shrunk the trunk to its smallest setting, 'chocolate frog sized', which was a little bigger than a matchbox. A large snowy owl sitting on his shoulder didn't exactly make him terribly inconspicuous, but he was too tired to care. Slowly, he made his way onto Privet Drive. The car was back, he noticed, but the lights were off and all the curtains closed. There was a tree in the Dursley's back garden, which Harry had once climbed to escape Ripper. It would make a good roost and vantage point for hunting, at least for tonight, and so he told the owl. He would open the attic window for her tomorrow, and do what he could to make it more owl-friendly. She nodded approvingly. Sighing, Harry prised open the door of the garden shed. No point knocking on the door at this time of night; he might wake up the babies, and would definitely annoy Uncle Vernon. He could sleep in the shed, and announce his arrival in the morning.
August passed peacefully. Uncle Vernon was disappointed not to be rid of Harry for good, and said so. Dudley made a point of saying how much better Smeltings would be than any silly freak school, and how glad he was Harry wasn't coming to Smeltings with him. Daisy and Dahlia cooed and babbled at him, and smiled, and produced smellier nappies than ever, now that they were onto solids. His owl, now named Hedwig, churred and barked at him affectionately. Aunt Petunia lectured him about how he was to keep all his freakishness well away from their normal family. She supposed he had to store his school things in the attic, but he wasn't to bring any weird things downstairs. No frogspawn. No strange books or peculiar clothes. As far as the neighbours were concerned, he was going to St Brutus' Boarding School, a very strict and old-fashioned institution that had a good reputation for turning around difficult cases. And she didn't want any wretched birds bringing her letters, either; he should find out how to write using the normal post. Harry had seen an Owl Post Office on Diagon Alley, but he hadn't gone in; he dutifully sent Hedwig with a letter of enquiry, asking what the procedures were for muggleborns to send letters from Hogwarts to friends and family members who weren't aware of magic, and would expect letters to come via the ordinary muggle postal services, and how those same unaware muggles might go about writing to a student at Hogwarts. He duly received an explanatory pamphlet, and gave his aunt the 'normal-sounding' address that would actually end up at Hogsmeade Owl Office: Lochindorb School, Dufftown, Moray, Scotland.
At 6 a.m. on September 1st, 1991, Harry Potter let Hedwig out to fly to Hogwarts, and closed and locked the attic window. His trunk was shrunken and in his pocket; he was wearing respectable-looking normal clothes, purchased in Greater Whinging Marks & Spencer with money he had had converted at Gringotts. He said goodbye to his relatives, and Daisy and Dahlia actually waved bye-bye back, something they had only recently learned. He would catch the commuter train to Paddington, and then the Underground to King's Cross. He would still have trouble finding the platform, and be assisted by the Weasleys. He would learn a great many things, endure his fame, and run the gauntlet of tests Albus Dumbledore had planned for him.
Truth be told, Dumbledore had been more than a little annoyed that his plans for Harry hadn't gone quite right. The boy didn't need to know so much practical detail about the wizarding world so early, and it would really have been preferable for it not to be so widely known that the boy had been placed with muggles; how could it not have been, with the child announcing it in every shop in Diagon! It was so important for him to see the Wizarding world in the rosiest and vaguest of hues, and really Dumbledore would have preferred the boy's oddities to set him apart, rather than simply showing as ordinary muggle-raised ignorance, which the child was working diligently to correct. Still, the boy had kept his sense of wonder at the wizarding world; he had made appropriate friends, but not too many of them; he was amenable to following the breadcrumbs for his little adventure, and had played his part well. And what Hagrid had said about the child throwing himself between his family and Hagrid's jinx - well, that showed the proper sacrificial mindset. Yes, all would be well.
When Harry said goodbye to Ron and Hermione on the train, he was not planning to frighten Dudley with magic; nor was he expecting to meet the Dursleys at King's Cross. Instead, he had given Ron and Hermione the postal address and telephone number, and asked them to write using muggle post, rather than owling; he promised Ron that he would owl him some postage stamps. He called at Gringotts, before stocking up not only on postage stamps but also on dried fruit, jerky, and packets of biscuits and crackers. He remembered what the healer had said about him needing more food than an ordinary child, and he didn't think the Dursleys would like him eating as much as they did. Then he caught the commuter train back to Little Whinging. It would have been nice to have had family meet him at the platform, as everyone else seemed to; but really, it wasn't worth it. The Dursleys would have hated it, and they would have taken the resentment out on him. Better not to cause them trouble.