Fic Challenge 70: The Best Adventure of my Life
Title: The Best Adventure of my Life : Challenge 70
Summary: 6 HiH members embark on a crazy journey that proves the wizarding world is real.
Characters/Pairings: Only HiH members so far: Sas (theaeblackthorn), Jessi(jessilestrange, Kai (slyfoxesq), Ing (xfortytwo), Michele (heartzablaze) and Gerry (sanggre_hagabat)
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for cursing.
Word Count: 2171
A/N: For the six people I used as characters: In essense I've used your name and a few real things I know about you and your personality. (like where you come from, what kinds of stories, fandoms and thinks you like, or your general personality/temperment). However, nearly all of the interactions, dialogues and actions are made up. I have treated you guys, for the most part, like characters, and have improvised the majority. So I'm sorry if anything I've written offends you or is something you just wouldn't do. Please contact me if you six have any issues about anything I've written.
“And this is Platform Nine and Three Quarters,” Sas says proudly, leading the group of five down the platform between tracks nine and ten at Kings Cross. “Of course it looks different than in the movies, but this is the very platform that Harry Potter himself, as well as all other students board the Hogwarts Express every year.”
This was the HiH meetup that Sas and Jessi hosted. They’d both been here a few times with friends and members of the community that lived locally, but it was a special treat to have these friends here. Ing is from Norway and Gerry all the way from the Philippines. Michele and Kai are both from the States, Georgia and Texas respectively.
Kai is feeling the barrier that the characters run through to board the train, while Ing stares dreamily. Gerry and Michele are skipping down the platform, while Jessi searches the platform for “wizards” and makes up stories about them with Sas. “Today is the first of September,” she says.
“I know,” the mod says. “So cool,” Ing adds, nodding.
“See that one, with the large suitcase and the red hair?” Jessi points her out.
“Weasley.” Ing states. “It’s Ginny, all grown up,” she invents, then sticks out her tongue, which puts her on the receiving end of a dirty look from Jessi.
“That one,” Sas announces. “Wizard…. Pureblood?”
“Just dropped his kids off on the train and back to work at the Ministry,” decides Jessi.
“I bet people do this all the time,” Kai states.
“So?” asks Michele, who nudges Gerry. “Go ask the guard where Platform nine and three quarters is.”
“He’ll probably be pissed. The books are insanely popular, you know. But I’ll try. ”He says mock superiorly, and then shrugs and bounces off, leaving Michele giggling behind him.
“There,” Ing says. “It’s the new Defense against the Dark Arts professor. Too bad he’ll only be there a year.”
“Not necessarily,” Kai interrupts. “Maybe they found a way to get rid of the curse.”
And on and on they go, enjoying the simplicity of standing in a train station that was used as a setting in a book they all loved. Unbeknownst to them, there were wizards bustling in out of the train station. Older students apparated straight to the platform, while younger ones portkeyed in from the other side of the barrier with their parents, right under our very on HiHers noses. It was changed in ’99, because of all the people coming to the train station for the very same reason this group did, except no one in the wizarding world knew why.
“Mummy?” asks a thirteen year old boy. “Did you hear what that lady said? Defense against the Dark Arts being cursed?”
“Nonsense, Spencer,” the mother said, obviously irritated. She grants a cursory look at the woman, wearing jeans and a long sleeved tee, and the rest of the group of HiHers. “Just muggles. More and more every year. Come along now, let’s find the portkey. Why they keep changing it is beyond me.”
Twin girls and their parents enter the station. The identically pigtailed girls look overly excited while the mother looks frazzled and the father relaxed. “What a great idea that was, honestly. No more carrying the luggage, just drop it off out front. They take care of the rest. No more lugging owls onto the steam engine and wrestling with them in compartments. It’s so simple, not like when I was a boy,” the father booms.
“Shh, Henry. We mustn’t let the muggles hear,” says the mother.
“Did you hear that?” Kai asks.
“What? I can’t even hear myself think with the trains coming and going constantly.” Ing is quizzical and Gerry comes back frowning. “The guard told me, and quote, buzz off.”
Kai shushes him before anyone says anything else. “I heard it. I heard owls. And muggles. And…” she says, excited, “portkey.”
Michele gets excited for a split second before her rationale comes back. “Yes, but they could be tourists. I mean, we’re saying portkey and muggles and all that.”
“But they were oddly dressed. I swear, they were wizards.”
“Oh, man,” says Jessi. “Why didn’t we think to come in costume?”
“I’m telling you…” Kai says with conviction, but it interrupted by Ing. “A test. We could do an experiment of sorts?.”
“ I’m sorry Kai, but it’s just a set. A set full of tourists. I wish it was real as much as you do,” Sas says kindly, placing a hand on her Slytherin friend’s shoulder. “But I’ve been here a hundred times and I’ve never seen anything out of this ordinary.”
“Yes, but have you ever been here on this day?” Kai rebuts.
“Well, no…”
“I’ll do it. The test.” Michele says. “I’m coming!” laughs Jessi, and they run off, trying to find the perfect suspect.
“We’ll be waiting!” Gerry says, assuming they would have no more luck than he did.
On the other side of the room, a man and his daughter are looking around confused. “Shoot. I forgot where the portkey is. I can’t believe it. I’m going to have to apparate home to get the letter.”
The daughter looks crushed. “We can’t, we’ll miss the train. I can’t be late in my first year; I’ll be a laughing stock.”
He sees how crushed his daughter is and decides to ask someone. “Excuse me,” he says, asking stopping a grandmotherly type with a teenage boy trailing behind her.
While they chat, Michele is perfecting her faux English accents. “Wonderful, dahling.” she says.
“There. Look, two teenagers with adults, let’s try them,” says Jessi. Michele shrugs her assent and follows.
“Excuse me,” says the Gryffindor, who firmly believes she is about to be told off, “can you tell us how to get on the platform?”
The man begins, “The platform?”
Both girls wince inwardly and Jessi looks crestfallen. Damn, Michele thinks. Why did I volunteer? Sas is British, she should have gone with Jessi.
But then the old woman speaks, voice harsh and crackly. “I already told you, man. Go ask the heavy mustachioed man in the pink shirt to step aside and there will be a one pence piece on the floor. There’s your portkey. You can collect your personal belongings on the other side” She pointed over there, in the corner below the Kings Cross sign.
“Thank you,” stammers Jessi. “You’re not bullshitting us?” asks a bewildered Michele, who’s forgotten her accent. “What happened to going through the barrier?”
Jessi eyes her oddly. “Oh,” the woman says, giving Michele a disgruntled look. “They got rid of that years ago when they upped security. Too many blasted muggles wandering around. Don’t they have loitering rules here? I can hardly think for all the noise.” The lady pauses, looks them up and down. “Great disguises, by the way. ”
“Thanks,” Jessi says, before grabbing Michele and running back over to the group. “Bullshit?” she asks on the way.
“Of course, she’s probably another tourist, pretending. I’m beginning to think this whole place is a giant roleplay game.”
“Still,” the Gryffindor responds. “We should go check it out. Play along.”
And so the two women find their group in the bustling train station and explain what happened.
On the other side of the station, the portly portkey guard is stepping aside for a father and son duo. As they step between the man and the wall, they are covered by a blanket indivisibility spell, so no one sees them disappearing as they each take hold of the coin. They arrive on the platform, and the man sees his young son onto the compartment before apparating away.
Michele and Jessi lead the way over to the corner where the man in pink is standing guard, who eyes the six of them up and down skeptically. “Excuse me,” Jessi says, “can you step aside, please? There’s a…. coin… I’ve dropped.”
“Where are your children?” he asks suspiciously.
Jessi pauses and Kai, ever the quick Slytherin, announces, “They beat us to the platform. We just want to make sure our children are safe.”
“Our children?” he asks.
“Yes. Well, my niece. My sister couldn’t come so I had to bring her,” Kai invents easily.
“And my… daughter went with her,” Michele says, and hopes he buys her story.
“And we’re here for moral support,” pipes up Gerry. Sas and Ing nod.
The man rolls his eyes beneath the dark glasses he wears. “Fine, but hurry up. The express is about to take off you’ll have to apparate out. You’ll have to go in groups,” he says. “You three, let’s go.” He points to Michele, Kai and Sas.
The Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Ravenclaw gather in behind him, squishing tightly together behind the man, not knowing about the invisibility charm in place.
“Damn,” Sas curses, rightly skeptical. “So are we really going to believe that this, this enlarged penny is really a portkey? You can get them at any joke-“
She’s cut off as she places a finger on the coin and is wrenched, from somewhere around her navel, out of the station. The three women end touch down in front of a red steam engine labeled Hogwarts Express in giant lettering.
Michele, who landed on her knees, is helped up by Kai. “Ugh,” the Hufflepuff declares, before noticing the crimson steam engine in front of her.
“Holy….” Kai says, low. “You guys cannot tell me that this is a set. There is no way.”
“It looks like a set,” Sas says, earning her a dirty look. “What? It does.”
“Okay, you tell me how we got here,” Michele asks. “And don’t tell me it was a ride or this is some sort of illusion.” Kids are pouring in behind them, and an equal stream of kids and parents portkeys in from the other side of the platform. There are two fireplaces, and parents are flooed in with their children every minute.
Suddenly, the three other HiHers come crashing in behind them. “Oh wow” Gerry exclaims. Ing looks stunned and Jessi can’t take her eyes off the train. Gerry dusts himself off and looks around.
“All Aboard!” A conductor calls. “All floos and portkeys will be closing in five minutes. Please see your children on the train and exit the station.”
“Um,” Gerry begins. “What now? How do we get out of here?” People are apparating left and right; little pops can be heard all around. A horn blasts from the train, and a few last minute stragglers board. “That looks pretty real to me,” he says, pointing to the place where a well dressed woman stood just a moment ago.
“Hologram? Projector screen?” Sas suggests. Gerry walks over to another parent exiting the train. He speaks to her for a few minutes, shakes her hand and she pops away. “That was no computer,” he declares, walking back. “These people aren’t actors.”
“There’s only one thing to do,” Kai says, rushing towards the open doors of the train.
“We can’t!” Ing says. “I mean, where will it take us?”
“Well,” says Michele, “It’ll either take us on a tour and we’ll know it’s all fake…”
“Or,” Jessi interrupts, “It’ll take us to Hogwarts!”
“Exactly!” exclaims Kai, who leads the way onto the train, with the others skeptically behind her. “Are you three coming or not? I’m about to have the best adventure of my life!”
Michele and the Gryffindor follow in suit. “You guys can come with us, right now,” Jessi says, swinging herself up on the train behind Kai.
“Or you can hear about it later,” Michele interrupts, boarding behind Jessi. “What are you waiting for?”
Gerry, standing behind Ing, nudges her excitedly. “Let’s go!”
She pokes him back. “I’m going, I’m going! You think I’m going to stand here and let you guys have all the fun?”
They board and it’s just Sas on the platform, thinking and biting her lip. “Come on!” Kai urges her from the head of the line. Gerry and Jessi are staring at her expectantly.
“Sas!” Yells Michele. “You and Jessi brought us here. You two did this. Don’t pass this up.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” asks Gerry from just inside the car.
“Come with us!,” Ing shouts, before Sas can say anything . “You’re our mod!”
“Who will lead us? Leeead us, Sas!” Jessi says, half joking.
Gerry holds out his hand and after a moment of silence, Sas clasps it firmly. The train begins to rumble and Sas jumps aboard a second before the doors close. And so they make it, but who knows what’s waiting for them on the train? Right now, it doesn’t matter. They stand there for a moment, all squished together, and hug. It’s a very compatible hug, a friendship hug, a what-have-we-gotten-ourselves-into hug. It’s a hug of six people who are very different from each other, who don’t even know each other very well, but are off on an incredible adventure.
“I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Kat of Hufflepuff
Summary: 6 HiH members embark on a crazy journey that proves the wizarding world is real.
Characters/Pairings: Only HiH members so far: Sas (theaeblackthorn), Jessi(jessilestrange, Kai (slyfoxesq), Ing (xfortytwo), Michele (heartzablaze) and Gerry (sanggre_hagabat)
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for cursing.
Word Count: 2171
A/N: For the six people I used as characters: In essense I've used your name and a few real things I know about you and your personality. (like where you come from, what kinds of stories, fandoms and thinks you like, or your general personality/temperment). However, nearly all of the interactions, dialogues and actions are made up. I have treated you guys, for the most part, like characters, and have improvised the majority. So I'm sorry if anything I've written offends you or is something you just wouldn't do. Please contact me if you six have any issues about anything I've written.
“And this is Platform Nine and Three Quarters,” Sas says proudly, leading the group of five down the platform between tracks nine and ten at Kings Cross. “Of course it looks different than in the movies, but this is the very platform that Harry Potter himself, as well as all other students board the Hogwarts Express every year.”
This was the HiH meetup that Sas and Jessi hosted. They’d both been here a few times with friends and members of the community that lived locally, but it was a special treat to have these friends here. Ing is from Norway and Gerry all the way from the Philippines. Michele and Kai are both from the States, Georgia and Texas respectively.
Kai is feeling the barrier that the characters run through to board the train, while Ing stares dreamily. Gerry and Michele are skipping down the platform, while Jessi searches the platform for “wizards” and makes up stories about them with Sas. “Today is the first of September,” she says.
“I know,” the mod says. “So cool,” Ing adds, nodding.
“See that one, with the large suitcase and the red hair?” Jessi points her out.
“Weasley.” Ing states. “It’s Ginny, all grown up,” she invents, then sticks out her tongue, which puts her on the receiving end of a dirty look from Jessi.
“That one,” Sas announces. “Wizard…. Pureblood?”
“Just dropped his kids off on the train and back to work at the Ministry,” decides Jessi.
“I bet people do this all the time,” Kai states.
“So?” asks Michele, who nudges Gerry. “Go ask the guard where Platform nine and three quarters is.”
“He’ll probably be pissed. The books are insanely popular, you know. But I’ll try. ”He says mock superiorly, and then shrugs and bounces off, leaving Michele giggling behind him.
“There,” Ing says. “It’s the new Defense against the Dark Arts professor. Too bad he’ll only be there a year.”
“Not necessarily,” Kai interrupts. “Maybe they found a way to get rid of the curse.”
And on and on they go, enjoying the simplicity of standing in a train station that was used as a setting in a book they all loved. Unbeknownst to them, there were wizards bustling in out of the train station. Older students apparated straight to the platform, while younger ones portkeyed in from the other side of the barrier with their parents, right under our very on HiHers noses. It was changed in ’99, because of all the people coming to the train station for the very same reason this group did, except no one in the wizarding world knew why.
“Mummy?” asks a thirteen year old boy. “Did you hear what that lady said? Defense against the Dark Arts being cursed?”
“Nonsense, Spencer,” the mother said, obviously irritated. She grants a cursory look at the woman, wearing jeans and a long sleeved tee, and the rest of the group of HiHers. “Just muggles. More and more every year. Come along now, let’s find the portkey. Why they keep changing it is beyond me.”
Twin girls and their parents enter the station. The identically pigtailed girls look overly excited while the mother looks frazzled and the father relaxed. “What a great idea that was, honestly. No more carrying the luggage, just drop it off out front. They take care of the rest. No more lugging owls onto the steam engine and wrestling with them in compartments. It’s so simple, not like when I was a boy,” the father booms.
“Shh, Henry. We mustn’t let the muggles hear,” says the mother.
“Did you hear that?” Kai asks.
“What? I can’t even hear myself think with the trains coming and going constantly.” Ing is quizzical and Gerry comes back frowning. “The guard told me, and quote, buzz off.”
Kai shushes him before anyone says anything else. “I heard it. I heard owls. And muggles. And…” she says, excited, “portkey.”
Michele gets excited for a split second before her rationale comes back. “Yes, but they could be tourists. I mean, we’re saying portkey and muggles and all that.”
“But they were oddly dressed. I swear, they were wizards.”
“Oh, man,” says Jessi. “Why didn’t we think to come in costume?”
“I’m telling you…” Kai says with conviction, but it interrupted by Ing. “A test. We could do an experiment of sorts?.”
“ I’m sorry Kai, but it’s just a set. A set full of tourists. I wish it was real as much as you do,” Sas says kindly, placing a hand on her Slytherin friend’s shoulder. “But I’ve been here a hundred times and I’ve never seen anything out of this ordinary.”
“Yes, but have you ever been here on this day?” Kai rebuts.
“Well, no…”
“I’ll do it. The test.” Michele says. “I’m coming!” laughs Jessi, and they run off, trying to find the perfect suspect.
“We’ll be waiting!” Gerry says, assuming they would have no more luck than he did.
On the other side of the room, a man and his daughter are looking around confused. “Shoot. I forgot where the portkey is. I can’t believe it. I’m going to have to apparate home to get the letter.”
The daughter looks crushed. “We can’t, we’ll miss the train. I can’t be late in my first year; I’ll be a laughing stock.”
He sees how crushed his daughter is and decides to ask someone. “Excuse me,” he says, asking stopping a grandmotherly type with a teenage boy trailing behind her.
While they chat, Michele is perfecting her faux English accents. “Wonderful, dahling.” she says.
“There. Look, two teenagers with adults, let’s try them,” says Jessi. Michele shrugs her assent and follows.
“Excuse me,” says the Gryffindor, who firmly believes she is about to be told off, “can you tell us how to get on the platform?”
The man begins, “The platform?”
Both girls wince inwardly and Jessi looks crestfallen. Damn, Michele thinks. Why did I volunteer? Sas is British, she should have gone with Jessi.
But then the old woman speaks, voice harsh and crackly. “I already told you, man. Go ask the heavy mustachioed man in the pink shirt to step aside and there will be a one pence piece on the floor. There’s your portkey. You can collect your personal belongings on the other side” She pointed over there, in the corner below the Kings Cross sign.
“Thank you,” stammers Jessi. “You’re not bullshitting us?” asks a bewildered Michele, who’s forgotten her accent. “What happened to going through the barrier?”
Jessi eyes her oddly. “Oh,” the woman says, giving Michele a disgruntled look. “They got rid of that years ago when they upped security. Too many blasted muggles wandering around. Don’t they have loitering rules here? I can hardly think for all the noise.” The lady pauses, looks them up and down. “Great disguises, by the way. ”
“Thanks,” Jessi says, before grabbing Michele and running back over to the group. “Bullshit?” she asks on the way.
“Of course, she’s probably another tourist, pretending. I’m beginning to think this whole place is a giant roleplay game.”
“Still,” the Gryffindor responds. “We should go check it out. Play along.”
And so the two women find their group in the bustling train station and explain what happened.
On the other side of the station, the portly portkey guard is stepping aside for a father and son duo. As they step between the man and the wall, they are covered by a blanket indivisibility spell, so no one sees them disappearing as they each take hold of the coin. They arrive on the platform, and the man sees his young son onto the compartment before apparating away.
Michele and Jessi lead the way over to the corner where the man in pink is standing guard, who eyes the six of them up and down skeptically. “Excuse me,” Jessi says, “can you step aside, please? There’s a…. coin… I’ve dropped.”
“Where are your children?” he asks suspiciously.
Jessi pauses and Kai, ever the quick Slytherin, announces, “They beat us to the platform. We just want to make sure our children are safe.”
“Our children?” he asks.
“Yes. Well, my niece. My sister couldn’t come so I had to bring her,” Kai invents easily.
“And my… daughter went with her,” Michele says, and hopes he buys her story.
“And we’re here for moral support,” pipes up Gerry. Sas and Ing nod.
The man rolls his eyes beneath the dark glasses he wears. “Fine, but hurry up. The express is about to take off you’ll have to apparate out. You’ll have to go in groups,” he says. “You three, let’s go.” He points to Michele, Kai and Sas.
The Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Ravenclaw gather in behind him, squishing tightly together behind the man, not knowing about the invisibility charm in place.
“Damn,” Sas curses, rightly skeptical. “So are we really going to believe that this, this enlarged penny is really a portkey? You can get them at any joke-“
She’s cut off as she places a finger on the coin and is wrenched, from somewhere around her navel, out of the station. The three women end touch down in front of a red steam engine labeled Hogwarts Express in giant lettering.
Michele, who landed on her knees, is helped up by Kai. “Ugh,” the Hufflepuff declares, before noticing the crimson steam engine in front of her.
“Holy….” Kai says, low. “You guys cannot tell me that this is a set. There is no way.”
“It looks like a set,” Sas says, earning her a dirty look. “What? It does.”
“Okay, you tell me how we got here,” Michele asks. “And don’t tell me it was a ride or this is some sort of illusion.” Kids are pouring in behind them, and an equal stream of kids and parents portkeys in from the other side of the platform. There are two fireplaces, and parents are flooed in with their children every minute.
Suddenly, the three other HiHers come crashing in behind them. “Oh wow” Gerry exclaims. Ing looks stunned and Jessi can’t take her eyes off the train. Gerry dusts himself off and looks around.
“All Aboard!” A conductor calls. “All floos and portkeys will be closing in five minutes. Please see your children on the train and exit the station.”
“Um,” Gerry begins. “What now? How do we get out of here?” People are apparating left and right; little pops can be heard all around. A horn blasts from the train, and a few last minute stragglers board. “That looks pretty real to me,” he says, pointing to the place where a well dressed woman stood just a moment ago.
“Hologram? Projector screen?” Sas suggests. Gerry walks over to another parent exiting the train. He speaks to her for a few minutes, shakes her hand and she pops away. “That was no computer,” he declares, walking back. “These people aren’t actors.”
“There’s only one thing to do,” Kai says, rushing towards the open doors of the train.
“We can’t!” Ing says. “I mean, where will it take us?”
“Well,” says Michele, “It’ll either take us on a tour and we’ll know it’s all fake…”
“Or,” Jessi interrupts, “It’ll take us to Hogwarts!”
“Exactly!” exclaims Kai, who leads the way onto the train, with the others skeptically behind her. “Are you three coming or not? I’m about to have the best adventure of my life!”
Michele and the Gryffindor follow in suit. “You guys can come with us, right now,” Jessi says, swinging herself up on the train behind Kai.
“Or you can hear about it later,” Michele interrupts, boarding behind Jessi. “What are you waiting for?”
Gerry, standing behind Ing, nudges her excitedly. “Let’s go!”
She pokes him back. “I’m going, I’m going! You think I’m going to stand here and let you guys have all the fun?”
They board and it’s just Sas on the platform, thinking and biting her lip. “Come on!” Kai urges her from the head of the line. Gerry and Jessi are staring at her expectantly.
“Sas!” Yells Michele. “You and Jessi brought us here. You two did this. Don’t pass this up.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” asks Gerry from just inside the car.
“Come with us!,” Ing shouts, before Sas can say anything . “You’re our mod!”
“Who will lead us? Leeead us, Sas!” Jessi says, half joking.
Gerry holds out his hand and after a moment of silence, Sas clasps it firmly. The train begins to rumble and Sas jumps aboard a second before the doors close. And so they make it, but who knows what’s waiting for them on the train? Right now, it doesn’t matter. They stand there for a moment, all squished together, and hug. It’s a very compatible hug, a friendship hug, a what-have-we-gotten-ourselves-into hug. It’s a hug of six people who are very different from each other, who don’t even know each other very well, but are off on an incredible adventure.
“I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Kat of Hufflepuff