Chapter 90: The People Blocked Outside the Station (Subscribe on first release

Five special dragon-hawthorn wands kept Silven in a good mood for many days, and even the fact that no one saw him off at the station on the first day of term didn't make him angry.

Whether by accident or design, on this year's first day of term Garrick Ollivander received yet another letter from an old friend — Gregorovitch had invited him to Norway to look for the legendary rowan grove that can only be seen beneath the aurora.

Even Silven, after reading the letter, almost didn't want to go to Hogwarts — how could Garrick Ollivander possibly resist that kind of temptation!

That very evening he packed his things and set off; when Silven woke the next morning, the wand shop was empty except for himself.

"Honestly, this is getting more and more outrageous — last year at least he walked me to the door of King's Cross, and this year he won't even see me off at the front door…" Silven muttered under his breath as he went to the Leaky Cauldron to buy an egg sandwich for breakfast.

The Leaky Cauldron does serve breakfast, but only the egg sandwich comes without garlic.

Afterwards Silven ordered three bottles of butterbeer, stuffed them into his moleskin pouch, and only then strolled out of the pub and held out his wand.

A sudden gust of wind swept through the quiet alley; the battered streetlamp swayed, creaking and groaning.

Then came an even louder screech.

A garish purple triple-decker bus seemed to materialise out of thin air, stopping right in front of Silven; in gold letters across the windscreen were the words "Knight Bus".

Then a conductor in a matching purple uniform leaned against the bus door.

"Welcome aboard the Knight Bus… I'm Stan Shunpike, your conductor."

"Where are you headed?" he asked, glancing up at the Leaky Cauldron sign, and helped haul Silven's trunk aboard without being asked.

"King's Cross," said Silven, stepping into the carriage after him.

"I thought so. Three Sickles," Stan Shunpike said, looking back. "You won't be wanting any chocolate or a toothbrush, I suppose?"

"No, I won't," Silven said, handing over three silver Sickles and picking a seat at random on the lower deck.

Everyone here was a short-distance passenger; if a ticket cost more than ten Sickles, you'd find yourself on the second or third deck after boarding.

There were no seats up there — instead, there were bunk beds for resting.

The driver was an elderly wizard wearing a pair of spectacles thicker than a butterbeer glass.

The moment Silven had settled into his seat, he heard an earsplitting BANG!

He suspected it was a sonic boom.

The Knight Bus was going far too fast; he had to grip the handrail beside him hard to keep himself from ending up against the rear window the next second.

That was why he wasn't too keen on riding the Knight Bus — the experience was simply awful.

Once he'd adjusted a little, Silven at last found a moment to glance at the other passengers.

There weren't many — at the very back sat two witches whispering to each other; the fact that they could still chat under these conditions meant they were probably regulars on this bus.

Next to the conductor sat a father and son — probably heading to King's Cross as well.

Silven didn't recognise them, and had no impression of them at all — they might be this year's new students, or perhaps students from one of the other three houses.

Bang!

Another loud noise, and they were streaking through the London streets like lightning; the buildings and benches outside all flattened themselves to one side to let the Knight Bus pass.

At that speed, King's Cross was soon upon them.

The driver slammed on the brakes hard, and Silven had to grip the handrail once more to keep himself from flying into the front windscreen.

Silven and the father and son stood up at the same time; the young wizard — probably experiencing this speed for the first time — was swaying this way and that before he'd even stepped off, couldn't tell which way was which, and staggered headlong towards the driver.

"Thanks," Silven said to Stan, who had somehow produced a trolley for him from goodness knows where.

In a place like King's Cross, having a trolley was an absolute godsend.

By the time Silven walked into the station, there were still twenty minutes before the Hogwarts Express departed — plenty of time.

From a good distance away, he spotted a group of people clustered between Platforms Nine and Ten — and many of them were familiar faces at that.

"Seamus, Neville…" Silven called out to the two acquaintances nearest him. "What are you all crowding around here for? Is there anything you can't talk about once you're actually through the barrier?"

"We'd love to, but we can't get through," said Neville, looking as though he was about to cry.

"Impossible," said Silven. "You're not Ha—rry…"

Wait — why did the person at the very front, clutching his head, look a little familiar?

"Is that Harry?" he asked instinctively.

"Yeah," Seamus nodded. "Harry was the first one to crash into the barrier, and that's when we realised the passage had disappeared."

"Huh?" Silven stood there, baffled.

What on earth was going on?

Weren't Harry and Ron supposed to arrive only at the last minute before departure, and then get stopped outside the station by the house-elf Dobby?

Silven had been all ready to enjoy the show, but now… why had Harry turned up so early?

Although he was still blocked outside the station, because it was still early, more people had been caught up in it too.

Silven did a quick scan — besides Harry and Ron, there were Seamus, Neville, Jin Ni, and a Hufflepuff witch.

Adding Silven himself, and the one who hadn't arrived yet behind them, that made eight people in total.

As the minutes ticked by, the Hufflepuff girl was nearly in tears.

"Ten minutes till it leaves… we'll miss the train… we'll be expelled…" she sobbed, her eyes red-rimmed.

"Don't worry, my dad and Lady Longbottom have already gone to find someone," Jin Ni said, walking over to comfort her. "We'll definitely get into the station."

"And this counts as an emergency," Seamus put in loudly beside her — seemingly trying to reassure himself as well. "We got here on time, but we can't get into the station — the school can't expel us for that, right, Silven?"

Everyone present looked over at him at once.

"Yeah, you're an Ollivander — you must know, right?" Ron said loudly.

Hang on — what possible connection was there between this and his being an Ollivander?

Silven didn't understand.

But looking at the hopeful eyes of the crowd, he still nodded and said:

"Don't worry — Hogwarts won't expel eight students over something this small, and we won't be late either."

"Even if we miss the train, we can always take the Knight Bus to school — and we'll still be able to have lunch in the Great Hall."

Almost every wizard who had ever ridden the Knight Bus had complained that it offered no comfort whatsoever, but not a single one had ever said it was slow… so arriving at Hogwarts from London before noon was hardly an exaggeration — if anything, it might even be a touch conservative.

Only Silven hadn't noticed that, the moment he finished speaking, the face of a young wizard who had just caught up behind him went white at once, and his two legs were trembling nonstop.

……

(End of this chapter)