Who: Daisy Hookum and Sheldon Mulciber Where: King’s Cross, London When: June 15, 1978. Early evening. Status: Incomplete.
Muggles were loud.
Daisy hovered outside the platform’s entrance, only a small (and rather hideous) carpet bag in tow. It was silly, really, that she’d taken the Hogwarts Express back to London with everyone else; she could have arrived home in Hogsmeade in a fraction of the time. It would have taken perhaps an hour flying. If she’d felt up to it, she could have even walked the distance home in the same amount of time that had brought her to King’s Cross. More practically, however, she could have simply skipped the train ride and arrived home in the same amount of time that it would take her now: perhaps two seconds.
It was silly, really, that anyone had taken the Express back to London; they need only have traveled just outside the school’s gates, and then for a few moments through suffocating blackness before arriving home, hardly mussed and not at all fatigued, in their living rooms.
Daisy frowned, still lingering by the stretch of brick wall between platforms nine and ten. She’d have to reenter it, or, in a plan she was gradually becoming more fond of, find a public toilet to eventually disapparate from, leaving the stall’s door mysteriously locked from the inside. She’d taken the bulk of her luggage home during the celebratory end-of-NEWTs Hogsmeade weekend, leaving her with only a single bag that held her clothes and necessities from the last few days. Judging from the swarms of Muggles around her, she was even dressed suitably enough—not that it seemed as though anyone would notice. There was chaos and confusion everywhere as Muggles dashed to and fro, everyone in a very obvious hurry.
Daisy glanced from the station’s entrance to the blank wall behind her. Immediately after disembarking, her friends had been reunited with their waiting families, or else lost in the sudden flood of students searching for their parents. Daisy had wandered nonchalantly through the barrier. Her own parents were waiting for her to apparate home; it had taken a lot of convincing, but Daisy had finally gotten her way. After all, she could hardly visit home during her internship if she’d never apparated such a long distance on her own before. Of course, Daisy had given the impression that she’d leave from the platform, not a dingy restroom stall.
London was an awfully long way away from home, though, and she had traveled a terribly long time to get there. After giving the blank wall a last lingering look, Daisy suddenly turned her head decisively and began walking briskly toward the station’s exit.