Read this story of mine and decided it was dumb and didn't make any sense at all. Soooo... Total re-write! hope this is better than the first one was... Set in fifth year.
Disclaimer: I own only Paige
Paige Richards hurried through King's Cross to Platform 10. She had a duffle in one hand and a backpack on her back. A small purse was clutched desperately in her other hand as she checked the time again.
One minute…
She picked up her pace, narrowly missing the barrier between Platforms 6 and 7. She hiked the backpack up higher and started to jog. She was going to miss her train and have to buy another ticket and then it would take even longer for her to get to bloody York. She had been looking forward to this part of the trip since the beginning, it had just turned out cheaper to fly into London from New Mexico and take the train to York. She glanced down at her watch again, only to see that she was now late.
The platform around her was now more crowded than it had looked from the other side, and the train was only just starting to move. She pushed through the crowd and grabbed onto the rail so she could swing through the door quickly.
She fell to the floor of the train, smiling and sighing, happy to be on it and on her way to York. Footsteps fell beside her and she remembered she was in the middle of the floor, so she got up and began looking for a compartment.
After three and a half hours, Paige began to worry. The train had left at eleven o'clock and it was only a two hour train ride. She had now missed lunch and, with no breakfast to speak of in her hurry to get to the train, she was starving. Was there a dinner cart or a snack place on this train? Admittedly, she probably should have been worrying more about the fact that she had been on the train an hour and a half longer than she should have, but her stomach deemed this a more important matter.
She looked around at the other people in her compartment, a bunch of girls who, while she had slept, must have changed into school uniforms.
Paige thought this was odd, but the girls all must have gone to school in York. They were odd uniforms, though, with long robes as a part. But what did Paige know? They probably went to some strange school anyway. Who was she to judge?
Getting up and taking off her headphones, she asked the girls in the compartment, "Do you know if there's someplace on here where I can buy something to eat?"
The three of them stared back at her as though she had just spoken to them in Chinese.
Uncomfortably, Paige tried again. "Food? Can I buy food on this train? It's a longer ride than I had anticipated.
One of the girls finally pointed at the door and said, stunned, "Food trolley…"
Paige nodded and tried to smile, picking up all of her things on her way out. She would prefer not to come back and sit with these girls. They made her feel like she was crazy…
As soon as the door was closed behind her, though, she realized a problem she was going to have. Where was she going to sit afterwards? Furthermore, where was this trolley?
After a moment's debate, she headed off in the direction she thought most likely for a trolley to be.
It didn't take long for her to realize, though, that she must have gone in the wrong direction. There was no trolley of any kind to be found here. She would have to go hungry, apparently.
Now Paige was faced with another problem; Where was she going to sit now? She peeked in the windows of a few compartments until she found one that had enough room for her and her things. Inside, three men a bit younger that her sat, a pair of red-headed twins and a black man with dreadlocks. The three of them were laughing uproariously and the black man was writing on some… was that parchment? With a… quill? What on Earth was going on in there?
No matter, she decided finally. She knocked on the door politely, but she was pretty sure the sound was drowned out by their laughter. She tried again, louder this time. When there was no response, she banged on it hard with her fist.
The door slammed open and she jumped. One of the twins was looking down at her. In an instant, his frown became a grin. "Well hello," he said, leaning on the doorframe.
Paige inwardly sighed. One of those, then, was he?
It wasn't that she was overly pretty, she wasn't hot or beautiful or stunning. She wasn't plain either, just average. There was just one thing that drew in every man… Curves. Wide hips and big breasts had gotten many a man to flirt with her until they realized she was more than that.
And so this man seemed to be doing. But oh well, she didn't care. She was hungry and upset. She just wanted a place to sit and listen to her music until she got to York. "Um, hi. My compartment got taken over. Can I sit in here? I'm just going to listen to my music and probably end up falling asleep."
The twin stepped back and waved her in. "No problem. Where are you from?"
She headed to the window seat and turned to put her duffle in the overhead, but the other twin took it from her and slid it in. She smiled back at him and sat down by the window. "Edgewood, New Mexico. I'm vacationing here. I can't wait 'till the train gets there."
The three exchanged looks. "Vacationing?" asked the first twin as he sat beside his brother.
Paige smiled and nodded. "I've been looking forward to this part of the trip the whole time."
The three boys exchanged looks, but by the time the black boy opened his mouth to say something, she had her headphones on.
She had fallen asleep sometime during the ride, her headphones on her ears and a CD player pumping ZZ Top. She awoke, though, when the music started getting fuzzy. She had only been asleep for a little while, waking up at the end of discs to change them, but now the white noise had gotten loud and annoying.
Paige frowned at the CD player. This could not be happening. This was her favorite CD! She took it out of the player and looked at it carefully. After concluding that what was wrong was not visible to the human eye, she buffed the CD and put it back in to try once more. When only fuzz responded to her, she tried another disc, then another. No way. This was absolutely ridiculous! How could her player break while she was on the train? What could have happened to it?
After fiddling with her CD player for a bit, she decided there was nothing she could do and she would just have to buy a new one in York. Paige stuffed the thing into her duffle with her clothes and dug out a book, trying to ignore the laughter of the boys in the compartment around her. She noticed, though, that they were now wearing the same odd uniforms that the girl had been wearing, only with red and gold emblems rather than the blue and bronze ones.
It was dark outside now, she noticed. Where the Hell was this train headed? She paused for a moment and bit her lip, deciding. Finally, she put her book down and tapped the arm of the twin beside her, trying to stay polite in her confusion.
He stopped talking, his arms still in the air, and looked at her. After being rebuffed enough times, they had finally just left her alone, but now she wanted their attention? He smiled though, a big grin that told her he bore no ill will. "What can I do for you?" he asked, smiling.
She smiled tightly. "Actually, uhm, could you tell me where this train is heading? I think I'm on a very, very wrong train…" She looked out the window again, frowning.
The twin across from her coughed. "Maybe we should introduce ourselves. You're going to need some help here if you're not headed to Hogwarts."
"Hog what now?" Paige asked. "What… What city is that?" Her brow furrowed and she frowned further. What an awful name for a city…
The other twin laughed quietly. "Hogwarts isn't a city… It's a school. It's our school. My name is George. This is my brother Fred and our friend Lee. You're… not a witch, are you?"
Paige raised and eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
Lee let out a sigh. "Oh, bloody Hell…" he said, swiping a hand over his dreadlocks.
Fred seemed to be working something over in his mind. "I think we should just have McGonagall take her to Dumbledore when we get there. Sorry, er, what was your name?"
"Paige," she responded shortly, starting to panic. "Paige Richards."
"Well, sorry, Paige. I think it will be easier for you if you talk to Dumbledore about all of this first…"
Sooooo? What did you think? better? Worse? sets your eyes on fire? Let me know! no matter what the review says, you get a tacoooooooooooooo!