Mari and the Magic Realm

Mari glanced once more over her shoulder at the odd group of travelers she had gathered. There was Harry, of course, and Ginny, Ron, Luna, and Neville. The twins were still in the great hall—lost in some sort of prank they were planning. She hoped that they wouldn’t get into trouble when they reappeared.

Mari turned back to face where she knew the portal to be and drew a deep breath.

“Well, here goes nothing!” She shouted with a nervous laugh as she sprinted toward the end of the hall. The others followed closely behind her as they raced toward their new adventure.

Once they were all through the portal, reality shifted suddenly into a blur of colors and sounds. Mari blinked several times to clear her vision, but it didn’t help much; everything remained distorted. She raised her hands to shield her eyes from the sudden brightness and followed Harry’s voice as he led them deeper into their new world.

As their surroundings began to clear, Mari could see what appeared to be an old-fashioned train station platform stretching out before them. A large sign above them read: “King’s Cross Station—Platform 9 ¾.” It took several seconds for Mari to realize that there was no number on the sign; just a dash between the words “Kings” and “Cross”. Before she could wonder about it further, Harry turned them in another direction and took off down the platform in what looked like a mad dash. Mari ran after him with the others close behind her, determined not to be left behind.

Harry reached one end of the platform quickly and darted around a corner so quickly that Mari was afraid he might have run straight through it if it wasn’t for his sudden appearance at the other side of the wall. Feeling relieved that she hadn’t lost track of Harry so early on in this strange world, Mari picked up speed and ran harder than she ever had before until she reached the same corner that Harry had disappeared around moments ago. She rounded it without slowing down or even thinking about slowing down; driven only by her desire to catch up with Harry before he left her behind again. As she ran around the corner, however, she tripped on something unseen beneath her feet and would have gone sprawling onto the floor if a pair of strong arms hadn’t stopped her fall just in time—a moment before she landed face first on the floor anyway.

Mari lifted herself up onto one elbow and looked up at who had caught her fall while muttering an incoherent apology for almost knocking him down in return—it was Hermione Granger! As weird as this whole situation already was, this was by far one of the strangest things yet; Hermione hadn’t been with them when they came through the portal! But then again nothing seemed impossible anymore…at least not since they had entered this new world. Seeing no visible signs that Hermione had noticed anything out of place about their meeting (or any signs that she might even be aware that any sort of oddness existed around them) Mari decided not to question how things had happened as they did—she was just happy to have found Hermione so quickly! She jumped up from where she sat on the floor and turned toward Harry who stood watching his friends with an amused expression on his face; Hermione still stood beside him trying to get out from under his arm without drawing attention from everyone else nearby.