"Hurry along, girls, Claire has a train to catch," Russell said to the three girls, who were walking arm-in-arm through King's Cross Station.
Rose, being in the middle, looked up at Russell, then back to Claire and Hana and whispered,"I can't believe you're going away to boarding school. What's wrong with St. Joseph's?"
Claire had tried to think of an answer to this question, since she'd known it would be coming. She didn't want to lie to her best friends, but she had little choice, so she and her dad had decided on carefully-crafted half-truths over actual lies.
"I'm," she began slowly. "I'm supposedly quite gifted, and dad thinks this school could help me reach my potential."
"It's true," Russell supplied, having heard their hushed conversation. "Claire didn't even have to apply. She got an acceptance letter in the mail, and that was that. Perhaps because her mother attended?"
Claire blushed under the scrutinizing gazes of her two friends. She focused instead on pushing her cart through the station, wondering how she was meant to board her train without her friends finding out. Supposedly, she was to walk through the column between platforms 9 and 10, but she couldn't very well manage that with her friends watching.
"What's in the trunk?" Hana's question was sudden, and her hand rested on the edge of Claire's trunk. "You didn't let either of us help you pack it, and it seemed quite heavy."
"Yes, well, you know, the books they had us buy were quite heavy, you see. And some of the topics were almost entirely unfamiliar."
It wasn't a lie, so Claire didn't feel too terrible about saying it. The subjects of her textbooks were certainly unfamiliar. Miranda Goshawk's Book of Spells? Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them? The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection? How could Claire have explained those to her friends if she'd let them help her pack? Not to mention the robes, the pointed hat, the glass vials, and, of course, the wand. They would certainly think she'd gone mad if she'd allowed them to see the contents of her school supply trunk.
Russell glanced at his watch and then met Claire's eyes with a smile and a nod.
"It's 10:55. I think it's time we leave you be to catch your train, Claire," Russell said, stepping forward to hug his daughter. Claire wrapped her own arms around his torso, and, in that moment, the gravity of what she was doing hit her. She was going away. She would only see her dad during holidays for the next seven years. How was she supposed to do that?
"I don't know if I can do this," Claire said suddenly, shaking her head against her dad's chest. "I don't want to go."
She was trying her hardest to hold back the tears that threatened to spill as she considered the next seven years without her dad. Without her friends.
"Claire," Rose said quietly, joining in and turning the father-daughter hug into a group up. "I know you don't like to talk about it much, but whether you like her or not, your mum had a big impact on you. I 'spose it's gotta be important to you to see where she went to school, right?"
Claire felt Hana's arms close around them too, and they were in a four-way hug. A hug with the three most important people in her life.
"Yeah," Hana agreed. "And if this school is as selective and prestigious as your dad says, it could help you become a doctor. Just like you've always wanted. You know we'll be waiting behind for you. Every Summer."
Claire cried freely now, wishing she could stay in the arms of her dad and best friends forever. But as Matilda Wormwood said in the musical adaptation, time was the one thing that no one was master of, and soon, her dad had to leave and walk her friends back to the car.
Claire was alone, with nothing but her school supplies, tear-streaked eyes, and vague instructions on how to get to Platform 93/4. She took a deep breath, wiped her eyes, and stared at the column, gripping her cart tightly. With a final look back at the direction her friends and dad had gone, Claire charged into the column, exhaling in surprise when she saw it at last: The Hogwarts Express.
