Finished To Discover a New Dimension Solo Fin

This was not King’s Cross station. It simply couldn’t be. As Athenia stood openmouthed, excited children not much bigger than herself darted past pushing trolleys haphazardly loaded with baggage and even what appeared to be domesticated owls, followed shortly by exasperated parents waving forgotten articles of clothing or the heavy textbooks the students had been required to purchase. Beyond the chaos of the platform, a deep crimson locomotive was awakening from its slumber, belching great clouds of steam that flooded outward and obscured those standing closest to it. While this scene itself was overwhelming enough, what was stranger still was that seconds ago, it hadn’t existed.

Just moments before, Athenia had found herself rooted to the ground in front of a very solid looking brick wall, unwilling to believe her father’s insistence that it was really a portal of sorts – a hidden doorway she had to somehow pass through. After all, Newton’s Third Law had never failed her, and in this scenario, the equal and opposite reaction of taking the wall at a run could be nothing more pleasant than a broken nose. It wasn’t until her father strode towards the barrier and, instead of recoiling with a cry of pain, vanished into thin air, that the young girl followed suit despite the alarms of reason blaring in her brain.

Now that she had phased through the barrier, there wasn’t even a chance to analyze how, perhaps, her atoms had rearranged themselves to allow for such a feat, because the wall had vanished without a trace. Where the weathered bricks had once stood, a majestic ironclad arch adorned with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters loomed, a telling sign of what she had formerly believed to be just another one of her father’s stories, his lies to veil the magical heritage Athenia had grown up unaware of. Perhaps the only thing soothing her unease was the look of pure shock on her mother's face, no doubt a product of her being a Muggle and an almost religious proponent of science. The woman had fought long and hard with her husband and his insistence to send Athenia to Hogwarts, rather than a prestigious Muggle middle school. In fact, she had only caved when the patriarch of the family put his foot down, contending that their daughter ought to learn to control her magic for her own safety. Mrs. Rycroft's resistance to the notion was reasonable, really, considering that the existence of the magical realm was based solely on her husband's word, what with wizarding laws preventing the usage of magic in the Muggle world; still, this did not deter Athenia nor her father.

Magic. It was like another factor in the equation of Athenia’s worldview, a new dimension even her genius physicist mother hadn’t ever explored. While she still hadn’t isolated the concept from the fairy tales she had read as a child and applied it to reality, there had to be a reason why her father insisted on sending her off to a wizarding academy for the next seven years. There had to be an explanation behind her bedroom door slamming itself, two years prior. The sheer scope of this unknown called magic was daunting to the girl, and yet it fueled her hunger for knowledge more than ever.

The stronger emotion, though, was Athenia's resentment towards her parents for hiding something so fascinating and, more importantly, something so central to her being from her. Was she a disappointment to her father, having expressed her aptitude for magic unusually late despite descending from a prominent line of magical prodigies? Had her mother’s only wish for her been a meteoric rise to prominence in the Muggle realm of academia not unlike her own? Had both of her parents hoped that she would never show signs of magic, despite it running through both her physical veins and paternal bloodline, for convenience? For fame in the Muggle world? The revelation of this long-kept secret only ate at the already crumbling ties between Athenia and her parents, all the while amplifying her desperation to prove her worth to them.

So, while many of her peers exchanged tearful goodbyes with their family members, clinging to them until the final boarding warning, Athenia stiffly accepted hugs from each of her parents before pulling away and securing her bags. With one final nod, the girl pivoted on a sneaker clad heel before striding to the Hogwarts Express’ nearest boarding point. “Let me know what Ravenclaw is like!” her father’s final reminder floated through the dense crowd, followed immediately by her mother’s “Work your hardest!” Rather than turn in acknowledgement, Athenia quickened her pace, dark chocolate eyes narrowing in annoyance. Of course, her parents couldn’t stand setting their poster child free without reiterating their expectations for her in their parting remarks. There was no "stay safe", no "I love you", just another pair of nagging reminders thinly veiled by the couple’s somber facades.

Soon, the girl found herself mere centimeters away from the newly awoken beast that was the Hogwarts Express, which she promptly boarded without a single glance backwards. Having been raised in isolation from the wizarding world, Athenia was no stranger to Muggle-style steam engines, but stepping over its threshold brought a wave of emotion she’d never felt before. This time, she wasn't boarding a train whiling her away to London for a day’s respite from her crushing reality, or even an extended vacation on the South Coast. No, this was more akin to stepping through a portal to a place where she might be unchained from her hawk-eyed parents’ expectations – a place where she might finally find herself.