Getting to Hogwarts

[KathyK]

No: HPFGUIDX 75036

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" 
<gbannister10 at a...> wrote:
> Forgive ne if this topic has been covered in the past, but I am 
> puzzled about sudents getting to Hogwarts on the Hogwarts Express.
> 
> In PS, when Harry sets out for Kings Cross to catch the train, 
Hagrid 
> has merely given him his ticket a month or so previously. Harry has 
> problems finding his way to platform 9 3/4 - what might have 
happened 
> for example if he hadn't met the Weasleys?
> 
> This raises the question, how do new students know how to get to 
the 
> train? It probably poses no problems to wizarding families but how 
> did Hermione, who is from a Muggle family, know how to get through 
> the gateway to the platform?
> 
> Geoff

I've always thought that McGonagall might include some extra 
information about the Wizarding World and about Hogwarts when sending 
off letters to muggle born students.  If I just received a letter in 
the mail saying I've been accepted to some school I'd never heard of 
that teaches magic and here is what I will need to purchase, I would 
think the whole thing a bizarre joke.  Muggle parents probably need a 
bit of convincing or reassurance that Hogwarts is indeed a legitimate 
place and that magic is real.  
As part of this extra information, there are instructions on how to 
go about acquiring what the student will need and how to access the 
Hogwarts Express.  Harry was a special case because he's Harry 
Potter.  The letters clearly weren't reaching him despite the owls 
best efforts.  There's no way the most famous wizard boy in the world 
was not going to go to Hogwarts.  So Dumbledore sent Hagrid to help 
Harry out.  Harry therefore did not need all the extra information 
because he had Hagrid to guide him through Diagon Alley and to tell 
him about the Hogwarts Express.  Hagrid just forgot to divulge the 
tiny detail of how to get to the train.  
If Harry hadn't met the Weasleys and he missed the train, I'm sure 
Dumbledore would send someone to investigate and make sure Harry made 
it to school.

KathyK