It took muggles months, the witch knew, to make the sea voyage from India to London. With their luggage and house elves, Eurydice and her sister had not been able to make use of portkeys to shorten the gap, but their father had secured them and a chaperone (who would go straight back to Calcutta once her charges were passed off to their aunt) a spot aboard the Swyftfin, which did indeed live up to its name: the charmed ship made the journey in a mere ten days. Still, it had been several days too long for Eurydice, who lacked both sea legs and a sea belly and had not yet wholly recovered from the ordeal. The sisters had spent the night before in a hotel in London, and her bed had felt as though it was rocking on the waves the entire time!

The chaperone had been reluctant to allow Eury to visit the toilets on her own, but had relented when Flossy had insisted that Misstress is capable of voiding herself by herself, which had done the trick, even if it had caused a blush to envelop the young witch's face. Eurydice had been given firm instructions to report to Platform 9¾ once she was done, the house elf seeing to her luggage as the rest of the party went off ahead.

It was a process that should have been altogether straightforward.

No one had thought to mention to her that she would find platform 9 with ease, find platform 10 with ease, and then fail altogether to find some fraction in betwixt them.

Eurydice Lovegood was about as alone as one could be in a public place, in a new country, her only coin a couple of sickles in the reticule she still carried. I should have kept Flossy with me, she berated herself. It was far too proud to insist on going alone—I ought to have listened to the chaperone after all! Of course, what actually left her lips instead was something altogether more pitiful and not nearly as useful.

"Unchaperoned? Woe!"