April 1st, 1894 — King's Cross Station, London

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!"

  

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He had just dropped off a foreign diplomat at the station, escorting them from their Ministry meeting back to King’s Cross, where they were headed onward to visit relatives in the country. Nick was – rather glad to be rid of the fellow, actually. The man had been quite sure he was the wittiest man alive, and had kept pausing, waiting for him to laugh. Nick was confident enough in his own linguistic aptitude to swiftly conclude that he wasn’t missing any nuance in the jokes. The man just wasn’t funny.

Energy now depleted from the necessity of holding his tongue at the unsavoury comments, and laughing at the ‘jokes’, Nick had stopped at a station stall for a much-needed pastry before he went back.

He had demolished it with great success, brushing the crumbs from his hands and starting on his way again when he heard the lamentation at his shoulder and – unfortunately – glanced back to see from whom it had come.

A stranger, evidently. But now he had met her eye, it felt much more difficult to keep walking and pretend he hadn’t heard her. Sighing internally, Nick turned back and arranged his expression to make himself seem a not-at-all-reluctant good samaritan.

(She was not bad looking, so. That was some reward.)

“Are you alright, Miss?” Unchaperoned, she had exclaimed – he glanced around the vicinity, supposing her party must be somewhere nearby. “Who are you looking for?”

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He wanted to help her. Frankly, everyone here was a stranger, a potential threat, but this kind-seeming man had offered to help, and Eury, in her present state, was in absolutely no positionto refuse. She was hardly likely to be abducted or otherwise molested in so crowded a place, and even if she could not always form her words the way she intended, the blonde could scream bloody murder with the best of them, should it be warranted.

He was, at present, her best and only option. Very carefully, the witch tried to respond to his question in the simplest terms possible, in the hopes that her affliction could not butcher something so basic in to something nextdoor to gibberish.

"My sister," Eurydice managed, "and chaperone." Sensible enough, if not altogether verbose.

Even if Eury could physically say what she wished, My sister and chaperone, as well as two house elves, are headed for Platform 9 and three-quarters, but I cannot seem to find it anywhere; our destination is Hogsmeade, she knew to hold her tongue. Kings Cross Station was a place where magical and muggle mingled unbeknownst to the latter, and concepts like house elves and Hogsmeade would, at best, mean nothing to the nonmagical denizens of the city. Instead, she removed her ticket from her train ticket from her reticule. Much of it (the time, the emblazoned FIRST CLASS at the top) was useless for her purposes, but the platform listing was clear as day, and it was that which she tentatively leaned in to show the gentleman.
PLATFORM 9¾

Nick Blott

  

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He waited a beat, but she had not given him any useful description of them. So that was. Helpful.

And he hadn’t recognised her, and she seemed well enough dressed to be Someone, so Nick had presumed her merely to be a muggle, else he might have had some idea of her family; at least until she proffered her train ticket. “Ah, indeed?” Nick said with a knowing nod, to prove himself unfazed by the fractional station. “Do you think they might have already gone through?” He didn’t know if they had been coming or going, but perhaps it would make sense to check both sides of the barrier.

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"Through?" Eury asked, blonde brows knitting together in confusion. At least he had not balked at the strange platform number—that was a good sign, or as good as she was likely to get short of her sister waving at her from a train.

Nick Blott

  

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She seemed so wholly hopeless, it was a wonder anyone had thought to leave her alone long enough for her to get lost. Nick’s eyebrows inched upwards at her next question. He cleared his throat, dropping his volume slightly so as to avoid the muggles around them thinking he was deranged as he elaborated. “Through the barrier? The wall? ...You’ve never been here before?”

He inclined his head in the vague direction of the platforms; he could hardly be so indiscreet as to point it out overtly. (She didn’t sound or look terribly foreign, but perhaps she had lived a sheltered life, and never went to Hogwarts? Nick was almost as confused as she was.)

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She shook her head slightly, a confused no.

Through the barrier? The solid wall between platforms 9 and 10? Merlin's beard,  no wonder Eurydice had not been able to find it. It was fortunate indeed that she had found a wizard in this place, for she surely never would have found it without his assistance. A part of the blonde, though, worried he was pulling her leg. It would be quite the spectacle, she knew, if a young lady walked directly into a wall in a relatively crowded place.

Nick Blott

  

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Merlin, she really was new here. Alone and all lost at sea. Nick tried his best to be sympathetic – to take her under his wing, at least until he found someone whose job that actually was.

“Never mind, you can meet them through. Just make a beeline for the wall,” he said, in the same low, confidential tone. “Quite straightforward – a dimwit could manage it,” Nick added, to be encouraging. (And, honestly, because he was not convinced she was much better off than one.)

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Eurydice rather thought that the dim-witted approach would be to run headlong at a wall. Though she was reasonably confident that the man knew of her plight, it still seemed so foolish a solution that she was reluctant to give herself over to it. Her expression remained skeptical as she looked at him imploringly.

Nick Blott

  

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This good deed was taking longer than he had thought – and now she was going to have him go back on himself, and escort her right to the platform. She seemed incapable of articulating her wish in anything beyond looking at him stupidly, all guileless and wide-eyed; Nick suppressed an exasperated sigh. “Would you like to me to show you?”

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   Aldous Crouch

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"Please," came her emphatic reply, though Eury had to bite back whatever nonsense her cursed tongue wished to accompany this simple request. The sooner she was back with her family—in particular a sister and house elf long acuqainted with her... ways—the better.

Nick Blott

  

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She had succeeded in another syllable. Nick thought about offering her his arm directly, but his faith in her courage and her sense was so low that instead he glanced left and right, as he might before crossing a street, and ducked towards the wall. He fell through it to the platform, and turned on his heel to cross back out on the muggle side as soon as the platform guard gave leave, taking quick strides (in case she had managed to move from her prior spot in the intervening half a minute without him.)

“Now try with me, with the clear intention of going through,” he instructed, offering his arm impatiently. “And don’t look too nervous, if you will. Best avoid the muggles’ attention.”

Good luck to her ever finding her way through the wall at Diagon Alley, if she was here long enough to try it.

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   Eurydice Lovegood

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Though he had said that heading into the wall was the ticket, Eury had not quite believed him. Grey eyes widened in shock, then disbelief, as the wizard disappeared into the masonry for a beat before returning to her. She had seen a great many things in her two decades of life, but this somehow was one of the more surprising.

"But—but the wall—" Eury stammered. Merlin help her if all of England was like this. Still with some apprehension, she took the fellow's proffered arm. At least if they went through in tandem, she was unlikely to smash her face into the bricks.

Nick Blott

  

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She had taken his arm, but sounded so uncertain that Nick didn’t dare drag her along at a brisk pace, in case she turned and fled or tripped over in her peculiar anxiety.

She was a witch, wasn’t she? She was acting terribly like a disbelieving muggle, but she had the ticket and all. “May I ask where you’re from, Miss?” he added, generally baffled by her. She spoke English like a native (in accent, if not eloquence), and looked British enough, but she might have come from another planet, for all she knew about wizarding London. “Because I take it you’re not a local.”

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"India," came Eury's answer. "It is much hotter there."

That was decidedly not meant to come out, but one could not unring a bell, however insipid it was.

Nick Blott

  

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Nick couldn’t help himself at that – he snorted. India had been enough of a surprise, if he were honest – and with her fair colouring he was surprised she had survived India at all – but her description was... so inane that there simply weren’t words.

Was this her way of making an excuse for her hopelessness? He might have believed her if only she had the excuse of it being hotter here, and melting her brain clear away. “Yes,” Nick said, with an edge of irritation in his voice, because did she suppose him an imbecile, that that was worth saying? “I’m sure it is. But welcome to Britain –” (his tone had turned slightly snide). “And if we walk briskly enough, perhaps you’ll warm up on the way to your train.”

He had to wonder, now, if she had also somehow managed to buy a ticket to the wrong train. She seemed capable of it.

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