Book 1 - James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing

appearance, but she complained about them at every opportunity. Today, she had donned a small ermine
pillbox cap, cocked rakishly over her left eyebrow. She glared coolly at Ralph as he dragged his trunk out
onto the step. A few minutes later, Hagrid drove up at the head of a carriage. Ralph’s mouth dropped open
when he saw that nothing, apparently, was pulling the carriage.
“You lot aren’t s’posed to see these until next year, mind,” Hagrid said to James and Ralph. He
yanked the brake lever, climbed down, and began heaving their trunks easily onto the back of the carriage.
“So be sure to act surprised when yeh sees ‘em next spring, right?”
“Oh, Hagrid,” Victoire said haughtily, “if zese awful things are as ugly as mummy tells me, I’m glad I
can’t see zem, anyway.” She held out a hand and Ted took it, helping her rather unnecessarily into the
carriage.
There were a few other students crammed into the carriage, all similarly late departures for the
holidays. Hagrid drove them to Hogsmeade station, where they boarded the Hogwarts Express again. The
train was far emptier than it had been on their arriving journey. The four of them found a compartment near
the end, then settled in for the long trip.
“So Hogsmeade is a wizard village?” Ralph asked Ted.
“Sure is. Home to The Three Broomsticks and Honeydukes Sweetshop. Best Cockroach Clusters in
the world. Lots of other shops, too. You’ll get to go on Hogsmeade weekends starting your third year.”
Ralph looked thoughtful, which meant his brow pinched down while his lower lip pooched up,
squeezing his entire face toward his nose. “So how do wizards keep Muggles out of a magical village? I mean,
aren’t there any roads or anything?”
“Tricky question, mate,” Ted said, slouching on his seat and kicking off his shoes.
Victoire wrinkled her nose. “You will keep zose dirt-kickers away from me, Mr. Lupin.”
Ted ignored her, stretching his legs across the compartment and resting his feet on the opposite seat.
“I’m in old Stonewall’s Applied Advanced Technomancy class this semester, and all I can tell you is that
places like Hogsmeade aren’t just hidden because Muggles can’t find a road in. It’s all quantum. If Petra was
here, she could explain it better.”
James was curious. “What’s ‘quantum’ mean?”
Ted shrugged. “It’s a joke in A.A.T. When in doubt, just say ‘quantum’.” He sighed resignedly,
gathering his thoughts. “All right, imagine that there are places on the earth that are like a hole in space
patched with rubber, see? You can’t tell anything’s different from the top, but it’s maybe a little bouncy or
something. Then, say, some wizard comes along who really knows his quantum. He says, ‘Gor, here’s a place
where we can put up a smashing wizard village.” So what he does is he conjures something sort of like a huge
magical weight, but it’s really, really tiny, right? And the weight drops into the bit of rubbery reality and pulls
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