Steam filled Platform 9 ¾ as the scarlet Hogwarts Express was making its final preparations for departure.  Overall, the parents on the platform were much less prepared than the old steam engine train, and though there were tears among them, the time had come to let their children go.  
Many older students were already aboard the train, and soon it was mainly First Years, whose parents were most reluctant to let them go, scrambling to find compartments.  
 
Dana Albright, a meek child with an owl’s cage in his arms, was being ejected from the third compartment he tried to enter, to the mixed amusement and annoyance of the Sixth Year occupants.  His older brother, Jackson, had boarded nearly ten minutes before Dana managed to get away from their doting single  father.  So far he had had no luck in finding the compartment that Jax had taken up, and he was running out of cars to check.  He was just moving on to the next car down the line, when he felt the train lurch under his feet.  They were under way.