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 it down, down, down. OK. So the weight punches that rubber reality right out into another dimension, making a funnel in the shape of space-time.'
'Wait,' Ralph said, frowning in concentration. 'What's space-time?'
'Never mind,' Ted said, waving dismissively. 'Doesn't matter. It's all quantum. Nobody gets it except for crusty old parchment-heads like Professor Jackson. So anyway, there's this funnel in space-time where the weight pushes down on the rubber reality. Muggles, see, can only operate on the surface of reality. They don't see where the funnel dips down into this new dimensional space. To them, it just isn't even there. Magic folk, though, we can follow the funnel down off main-space, if we know what to look for and share the secret. So we build places like Hogsmeade there.'
'So Hogsmeade is down in some sort of funnel-shaped valley,' Ralph said experimentally.
'No,' Ted said, sitting up again. 'It's just, you know, a metaphor. The landscape looks just the same, but dimensionally, it goes out through the other side of space-time, where Muggles can't go. Lots of wizard places have been built that way. We breed magical creatures in quantum preserves. Whole mountain ranges where the giants live, all buried in quantum, off the Muggle maps. That's pretty much how unplottability works. Simple as that.'
'Simple as what?' Ralph said, frustrated.
Ted sighed. 'Look, mate, it's like the Cockroach Clusters in Honeydukes. You don't need to understand how they make them. You just need to eat 'em.'
Ralph slumped. 'I'm not sure I can do either.'
'This bloke's a real barrel o' laughs, isn't he?' Ted asked James.
'So if Muggles can't get in,' James replied, 'how'd that Muggle get onto the school grounds?'
'Oh yeah,' Ted said, leaning back again. 'The mysterious Quidditch intruder. Is that what people are saying now? That he was a Muggle?'
James had forgotten that not everything he knew about the intruder was common knowledge. He recalled now what Neville Longbottom had said about the wild rumors surrounding the mysterious man on the Quidditch pitch. 'Yeah,' he said, trying to sound nonchalant, 'I heard he may have been a Muggle. I was just wondering how a Muggle could get in, what with all this stuff about, you know, quantum.'
'Actually,' Ted said, squinting out the window at the brightening day, 'I guess even a Muggle could get in if they were accompanied by a wizard or led in somehow. It's not that they can't get in, exactly. It's just that, as far as their senses are concerned, the spaces don't even exist. If a magical person led them in, though, and the Muggle pushed through what their senses were telling them… sure, it'd be possible, I guess. But who'd be stupid enough to do such a thing?'
James shrugged, and looked at Ralph. The look on Ralph's face mirrored what James was thinking. Stupid or not, somebody had indeed led a Muggle onto the Hogwarts grounds. How or why that had been arranged was still a mystery, but James intended to do his best to find out.
The four of them lunched on sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, taken from the Hogwarts kitchens that morning, then settled into companionable silence. The day became hard and bright, with the sun shining like a diamond over the marching fields and woods. The frost had burned away, leaving the ground raw and grey. The skeletal trees scoured at the sky, standing on carpets of dead leaves. Ralph read and napped. Victoire flipped through a pile of magazines, then wandered off in search of a few friends she suspected were somewhere on board. Ted taught James to play a game called 'Winkles and Augers', which involved using wands to levitate a piece of parchment folded into the shape of a fat triangle. According to Ted, both players used their wands--the winkles--to simultaneously levitate the folded parchment--the auger-each one trying to guide the paper into their designated goal area, usually a circle drawn on a piece of parchment and placed near their opponent. James had gotten marginally better at levitation, but he was no match for Ted, who knew just how to undercut James' wandwork, bobbing the auger out of range and swooping it onto his goal with a resounding smack.
'It's all about practice, James,' Ted said. 'I've been playing this since my first year. We've had as many as four people on a team sometimes, and used augers as big as the bust of Godric Gryffindor in the common room. I'm personally responsible for the fact that his left ear's been glued back on. Didn't know the Reparo charm back then, and now we've come to rather prefer him that way.'
By the time the train pulled into Platform Nine and Three Quarters, dusk had begun to turn the sky a dreamy lilac color. James, Ted, and Ralph waited for the lurch as the train came to a full stop, then stood, stretched, and made their way out to the platform.
The porter took their tickets, then produced their trunks with an Accio spell, sucking each trunk rather roughly out of the baggage compartment and plunking it at its owner's feet. Victoire caught up with them as they piled their trunks onto a large cart.
'I'm to escort you all to the old headquarters,' Ted said importantly, drawing himself to his full height. 'It's close enough, and your parents are pretty busy tonight, James, what with everyone else arriving, and Lily and Albus just getting out of school today as well.'
They filed through the hidden portal that separated Platform Nine and Three Quarters from the Muggle platforms of King's Cross station.
'You don't drive, Ted,' Victoire said reproachfully. 'And you'll hardly fit the four of us on your broom. What do you expect to do?'
'I suppose you're right, Victoire,' Ted said, stopping in the center of the concourse and looking around. Muggle travelers moved around them, hurrying here and there, most bundled into heavy coats and hats. The huge concourse echoed with the sound of train announcements and the tinkly din of recorded Christmas carols.
'Looks like we're stuck,' Ted said mildly. 'I'd say this is an emergency of sorts, wouldn't you?'
'Ted, no!' Victoire scolded as Ted raised his right hand, his wand sticking up out of it.
There was a loud crack that echoed all around the concourse, apparently unheard by the milling Muggles. A huge, purple shape shot through the doors framed in the gigantic glassed arch at the head of the concourse. It was, of course, the Knight Bus. James had known to expect it when Ted had made the signal, but he'd never known it could travel off-road. The enormous triple-decker bus dodged and squeezed through the oblivious crowd, never losing speed until it squeaked violently to a halt directly in front of Ted. The doors shuttled open and a man in a natty, purple uniform leaned out.
'Welcome to the Knight Bus,' the man said, a bit huffily. 'Emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. You know this is the middle of effing King's Cross station, don't you? Seems like you could've at least made it to the front step.'
'Evening, Frank,' Ted said airily, hoisting Victoire's trunk up to the conductor. 'It's this bad leg of mine again. Old Quidditch injury. Acts up at the worst of times.'
'Old Quidditch injury my topmost granny's last molar,' Frank muttered, stacking the trunks on a shelf just inside the door. 'You try pulling that gaf one more time and I'm going to charge you a Galleon just for being a nuisance.'
Ralph was reluctant to get onto the bus. 'You say it's close? This headquarters place? Maybe we could, you know, walk?'
'In this cold?' Ted replied heartily.
