King's Cross Station

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King's Cross Station

Location information
Location	London, England
Owner(s)	British Government
Affiliation	Hogwarts Express
Behind the scenes
First appearance	Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Latest appearance	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

King's Cross Station is considered one of the main train stations to serve London, England. Students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry take the scarlet steam engine named the Hogwarts Express to Hogwarts from Platform 9¾ on September the first at eleven o'clock sharp. It also serves as a major intercity and commuter rail hub for Muggles going to North London, or Yorkshire and the North East and Scotland.

[edit] Locations

[edit] Platforms 9 & 10

Platforms nine and ten are the Muggle platforms on either side of the barrier through which wizards and witches must walk in order to get onto Platform 9¾

[edit] Platform 9¾

Platform 9¾ is the platform from which the Hogwarts Express may be boarded on September the 1st. The platform has, on September the first, a sign hanging over the scene reading: Hogwarts Express, eleven o'clock, and there is a wrought iron archway bearing the words Platform Nine and Three Quarters over the entry/exit to the platform. At the conclusion of the school year, the Hogwarts Express returns to King's Cross bearing the students of Hogwarts back for their summer holidays. It can be assumed that the sign over the platform changes on the day the train returns from Hogwarts.

The Entrance to Platform 9¾.

In order for someone to get onto Platform 9¾, they must walk directly at the apparently solid barrier dividing platforms nine and ten. Mrs. Molly Weasley advises that one should "do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous." It is not known exactly how muggles do not, or cannot get onto the platform; however, it can be assumed that powerful magic of some sort is employed in order to keep them ignorant of its existence.

[edit] Usage by Harry Potter

[edit] 1992

In 1992, Dobby the House-elf did something to the barrier dividing platforms 9 and 10 in order to prevent Harry Potter and Ron Weasley from accessing the platform. All that is known about the magic he used is that it somehow made the barrier which acts as entrance/exit to Platform 9¾ solidify, thus causing Harry and Ron to crash into it as opposed to pass through it as wizards and witches normally do. Consequently, they decided the only way to get to Hogwarts was to steal Arthur Weasley's Flying Ford Anglia and fly it right to the school.

[edit] 1998

Harry Potter: "It looks like King’s Cross station. Except a lot cleaner and empty, and there are no trains as far as I can see."

Albus Dumbledore: "King’s Cross station! Good gracious, really?"

— Harry and Dumbledore while "dead"^[src]

In 1998, Harry Potter was struck with a Killing Curse by Lord Voldemort, and he entered an bodily-unconscious state in which his spirit met with the spirit of Albus Dumbledore at a location that Harry identified as King's Cross Station. The station was, in the unconscious mind of Harry, clean and empty except for something that looked like a small, naked child, curled on the ground, with skin that was raw and rough, as though it had been flayed, which lay under a seat. Dumbledore then revealed to Harry that the form represented one eighth of Lord Voldemort, destroyed when he "killed" Harry and thus destroyed the part of his soul which he had unwittingly implanted in him.

[edit] Behind the scenes

A Platform 9¾ ticket for London-Hogwarts trip at Hogwarts Express.

When writing the Harry Potter books, J. K. Rowling was thinking of Euston train station when she was describing platforms 9 and 10. At King's Cross station, platforms 9 and 10 only offer services on the London commuter rail.

At the real King's Cross, there is half of a luggage cart in the barrier between platforms 9 and 10, and there is a sign that says Platform 9 3/4 so tourists can take pictures as if they are disappearing into the barrier.

It is possible that King's Cross was the place Harry "chose" to meet Dumbledore because the station symbolized Harry's entrance into the wizarding world, or rather, the border that separates the wizarding and Muggle worlds.

[edit] Appearances

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