Activity Introduction

[Rose Dove]

Getting on the Hogwarts Express is always a chaotic process. From all the luggage trying to get on the train along with their owners, to the parents and other family members saying their final goodbyes, it’s all you can do to go about your own business of saying farewell and ensuring your stuff gets on the train with you. Then it’s a matter of finding a spot with your friends and storing your luggage for the trip.

As you’re waving goodbye to your parents from the train window, it is finally hitting you. The summer is over and school is starting again. But it’s not just school that you and all of your friends are returning to. Hogwarts is home, for both students and the staff.

As much as everyone loves their home away from home, including you, you can’t help but reflect on the fun summer spent with family and friends and all of the wonderful memories made. You can’t wait to share with your housemates and any of the new students that may join your house this year all of the photos that were taken and all of your summer fun. You look forward to hearing your friends’ stories as well.
As much as you’ll miss the carefree summer days, you are also a little excited to go back to your classes and school life. The welcome feast, club meetings, even the sometimes peculiar but always entertaining HOwLer publications beckon with each kilometer closer to the castle. You can’t wait to see what the new school year will bring for you and your friends, old and new.

Like each year before, you use the long train ride to reflect on your recent past and upcoming future and everything in between. It’s not actually that long of a trip, but it gets you started and begins to ease your transition from summer to fall and from vacation mode to school mode.