regional customs
Thousands send Harry Potter to school on platform 9 3/4
Harry Potter fans gather at Kings Cross Station during the annual ‘Back to Hogwarts Day’. photo
© Lucy North/PA Wire/dpa
Dressed in robes and holding magic wands: every year on September 1st, numerous Harry Potter fans symbolically send their heroes from a London train station to Hogwarts School of Magic.
Crowds on platform 9 3/4: numerous disguised fans of the magician’s apprentice Harry Potter symbolically celebrated the start of the new school year at London’s King’s Cross station. Robed and wands in hand, the crowd counted down to the start of the “Hogwarts Express” which, in the books by JK Rowling, takes Harry Potter and his friends Hermione and Ron’s students to Hogwarts Magic School every September 1st .
According to the British news agency PA, thousands took part in the traditional “Back to Hogwarts” event. Ten-year-old Arnav Partukar from Chelmsford, who was voted the biggest Harry Potter fan in a competition, and TV presenter Sam Thompson counted down the live countdown to the virtual departure.
31-year-old Thompson is also a big Potter fan. His cats are named Albus – after Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore – and Cedric, after Harry’s classmate Cedric Diggory, who is murdered in the fourth volume on Lord Voldemort’s orders. When the departure from platform 9 3/4 was posted on the real departure board, cheers erupted, PA reported.