On Platform Nine and Three Quarters…

The following report comes from Jennifer S., who caught some filming at King’s Cross this weekend:

I heard a rumour about filming at King’s Cross train station in London awhile
back. It was supposedly taking place on Sunday March 23, 2003 at 7am.

On Sat, March 22, I happened to be going to London and the only way for me to
get there is to take a train directly from Hatfield (where I live) to K. Cross.
I was talking to my friend Sarah and she asked if I was going to go in the next
day to see the filming. I said no because I wasn’t sure if the filming was
actually going on, and if I wasted my time and money and got up at the
crack of dawn to go, and there was no filming, I would have cried.

So we got to London Sat. about noon and all looked normal in K. Cross. I decided
I wasn’t going to bother the next day.

We got back to K. Cross at 9 pm to go home and there it was: a giant sign in
front of the footbridge over the tracks that said, “Closed due to filming.” The footbridge was where they filmed Harry and
Hagrid in the first movie.

I knew then and there that it was for real.

I got there Sundary morning and saw some guys walk by me with
lighting equipment. I almost cried because they were bringing it to a truck
outside.

Then I walked into the station and what did I see? Hogwarts Express, giantly
purple with steam coming from it. And all the fancy Platform 9 3/4 signs on the
walls.

There were only 4 or so other people there, one of them being the girl who wrote to
BBC Newsround and TLC after seeing filming at Crescent Moon – I met her and she was cool.

Soon, we went down the platform next to the Express, with nothing between us and the filming crew/actors but the actual train. They literally filmed with us in the backround.. Then they kept doing takes of the same scene with us standing there in the backround! The train was leaving
and all the people were waving bye.

We had to leave the platform after awhile and stood near the gate where the
actors had to come and go if they had to “take a break”.

Within 5 minutes, Mrs. Weasley went on break – after she came out I asked for her
autograph and got it. She was really nice!

We kept seeing the doubles for Daniel and Emma – the real ones weren’t there – but
Dan’s double is a spitting image of him.

Rupert Grint was there, the Phelps twins, who play Fred and George Weasley, and Mr. and Mrs.
Weasley’s actors. I got Mr. Weasley’s autograph and George’s at the end of
filming. Then, Rupert came out. He couldn’t sign autographs, the guard wouldn’t let him stop. There were only about 5 of us there though, no one else knew about the filming. But Rupert was two feet in front of my face, had to walk by me to leave the station. There were no crowds or anything at all.

And then, the guard gave me an 8×10 black and white photo of the trio, signed by all three of them.

So, all in all an exciting day, though it left me exhausted. But I don’t mind at all!