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He could have sat in the teachers’ compartment. He probably should have, thinking about it. The seats were more comfortable, the food cart was left in there after it made its rounds. But something felt wrong about being on the train for the first time in, Merlin, 16 years, and not sitting in that compartment. The one towards the back, where no one ever sat. Besides, he knew that Snape was back teaching, and it was unlikely that the incident from however many years earlier had been forgiven It would be easier on everyone if he sat alone.
He took his old spot by the window, glancing around for a moment. It was empty, as he’d expected, and he couldn’t help but remember the days he’d spent there with his old friends. James would load the compartment with sweets while Sirius talked about whatever muggle bands he’d been listening to over the summer. It felt wrong missing Sirius, after what they said he did, but he couldn’t really help it.
He yawned. The last transformation had taken a huge toll on him, and he started to drift off to sleep a few minutes after he sat down, uncomfortable and wishing his friends were there.
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He flitted back into consciousness an hour or so later. Still in a muddy state of semi-consciousness, he opened his eyes and saw…Peter. Not Peter as everyone else saw him, but the form he took. He shuffled a bit, suddenly alert, but the rat was gone. Of course it was gone. It couldn’t have been him he was…Sirius had…
He heard kids laughing, joking about an aunt being blown up or something along those lines. He tried to adjust, fall back asleep so they wouldn’t be uncomfortable, but the rat had distressed him too much. So he sat as still as he could, and slowly opened his eyes again, just a little, to see who was using his old compartment. There were three of them, all probably only in their third or fourth year. Two of them were shouting at each other, something about a cat, but he couldn’t take in anything else about them. His eyes had found the third, a scrawny boy with dark hair, and froze. It was impossible, he knew it was.
James?