Chapter Text
“And you have all of your books?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“And your robes? And casual clothes?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“And your broom? Is it packed safely—”
“Mom,” Alyssa cuts her off, a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “We triple checked everything at home. We’re fine. Besides, you can owl me anything I drastically need if we managed to forget it.”
The train behind them whistles, and Veronica pulls Alyssa into a hug. “I know. I know. Be safe. I’ll miss you. Say hello to the Klein girl, and keep your grades up.”
“You can just call her Kaylee.” Alyssa pulls back with a smile. “I’ll miss you too, but I’ll be home for Christmas!”
“But that’s so far away,” her mom groans good naturedly. “Remember, if you have any issues, ask Jules.”
“Yes, Mom,” she repeats again, thinking of her older friend, one of the few that her mom has met. He’s Slytherin’s quidditch captain, and never fails to be there when she needs him. He’s also pretty much her favorite person in the whole world, though she would never tell Kaylee or Shelby that.
“I love you,” Mrs. Greene interrupts her thoughts gently.
“I love you too.” Alyssa hugs her one more time before boarding the train that will bring her to school. Due to her anxiety she always made sure to arrive early to the station.
“‘Lys, over here!”
Never earlier than her friends, however. With a smile, Alyssa ducks into the compartment to be greeted by Shelby, who already claimed one whole bench, and Kaylee, who’s wearing a new scarf.
“Hey!” She gets her trunk into storage before sitting down next to Kaylee. “Whatcha reading, Shelby?”
“History of color magic,” the Ravenclaw answers. “Turns out I have a neighbor who’s a squib, and he collects books on magic. I’ve been reading his library all summer.”
“It’s the only thing she’ll talk about in her letters,” Kaylee complains, and her scarf moves on its own. Actually, when Alyssa takes a closer look at it… “Oh! This is Royce. He’s my gift.”
Alyssa contains her urge to lean back as the head of a snake appears from Kaylee’s hair and hisses at her.
“He says hi. He can understand English, but can’t speak it himself.”
“Nice to meet you, Royce,” Alyssa greets. “How did you get him approved?”
Kaylee shrugs. “My parents know people.”
“Nepotism,” Shelby supplies.
“I know the word,” Kaylee retorts, crossing her arms.
Alyssa laughs as her friends start up a familiar stream of bantering, content to let them talk. Looks like the train ride would be entertaining, as always.
***
Emma ducks her head into yet another compartment, only to immediately pull it out when the inhabitants throw a quill at her face. No matter how early she gets to the train station, she can never find an empty compartment. This year they even tried splitting up, with Nick and Kevin starting from the back of the train, and Emma and Greg from the front, but judging by the chocolate frog dropping from Greg’s hair, it isn’t working.
“How is every compartment full?” Emma groans, lightly bumping the back of her head against the wall.
“I told you we need to get here earlier,” Greg says unhelpfully, pulling the chocolate frog from his hair and popping it into his mouth.
“That’s disgusting.” Emma wrinkles her nose. You didn’t throw good chocolate at people’s heads; she didn’t even want to imagine where it had been.
“It’s free, and anyway, I need something to lift my spirits since we’re going to be spending the entire ride to school in the hall.”
Emma opens her mouth as if to argue, before closing it. He’s not wrong.
“Hey, there’s Kevin!” Greg waves down the hall where their other friends have just entered the train car. “Maybe they found something.”
“Everything’s full,” Nick says, looking just as annoyed as Emma feels. “The dumb first years are sitting two to a compartment.”
“Of course they are.” While Emma understands that it sucks to be a first year before you’ve made any friends, it would be nice if they could learn that you make friends by sitting in a compartment with them, thus allowing everyone else to actually have somewhere to sit. “We had no luck here.”
“Wait. We didn’t check this one,” Greg slides one door down and knocks lightly. “Is there any space in here?”
“Uh, I guess?” a voice responds, sounding not-so-particularly inviting. Greg’s face takes on a smug smile, and he slides the door open, holding out his hand to Emma in an after you gesture.
Emma takes one step inside and immediately wants to leave. “Greene.”
“Nolan.” Alyssa looks just as unhappy about the situation as Emma is.
“Also Nolan!” Greg adds when it’s clear that neither girl is going to move first. “You said we could sit here, and the train is about to leave, so if we could…”
Alyssa exchanges a glance with the other people in the compartment. Emma recognizes Shelby and Kaylee, the other members of Alyssa’s group. “Are you sure there are no other compartments?”
“We checked the whole train,” Nick pipes up from behind the cousins. “Stupid first years.”
“Trust me. We’re not any happier about it than you are.” The train lurches to the left, and Emma sits down to avoid falling over.
The rest of her friends manage to squeeze into the compartment and sit down. Greg isn’t so lucky, he goes tumbling down into Kaylee’s lap. After some fumbling, he manages to get secure by sitting on three and a half different laps.
“Sorry, sorry—” Greg looks up at Kaylee, and his face turns white. “IS THAT A SNAKE?” He lurches to his feet, or more accurately, attempts to, only to fall on his butt on the floor. He seems to have a brief internal battle before deciding that the floor is, in fact, the best place to be sitting right now.
“Yes. This is Royce,” Kaylee informs him casually, as if there isn’t a four foot snake wrapped around her neck. “His real name is—” she makes various hissing noises that make Emma’s ears hurt— “But seeing as most people can’t pronounce that, I gave him a nickname.”
“I think we should just go sit in the hall.” Emma attempts to stand only to have Kevin grab the back of her shirt and pull her back into her seat.
Shelby, on Kevin’s other side, rolls her eyes. “It’s just Kaylee flexing the fact that she’s bilingual, ignore her.”
“The term is Parselmouth,” Kaylee huffs, bravely patting the snake on its head. “And it’s a rare skill that is passed down to only the purest of the Slytherin house.”
“Says the girl who went through a rebellious phase for all of a month last year where you wanted to be a Gryffindor, only to stop after realizing you didn’t want to climb so many stairs,” Alyssa laughs to Kaylee’s protests.
“Hey,” Nick retorts. “We’re in the tallest tower at Hogwarts!”
“It’s only the tallest because someone enchanted a hockey stick to the roof to make it taller than Ravenclaw tower,” Shelby replies shortly, somehow reading a book despite the jostling of the train.
“Y’all climb stairs to get to your dorms?” Greg asks. “Couldn’t be me.”
“Oh, yeah,” Kaylee replies, “Because being hidden by barrels full of vinegar instead of a password is so secure.”
“Try answering a riddle every time you want to sleep,” Shelby scoffs.
As someone who is horrible at riddles, Emma takes a second to thank the sorting hat for not putting her in Ravenclaw.
“Every time?” Nick asks, clearly as baffled by the idea as Emma is.
Shelby nods solemnly. “Every time.”
“Is that why I saw you going into the Slytherin dorm at, like, 3am last year?” Emma asks. She had nearly forgotten about the memory, as it was early fall and she had been half asleep. In her defense, sometimes, you wake up in the middle of the night and take a walk, only to get horribly lost since you go to a magic school where the corridors constantly change.
Shelby shrugs. “Sometimes you don’t have the brainpower to figure it out. It’s easier to remember a password you heard your friend say once while you were heading the opposite direction.”
“Is it?” Emma replies, disbelief lacing her tone. She can barely remember what barrel to tap at times.
By some stroke of luck, a knock rings out from the compartment door. “Candy from the trolley?” Emma sighs in relief as any attempt at conversation fizzles out when Nick and Kevin step on seven different feet— and Greg— as they clamber for food.
It’s gonna be a long train ride.