So. Seventh year. Final year. NEWT year. Here goes, then.

Toby had already said his goodbyes and was now making his way onto the train. Soph would be up in the Prefects' Compartment, of course, but he was pretty sure they'd see each other before journey's end. As for right now, Tobias found an himself empty compartment right at the back of the train after storing his luggage and letting Bludger out of his cat basket to roam free.

He settled into his seat and looked out the window, resting his feet on the edge of the seat opposite. The goodbyes had been hard, harder than they'd been last year. Leaving his dad behind was hard enough, and then when it came to baby Curtis, Toby hadn't wanted to let go of him. He'd actually considered straight up refusing to board the train at the last second, and going home instead to stay with Piers and his little brother, but... well, he was on board, wasn't he? Clearly that hadn't happened. In the end Toby had simply put on that happy, unbothered facade and boarded the train, knowing full well that he was fooling no-one though not dissuaded by that fact in the least.

But now he was ON the Hogwarts Express, so he could at least compartmentalise (heheh). He stopped thinking about sad things, all of them (with a little effort), and cast his mind around for some positive things to think about instead. Like... like cows. Ehehehe. Hehe. Heh.

Welp. Hopefully someone would come along soon. Old friends or acquaintances or even someone totally new; Toby looked forward to some company. Friends were ALWAYS good to focus on. Always. Bring on the friends.

This summer wasn't entirely what Austin had expected, but at the same time it wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be. Sure his dad didn't take him too or from the Express, and sure his sister didn't know who he was when he got home. But he did get to go on a field trip, and use gillyweed for the first time. Spending time at Ophelia's was one of the greatest moments of the summer. He was lucky her family allowed him to stay a while. He only went home yesterday to 'say goodbye to his family'. At least that's what he told Ophie's family. In reality he just needed his supplies for school. He stopped caring about his dad long ago. He knew his mother wouldn't approve of that thought, but she was gone. So it didn't matter what the new fourth year thought.

He walked to the way back of the train, hoping there would be cars open. Since he got to Knights Cross by himself, he ended up being early in hopes of getting a good seat. And his efforts payed off. There was a compartment in the back that was empty. He put his owl, Athena, on one of the seats, and sat down on the seat next to the window.

As he looked out the window, he thought of Ophelia, and touched his left eye. He winced. There wasn't much yet, but a blueish-blackish ring was forming around his bright blue eyes. All he wanted was Ophelia to join him in the lonely compartment. But if she did, she'd see his eye, and he'd have to explain everything. Which, even to his crush of two years, was hard. She was such a sweet, firey, thing, that he didn't want to burden her with his problems. Especially ones that involved his dad. Why did life have to be so difficult?

the train back - Polyvore

Ophelia was both officially a teen and officially in the HOUSE! Well, not the actual house, because there weren't actually houses on trains, but still. The train house. No, that sounded weird. House train? Party Train? Train hotel? Hotel Train? Okay, naming was hard! Never mind that, it was the thought that counted, right? The thought of party trains or party houses traveling around Europe like a moving tour.....

IDEA!

Okay, the little blonde was really going to have to find Austin and a seat now, because as dictator, her first task for him was going to be to commandeer a train for their use. Well, them and anyone she liked, of course. They could have an inconspicuous moving home that would let them get from place to place and plan out everything while simultaneously dancing to whatever new music she could find. YES! She was a genius. An evil genius perhaps, but genius was genius no matter how misguided. And it gave her an excuse to talk to him, and it continued their little hypothetical game.

Okay, seriously, where was this boy? Was he invisible? Did he even come to Hogwarts this year? He said he was going and if she found out that he had to stay home fore some reason, Ophelia would literally find his house, go there, and drag his butt back onto the Hogwarts express, school clothes or no school clothes. She wasn't going a whole year without him. A couple of months had been torture. A year would be a death sentence.

Finally finding Austin in the back of the train, the shorter girl smiled and went up to his compartment right away. She didn't need an invitation to sit down or anything. It was something that she knew she was going to do and he probably expected. They sat together practically everywhere, even her parents started shifting over at dinner and on the couch so they could sit together. Which was incredibly awkward. But incredibly sweet. Even if Issac snickered a bit every time.

Opening the train compartment, Ophelia smiled at her crush and sat down next to him, placing her suitcase across from their seat and giving it one last look before ignoring it completely for more important matters at hand. Like hello's and talking about their summer and falling asleep on his shoulder because seriously, you barely slept and you're really super tired. All of that. Especially the last one. the Ravenclaw was a sleepy child.

"First order of buisness, I need you to commandeer a train. Any kind, though it needs to be big enough to party in. I'll tell you the exact reason why later, but all you need to know about is train." The gleam in her grey eyes aluded that this was a joke, which she hoped he understood. Please don't get her arrested for stealing a train. Ophelia didn't need that on her record.

And yes, that was how she chose to greet him. In more formal and respectable circles, they might actually... say hello, but Ophelia really wasn't into all of that stuff. the girl with the newly short hair was more of a go with the flow/do whatever kind of person mixed with a feisty personality. A terrifying, yet winning combination. But seriously, that stupid train wasn't getting out of her head and it was bothering her because the invention seemed so great.

And there was the matter of clothes. Why she kind of looked like she rolled out of bed and then continued rolling to the train station. Well, it was tradition. She dressed down for the train every year, although the first and second years were an accident caused by not having enough time. This time, the youngest Clarke child barely slept at all the night before. She was probably going to crash on the train and drool all over herself in front of her crush, but tradition.

"Also, I'm not hiding from anybody. The clothes are tradition. For the record, this top is really cute and I'm kind of mad that I wore it." Pulling on her green top to make a point, Ophelia sort of pouted to show her disdain. Man, she felt like she hadn't talked to Austin for a while now, even though it was only several days. she wanted to talk to him constantly. What? He was cute and fun to talk to. Sue her.

HOLY EYE BATMAN! What happened to it exactly? Why was it all messy? Did Austin get into a fight? Did she have to teach him self-defense? Her she was, blathering on about trains and the kid was in pain! Nope, Ophelia was going to spring into care mode now. Enjoy you Blue- Eyed Teddy Bear.

"Merlin! Your eye!" It was practically a whisper with both curiosity and the fact that she didn't want to attract unwanted attention. "Are you okay? Do you want sweets to distract from the pain?" More important matters to attend to at the moment than sweets called her, however, and Ophelia focused her attention towards him again. "Who did this?" Who could hurt the sweetest and cutest boy in the world? She would kill them. The little blonde would find a way to use her small height to her advantage and hurt them incredibly. Okay? Okay. Nobody messed with him! Nobody!

On the train

It was no surprise that Ophelia had found her way to the train. She sat down next to him and didn't even say hello. Which, was to no surprise again. They had spent the whole summer with each other and had never said good bye. So there was no need for a hello.

As Ophelia's number one adviser, it was up to him to tell her if her plans were too much, or if she should take another path. "I will be on the hunt as soon as we get into the castle. Although, this is the time of the year when people are buying trains, so all of the good ones will be gone. We need to wait until the winter when the snow tracks are covered. No one wants a train in the winter." Did he also forget to mention that he would provide his queen with whatever she wanted? Yes, he knew she was kidding, but it was a lot of fun to mess around. There was so much material here that they could really go on with this for years.

He looked over at Ophie's shirt, and immediately knew that was a mistake. She definitely saw his bruising eye. But he was going to try to avoid it as much as possible. And the best way to start that was going to compliment this girl on her shirt. "Why do you hate it? I've seen you wear it before, it looks good on you. Hey, if you keep pouting like that, a jumping chocolate frog is going to land on it." Maybe that was a good thing, chocolate was good. And maybe it would calm the mini freak out that Ophelia was having.

Okay so there were two options. Lie, or tell the truth. It was a dilemma that Austin had always came to, when talking to Ophelia. It wasn't that he wanted to lie to her, it was just that he didn't like telling her horrible things. The sad thing was, was that Ophelia could always catch his lies, so there wasn't a point. Nothing got past her. The fourth year sighed and scratched his chin. He wanted to grow a beard, mainly because Ophelia had told him not to. But that hadn't gone as smoothly as he wanted. It took weeks for any sort of stubble and to this day it was still stubble. He probably wouldn't have a full beard for months.

Back to the topic at hand... "I've got candied fairy lights in my bag, thanks." That was the candy situated. Candied fairy lights were his favorite, so he bought them on his way to the station. He was saving them for when things got really bad on this train ride. "Honestly Ophie, I'm fine." And there the lie was. His eye throbbed, and hurt even more when it was touched. But he wasn't going to let her know that. She was already worried about him in general. There's no need to throw fuel in the fire. "Honestly, I'm fine. I wanted to practice my potion making one more time before the term, and I put in too much ginger snap... well... Snap!" Yea, that wasn't a fun adventure. But now he knew to use as little ginger snap as possible. Or to be careful when putting too much. Maybe there was a way to control that... hmmm...

Did someone say Gabriel Banner?

Right. So, no one had actually said anything...but Toby hadn't been the only one looking for a bit of solitude, either. IF that's why Toby was sitting alone, of course. In the Banner's case, he'd needed a few moments to regroup before taking his place in the Prefect's compartment. And by 'regroup', he'd had 'anxiously revising Quill details' in mind. It hadn't been the slightest bit difficult leaving his family...but saying 'goodbye' to Mr. Emerson had been a different story. So, anything 'newspaper' related soothed his turbulent emotions.

Having already stowed his belongings in the luggage compartment, Gabe entered the compartment and quickly took a seat. It was awkward to remain standing when the other person was already sitting.

"You don't mind, do you?" That he was joining him, Gabe meant...

Toby had been alternating between peering of the window of the train, and looking through the glass of the compartment door, keeping an eye out for people but not quite able to keep his gazed fixed on one point for very long. Which... wasn't exactly unusual for him, so no big deal, really. At one point he'd produced a square of paper from his jacket pocket and was now folding it in a very precise way, glancing at it every now and then. Keeping those idle hands busy.

He'd just looked up from that when the compartment door opened, and in came none other than Gabriel Banner. Toby broke into an instant grin on seeing him, and automatically took his feet down from where they were propped 'cause MANNERS.

"Hey Gabriel!" he said warmly, sitting up a little straighter in his seat. "'Course not, I don't mind at all." Yes yes hi friend yes. "How's things?" A vague question that could easily be met with a vague answer if he wanted. Gabe never seemed the type for small talk, but Toby was, y'know, genuinely interested.

With a lot of moving out of the way and slipping around people in the aisle to the compartment the small brunette finally reached the back of the train. It was starting to get crowded now with everyone talking to friends or trying to find a place to sit. Sliding open yet another compartment door Hady let out a relieved sigh to see it was empty. Without another moments thought she slipped inside shutting the door almost fully.

Letting the strap of her bag slip from her shoulder and down her arm she allowed it to drop on the bench before sitting nearest to the window. Shifting sideways so her back was against the train wall/window she pulled one leg up onto the bench folding it underneath her, the other foot hanging down towards the floor. Now that she was semi comfortable Hady set Hagan down on her lap where the calico promptly curled back up and went to sleep with a paw over his eyes.

Barely smiling at her cat she tucked the green strand of her hair back behind her ear once more before resting her head back on the window and shutting her eyes. This was going to be a very long ride...

Abby found a seat in the back cars and pulled out her diary and started to write in it until someone came in to give her some company

So this was the steaming red engine train that brought the magical people to Hogwarts eh? It was…okay he guessed… though he expected something more …spectacular. After placing his luggage in the luggage compartment and taking his backpack with him, Yoongi walked the long corridor to the back of the train.

Everywhere else was pretty much full already and as a new guy he didn’t feel like jumping in to a compartment with people who already knew each other, too awkward. So he walked on, searching an empty compartment. After he reached the back door of the train and having found none of the compartments empty, Yoongi sighed. Guess he had to pop up in one of the occupied compartments.

He walked back and the first nearly empty compartment he saw had a young girl sitting in. She appeared to be asleep. Well, he wasn’t going to stay in the corridor all day so he carefully opened up the door and slid it back close after he had entered. Trying not to disturb her sleep , because he know how important beauty sleep was , no questions, he placed the bag down and sat down opposite of her. He did hope she would wake up soon though. He did not like long silence…

SPOILER!!: Yoongi

So this was the steaming red engine train that brought the magical people to Hogwarts eh? It was…okay he guessed… though he expected something more …spectacular. After placing his luggage in the luggage compartment and taking his backpack with him, Yoongi walked the long corridor to the back of the train.

Everywhere else was pretty much full already and as a new guy he didn’t feel like jumping in to a compartment with people who already knew each other, too awkward. So he walked on, searching an empty compartment. After he reached the back door of the train and having found none of the compartments empty, Yoongi sighed. Guess he had to pop up in one of the occupied compartments.

He walked back and the first nearly empty compartment he saw had a young girl sitting in. She appeared to be asleep. Well, he wasn’t going to stay in the corridor all day so he carefully opened up the door and slid it back close after he had entered. Trying not to disturb her sleep , because he know how important beauty sleep was , no questions, he placed the bag down and sat down opposite of her. He did hope she would wake up soon though. He did not like long silence…

Having been somewhat calm and relaxed the last few minutes Hady didn't bother to open her eyes when the door to ther compartment she was in opened. Whoever it was was being rather quiet. Probably trying not to disturb her which was nice of them. However that instantly gave the young girl a feeling of not knowing who had come in. Surely if it was a friend of hers they'd have said something by now.

Still hearing the quiet movement of footsteps and then someone sitting Hady slowly opened her eyes as she turned her head to see who it was. He appeared to be maybe a year or two older then her but she didn't think he was at the school before. Must be a new kid.

"Hello." She offered quietly in a simple greeting followed by a small smile. "I'm Hady, you must be a transfer student huh?"

Strutting, smirking and general winking at random passers by. Just Grayson's everyday way of walking down the train corridor.

But obviously, he was looking for a spare compartment and that girlfriend of his. The front compartment was filled with overexcited first years that Grayson didn't want to be dealing with because seriously? Where in the freaking name of Merlin did they get all that energy from? Jeez. So he had moved past THAT area and the middle area -- buncha weirdos -- and headed to the back. The back was where all the cool kids sat, anyways.

Strut strut struttin' strut.

Oh hey! Spare compartment! SCORE.

Heading inside, Grayson flopped down on a seat and stretched out on it. A packet of Bertie Botts was taken out and, after taking one of the bad boys out, he tossed the bean up in the air and caught it in his mouth. Mmmmm! Chocolate frog!

This was the life, man.

He wondered if the girl was actually sleeping or just pretended to be to avoid conversation. He did that some times when he didn't feel like talking to anyone. Watching her closely to see any signs of actual sleeping, Yoongi cocked his head to the side a little and then sat up straight again when she woke up. Had he done that or?

"Hi" he greeted back with a flash of a smile. Wow this was awkward. Luckily she had questions ready because he had ....too many that would just annoy her. "Yup i am , transfered from Charms school" he said as he reached inside his jeans pocket and pulled out a lip balm. "I'm Yoongi" he said while applying the balm to his dry lips and put it back in his jeans. "Are you in one of those houses? Shufflepuff its what they're called right?" he really need to pay attention to people from now on...

At first, Jenna wasn't sure whether it would be better to try to find an empty compartment or try some random one that already had a few students in it and see if they'd let her in. The latter was probably a better way to start making friends, but finding an empty one seemed a little more appealing because she was feeling compelled to write in her journal about all this. It could wait until she was in her dorm, technically, but right now her head was buzzing with this whole new experience, so she really wanted to get it written and out of her head.

So she settled for the empty compartment choice and, fortunately, found one further in the back. She plopped down onto one seat, leaning her back against the window-side and pulled out a pencil and the new journal she'd bought at Scribbulus. Turning it open to a fresh new page, she used her legs as a sort of desk and began scribbling away.

Hogwarts hadn't arrived yet but Noel was already annoyed. Walking past the million students hugging each other right in the middle of the corridor and filled compartments, Noel Wallace TRIED to find a place he could spend the last of his peaceful Hogwarts-free hours sulking in peace. The fifteen year old may have shoved a couple of first years aside and pretended like he didn't when they went 'HEEY'.

He wasn't purposely being a bitter puff, he just had his reasons. The summer had been too good to be true and now it was back to Hogwarts and it's drama. Suffice to say, he wasn't looking forward to it at all. Noticing a rather empty compartment at first glance, the hufflepuff moved inside and shut the door before anyone followed. Collapsing face down on the seat, Noel may have let out a groan before turning his head and finding someone already there.

Oh look, she was busy writing. Fun. "Hello" he greeted.

He had promised Maddie that he would find her and they would sit together and spend the whole train ride catching up, the four of them. And he had every intention to do just that, but it was hard. With kids walking every which way and compartments being taken up, it never got easier to find your friends.

Peaking into a compartment, Kyroh was just about to move along when a mop of blond hair caught his eye. Opening the door he stepped right in grinning. "Hey! Noel!" There was another girl too! Tilting his head to the side, Kyroh waved. "Hey girl I don't know at all!"

Trunk in the luggage compartment, this was as ready as Cinna had been to go back all summer. No sense in fighting it. She was still going to have to go back. Just two more years she could handle two more years of school. Right? Sure. She could figure out a way to get through the next two years of school. Anyway. She should find an empty compartment or find where Bart or Emmy had gotten to. She would even settle for Mitchie and Kody, too.

She looked around for a compartment. Noticing that the compartments was filling up fast she decided to grab the first empty compartment that she found. Peeking in one of the compartments. Great. it was empty she slid the door open and got inside. She tossed her bag in the opposite seat and flopped down in the seat closest to the window. She spotted her dad still standing on the platform she watched to see what he was up to. One good thing about going back to school was she wouldn't have to see them until Christmas. He was waving at her and she waved back. Turning her head and facing the door of the compartment to see who was talking by.

Eden was very sad. Her entire...BEING was sad.

And she couldn't find a way to cheer herself up, either. Phoenix...he wasn't coming back. And she'd known all summer--they'd talked about it, fought about it, cried about it.....all summer. But it was still hard, and she felt like...she was being torn away from her best friend in the entire world. She had Clara..she had Cole..she had others. But Phe...she would miss her Phe/:

She didn't know where to sit, but she peeked into a compartment and saw Abby...and decided she might as well stop in and say hi. "How's you, Abby?" she asked as she slipped inside. "Hope you don't mind--"

Eden's eyes were all moist and she sniffled as she wiped her nose on her sleeve.

Abby smiled at Eden her fellow housemate and said "I am good thank you Eden, and you look sad about something" Abby could tell that her friend was upset about something but she knew that Eden would only tell her about it when she was ready

Eden sighed as she sat down across from the girl and shrugged. "Just...one of my friends--my---" Boyfriend? Eden didn't know how to explain things to people most times. One of her boyfriends? HA!

"My friends Phe...isn't coming back and...I...just feel sad." She said softly, looking at her lap. She hated this already. Was her mirror nearby?

Abby looked at Eden and said "Oh i am sorry to hear that Eden it must not be great to have a close friend not return to school for the new term" Abby wanted to give Eden a big hug cause it looked like she needed one

Eden nodded. "It is hard and I hate it and I didn't even want to come." She had cried a lot...poor Phe. She didn't want him to feel bad...but...this just felt unfair/:

She was now accepting hugs, yes.

Abby nodded and went over to sit by Eden and gave her a big hug "I know what your feeling but at least you decided to return even if it was a hard decision for you"

"True, right now it's a sellers market for train buying. In the winter, nobody buys, so we should get a better price. I can pay half with my piggy bank money if you pay half with yours. Deal?" And the little blonde held out her hand as if making an important business deal. To be honest, Ophelia barely knew what she was talking about, being thirteen and not interested or knowledgeable in the markets and all. However, her dad talked about this stuff all of the time, and whatever she said was stuff he said all of the time. Besides the piggy bank thing. That was all Ophelia. All adorable Ophelia.


And the chocolate frog thing was cute. Merlin, he was cute. Ridiculously cute. But he was wrong. There was a reason she didn't like this shirt, and for dramatic effect, the short girl rolled her round grey eyes and let out a biiiiiig sigh. Because drama, ya know?

"I don't like this shirt because it's TRADITION. Every year I wear something casual and sort of sloppy on the train ride to Hogwarts. This year I look all not sloppy and everything! I want to look like a sloppy mess!" She pouted her lip extra just to spite him, sighing again as if this were a problem he had to fix somehow. Because it was. And even though she knew he would go to the ends of the earth for her -and for the record she would do the same for him- this was not going to be easy to fix.

And then there was the bruise on his eye. Oh Merlin, she was going to make so many snapping jokes with that. He asked for it. Okay, he didn't at all, but in her mind he did for telling her about the snapping thing. Her eyes gleamed with mischief and she stopped pouting and uncrossed her arms long enough to spit a few out.

"This is why you shouldn't make SNAP choices. Wasn't that joke just Snappy? I mean, I should probably treat you GINGERLY, but the opportunity was too good and I had to SNAP it up!" Someone stop the short haired girl before she hurt herself. Seriously, these were getting baaad. And that was saying something.

Austin shook her hand. "Deal, Queenie." She really seemed to know what she was talking about. Even though both of them knew otherwise. But again, it was fun to play along. "It's a good thing I brought my piggy bank to Hogwarts then." Okay, so he didn't have a piggy bank. The money he had was stored elsewhere. But he would spend it all on a train if that's what Ophie wanted. So long as he had enough money afterwards to buy candy. That was the deal breaker.

Austin put his hand on his chin, and pretended to ponder. "Ophie darling you look fabulous." He chuckled at the fake accent he did. It wasn't grand, but it got his point across. "But since you already broke your original tradition, we could make a new one. Maybe instead of dressing like a slob, we should dress up nice and fancy." That would be a cool idea actually. He looked down at his own flannel and skinny jeans. He didn't look like a slob, which was good. "I now feel under dressed. I should have worn a nice dress shirt or something." Oh well.

Someone call the police, Austin was being murdered by cuteness. How could his jokes ever stand up to her awesome? Oh right, this is how. "Oh, it was just a SNAP decision. I was in such a daze that I didn't SNAP out of it in time, and added too much ginger snap. Next time I need to be GINGER about the amount I use."

He let out a laugh, glad to be smiling again. It was always nice to have Ophelia around. She could always make him happy, and even made his stupid bruise stop hurting. It was a dumb mistake. He knew that if he added too much something would happen. But he wanted to increase the length of the effect, which he know knew was not going to happen by adding more ginger snap.

"Do you think that we'll be leaving soon? I really want to get to that feast." The feast was the best part of the whole thing. There were endless amounts of food and pumpkin juice to go around. Hopefully this year will go better than last years feast. Maybe he could actually enjoy it this term.