This was the first time Sheen had ever seen a Chocolate Frog card. It was the first time for everyone else in Compartment Two as well, and so naturally the conversation turned to the cards.
"Whoa — Devlin Whitehorn!"
"Do you know him?"
"I don't, but I have profound respect for what he accomplished."
Hermione raised an eyebrow and took the card from Justin.
"Devlin Whitehorn — won a bet by consuming an entire Venomous Tentacula and surviving, though his skin remains permanently purple."
She finished reading, turned her head, and fixed Justin with a look, it said 'it was expected but i am still dissapointed'.
"Idiot."
"Fair enough," Justin said, not disputing it in the slightest.
Their attention shifted to Hermione's card next.
"Godric Gryffindor." She lifted her chin, and a broad smile spread across her face. "One of the four founders of Hogwarts. An entire house bears his name."
"Thats Brilliant! — I read about him in Hogwarts: A History. It mentions he left a sword behind somewhere in the castle."
Justin said it with genuine admiration, and Hermione's chin lifted even more in a way that made it perfectly clear she was pleased.
While they talked, the train had long since left London behind. They were flying now past open countryside — wide meadows dotted with sheep and cattle. For a moment neither of them spoke, watching hills rise and fall beyond the window, the occasional horse rider passing in the distance like a figure cut from a painting, white against green.
"He really is very quiet, isn't he," Hermione said, not using a name. She didn't need to.
"Not necessarily." Justin smiled — he had dimples probably the reason his smile held so much warmth. "Sheen, do us a favour and help with this pumpkin pasty, would you?"
A slender hand reached out and the pasty disappeared.
"Thank you." The reply came a few seconds later, from somewhere behind a very thick brown book.
Justin's smile widened.
"My mother always told me that the people who are truly capable, tend to be very quiet. You could drop a mountain in front of them and they wouldn't flinch." His gaze rested on Xian's pilled jacket, on his focused face, and something in Justin's voice became deliberate. "Though they're often not very lucky in life..."
"She said I would always need a friend like that. Her advice was what led me to my friends at Sunningdale. She was right, as it turned out — I think we'll be close our whole lives. We made a pact: different schools or not, we wouldn't lose touch. If you'd like, I'd be happy to show you some of our letters sometime."
He reached over and opened his trunk. Alongside the standard items from the school list, the most striking thing inside was a neat stack of folded letters — and scattered beside them, photographs. Justin with his friends, candid and smiling.
Hermione was still looking at the photographs, faintly surprised, when a voice broke through from the corridor — high and wobbling with the effort of not crying.
"Trevor! Where are you?"
A round-faced boy pushed into the compartment, clutching the doorframe.
"I'm sorry — excuse me — has anyone seen my toad?"
---------------------------------------
By the time Sheen's concentration finally broke, they were already two thirds of their way to Hogsmede, he glared at the amber light of the compartment that had come on suddenly, the culprit that had broken his concentration only to immediately regret his descision as he looked down at his book again.
'Magical world but still no such thing as a light that doesn't hurt when you look at it."
He rubbed his eyes. The compartment was empty. Outside, the sky had gone dark. He was just reaching for his robes when he closed One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi and found a folded note tucked inside the cover. Had he really been so absorbed in reading that he hadn't even realised that the paper had been placed in the book he was reading..?
[ Sheen — we've gone to help a boy called Neville find his toad. Come find us in the corridor if you like. ]
Sheen thought for a moment, then turned the note over and wrote on the back:
[ We're nearly there. Don't forget to change. ]
He set it on the seat, tucked his robes under his arm, and stepped out into the corridor.
It was considerably louder than before. Hours of travel had done their work — the young witches and wizards had found each other, and the noise levels had risen accordingly. Xian passed one compartment and caught the tail end of an argument inside.
"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow — turn this fat rat yellow."
A boy's voice, young and uncertain.
"Are you sure that's actually a spell?" A girl this time. "It doesn't look like much, does it? I've tried a few simple ones at home, just to practise, and they all worked. So — here, look. Reparo."
Sheen had a fairly good idea of what was happening. He was about to move on when a platinum-haired boy threw the compartment door open from the other side, two large companions close behind him.
Sheen knew, without thinking, exactly what would come next.
He was right.
"I'd be careful if I were you, Potter."
The voice was smooth but the way he spoke was entirely unpleasant.
"You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there. Some wizarding families are better than others. You wouldn't want to end up like your parents, would you? Getting too close to the likes of the Weasleys — or Hagrid — that's how reputations get ruined."
What a remarkably vicious little mouth, Sheen thought, and walked on without looking back.
A shout followed from the compartment not long after. He didn't need to hear the details — Scabbers had bitten Goyle most likely, buying Harry some breathing room.
If he remembered correctly, this was the one and only time Peter Pettigrew had ever done anything useful for Harry Potter.
By the time the little compartment had filled up again, the train's thundering had reached its peak. The great scarlet engine was slowing.
Beyond the window, under a sky the colour of a bruise, there was nothing but a long dark line of mountains and trees.
Hermione and Justin could barely contain themselves. The three of them filed off the Hogwarts Express onto a tiny, dimly lit platform.
At the far end, a lamp swayed in a large hand. Its bearer was enormous — the sort of figure that, glimpsed at a distance in the dark, belonged to the kind of story where giants ate people.
The night air was sharp.
But Sheen didn't shiver. He was no longer wearing the donated clothes — worn at the seams, pilled, slightly too large. He was wearing his Hogwarts robes now, plain and properly lined.
They were warm. His cheeks reddened just a little as he felt the plus fibres he smiled, he was warm.
Following Hagrid through the trees, when the castle finally came into view, every young witch and wizard drew a breath and said, as one:
"Oh—"
Justin said it the loudest by a considerable margin, which earned him several sharp looks including one from Hermione.
"Hermione — Eton is not easy to walk away from. But I made the right choice. Just look at it. Look at those floating candles, and the moving gargoyles, and the — the sheer scale of it—"
He shook his head, something quietly earnest in his expression.
"If my mother could see this right now — I think she'd be proud of me."
They climbed into the boats and crossed the black lake. They passed through the boathouse, up the cliff staircase, and came at last to a halt before the great entrance hall of the castle.
Professor McGonagall stepped forward to explain what would happen next.
(End of Chapter)