The Train
It would take Nerine and Phoena three hours to get to Kings Cross station. They took a muggle train there, as Ollivander called it. Phoena and Nerine now had a shared distrust after the whole compass thing a few weeks ago. Iago said that when they get to Hogwarts, they’ll be able to use the library to find out what this blue magic was.
Nerine was in charge of the compass, she kept it under the same floorboard in her room, but before she left, she stuffed it between her underwear in her clothes trunk. She had also sent a letter to Callum with a new address on it. For muggles this address would read as a boarding school’s box, but it would be taken by Nerine's owl to the dining hall, Phoena had told her.
He always drew her a picture with his letters, so Nerine decided to draw her new school and both of them walking in together. She explained that her address would be different and wished him a good school year at his new secondary school. She wasn’t sure if she would ever see him again, and hoped they would be pen pals even though she was in a different country.
As soon as she started traveling, she became overwhelmed with the idea of meeting other witches and wizards. They transferred from train to train until they got to Kings Cross Station.
“Alright, Platform nine and three quarters is between 9 and 10, obviously. That pillar down there,” he pointed at a distant object that Nerine couldn’t decipher.
However, as they got closer, Nerine saw a girl pushing a cart with an owl and ran it into the pillar Ollivander mentioned.
“What is she!-” Nerine was shocked to see the girl run full speed at the pillar and not crash, but seamlessly disappear into it.
“We’ll have to do that.” Phoena said.
“How?”
They approached the pillar and Phoena walked ahead of Nerine. Ollivander stood between the Champagnes.
He put his arms around their shoulders before saying, “This is where you’ll have to say goodbye. The platform, only wizards can get to.”
Letha awed and sighed. Nerine noticed her eyes changing, sad and overwhelmed.
“Baby,” she opened her arms, Nerine abandoned her cart taken in by her mothers emotions and ran into her arms.
“I’ll see you in breaks darling. Je vous aime, Je t'aime”
“Je t'aime aussi, Tu vas me manquer.” Nerine replied, taking in her mother’s perfume and the feeling of her clothes, she didn’t realize how much leaving her mother would effect her emotions. Over her mother’s arm she saw Ollivander and Nolan, standing and watching.
Letha raised an arm for her husband and he joined.
“Amuse-toi bien.” He said. Letha backed away and Nerine and her father continued to hug.
“Thank you, I love you.” Nerine said.
“Love you too sweetie.” He said, patting her on the head.
“Send letters!” Her mother called out.
“I will!” Nerine replied, she turned to Phoena for her next step.
“You run into it, and close your eyes, if it helps.” Phoena said, her hand guiding Nerine’s eyes to the pillar. “Go ahead.”
Nerine took a deep breath, it was just like the floo flames, she had to trust in the magic.
“Now?” Nerine confirmed, looking back at her parents and Ollivander.
Phoena nodded and gave a sound of approval.
“I love you.” Nerine said, taking one last look at her parents before rushing at the brick. She closed her eyes, it helped.
She only felt the wind rushing past her, as if she was running down the platform freely. The sounds immediately shifted from the beeping and squeaking of a muggle world to the zapping and wheezing of a wizarding one.
She opened her eyes when she noticed the change in lighting. She nearly ran into another cart with an owl before stopping and pulling the motivated wheels from going.
The red train she would take sat to her right. Kids that looked like her with black cloaks and big luggage trunks walked with their parents that dressed like Ollivander with their odd choice in muggle wear. She noticed mother and father wizards, twins, brothers, sisters.
Then she noticed older students with red trimmings on their cloaks, and blue, a green… then a yellow. She heard the racing and creaking of another cart behind her. Phoena arrived, nearly hitting Nerine’s ankles like a shopping cart at the grocery store. They giggled after Nerine leaped out of the way.
Ollivander appeared right after, holding Phoena’s shoulder and ushering them to the train.
“Alright! Off you go!”
Phoena and her dad said goodbyes just before they boarded the train. It was short and casual, like Phoena had been away to Hogwarts before.
“It’s lucky we got here early, there are so many open booths.” Phoena said, they picked one of the first ones as they boarded the train.
Phoena talked to Nerine about the castle, the dining hall, and its bridges. She had never been herself, but the other kids in the neighborhood had brothers and sisters. There was pictures in textbooks too.
Then, they saw Iago and his father walking past their window outside.Theodore Nott looked like his son, they both had the same dead looking eyes and curly brown hair. He was guiding Iago with his hand on his shoulder like Ollivander and Phoena.
“Iago’s here! I’ll stick my head out the door when he walks past.” Phoena said, scooching from the window to the glass wall.
However, when Iago did walk past, he walked with a group of other boys, with his head down and a little behind.
“Iago, we’re in here.” She said as he walked past. They all stopped and watched Iago when Phoena spoke. He shrugged and kept walking. Nerine couldn’t hear what they were saying but there was a tone of questioning as they walk away.
“He didn’t sit with us! Why did he ignore us?” she said, slumping back in the seat.
“His dad maybe.” Nerine surmised, the protective mannerisms she saw before, Iago’s knowledge of Ollivander’s past, and the sneaking around the neighborhood to talk made Nerine assume his father wants Iago to stay with like-minded people… maybe pure-blooded wizards.
“What?”
“Well you said purebloods take themselves seriously, maybe his dad wants him to hang out with other purebloods.”
“No those were not purebloods, everyone knows who the purebloods are, after the wars especially.” Phoena said, shaking her head. “I don’t think they are in the neighborhood either.”
“It’s us then, his dad doesn’t want him to hang out with us.” Nerine said.
Phoena was silent and nodded.
“Maybe those boys are his father’s friends’, do you know what Theodore does, maybe as a job? Work friends?” Nerine offered after they sat in silence, looking out the moving train’s window.
Nerine thought of some of the girls who were daughters of her dad’s business. They never really hung out at school, but they would sleep over sometimes, they would have been her friends in secondary school.
Phoena tilted her head, “Yea… you’re right, his dad is in the magical object business. They have a council and everything, it's their sons.”
“Wouldn’t he have told you about them?”
“Well yes, but I didn’t think he liked them.” Phoena mumbled.
The trolley came after that, they both bought snacks to vanquish the disappointing air. Nerine was introduced to all their snacks, magical and flavorful. Her favorite was the Alihotsy-flavored fudge. Before she ate the last of the fudge, A brunette boy with red trimmed robes and two blonde girls, who Nerine quickly realized were twins, opened the door.
They carried a multitude of chocolate frogs.
“Hey! We kind of got crowded in the other booth, can we join you guys?” the boy said, sitting before waiting for an answer. He sat next to Phoena while the two girls sat next to Nerine.
“Hi! I’m Nerine, this is Phoena.” she said, excited to meet more wizards and witches. She noticed that the girls were the twins she saw before.
“I’m Teller, this is Sophie, and he’s Harry Potter’s son!”
Phoena sat up and Nerine tilted her head.
“Yes, yes… James if you didn’t know.” He said, smiling and nodding his head.
Phoena just looked with wide eyes and a smile, leaving Nerine to talk. She remembered the name Harry Potter as the Auror who killed Voldemort. Ollivander had told her a brief synopsis of the Wizarding War, and Phoena had pictures in her room of him.
“Oh! Cool! How is that?” fumbling for something to say.
“You know I have some tricks up my sleeve, if Voldemort ever comes back… I know a thing or two.” He said, pulling his wand from his cloak and showing it off.
The twins giggled together.
“What year are you?” Nerine asked, remembering his differing robes.
He almost rolled his eyes a bit, the twins looked at her in confusion, she realized that was information she was supposed to know. He really was a celebrity.
“He’s in his second year, this year, last year was his first.” Phoena was in a quiet state, she seemed shy, did she like him?
“Phoena was it?” he said, pointing his wand at her with a limpness in his wrist.
She nodded.
“You’re Ollivander’s daughter?” he paused, in a show of thought. “Were you behind the counter when I got my wand?”
Phoena nodded faster this time. The twins were smiling at eachother, one of them, Sophie, was picking at her nails.
“I bet you’ll be in Ravenclaw like your father, it always ends up like that, I’m in Gryffindor, my parents were in Gryffindor and their parents were in it too.” He looked back at Nerine.
“What were your’s in?” He asked.
“Oh I’m…” Nerine looked at Phoena, her eyes were wide, she was still in starshock. “My parents didn’t go to Hogwarts.”
“Oh, Beauxbatons? I knew it. You have a french accent, right?”
“Well, yes but,” Nerine didn’t know how to explain, didn’t know if she should explain.
“She’s muggle-born.” Phoena finally saved her, quietly, but she did it.
“Oh I see, well I’ll be excited to see what house you turn up in.” he said.
“We hope to be in Gryffindor, but our parents are Ravenclaw and Slytherin.” Sophie said.
Everyone kind of nodded in response.
Then Nerine said, “Oh! Chocolate frogs,” she gestured to the packages they held. “We got some too. We should open them together,” she looked at Phoena, smiling.
Phoena grabbed hers along with the group. They opened them in unison, all five frogs jumping at once, they quickly disanimated after a few seconds, Teller picked hers off the ground and quickly ate it, Sophie knocked her shoulder.
“I got a Mcgonagle!” Nerine was excited, the name that had been on her Hogwarts acceptance letter.
“That’s pretty common,” Sophie said.
“She’s the headmaster right?” Nerine said.
“Yeah, but that’s not rare.” Sophie replied.
“I got her too,” James said, reassurance swept through the booth. Sophie nodded with a big smile at him.
“I got Carmilla,” Phoena admitted. “I know that she is rare.”
“She isn’t.” Sophie said, looking down at hers, “but Agrippa is!” She showed the card off, Teller clapped in approval. “Teller, what did you get?”
The twins started to talk amongst themselves about the card collection. Phoena and Nerine listened in but were overall dejected by Sophie’s comments.
James scooted in, closer to Phoena and leaned in towards Nerine. “Agrippa is not that rare.” he said, Nerine and Phoena smiled.