Watching.
Larry scoffs and looks around the train for an empty booth, he realizes in horror that he wasted his time arguing with Travis and now there’s only one booth with room.
He mutters something under his breath and sits in the seat across from Travis, begrudgingly of course. Sal sits next to Larry, but he’s not really upset at all at with having to sit with Travis. In fact, he’s kinda glad to see him again.
Travis is NOT happy with having to sit with Larry. “Can’t believe I have to sit with you idiots”, Travis mumbles, loud enough for only Larry to hear. It’s really only aimed at Larry anyways. Larry rolls his eyes but decides not to say anything for once.
Travis is, kind of obviously, avoiding eye contact with Sal. He knows that Sal didn’t necessarily reject him, because it’s not like he confessed, nor does Sal know the letter was for him. It honestly feels like he was rejected though, or maybe he’s being dramatic. Travis feels… mad. Although that’s kind of his automatic reaction to everything. He knows he can’t be mad at Sal though, I mean, he didn’t really do anything wrong.
As Harry is walking back to his booth with Ron, he spots in the corner of his eye, him.
Harry sees the blue haired masked kid and the blonde twink, he immediately feels jealous of them. They get to sit next to the love of his life. How dare they.
His jealousy and anger quickly dissipates upon making eye contact with Larry.
‘Him again?’, Larry thinks to himself, ‘I feel like he’s always watching me or something…?’
Harry gets flustered and his face flushes as Larry takes notice of him.
‘His attention is on ME right now.’
Harry panics inside and immediately leaves to go back to his booth, as that was what he was originally doing in the first place.
Once Harry gets back to his booth, of course the ginger has some shit to say to him.
“So… you’ve been looking at that kid quite a bit, got something you wanna confess man?”, Ron questions his friend.
“What? Oh, I’m just looking at the kid with the mask, pretty odd right?”, Harry is lying through his teeth. He can’t let anybody know how much he’s been thinking of Larry ever since he saw him, not even his best friend.
Hermione raises her eyebrow and gives Harry a look. She always has been able to tell when people are lying, she assumes it’s just a crush though and doesn’t say anything to Harry.
Only if she knew the reality of Harry’s “crush”.
Sal finally notices the blonde avoiding his gaze. ‘Did I do something wrong? I don’t think I’ve said anything to him since school went out. Maybe he’s just awkward because of our conversation in the bathroom. I thought it went well though.
Wait. Did something happen at home? I know his dad is shitty and maybe that’s why he doesn’t wanna look at me, because I know what goes on at home’
Sals thoughts spiral. Even though Travis has treated him and his friends kinda shitty in the past, he wants to understand him. Sal has always had a bad habit of trying to find the good in people, or is that a good habit? He knows he doesn’t really understand Travis, but he wants to.
He really wants to understand.
Sal decides to just go for it and try to talk to Travis.
“So… uh… what brings you to Hogwarts man?”, Sals voice is unsure and awkward, not really knowing what to say to him.
Travis just shrugs and looks everywhere besides Sal.
‘Ok, I’m not being delirious, something is definitely up’, Sal thinks after getting Travis’ dry ass response.
Sal can’t take it. He hates having Travis so blatantly ignore him.
“Did I do something wrong to make you mad? I feel like we were on pretty decent terms when school went out, what happened?”, Sal says finally confronting him.
Sal didn’t assume he and Travis would be besties or some shit after their conversation at Nockfell. But holy shit, Travis could at least look at him, call him a slur or something.
Travis didn’t expect Sal to question him about his behavior, he has to think for a moment of what to respond with to that. It kinda makes him feel bad that he made Sal think that he did something wrong, because he really didn’t. He’s not trying to avoid Sal but what does he even say to him? ‘Oh sorry, I’m just mad because you basically said that you’re straight and I’m too fucking delusional to get over it’. Yeah let’s not say that.
Larry looks between Sal and Travis in confusion. He has no idea about what’s going on. At all.
Travis decides to come up with some bullshit excuse.
“Im just tired, and your dumbass brother was just bitching at me”, he mumbles the last part, he knows Sal can’t hear him when he mumbles due to Sals injury causing him to be deaf in one ear. Don’t… ask how he knows that. He may watch Sal a bit too much.
“Ugh, shut up”, Larry says in return.
Sal knows Travis is lying, but decides to just take the excuse. Atleast he doesn’t seem to be mad at Sal like he had thought.
Later on in the train, Travis does actually end up falling asleep. His head against the window. ‘He looks peaceful for once’, Sal thinks. Travis’ hair has grown out quite a bit during the summer, his black roots starting to come in, clashing with his artificial blonde. His hair covers half his face as he sleeps.
Larry notices Sal’s staring and decides to tease him.
“Don’t tell me you’re worried about the church boy?” Larry says trying not to laugh.
Sal scoffs and bickers back and forth with Larry, albeit quietly because Sal doesn’t want to wake up Travis.
The interaction between the three Nockfell boys is somewhat melancholic, almost as if they’re back at home.
Harry, however, is watching.