Alone Among the Crowds Solo Finished

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Date: 01/09/24 | Time: 11:00 | Outfit: Plain robes | CC: #711919
────────────────────────────────

The train moved silently as Phoenix reclined in her seat, eyes on the curtain of the platform receding distance away. The sound of wheels against metal created a hum that resonated through, translating white noise within the thrum of ideas racing in her mind.

She had not even noticed how tightly she was gripping the edge of the seat until her fingers cramped. She let her hands fall into her lap, although knotting in her shoulders did not cease. It always was that when she left home—this strange feeling of extrication, as if she were moving into an alien world without ever being quite sure if she belonged there more so than she had at home.

The room was vacant at the moment, the quiet a momentary reprieve from the noise and chatter of the other students. Yet she couldn't shake the sense of solitude. She wasn't sure if it was the room she had just exited or the one she would be entering at Hogwarts, but somehow the solemnity of both of them was smothering her.

Beyond the window, the world whizzed past but she hardly noticed the approaching scenery. Her mind was a vortex of doubt—regarding the upcoming school year, the people she'd be living with, about pieces of herself yet undiscovered.

Phoenix glanced up at the doorway to the compartment door, premature entry shocking her out of daydream. She didn't say anything, didn't even register who was standing in front of her initially. No, she just went along the course of looking out the window, hoping that if she ignored they were there, they'd go away.─────

────────────────────────────────
| 𝑰𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉: @ | 𝑴𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈: @ |
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Date: 01/09/24 | Time: 11:00 | Outfit: Plain Robes | CC: #711919
────────────────────────────────

The footsteps retreated. Whoever had opened the door must have caught the expression on her face—or perhaps simply the barrier of silence she stood behind—and declined to invite himself in. Good. That was the way she preferred it.

Phoenix rested against the chill of the windowpane, her breath drawing a delicate mist on the glass. Beyond, the countryside passed in a gentle flow of greens and gold, the glint of tree or cottage lost in the moment that it was seen. It ought to be peaceful, that rhythm, that stillness. But her mind would not grant her the indulgence.

The Hogwarts letter, which was still stuck in the side pocket of her rucksack, had promised adventure. Maturity. Belonging. All the usual sorts of things adults said when they were attempting to get you to do something you hadn't chosen to do on your own two feet. But what if she didn't require adventure? What if she simply did not want to be so tired trying to squeeze herself into spaces that never quite appeared built for her?

She dug into her coat pocket and pulled out a dog-eared notebook. The corners were bent, the cover worn halfway off. Her handwriting scrawled across the page in uneven lines: notes, fragments of thought, lists of things not said. She opened it, came to a blank page, and unscrewed her pen.

Hogwarts Express – First Year
Sept. 1
The carriage to myself. Good.
Too noisy out there. Too many others pretending to be courageous.

Maybe I'm pretending too.

She paused. Tapped the pen on the page. Looked at the words.

Maybe I'm also acting.

The train plunged into a patch of shadow as it growled under a bridge, the light in the compartment dimming for an instant. Phoenix stared at her image in the glass—soft, indistinct, indefinite—and moved away.

She slammed the notebook shut and pushed it back into her jacket. The silence came back, but this time it felt oppressive. The train rushed on towards Hogwarts, and Phoenix sat rigidly, in the midst of the crowds, attempting to take a desperate guess at what she would need to be in order to survive this fresh beginning.─────

────────────────────────────────
| 𝑰𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉: @ | 𝑴𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈: @ |
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Date: 01/09/24 | Time: 11:00 | Outfit: Plain Robes | CC: #711919
────────────────────────────────

The hours ticked away in a blur of motion and half-heard sound. Outside her compartment, the train pulsed with life—laughter, footsteps, the distant clang of the snack cart making its way from car to car—but it never invaded her space. No one came to her door. No one knocked. She hadn't expected them to.

Phoenix did not move. She slumped in her chair, stiff as stone, her hands gently folded in her lap. She barely noticed the ache in her legs, the stiffness seeping into her shoulders. She was thankful for it. Pain meant time had passed. Silence meant she still had no one.

Silence was the only companion who never asked anything of her. Never lied. Never left.

The window beside her melted into smears of fading light as the train roared north. The warmth of late afternoon grew to the gentle, shaded blue of evening. Gold edged far-off clouds, overspilling the sky. Shadows in the compartment grew longer and stretched thin across the floor, swaying to the motion of the train. Slowly, the voices on the other side of the glass steadied, their urgency ebbed away. Even the most vocal students were tiring.

That was fine by her.

She shifted only once, her forehead against the window. The chill of the glass invaded her skin. She let it.

At last, with a cry of brakes and a low whistle, the train finally started to slow.

Phoenix stood, her back stiff with disuse. Her heart pounded faster, hard and still, steady as a drum in her chest. She looked again out of the window and saw the flash of lights along a distant shore. Behind them was the mountains—black, high, still—and low at the base, gleaming on the dark face of the lake, stood a castle with a light in it.

Hogwarts.

The name didn't seem so distant. No longer just a breath on the page, a whispered memory shared with her by her parents. Now it had weight. Form. Shape. Shape. Not in writing. Not in words spoken in promise. Only. there.

A castle at the end of line.

Voice commanded over the din: trunks to be left behind, leave in bunches. The initial years would be rounded up and driven out. The standard drill. Phoenix was not reminded twice. She pulled on her coat, fingers flying in automatic haste, then rummaged in her bag and shoved creased notebook into the inside pocket—corners frayed, the cover familiar under her fingertips.

She rose, but didn't go on to leave yet.

She waited instead.

The compartment was silent. Vacant. A patch of silence branched off from the rest of the train. She breathed for what was an eternity—slow and steady—sucking in the silence that was familiar to her, as if she could fill a flask and bring it along with her.

Then, quietly, she pushed the door open and stepped out into the corridor.

It contrasted so harshly. It was noise. It was motion. It was the shoving of bodies and noise and trembling tension all ways. Children fought forward with smiling faces and guarded grins, yanking on cloaks, feeling for purses, crying out for companions they had but just made. The atmosphere thrummed thick with feeling—anticipation, fear, joy. Phoenix stood back and allowed it to slip by her.

She did not rush. She did not speak. She held her shoulders back, her expression unyielding, and rode with the group never quite one of them.

The earth outside smacked her in the face like a cold splash of water. Darkness had fully fallen now, and the chill in the air stung her skin even through what she wore. The black lake stretched out in front of them, still and glimmering, its surface dotted only by ripples on waiting boats. The moon had painted the water with stripes of silver. A figure stood on one side, tall, with a lantern in his hand and yelling something at the throng of first years.

Phoenix tailed them but always way in the background. Far enough behind so nobody would notice. Close enough to remember that she didn't necessarily need to keep pace with them.

The path to the water was narrow and winding, the lantern light casting long shadows that bounded across the ground. In the distance, looming, was the castle, its windows glowing like eyes, its towers reaching up into the air like silent sentinels.

Some of the students whispered in awe. Some gasped. One of the girls grasped another's arm and said, "It's like a painting."

Phoenix did not see such a view.

She did not dream, but a fortress.

It was enormous, alien, beautiful in the same way winter storms were—something endured, not viewed.

She was not frightened of it. But she did not chase it.

They boarded the boats. Four in a boat. Some students stepped back, ready to be told where to sit, with whom. Phoenix didn't wait a minute. She hopped into the first boat that wasn't overflowing and perched on the inner railing, hands on the railing. The railing was worn wood from years and use.

Something settled beside her. She did not look. Did not care.

The boats rocked peacefully, then slid effortlessly out onto the lake, as if an ethereal hand had drawn them forth. The water was silent and unmoving, only broken by the occasional splash, or the soft susurration of a breath blown across the water.

Above them, the castle loomed, increasing its bulk second by second. Its reflection wavered on the lake, curving and distorting, until it became a mirage. A threshold between worlds.

Phoenix stared at it, unblinking.

She didn't wonder which house she'd be sorted into.

She didn't dream of feasts and common rooms and magic lessons like the others probably did.

She considered masks. Expectations. How quickly people tried to cram you into labels with descriptors like *brave* or *clever* or *kind*.

She thought maybe she could survive intact when they tried it.

The boats grounded.

She arrived when it was her time, feet lightly stepping on the wet rocks. They were led up now, to the open doors of the castle, which yawned like the maw of some old creature waiting.

Phoenix did not glance back.

She did not need to.

The train had disappeared. The platform had disappeared. Home—whatever that was—had disappeared.

Now there existed only the castle.

And she.

Not as one among a crowd.

But as herself.

Alone, among the throngs.

As ever.
─────

────────────────────────────────
| 𝑰𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉: @ | 𝑴𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈: @ |
⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅