Compartment 7 Finished

Michelle continued to eat the jelly beans surpassing the ones that looked like they might taste gross. She wondered who had even thought these treats up, the whole point of candy was to have something sweet and enjoyable not to eat something that tasted like vomit. She really didn't understand the thoughts behind wizards things, like the chocolate frogs they were super cool but who would want to eat something moving, and it almost felt like eating something alive. 

Just then Ava showed up, Michelle had been wondering where she was but in the craziness of what happened she hadn't gone to look for her, she felt kinda bad for that but Ava seemed to be in good shape. "Have I missed something?" Ava asked. Boy did you ever she thought to herself but Ava didn't seem too interested in actually knowing so she said nothing. 

When Ava asked if they all wanted to meet up at Hogwarts she jumped to answer."Of course! We could all meet after classes the first day, maybe explore the castle a bit? I think that it would be really great." Michelle was really glad Ava brought this up because she didn't want to lose touch so quickly with her new friend. 

Kaegen hoped he'd have time to stay in touch. He doubted that the group was actually referring to him, anyway. He was more of a tagalong, occasionally taking the time to throw sticks at nice girls.
He was glad the rich girl hadn't seen what had happened. It had been a total wreck. Well, at least nothing else bad could happen. Right as he thought that, a cork rolled out from beneath him. The cork stopper was for a vial, and it was kinda strange to see it roll around. He didn't have any extra stopper laying around, at least none that he was aware of.
A sound was heard in the compartment. It was like a glass vial hitting the floor and then rolling for a bit. A horrible smell started to permeate the room, coming from a small column of smoke. The column of smoke was coming from under the bench, but decently far away from kaegen. Where the glass had been heard, actually. Kaegen was frozen for a bit, thinking about how this was the second time he did something stupid. He wondered if the train company would sue him for whatever was going on. He should probably find out what had fallen out.
And then it dawned on him. A salamander was crawling across the floor, melting the floor. The floor was turning into the foul smelling smoke.

Michelle twisted in her seat and looked out the window the green hills were beautiful, in London she barely saw so much open country space. She wondered if it smelt good out there, maybe that was weird but she ha always loved the smell of fresh air and she imagined it was much fresher here than in the city. She sighed, wishing she could be out there right now rolling down the hills, the feel of the soft grass and the earthy smell and obviously the wonderful spinning feeling after the roll where she would just lay back and watch the sky spin until she gets better and does it all over again. She wondered Hogwarts had many hills she could roll down.

Michelle was taken out of her wonderful daydream by the worst thing she ever smelt, it smelt like burning vomit or maybe flesh. She turned around to see who had created such a foul smell but she saw nothing out of the ordinary at first, but when she started investigating she saw a column of smoke under the bench she was sitting on. "What the bloody hell?" She said as she leaned forward trying to see what was creating it, and a salamander looking creature crawled out. She shot back curling her feet up so they weren't on the floor and made a frighted sound. "What is that?"  

"Let's make a pact to all stay friends." Eris said, thinking about the words of her friends. She wanted to hang out with them once she got to school. All of them. She really did like these kids, and hoped she would have more time to learn more about them.

At the sound of a vial falling, Eris frowned, then hearing the noises of fear from her compartment mates Eris twisted in her seat, bending her head down to get a closer look at the thing on the floor. Remembering the boy's joke from before she took a lucky guess. "Is that an acid salamander?" She squeaked, plugging her nose as she talked, so her voice sounded distorted. It may of sounded weird, but at least the smell wasn't so awful.

"Oh no! MY TRUNK!" Eris roared, remembering her truck was on the floor, directly in the path of the thing crawling on the floor. Without thinking, Eris was out of her seat, heart pounding as she carefully hopped onto a seat closer to her trunk, pushing somebody to the side as she grabbed her trunk up from the floor, hands aching as she did so. When she finally reached the trunk and had it safely sitting on an empty seat, Eris awkwardly turned to the person she had pushed off.

"My bad." She muttered, staring at the thing crawling on the floor right where her trunk had been.

The salamander was not especially happy. It had been bumped, and rattled around and there was noise everywhere. To make matters even worse, that thing on the ledge above it was about to eat it! The salamander spit a small glob of acid at Michelle's shoe and bounded with surprising speed across the car. Everywhere it touch turned into a puff of foul smelling smoke.

Kaegen was pretty worried. He should have guessed this train would make it scared, but he had been so scared he hadn't closed the vial properly. He would have to fix this, somehow. He crept a bit out from under the bench and started humming. His tune was different this time, and more obvious. It was calming, sleepy. Like a sweet lullaby. But the salamander was clearly having none of it. It kept bouncing around, and spit more acid up at Kaegen, but he was holding a quarter full vial in his hand. When had he grabbed that? He caught the acid in the vial, it wasn't very fast. His eyes kept flitting around the room. Would the school gloves be enough to pick it up? He didn't want to risk trying to scoop it up in the vial, he'd get too close.
His soft voice, now more like a warm gust of wind then the breeze it was earlier, could be heard inbetween his humming. "Sorry, acid salamander, his name is Vortigern."
As he was thinking the salamander then shot acid at two other targets. The girl's trunk and whoever the girl had shoved.

"NO!" Eris let out a little scream, throwing down the trunk and moving her body to protect whoever was pushed. Bad idea. She should of just used her trunk as a barrier, but it had so many special magical things in it. She rather be hurt than have anything in that trunk hurt. Not to mention, she had all her things from home in it and a whole lot of candy from the trolley, that Eris knew she was going to spend weeks savouring. The acid hit her straight in the back and Eris let out another scream. It had been worth it though, to protect another student and her precious trunk. The shock was so great that Eris hardly felt anything.

She rocked back and forth, falling straight back into her chair with a huff. "Please tell me you can heal that.." She muttered weakly, before closing her eyes. Wether she fainted from pain or shock, it was impossible to tell. But either way, she wasn't awake anymore.

What an eventful ride on the Hogwarts Express this was turning out to be. Their compartment was melting, Eris wasn't awake, and to top things out Ava had bought them a trolley.

Adam stared at the unfolding madness around him and started to laugh. He had cracked a smile at Eris' and Kaegen's jokes, but he had heard one of them before, and the other one was mostly....disturbing. But this, this ridiculously impossible scene playing out in front of him, was so unthinkable that it crossed the line into hysterical. The smell was terrible, the burning carpet, the girls freaking out -- it was all so not funny that it pushed him over the edge. He apologized to the group amid laughter and tried to stop himself, but he couldn't. It was madness. Absolute chaos. It was all he could've asked for.

Adam had been a bit wary boarding the train this morning, but it had turned out much better than he expected. He had gotten to meet up with Ava and Eris again, which was practically a miracle by itself. They had all met Michelle, the kind, wonderful girl that he had gotten wonderfully close to on this short voyage. Next came Kaegen, strange, unreadable, inexplicably likable Kaegen. And he couldn't forget about Eri. He would be sure to meet up with Eri again; she had a pension for books, and Adam had vowed to read more this year. He couldn't have thought up this compartment arrangement, and he couldn't imagine a better one.

Oh no. Eris had fainted. Maybe now's a good time to stop laughing, you dork, he thought, and rushed to help her. The salamander -- Vortigern, he remembered, and had to hold back another bout of amused laughter -- was still loose, so he turned to Kaegen and asked, "Can you get him under control?" Next, he addressed Eri and Ava. "Hey, you two are pretty good at finding things, right? Can you get us an ice pack or someone else who can help?"

He didn't know when they were all going to see each other again, but looking around at their compartment, at Michelle and Eris and Eri and Avalon and Kaegen, he knew that they would. Someday, somewhere. After all, there was an acidic salamander running rampant around the room, an unconscious girl laying in front of him, and a red wand mark still visible on Michelle's forehead. To Adam, it seemed like a challenge.

How could they top this next time?

Kaegen was feeling quite a bit overwhelmed. The salamander he could deal with but all these people everywhere pushed it over the top. He didn't know how to deal with people and that girl who he was now positive would be in gryffindor had jumped in front of acid! You don't jump in front of acid!
She could have blocked it or something, couldn't she? And adam was laughing, he was probably headed for slytherin. Now he was asking if Kaegen could get things under control. Well, get vortigern under control. And he was asking for an ice pack? Was he worried about the other girl's forehead at a time like this? Really? The acid on the other girl's shirt was a more pressing concern wasn't it?
He shoved his questions aside, he would deal with them later. His head and arms popped inside his robe like a turtle hiding from a raptor. It bulged and moved about as he looked for things and then an arm came through the hole meant for his head, and a head-sized bulge was trying to fit through the arm hole. The hand was holding a tiny wooden box, and it threw the box in the general direction of adam and eris. He hoped it wouldn't hit them, probably should have thought of that. The head promptly got stuck in the other sleeve as Kaegen found himself somehow trapped in his own robe. It was kind of funny how smooth Kaegen's struggling was, as he finally found the right holes for his arms and head. He had a glass vial in one hand, a folded leaf full of some bizzare looking bugs in the other. He kept up his calm humming as he leapt for the salamander.
But he had to adjust course mid air when more acid flew in his direction.
What a day.

 Michelle heard Eris ask if it was an acid salamander and then things escalated quickly, Eris was grabbing her trunk away from the salamander and then the salamander spit acid at her, she squealed and backed up causing the acid to fall right on her shoe. She flipped her shoe off as fast as to not burn through to her skin and backed into the corner arms surrounding her for protection. How did it even get out, and who the hell was carrying one of those things with them, her bets were on the strange boy he had made a joke about salamanders before. 

"Sorry, acid salamander, his name is Vortigern." she heard the dark haired boy speak, so it was him who brought it and as she was going to give him a piece of her mind, Eris jumped in front of the Salamanders acid attempting to shield someone. Michelle almost rushed up to help but Adam beat her to it and took charge asking for some Ice and the boy to get a hold of the salamander.  She felt awfully bad for not doing anything so she stood up with only one shoe and ran off to get the ice pack and maybe an adult to help out. 

Michelle ran as quickly as she could through the hallways of people shoving people out of the way she didn't exactly know where to go but she spotted the now empty trolley cart and spied a bucket of ice, so she grabbed a small treat bag and stuffed a handful of ice inside, looking around she couldn't any adults, so she ran off with the ice hoping it would at least keep Eris good until they could reach Hogwarts, they were bound to have a Nurse's office there right? 

When Michelle arrived back she tossed off the bag of ice to him, "I couldn't find any adults but I did find some ice." she said out of breath. "She'll be alright until we get to Hogwarts right?" she asked expectantly. 

Kaegen was bouncing around after the salamander, and the salamander was spitting acid at everything that looked like it was scary. The nice girl had gotten ice.... why again? Oh, right the bruise on her head.
Focusing his attention back on vortigern, he tried to catch it again, but again was repelled by the acid. Their compartment was looking really bad. He hoped there was a spell or something to fix all that.
On the bright side, it would be out of acid soon, and then it would be easy to catch! Just so long as everyone in the compartment could stay alive until then.
He glanced at the red headed girl, and at the box sitting next to her on the ground where he had thrown it and realized that he really had to do something. An arm vanished in his robe and reappeared holding a vicious looking slingshot made out of some shining black material. He was also holding a stone, apparently, which he used to shoot vortigern. The little salamander collapsed instantly. "Sorry" He said the quiet apology partly to his friend, partly to his wizard friends, that got in harms way due to vortigern.
He took some of the powder from the box and sprinkled it on the girl's shirt. Stopping the acid. He then started crawling around the floor sprinkling a bit of the dust on the acid, wherever he found it. They forgave him for the wand thing, there was no way they were going to forgive him unleashing an angry acid salamander on them.