1st September 2020, 10:50am
Interacting with: @Rhys Hughes, @Aeron Frey, @Felix Renshaw

She hadn't arrived late but here she was, rushing down the train in search of empty seats in any compartment before the train set off from the platform. The edge of her trunk smacked against her leg with each half-step as she dragged it behind her. She paused at each window, obnoxiously staring into it, mulling over her choices, and moving on to the next one.

This was an important choice, or so Jacquelyn had built it up to be in her head. It happened like that in the movies; the friendships you made on the first day would determine your entire school experience, so she needed to make the right choice right now.

That was the warning that the passengers in Jacquelyn's chosen compartment had before she pushed open the door-- wild brown hair, large glasses, and a long considering stare. "Hey!" She greeted extra loud and extra cheery, determined to make the best first impression. "Can me and my friend sit in here, too?" It wasn't really a question; she'd already turned back into the hallway to call out, "Felix! This one!"

Then, turning to face the compartment again, she stared up at the overhead storage. "Can one of you help me with my trunk?"

Of all the compartments in all the coaches in all the train, what possessed Jacquelyn to choose that one? What had she seen and rejected in the others? What had she finally seen and liked in compartment 7E? It was much like the rest, with two students just starting to settle inside. One, a boy, sat messing with the too-tight collar of his shirt. The other, well. It was hard to tell. They were half out of sight, leaning out the window to wave at the platform. @Rhys Hughes posed with permission.

Aeron was waving, trying to get his parents’ attention to let let them know he had managed to get situated. It had taken him a while to find a compartment (dragging his trunk behind him) and in the meantime they had fallen deep into conversation with a wizard dressed head to toe in yellow and black. He was just starting to consider and reject the absolutely mortifying option of calling out to them* when the door behind him slammed open.

He jerked back into the compartment, spinning on the seat to face the new arrival and her verbal barrage. What could he do against that onslaught? Seriously. What could he do? The girl wasn’t really asking for their permission, now was she? Not that he minded exactly, there was plenty of room and her method of casual presumption was… familiar. He automatically stood, starting towards her trunk, but— “Actually, maybe he’d better help you.” Aeron gestured toward the other boy. “Apparently I don’t ‘lift right.’ ”

From the way he said it, and the look he gave, it was a topic he and the other boy had been over quite recently. There was no rancor to it though. Aeron didn't relish the idea of struggling with some girl's trunk the way he had struggled with his own.

* Calling out for “mama” and “papa” was really not the first impression he wanted to make.

"Why are we going all the way back here?" Felix called after Jacqueline, lugging his own trunk through the narrow train car. "We've passed like... fifty good seats. Well okay maybe not fifty, but at least... ten. Definitely five. Three for sure."

It wasn't that the trunk was too heavy for Felix to handle (of course not, he was perfectly capable and absolutely macho enough), it was just hard to maneuver within the tight confines of the train, where other new students were also trying to squeeze by with their own belongings, and others were standing in doorways chatting with friends and halfway-blocking the aisle. There was excitement in the air and it excited him, too; he'd been smiling all day, so much that his face hurt when he actually took a second to notice it.

And yet some of the faces he saw as he made his way down the train were the opposite of smiles: wide eyes, pale or even slightly green faces, defensive postures, urgent fidgeting. They rarely met his eyes, but when they did, he waved and grinned (mostly because he couldn't have stopped grinning even if he'd wanted to), hoping it eased their anxiety somewhat. He didn't understand how anyone could be anything but excited today, but hey, for whatever reason some people did feel fear or homesickness or who-knows-what, and that seemed a bloody shame.

Jacqueline, at least, wasn't anxious like that. She was just being weird.

She had finally stopped (apparently deciding that one of these compartments was acceptable), and when he caught up to her, he peered around the doorway (and Jac) to smile at the two boys inside. "Hi! Name's Felix!"

And without waiting for a reply, ducked under Jacqueline's arm, shoving past her and into the compartment, lugging his belongings with him.

Later, Rhys would wonder how exactly they all got here.

Not on the train— he remembered grasping the rail and hauling himself and his trunk up, remembered passing the first few full compartments before finding this particular roost for the ride. But, rather, how this particular chain of events had unfolded so that after hardly ever being around others his age there were not just three of them, but each unlike anyone he’d ever met.

Much later, he would briefly wonder whether it was some stroke of good fortune, or simply some serendipitous happenstance. He wasn’t entirely convinced it was fate or its trappings. He couldn’t say without a doubt that it bore the dead weight of destiny. Either way, he didn’t and wouldn’t ponder that initial meeting for too long. Now or later. Some things just happened and you went along for the ride.

As it happened, Rhys’ body had been locked in its own locomotion. He’d barely processed the tingling of excitement of finally being on the train and not left behind — a fast-growing fear out on the Platform — and his mind was whirling, trying and failing to play a rather difficult game of catchup.

Adrenaline had done the initial thinking for him, ushering him down the corridor and into a compartment that incidentally held only one other boy. Then it was relief. Relief for having gotten away from what felt like the longest goodbye in history of goodbyes. Relief for actually getting on the train before it left the station and journeyed all the way to school without him.

Sitting in his seat, feverishly contemplating how his body managed to arrive before the rest of him, the relief was just starting to skirt the process of decaying into something that took Rhys a few moments to place as regret. Regret for a goodbye he’d been eager to have all day until he finally sat on the train and could breathe again. Breathe this new beginning in and hold it. Hold it tight.

It wouldn’t be until later before it occurred to him that he couldn’t quite remember if he’d actually hugged either of his sisters, if his father was still scowling, or whether or not those were tears in his mother’s eyes. The notion of going to the window and leaning out like the other boy was to look for them, to forge that new goodbye into the old hazy one’s place, occurred to but then promptly abandoned him. Later he would secretly wish he had. Just so that when Later eventually shed its skin into Now he wouldn’t feel so terrible about being so eager to meet these new people in this new life and leave the faded familiarity of that former life behind.

Right now, however, and all but a few moments ago, all that really mattered was unbuttoning the collar that had a stranglehold on his throat and finding a seat, preferably with someone cool— but, y’know, not too cool.

Amazingly, he’d managed both. Managed to find someone who wasn’t entirely in their element either, as Rhys observed the other boy struggle with an atrociously heavy trunk, apparently rather scarce strength, and absolutely zero ergonomic technique to boot. Lending the blond boy a hand came as naturally as their brief exchange of names and selection of seats. @Aeron Frey posed with permission

The trunks had just been secured in the racks overhead and the noose-like collar undone when a bespectacled face appeared at the corridor window, hovered, looked in at them with scientific consideration. Two specimens under her magnanimous microscope. Then the door opened. He’d just glanced over at the other boy - Aeron - spinning around from the window, just opened his mouth to say ‘sure’ when she was suddenly very close and very intent on staying.

Rhys flushed briefly at Aeron’s comment and pulled at his defeated collar again, hoping it just looked like he was warm from all the lifting combined with the many unnecessary layers his mother had insisted he wear that day. His first day, she’d reasoned. He had to make a good impression.

On who? He asked. The train?

It's whom, she said.

“Yeah, sure.” Grabbing the end of Jacquelyn’s trunk, Rhys leaned in a few degrees to add with an small grin, “And, for what it's worth, he doesn’t. Erm. Mind just holding that end steady for a moment and guide it as I lift?” Just as the trunk cleared his head Felix the Foretold appeared and he swayed a little as he looked over. “Oh hello! I’m Rhys Hughes.”

Later, he would remember how he'd made eye contact with Felix’s trunk first.

"Uh- yes! Certainly." She held her side of the trunk steady and followed Rhys' lead, doing her absolute best to heft and push the trunk up and over with unsteady arms. She wasn't sure how they were going to get it back down, exactly, but those details could wait until they arrived. Maybe Felix and Rhys could handle getting them all down. Or maybe one hard tug and gravity would do the job for her.

She ducked out of the way so Felix could hoist his own trunk up into the overhead compartment, sliding next to the seat that Aeron had just vacated. She shrugged her glittery rainbow backpack off her shoulders and placed it on her lap. Her fingers absently fidgeted with the unicorn horn and ears on the top. "Oh! I'm Jacqueline." She announced belatedly, though not bothered that she'd forgotten to introduce herself. "I go by Jac, too. Jac Gibson."

She stared a little longer at Aeron, assessing the blond hair and blue eyes with a thoughtful half-frown. "You look familiar. Have we met already? Dad introduced me to so many people in the last thirty minutes and I can't keep anyone straight."

Despite his apparently inferior lifting technique, Aeron would step over to help the newly arrived Felix with his luggage. Rhys, with his opinions about lifting with legs, was busy with Jac, and well, Aeron was as keen as any first year to make a good impression. ‘Help’ is a bit of a relative term though, he’d mostly offer a steadying hand as the other boy muscled the trunk up.

With that Jac’s invasion would be complete. Two new trunks, two new cabinmates.

Aeron settled back into his seat and into the too-close company of the girl and her penetrating stare. He was accustomed to a certain level of staring, what with his family and all, the frown was more unusual though and he shifted uncertainly under its unfamiliar weight.

"You look familiar. Have we met already? Dad introduced me to so many people in the last thirty minutes and I can't keep anyone straight."

Oh! “No, I don’t think so? I’d remember seeing a bag like that.” He gestured to odd horned bag in her lap. “I just have one of those faces I think.” Aeron smiled, relieved to have the reason for her stare so quickly and neatly sorted. Smiling, he did indeed have ‘one of those face,’ if by that you meant: ‘looks like an Abercrombi & Fitch ad.’ “I’m Aeron Frey.”

He started to lift his hand to shake before deciding, halfway through, that it was definitely not cool to shake hands. That was a stuffy adult thing. He faltered and… gave her bag a pat instead.

Patpat.

“Neat bag.”

Jac nodded, easily placated and certain that he was right. Maybe he looked like someone that she had met only a few minutes before. The platform was a whirlwind of activity and her father had wanted to introduce her to what seemed like everyone-- and of course everyone seemed to have kids that were about her age that she just had to meet. He had told her that he was popular when he went to Hogwarts practically a lifetime ago, but she hadn't really believed him.

She also didn't notice the awkwardness of the aborted handshake, because what eleven-almost-twelve year old knows about handshakes (not this one, anyway), but practically beamed her excitement over the bright unicorn backpack.

"Thanks!" She said, "I really like it. It's got glitter on it!" She twirled a tuft of faux unicorn hair/fur/fluff around a finger. "Hey. Serious question for you. Do electronics seriously not work at Hogwarts? Or is that a convenient lie my parents told me so I wouldn't ask for my own phone? Felix said they don't," She shot her friend a look, as if he too might be in on this scheme to personally inconvenience her, "But I wouldn't put it past our Dads to be in cahoots. This is supposed to be a really long train ride and I packed a bunch of books, but it would have been nice to listen to music or text or something."