As he boarded the train, Atticus turned to wave goodbye to his family a final time, smiling sadly. He couldn't imagine having to go so long without seeing them, but a voice inside still called to him, whispering, This is fate. This is destiny.
So he allowed the instinct to pull him towards his future, and found an open and empty car available on the train to rest his feet. He packed away his trunk for the ride, nervously snacking on fistfuls of homemade granola trail mix and pulling his hand-me-down coat off to drape over his front as a blanket.
Atticus allowed his mind to wander while he sat and stared out the window watching the scenery pass by. He thought back to the day that he received his acceptance letter from Hogwarts. Once his mind had wrapped around the contents of the letter, every feeling of inadequacy and outcast in that moment suddenly clicked. He understood why he always felt overlooked by his peers and set aside by his friends.
Because he had been right all along.
He was different.
And so here he was, on a train bound for the unknown, excited, nervous, and utterly alone.

🌻 He had never felt freer. 🌻

Alyn stuck his head out of the window as the whistle was sounded for the train to leave, joined with lots of the other students, he waved goodbye to his parents and they waved right back at him as the train rounded the corner, he stuck his head back into the train and looked around, it was busy with students finding seats in the train's compartments.

He went from carriage to carriage and looked in at each compartment, and to his disappointment, each one of them was full, it took him a good ten minutes traveling down the carriages to find a compartment that only had one boy within, he slid open the door to the compartment and looked a the boy who sat within "Hi, I hope you don't mind if I sit here, every other compartment seems to be full." he asked, making his way towards the window and sitting opposite the boy.

"I'm Alyn." he said smiling, extending his hands towards the other boy "This is amazing, right? going to learn magic in the hopes of becoming a great wizard." his smile never faded, even when he turned his head to look out the window, though soon glanced back at the boy "Sorry, I speak quite a bit, what is your name?"

Reducio

Interacting with @Atticus Finn-Lea
#1e7128

215 words

The train rumbled across the vast expanse of grassland plains, and for the first time since leaving the station, Atticus felt truly at home. He imagined himself not on a train speeding away from his home and his family, but instead on horseback, his hair in the wind, with the sunset at his back. He wore his father's hat and scarf, both fastened securely, and-

As the compartment door slid open suddenly Atticus's focus was pulled from his daydream to the boy now sitting across from him, arm outstretched, and a wide and expectant smile on his face.

"Uhm.. h- yes, hello, hi," Atticus replied awkwardly finding footing in the conversation as his brain caught up with the fact that he had been asked a question. "I'm Atticus. What's your name?" He inquired, pulling his hand from his bag of granola trail mix and wiping it down the front of his jacket. He shifted awkwardly in his seat and extended his reach to shake the boy's hand, leaning forward and returning a gentle smile.

Their hands connected with a firm shake before Atticus sat back in his seat once again. There was a moment of awkward silence, broken when Atticus offered his bag of trail mix out to the boy, an invitation to share the snack. "You like trail mix?" He asked, tilting his head slightly as he presented the bag.

Alyn looked at the boy confused for a moment, raising his eyebrow, having already said his name but he decided to introduce himself again "I'm Alyn - Alyn Reed." he said, the smile not leaving his lips "Pleasure to meet you, Atticus, sorry if I disturbed your thoughts." he looked out the window, focusing on the passing shrubbery and trees when he was offered something from the boy.

"You like trail mix?" Atticus asked him, and he thought for a moment before extending his hand forward and taking a small handful from the bag "I've never had them before, though I will try some" Alyn replied "Thank you.", and then he began to snack on a few of them.

"Are you looking forward to getting to Hogwarts? my father told me it was the most magical castle he had ever laid eyes on, my mother too." he continued to ramble on "They were both in Ravenclaw...and I am talking too much again." he giggled, running a hand through his hair away from his eyes.

"I really should stop talking sometimes" he thought to himself, he never knew when to stop, always excited to meet new people and get to know them, a skill he shared with his mother, who was also a chatterbox.

Reducio

Interacting with @Atticus Finn-Lea
Spoken:#1e7128
Thoughts: #238b24

Word Count: 220

"You're not talking too much." Atticus replied, his gaze fixed on the world beyond the window of the carriage. "Besides, I'm a pretty good listener." He looked down at his salt-covered fingers, wiped them on his jacket once more, and tied off the bag of trail mix to save for later, stuffing the cheesecloth bag in his coat pocket. He focused on the conversation suddenly, his attention snapping over to Alyn. "And I'm terrible sorry but there really isn't much I know about Hogwarts. Both of my parents are uh... shoot, what did he call them..." Atticus trailed off, mumbling aloud to himself. "Muggles? They're not uhm... wizards, I suppose." He fidgeted with the fastenings on his coat, conveying the familiar embarrassment that was similar to the feeling of conversing in a foreign language. "We're just farmers, goats and chickens and all. I wish I could've brought my camera, I've got a lot of pictures of them. The animals, I mean." Atticus felt his gaze shift from the boy, over to to the carriage door, to the wall behind him, and then out the window again as he trailed off, and his mind wandered. After another moment of silence, Atticus spoke up again and asked, "What does your family do?"

"You are..muggle-born?" he asked, with a hint of curiosity that could be mistaken for rudeness. he had met lots of muggles, in fact every friend he ever had has been a muggle, though he has never met a wizard who is muggle-born before, such a thing is foreign to him being that his father was pure-blooded and his mother was half-blooded "Sorry I probably shouldn't have said it like that."

The boy asked Alyn what his parents' did and he had to think for a moment before answering, his father never spoke about his work "I don't really know." he finally answered, shrugging his shoulders "My father says he works for the Ministry, but he has never really gone into any detail about what he does, my guess is that he is an Auror." he said the last part with excitement, knowing that it was probably what he too wanted to be when he grew up.

He looked back out the window, seeing if he could find anything that seemed interesting to him but it was just grass and even more grass, making him even more excited to reach Hogwarts, hoping that the lands around the castle might offer something different to the ordinary world, though soon turned his gaze back to Atticus "Do you like to explore? I have dreams of exploring dark monster-filled caves and facing down evil wizards."

Reducio

Interacting with @Atticus Finn-Lea
#1e7128

Word Count: 234

"You are..muggle-born?" Alyn asked, sounding off-put.
Atticus wasn't sure why but the boy's tone sounded accusatory, as if the word was a bad thing. He felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment. "Listen, I don't really know much about any of the... cultures here yet." Atticus shifted nervously in his seat, looking down at his twiddling hands. He was so used to being the person with the answers and suddenly found himself searching for knowledge and not knowing where to even begin to find it. " I guess what I'm asking is, is it a bad thing to be muggle-born? I've heard other people using that word, like at the train station. And... another word, and I wasn't sure what it meant. I think they were saying... mud blood?" He looked back up at Alyn, a confused but somewhat embarrassed expression on his face. "What is a mud-blood?" He continued fiddling with his hands for a long time, and silence fell over the train compartment. Eventually, the other boy spoke up and broke the awkward silence.
"It's... nothing. I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have said it like that." There was a strange twinge of guilt in the words, but soon the awkwardness passed over the compartment and right out the window, and just like that the two were back to talking as if the strangeness had never entered their shared space. They talked about their parents and what they did for work, their lives back home, and before they got their letters, how excited they were about adventuring and exploring when suddenly, Atticus steered the conversation in a strange direction.
"It must be hard being born to two wizard parents too." He stared out the window quietly for a few moments before turning back to Alyn. "I mean, you're expected to come out a wizard or a witch but there's a chance you won't. And that pressure must be hard on kids whose whole family is expecting something so important from them. Imagine just waiting and waiting for something magical to happen to you, and it never comes." Atticus turned away and wiped his face before a single tear rolled down his face for Alyn to see.