Location: Hogwarts Express 🗺️
Date: September 1st, 2024 📆
Time: 11:00am 🕒

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༻🦡༺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Stepping onto the Hogwarts express left a feeling in her stomach that she couldn’t quite get rid of. It twisted and knotted as she felt like she had begun to step into a world she knew little of and didn’t quite feel a part of. She looked back at her parents, the two people still within sight that she was able to hold on to a sense of normalcy, at least for a few moments longer. To see them smiling and waving at her encouragingly was a needed reprieve. Anna gave a nervous, loving smile back as she waved in return before finally making her way further into the train.

She could hear the excited chatter around her as students who looked both around her age and older were finding compartments to sit in. The conversations she heard as she passed were fractured and made little sense. Quidditch versus Quadpot? Hogsmeade? Slytherin versus Gryffindor? It may as well have been a foreign language, one that left her already uneasy mind feeling more isolated. Her anxiety rose within her as she looked around quickly to try and find somewhere that was empty; somewhere to hide away from the world, as long as she could.

While she didn’t much fancy the idea of riding the entire way by herself, she wasn’t brave enough to ask to sit with anyone else. What if they asked her questions about magic she couldn’t answer? What if they thought she was weird? What if they didn’t like her? Somehow, being alone for the long ride sounded a lot less frightening than sitting in a room with others who she simply didn’t get on with, for whatever reason.

She chewed on her lower lip as she grasped hold of her luggage tightly, hearing its wheels turning as it clacked against the train floor. Finally, closer to the back, she found a secure spot, where it seemed noone had yet discovered. Relieved, she quickly shuffled inside, closing it behind her. Placing her luggage in front of her, she reached into her bag and her fingers found the one thing she’d brought that felt familiar: a book.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Anna was nothing if not an animal lover, and she found herself excited to see what kind of creatures inhabited this magical world she had found herself thrust into. What would she read about? What kind of person was this author? She admired the title of the book as she read the name; Newt Scamander. Her interest was piqued, but just as she was about to flip it open, she felt the telltale sign of the train beginning to start. Her heart skipped a beat, and all her thoughts turned back to her parents. The anxiety and sadness she felt gripped her again and she hopped up, rushing to the window as her eyes scanned the crowd. The train began to take off and she scanned the area quickly until…

There, still standing where she’d left them were her parents. She pounded on the window, and surprisingly, thankfully caught their eye. She could see the beaming on their faces, as her mother blew a kiss and her father waved at her. Anna choked back a sob as tears began to fall and she waved back, mouthing; I love you. Much too soon, the train had left the platform and she found herself heavy hearted and alone on the express, with nothing but the sound of her breathing and the train carrying her on to her future. She slowly picked back up the book in her hand, looking down at it as she wiped her eyes and sniffled.

Fantastic Beasts…

She tried to content herself with it, clutching the book tightly as though it were a lifeline. If there was one thing that helped center her, it was losing herself in the world of a good book. Taking a breath, she opened the book to the first page, and began to read.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༻🦡༺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━