Boarding the Hogwarts Express was a test of agility, determination, and resiliency. One needed to brave the crowds of rowdy children and sidestep parents at the end of their ropes. Draven couldn't say he was particularly impressed with the station this year, as he surveyed the expanse of people he needed to push through.

He'd come armed with a cloth muggle mask, a ratty pair of wired earbuds, and caffeine-induced adrenaline. It thrummed through his veins now, sending jitters to his toes and hands - his grip on the old, patchy messenger bag slung across his chest wasn't as steady as he would have liked it.

But the longer he stood frozen on one end of the platform, the more crowded the train became. And so, with a deep, miasma-filled breath, the boy took off. Sweet piano notes filled his ears, covering up the screams of children and screeches of owls. His mask was doing a piss-poor job of covering up the smell of sweat and smog but at the very least, it kept the slightly constipated look on his face appropriately hidden.

A well executed 'excuse me' here, a fumbled 'sorry' as he nearly walked into a family of four, and the beginnings of a panic attack later, Draven ducked onto the train. Bag? Check. Mask? Check. Wand? Still stuffed securely in his boot.

Deimos gave an impatient chirp as Draven lingered in the doorway, patting himself down to ensure nothing had been dropped in the confusion. "Hold your horses," he told the spider, who'd taken to gnawing on his hair. From his nest of curls, Deimos peered at the students around them. He seemed about as pleased to be on the train as his owner.

Still, Merlin smiled upon Draven. It was only a few minutes of searching later that he'd found an empty compartment. The door shook as he threw his weight against it, old rails rusted in place. And inside he retreated, letting go of a breath as he set his bag down.

The hellish part of their trip to Hogwarts was over. Now, he just had to pray his compartment neighbors wouldn't end up being obnoxious. Keeping a wary eye on the door, Draven removed his mask. It was much too hot to be wearing it, and the scraggly facial hair blossoming across his cheeks made it worse.

From out of his bag came a torn-up book. The cover was held together by old tape, some pieces of it straight up missing. An old pokemon card served as a bookmark- which was interesting, considering how many of the pages had already clearly been dog-eared. Draven opened the book with shaky hands, willing the wild beating of his heart to settle, and the adrenaline to fade. They were safe. The worst part was over. He just needed to breathe, drink some water, and-

Pulling a vape from his pocket, Draven took his chances with it. His earbuds had already cut out, old iPod they were connected to dying almost as soon as he'd climbed on the train. The vape, too, wasn't pulling. Sighing, he dropped the device back in his pocket, pulling out the box of gum instead.

That was one good thing about Hogwarts. It would force him to quit whether he liked it or not.

The Starling house was filled with the wild cacophony of last-minute packing.

“Mum, where did my toothbrush go?”

“Shouldn’t it be on your bathroom counter?”

“Oh yeah; I got it!”

Theodore’s brother had kindly offered to take Cori with his son, who was going into his fourth year. Theo and Lenora had thanked him for the offer but refused, wanting to see their only daughter off to Hogwarts for the first time themselves.

Now at 10:50 AM, Theo was starting to regret turning down his brother’s offer, who had taken the Floo over with his son a little while ago. Meanwhile, Cori, the lovable mess that she is, was making her parents sweat with the amount she still needed to pack.

With ample assistance from her parents, Cori was finally packed and ready to go… at 10:57 AM. One hurried Floo later, Cori, Theo, and Lenora gathered by the Hogwarts Express.

“Please write to us; we’ll miss you.”

“Try not to get in trouble.”

“And please try not to flunk your classes.”

“Make some friends, okay?”

“Here’s some pocket money in case you want to buy anything from the trolley.” Theo tucked a handful of clinking coins into Cori’s pocket with a wink.

“Wait, there’s a trolley on the train?”

“Yes, but you need to go now before it takes off without you,” Lena said with her signature patience.

As Cori gave both her parents a tight hug, she was suddenly struck by a wave of anxiety. She hadn’t been nervous at all these past few days, but now, the reality that she was going to be separated from her parents for three months (which seemed an interminable length of time) came crashing down on her. Something in her quailed, making her want to say, “Wait, this is a mistake; take me home!”

But then, the train let out a loud toot, her dad gave her a squeeze on the shoulder, her mum sent her one of her softest smiles—one that seemed to carry everything she didn’t have time to say—and Cori swallowed her misgivings, gave a weak smile, and turned away from everything she had ever known.

As Cori rushed onto the Hogwarts Express, hauling her trunk behind her moments before the doors closed, she tried to cement the image of her mother’s smile in her memory. She would sort out the uncomfortable feeling in her chest later—after she found a compartment.

Finding her older cousin would be a lost cause; she could only hope now that there was still a compartment with room. Cori took a deep breath, popped a lollipop into her mouth (yes, she carried them in her pocket for handy access), and set off down the corridor, half-walking half-stumbling as the train came to life around her with a massive rumble, making her feel like she was in the belly of some great creature.

Glancing at the compartments, she could instantly tell which ones were full: chatter would seep under the door, colorful shapes moving behind the frosty compartment window. It was a couple minutes more before she found a candidate. Throwing open the door, Cori poked her head in.

She was faced with the sight of one slender boy dressed in ratty clothes with an even rattier book. Immediately, her face scrunched up, nose wrinkled in distaste. “What did you do to that poor book?”

Sighing, Cori invited herself into the apartment, trunk and all, before closing the door behind her. She shot a brief glance up to the shelf, but she knew there was no way she would be able to lug her trunk up that high and immediately gave up on it.

“Sorry, all the other compartments are full.” With that, she plopped herself down across from the older boy—she could tell now that she was closer, from the messy stubble littering his face.

Draven's eyes scanned the page, passing over words unseeingly. The train had started to move, clattering on the rails. The walls were paper thin, and a loud bang resounded from the compartment next to him, tattletale signs of younger years having filled up the back of the train. It made sense - anxious muggle parents were amongst the first to show up at the station, holding their children close. Another year or two and they'd be just as late and jaded as everyone else.

Draven looked up just as the door was pushed open, metal on metal screeching loudly. Great

And in toddled a little girl. Golden-brown curls spilled over her shoulders, reaching down to her back. She was cute, her face flushed from the effort of dragging her trunk around. Rosy cheeks and a button nose greeted him.

"What did you do to that poor book," she demanded. Draven's eyebrows knit together at the little girl's voice. High, accented with a typical Oxford flair, she was a little out of breath and a lot obnoxious. He considered telling her to buzz off, find another compartment. But- He swallowed uncomfortably, eyes searching the tiny child's face. There was a soft roundness to it, almond eyes that made her look like a deer blinking up towards a flashlight. Her lips were downturned as she regarded him, the disgust clear on her face.

And in that moment, he was reminded of another little girl. She'd been holding a can of soup the last time he saw her. Ripped clothes and dirty hair, bruises on her arms, and a darkening black eye. He could still hear the horrible, wet cough that had followed the first greedy mouthful of soup. Could still see her clutching at her throat.

"Thrift store was throwing it out," Draven said, her voice slamming him violently back into his body. Before he could think better of it, he'd climbed out of his seat and was pushing the little girl's trunk into the compartment above them. It slotted perfectly, sliding in with a satisfying thump. "It's okay," he heard himself say.

It wasn't until he'd gotten up that their height difference became apparent. Looking more like a weed than a boy, Draven was all elbows and knees. Bones protruded painfully from underneath tanned skin. A sunburn was still fading across his cheeks and nose, and sparse facial hair was slowly but surely winning the battle with his acne. Swallowing dryly, Draven paused for a moment, taking a look at himself in the train window. A black cotton hoodie. Sweatpants that hid how freakishly skinny he was becoming with every inch he shot up. Sunken in cheeks and sickly looking shadows underneath his eyes. He'd made a shabby attempt of putting eyeliner on that morning. It was half gone now, making him look more like a raccoon than a person.

Slinking back into his seat, Draven shifted around uncomfortably. He wanted to return to his book, Bastian had just barricaded himself in the attic of his school. But the little girl's eyes were burning holes into him. She could feel her taking in the acne, the ratty clothes, every single detail about him that he hated, it was out on display for her.

He wouldn't be getting back to his book.

Exchanging a glance with Deimos, who'd settled atop the seat next to Draven and was busy munching away on a dead cricket, the boy returned his focus on the little girl.

"First year?" he asked, tactfully spreading his legs on the seat next to him to block Deimos from view. Last thing he needed was some screaming about spiders and the ethics of keeping a jar of live crickets in his bag. "You'll like it."

“Thrift store was throwing it out.”

What was a thrift store? Cori supposed he had saved the book from landing in a trash dump, so that was good. However, all thoughts of “thrift” stores and books in trash cans flew out her mind when the boy stood up.

…Oh great. He’s basically a giant.

The height difference was comical. She had to crane her neck just to look him in the eye, and her scowl, which had abated some when he revealed he hadn’t caused his book’s poor condition, now came back with a vengeance. It took her by surprise when he reached for her trunk, hoisting it up into the compartment she had been eyeing. “Oh, thank you.” He hadn’t looked like the gentlemanly type. It left her feeling a little wrong-footed and just a tad grumpy at how helpless she felt next to this six-foot behemoth (teenage boy).

As she sat down, she eyed the boy curiously. She didn’t altogether care about what clothes he wore; she didn’t have a good sense for fashion anyway. Cori herself was just wearing a loose-fitting olive-colored T-shirt with a pair of cuffed jeans. She had wanted to wear shorts, but her mum had insisted that she wear some type of long pants—for the boat ride, she’d said. And, of course, she had her favorite boots on along with a mismatched pair of socks—dark green on her left, white with a little bee pattern on her right.

“First year? You’ll like it.”

Cori nodded, shrugged, furrowed her brow a little, and then pulled out her lollipop briefly to say, “You look like Death possessed you this morning,” as if that was a logical response. She really was a little concerned about his complexion, though. Her dad got dark circles sometimes, when he stayed up all night, and her mum always berated him about it and pushed him to sleep. This boy looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. Paradoxically, he also sort of looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. “Have you slept?”

Her eyes slid away from him, instead examining the rest of the compartment—it was, after all, her first time on the Hogwarts Express and her first time on a train, period. Cori narrowed her eyes as she swore she saw something big and black just before the boy’s leg obstructed her view. She couldn’t tell if that was intentional or not, but she instinctively leaned forward to get a better look.

She was met with the sight of a rather large, slightly hairy spider. “Oh! You have a spider. They are yours, aren’t they?”

"You look like Death possessed you this morning."

Boy, she sure was a tactful one, wasn't she?

Draven blinked. He was used to sidelong glances, scrunched noses, and parents pulling their kids closer when he walked by. Hell, women instinctively speed up when they noticed him, and shopkeepers followed him 'round to ensure he wouldn't leave with any merchandise. The hostility had become a part of life, and while he couldn't say he fancied being looked at like a bomb about to blow, he couldn't necessarily disagree with that assessment.

That being said, rarely, if ever, did someone have the backbone to just-...say? Something. It was oddly refreshing the more he sat with it.

"This is just what I feel comfortable wearing," he said after a beat. "It gives people the right idea."

He wasn't sure what the right idea was.

Electing to ignore her question about sleep (what was she, an 11 year old therapist?) Draven pulled his leg away to reveal Deimos in all his eight-limbed, fur-covered glory. He sat in the middle of the chair, chewing away and giving the little girl a curious look.

"Deimos, meet Little Girl. Little Girl, meet Deimos." Stretching out, Draven picked the spider up gingerly.

He'd grown massive over the years, his body having gone from little more than a marble to the size of Draven's fist. A shiny black coat and eyes that looked uncomfortably human, gleaming fangs and his signature look of superiority. Draven loved him.

Lazily, the diva crawled across Draven's hand and headed towards the little girl, perching on one of the wizard's fingers and-

Draven stifled a chuckle, watching as the spider extended a leg in the girl's direction, as if asking for a foot shake.

"Most people scream when they see him," Draven noted, as Deimos gave their new friend his best fanged smile. "Nobody likes a big drama queen, now do they Deimy?"

He could have sworn the spider huffed.

"I'm Draven. By the way," he said, hesitating for a moment. "Nice to meet you, erm...?"

Cori simply gave a raised eyebrow to the boy’s half-baked reasoning. Whatever he was not saying, it was none of her concern. The spider was much more interesting.

"Deimos, meet Little Girl. Little Girl, meet Deimos."

Cori’s eyes widened as the boy introduced his spider. He was just magnificent. She was fairly used to spiders, of course; they got them in their garden (and in their house) all the time. Lena had tried to train her daughter to adopt a principle of “don’t bother them, and they won’t bother you.” That had never stopped her from squatting in the grass staring at them, squinting against the morning sun filtering through a pretty web, or cohabitating with a Daddy Long Legs until it mysteriously disappeared one day.

Deimos didn’t really look like any other spider she’d seen before. He was hairier, for one, and bigger. But she figured he wasn’t dangerous—and if she did get bit, Cori was confident that magic could fix her right up. (Do magical children become more jaded to injuries than their Muggle counterparts because of how much more easily they could be healed? Cori certainly was.)

“Hi Deimos.” For the first time since she’d arrived in the train compartment, Cori smiled. It softened her face, accentuated her round cheeks and button nose, and reminded you of her youth, in case you’d forgotten. It was a rather contagious smile, still untainted by the weight of adulthood—something to be cherished. Between that and her uncanny ability to make puppy dog eyes, Theo often feared he was too easily charmed by his daughter.

Cori raised her own hand up to meet Deimos, extending her pointer finger slowly so as not to startle, and, if he would let her, met the spider, soft skin to black fur. If possible, her smile grew even brighter, delight shining clear as day in her eyes.

"Most people scream when they see him. Nobody likes a big drama queen, now do they Deimy?"

She wasn’t too sure what Deimos’ smile meant—she wasn’t well-versed in reading spider facial expressions—but he seemed calm enough. “Why would I scream? You’re gorgeous, Mr. Deimos, and very polite.”

Cori straightened when the boy finally introduced himself. “Oh, sorry ‘bout that; I always forget to introduce myself. I’m Cori, Cori Starling. Nice to meet you, Draven.” She said this as if running through a practiced script, which in fact she was. She wasn’t a big fan of pleasantries, but her mum had insisted, so she begrudgingly played along. Best not to dwell on why Cori had given the spider and not the boy an honorific.

Deimos had grown surprisingly social over the years. He didn't like strangers exactly- but upon being introduced to a kid or two, the spider didn't say no to a friendly scratch and a bite of your lunch.

Seeing his chance and taking it, Deimos clambered upon the girl's hand, scuttering to sit his rear end quite comfortably atop her shoulder. From there, the spider gave Draven what could only be described as a shit-eating grin. A pang of something he couldn't quite place hit him, his stomach squeezing uncomfortably at the space between them. It suddenly seemed too large, the little girl's touch on his friend too harsh.

"Yeah, yeah," Draven huffed, returning to his side of the compartment and pointedly putting his feet up. "Looks like you made a new friend." She hadn't done anything, the wizard reasoned with himself, forcing his jaw to slowly unclench.

Hogwarts had a rotating cast of students. Most didn't stick around for long, transferring to other schools or simply dropping out due to stress. Fewer of those students had managed to get into Deimos' graces.

"Don't be surprised if you find him in your bedroom one of these days," the wizard noted, picking up his book once more and getting comfortable, though the knot in his stomach was anything but. "He likes to wander the castle when he gets bored of sitting with me."

Deimos purred, cuddling up to the little girl and taking an experimental bite of her hair.

The 'if you hurt him I'll kill you' was sitting on his tongue. Draven blinked, looking up from the book. Since when was he threatening people, and children, no less? With murder-? What in Merlin's name? Biting on his tongue, he forced himself to look back down. Last thing this girl needed was some weirdo freaking her out right before the sorting ceremony. In fact, it made him a little sick to think he'd be her first impression of the castle.

His skin itched.

Draven's eyes were pinned on the page, but he wasn't reading, not really. The sound of the train had grown loud, and his heart was beating uncomfortably in his chest. He could feel her gaze on him- or rather, he could imagine it. Seeing his too-long limbs and burned skin, taking in the way he was staring at his book, glassy-eyed and gripping the pages like they owed him money.

"What house do you think you'll get?" he forced himself to ask, flipping his page.

Little goosebumps peppered her skin as Deimos’ furry legs ran up her exposed arm. Cori tried very hard to hold still and not jostle him as he settled onto her shoulder. “This means he likes me, right?”

"Looks like you made a new friend."

Crack. The lollipop, which had been slowly disintegrating in her mouth, snapped into two under her teeth, falling off its stick. With the familiarity of someone who has done this hundreds of times, Cori pulled out the now-bare stick and the candy wrapper she’d saved for this exact purpose. There wasn’t always a trash can around, and keeping a paper stick in your mouth isn’t very appealing. This at least let her hold onto it sanitarily until she had an opportunity to throw it away.

Cori looked down intently as she wrapped, even though she could’ve done it blindfolded. “A companion, maybe,” she said quietly.

There was silence for a beat, except for the soft sound of her fingers as they began to drum against the soft velvet seats. She chanced a glance back up at Draven only to see he’d picked up his book again. Something that felt an awful lot like disappointment rested heavy in her chest, at least until Deimos started… purring? Cori had never heard a spider purr before, but it made her feel a little better. She squinted inquisitively at him as he started chewing on her hair but made no move to stop him.

"What house do you think you'll get?"

She was more relieved than she cared to admit when Draven said something again, no matter how basic the question may have been. “I don’t really know. Maybe a Slytherin like my mum, or a Ravenclaw like my dad. But they said that sometimes the Sorting Hat does unexpected things, so I’ve tried not to have any expectations. They said it’ll turn out alright no matter where I go, so…” She trailed off into a shrug. “What house are you in? What’s it like?”

The corner of his mouth quirked up.

Words, more words than he'd expected, were flowing from the little girl. Draven glanced at her, momentarily distracted from the dark clouds which had gathered round his head.

"Slytherin," he said, after a beat of hesitation. "It's-..." He wasn't the best person to ask. A majority of his time at Hogwarts had been spent dissociating, locked behind a wall of glass through which things rarely passed. "Every experience is different," he said at last, the words slow and measured.

"If you go looking for trouble, you'll find it." Shifting in his seat, he shrugged. "By the same token, if you shut up and keep your head down, people tend to leave you be."

It was a lonely existence. One of solitude, safe but isolated. The longer he spent locked up between the four walls of the Merlin Dorm, the more he wished he weren't. The retreat was needed. A space to call his own, one he could hide in when the world got too loud and exhausting. But there were only so many thoughts he could think so many times before they became background noise, a broken radio replaying the same tired tune.

"Don't keep your head down," he said, gray eyes settling on hers. "It's easier. But soon all your days will look the same."

The landscape outside had started to change. Gone were the rolling fields of grass and wheat. Replaced by rocks and sparse trees, the landscape was a brown and gray blur as the train chugged forward. "Also-" he said after a beat. "Nobody wears the uniform. Unless they're the teacher's pet or it's laundry day. It's become a bit of a joke, really."

He wasn't reading anymore, though he supposed there would be plenty of time for that. Thirty minutes had trickled by out of nine hours. Usually, he'd try to sleep, but usually he had the compartment to himself.

"Who are you, Cori?" he asked. "What do you do when you're not being shipped off to Scotland in a glorified sardine can?"

"Slytherin. It’s… Every experience is different."

Slytherin, huh? Like her mum, who’d basically said the same thing; Cori supposed it was a Slytherin thing to be tight-lipped about in-house matters.

“So if you’re a Slytherin, what’s your ambition for?”

"Don't keep your head down. It's easier. But soon all your days will look the same."

At some point, the atmosphere had shifted, and Cori could hear it. So when she met Draven’s eyes—a stormy gray that seemed to look right at her while simultaneously guarding its own secrets—her expression was serious. “I’m not in the habit of keeping my head down.” If Draven were to pay close attention, he might notice a curious darkening of her irises from her usual brown-green hazel to a darker brown. Could it be a trick of light?

After a bit, Cori broke eye contact, gazing out the window without really seeing anything. Bits of memory from her preparatory schooling flicked through her mind like the photos she liked to take on her camera. Kicking a boy in the shins for making fun of a classmate’s glasses, sitting on her hands as she waited to be reprimanded, a cute girl’s watery blue eyes, the turned backs of her classmates.

She knew these signs; if she wasn’t careful, something was going to slip. She could hear her mum’s voice in her head: “In for 4, out for 8.” Cori let her eyes close—just for a bit, as she inhaled and exhaled, soft and unobtrusive. When she heard Draven’s voice, she opened her eyes, hazel again.

"Who are you, Cori? What do you do when you're not being shipped off to Scotland in a glorified sardine can?"

“A glorified–” she looked around at their little compartment. “It does not look a sardine can.” But she sobered soon enough to answer his real questions.

“I like flying, swimming, being in nature. Photography.” Cori counted them off on her fingers. “But who I am? Well, what do you think?” She said it like a challenge, like she already knew the answer and was testing Draven instead of the other way around.

“Who are you, Draven? How did you get to be here, sitting in a train compartment to Hogwarts with me, a girl you’ve never met, and Deimos, a spider?”