Jada’s first school year came to an end and the summer holidays rolled around. Unlike some of her peers, she hadn’t really been homesick at school, hadn’t had the time to. She’d owled her parents almost bi-weekly, and had been counting down the days during the last few weeks. In just a year she’d made new friends and joined a quidditch team as the first string! Of course, both her parents already knew this but she couldn’t wait to retell them everything once she arrived. Well, whichever one of them was home when she arrived.
They were rarely ever home together. Either one or the other was always working overseas or on a networking trip with colleagues. It didn’t really matter to Jada though, she was used to it. Used to being alone in their London Townhouse during the day, used to keeping herself entertained, used to only being together as a family during big holidays or for a few passing hours. She’d never really thought of it being any other way.
She sat alone in a train carriage. She said goodbye to Tes at school and then lost track of her. The space seemed empty without anyone else. To imagine that she would have once preferred it to be this way seemed absurd now. Though there was comfort in the silence, it also felt heavy. She wouldn’t be seeing the people she’d grown closest to for two entire months. Leaning he head against the window, she watched as the Scarlett train rattled past the rolling Scottish countryside. The weather was so unlike it had been at their arrival. There were no stormy clouds on the horizon, only endless blue sky as far as the eye could see.
Eventually, the faint swaying of the train coaxed her eyes shut and the world drifted away.
Upon awaking, she would find students milling around outside her carriage door, waiting to be let out of the train. A loud whistling noise announcing the trains arrival at Kings Cross would sound through the train and she would grab her trunk and join the crowd of children, jostling to reunite with their families. The girl would step off the train excitedly, all previous drowsiness forgotten, and begin to search the crowd for one of her own parents.
She would find a man with skin like hers and a shirt dark Afro she had fail to convince him was embarrassing and she would run towards him as fast as she could with her trunk. Once she’d closed the space between them, he would be locked in a tight hug and his laughter would ring out in the loud hall. The pair would proceed to make their way outside where they would enter a car, an inconspicuous beige Cadillac, and drive away through the streets of London.
