Aurora nervously sat in her compartment watching her family leave the station. This was it--she was about to start her journey to Hogwarts.

She felt a little like crying. She wasn't used to be away from her family for long periods of time. She sniffed and took a deep breath to calm herself down. She'd be okay

Cecelia smiled bravely as she boarded the train. Her parents probably wouldn't even notice that she was gone. Despite the brave smile, Cecelia had to admit she was a little nervous. She'd never heard of Hogwarts before. She was too busy practically raising her parents instead of the other way around, to have time to think about magic or spells being anything other than the stuff one read in fairy tales. "Well where to, Arista?", she murmured to her pygmy owl. Cecelia gathered her things and picked an empty compartment, but left the door opened hoping that someone would decide to join her.

As she settled down in the comfy seat and gently stroked her drowsy new pet, she couldn't help but wonder what it would be like at Hogwarts. Would she fit in? Would people be nice? Are there any cute guys? More importantly and more stressing of all was the fear that she wouldn't be good enough to stay and she would have to go back "home".

Still looking for an excuse, ANY, to prolong her trip to the prefect compartment, Kurumi spotted one of her new FAVORITE people sitting alone in a compartment. She really wanted to pick his brain about dragons, maybe even hold his hands just so she could vicariously say that she had touched a dragon.

Would that be too awkward? Probably.

"Gideon, hi," she said waving from the door. "You situated alright?"


Kurumi looked over her shoulder as a younger girl passed her and she offered her a smile. She seemed...like she was looking for someone or was nervous. Judging from the sparkle in the girl's eyes, Kurumi reckoned that she was a new first year.

Seeing her walk into an empty compartment, Kurumi decided to drop in and, well, try to make her look a little more comfortable and confident about starting her Hogwarts journey.

"Hello," she said peeking her head around the edge of the door.

"Hi, I'm Cecelia. How are you? Is this your first year as well?" Cecelia scooted over slightly and made sure her trunk was out of the way in case the new girl wanted to sit down.

Kicking in the front seat, sitting in the back seat, gotta make my mind up on which seat can I take..The Middle of course! Taking an empty compartment she wished she could have her owl, Precious with her for company though. Meanwhile on the ride Kimalia decided to take a book out she purchased not too long ago to read.

Kurumi slowly stepped into the compartment and left the door open behind her. Seemed silly to close it since she had left it open in the first place.

"Nice to meet you Cecelia," she smiled. Before she could respond to the simple question 'how are you', Kurumi's face dropped. Well, it hadn't been the first time she had been mistaken for a first year. At just over five feet now, she looked, and often acted, much younger than she really was. "I'm...fine..." she said quietly, tugging on her long black pony tail for a bit. "T-T-This is actually my forth year...."


Awkward much?

After the rather interesting summer that he had had, Matt was more than happy that the train was finally here and now he could just relax; possibly meet a few new people before arriving back at Hogwarts to start his 6th year. Plus I also don't have to deal with Raven anymore, merlin knows that will be good since she's not exactly the best influence and also a bit annoying. He headed through the train after setting his trunk and owl cage in a separate compartment of the train, noticing that there weren't many students aboard quite yet. That's a little odd, usually it's a little more full but I digress.. Finally stumbling upon a empty compartment, Matt walked in and set his messenger bag down on the seat beside him; that seemed to be a tradition for him every term on the train oddly, while he considered exactly why that idea was odd, he took a seat and then went back to grabbing his sketchbook.

"I'm sorry, I always tend to think people are younger than they are. It probably comes from having to act like a parent to my own parents for as long as I can remember." Cecelia gushed out in embarrassment. "I am sorry, I'm just nervous."

Great! I'm off to a wonderful start now aren't I? Cecelia thought to herself. She swept her the layer of red hair that had slipped out of her headband out of her face and smiled at Kurumi.

"Would you like to sit down?" she asked shyly. "I have a million questions about Hogwarts. I don't really know what I'm doing. I got the letter, read it quickly, asked my parents for some money to go back to school shopping and basically went straight to Diagon Alley. I followed my list and other families around making sure I got the same kinds of things they got."

A soft coo of a hoot reminded everyone of Arista's presence. "Except for Arista, she found me. As I was walking through the streets of London she landed in front of me, guided me to the Leaky Cauldron and has stuck with me ever since."

Gideon looked up at the door as he heard his name, smiling softly as he spotted Kurumi standing there. "Aye, I think I'm all good," he answered looking around absently before back at his fellow fourth year.

"Need a compartment?" he asked with a slight tilt of his head. "You're welcome to join me here...not entirely interested in solitude. just picked a random compartment."

i took mike to the middle of the train to find a seat

Cecelia saw another girl slowly walk by her compartment. She looked sad, but determined to make the best of it. It was sweet in a way. Even though she was nervous herself, Cecelia felt like she should reach out to this girl.

"Hello, are you ok? Do you want to sit with me?", she called softly out the compartment door.

Kourtney couldn't find Indiana or Brady, and since she didn't want to risk missing the train, she boarded. Her gaze swept the corridors and she began walking, peering into a compartment every now and again to see if she could spot her two friends. No...no...not there either...The chatter of a few students who were still standing in the corridor caught Kourtney's attention and she listened idly for a few moments. She wished that she had bought her iPod with her, but she had read somewhere that electronics didn't work in the wizarding world. Bummer.

She swept past another compartment until she noted that one of them appeared empty. Sliding open the door, she stopped, noticing an older boy sitting in the seat opposite where she had been looking. "Oh...sorry about that." He actually was much older. "Thought this was empty. I'll..just be on my way."

Holding the tiny, green creature in her hands as if she wanted to shield it from everything around her, Nora made her way along the train corridor, but eventually gave up in finding an empty compartment. Instead, she found one with apparently just one girl inside, and slid the door open.

"Hello," she said, hoping that she won't scare the girl, who seemed to be reading. "Do you mind if I join you?" Or maybe she should've mentioned that she also had a tiny lizard in her hands?

It seemed like the messenger bag was going to cause problems, for some reason it didn't want to be opened right now but regardless Matt was determined to grab the sketchbook so that he could finish off a sketch that he had been working on earlier on in the summer before things had gotten ridiculous. I bet Raven sealed it shut.. He would not have been surprised either if that indeed was the case since she was usually trying to find new ways to annoy him and this was definitely the new step. But when he had heard a voice speaking to him, the earlier distraction of trying to deal with the bag was immediately lost; looking up from the bag he saw a girl who looked to be about eleven. Ah a new Hogwarts first year, interesting. "You can stay if you want, I wouldn't want you to think that you have to leave since I'm here." Matt really did not want to scare the little kids despite the fact that he was 6' 1" and 16 years old, the only way for that to not happen was to just be nice as usual since people usually weren't scared of you if you actually didn't decide to be unnecessarily rude.

"It's alright," Kurumi said shaking her head. "I'm...kind of used to it now." Just, hopefully, by the time she was a sixth or seventh year she would look her age. She frowned a bit when the first year mentioned having to take care of her parents. It seemed, like a sensitive subject and not one that she should really poke her small nose in.

"It would be a pleasure," she nodded as she slipped fully into the compartment and took a seat across from her. Thankfully, she had her tin of cookies and offered them to her. "I have more elaborate ones ready for the opening feast, but they will have to do for now." Unless she was allergic to orange. "Ask me anything that you would like." She left out the as a prefect bit, because, well, she still felt awkward talking about herself that way.

Kurumi looked at the owl. "She's lovely. I don't have an owl. I have a munchkin cat named Walnut. He is sleeping at the moment." Thank Merlin.
Aye. There was that word again. Salariel had used it, and Kurumi nearly had a heart attack. She had seen, with her own eyes, that the pirate spirits had left her Flying Professor and everyone else during their last lesson of the term, but they had to go SOMEWHERE, right? Her breath caught in her throat and she held back a gasp.

But, thankfully, Gideon spoke again and his speech was perfectly fine.

"More like a distraction," she laughed nervously. Stepping into the compartment now, Kurumi took a seat across from him next to the window.

Kourtney hesitated as the boy noticed her and then told her that she could stay if she'd like. Should she? She could...she supposed no harm could be done by it, but again...what on earth was she going to even talk about with this older boy? She was eleven, for goodness sake. Nothing was very exciting about her, surely nothing to hold his attention.

"Um..." She hesitated again. "Well, I was trying to find my friends and when I couldn't, I saw this compartment, and I thought it as empty, but I guess it's not." Her eyes strayed towards the bag that sat on the seat next to the boy.

He seemed nice enough. She supposed that spending a few minutes here wouldn't matter. Edging into the compartment, she sat on the other side of the compartment. "Thanks..." She crossed her arms, and swung her legs as she wasn't quite tall enough to rest her feet on the floor.

skye walked trough the corridor wondering where to sit, dizzy was still fast asleep in his cage.

"Hmmm...know any spells to make me NOT allergic to cats? I really love them, but I sneeze like crazy. Some girl told me to watch out for nargles as I passed her and her cat. Also, what's a nargle?" Cecelia giggled out the last question. It was still hard for to her believe this was really happening. She was enjoying getting the chance to talk to Kurumi. It was nice having "girl time". Maybe this could be the start of a real friendship, she thought wistfully. Cecelia had never quite fit in back home. She'd always been a little different from the other kids. She could never put her finger on what it was, so she just kept to herself, looked out for her mum and dad and went on with her daily life. She loved to read and explore the outdoors. Usually looking for a place to get away from her family and relax.

She took a bite of the cookie that Kurumi offered and thought she'd die. It was wonderful! Surely these had been made with magic because she'd never tasted anything so wonderful before in her life. "Wow! Theses are great, Kurumi! I just have some chocolate, would you like some?", Cecelia asked as she rummaged through her bag knocking her wand out. She scrambled to pick it up and looked up at Kurumi wryly. "So this is really happening isn't it? I'm really going to be able to do magic with this?"

Sammy basically dove into a compartment. She had only ever asked to join someone once AND SHE HATED IT. Mainly because she met someone who had totally STOLEN her name. Her cat was not happy about diving into the cabin and quickly wriggling out from under Sammy's arm and settling on the seat opposite Sammy. She started digging through her backpack to find the most important thing on a train ride. HER IPOD. And her book. But iPod was more important. And she had like 5 books in there or something. All classical actually, she was going through a classical books binge.

When she found her iPod conveniently at the bottom of her bag she put one headphone in then scrolling for a moment or two, before deciding on 'Summer Nights' from Grease then grabbing her book, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin and READING. LIKE A PRO.

Matt wasn't entirely sure why the girl was hesitant to stay in the compartment where he was, there could have been a number of reasons but obviously he wasn't about ask questions that weren't his place to ask since it would just make having a normal conversation nearly impossible. "You're welcome, so.. let me guess, you're a first year?" Well he had picked that up earlier but for the sake of asking, he wanted to know for sure; it was better to know the truth then assume since it was absolutely unneeded. Best question ever huh? He finally managed to grab his sketchbook and pencils from the bag then opened it back to the original picture, setting it down on his lap so that it didn't seem like he was trying to ignore the girl. "I should introduce myself, my name's Matthew Stevenson but please just call me Matt since I don't much care for the formal use of my name unless it's by my parents. And I am a 6th year Slytherin." That was a great introduction, though there wasn't a need for the whole thing about how he didn't like the whole formality of his name.

Kourtney's legs stopped swinging as the boy asked her if she was a first year. "Yes...yes I am." She offered a brief smile and then looked at him curiously as he removed a book and pencils, setting them on his lap. Was he an artist? Hm, maybe there was something they could talk about.

"Matthew...definitely sounds too formal." She wrinkled her nose at the sound of it. "I'm Kourtney." She shifted her weight in her seat, leaning forward a bit as she looked at the book and pencils again. "Are you some kind of artist?" She couldn't imagine that it was something for school since the book appeared too large.

"Skye!" Kurumi called from her seat. "Come on in and join us." See, she kept her promise to find the first year on the train and she even had a licorice wand with her like she had promised.
"Not off the top of my head I don't," she said shaking her head. "You could talk to the Potions Mistress about it though. I am sure she knows some potion or solution that can help." She giggled a bit at her next question. "Well, no one really knows what one looks like, but they like to hide in mistletoe and can be little thieves," Kurumi explained. "Although, when I asked Professor MacFusty about them, he told me that I didn't have anything to worry about."

Kurumi leaned back in her seat and looked out the window for a moment, the blush on her cheeks grew when her cookies were complimented, but she decided to simply bow her head in gratitude.

"Yep, and make sure never to lose it. Your wand is like an extension of yourself."

Making her way through the train, Samara came across an empty compartment in the middle and headed inside sitting down. She looked around smoothing out her robes before taking out her DADA book flipping through the pages. She glanced out into the corridor as a few students ran past to be with their friends before turning back to her book letting a smile pay at her lips as her Siamese cat, Aslan, popped his head out of her bag. "It's alright, Azzy" she said chuckling as he hopped into her lap. She stroked his fur lazily as she read her book, sounds of other students fading into the background.

When he noticed her looking at his sketchbook and pencils, Matt knew that they must have drawn her attention which was perfectly alright with him; most people didn't notice them since they usually would just play it off as some kind of muggle amusement. "Ah well nice to meet you Kourtney, I've got another question for you; where do you come from? What I mean by that is like, are you a native of England or an international student like myself?" Yes, he just classified himself as an international student since he was technically speaking; but that wasn't a subject that he was going to continue unless she had asked about where he was from exactly. "I am an artist actually, I like sketching, painting. Plus I play music with my friends back home, so I guess you could say that I'm pretty creative." He flipped through the pages of the sketchbook before having a great idea, the best way for people to understand how good of an artist that he actually was was to show them the book to see if they were actually interested. "Here, would you like to look over my sketches?" Obviously he wasn't about to just hand the book to Kourtney without asking.

" May I sit here?" William asked the girl." I thought I could meet a new friend today" William said to the girl. " My name is William Starr" he introduced himself to her.

" I thought I would sit here" Willam told the girl. "Do you mind if I sit next to you, too?" Willaim asked the girl. " My name is Willaim Montcenaggio aka William Starr' he introduced himself to the girl.

" Do you mind if I ask you what song yo uare lsitening to right now?" Willaim asked her. " I see you are readng a very interesting book" William told her." My name is Willaim Montcenaggio, but my friends call me Willaim Starr" he introduced himself to the girl.