The compartment smelled of wax and old leather, the seats worn smooth by generations of students.
Hannah’s face brightened when she saw him—no dramatic greeting, just a quick shift in her posture that meant *saved for you*.
Ernie and Justin paused their argument long enough to nod.
Outside, Eleanor stood exactly where he’d left her, hands folded, watching.
Not waving.
Not crying.
Just *there*, solid as the steam curling off the engine.
Tobias raised a hand—not high, just enough—and after a beat, she mirrored it.
The whistle blew.
The train lurched forward.
Through the window, Tonks waved from further down the platform and shouted something Tobias could not hear.
The compartment door slid shut behind him as Justin leaned forward, jabbing a finger at Ernie.
“—and even if the Cannons *did* sign him, which they won’t, he’d still be three years past his prime—” Hannah rolled her eyes, marked her page with a folded corner, and tilted the book toward Tobias.
*Magical Waterways of Britain*.
A new one.
“Dad got it for me in Diagon last week,” she said, like they hadn’t been exchanging letters all summer.
Tobias sat.
The seat was warm where sunlight had pooled through the window.
He pressed his palms flat against his thighs and counted the rhythm of the wheels on the tracks—three beats, then the slight hitch over the junction at the end of the platform.
Outside, London unraveled into suburbs, then fields.
The argument ebbed.
Justin produced a packet of Drooble’s from his pocket; the smell of raspberry filled the compartment.
Hannah nudged Tobias’s knee with the edge of her book.
“You’re quiet.” He shrugged.
The hole in his chest ached, not with pain but with the odd pressure it sometimes had before rain.
He’d checked the forecast that morning.
Clear skies all the way to Scotland.
Ernie lobbed a wrapped sweet at Justin’s head.
“Bet you a sickle Puddlemere takes the cup this year.” Justin caught it one-handed.
“Done.” Hannah sighed and went back to her reading.
Tobias leaned his head against the window and let the vibration of the glass settle into his bones.
The journey north was going to feel longer than he remembered.
He took the seat she had saved for him without making her ask.
“So,” Hannah said, snapping her book shut with a decisiveness that made Justin jump.
“Defence this year.” Justin exhaled through his nose, unwrapping the sweet slowly.
“Lockhart.
Seven books.” “And the *photos*,” Hannah added, wrinkling hers.
The *Magical Monthly* spread from last summer flashed in Tobias’s memory—Lockhart mid-bow, hair catching the light just so, teeth gleaming like a Kneazle who’d won the cream.
Ernie straightened, ever the diplomat.
“He *did* defeat the Wagga Wagga Werewolf.” “Allegedly,” Hannah muttered.
Justin lobbed the sweet wrapper at her.
“You think he made it up?” Tobias watched the wrapper flutter to the floor.
The train swayed; outside, the first hills rose dark against the horizon.
“The Wagga Wagga thing,” he said, slow, considering, “had witnesses.” Hannah snorted.
“Witnesses he *quotes in his own book*.” Ernie crossed his arms.
“Mother met him at a Ministry gala.
Said his robes were *impeccable*.” “Priority one for werewolf slaying, clearly,” Hannah deadpanned.
Justin grinned, leaning forward.
“Okay, but—*Voyages with Vampires*?
Who titles their own autobiography like a third-year’s holiday essay?” The compartment warmed with their laughter, easy and familiar.
Tobias pressed a hand to his chest, where the hollow throbbed faintly—not from laughter, but from the way Justin’s eyes flicked to Hannah’s smirk, the way Ernie’s shoulders relaxed when he argued.
Second year.
They knew the rhythm now.
Outside, the first raindrops struck the glass.
Hannah was willing to make fun of the books, and Ernie was not.
The trolley rattled past their compartment just after one o’clock, its wheels squeaking against the uneven track.
Hannah lunged for the sliding door, Galleon already in hand.
“Oi—here!” The witch paused, her cart stacked with Chocolate Frogs and Pumpkin Pasties, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans rattling in their boxes like trapped insects.
Hannah pointed—two frogs each, a pasty, and a handful of beans—and dropped the coin into the witch’s waiting palm without waiting for change.
Justin caught the first frog she tossed his way, tore the foil with his teeth, and groaned.
“Morgana *again*?
I’ve got six of her.” Ernie unwrapped his more carefully, smoothing the foil on his knee.
“Merlin,” he announced, smug.
Tobias peeled his own foil back slow, like it might bite.
The card gleamed up at him—Dumbledore’s half-moon glasses, that infuriating twinkle.
Third time this summer.
Hannah kicked his shoe under the table.
“Trade you for Cliodna.” Justin snorted.
“Cliodna’s rubbish.
I’d give you two Morganas for Dumbledore.” “Three,” Ernie countered, already digging through his pockets for his card pouch.
Tobias held the card between two fingers, letting the afternoon light catch the embossed edges.
Outside, the rain thickened, blurring the hills into grey smudges.
He slid the card across the table toward Hannah.
“Done.” She grinned, tucking Cliodna’s stern face into his palm before popping the whole frog into her mouth at once.
The chocolate cracked between her teeth.
Justin groaned again.
“You’re *barbaric*.” Tobias turned the new card over in his hands.
Cliodna stared back, unimpressed.
Somewhere north of the moors, thunder rolled—low, distant, like the sound of something waking up.
The compartment shuddered as the train banked left, wheels hissing against wet rails.
Tobias tucked Cliodna into his breast pocket—left side, where the hollow wouldn’t notice—and watched Ernie’s eyelids droop against the rhythmic thrum of rain.
Hannah turned another page of *Magical Waterways*, her thumb tracing the edge absently.
Justin had given up on argument entirely, cheek pressed to the cold window glass like he meant to memorize the blur of heather.
Tobias flexed his fingers.
Wand holster stiff against his forearm.
Holly and unicorn hair, eleven sickles from Ollivander’s, and still it sat in his grip like a borrowed limb.
He’d practiced all summer.
Lumos flickered.
Wingardium sputtered.
The hole in his chest yawned wider when he concentrated, as if mocking the effort.
Outside, lightning sheeted across the moors—brief, colorless.
The thunder that followed was softer than the rattle of Bertie Bott’s beans in their box.
Hannah marked her place with a finger and looked up.
“You’re doing that thing again.” “What thing.” “The—” She gestured vaguely at his face.
Justin snorted without turning from the window.
“The *constipated seer* thing.” Ernie mumbled something into his collar, half-asleep.
Tobias exhaled through his nose.
Wand hand twitching.
The train lurched again, and for one dizzying second, he felt the hollow in his chest pulse in time with the wheels—three beats, then the hitch.
Hannah kicked his shoe again, gentler this time.
“Eat your pasty before Justin steals it.” Justin perked up.
“Would I—” “Yes,” said Hannah and Tobias simultaneously.
The compartment quieted as it always quieted in the afternoon of the long ride.
Justin stole the pasty anyway.
Tobias watched him do it—slow, deliberate, like a cat testing its owner’s patience—and didn’t protest.
The taste of pumpkin lingered in the air, sweet and spiced, mingling with the damp wool of their robes.
Hogsmeade was dark when they pulled in, and the carriages were waiting.
The platform gleamed under the rain, puddles reflecting the dim station lamps.
First-years clustered near Hagrid’s lantern, their faces tilted up at the looming shadow of the boats.
Tobias stepped around them, shoulders brushing Hannah’s as they followed the older students to the line of carriages.
No horses.
Just empty harnesses, the wood worn smooth by generations of hands.
Tobias paused, fingers hovering over the carriage door.
Somewhere in the dark, leathery wings stirred—a sound like wet canvas snapping in the wind.
Hannah nudged him.
“Coming?” He climbed in.
The seat was cold under his thighs, the upholstery smelling of mildew and old magic.
Justin and Ernie piled in after, arguing again—something about the Cannons’ chances now their Seeker had been traded.
The door clicked shut on its own.
The carriage jolted forward.
Through the window, Hogwarts rose in fragments—a turret, a lit window, the curve of the bridge—as the thestrals pulled them uphill.
Tobias pressed his palm to the glass.
The castle’s reflection wavered in the rain-streaked pane, whole and then fractured, whole and then fractured.
Hannah leaned into his shoulder, her breath fogging the glass.
“Looks smaller,” she murmured.
It didn’t.
But Tobias knew what she meant.
The candles in the entrance hall were lit when they reached the castle—long rows of them, floating in midair, their light pooling on the stone floor.
The noise of students echoed off the walls, laughter bouncing, shoes scuffing, the Fat Lady’s voice carrying down from the portrait hole.
Tobias inhaled.
Wax and wet wool and the faint metallic tang of the suits of armor.
Hogwarts was now home in the way a place became home after a year.
He was returning to the castle, not arriving at it, and that was new.
If Hollow at Hogwarts has caught your eye and you’d like to keep going, the full story lives on the usual site under TransmigratorTales, alongside my other ongoing serial.
More on the way, and I’m really glad you’re here reading this.