“Three steps behind,” she murmured, adjusting the trolley’s angle.
The wall loomed—just brick and mortar to anyone else.
Tobias flexed his fingers inside his pockets, the holly wand a unfamiliar weight against his ribs.
Eleanor didn’t hesitate.
She broke into a jog, trolley wheels humming against concrete.
Tobias followed, his breath hitching as the brickwork yawned open like a mouth.
For half a second, daylight fractured into strangled shapes—then Platform 9¾ swallowed them whole.
The air changed.
Steam from the scarlet engine coiled around their ankles as witches in pointed hats called last goodbyes.
Eleanor slowed the trolley beside a stack of trunks, her St.
Mungo’s robes settling around her.
Tobias exhaled through his nose.
The hole in his chest didn’t ache, but something behind it *pulled*.
She turned, brushing brick dust from his shoulder.
“All yours from here.” Owl cages clattered above them.
A first-year girl with butter-blonde plaits tripped over her own trunk nearby.
Eleanor’s hand lingered—not quite touching his layered shirts where the cartilage ring hid.
Then she stepped back, squaring her shoulders like she’d done outside operating theatres a hundred times before.
Tobias watched the clock hand twitch toward eleven.
He’d expected her to leave before the train departed.
Most parents did.
Eleanor planted one foot on the trolley’s base.
“I’ll wave you off.” Behind them, the redheaded family burst through the barrier in a riot of freckles and laughter.
Eleanor didn’t glance their way.
She timed the run at the wall between platforms nine and ten herself.
She timed the run at the wall between platforms nine and ten herself, her heels clicking against concrete with the same precision she used to count suture knots.
Tobias watched the steam curl around her ankles—how odd, that she hadn’t changed out of her Healer’s robes.
The white fabric stood out among the sea of cloaks and cardigans like a bone protruding through skin.
They wove through the crowd, Eleanor’s hand hovering near his shoulder blade without touching.
A pair of twins shot past, their trunks levitating behind them in a way that made Tobias’s wand twitch in envy.
The compartment Eleanor chose smelled of cedar and old leather, the seats patched with sunlight filtering through soot-streaked windows.
“Here,” she said, bracing one knee against the bench as they lifted the trunk together.
Her sleeve brushed his wrist—cold, despite the steam-heated air.
The trunk settled on the rack with a thud that reverberated through Tobias’s molars.
Outside, the warning whistle split the air.
Eleanor turned, her fingers catching briefly in the fabric of his robes.
Her hug was swift, clinical—the kind she gave patients before administering Dreamless Sleep.
“Write if you need anything,” she said, stepping back onto the platform.
Her voice didn’t waver, but her thumb pressed hard into his shoulder, right where the hole’s edge would be if layers of cloth weren’t in the way.
Doors slammed down the length of the train.
Eleanor folded her arms, her St.
Mungo’s badge glinting as the engine exhaled another plume of steam.
Tobias watched through the window as the platform began to slide away.
She waved once as the train began to move and lowered her hand.
The compartment smelled of cinnamon and coal dust.
Tobias pressed his forehead to the cool glass, watching Eleanor grow smaller until she vanished behind a bend in the tracks.
He exhaled—long, slow—and the hole in his chest pulsed once, like a second heartbeat out of sync.
Ten minutes later, three sharp knocks rattled the sliding door.
A blonde girl—already in her robes, plaits perfectly even—stood in the corridor with a chocolate frog box balanced on her palm.
“Is this seat free?” Her voice was bright, the vowels rounded in that particular way purebloods had.
Tobias nodded.
She shut the door behind her with a practiced flick of her wrist.
“Hannah Abbott.” She settled opposite him, smoothing her skirt before placing the frog box on her lap.
The gold lettering caught the light—*Hinkypunk Honeyglaze*, limited edition.
“Tobias Vesper.” “Half-blood?” She asked it lightly, already unwrapping the foil.
“Mother’s a Healer.
Father was Muggle.” Hannah’s fingers stilled for half a second.
“Abbotts go back to the Wizengamot’s founding.” She said it like reciting a shopping list, then split the frog neatly down the middle.
The chocolate cracked clean—one half still twitching.
“Here.” Their fingers brushed as he took it.
The frog kicked violently, its caramel-glazed legs scrabbling against his palm.
Hannah lunged forward just as it sprang— —straight under the seat.
A beat of silence.
Then Hannah snorted.
A full, undignified sound that escaped before she could clap a hand over her mouth.
Tobias watched, astonished, as her shoulders shook.
The laughter bubbled up again, louder this time, and suddenly he was laughing too—not at the frog, but at the way her nose wrinkled, at the sheer *normalcy* of it.
Under the seat, the frog croaked mournfully.
Hannah wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her robes, still giggling.
“Merlin’s beard,” she gasped, “I think it’s stuck.” Tobias knelt on the floor, peering into the shadows.
The frog stared back, its honey-glazed eyes glinting in the dark.
Somewhere behind his ribs, the hollow space hummed—not unpleasantly, for once.”It’s got your sleeve,” Tobias said, watching the frog’s sticky caramel legs cling to Hannah’s cuff.
She yelped and shook her arm, sending the frog skittering across the compartment floor where it landed with a damp splat against the window.
The compartment door slid open.
A boy with a square jaw and polished shoes peered in, his gaze skipping from the half-melted frog to Hannah’s chocolate-streaked robes.
“Have you seen Susan Bones?” Ernie Macmillan asked, already stepping back.
“Never mind.” The door clicked shut before either could answer.
Silence pooled again, broken only by the frog’s wet breathing.
Tobias reached for his wand—still awkward in his grip—and whispered *Lumos*.
A thin glow flickered at the tip, weaker than a dying match.
Hannah didn’t laugh.
She watched the pathetic light with the same clinical interest Eleanor gave to unstable potions.
The trolley witch’s singsong call drifted down the corridor.
Justin Finch-Fletchley stuck his head in moments later, his Muggle sneakers squeaking on the floorboards.
“Has she come through yet?” His eyes widened at the wreckage of their snack.
“Merlin’s saggy left—” Hannah lobbed a jellybean at his forehead.
Justin caught it reflexively, sniffed, and promptly spat it out.
“Dirt flavour,” he gagged, retreating as the trolley’s brass fittings gleamed into view.
Two rounds of pumpkin pasties and licorice wands later, the corridor hummed with overlapping voices.
“—saw him boarding with the Weasleys—” “—heard they make first-years wrestle a *troll*—” “—my cousin said Potter’s got *fangs*—” Hannah rolled her eyes, whispering, “The troll rumour’s been around since my mother’s time.” But her fingers twisted in her robes when a Hufflepuff prefect strode past, his badge glinting.
Tobias watched shadows shift under compartment doors.
Every third whisper carried Potter’s name; every fifth mentioned the troll.
The train lurched around a bend, and somewhere ahead, a suitcase toppled with a crash.
A chorus of nervous laughter followed.
He learned by listening that he was not the only nervous one on the train.
The older students started back through the carriages telling them to change into their robes, their voices carrying that particular lilt of practiced authority.
Tobias watched the light through the window soften into something reddish, the hills beyond yielding to stands of pine that stood black against the fading sky.
Hannah rose with a rustle of fabric.
“Back in a tick,” she said, tucking her plaits behind her ears.
The compartment door slid shut behind her with a whisper of wood on wood.
Tobias waited three breaths before closing the blind.
The fabric was thin enough that the dying light still seeped through in stripes, painting the seat opposite in alternating bands of gold and shadow.
He worked methodically—first the outer robe, then the buttoned shirt beneath, fingers careful where they brushed the cartilage ring.
The hole itself was quiet today, just the usual faint draft through it like wind through a seashell.
The new robe’s collar stood stiff against his jaw.
He tucked the holly wand up his sleeve, feeling the unicorn hair core shift uneasily against his pulse.
Outside, the last sliver of sun dipped below the horizon, and for a moment the compartment went grey as wet newspaper.
He sat down with his trunk by his feet and watched the country go by.
The compartment door rattled open as Hannah returned, her plaits now slightly frayed at the ends from hurried brushing.
“They’re saying we’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she said, smoothing her robes over her knees.
The train shuddered around a curve, and the last daylight bled away behind thickening trees.
Hogsmeade station was small and crowded under the lanterns.
Steam from the engine curled around their ankles as they stepped onto the platform, the night air sharp with pine resin and coal smoke.
A voice boomed over the chatter—”Firs’-years!
Firs’-years over here!”—and there was Hagrid, his beetle-black eyes gleaming under the tilt of his lantern.
Tobias fell into step beside Hannah as they followed the half-giant down a sloping path.
The lantern light carved wobbling circles in the dark, illuminating patches of moss-slick stone and the occasional startled toad.
Somewhere ahead, a girl gasped as her shoe slipped; Hagrid caught her by the collar like a scruffed kitten.
The lake appeared suddenly, its surface so still it might have been polished obsidian.
Dozens of tiny boats waited at the shore, their prows bobbing faintly.
“No more’n four to a boat!” Hagrid called, hefting his lantern higher.
Hannah climbed in first, her knees bumping against Tobias’s as two Ravenclaw boys settled opposite them.
The boat rocked once, then moved of its own accord, gliding soundlessly across the water.
Behind them, someone whispered, “It’s *huge*,” and Tobias looked up.
Hogwarts rose from the cliffside like a jagged crown, every window burning gold against the black rock.
The reflection stretched across the lake—a second, upside-down castle rippling beneath their boat.
One of the Ravenclaws leaned too far over the edge; Hannah grabbed his sleeve just as the boat tipped.
The castle grew larger.
The hole in Tobias’s chest tightened, not unpleasantly, as if something behind it had finally *recognized* the place.
Around them, voices rose in excitement, but Tobias kept his gaze fixed on the highest tower, where a single window flickered—not with lamplight, but with something greener and slower, like a pulse.
The other first-years were noisy and Tobias was quieter still.