The Return
Gabriel Dinis drummed her fingers on the train table and gazed out the window.
"I wonder how Muggles explain this long empty train track running throughout the British countryside." She wondered out loud. In the seat across from her, a striking brunette burst into delightful laughter. "I mean, what if they're walking, and they trip over it, if it's invisible?"
"Oh wow, Phoenix. Did I miss you?" She grinned, pushing the long brown hair that had fallen in her eyes behind her ears.
"What?" Gabriel asked in disbelief, "I'm serious!" The other girl laughed again. "Fine, Rea, I'm finding another compartment." She said with a gleeful smirk, getting up.
"Oh no you don't!" Aerianne, Rea, said, grabbing her hand and forcing her back into the seat. "I've been without you for two months, you're not getting away that easy!" Phoenix sat down with a sheepish smile. Above them in the baggage cages on the ceiling, a pygmy phoenix named FireWing, squawked in response. Gabriel looked up and put a finger to her lips to hush him.
Here they were, back again on the lazy timeless journey up to Scotland for another year at Hogwarts. Gabriel had spent the summer in Portugal, visiting old friends, while Rea had spent the season at home, burying herself in her family's library, shopping for new clothes and writing intimate letters to Hunter. They'd bumped into each other racing through the train in order to find a last empty compartment and had crowded into one together so they could catch up and gush about their summer adventures.
Suddenly, they heard footsteps hurrying up the train passageway and figures hurried by the glass doors. They stopped suddenly and opened up the door to Phoenix and Rea's compartment.
"Found them!" Announced a willowy, dark-haired girl, yelling down the corridor to one of the figures that had run past. She sucked on the end of a licorice wand, pulling it with her teeth until it broke, then she chewed it.
"Bri!" Gabriel cried.
"So there you are!" Rea laughed. "I was just starting to wonder if you were coming back to school."
"Oh," smiled the dark girl, "You'll never get rid of me, Re." she grinned. She turned her head one last time and yelled, "Em! Get down here!" before she moved in and sat down next to Gabriel who folded her in a hug.
"So, how have you been? I want to hear everything!" Rea asked. Bri raised an eyebrow. Before she could say anything, the figure returned and stuck her head through the door. Waves of golden-white hair fell over the shoulders of a grey and blue Ravenclaw jumper.
"Phoenix! Rea!" cried the new arriver.
"Well if it isn't little Miss Emma-I-forgot-everyone's-addresses-Beech." Rea quipped. Emma's porcelain face fell.
"I told you I was sorry before!" she said, coming into the compartment and shutting the door. "Oh God, you aren't really mad, are you Rea?" she asked.
"I don't think anyone can stay angry with you for long." Rea smiled, grabbing Emma's sleeve and pulling her down to the seat next to her. The four of them looked at each other, faces smiling. Bri chewed her licorice wand.
"So, Phoenix." She said, turning to the auburn girl next to her, "Tell me, how many hot European guys did you hook up with this summer?" she asked, mischievously.
"None!" Phoenix shrieked.
"Oh, she's lying!" Rea laughed.
"I am not!" Phoenix grinned. "I was faithful to T all summer."
"Oh, she was "faithful"." Emma said, striking a regal pose, stressing Gabriel's word choice.
"Fine, and what about you Em?" Phoenix quizzed in response. "How were the guys in Ooh Huku, or wherever it was you were."
"Ua Huka," Emma corrected. "They were… I realized how bad my French is." Bri made a noise.
"You're such hot air, Em." She laughed. The blonde blushed and scooted down in her seat. A few moments later, and again, footsteps came tramping down the hall and four, very tall boys tumbled in through the door onto what little space was left on the floor of the compartment.
"Eureka!" Shouted the only one left standing, a tan boy with swoopy black hair. He had his arm stretched into the air, in accordance with his statement. In it was a black leather book.
"Shut up with all this Greek crap, T!" scoffed a brown haired boy as he got up from the floor. "Jesus Christ, he's been quoting that crap since the train left King's Cross, I'm sorry, how are you?" he said. In the span of his statement, he'd dusted himself off and leaned over Emma to kiss Rea shortly on the lips, making the blonde look even more uncomfortable.
"It's not crap, it's Aristotle." T defended, pushing his hair back.
"It's crap." Said a blond boy who had fallen onto one of the girl's suitcases and stood up rubbing his side.
"Liam!" Bri squeaked, hugging him around the waist. Liam's face brightened considerably, which was hard to do with his three piercings and black eye makeup.
"Alright, alright. Hang on a tick." He laughed, dumping a few handfuls of cauldron cakes and chocolate frogs onto the table. The other three girls pounced on them immediately while Liam took his time giving Bri a hello kiss.
"Where's Chase?" Emma asked T, who was the only one standing in the small space between the door and the table now, opening the packet of her cauldron cake.
"I'm here." Came the final boy's voice from beneath the table. The others looked under to see another young man with shiny black hair rubbing his head.
"What happened?" Rea asked.
"I hit my head," Chase said, scrambling out.
"This cabin really isn't made for eight people!" Emma laughed, leaning down to kiss him on the cheek.
"Too bad," Chase grinned, face growing happy when she kissed him. "Move over, com'n T." With that, all of the squished somehow into the cabin seats. Bri sat on Liam's lap, which saved a little space, since he was the tallest. They were all the same people who had said goodbye to each other at King's Cross two months earlier, basically. Bri had gained a little weight, which made her look healthy and happier than ever; Phoenix's hair had lightened significantly in the European sun; Rea cut her fringe differently; Emma's face had matured and lost some of its roundness. The boys were almost identical: T had lost the gawkiness of his stature; Liam and Hunter's hair had grown longer and Chase had lost some muscle from lack of Quidditch practice.
"So," Hunter began, wrapping a piece of Drooble's gum and putting an arm around Rea, "What adventures lie in store for us this year?" he asked.
"Got anymore relatives we can kill, Bri?" Phoenix asked, putting the card from her fifth chocolate frog on the table to compare them.
"I should ask you the same." Bri smirked, "Maybe the boys should take their Animagus vows?"
"Birds of a feather…" Emma mused, "Maybe we'll just have a normal year?"
Outside the compartment doors, students walked back and forth, waving to old friends and running after the trolley. One or two peered into their stuffed little room and sighed, rolling their eyes. The eight of them were infamous for breaking almost every school rule, getting away with it, and having suspicious behavior. Almost each one of them was famous for something, whether it be a wealthy family, and evil father, a strange choice of clothing, cross-house dating, their looks, or an immaculate school record.
Inside the cabin the whole group burst into laughter.
"Yeah, right," Rea said, wiping tears from her eyes.
"I think it's pretty impossible for us to have a normal year, Em." T added.
"Maybe that's all part of the allure," Bri said, striking a pose with her hand in front of her face to give the right impression. "We never know what's going to happen."