The cool mountain air whipped through her hair with a hint of the smoke from the coal fired boiler of the steam engine, while the railroad ties raced away from her. From this vantage point, at the very rear, she really got a sense of how quickly this train was moving; perhaps if she climbed this railing, maybe slipped, BAM, it could all be over. No, this was much too drastic, all she needed was to clear her thoughts and a muggle fag of course, but Hogwarts ran a strict business, no smoking allowed.

She had gotten finished work particularly early this evening, thanks to some rich first year, and she had thought that this was likely a rather good thing, but that was before the incident.

She needed to think back, retrace the day, see if any of this was at all avoidable.

Damn, if she could only have that cigarette.

Alarm buzzing at 6am.

Snooze.

Alarm buzzing at 6:15 am

"Fine", a crash of a hand on the off button of a rather abused looking alarm clock "I am UP," shouted Candice.

Today was a Hogwarts train day, more specifically the train for the first day of the school year. This meant a train full of excited students, nervous and pale first years, and rowdier than usual older students. In short, it was going to be a long day. Other days were more enjoyable; working a quiditch match or even better a private gala thrown by the likes of the Malfoys and company, lots of easy and polite money there. But she knew work was work and she had to press on.

On the way out of her apartment, she said bye to her two cats and adjusted her name tag in the mirror: Candice B. Love, she grumbled something about the lunacy of her parents, lit a cigarette, and plowed out the door.

The hustle to the station through the busy London morning got her thinking the same thing she always did, every year, before this ritual. "What an incredible exercise in pomp-and-circumstance this whole train ride to Hogwarts is, firstly, most of the students could apirate or use the floo network, or at least their parents could, so what was the point? Second ..." before she could finish her thought she was there, platform 9 3/4. "argh," she thought, "don't even get me started on the platform thing, bunch of bloody Luddites in Hogwarts and the Ministry"

She pushed through the teary-eyed parents and fumbling students to the service car, punched her time card, and headed for her trolley.

A wirey and pale man stepped into her path. "Can dis be love," he wheezed through yellow teeth with a crooked smile.

"yes, Carl, this could be love, that joke just gets funnier every time I see you" she retorted give what she hoped was the most sarcastic smile in her repertoire. She pushed past him, asking, "don't you have some students to scare?" and she was off.

As she approached her trolley, she thought, "Screw this! I don't need that same lame joke from the students" and with that she stuffed he name tag into her pocket.

Candice took a few deep breaths, repeated her sales pitch like a mantra "anything off the trolly dear?", put on her biggest smile, assuming to herself that a big smile would sell more candy, and with that she pushed the trolly through the doors into the passenger cars.

It was a completely full train, much like every year.

She pulled up to the first cabin, took a deep breath, and said, "anything off the trolly dear?"

A chocolate frog.

Next door same question.

A few cabins later she saw her next clients through the glass, a ragged looking red head and a skinny kid with glasses. "anything off the trolly dear?" she said forcing the big smile.

The red head, muttered in a sad way that he was "all set", at which point the kid with glasses reached into his pockets pulled out a fistful of gold coins and declared that he would "take the whole lot".

Candice's first thought was that she could not make change for that. Her second thought was what kind of prat carries around that much cash. Her third thought, the one she went with, was to sell the lot and take the rest of the train ride off, maybe she could catch a smoke at the back of the train.

She thanked the scraggly first years and then pushed he now empty trolly back to the service car.