"John! Sherlock! Wait up!"
John spun around at the sound of his name being called. Sherlock, as always, ignored this and would have carried on walking if John had not grabbed his arm and forced him to stop. Greg ran up to John and Sherlock, his breathing heavy as he had just ran with his trolley with all of his things on it.
"Hey Greg."
"You alright John?"
"Good, excited?"
"Duh."
"How about you Sherlock?"
"No."
The other two boys stopped short at this and turned to look at their friend who was stood with a sour look on his face.
"Is this about the fact that Mycroft will be around more now?" John asked as he looked at his best friend in worry.
"Partly."
"Well then what is the problem?" Greg asked as he also looked at Sherlock confused by his lack of enthusiasm about this, "I mean come on, we are going to Hogwarts! We've been waiting for this for years!"
This was true, the boys had been friends for as long as they could remember and ever since they learnt what it meant they had been looking forward to all going to Hogwarts. They had often talked about what it would look like and be like, what the lessons would be like and how strict the teachers would be. When Mycroft came back from his first year at Hogwarts he was ambushed by the boys all asking him questions about what it was like, which he answered once they had all climbed off him and he was able to get up off the floor that he had been pushed down on.
"Nevermind, let's just get on the train." Sherlock said dismissively as he turned with his trolley and made his way to the train. Greg and John both looked at each other, shrugged and followed after him, after all Sherlock had a tendency to be very strange at times.
Once they had dealt with their bags and found a carriage the three boys all fell down into seats, John and Sherlock on one side, Greg sat on the other.
"Hey," Greg said as he looked out of the window, "either of you seen Jim yet?"
Both Sherlock and John shook their heads at the same time, Greg sighed and rested his head against the window, "He better hurry up." Greg huffed under his breath.
A few more minutes passed and the three boys were starting to get a bit worried about where their friend was.
"If he doesn't get here soon he'll miss the train."
"John, Jim will get here. Stop getting so worried."
"He's right Sherlock, what if Jim doesn't get on the train. What will we do?" Greg asked in a frantic voice, scared that his best friend would not be coming to Hogwarts with him. Sure all four of them were friends but it was clear who was best friends with who. John and Sherlock and Jim and Greg had started out as two separate pairs of friends. John and Sherlock were one and Jim and Greg were the other, both of these pairs were happy with what they had. However when they had started school John and Greg had started to become friends and, in a way that only children could, it was decided that the four of them would be friends from then on.
Greg looked out of the window at the platform, hoping to spot his best friend running to get on the train. There was no sign of him.
"Oh my God Sherlock, what if Jim doesn't manage to get here?" John asked as he rested his head on his best friend's shoulder. Sherlock said nothing but put his arm around John and rest his head on the top of John's.
"Never fear, for I am here!"
The three boys all jumped up at the sound of the voice and turned to the doorway.
"Jim!" Greg yelled as he tackled his friend, "Don't do that to me! I thought that you weren't going to make it."
Jim smiled at his friend, "Well no need to worry."
The two boys moved to sit down opposite Sherlock and John who were looking much happier now that the four of them were together.
"Hey Jim."
"Hey John. Sherlock. Ready?"
"Come on. We've been ready for years." John said just as the train started moving out of the station.
The train journey was long but it did not seem this way to the four boys in that carriage. When the lady came around with the trolley of sweets while both John and Greg declined, there were a few money issues for their families and so did not want to waste money, Sherlock and Jim decided that it was a good idea to buy four of everything on the trolley.
"John come on."
"No, you bought it, it is your food."
"Yeah but I want you to have it, besides I don't need food."
"Fine but on one condition."
"What?"
"If I am going to eat some of this then so are you."
"Fine." Sherlock said as he handed John a packet of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and grabbed a chocolate frog for himself.
Jim and Greg smiled as they looked over at their stubborn friends, Sherlock not wanting to eat and John not wanting to eat Sherlock's food, their banter was always a good source of entertainment.
"Greg?"
"Yeah Jim?"
"What house do you think we'll all be in?"
Sherlock stopped eating once he heard this question and put down his half-eaten chocolate frog. John looked at Sherlock with a worried look on his face.
"Sherlock, are you alright?"
"Fine." Sherlock mumbled as he curled up on the seat. John, however, was having none of that.
"No, come on tell us what's wrong."
"Yeah Sherlock we just want to know."
"John and Greg are right Sherlock. Just tell us."
"Fine!" The word seemed to explode out of Sherlock as he jumped out of his curled position. "I am not looking forward to being in Hogwarts because we will all be split up and we won't be friends anymore and I don't want to make new friends."
The other three boys looked at Sherlock as if he had gone mad.
"Why do you think we won't be friends anymore?" John asked softly as he placed a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Because we won't be in the same houses." He looked up and saw confusion in John's eyes as well as Greg's, "John you will undoubtedly be sorted into Gryffindor, Jim will probably end up in Slytherin, Greg will be put in Hufflepuff and I will be in Ravenclaw just like Mycroft. We will all get split up!"
"Sherlock, I knew that. I mean it is obvious that we will all be put in different houses but why will that mean that we won't be friends anymore?" Jim asked.
"House rivalry, we won't see each other as much, you will all make new friends and forget me. There are many reasons really." Sherlock lowered his chin to his chest as he said this obviously hating having this conversation.
The other three boys all looked at each other and had a silent conversation before turning to look at Sherlock once again.
"That's not true." Greg said, putting his hand on Sherlock's other shoulder.
"Yeah I mean who cares about house rivalry?" Jim said with a smirk on his face.
"We will make time to see each other outside of class and we will see each other inside class as well." John stated while squeezing Sherlock's shoulder slightly.
"And about making new friends. We may make a few, I don't know..." Greg trailed off knowing one of the others would pick up the rest of the sentence.
"I mean it's quite unlikely that I will meet anyone that is more interesting than you lot." Jim said as he looked over the other three boys in the compartment.
"And even if we do make other friends and those friends are great, they will never be as great as you. I don't think that anyone could make us forget about you or stop being friends with you, I mean, you are Sherlock Holmes, genius and all around madman!" John said, letting go of Sherlock's shoulder and moving his hands around to try and emphasise his point.
Sherlock looked up at the three boys who were looking at him, he knew that they would always be friends, he knew that they wouldn't just leave him alone and he also knew that all these worries were silly but he just couldn't help thinking of that possibility.
"Well, we'll always be here to remind you that you don't need to worry." Greg said which made Sherlock realise that his previous train of thought was probably said out loud.
"Alright, so..." Sherlock said now sat up straight and looking a lot happier with this weight off his mind. It was obvious that Sherlock wanted to change the topic of conversation but didn't know what to change it to. Greg saved him the trouble.
"I wonder what the feast is going to be like?"
The conversation continued from here, the subject light and full of excitement about what their lives were going to be like at Hogwarts. John looked over at Sherlock part way through the conversation and smiled, Sherlock looked happy now, and so John rested his head on Sherlock's shoulder and joined back into the conversation.
Greg blindly moved his hand in between himself and Jim during a conversation about the moving staircases and whether or not Mycroft had been lying about them. Jim moved his hand and entwined their fingers together without looking away from John and Sherlock who were resting against each other with Sherlock's head on top of John's.
'Sure we'll be in different houses, and yeah there will be obstacles.' Jim thought as he looked around the carriage, 'But we are stronger than that and we will stay friends. Nothing can break us apart, the four of us, we'll stay together until the end..'
And so the train journey continued on their way to Hogwarts, the four boys all sat laughing and talking as the train wound its way through the English countryside towards Hogwarts where their new lives would start.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed that, I didn't mean for it to really be that long but I guess that's the way things happen sometimes. Feel free to leave a review and tell me what you think or how I could improve this.