The ambient noise of the train – the scraping, muffled talking, hooting and constant shuffling of the wheels beneath his feet – were broken quite unexpectedly by a shout. Eric Wallans Dole (just call me Eric, man) was pulled from his book – the fascinating Curious Charms for the Contemporary Caster – to see a somewhat disheveled boy push through the door, not even glancing his way.

"I don't care what you say; I'm not doing it!" He shouted at the door, towards someone out-of-sight. Eric heard laughter as the intruder shut the door, paused, and turned around.

He was a small boy, still in his street clothes – Eric looked first to his unkempt black hair, which somehow didn't seem unclean. He was wearing a pair of black-rimmed spectacles that sat unevenly on his head, though his hand was in the movement of adjusting them. He had a wiry frame about his body, which seemed to suggest frailty.

The stranger looked into the cabin, eyes passing over Eric and looking straight at his partner, a young girl of their own age. She had blonde hair, pulled back into a pony tail, and a smooth, picturesque face. She was leaning against the window, having already changed into her school uniform, and had told Eric not to wake her up until the train was nearing the destination.

"Morning! Or is it afternoon?" Eric said cheerfully, not wanting to put off a potential roommate – but unintentionally scaring him half to death. It was with a clatter that the black-haired stranger dropped a small satchel of things he was carrying with him, rather than leaving in a trunk. Eric noticed a finely carved stick pop out of a special pocket and roll across the floor, so he grabbed it up.

"Uh, m-morning, um, I think, st-still…" The black-haired boy seemed embarrassed to have jumped like he did, but was eying the wand in Eric's hand, rather than Eric himself.

"Well that's good then, I haven't missed food time!" Eric passed back the wand, hoping the stranger would sit down – his neighbor wasn't terribly good company, what with her exhaustion and all.

"Oh, thanks." He didn't seem to hear Eric's comment, but took back his wand and looked around the car again – the red was fading from his cheeks.

"But I believe I missed your name..?"

"Oh. Oh! Uh, Albus. It's Albus." The name seemed familiar, and Albus looked away as he said it, but Eric paid no mind to it.

"Eric, myself! And that lump over there is Jenna!" She appeared to hear him, and made a rather rude gesture at him. "Why don't you join us for a spell?" Those seemed to be the magic words.

"Oh, thanks a lot! I'm really just looking to get away from my brother, James."

"He annoying, or something?" Eric thought of his own "brother".

"Just a bit of a prat." He chuckled sheepishly, and Eric laughed wholeheartedly.

"Ah-ha! I know exactly the type! You should meet my cousin!" He was about to launch into his world-famous My-Cousin-Joe impression (a character who was entirely made-up, but don't tell anybody), when the lump interrupted.

"And 'you should meet my cousin', too! She'll teach you about letting cranky people sleep once in a while!" Her impression of Eric was uncanny, and he saw Albus grin for the first time.

"Ah, the fair damsel wakes."

"Stuff it, Eric." She rubbed her eyes.

"He, she reminds me of my sister!"

"Sister? I'm not this idiot's sister!" She looked at Albus for the first time, unimpressed.

"Oh? Well, you two look so alike…"

It was true, Eric had to admit it, though he was sitting upright with a book in his hands and she was slouched over with a book for a pillow. He shared her in having blonde hair, long and pulled back into a pony tail – though his was shorter by far. His eyes diverged from hers in that his were brown to her blue, though that was hardly noticeable as he was wearing silver-rimmed sunglasses, made in an oblong shape that hung low on his nose in a kind of hipster look – a look suggested by his brother.

"No, me and Jenna are simply first years, as you are?" That was a habit he'd learned from his brother, as well.

"Yeah, I am. But my brother isn't – he's a third year, by now."

"A third year? Did he tell you what Hogwarts is like?" Eric was grinning broadly now, insider information was at hand!

"Well, kinda. Like, he told me about the houses, and stuff."

"What about them? Where's your brother in?"

"Well, like, he's in Gryffindor, where they send brave people, who can defeat anyone they need – and protect anyone they care about." Albus seemed unsure. "And then there's Hufflepuff, where, um, I guess I don't know."

"Oh." Eric was disheartened.

"But there's Ravenclaw too! That's where all of the smart types end up, or so they say – I don't actually know any Ravenclaws, mind."

"Now, that's more like it!" Eric grinned. "Definitely my first choice of house!"

"Really?"

"Of course! Imagine being surrounded by the most talented the country has to offer!"

"That's why I want to get into Gryffindor." Jenna had spoken up.

"Gryffindor?" Eric smirked. "Surrounded by a bunch of muscle-bound men looking for glory? No thanks."

"And be surrounded by a bunch of know-it-alls? No thanks."

Eric and Jenna locked gaze in a serious way – this happened once already, when they were debating what to buy from the snack trolley. The row that would have broken out was interrupted by Albus' next comment.

"And the last one is Slytherin." He said it almost too quickly to catch.

"Wait, what do they have?" Eric's curiosity was piqued.

"The cunning, crafty ones are supposed to end up in Slytherin," Jenna said, "but from what another kid told me they're all just a bunch of double-crossers." Albus slouched a little.

"Yeah, well I guess it would seem that way for some." Eric didn't know what to think now – crafty and cunning seemed to match him pretty well "But I think you may have gotten a bad opinion."

"I'll have you know I heard that from a fourth year!"

"What kind of fourth year would talk to you, anyway?" The air became grave, but they were again thwarted by Albus.

"My dad tells me that the bravest man he ever knew was a Slytherin, I don't think that fourth year got it right." There was a pause.

"Well, I guess it doesn't really matter, in the long run." Eric finally marked the page in his book and stuffed in his bag, with a sigh – it's easier when you can just categorize everything, like different types of charms. Frustrating was the right word.

There was a lull, and Jenna sought to end it.

"What about you, Albus, what house do you want to be in?"

Albus paused, looking down at his feet and seriously considering the question. But he never answered as another intruder burst into the cabin.

"Oi! Al! Can you believe it? Now Teddy and—" He was cut off when he saw Eric and Jenna, apparently more interested in them than whatever he was talking about.

"Makin' friends already I see? Well, I won't keep you." Eric had only barely looked at the wild-eyed, red-haired older boy as he strode out the door, someone shouting "Oi! James!" as he did so.

"Your brother?" Asked Eric.

"Yeah." Answered Albus.

"Well, he seems like a nice guy."

Just as Eric finished saying it there was an ear-splitting "SQUEAK!" and an explosion of white powder – comically, Eric and the other two were completely covered with the stuff, which Eric figured to be laundry detergent. There was laughter from outside the cabin.

"Yeah, real bloody nice!" Jenna was turning red under the detergent. "Those were NEW ROBES!" She ran up to and threw open the door.

"HEY! ARSEFACE!"

"Here we go." Eric heaved a heavy sigh, and went up in case he needed to keep her from shoving her wand up an improper orifice.

"Ack, no, don't do that!" Albus was in the door first, stepping on Eric's foot to get to Jenna. As Albus pulled Jenna back into the cabin, there was another "SQUEAK!" and another blast of detergent – this one only got on the walls, not on other people. More laughter, louder this time because they had the door open.

"Sorry, but he learned a long time ago to prepare for revenge-seekers."

"Ack, it's not that, it's just – now I have to change, again!"

"Actually, I may have the solution!" Eric had already produced his Charms book, and was flipping to the index. "No, no, no… here we are!" Eric produced his wand from his belt, where it was sitting between it and his pants.

He read from the book, while waving his wand in the indicated fashion: "Scourgify!"

In that moment all of the detergent in the cabin shot off of its surface and rearranged itself on a different one, not cleaning any of it at all.

"What? I did it correctly, what's wrong? Scourgify!"

After his first failure to clean anything in particular, Jenna had started laughing, but she immediately stopped here: soap suds began emanating from her mouth in great amounts, and she hacked it up onto the floor without end.

"Wait! I'm sorry! I know what I did wrong!" He waved his wand dismissively at her, and the suds stopped coming, she was spitting out the last of them when he tried the recommended alternate spell.

"Tergeo!"

This time, all of the soap siphoned itself properly off of Jenna's robes – though she was far from completely clean, Eric felt accomplished. He placed the book, opened to the section of Tergeo, down on his seat, and began to pace around the cabin, muttering the incantation over and over as he did so, and patches of soap (a different sized circle each time) removed themselves from the walls.

Finally, convinced he had gotten it clean enough, he turned the wand confidently on himself, "Tergeo!"

At once his head erupted into a pillar of gore, spraying the once detergent-covered walls in a seemingly endless fountain of blood. Jenna and Albus screamed bloody murder as people arrived in the cabin to see what was going on.

Niether Jenna nor Albus would be seen again after this incident, though they are both presumed as being prisoners at Azkaban for brutally murdering Eric Wallans Dole.