Leo and Draco dragged their trunks along Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, looking for their respective groups of friends. Draco found Vincent, Gregory, Pansy, Millicent and Blaise about halfway along, but Leo had to walk nearly the entire distance before he found Theo, Tracey, Daphne and of course Marisa.

"Hey guys!"

"And girls," said Marisa reproachfully as Leo dragged his trunk into the compartment.

"Have you got the flyers?" he asked.

Marisa nodded and handed them to him.

"What flyers?" asked Tracey.

Ignoring her, Leo glanced through them. Marisa had done a good job: they showed all of the essential information.

"These," he said. "Here. Pass them round."

He handed some out to Tracey, Theo and Daphne. "I'm going to find the eagles, give them some copies. See you soon!"

"Oh, come on," Marisa protested, "won't you sit with us for five minutes?"

Leo shook his head. "Later. Stuff to do."

She glared at him as he walked into the next compartment, in which Terry was sitting with Morag McDougal, Mandy Brocklehurst and Roger Malone.

"Hi," he said, slightly nervously. "I'm starting a new club and I wondered if any of you would be interested in joining?" He handed Terry a few copies of the leaflet.

"Looks like fun," Terry replied.

"Could you stick one of these on your notice board?" asked Leo. "That way the first years can see it too. I would speak to them now, except I don't know who the Ravenclaws and Slytherins are yet."

Terry nodded. "Sure. See you around."

Leo smiled and walked back into his own compartment.

"There we are. Now I can relax." He sat down in the one remaining seat, next to Tracey. "So, how's your summer been?" he asked.

"Boring, really," replied Marisa. "I spent most of it thrashing everyone unfortunate enough to be on my videogame servers."

"What's a video game?" asked Theo, and Marisa launched into an explanation, which didn't get very far as none of them understood terms like "computer" or "keyboard". Eventually she resorted to: "It's a game you play in virtual space."

"What?"

"How?"

"Why don't we have things like that?"

Marisa shrugged. "Well, the only reason I see that you don't is that it doesn't work in Hogwarts and your parents hate Muggles – once we're grown up there'll be nothing at all to stop us!"

She smiled broadly.

Leo rolled his eyes. "Anyone else do anything interesting?"

No-one had, so Daphne pulled out a pack of cards and they began to play Exploding Snap.

"Marisa," Leo said, bored of Exploding Snap after his sixth loss, "want to play wizard chess?"

Marisa nodded. "I've never played before," she said cautiously, "so I probably won't be much good. It's just like Muggle chess, right?"

"Sort of. Have you got your own pieces?"

"No."

"I can lend you some," said Daphne, "let me get them."

Leo set up the board while Daphne fetched Marisa's pieces. She was white and he was black.

"White starts," said Leo.

"Okay," said Marisa, and picked up a pawn.

"That's not how you do it," said Leo, "you have to tell them where to go!"

"Right…" said Marisa, slightly bewildered. She put the pawn down again. "Okay. Pawn to E5." The pawn she had just put down moved forward.

Marisa soon found herself overwhelmed: Leo was very, very good at wizard chess.

"Check."

"Oh, come on! Give me a chance!" She paused, thinking. "Ah ha!" she said suddenly, spotting a way out of the situation. "Bishop to C6." She looked at Leo smugly as his offending rook was wrestled off the board by her bishop.

He looked back even more smugly. "Queen to A3. Checkmate."

"How – what – no way! That is not fair!"

"Did I cheat? Did I break the rules?"

"Well, no, but you have had twelve years of experience of this game…"

"True, I suppose. You'd better get practicing if you ever want to beat me!"

Marisa glared at Leo and they descended into their usual bickering.