Mina Thistlewaite, the only housemate that Atlas would really bother to call a friend, plops down into the seat across from him only a few minutes after he'd gotten settled onto the Hogwarts Express. She almost immediately leans forward towards him, resting her elbows on her knees and her head on her hands and looking at him with a very familiar peppy glint to her eyes.
"Don't even ask," Atlas sighs, flipping a page in his book. "It's the last thing I want to talk about, and I'm already going to have to deal with all the others asking."
She cocks her head and smiles, "I was just going to ask how your summer was." She leans back, flipping a lock of blonde hair over her shoulder and tilting her head again to look him over further. "Did you get to visit that bookstore in Lyon you talked about in your letters?"
"No." He frowns, shutting his book because he knows that Mina won't let him read in peace until she's adequately interviewed him. "My grandmother deemed it a pointless journey to go all the way out of the city, we ended up spending most of our visit in Paris socializing about the French pureblooded society."
"Oh?" Mina muses, "how was that?"
"About as insufferable as the British pureblood society," he smirks, "just with funnier accents."
She laughs, shaking her head and glancing out the window. He could see the option turning over in her head before she looked back at him and finally asked. "How did your grandmother react to the news?"
He frowns, "poorly." He responds, looking out the window himself. "It was a shame really, she threw the best vintage of wine we had. Poor Kreacher even got a cut from cleaning up the glass."
Mina studies him, a bit of shrewdness to her gaze that she usually keeps from it in most company before she nods. "I imagine it's all been a bother for you," she settles on remarking, thankfully choosing not to inquire on how he feels about the whole thing.
"Certainly ruined the last few weeks of the holiday." Atlas grunts, glancing out the window to look out at the platform.
Parents were hugging children, and first years were looking excitedly to the express with the unbridled joy of unburdened youth. He could spot Mina's mother and father, the pair looking along the train waiting for when it would depart and Mina would inevitably lean out the window like the rest of the happy folk to wave goodbye to family before a nice year at Hogwarts.
Atlas doesn't bother searching for his grandmother. She didn't often wait to see the train off. While Kreacher put his luggage aboard the pair of them would stand, and before he boarded she would meet his gaze and give him the common look that spoke that she expected him to do his best, and no less.
Atlas didn't mind it.
It usually got him on the train earlier than the kids going through the whole heartfelt goodbyes and thus almost always secured him the compartment he'd like. And let him get at least a few pages of reading done before Mina, or Merlin forbid any of his other housemates, arrived and joined him.
Speaking of which the compartment door slides open just after the train has started away, admitting a prancing Pansy and a chin-raised smug Malfoy. Pansy plops herself down beside Atlas, evidently in the new mood of going through this fruitless chase at the start, while Malfoy sits beside Mina.
Mina, ever the bubbly social bee, turns to the new pair and smiles brightly. "Welcome back," She greets, voice light and sing-song, "how was your summers?" The bit of shrewdness she'd had while studying Atlas fizzling away in favor of her peppy glint that makes her look far too much like an airhead for Atlas's tastes. Probably why he preferred when it was just the pair of them.
"Oh it was a delight," Pansy smiles, glancing towards Atlas. "My family spent a good amount of time in Paris, I saw Atlas at more than a few events around the city." He remembers, far too clearly, spending a miserable amount of time mingling with Pansy nearby.
Perhaps the only decent thing she'd done at any of those events was swipe a bit of champagne for the two of them. Likely the only reason he tolerated her hanging off of him.
The door slides open and with it the intelligence of the compartment drops further as Crabbe and Goyle, perhaps the most insufferable of Atlas's housemates, walk in and sit. Goyle, is the first to break the thin bit of hope that Atlas hadn't pushed away of being able to go the whole train ride without his uncle being brought up by anyone other than Mina.
"Have you seen him?"
Atlas raised his brow at the daft fool, "seen who?" he remarks lazily. Even if it was very clear who was being spoken of, he figured he wouldn't make it easy for any questioners.
Besides, it was slightly entertaining watching the cogs turn in Goyles head a few moments before his brow furrows. "Sirius Black." He glances Atlas over, "you are related to him…aren't you?"
Atlas considers, for a bare moment, seeing how Goyle would function if he said no. But instead he shrugs, "technically I suppose, but Sirius hasn't been a true Black since he was sixteen years old and got himself disowned."
Atlas can see it clearly in his mind, the bit of blasted portrait upon the tapestry that has been there since before he was born. He never lingered to look at it long, that or his fathers name, untouched as it may be.
"So… you haven't…"
"Of course he hasn't seen him, Sirius Black would have to be daft to show up there right out of Azkaban," Draco drawls, rolling his eyes at his friend. "But I heard the aurors did come to see your grandmother about it." He looks Atlas's way with curiosity, clearly as intrigued as Goyle even if he wasn't so thick.
"Oh that must have been exciting," Pansy exclaims.
"About as exciting as sitting in a lounge room talking about someone you've never met whom your grandmother despises can be." Atlas shrugs, "especially when neither of you have any information to give the aurors and they have nothing they can tell you."
And of course as exciting as watching your grandmother rage after they've left can be. Which isn't actually as exciting as it perhaps sounds.
He didn't particularly like picking glass out of Kreachers hand, especially when the damned house elf tries to tell you no. He had to order the damn thing still. He would have left it for Kreacher to take care of, if he trusted the elf to actually do it and not use it as some punishment that wasn't deserved.
"Sitting about the lounge room is your favorite thing though Atlas," Mina teases, and he shoots a glare her way.
"Yes but not the talking part of it." He says, likely a bit too pointedly to the others in the compartment.
"So you have no clue about anything to do with your uncle?" Draco inquires without much caring for Atlas's dislike of the conversation.
"Not a clue," Atlas leans back in his seat, stretching his legs out before him and making himself as comfortable as possible. He lifts his book, opening to the page he'd left off on and leaving his thumb in the middle to hold it open. "And honestly, I don't care to."
He shifts, and looks fully to his book now, hoping for the end of the conversation. He's granted it by Pansy going into a retelling of their 'adventures' in Paris. He doesn't pay it much mind, only keeping half an ear on the conversation and more so for Mina who will occasionally kick his feet where they rests near her legs to share a look with him over whatever is said.
Most of the ride to Hogwarts goes along that way. Him reading, ignoring most of the chattering of his companions, and only occasionally throwing in his thoughts. Mostly to Mina silently, but occasionally to the conversation as a whole whenever he gets the sense he's being more cut off than his grandmother would deem acceptably polite in this sort of company.
He lets himself believe that it will be this easy like he'd originally wished for the year. This was all that would be asked of his uncle, all that would even come up of his uncle.
But that would be wishful thinking, so he isn't really be disappointed when it proves false.
They're almost at Hogwarts when the train screeches to a halt. The sudden movement making him lurch just a bit forward, and Pansy falls into his shoulder a bit too luckily for her. She smiles like she's timid, which she's never been, and pushes back some hair.
Atlas just looks out the window for any sign of why the train has stopped.
"Did it get colder?" Mina chirps up, glancing away from the window which was frosting over just as she's asked.
Draco's gone to the door, and is leaning out. He shuts it quick though, sitting back down with a bit more whiteness to his already pale face.
"What is it?" Pansy asks, intrigue on her voice as to whatever warranted that reaction.
Draco just shakes his head, his gaze glancing to Atlas with a narrow before he looks pointedly away from the hall outside the compartment.
Atlas looks, watching in the almost eerie silence of the train as something slowly slinks before the glass. The hiss of the compartment door opening breaks the silence as a figure hooded and black and all too spectral leans into the space.
It looks, even without visible eyes, over each of them. Most of his companions have gone pale. Both Goyle and Crabbe look as though they're going to wretch, and Pansy has moved even closer to Atlas, her shaking form pressed against him. Malfoy is looking away, paler than before and a bit of sweat on his brow.
Mina is wide eyed.
And Atlas watches the figure, feeling the chill as he studies it. The pressing of something foreboding building within him.
But he just watches.
Only when looks at him does he perhaps get the slightest bit of unsettlement deep in his soul, but it passes the moment the creature pulls out of the compartment. The door hitting shut with a slam far too loud for the quiet of the train.
All of his companions drop with the loss of tension, Pansy's head falling upon his shoulder and he doesn't bother much with pushing her off. He looks to Mina, who is pale as the rest and looking to him. He gives a rare smile, hoping that perhaps it will settle her at least a little.
But she just hugs her arms tight around her and tries to smile best she can back though it doesn't reach anywhere near her usual brightness.
Wishful thinking. Not his strong suit, and really with this bit of foreboding beginning to the school year he figures it best just to expect that things will not go the way he wishes.
Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know your thoughts, they always makes me happy to hear!