Chapter 6 – The Gum Contest
The other boy looked up as Adam entered the carriage, a small look of terror on his face. Even though he was another first year, the boy was quite broad-shouldered, a feature that did not match his face. He was very freckly with a round nose and deep ocean-blue eyes. His hair was another feature adding to his appearance. He had wild, seemingly untameable brown hair which had blond streaks around the edges and part of his fringe had fallen down over one of his eyes.
"Do you mind if I sit here? I don't know anybody on the train." The boy shook his head before looking out of the window, watching the countryside fly past the train.
Adam took a seat opposite the boy and let Chalky out of his cage. While Adam put the cage up in the luggage rack, Chalky jumped up and settled himself in the other boys lap. Surprisingly, he didn't mind this and began to stroke Chalky's back, a small smile spreading across his face. Adam sat back down, deciding that he would have to initiate contact.
"Are you a first year too?" Again, the boy nodded without speaking. Adam was starting to get slightly annoyed with the boy's silence, but left it for a couple of minutes before he tried speaking to him again.
"My names Adam Black. What's yours?" This time the boy's head raised up and he looked at Adam through his curtain of hair.
"Aaron Mawson." He mumbled. He then resumed his stroking of Chalky, who lay purring, quite content in Aaron's lap. Having given up on trying to talk to him, Adam sat back and began to look out of the window. "Are you muggle-born as well?" Aaron asked after a couple of minutes. Slightly stunned at him speaking, Adam replied.
"Yeah. What do your parents do?"
"They run a gym in London. What about yours?" There was an awkward silence as Adam forced the answer out of his mouth.
"I'm an orphan."
"Oh." The two boys dropped back into silence, the only noises being Chalky's quiet purrs.
About ten minutes later, there was another knock on the compartment door. This time, it was Hermione from the station.
"Hey Adam! Do you mind if we come in here, everywhere else is full?"
"No that's fine." Adam was glad for the break in the silence. Hermione filed into the carriage and sat down next to Adam. She was followed in by a girl in her late teens with flaming red hair and another girl of a similar age who had messy blond hair and what looked like plums for earrings.
"These are my friends Ginny and Luna," Hermione said, indicating each of her two friends as she said their name. "And who are you?" she asked Aaron kindly.
"Aaron." He mumbled once again. He was still stroking Chalky, who was now looking around at the three girls, clearly wondering whether any of them would have a more comfortable lap than Aaron.
"Why're you so quiet?" asked the girl named Ginny, "Are you nervous about your first year?"
"Yeah, that and I'm a muggle-born, so I probably won't be that good at school." He didn't look directly at Ginny as he spoke.
"Being muggle-born doesn't make any difference," she said in a kind tone, "look at Hermione. She's muggle-born yet she's one of the best witches I've ever known." Hermione blushed slightly and muttered something like "not that good" but nevertheless, Aaron looked much happier at this piece of information.
"And I'm Adam Black." Adam smiled at them but he saw all three girls exchange knowing looks suddenly.
"Black? As in the House of Black?" Hermione asked in shock.
"I don't think so," Adam stammered, slightly confused, "I'm a muggle-born" Despite this, the three girls still looked slightly wary of him.
Half an hour later, Aaron had opened up completely. It turned out he was actually quite a cheeky, cheerful, outgoing person. He was quite perky now and he and Adam were bombarding the girls with questions about what to expect at the school. They asked about the subjects, teachers and the school itself and Hermione and Ginny answered, happy to be helpful for the boys. The girl named Luna remained very quiet in her corner. Apparently it was Aaron being quiet that had attracted Chalky and now that he had become chatty, had abandoned him to sit in Luna's lap.
About an hour later, the trolley came along with a kindly-looking witch who asked if they wanted food. Aaron and Adam had no idea what any of the treats were, so Ginny and Hermione bought a little bit of everything for them to try. The cauldron cakes, pumpkin pasties and liquorice wands all went down well. The whole carriage then spent about five minutes chasing around some of the chocolate frogs that had escaped from their packaging and the five of them began swapping cards. Both boys were able to obtain the Albus Dumbledore card and Adam was also able to obtain the Rowena Ravenclaw card.
Having exhausted the majority of their supply of sweets, the four of them began to have a contest with the Drooble's Best Blowing Gum to see who could blow the biggest bubble and to everyone's surprise, the winner was Luna. They quietened down a bit when it came to their final supply of sweets, the Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans. All of them took it in turns to take a random bean and whilst doing this, the topic changed to Ginny, who came from a wizarding background, and her family.
"I have si…five older brothers." She said with a slight frown and both Hermione and Luna exchanged knowing looks. The topic then changed to the Battle of Hogwarts and the recent war against the Dark Wizard Voldemort. The boys were horrified to hear about everything that had happened and understood Ginny's sudden silence when they heard about her brother Fred's demise during the battle, though the atmosphere became lighter again when Aaron had the misfortune to find a soap flavoured bean, much to everybody else's amusement. Adam was so happy in the compartment with his new friends that he hadn't even noticed it getting dark out and was surprised when the conductor announced that people should start changing into their robes. They were nearly there, Adam thought happily to himself.
