Guys, help me choose. Is Ray's cat a Toyger, or any other breed of cat but with silver and black mackerel tabby markings?

The map that Mathilda's father had given her gave excellent and clear directions, but Mathilda was still panicking. Especially since, according to her borrowed pocket-watch, it was nearly time for the train to arrive, and she had only just reached the bottom of the hill she had to climb and go down the other side of before she would see the station. Time was ticking away. Looking at the clock was too stressful, so she stopped, and just focused on putting one foot in front of the other. She hadn't quite thought this "lots of walking" bit of the plan through. Her shoes were starting to make her feet hurt.

An indistinct shout from somewhere above her made her break her focus on the path in front of her. She looked up, and saw someone in black school robes waving down at her. He was nearly at the top of the hill. She waved back, but decided to save her breath for walking even faster rather than climbing. Seeing another student had heartened her, though. She might still be the last person there, but not by a lot. Or, if everyone left without her, that student up there could tell a teacher about her. Her feet somehow didn't feel quite so sore now.

It was only quite a few minutes later that she looked up again, and saw to her utter shock that the other student was still there. As they saw her looking, they waved again. She waved back, responding without actually thinking about it. Suddenly she remembered Madam Rosemerta's words:

"You've missed the other one, though."

Out of any sort of context that comment had made no sense and hadn't been something she felt the need to think about anyway, but now it seemed like she had been supposed to meet up with this other student in the Three Broomsticks so that they could walk together. She wondered who Stanley was, who had clearly done a very bad job of putting this plan together since neither her nor her parents had known a thing about it but judging by the fact that this new student was waiting for her, they had known about it. Who only tells half the people about the plan? What a silly way of doing things.

On a whim, she shouted, "Hello!" up the hillside. She was a lot closer to the other student now. She could see the three big trunks and other cases that they were carrying. She couldn't make out from that distance if they were a boy or a girl, though. They had really, really long hair, though, she could see that.

"Hi!" The other student shouted back. Mathilda conducted a quick internal debate with herself about the gender of that voice. It wasn't a helpful voice in that respect. Female? She hesitantly decided on that, and rolled her eyes at herself for the entire thing because she'd meet up with the other student in only a couple of minutes.

Finally she turned a corner and was only about a hundred yards away from the other student. Ok, now that she was looking at them, she was definitely changing her mind, they looked like a boy to her. More importantly, she had just seen that one of the cases he was carrying was actually a cat basket. She practically ran the rest of the way.

"Oh wow, is that a cat?" Her voice went embarrassingly high-pitched. The boy's eyes widened but he held the carrier out a bit. By the way that he was standing, his mother had not cast a Lightening Charm on his bags.

"Yeah. He's just called Tiger, because I couldn't think of a better name."

Mathilda peered through the bars. A pair of huge green eyes stared warily back at her. She made a clumsy imitation of the smooching sounds she'd heard the non-pureblood children make to their pet cats and Kneazles, and wasn't surprised when Tiger didn't react at all. It was only when the boy shifted his weight to his other foot that she remembered with a horrible swooping feeling in her stomach that they had a train to meet. Soon. Hastily she stood up again.

"Ok, let's go!"

"Ok."

They tried to walk side by side for a little bit, but Mathilda couldn't walk in a straight line to save her life and the third time she banged her trunk against the cat carrier, she decided that trying to be sociable wasn't worth inconveniencing a cat. They did manage enough chat to establish that he too was a first-year.

"So how come you didn't get the train?" she asked. She was really hoping that it was because he was a pureblood too. She thought her parents would be very happy indeed if there was someone else in her year with the same upbringing.

"Oh, I was living there. At the Three Broomsticks. You know, getting a head start …" He trailed off but there had been so much laughter in his voice that Mathilda couldn't tell whether ot not to take him seriously. Actually, forget that, if there was even the slightest chance that he was telling the truth …

"You can do that?" She tried to turn around, but they were on a narrow bit of path and it didn't quite work. He snorted.

"Not really. I've read all the books already. Got my wand a bit earlier than most people, probably."

Oh. Was that it? Mathilda drew herself up a bit as she spoke, even though they couldn't see each other's faces: "Well, I've read some of the books too. And better books!" She heard how stupid she sounded just after she'd said it, and felt her face turning bright pink. She searched for a distraction. "What's your wand?"

"Black walnut and unicorn hair."

"Ooh!" Mathilda didn't know much wandlore but her mother was very interested in it. "That's rare, I think." He replied, but whatever he said was drowned out by her squeal; they had just crested the hill and finally, in front of them, was the Hogwarts Express. It had clearly just arrived as there was still a flood of black-robed pupils pouring out the doors. She turned to Ray and beamed. "We made it!"

He grinned back. He had a lovely smile.

"We did."

All opinions welcome!

xIlbx