SEA, SWALLOW ME, remus lupin

trì, steam trains on rusty tracks

CHAPTER THREE
steam trains on rusty tracks

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  COVE IS ONE OF THE FEW EXCEPTIONS where the Hogwarts Express has to make a stop to let her on.

  Since she's much closer to Hogwarts than she is to London, they made an arrangement to pause for a good ten minutes in order to let herself and a handful of other students from the surrounding cities on, meaning that they're still on schedule to arrive at the school just after nightfall. Aaron is always complaining about how far it is to apparate from Stornoway to Arisaig Station, but she always reasons that travelling to London would be an even further journey to make. On the bright side, the station is deserted on the best of days because of how infrequent the trains are, so they don't have to worry about being spotted by muggles. It works out well, in Cove's opinion.

  Though, it is always slightly embarrassing to have most of the train ogling at you from behind their dust stricken windows, looking around at the station as if they've never been to one before. It isn't extremely impressive, with pairs of rickety benches on both platforms and an old station building that is habitually empty. Wild heather grows freely around the picket fences, and all the scrawny trees that look over onto the tracks dressed in ivy. It's just typical that there's a breakthrough of blue skies the day that she has to return to school, the grinning sunshine mocking her from its throne above her head.

  When Cove had arrived an hour before and spotted Marlene, she discreetly sat on the opposite side of the platform and shoved her nose in a magazine to avoid eye contact at all costs. She would need a long while to recover from the conversation that occurred the week before.

  Her bulky trunk rests at her feet, bursting at the seams with all the luggage she crammed into it the night before and her sealskin concealed in a tote bag that's glued firmly to her side, one of her arms resting over it protectively. There's a birdcage on the bench next to her with a particularly chirpy puffin preening herself inside. Cove feels guilty about keeping Goldie locked up in a cage, but she's already promised to get her fly free and stretch her wings when they get into Hogwarts, perhaps even let her catch a few fish in the Black Lake. She puts a finger through the bars and Goldie nudges at it softly with her stripy beak in reassurance.

  A train whistle calls in the distance, earning a disgruntled squawk from her puffin and soon everyone's sprung to their feet, craning their necks to try and spot the Hogwarts Express as it glides in their direction. Cove swipes at all her luggage, poised like a snake in tall grass to leap aboard the second she has the opportunity. She's missed her friends dearly, and she doesn't want to waste another second twiddling her thumbs in a suffocatingly small train station.

  The doors slide open in front of her. In a flash, she's racing down the mahogany hallways, peering into all the compartments that she whisks past in search of her friends. She dodges all the pupils in her path, nearly taking out a poor first year on the way. The gaudy red carpet underfoot is beginning to give her a sore head. After nearly whacking her skull against almost a dozen low hanging lights, her eyes finally catch onto two familiar faces.

Mary MacDonald is tall and lean, with a smooth complexion of amber and flawless ringlets that curl around her shoulders. A scarlet Gryffindor tie is tangled up in her myriad of gold necklaces, her shirt pressed to perfection. She's dabbing vaseline on her lips as Cove walks into the room, listening to whatever melodrama Fallon has to dish out. Fallon herself is much unchanged, sporting a slightly shorter haircut and eyeshadow sparklier than ever. Their heads snap to the door almost comically fast as she walks in.