After several hours of travel, a teenager knocks on the glass and slides the door open without waiting for a response.

"I'm sorry to bother you - just - have you seen my cat," he says somewhat frantically.

"No, what do they look like?"

"He's all over black, half Oriental Shorthair half Kneazle - he's slim but his ears are enormous - um, he wouldn't hurt your bird, he's pure nice, but he ran off and I can't find him-"

"Alright, let's look for him then." Joey sets his book down and stands up. "I guess there isn't some kind of cat-finding spell?"

"There's a spell to find things but I'm supposed to learn it this year in Charms," the boy says miserably. "He's never run off like this before, I don't know what I did wrong..."

"Don't worry about that right now, let's find him first. Hmm... Thalia, you don't have some kind of special cat-finding abilities yourself, do you?"

     "Sorry, no," she twitters.

"Alright. We'll do it the old-fashioned way, then."

He opens the compartment door and immediately comes face-to-face with a slim black cat with enormous ears.

He blinks. The cat blinks back.

"Apparently the old-fashioned way involves miracles from God," Joey comments.

"Solomon!" the teenager says happily, scooping the cat into his arms. Solomon permits this with dignity.

The teenager turns back to Joey. "Um, thanks for offering to help, even if it... turns out I didn't need it... I'm Aaron March. Hufflepuff prefect."

"Joey Reed," Joey says. "Um. American."

     "Thalia!" Thalia says. "Pretty bird."

"What's an American doing on the Hogwarts Express?"

"Uh, my first accidental magic happened on a trip my family took to London a couple of years ago, and... apparently that means I'm legally a British national? And so I get to learn magic at supposedly the best school in the world, and leave my family and live on a different continent and all that fun stuff."

"Do you want a hug?"

"A hug would be nice."

Aaron hugs him. He's big and warm, not as big as Arthur but a bit softer. "It's rotten," he says sincerely. "Just a rotten way to treat somebody. Are you Muggleborn too?"

"S'what Professor Suliman said," Joey mumbles.

"Then you've got to learn your way around wizard culture, and British culture, and boarding school culture, all at once... You'll need plenty hugs. Sort into Hufflepuff and I'll get them to you, alright?" He pauses. "I'll still hug you otherwise, just if you're Slytherin or something it'll be harder to give you as many as you need."

"That's very kind of you. Do you make the same offer to all the homesick eleven-year-olds?"

He considers this. "More of them than I probably should? I spend a lot of time hugging."

"Aw. I was making fun of you a bit but that's cute actually."

Aaron grins. "I know, and I know. Listen, I'd better get back to my compartment and get changed into my robes, but remember what I said. About hugs especially."

Joey lets go slightly reluctantly. "Bye, then."

     "Bye, bye," Thalia whistles.

After Aaron leaves, Joey changes into his own robes. It feels really weird and kind of drafty wearing them over just his underwear, but he's reliably assured that's how wizards wear them, and he doesn't want to seem weird. (Apparently some of them don't wear underwear under them either, but that really seems like a bridge too far even if it does sound kind of interesting.) He's also reliably assured that no one under the age of forty wears a pointed hat except on very special occasions, but arriving at Hogwarts for the first time seems like a special occasion if ever there was one, so onto his head it goes.

     "Pointy Joey," Thalia says. "Looks silly."

"I know it does," he sighs. "I feel like I'm playing dress-up."

Idly, he takes out his wand and rolls it between his fingers. Then he puts it back in his pocket, takes out his book, and reads until he feels the train start to slow down.

Joey's first thought, when the castle comes into view, is: holy crap. It's enough to make him forget his complaints entirely. That's a castle. He's going to live here. And learn magic.

There's a little sign on the luggage racks saying to leave your luggage on the train so the elves can bring it to your dormitory. He has no idea what an elf is, but he'll presumably find out at some point. He leaves his suitcase and Thalia's cage where they are, and she perches on his shoulder as he leaves the train.

"First years over here," intones a deep voice. Its owner is dark-skinned, and painfully thin, and about six and a half feet tall. He waves a long staff over his head, its skull-shaped topper lit up with a silver glow.

Joey runs over, almost tripping in the twilight gloom. "Hi! Is that your wand? Is that allowed, you can have a staff instead of a wand? How come nobody offered me that? Staves are way cooler than wands!"

The man looks down at him and smiles. "It's an obscure branch of wandlore, one that many think is obsolete. But it suits me well." He waves the staff again and calls "First years, over here!"

More kids exit the train. The bigger ones go over to some strange horseless carriages, while the smallest filter in around the tall man. After the last one arrives, he nods and waves his staff in a complicated pattern. Several spheres of light split off from the silver aura, and float over to illuminate a small fleet of rowboats.

"Four to a boat," he says. "Pile on in, don't be shy."

The children obediently begin piling on in.

Joey ends up next to a girl with her hair in twists, opposite a freckle-dusted blonde boy and a girl with short-cropped black hair who's got her wand out and trailing in the water of the lake.

"Is that a good idea?" Joey wonders. "Getting it wet, I mean."