"Blimey! You didn't tell me you were Bruce Potter!"

Oh no, Ron's going to hate him for lying now.

"Sorry. It's just--I'm not interesting. I don't remember anything that's supposed to have happened, I didn't do anything."

Rob ponders this for a moment.

"But everyone's going to think you're cool. That's good, right?"

"I don't know how to be cool."

"I don't even know how to be normal."

". . . Well, I can definitely teach you that second thing."

Tiny smile. "Thanks."

"Anything off the trolley, dears?"

Oh huh, a giant trolley of sweets, this is interesting but clearly not intended for hi--wait a second. He has money. He has money and the only adult in earshot is the one offering to sell him the sweets. 

"How much for two of everything please?"

And in short order he has a giant pile of unidentified sugary objects and is divvying up half for him and half for Ron, grinning maniacally like he just pulled off a bank heist.

"You didn't need to--I mean, I've got sandwiches." He pulls a slightly squashed sandwich out of a different pocket. "Ah, Mum always forgets I don't like corned beef."

"I like corned beef. I mean, only if it's going to go to waste otherwise, if you want to save it I'm not trying to take it or anything."

Ron is pretty sure Bruce could not steal anything if he tried. "Nah, help yourself." He hands over the sandwich and opens his chocolate frog. "Hm, Dumbledore again, I've got a bunch of him. Want the card? They're fun."

Om nom nom time to stuff his face oooh a thing with words on it. "Thanks. The cards are all of people? Dumbledore is the headmaster, right? Oh, yeah, it says he is."

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS

Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and ten-pin bowling.

"Ooh, he does alchemy? I got a book on it but I couldn't make heads or tails of it; apparently you have to know a lot of potions first."

"I hear the Potions professor is a total git."

The door slides open. "Pardon me, but has either of you seen a toad? Neville here's lost one."

They both peer under their seats. 

"Nope."

"I haven't either."

He could go help look but you see he has this pile of food and it's too big to carry so he has to stay here actually.

An apparently genuine attempt to check is better than like 95% of the responses they've gotten so far, so she smiles reasonably sincerely when she says "oh. well thanks anyway, bye!" and disappears along the corridor again, tugging a round-faced and distressed-looking boy behind her.

"Good luck!"

He unwraps his licorice wand and bites a chunk off the end. "Do a lot of people have toads? Do the do stuff the way owls carry mail?"

"Nah, they're just supposed to sit on your shoulder and croak ominously. 's traditional. Hardly anyone has one nowadays. 'course, I can't talk. I've just got this old rat." He pulls a sleeping rat out of a pocket (not the one the sandwich was in) and drops it on the seat next to him. It rolls over but doesn't wake up.

"Are rats allowed? The letter didn't say they were but maybe it's supposed to be obvious."

Ron shrugs. "Percy had him until this year and he's never broken a rule in his life so it's probably fine."

"Is it nice, having a lot of siblings?" 

"Well, they're a lot of fun and I always had someone to play Quidditch with, but you never get anything new when you're the sixth out of seven. I've got Bill's old robes and Charlie's old wand as well as Percy's old rat."

Sympathetic nod. "Yeah, I always got my cousin's old clothes, 'cept he's a muggle so I got my own robes and wand and stuff. What's Quidditch?"

"Only the best sport of all time!" Ron can infodump excitedly about Quidditch for quite a while; his sheer joy in the topic seems to double his lung capacity.