"Pepper. Now I wish I brought water with me."

That goes on for a bit while the countryside flying past the window becomes wilder, the neat fields replaced by woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills.

There's a knock on the door of their compartment and a round-faced boy comes in, looking tearful. "Sorry," he says, "but have you seen a toad at all?"

"I don't think so, sorry."

He wails. "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"

"What are you doing to look for him?"

"I'm asking everyone if they've seen him..."

"I'd expect that there's some sort of magic you can do to find lost pets. It seems like a thing that would happen a lot. Do you know if there's something like that Ron?"

"Maybe but I don't know about it..."

"Hm, maybe ask and older student, maybe a prefect?"

"—yeah, m-maybe."

"I can go with you if you're feeling shy."

"Can you?"

"Sure, let's go."

Sarah gets up. "Let's go find your toad."

He rubs his eyes with his sleeves. "Thanks. I'm Neville."

"I'm Sarah, nice to meet you."

"Dayo."

"Ron," he says, then mumbles something unintelligible, but decides to get up and help, too.

"Ron, do you know what the prefect badges look like?"

"Yeah, my brother's a prefect this year, he got his badge with his letter."

"Cool, that will make this much easier if we don't have to knock on every door."

"Yeah, the prefects have their own compartment."

"Well, that's even better."

"Yeah. Let's go."

He leads the way.

Sarah follows.