passing paradise │oliver wood

chapter 9

Chapter 9

I believed and ran between Platforms 9 and 10 in King's Cross Station and was at Hogwarts Express in no time. It was just like I remembered. The music of people's talks and laughter, the way the trollies always took up so much space on the platform and when the first years are embarrassed by their parents. What's different now is the feeling at the pit of my stomach that made me zoom past all the people and jump on the train.

I opened the compartment door to the familiar atmosphere of last year. The brown wavy-haired girl looked up from her book and a grin painted her lips. She excitedly stood up and wrapped me in her arms. I did so too.

"Your hair!" She exclaimed with a grin. "You actually did it!"

"Obviously," I laughed. "Are there any summer fairy tales, I should know off?" I teased as I set my luggage by the window. I sat across from her.

A smile played on her lips and I giggled at her reaction. She obviously had a story but her cheeks were flaming. She was shy to share which was a first.

"It's Terence isn't it?" I continued teasing. She turned into a tomato and I laughed so hard. She embarrassingly covered her face but there was laughter muffled. "I'm happy that you two survived the summer. You'd make great parents one day."

The book fell to her laps. "Didn't you know that Terence and I aren't officially together? Like damn, when is that boy going to actually ask me to be his girlfriend!"

"Wait, what?" I confusedly asked. "He hasn't?! And all this time I thought- oh, my Lord."

So, before the train started to move, we talked about each other's problems. Beginning with boys, love, life, our summer then our dreams. She had a whirlwind kind of summer with her parents sending her off to South Africa to her grandparents. She liked it more there than being stuck in cold England. I had told her about my summer and how I spent it with my childhood friends. I did alter some things but I stuck to the truth.

There was a knock on the slightly opened compartment door, making us stop gossiping about the Ravenclaw girls. I turned my head and smiled when it was just the boys. They all looked the same. Terence grew maybe an inch taller or so. Adrian had cut his hair a little bit shorter, he sadly didn't have his cute fringe anymore and Flint has started to grow a single strand of beard on his chin.

Adrian took my bag from my side and put it on the railing above with the rest of ours. Flint pulled out a board game that read Cluedo before tossing his bag on top as well.

"How was your summer?" I asked Adrian as he sat beside me.

"Boring," He yawned. "I got nothing to do other than play Quidditch with Carlson." Carlson was his older brother who was working in the Ministry of Magic. "Guessing with your new look, yours was less boring than mine?"

"Eh, surely more exciting than yours," I answered, pulling something from my jean pocket.

I showed him the little token from Wakanda, the same beaded bracelet. He observed it and ran his hands on the midnight blue. The inscriptions glowed for a second but he didn't notice.

"What is it?" He asked, giving it back to me.

"A dear friend of mine gave it. It's one of her inventions."

"Inventions?"

"Yeah, you know the things that you make?"

"Of course, I know what inventions mean. What I mean is it just a token?"

I nodded, putting it back in my pocket. Here, in this world, it was just a token. But on the other Earth, it was like my social circle bracelet. Something that would protect you.