To Trust In | r.j.l.

Chapter 1

Sixth Year.

For Gryffindor Elaine Levitt, each year maturing at Hogwarts is a blessing. The closer she gets to graduating the school, the closer she gets to leaving her family behind for good. Sure, the work is painful and the stress is almost unbearable, but at least it will all be worth it in the end.  Anything to be rid of her family.

She gets ready to board the train with her best friend Atlas, whom Elaine's parents let her stay with during the summer to avoid having her at home.
They are both muggles who think magic is strange, so having her gone most of the year (beside Christmas holiday) is a nice way for them to pretend she doesn't exist in the first place.

Atlas grabs her hand and pulls them through the crowd of people and into a compartment for the two of them plus his girlfriend Leala, a fifth year Ravenclaw. When they sit down, Atlas sighs dramatically.

"What's your problem?" Elaine asks him, chuckling.

"Nothing, just exhausted," he explains to her, eyes still closed.

"Well considering the fact that we stayed up until 3am instead of going to be at 10:30 like we planned, I'm not surprised."

"How are you not tired?" Atlas asks, stifling a yawn.

"I have no idea," she responds, looking down and fidgeting with her fingers. Atlas leans forward, elbows on knees, and grabs both of her hands in his.

"I know you're anxious, but I promise we will have a fantastic year. As long as we stick together, yeah?" He smiles gently at her. She returns the gesture, looking up and pointing to the compartment door, where she sees Leala standing and waving. Atlas looks up and then pats Elaine, getting up to unlock the door for his girlfriend. They greet each other, then sit down on the same bench, opposite Elaine.

"How are you Elaine? Doing well I hope?" Leala says cheerfully.

"Yes quite well, thanks for asking. You?"

"Absolutely wonderful! I went to America for the holiday, got to see all 50 states! It was an amazing experience!"

And the three stayed that way for quite some time, talking and joking and making up for lost time. Leala continued to tell them about everything she did in each state, from the food she ate to the hotel's soap scents. Elaine and Atlas told her all about the things they did as well, like going for bike rides for hours to foreign places and the prank war they occupied themselves with for most of the summer. It wasn't until a little while later when the train stopped and suddenly became very very cold that they stopped chatting.

"What's going on?" the group heard someone say. They each arose from their seats to look out the compartment door, suddenly being launched back onto the benches. They looked around at each other with question and worry. They had a quite agreement to stay quiet, knowing it was a bit better to observe than to go into the chaos for the time being. It was an un-Gryffindor trait that both Atlas and Elaine had, Atlas coming from a Ravenclaw family and Elaine's trauma from her family keeping her reserved when it came to conflicts and dangerous situations. So the group pulled a Ravenclaw strategy to intelligently observe the situation first before coming up with a game plan.

After a few minutes, the warmth started to come back to the train and the lights returned to their normal glow. This was when Elaine told the others she would go check things out while they stayed in the compartment. They agreed hesitantly, but under the condition that she be extremely careful.

"Okay, okay, I will" she quickly agreed, and fled her seat to go out and investigate. Not even ten feet out away from the door she left did she run into someone on their way to the front of the train. She looked up to see a tall man with kind eyes looking down at her, mumbling a "pardon me" and gently maneuvering around her to continue on his way. Watching him walk away, she noticed a slight and practically unnoticeable limp in his step and his comfortable, sophisticated wool coat clung nicely to his figure. She stared for a little while longer at the mysterious man, wondering why he was even on the train, but soon shaking her head and remembering the importance of the situation she was tasked with figuring out. Turning back around, she made her way to the back of the train to ask any of the other sixth years if they knew what was going on.