Phases of the Moon

1: New Year

   The start of the fifth year in Hogwarts was about to start. Gwen picked up her trunk, the cat, now named Zoodles, was laying across her shoulders as she always did. The students started boarding the train, the first years could be seen hugging their parents and waving goodbye. Gwen fiddled with her hair, which was short and tied up in a ponytail with a scarlet scrunchie. She looked over the heads of all the other students, hoping to see one of her friends in the crowd. But they couldn't be seen.

   Gwen got situated in an empty compartment next to the window, where she could see all the faces of students, parents, and friends. Zoodles jumped down to the floor of the compartment and rolled over on her back. Gwen let out a small laugh and looked back out the window.

   Gwen sat there for a few minutes in silence, until she heard the familiar laughing and yelling down the hall. She opened her compartment door and looked down the hallway, where she saw her friends laughing their heads off.

"Hey! Down here!" Gwen yelled, they all looked up at her and then started walking down the hall, still chatting. She rolled her eyes and then sat down again.

"Hey!" Ben said smiling. His reddish-brown hair grew down past his shoulders. The other two tagged along, Kody sat down across from Gwen. Dustin entered the compartment, he had grown a lot taller over the summer, he was at least a head taller than Ben. Ben and Gwen had been the same height just about, they both stood at six feet.

"Damn, Dustin." She stared up at him. "You're so tall." He paused and turned to look at her, then chuckled.

"Hell, he sure did!" Kody exclaimed, he was the shortest of the four and hadn't grown since their third year. "When I first saw him today, holy shit, I had to look up to the clouds almost." Gwen rolled her eyes, Kody had always been jealous of his friends' heights. But she couldn't blame him. Before Ben could sit down, Zoodles jumped up next to Gwen and laid down.

   He looked to Gwen expecting her to do something about it. "Can you, uh—move Zoodles?" He asked, looking at the cat. He knew very well that Zoodles was picky with her people, and if you were a person she didn't like who touched her, she would go ham on your arms.

"Eh, I don't really want to." She smirked, Ben looked down at the cat with a fearful glare. He had come up with an idea, a clever one, at the least. Ben was a metamorphmagus, so he tried to change his face to look like Gwen, but he failed miserably, and Zoodles swatted at his hands. She ended up moving to Gwen's lap anyhow, so Ben finally got to sit down.

"Can't you control your cat?" Ben said, glaring at the cat. Kody and Dustin tried to hold back a laugh desperately.

   When the attendant came by with all the sweets and snacks, they bought almost the whole cart. Well, that was an exaggeration, but they did buy a lot of snacks. Kody opened a chocolate frog, his face scrunched up.

"What the bloody hell?" He said under his breath. He got a card with a haggard looking wizard on it, he had dark brown hair and lighter brown eyes.

"What is it?" Dustin asked, looking over his shoulder and brushing his dirty-blonde hair out of his eyes. His face also scrunched up in confusion.

"It's your dad, Ben." He said, looking up at Ben, who also looked just as confused as the others. Gwen's stomach did a flip when she heard what he said. She took the card and studied his face, his eyes looked just like Ben's, but he had a cold, blank expression.

"Gwen?" Kody asked, he saw how she looked at the face on the card with disgust and hatred. She looked up at him, her countenance remaining foul. He didn't feel at all comfortable under her gaze, he slowly took the card from her hands. Ben's dad had walked away from the frame on the card. "Are you good?" He was worried, he was also confused of why she didn't like him so much.