AND THEY WERE WIZARDS. (Oh my god they were wizards)

Day 1/2114

Virgil stood on the bright scarlet train on Platform nine and three quarters, trying and failing to heave a large brown trunk onto the shelf in the empty compartment. Why they didn't just have them use suitcases, he would never understand. He'd been tempted just to bring a suitcase and backpack despite what the supply list he'd gotten with his letter said, but looking around at everyone else here, he knew he'd made the right decision not to. Standing out was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

"Need some help?" Asked a voice behind him. Virgil turned to see a boy about his age, wearing glasses, a light blue sweater and jeans smiling up at him.

"Uh... yeah. Thanks." Virgil answered, shyly. The boy went over and helped lift the trunk onto his compartment shelf, having to get on tip toe once they pushed the trunk back. "Thanks." Virgil panted, when they'd finished. "Need some help with yours?"

"Mine's already stored. I'm just helping some other people. I'm telling you those things are heavy!" The boy smiled. He held out his hand. "Patton Harper."

Virgil shook the hand briefly. "Virgil. —Virgil Hale."

"Welp, see ya." Said Patton, squeezing past him into the aisle. Virgil watched him disappear among the crowd of students. He closed his compartment door and sat down by the window. If he was lucky, there would be enough room for nobody to join him. He gazed out the window at the other families rushing around the platform to get their students on the train. His parents hadn't accompanied him this far. He didn't even know if non-wizards would've been able to walk straight through a wall. He couldn't quite fathom how he'd managed it either. The various owls, cats and trunks began disappearing from among the crowd of other wizards, and the train grew slowly louder.

Virgil heard the compartment door slide open behind him. Disappointed, he turned around in his seat, watching four boys enter the room, three of them chattering away and paying him no notice, one of them following behind, hardly watching where he was going, as his focus was on the book in his hands.

"The chimera has three different heads though!" Said a boy with chestnut hair and a dark green shirt, "It can attack from all different angles!"

"but the manticore can breathe fire, Remus!" Said a boy with golden-brown hair, sipping on a drink through a straw and sporting a pair of overlarge sunglasses. "The chimera would never get close enough!"

"you know how fast the snake part could lunge out?" The boy called Remus shot back, "And how do you even know manticores breathe fire?"

"Umm, DUH. It's part lion, part scorpion, part dragon? Where do you think the dragon part comes from?"

"you know what would be cool though?" Said the boy in the window seat across from Virgil, leaning back in his seat. "A manticore-chimera. Nothing could beat that." He wore a scarlet jacket, and looked almost identical to Remus, except that his hair was much redder.

"Oh yeeeeah?" The boy in the sunglasses challenged, sipping on his straw, "what about a dragon?"

"The manticore-chimera is part dragon, Remy."

"But the dragon is all dragon." Remus reasoned.

"You know," Said the boy reading a book, licking his finger and turning a page, "this argument has gotten to the point of using magical creatures that, to wizard knowledge, do not exist. It's truly chimerical."

"Well yes, because there's a chimera in it." Said the boy in the red jacket.

"No, chimerical." The boy said, snapping his book shut and pushing his own glasses up his nose. "Existing only as the product of unchecked imagination."