At eleven o' clock sharp, the train whistle blew, as it did every year, and the Hogwarts Express started pulling out of the station. Pax, Poppy, and their father, who had arrived in good time, were having a last goodbye, two of them on the platform, one inside an otherwise empty compartment, leaning out of the window. With the train starting to move now, Mr. Wintergreen urged Pax to keep himself firmly inside the vehicle, and started blowing kisses as teh young Hufflepuff dolefully complied. Poppy, who was still small enough to be held in her father's arms to get a view of the train and her brother, waved frantically, as though Pax wouldn't realise she'd miss him otherwise.

'You'll owl me if the baby comes, right?' Pax called out the open window.

'Not due until the Christmas break, Pax,' his father reminded him, waving with the arm not holding Poppy.

'If it's early, I mean!' he continued to wave, but all too quickly Poppy and his dad were being left behind. 'I love you!' he called before they were out of earshot entirely. Then the station was gone, and so were they.

Pax flopped on the seat with a sigh. 'You looking forward to going back, Vesper?' he asked his little grey cat, who was currently curled up on the seat opposite and not paying much attention. 'Of course you are. I'll bet you've missed Mary Beth.' Pax stared at the ceiling for a moment, lost in thought. He was eager to get back, and see everyone, he always was. But being away from his family... it always took a little while to get used to.

He got up, intending to pick up Vesper and give her a cuddle to console himself, but was distracted by a noise from the corridor outside. Pax thought maybe it sounded like a trunk being dragged along. Someone looking for a compartment, maybe? Poking his head out of the door and casting around for the source of the noise, he asked, 'Need a hand?'

Mairead nodded at regular intervals to give the impression she was giving her mother due attention but the bulk of it was focused on Jarlath.  The three of them were gathered at the front of Platform 9 at King's Cross; Mairead's father was outside, trying to figure out bus routes that would get them home.  After much insistence on both their parts, Jarlath and Mairead had convinced their parents to let Jarlath tagalong to the start of the year send off.  So far, though, Mairead was regretting that decision.  Rather than being a rousing distraction, Jarlath was hovering a step behind Mairead's mother, his mouth and brows lengthened into a quiet brood. 

She really didn't need his glum mood; it was hard enough to convince herself to leave her mum and pass through the portal to Platform 9 3/4.  Her stomach was more knotted this year than it had been last year.  Last year, leaving for school had been some big, unknown adventure.  It had been exciting and novel and unknown.  Now this year, she remembered well enough how difficult the previous year had been and how much was going to be expected of her this year. 

Staff from Hogwarts had ventured out to their camp towards the beginning of summer, partly to see if Mairead knew anything of Tynan's whereabouts and partly to discuss Mairead's exams and class performance.  It hadn't exactly been an enjoyable conversation and it left Mairead feeling very anxious and uncertain about the upcoming year.  She didn't need Jarlath's reminder that staying home would be so much easier.  With a final hug and word of encouragement from her mother and mumbled, dismissive farewell from Jarlath, Mairead hoisted her bag and slipped through the portal to the train. 

It wasn't a trunk but Mairead's bag that Pax heard outside the compartment.  "Aye," Mairead glanced up at the offer of help and nodded, dropping her smaller bag just inside the door and let Pax take over half of the bigger bag.  "Ye'd think they'd figure out some magic way to make this easier.  Like...all bags become really light on here." 

'Yeah,' Pax conceded, hefting the end of the bag Mairead had left to him. 'That'd actually make a lot of sense. I'll bet there's a way to do it, too. I wonder why they don't?' The fact that this idea hadn't even occurred to him before left him somewhat bemused. He supposed maybe he took magic a little too for granted sometimes, and opted not the mention that his own trunk had been enchanted by his father not to weigh too much, mostly to accommodate all of Pax's D&D books and art supplies.

'Maybe they just want to be character-building,' he mused, a half smile on his face as he shuffled along with Mairead and her bag. He knew, and he suspected Mairead knew, that 'character-building' was code for 'difficult for no good reason'. 'I'd offer to try a Featherweight Charm on it, but you know my spellwork. I'd probably just make it heavier or something.'

As they got to the compartment, Pax lowered his end of the bag and tentatively decided to be pleased that Mairead had accepted his help. Mairead was one of those people Pax constantly fretted didn't like him. (It was almost like a prerequisite of being a Gryffindor in their year.) But maybe, after all, she didn't mind him too much. 'Um. How was your summer, by the way?' It was cliched as far as conversation topics went, Pax realised as soon as he said it, but he had panicked and jumped on the the first thing that came to mind.

"Character buildin'?" Mairead repeated as she scowled over the bag at Pax.  For most of her life, there'd always been Pavee and outsiders and she'd been taught at an early age to distrust outsiders.  Some of the lessons, certainly,  had come from her own family - her mother cautioning her to be careful about what she said or did around other non-travellers or watching her father get in arguments with whatever city official happened to stop by their camp.  But, for all her family might have created the underlying distrust and caution, the outside had rarely done anything other than reinforce it.  Judgement and criticism had flown freely from outsiders - often it had been those her age who'd been the most vicious. 

The defensiveness and distrust had been hard earned and well embedded.  Blind to her own contributions to it, her early introductions to the wizarding world with that evil, awful woman in the wand shop had taught her that things weren't that different here than in the muggle world.  Only those on the inside were really, truly safe.  Tynan, while not a Traveller, was like her.  Keegan, too, had been though since his reunion with his cop father, Keegan had been trying to be more and more like the 'good' kids.  Dilly - that kid that lived out at the hospital hut - she too was cut from the same mold.  They could be trusted. 

Everyone else - they were outsiders.  And, being surrounded by outsiders her age had been one of the hardest transitions to Hogwarts.  Pax, too, was an outsider.  A very nice outsider - but still an outsider.  Mairead couldn't remember him every being anything but nice so he hadn't given her any reason to mark him as an enemy.  Not like Rene and her Slytherin friends.  But, Mairead's defensive walls were always quick to fly up, often misconstruing the Hufflepuff's words.  As such, her mouth worked much faster than her mind and she fired off a demanding, "Ye think I don't have enough character?"  In an attempt to prove she had plenty of character by taking more than half of the weight, Mairead hoisted her end of the bag as high as she could as they wrestled it into the luggage rack. 

Then, as if nothing had happened, Mairead plopped herself in the seat next to the window.  She tugged the felt hat from her head and set it on her lap.  "Me summer was good.  We spent a month at the beach in Barna before meeting up with Tynan," Mairead offered as if the meeting with the runaway fellow Gryffindor had been entirely normal and planned.  "You?"

Pax was caught a little off-guard by Mairead suddenly taking the weight of her bag hefting it up alongside Pax's own trunk, leaving Pax standing awkwardly empty-handed for a moment before he shuffled back to let Mairead sit down. He was starting to worry he'd offended her, or annoyed her, or something, until she replied to his question about her summer. So he sat down opposite her, next to Vesper, who promptly got up and started padding around the compartment, stopping every so often to examine Mairead's shoes.

'I, um, I don't think anyone would accuse you of not having enough character,' he offered meekly, before supplying his own response about the summer. 'Mine's been okay. Lots of studying, but I also got to see Mary Beth, and have a sleepover with-- some friends.' He cut himself off short of mentioning Eirene and Noriko; that surely wouldn't help matters. 'Oh, and Drea and I went to that welcoming thing they had in Hogsmeade had for the visiting schools.'

He was about to start worrying that he might sound like he was boasting, until his mind backtracked and landed heavily on something Mairead had said. 'Wait. You saw Tynan? I heard he went missing. So, he's okay?' He even dared to look a little hopeful.

The train started, the heavy puffing of the engine echoing up and down its length as it pulled away from the station. The slowly escalation rhythm of thumping as it gained speed took on a calming pattern -

And up on the rack, Mairead's bag began to heave and move.

It had been a last minute decision; faced with how to get back to school without getting plucked off the platform by Aurors, Tynan had realized earlier that morning that his classmate's bag was just the right size...well, once he stuffed half her clothes into her other bag and left some behind, anyway.

And so he'd spent a very uncomfortable morning being bounced around, kicked and half-smothered by Mairead's clothing. The bag was hot, the clothing was itchy and he was incredibly hungry.

And so when the train started moving, that was all he could take; he went to open it and failed. Struggling, the bag hopped around the rack and finally fell to the floor, with a rather un-baglike "Ouch!" A moment later, the top burst open, revealing Tynan covered in scattered clothing.

"Yer jacket smells like a goat, Mai," he informed Mairead matter of factly. He glanced at Pax, then back to the bag as he worked to untangle himself, plucking a pair of underwear off his head, flushing, and stuffing back into the bag. "What're you doin' here?"

"Studyin'?"  Mairead looked at Pax, thoroughly baffled by this idea.  Spending the bulk of the year studying had been hard enough - why on earth would anyone subject themselves to it over the summer?  "Didn't ye get enough of that last year?  Were we supposed to ... do something?"  Had they been given assignments or something?  If so, Mairead would be starting the year already behind.  Like last year.  Except, last year she hadn't had those annoying grades behind her. 

Mairead shrugged, still clearly non-plussed by Pax' questions about Tynan's whereabouts.  Even though, come to think of it, Mairead couldn't quite say where Ty had gone since she'd left Dublin.  "Why wouldn't he be?" Mairead asked.  "He can take care of -" 

Overhead, her bag shifted on the rack.  Which, of course, made no sense.  Mairead couldn't remember having put anything living in there.  Jarlath wouldn't have, would he?  Well, of course he would.  Which then begged the next question: what would Jarlath have stuffed in her bag?  Mairead glanced, nervously, from the bag to Pax and back.  "Maybe it's just a chicken?"

The bag fell to the floor with a heavy thud.  A heavier thud than a chicken would have made.  Mairead got to her feet and tentatively nudged the bag with her foot just as a one-eyed fool extricated himself from her clothing. 

"Ye look like a goat, Tuilli!"  Mairead punched Tynan in the shoulder for good measure.  "And, yer heavy as one."  Mairead quipped back, quickly grappling at her clothing and scowling deeply to hide her blush.  Her bag was considerably lighter when she hoisted it back up to the luggage rack, taking care to shoulder Tynan in the process.  "How long have ye been in there?" She asked trying to remember if there was any point she thought her bag had gained weight. 

Pax had been about to explain to Mairead that he's only been studying so that he wouldn't have such a hard time keeping up in class, but the sudden animation of his schoolmate's bag put that swiftly from his mind. He put a hand over his mouth to smother the yell of shock that escaped as the bag landed heavily on the floor.

After goggling open-mouthed for a few seconds after none other than Tynan MacFusty himself emerged into view, Pax pulled himself together enough to string together what could pass for a coherent sentence. 'Wait wait wait. What d'you mean, what am I doing here? I'm going back to Hogwarts, that's what I'm doing here! And, and apparently helping Mairead carry you!' An indignant Pax was a rather uncommon sight, and under any other circumstances Pax would simply have been glad to see Tynan safe and sound after his mysterious disappearance, but the surprise had caught him offguard.

'What were you doing in Mairead's bag?' Having got all this indigation out of his system, Pax seemed to come to himself again, and nervously added, 'Um. If you don't mind me asking.'