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of lostness aboard the train caused a chain reaction for Saffron, and as she finally started to walk away from the twins, she realised she had no idea as to where she was walking.

There had been no sign of the people she had intended on sitting with for the journey to Hogwarts, them being Hermione, alongside Harry and Ron. She supposed they were probably in a compartment together and as she started to look inside of compartments, she saw no sign of any of them. She didn't recognise the vast majority of people that were inside the compartments she walked past. But she recognised a few; the handsome Gryffindor Keeper and Captain Oliver Wood, whom Saffron's friend Lavender always raved about whenever in sight, was sat with a large group of other burly sixth years. Ron's brothers Fred and George were easily in the noisest compartment of all, with a range of different students from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff alike, but Saffron didn't even need to look in to know that her friends wouldn't be in there. There was no chance Fred and George would allow Ron to mess up their fun.

Then, Saffron approached a compartment with a few familiar faces.

Her relationships with Olly Jowett and Padma Patil was one that was practically exclusive to being under the stars. For, shortly before the Christmas break last year, when their Astronomy teacher Professor Sinistra decided to assign seating due to fellow Gryffindor Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan's loud disruptions, Saffron was assigned a beanbag in between the two friends.

Their relationship started with a bang, literally. When a near-death experience for Locklan caused Padma to accidentally pummel a telescope into Saffron's face, sending her into the Grey, they didn't feud or quarrel, quite the contrary. They formed a bond.

But the bond wasn't strong enough for Saffron to intrude. She watched the back of Padma's head talking to Olly, Lisa Turpin, a pretty fellow Ravenclaw with short dark brown hair and brown eyes, and Terry Boot who too had brown hair but green eyes instead. The four of them were chatting away animatedly, seemingly deep in conversation and Saffron had no intention of disrupting it.

She walked past the compartment but instantly froze when the compartment door slid open and close a mere second later.

"I see you!"

It was Olly who spoke.

Saffron turned around on her heel and gave a small shrug. She replied in the merriest voice she could muster.

"I see you too,"

He let out a small laugh. "Were you just going to ignore us?"

Saffron bit her lip and took a moment to consider her answer. "Yes, oh, does that sound awful?"

He too took a moment to consider his answer. "I don't think so, I think it sounds honest, which I think is fair,"

"Wouldn't it just have been easier to ask about Summer or something?"

"Or something?"

"Yes, or something,"

He crinkled his eyebrow with curiosity. "So could something be your deepest darkest secret?"

Saffron grinned and rolled her eyes when she noticed he was looking nowhere but her eyes.

"I guess something could be that, but asking about Summer was what I was going for,"

"Well, join us and I'll ask,"

"What?" asked Saffron blankly. She blinked. She had heard him clearly but that had been the furthest thing she had expected to come out of his mouth. Then again, when could she ever predict what was going to come out of this boys mouth. He was strange, to the extent that she felt strange around him. She wasn't sure if the feeling was mutual, but maybe if it was then they were both perfectly normal in states of procrastination. Regardless, she didn't dislike it, not in the slightest.

"I asked you if you wanted to----"

"Oh, right," Saffron pretended to only know be coping on to what he was talking about, but he wasn't buying the lie.

"I take it your meeting up with Harry Potter and his ginger friend,"

"Ron," Saffron corrected him with a small smile. "I guess so, but mainly my friend Hermione,"

"Troll girl?" He asked her with a twinkle in his eye.

"Troll girl," Saffron confirmed.

What was it she had been saying to Rachel and Rowan, who, at this very moment, were probably forming their first friendships? She had been telling them to try, with the underlying message being to do what their mother clearly hadn't done for them.

Surely, Hermione and Harry specifically wouldn't mind if she didn't sit with them, at least for some of the way. Why shouldn't she follow her own advice in living a bit more boldly and trying with more people? This was the integration opportunity she had been waiting for all last year, and she had decided she was going to try, with three new people.

"I hadn't really talked to them about sitting together," she told Olly, who was clearly awaiting some sort of an excuse, he gradually started to look pleasantly surprised. "I don't know if that's something you plan, really, but anyway, if you have space . . . ?"

"Well come on then," He smiled at her, before sliding open the door for Saffron who walked into the compartment backwards and looked up to find that Padma had moved across the compartment to sandwich herself in between Terry and Lisa, who had only become aware of her presence, due to the fact that the three of them seemed to be engrossed in some sketch pad of sort.

Padma looked up in delight. She hopped up out of her chair and took Saffron into an embrace.

"Wow, I didn't expect you to join us Saffron, but I'm glad, how are you?"

"I didn't either really, but I'm good, really good. And you? Oh, hi Lisa, and it's Terry, right?" Saffron answered Padma's question before turning to the other two, whom she didn't have any sort of relationship whatsoever. She had met Lisa before she started school, at Madam Malkin's robe shop, but they hadn't really conversed barring a few instances of small talk since then. Terry, on the other hand, Saffron had never exchanged a single word with before.

"Hi Saff --- hey!" Lisa greeted Saffron politely by looking up from the sketch pad and smiling, but her smile turned into an oval shape when Olly snatched the sketch pad from out of her grasp.

"I told you both not to look in there!" he exclaimed exasperatedly, sitting down opposite Padma and next to Saffron with irritation etched upon his face. "It's private,"

"Then you should've locked it, or something," Lisa was trying hard to come up with a defensive argument.

"Right, because all notebooks have locks, Lisa," Olly rolled his eyes in annoyance.

"You put so much effort into being different, we thought you'd have gotten one for it, Olls," teased Terry, as Olly sighed and took a seat beside Padma who had moved to the other side of the compartment. Saffron hesitantly sat down next to him.

"Stop calling me that," huffed Olly, blushing.

"Stop giving me that reaction and then I will," laughed Terry, exchanging an amused expression with Lisa. Saffron could tell that they were very used to poking fun at each other. The way the Gryffindors, in general, described it, Ravenclaws were meant to be rather uptight and serious, which to a large extent aligned with Maya's character. But this group didn't seem to fit into that mould. The way in which they teased each other was anything but the sort of behaviour expected from the stereotypical Ravenclaw, the way it had been described to Saffron. It was simply further evidence of how prejudices based off houses weren't accurate.

"We just wanted to know what was in there," Padma seemed to want to change the subject, for Olly's sake as it was clear that he was bothered by the teases now that a newcomer was in their midst. Padma turned to Saffron to explain. "Olly always keeps it a secret, like a piece of his heart that he needed to protect. But he's really good, that's why we wanted to see what was in it, he wouldn't even show Miss Davies all last year,"

"Who?" Saffron arched her eyebrow. All of the teachers in their school went by Professor. It was the support staff that had titles such as 'Madam' or 'Mr'. What confused her, even more, was that there wasn't any class for something like drawing, so she figured it must have been something they did during the Summer.

"Miss Davies," Padma repeated herself. "She organises the art club in school,"

"We have an art club?" Saffron asked rhetorically. Such a club wouldn't interest her, for she had seldom ever done art barring the use of crayons that Squire gave to them (well, mainly gave to Rowan, who in turn gave it to the three girls). But she was surprised she had never heard of such a thing.

"Um-hum," Olly nodded, holding his pad closer to his chest, as though scared someone would snatch it off him. "It's on every Saturday for two hours, usually. Me and Padma go all the time, but Terry and Lisa ---"

"Won't go," Terry finished for him. "Because we suck at art, unlike these two,"

"Me too," Saffron offered her a smile, which wasn't returned, not that it mattered to her. "Still, it's crazy to me that I've never noticed,"

"We go to a Charms Club too, but the person who used to do it Mr. MacMillan has moved to Belgium, so some new woman called Ms. Endacott is organising it this year," Lisa told Saffron matter-of-factly. "There are always leaflets about so many societies on our noticeboard, do you not have them in Gryffindor?"

Saffron pouted. Perhaps there were, but she seldom looked at it in detail, she just left that to Hermione who never failed to inform her of any major events or changes happening.

"There probably are, but I guess I just never looked,"

"That's fair enough," Padma told her with her ever-present smile.

After a beat, Terry deciceded to take it upon himself to ask Saffron a question. A question that made Saffron blush profusely.

"So, how come you're here?"

"You can't just ask her why she's here, Terry," Padma snapped at him, in defence of Saffron. "It's obvious isn't it? Or were your ears blocked? Olly invited her,"

"Yeah, but why aren't you with your Gryffindor friends?" Terry asked Saffron again, who was trying her best to weaken her blush.

"Oh, I--- I well, I couldn't find them," a flustered Saffron told him honestly.

"The trains only so big though," Terry told her matter-of-factly. "It wouldn't take you too long,"

"I guess," responded Saffron.

She wasn't quite sure that she liked Terry. This opinion was based upon the feeling that she got from him. He simply seemed to not want her to be there. To Saffron, it seemed that he had a certain vision of how his train ride was going to go and she didn't seem to be a part of it.

She stood up. "I'll go,"

"No!" It was Olly who protested. Saffron looked at him anxciouslty. She wasn't sure she wanted to stay not that it seemed abundantly clear that she wasn't wanted by one of the occupants. "Stay, Terry just isn't used to having someone not from Ravenclaw in here. He's being stupid,"

"I am not being stupid," retorted Terry hotly.

"You're being stupid," commented Padma idly, avoiding the harsh glare that Terry was directing toward her.

"I really should try and find my friends though," said Saffron, trying to give a sufficient excuse to get out of the compartment.

"You'll see them when you get back with all the Gryffindors," Olly said to her with a grin. "Come on, when else are you going to get to see what people in the best house are like," When realising that Saffron still seemed unconvinced, he gave her another reason to stay. "I might even let you look in my notebook that these three keep trying to steal off me,"

"That means he really wants you to stay," Padma told her sincerely.

Saffron raised her eyebrows and stifled a sigh. "Alright, I'll stay,"