At Hermione's prompting, Ethan Jones and Neville changed out of their clothes and into wizard robes embroidered with their names.
"Are you hungry?"
The carriage was very quiet. Two people were reading, and one person was looking down, seemingly lost in thought. This contrasted sharply with the noisy sounds coming from the corridor outside the carriage.
"A little. Are you going shopping? Let's go together." Hermione rubbed her stomach, stood up, and called out to Neville, who hadn't said much.
Aside from a brief conversation between Hermione and Neville after his grandmother's passing, when Hermione was curious about how much magic Neville, from a family of wizards, actually possessed, the two didn't speak to each other. Instead, Ethan Jones chatted with Neville for a while to calm him down before continuing his reading.
Neville glanced gratefully at Hermione, then hurriedly pulled a Galleon from his pocket.
As children raised in the magical world, Neville was familiar with most of the novel snacks on the train. On his recommendation, the two Muggle-born children each bought some Chocolate Frogs, Licorice Wands, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and Cauldron Cakes, and took them back to their respective compartments.
"How interesting." Ethan Jones opened a bag of Chocolate Frogs, watched the chocolates wriggling in his hand, and then took a bite out of the head.
The frog's leg twitched twice and then stopped moving, making it look just like a real frog.
"Try it, Hermione, it's so much fun!" He still had chocolate crumbs on his lips as he chewed and encouraged Hermione to try it too, taking three bites of a frog.
Hermione looked at him and wiped the chocolate off the corner of his mouth with her finger.
Ethan Jones was startled and stopped chewing; this was the first time Hermione had ever done such a thing.
Not knowing why she had done such a thing, Hermione took out a tissue to wipe her fingers clean, her face flushed as she looked down at the ground, not daring to meet Ethan Jones's gaze.
"Look what kind of picture you came up with." Neville had been eating a Cauldron Cake and hadn't noticed what was going on between the two of them.
"Oh, let me see." Ethan Jones snapped out of his daze, chewed faster, and swallowed the chocolate in his mouth.
"Dumbledore." The picture shows an old man wearing crescent-shaped glasses, with long silver hair and a white beard hanging down, and a long, crooked nose.
This wasn't the first time he'd seen a portrait of Dumbledore; several of the books he'd bought during the summer vacation contained brief introductions to this greatest wizard of the century.
"Let me see, it is indeed our Headmaster, but the card isn't very rare; it's one of the cards that you can often get from Chocolate Frogs." Neville nodded.
Ethan Jones handed the picture to Hermione, who was still looking down.
Seeing the picture appear before her, she reached out and took it without even looking up, carefully examining the animated picture.
Ethan Jones smiled slightly and opened another bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.
He picked up a brown one and put it in his mouth, thinking, "It should be chocolate or coffee flavored, right?"
He took one bite and spat out the bean, which had a very strong fishy smell: "Ptooey! Ugh! Such fishy innards!"
Neville and Hermione giggled.
As he laughed, Neville's laughter suddenly stopped, and he cried out in terror, "Trevor is gone!"
Trevor is Neville's toad, a pet that frequently disappears.
"Let's see if it's in the compartment first." Seeing his almost tearful expression, Ethan Jones and Hermione quickly climbed up and down the compartment searching for the toad.
After searching unsuccessfully, Hermione said to Neville, "Could it be that when we went out to buy snacks, Trevor went out with us?"
Neville looked at the two of them pitifully: "What should we do? Can you come with me to look for it?"
Ethan Jones and Hermione exchanged a glance: "Okay, let's go now. Hermione and I will search from the front of the car, and you can start from the back of this car, okay?"
Neville hesitated for a moment, somewhat timidly, then nodded and walked toward the back of the train.
"Let's go, you go and check the corridor, I'll ask in each compartment." Ethan Jones and Hermione had a clear division of labor.
He took a deep breath, mentally prepared himself, and then opened the door to a compartment with a smile: "Hello, have you seen a toad?"
Hermione quickly finished inspecting the entire passageway and began asking questions from the other end of the car.
The two met soon after: "I didn't see him."
Rubbing his face, which was stiff from smiling, Ethan Jones said helplessly, "Okay, it seems we're in the back of the train."
Neville seems to have started searching from the back. You go with him; I'll search from the middle backwards.
"Hmm." Hermione had just returned from the front of the car and learned from the older students that they didn't have much time left before Hogwarts.
She hurried toward the back of the train, while Ethan Jones continued to smile and ask each compartment if anyone had seen the toad.
Just as he pulled himself out of one of the compartments and closed the door, he saw Hermione wave at him dejectedly and walk towards him from the back of the train.
"Didn't find it?"
Hermione said dejectedly, "We've searched every single compartment, and asked some two or three times already, but everyone says they've never seen a toad."
"What should we do then? I'll go ask ahead again."
Neville, his face still streaked with tears, said, "Never mind, the train will be arriving soon. I think they'll find Trevor when they check the train."
Seeing that Neville said so, they had no choice but to give up and return to their own compartment to wait for the train to arrive at the station.
People's joys and sorrows are not shared. After a short period of frustration, Hermione recovered and whispered to Ethan Jones with a mysterious look, "You'll never guess who I met, a figure from the history books!"
"The person in the history books? Dumbledore?" Ethan Jones knew it all, but pretended to know nothing.
"No, Harry Potter! The savior mentioned in Modern Magical History, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century, The Boy Who Lived!" Hermione felt a sense of honor in witnessing history, and fearing Neville's anger, she secretly glanced at him.
"Oh, it's him. According to the book, he was born in 1980. Following the tradition of receiving an acceptance letter at the age of eleven, he should indeed be attending Hogwarts this year." Ethan Jones pretended to suddenly realize something and gave a series of analyses.
His words, connecting the dots, certainly made a lot of sense.
Hermione was annoyed that she hadn't extracted such important information from the books she had read, but at the same time she looked at Ethan Jones with admiration, thinking that he was really meticulous and serious about reading.
It was already dark, and under the deep purple sky stretched mountains and forests. The train slowed down.
Soon, a voice began to echo on the train: "The train will arrive at Hogwarts in five minutes. Please leave your luggage on the train, and we will take it to the school for you."
"Neville, don't be sad. You heard it too, if Trevor is still on the train, he will definitely be taken to school safely," Hermione and Ethan Jones comforted the heartbroken Neville.
"Waaah, this was bought for me by my Uncle Algie, waaah!" Neville cried even harder.
After the sound echoed for five minutes, the train finally came to a stop. The students pushed and shoved their way to the doors and onto a small, dark platform.