Courage

If there was one thing Eleanor Foster was good at, it was being invisible. Not the kind of actual invisibility, of course, because that was advanced magic, but the kind where you make yourself as unnoticeable as possible. Maybe that was the reason why she was able to easily make her way through King's Cross station despite her large trunk and the cat transport box she had fastened onto it. Or maybe it was because the hundreds of Muggles passing her by on her way were just too busy and too engrossed in their own thoughts to pay any attention.

Eleanor manoeuvred her heavy luggage towards the wall between platforms 9 and 10, where she paused and looked around carefully. When she had confirmed that no one was watching her, she took three vigorous steps and passed through the barrier.

Platform 9 ¾ was still fairly empty, with only a couple of students and their families already loading their belongings onto the Hogwarts Express. It was still about an hour until departure time, so Eleanor moved her trunk into an empty compartment and let her cat out. It inspected the area while its owner was changing into her robes, and then jumped on the girl's lap as she sat down.

Stroking the purring cat, Eleanor opened The Standard Book of Spells and proceeded to read in it until the noise around her signified the arrival of various other students. Several times someone stuck their head into her compartment and then left again when they found it occupied. It wasn't until about half an hour later, departure time drawing closer, that two little girls continued to peer over to Eleanor, seeming uncertain whether to approach her or not.

"Can I help you?" she asked, assuming the girls might be first-years.

"Er..." The first girl, a small blonde with rosy cheeks, muttered, looking intimidated.

"We were wondering if we could sit with you" the second, taller girl chimed in. "Everywhere else is taken."

Eleanor gestured towards the empty seats across from her. "Sure."

The two girls dragged their baggage into the compartment and unsuccessfully tried to lift the huge trunks onto the luggage holders until Eleanor took pity on them and made them float to their destination. The girls sat down then, but seemed too intimidated to talk, so the only audible sounds for a while were the purring of Eleanor's cat, the occasional hooting from each of the younger girls' owls and the muffled voices of the other students.

Just as Eleanor turned to chapter 3 on her school book, however, the train came to a sudden halt, and pieces of their luggage came tumbling down from above. Eleanor's cat drove its claws into the its owners knees in order not to be thrown around, and the two younger girls gripped onto their owl cages tightly.

"Does this happen a lot?" the smaller one of them asked.

Eleanor shook her head and frowned. "No. We shouldn't be stopping until we arrive in Hogsmeade. Something must have happened." She wished she could tell the seemingly frightened girls not to worry, but considering the latest events in the Wizarding World, that would have felt like a blatant lie. She clasped her wand just in case and waited, but nothing happened.

"What should we do?" the taller one asked when they train hadn't resumed moving after a few minutes.

When Eleanor was about to rise from her seat to take a look outside, the compartment door was thrown open and two intimidating figures came barging in. "Name?" one of them addressed her without any introduction.

"Foster, Eleanor," she replied.

The other man checked a piece of parchment that appeared to be a list of Hogwarts students. When he had seemed to have found her on it, he nodded to the first man, who again barked out: "Blood status?"

"Pure-blood," she answered and tried to look as confident as she could despite feeling more and more uneasy. The list-checker seemed to be content with her reply and went on to the younger girls. When he was done checking their names and blood-statuses - both of them were classified as "half-bloods" on the list -, he turned around to face Eleanor again. "Know anything about Harry Potter?"

"Not more than any other Hogwarts student, I suppose," she said cautiously. What was up with that interrogation?

The two men, who Eleanor now assumed to be Death Eaters or at least henchmen of the "new" Ministry, didn't let her off so easily. "How is your relationship to the Undesirable Number One?"

Eleanor swallowed hard. "I'm a Ravenclaw and a year below Potter, so we don't really have anything to do with each other." In fact, she had never even said a word to the Gryffindor boy.

This answer seemed to suffice for the first interrogator, but the second held out his hand to signalise they weren't finished yet. "So you're in the same year and house as the Lovegood girl? Has she never said anything about Potter's whereabouts, plans?"

So that was what this was about, Eleanor thought. Questioning the students about Harry Potter, who had apparently chosen not to return for his final year at Hogwarts. It was a wise choice, as he would have been snatched by Death Eaters right here on the train. Did they seriously think he would just waltz into Hogwarts as if nothing had happened? Harry Potter might have seemed like the typical hot-headed Gryffindor, but not even he would have been so stupid as to assume he could just resume his education under the new regime. As for Luna, they obviously had her on their radar after she had been in the Ministry with him about a year ago.

"Luna rarely talks to anyone. Most people think she's weird," Eleanor stated. "In all honesty, I doubt that Potter would have told her anything." She really hoped the Death Eaters would be satisfied with her reply and leave them alone now.

And indeed, the two men nodded at each other, then left the compartment the same way they had come in, without any greeting. The two first-years exhaled in relief and Eleanor couldn't help but sigh a little herself. She could only hope that there wouldn't be any more visits like this one once they were at school.

It took quite a while, but then the train started moving again and the tense silence that had fallen upon it was lifted. As Eleanor headed to the lavatory a little later, many students were already roaming the aisle to discuss the events with friends in other compartments.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully and Eleanor spent the remaining hours of the train ride reading and answering questions concerning school life posed to her by the two first-years to be. Nonetheless, when the Hogwarts Express finally reached Hogsmeade in the evening and everyone descended onto the dark platform, Eleanor couldn't help but feel that rough times were waiting for them.