Not long after the train started moving, a woman with a snack trolley appeared in the corridor. Altair's eyes lit up. He leaned out and called to her before she could pass.
"Ma'am, I'll take all of it."
Whatever awkward bonding ritual Harry and Ron were supposed to be having over these sweets right now was no longer his concern. What he urgently needed was something to keep Hermione's mouth occupied. She was far too curious, and she'd been talking without pause since King's Cross.
He bought everything on the trolley. Less than seventeen Sickles in total.
Money wasn't something he was short of. When he'd swept through Knockturn Alley before, he hadn't just taken the magical materials and items. He'd emptied the cash from every shop as well. The Galleons sitting in his System space had by now accumulated into something resembling a small mountain.
"Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, Chocolate Frogs, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Liquorice Wands, Cauldron Cakes, Pumpkin Pasties, Strawberry Milk Pudding..."
He spread everything across the seats and the small table between them, then clapped his hands once.
"Hermione, Neville. These are on me."
It was already past noon, and Hermione was hungry enough that she didn't argue. She picked up a pudding and started eating.
Neville looked like he was about to refuse. Altair grabbed a handful of things and deposited them directly into his arms. Neville stared down at them, then thanked him several times with a red face.
"Go ahead and eat. We're friends now, aren't we? No need to be polite."
Neville pressed his lips together, thanked him once more for good measure, and opened a packet of Pumpkin Pasties.
"Wow! It jumps!"
Hermione had opened a box of Chocolate Frogs. One leapt straight out at her, and she recoiled with a sharp sound, then caught it before it hit the floor. It kept struggling in her hands. She looked at it for a moment, decided she couldn't quite bring herself to bite into something that was still moving, and held it out toward Altair.
"You eat it."
"Thank you."
Altair didn't hesitate. He opened his mouth, and Hermione, going visibly red, fed it to him. Her fingers brushed his lips in the process. She pulled her hand back quickly and looked elsewhere.
"There's a card inside."
She reached into the box and produced a small card, her voice businesslike again.
"Chocolate Frog boxes come with collectible cards. A lot of people buy them just to collect them. They've all got famous witches and wizards on them."
Neville had relaxed enough by now to offer this himself, which he did, with only a little hesitation.
Hermione turned the card over. A brown-haired wizard looked back at her, scholarly and composed.
"Newt Scamander. Magizoologist, author of the bestselling book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, recipient of the Order of Merlin, Second Class, the first wizard to capture Gellert Grindelwald..."
Her face brightened.
"So he's the author of Fantastic Beasts. I already read that one a few days ago. It was very interesting." She paused. "But I feel like I've heard the name Grindelwald somewhere before. Yes, I remember now. It was in A History of Magic, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century. All three of them mentioned him." She looked at Altair. "Do you know who he is?"
"I don't know, but since Newt captured him, I imagine he must have been some dark wizard who did a great deal of damage."
Altair answered while finishing off the last of the chocolate.
"That's right. He was one of the most evil dark wizards in history. But in the end, he was defeated by Dumbledore. You know Dumbledore, right? He's the headmaster of Hogwarts."
Hermione had slipped back into lecture mode without noticing. Altair clicked his tongue. The Chocolate Frog had been slightly too sweet. He rummaged through the pile on the table, tore open a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, and popped one into his mouth.
"You really do know a lot. The professors are definitely going to like you." He considered the bean for a moment. "This one tastes like steak. Not bad. Want to try one?"
"Really? Let me taste."
Hermione abandoned her educational mission immediately and took a bean from the bag.
"No, that's not right at all. It's blueberry." She took another. "Ptooey, what is that awful taste?"
"Every Flavour Beans means every flavour." Neville had found enough courage by now to speak up on his own. "I've heard some of them taste like bogies. Or earwax."
Hermione's expression curdled. She spat the bean into her hand, took a large bite of Pumpkin Pasty, and chewed until the taste was gone.
"I am never eating those again."
She turned and found Altair laughing at her from across the seat. She gave him a look that was equal parts irritation and dignity, then turned away with a very deliberate eye-roll.
Because Altair had warned Neville about the compartment door early on, and because the afternoon had been occupied with food, Trevor never went missing. Hermione never ended up wandering the train looking for a lost toad, and Harry and Ron never appeared.
The three of them sat together as the countryside moved past the windows, working through the sweets at a steady pace. Neville had loosened up considerably, and the conversation wandered easily from one thing to another. Altair knew almost nothing about the day-to-day realities of the wizarding world, which made Neville a surprisingly useful source. He drew quite a lot out of him without much effort.
He also learned something he found genuinely interesting.
Hermione was actually a year older than him. She was about to turn twelve. Her birthday fell in September, which meant she hadn't yet had it when Hogwarts began the previous year, and so her admission letter had only come this year instead.
That quietly resolved a small inconsistency that had always nagged at him. Cedric Diggory and the Weasley twins had been in the same school year, yet Cedric had entered the Triwizard Tournament legitimately while the twins had been caught out by the Goblet of Fire even after using an Aging Potion. The age gap between students in a single year, it turned out, could be wider than it first appeared.
As the afternoon wore on, the energy in the train gradually wound down. The noise from the other compartments softened. One by one, the young witches and wizards on the Hogwarts Express began to feel the pull of sleep.