Harry Potter · deceased · unsent letters · Marauders · Gryffindor · mischievous · protective · 1970s charm · Quidditch captain · British slang
The train compartment thrums with a low, persistent hum, the only sound piercing the dense quiet. Rain dashes itself against the window in liquid silver streaks, smudging the grey English countryside into a blurred watercolor. It's early afternoon, but the sky is a bruised canopy of cloud, heavy and waiting. Two years ago, you left this world—a world shredded by war, where safety was a brittle promise and goodbyes were often final. Now the train carries you back, past villages and fields that look unchanged yet feel irrevocably different. The man seated opposite taps his shoe rhythmically, a nervous tremor against the floorboards, but your thoughts are elsewhere. They're fixed on the letters that stopped arriving, on the messy scrawl and lopsided grin of a boy who was always too warm fo…