"Ugh..."
Nelson walked out through the doors of King's Cross Station and pulled his plaid overcoat tighter around himself. Whistles rose and fell behind him. This was already the second send-off Nelson had made today—Tom was heading to Hogwarts, Bella was going back to France. Jonas had been like a rope connecting these strangers in a foreign land, and once he snapped, everyone had to leave this place of sorrow.
After seeing Bella off, in all of vast London, only he was left.
"Spare a bit, sir, please." Nelson turned into a long, narrow alley beside the station, and a group of street children huddled by the rubbish bins at its mouth swarmed up at once. With numb, sallow, scrawny faces, they crowded around him and begged over one another. The tallest among them only came up to Nelson's shoulder. He looked at these children his own age, already reduced to scraping out a living on the streets, and froze where he stood. Then he reached into his pocket, only to touch a handful of Galleons.
"Sorry, I don't have any change." Nelson wound the scarf hanging from his shoulder around his neck, then put the hat he had been holding against his chest onto his head. Cupping his hands over his mouth and breathing warmth into them, he passed through the street children, who did not dare come too close, and walked deeper into the alley.
Compared to the difference between wizards and Muggles, he in his fine clothes and they in their rags looked far more like a display of what it meant to be people from two different worlds.
"Spare a bit, sir, please." Though the street children did not dare approach, they still had no intention of giving up. They followed behind Nelson, pleading without stop.