Of course, they never found the toad, but chatting along the way brought the young wizards considerably closer.
Ron did have a question, though.
"Neville, why don't you ever talk?" Ron asked, looking at him.
They had walked from one end of the carriage to the other, asking in dozens of compartments, but Hermione and Ron had done nearly all the talking. Neville, whose toad they were looking for, had barely said a word.
"I... when I get nervous, I can't get any words out," Neville said tentatively.
"So when do you get nervous?" Harry couldn't help asking curiously.
"When... when I talk to people..." Neville lowered his head, his round little face reddening.
"But you seem fine talking to us," Hermione said, puzzled.
"Yes, once I get to know someone, it does get a bit better. But with strangers, I can't really manage it." Neville's voice grew even quieter.
"That won't do. Neville, you have to overcome this!" Hermione said with a frown.
"How?" Neville looked up at Hermione. He rather envied how comfortably she could talk to strangers.
"Hmm... I used to have a classmate who was afraid to talk to people, too. He didn't dare introduce himself or answer questions in class. As soon as he opened his mouth, he'd stammer. It was quite similar to your situation," Hermione said after thinking for a moment.
"What happened? Did he get better?" Neville looked at her hopefully.
Even Tris and Ron turned curious gazes toward her.
"He did!" Hermione nodded firmly.
"How did he do it?" Neville grew even more excited.
"Well... he deliberately went to crowded places to recite poetry. Squares, shopping centers, places like that," Hermione said.
"Heh, that's a good idea," Tris said with a laugh. "You could try that, Neville. Hogwarts has a Great Hall, doesn't it? You could stand in the doorway and recite your textbooks. You'd build up your courage and improve your grades at the same time."
"Yes, I think that would work." Hermione nodded. "My classmate only needed one summer. The next time I saw him, he'd become a chatterbox."
Ron nodded in agreement, too, indicating that he thought it was a good idea.
Neville, on the other hand, had gone green...
"All right," Tris said once he finished laughing. "I don't think we need to search the next few carriages. A toad probably couldn't get that far. Could he be hiding in a corner of your compartment that you missed?"
"Hmm... that's possible." Hermione thought back, but she wasn't certain either.
They had searched their compartment before coming out, but hadn't found him. Still, had they really checked every single corner? Probably not.
Besides, they all thought Tris had a point. They had passed through several carriages already, and there were doors between them. People could pull those open, but a toad probably couldn't.
So they returned to Hermione and Neville's original compartment and searched it thoroughly. Sure enough, they finally found the toad called Trevor on the trunk Neville had put beneath his seat.
"Trevor, so this is where you were hiding! We looked everywhere for you." Neville held his toad, his eyes even turning a little red.
Watching Neville rub his cheek against the toad, Tris was rather speechless.
Tris had no idea exactly where things had gone off course, but Hermione had established a fairly good relationship with Harry and Ron earlier than she had in the films he remembered.
After they found the toad, Hermione and Neville even moved into their compartment for the rest of the journey.
Hermione also played two games of Wizard's Chess each against Harry and Ron. She used Neville's pieces. Though Neville wasn't very comfortable interacting with people, he enjoyed playing chess against himself, so he had a Wizard's Chess set with two sets of pieces.
She lost her first game against Harry.
Hermione wasn't quite used to having to persuade the pieces to move where she wanted. And perhaps because Neville was so meek, his pieces were rather domineering. They were particularly disobedient, even demanding that Hermione explain her plan before they would carry it out.
But if she had to announce her whole plan, what was the bloody point of playing?
Fortunately, after they had worked through their differences in the first game, the pieces no longer required Hermione to explain her thoughts in detail during the second, though they still wouldn't stop griping.
Then Hermione won.
After that, she played Ron and suffered a crushing defeat.
Refusing to accept it, Hermione challenged him again and lost even faster.
With her intelligence, Hermione could naturally tell that sheer stubbornness wouldn't overcome the difference in their abilities, so she promptly stopped asking for punishment.
"You look a bit dim, but you're actually very clever. You're so good at chess!" Hermione declared.
Ron practically broke out in a waterfall of sweat.
Was that a compliment?
It probably was, right?
But who on earth complimented people like that?
"I'll take that as a compliment," Ron said, rather speechless.
The carriage lights had come on some time ago, and it was already dark outside the window. Hermione glanced at her watch. "We're nearly there. I suggest you three put your robes on."
By "you three," she meant Tris, Harry, and Ron. She and Neville had already changed into their wizard robes.
"All right, then you should step outside first," Harry said.
Hermione blinked, failing to understand for a moment.
"How are we supposed to change with you here?" Ron gave Hermione a disdainful look. Having yet to experience being thoroughly outclassed by her, he felt that winning two games of chess had established his intellectual superiority.
"Oh, please. You're just taking off your jackets and putting on robes. What's the big deal? You're actually worried about someone watching? Are your bodies that impressive?" Hermione said scornfully.
Though Britain wasn't quite as uninhibited as America, boys and girls there still started dating at a very young age.
Most started in secondary school, around thirteen or fourteen, but plenty dated at eleven or twelve. By fifteen or sixteen, those who had never dated might even start wondering whether there was something wrong with them.
Hermione had always devoted her energy to studying and had no interest whatsoever in the boys around her-she thought they were all far too childish. But she had overheard plenty of nonsense from the other girls around her.
What she didn't quite understand was why both Harry and Ron looked at Tris as soon as she said that.
Tris had known Harry for less than a month, so he couldn't yet tell what Harry wanted to say from his expression and gaze alone. But Ron was his twin, and they had shared a room for ten years. With him, Tris could practically tell the size of his hemorrhoids the moment he stuck his backside out.
Ron's look clearly said: Quick, Tris, show this girl your great physique.
Tris had a physique that children his age could hardly ever achieve.
He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Though his abs weren't sharply defined, their outlines were already visible. That was the result of following the system's workout routine for the past month.
Normally, even with the intensity of Tris's workouts, a single month shouldn't have produced such obvious results. Presumably thanks to the system, however, his training had been unusually effective.
It wasn't obvious with his clothes on, but over the past month, Harry and Ron had bathed with Tris more than once. They knew exactly how good his physique was.
Ron had even wanted to work out with Tris because of it. But after Tris dragged him out of bed at six in the morning to run for two consecutive days, he couldn't keep going and realized that this wasn't for him.
Hermione didn't notice their looks. Despite her bold words, she still turned and left.
Saying it was one thing. Actually watching was another.
Though she was just a tiny bit interested in seeing Tris's physique, it was only a tiny bit. She, Hermione, would devote all her energy and sweat to studying. Mere little boys didn't interest her in the slightest!
Hermione returned to her previous compartment, while Neville stayed with Tris and the others. And then he got a look at Tris's physique.
The September weather was still fairly warm. Once Tris took off his light jacket, he had only a T-shirt underneath.
Even through the T-shirt, Neville could tell that his physique was different.
"Um..." Once Neville got to know people, he wasn't as reserved as before. Looking at the pectoral muscles bulging beneath Tris's shirt and recalling Ron's and Harry's earlier expressions, he suddenly understood something.
"Tris, could I... could I..."
He had wanted to ask whether he could look at Tris's body, but suddenly felt that it sounded a bit wrong, and the words got stuck.
"What?" Tris was reaching for his trunk on the luggage rack, where his wizard robes were. Hearing Neville, he replied casually.
Harry and Ron, however, knew exactly what Neville meant from his expression and gaze.
"Tris, I think Neville wants to see your great physique," Ron said.
"Maybe he wants to feel your pecs, too," Harry added.
After spending a month with Harry, Tris had found his previous impression of him somewhat revised.
The Harry he remembered was a well-behaved, introverted boy who wasn't particularly good with words. After actually getting to know him, however, Tris discovered that wasn't the case at all.
Harry had quite a mouth on him, and a sharp tongue, too.
He could be pretty uninhibited when complaining about his aunt, uncle, and their family. His descriptions of his older cousin Dudley and that gang of good-for-nothing friends were especially cutting.
He was also quite fond of jokes and pranks in everyday life.
Tris had originally wondered why the twins would give Harry the Marauder's Map, that treasure of a prankster's tool. Apparently, Harry was a little menace himself!
It was nothing short of passing the torch!
At that moment, hearing Ron and Harry, Tris felt a chill down his back and his backside clenched.
He whipped around. Only after seeing that none of the three had moved closer did he relax a little.
But when he saw Harry and Ron eyeing his chest and waist, and the hopeful expression on Neville's face, he still couldn't help sucking in a breath.
Bloody hell. Everyone said Britain was the land of slash, and that sort of thing seemed even more common in the wizarding world. Surely these three little guys didn't lean that way too, with me being the one who awakened it?
"What the hell are you on about?" Tris felt he couldn't let this conversation go any further.
That side of British culture had a very long history. In his previous life, he had seen plenty of wild discussions online about Draco/Harry, Draco/Ron, Harry/Voldemort, Draco/Voldemort, Harry/Snape, Snape/Voldemort, and the like.
Though he had never read any of it because it wasn't to his taste, surely the shippers hadn't invented all of that out of thin air. There must have been some hints, right?
He had better not risk it.
If he really gave these three some unusual inclinations, Tris felt he might be erased outright by the power of this plane-if such a thing actually existed.
"Hurry up and change. We might be there any minute. Don't leave yourselves scrambling at the last second," Tris said sternly.
"Tch. Stingy!" Ron snorted, then said to Neville, who looked a little disappointed beside him, "Don't worry, Neville. Once we're at Hogwarts, you can look all you want when we're bathing!"
Neville's eyes brightened slightly, and he actually nodded without thinking. Then he realized something was wrong and hurriedly shook his head. "Ron, don't say things like that. I was just... just a little curious."
Tris's teeth ached in waves as he frantically considered whether a member of the Weasley family could possibly avoid going to Gryffindor.