There couldn't possibly be wild toads living on the Hogwarts Express that much was obvious even without magical education.
"Probably just some careless student who lost track of it," Fred said casually. "Just toss it out in the corridor somewhere. Its owner will surely find it eventually, and it's not like there are that many places it could hide on a train."
This suggestion was delivered quite casually, clearly not putting much thought into the toad's fate or wellbeing. But then again, it was just a toad—hardly anyone's favorite pet, barely above a garden slug in the hierarchy of creatures worthy of concern.
But they really didn't need to worry too much about the creature's safety, Morris thought.
This was the Hogwarts Express, after all—a magical train that had been running for over a century without major incident. The environment was controlled, the temperature regulated, and there were no predators.
Unless the toad somehow managed to jump out an open window of its own accord, a feat requiring both opportunity and truly suicidal determination—there was essentially no way it could be in any genuine life-threatening danger.
At worst, it would spend a few hours hopping around the train's corridors until someone caught it or it exhausted itself.
Lee Jordan, apparently designated as the group's toad-handler by virtue of being closest to the creature, immediately bent down with a grimace of disgust. He picked up the still-lethargic toad, holding it at arm's length between two fingers like someone handling a piece of particularly unpleasant garbage, preparing to dispose of it into the corridor where it would become someone else's problem.
Just then, with timing so perfect it seemed almost scripted for maximum awkwardness, the compartment's sliding door suddenly rattled and opened with a sharp scraping sound.
A round-faced boy timidly poked his head through the opening, his movements were hesitant and apologetic, as if he was afraid he might be intruding or causing trouble just by existing. He looked like the sort of person who went through life constantly apologizing for taking up space.
The boy's eyes were red and puffy, with that particular swollen look that came from recent crying. His entire face was filled with anxiety and distress.
He'd clearly been crying quite recently, possibly still on the verge of tears even now.
"Excuse me," the boy began in a trembling voice. "Have you seen a toad anywhere? His name is Trevor, and I've lost him again—"
Lee Jordan's hand, which had been mid-motion toward the door to toss the toad into the corridor, froze completely in midair. Time seemed to stop for a beat as everyone in the compartment processed what was happening.
Because at that precise moment, Lee happened to be holding a toad upside down by one leg, dangling the creature like a wet sock he was about to throw in the laundry. The toad's other limbs hung limp, its eyes were glazed and unfocused, foam still visible around its mouth from the earlier curse-induced trauma.
It was, objectively speaking, not a good look.
The round-faced boy's gaze immediately locked onto the toad in Lee's grip, recognition sparking instantly in his tear-filled eyes. His entire body went rigid with a mixture of relief at finding his lost pet and horror at its current condition.
"Trevor!" he cried out. His eyes were darting rapidly between his toad and Lee Jordan's face, trying to process the scene before him.
Seeing Lee Jordan roughly holding his Trevor, and seeing Trevor looking so weak and listless and wrong, tears immediately welled up fresh in his eyes.
"You... what did you do to him!?" Neville's voice carried a sob and a rare hint of anger.
But despite his anger, he didn't dare step forward into the compartment or make any move. Because before him stood an upperclassman considerably taller than himself.
Lee Jordan's dreadlocks and somewhat imposing stature invisibly added a measure of intimidation in the timid Neville's eyes.
For a moment, he could only stand there with tears spinning in his eyes.
The scene was clear as day to any observer: an older, larger student holding a younger student's injured pet, the younger student crying and accusing him while being too afraid to do anything about it.
A textbook case of school bullying.
Lee Jordan was instantly speechless.
How in Merlin's name did he somehow become the villain bullying the weak?
"Hey, don't cry!" Lee Jordan said quickly. He was somewhat flustered by the display of tears and quickly moved forward shoving Trevor into the round-faced boy's outstretched arms. "Please stop crying! I really didn't do anything to it! Your toad is fine! It just... uh... maybe got motion sick from all the hopping around?!"
He racked his brain for any plausible excuse.
Though the toad's listless appearance, the foam around its mouth, and its thousand-yard stare really weren't doing much to support the "motion sickness" theory.
If anything, Trevor looked like he'd survived a Dementor attack or possibly been subjected to the Cruciatus Curse—neither of which were good comparisons to bring up with a crying first-year.
Fred, sitting on the opposite bench, wanted desperately to laugh at Lee's predicament. The whole situation was objectively hilarious. But it would be too unkind to laugh openly at this moment, when the poor round-faced kid was genuinely upset and Lee was genuinely distressed.
So he could only press his lips together tightly, clamping down on the laughter, though his shoulders shook slightly.
George, sitting beside his twin, noticed Fred's struggle immediately. He secretly nudged his brother sharply with his elbow, silently signaling him to restrain himself.
Morris, observing this entire drama unfold from his seat with Tin-Tin still resting peacefully on his lap, decided that this was an excellent moment to be completely unhelpful.
He leaned back against the compartment wall, changed his face into an expression of exaggerated innocence, and whistled.
"You really are a bad guy, Lee," Morris commented, shaking his head slowly as if deeply disappointed in Lee's moral character.
He looked completely uninvolved in the entire incident.
"Shut up, Morris," Lee Jordan hissed irritably. "Whose fault do you think this is?"
Then he turned back to look at the still sniffling round-faced boy. Lee tried very hard to make his tone sound sincere.
"Stop crying, kid, Your toad is really fine. Look—he's breathing normally, right? I promise you it will be back to his usual hopping self within an hour."
Neville raised his tear-filled brown eyes from Trevor's traumatized form. He looked up at Lee Jordan's face, taking in the older boy's helpless and even slightly aggrieved expression. Then his gaze dropped back down to Trevor in his hands, examining his pet more carefully for signs of actual injury.
After a moment of internal debate, Neville slowly nodded, apparently deciding to believe Lee's explanation despite the evidence of his eyes.
"O-okay," he said in a whisper. "If you say so. Thank you for... for finding him."
"Neville, did you find your toad?"
At that moment, another voice sounded from the corridor just beyond the still-open compartment door.
A girl with bushy brown hair appeared there.
The clever-looking girl scanned the compartment interior. Her eyes moved analytically from person to person, object to object, rapidly assembling the scene before her like someone solving a puzzle.
Red-eyed Neville holding his toad protectively against his chest. The embarrassed-looking older student with dreadlocks who was clearly the focus of Neville's earlier distress.
The two red-haired twins seated behind the dreadlocked student wearing poorly-suppressed grins. And finally, Morris sitting calmly with a peculiar-looking black cat on his lap, appearing completely uninvolved in the drama.
She instantly understood the situation—or rather, she understood what the situation appeared to be from the available evidence, which wasn't quite the same thing as what had actually happened.
She immediately frowned and blurted out, "You're bullying a first-year student like this!?"
Lee Jordan raised one hand to his forehead, his palm covering his eyes in a gesture of complete defeat and exhaustion.
Great. Just perfect. Absolutely wonderful.
Now he had to spend even more time and energy explaining the actual sequence of events to yet another person who'd jumped to entirely reasonable but completely incorrect conclusions based on the available evidence. And this girl looked like the persistent type, the kind who wouldn't let things go once she'd decided something was wrong.
He didn't want any strange rumors spreading through the students about how Lee Jordan terrorized younger students and tortured their pets for entertainment.
"Bullying the kids" was not a reputation he needed or wanted, thank you very much.
...
After two and a half minutes of somewhat chaotic explanation—a period that felt considerably longer due to the multiple interruptions and the general difficulty of being taken seriously while Fred and George kept interjecting with "helpful" comments that only confused things further—the misunderstanding was finally cleared up to something approaching satisfaction.
Though Hermione still privately thought these older students were more than a bit unreliable and chaotic, especially that Lee Jordan, she at least now believed they hadn't intentionally bullied Neville or deliberately harmed his toad.
"Alright," her tone softened somewhat, carrying a hint of apology. "It seems I misunderstood the situation. Sorry, I shouldn't have accused you before understanding the situation."
Neville, who had been standing slightly behind Hermione as if using her as a shield throughout the explanation, now timidly poked his head out to the side. He looked at Lee Jordan and the others with wide, nervous eyes, then managed to speak in a whisper.
"Thank... thank you for helping me find Trevor,"
"No problem at all, kid," Lee Jordan said immediately, waving his hand broadly in a gesture of magnanimous dismissal. He was clearly trying to display proper upperclassman demeanor.
A few drops of sweat still remained on his temple from the stress of the last several minutes.
"I'm Hermione Granger," the brown-haired girl formally introduced herself, then stepped aside to reveal the round-faced boy hiding behind her. "This is Neville Longbottom. We're both first-year students."
"Fred Weasley."
"George Weasley."
"Lee Jordan. We're all third years, and this is..."
"Morris Black," Morris said simply. "Like you, a first year."
A first year sitting comfortably among a group of third-year students, chatting and joking with them like old friends—this combination was clearly rather peculiar and unusual.
Did they know each other beforehand? Were they related somehow?
A flash of surprise crossed Hermione's sharp eyes as she looked Morris up and down with interest.
"Hey!" She suddenly exclaimed, her voice rising with recognition. Her eyes widened and her finger came up to point directly at Morris with the same accusatory energy she'd used earlier on Lee. "I recognize you!"
Morris was momentarily stunned by both the volume and the certainty of her tone.
"Hm?" He tilted his head slightly, genuinely confused. "Have we met before? I don't think I remember—"
He looked carefully at Hermione, squinting slightly as if trying to force the memory to surface, confirming in his mind that he had absolutely no recollection of this girl with bushy brown hair and unusually bright brown eyes.
Should he just...
"At the pet shop in Diagon Alley," Hermione said with a huffy tone, crossing her arms over her chest. "I tried to talk to you, and you completely ignored me. Just walked past like I wasn't even there. It was very rude, actually. My mother always taught me that ignoring people when they speak to you is terribly impolite."
Only then did Morris make the connection. The girl in front of him was surnamed "Granger"—she must be the daughter or relative of that anxious Muggle couple he'd encountered.
"Oh, so it was you." He put on an expression of sudden realization.
Honestly, he hadn't remembered the face of the person who spoke to him at all.
No one specifically remembers what a stranger looks like, especially not some unremarkable child.
She had already realized Morris didn't remember her at all and only answered that way to avoid embarrassing her.
Annoying fellow, she thought with some irritation.
Just then, a clear tinkling sound came from the corridor, accompanied by an enthusiastic female voice. "Anything from the trolley, dears? Chocolate Frogs! Pumpkin Pasties! Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans!"
The snack trolley witch had stopped right at their compartment, though she couldn't actually see inside because Hermione and Neville were still standing in the doorway, blocking the entrance and her view of the interior compartment.
Hermione noticed this immediately. She stepped back from the doorway and gently tugged on Neville's sleeve, pulling him with her to clear the entrance.
"Let's go, Neville," she said. "Since you've found your toad and everything's cleared up, we should get back to our own compartment."
"Oh, wait a moment," Neville said quickly. He reached into his robe pocket which jingled with the sound of coins and scratched his head in an embarrassed, self-conscious gesture.
He turned toward the snack witch's trolley, which was now visible through the clear doorway, and observed the impressive range of magical sweets with slightly overwhelmed eyes. After a moment of internal debate, he made his selection.
"I'll take a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, please," he said to the witch. He fumbled with his coins for a moment before managing to count out the correct amount and exchange it for a box.
Then, in a gesture that was clearly meant to be generous and thankful despite his earlier distress, Neville turned back to the compartment's occupants and began distributing the beans to everyone present, walking from person to person with the box held out.
He seemed to genuinely want to express his gratitude for finding Trevor, even though the earlier experience with the traumatized toad hadn't been particularly pleasant.
Fred and George each received a handful of colorful beans, accepting them with genuine thanks and immediately beginning to compare which colors they'd gotten.
Lee Jordan got his share as well, looking somewhat relieved that Neville bore no hard feelings about the whole incident. Hermione received several beans despite not being directly involved in finding Trevor.
And Morris, last in the distribution, received his portion as well.
Except for some reason, Morris only got flavors like booger and dirt.
After a brief but extremely unpleasant tasting experience, he silently reached a conclusion: He absolutely hated Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.
Whoever had invented these cursed candies had a deeply twisted sense of humor and possibly should be arrested for crimes against taste buds and human decency.