The Midnight Train to Hogsmeade (Abbey)

[Bryant Tannen]

Bryant’s friends greeted him with smiles and hugs. He didn’t know a single one of their names.

Truthfully, they weren’t his friends as much as they were Mac’s friends. Macbeth Tannen was Bryant’s cousin who had been spent most of his life distancing himself from the weird, long-nosed kid who lived in their house. But after Bryant’s accident, Mac saw an opportunity to make some money and some notoriety as an up-and-coming lawyer. Since successfully suing the Knight Bus Corporation, Mac had dragged his little cousin to half-a-dozen parties, raves, and shindigs for, what Mac called, “networking.”

In a past life, Bryant would have relished in the opportunity to be surrounded by half sober girls bumping up against him as they danced. But the events were exhausting, and Bryant was beginning to suspect his cousin’s motives. Bryant had confided in him once during a legal consultation that he wanted to put his Knight Bus winnings to good use. He wanted to start a charity, maybe change the way people said his name: Bryant Tannen. Mac promised that these networking events would introduce him to the right kinds of people. “A better class of people,” Mac had said.

When Bryant arrived at the club, Mac was the first to greet him. He rushed over to Bryant from his seat in the roped off VIP section and flung his arm around Bryant’s shoulder, forcing a plastic cup into his hand. “Hey little cuz, drink this.”

“What is it?” Bryant asked.

Mac laughed and then said, less friendly this time, “Drink it.”

So Bryant drank. And when he joined the group in the VIP section, he had another. And another. And soon everything was beginning to blur. Mac’s friends were some of the most attractive people Bryant had ever seen. They could have all all easily been Slytherins. They also asked for a lot more than they gave. Bryant thought the whole idea of networking was to secure investors for his own business, but Mac assured him that a favor for them would become a favor for him later. Bryant felt like the Godfather on the day of his daughter’s wedding. Their reasons were different, but they all wanted the same thing. One of Mac’s friends needed a little extra scratch to record an EP. Another was looking for investors in a feature film. Another, one that Bryant found especially hard to turn down, was a gorgeous blonde looking for a little help getting her modeling career off the ground.

She batted her eyelashes and said, “So Mac tells me you like, know the Declassified girl.”

Bryant shook his head for a moment, trying to make sense of this question in his head. “You mean like, James Bond?”

The girl laughed and said, “No, silly. Abigail Chandler?”

Bryant laughed. “No. I mean, I did but…no. No, no.”

“So you can’t like, introduce her to me?”

“Let me ask you,” Bryant pointed at her dramatically. “Were you a Slytherin?”

“Could you tell?” she smiled bashfully.

Bryant laughed again, then took a drink from his glass. “I don’t think she wants to meet you. But I’ll see what I can do.”

It had been eight years since Bryant had last seen his best friend and just the mention of her name made him want to down the rest of the bottle of whatever they were drinking.

As he poured himself another glass he asked his new model friend, “This may be a little forward but…would you maybe want to make out or something?”

The girl cocked her head to the side like she was admiring an adorable puppy then said, “That’s really sweet. Maybe next time.”

“Fair enough,” Bryant nodded, then held up his glass. “To next times, and all the times that never were.” Whatever that meant.

By the time Bryant stumbled back to Kings Cross he was alone, drunk, and much lighter on Galleons. Deep down, Bryant knew that Mac was stealing from him. That he was only arranging these events to finance all of his friends’ little side projects. Maybe Mac even had a stake in that EP or that movie. But Bryant had never really felt wealthy. And though none of Mac’s friends really cared to be around Bryant, the fact that they pretended to meant something to him. What difference did it make to him if they were there for his money or not? He would give it all away if it felt like he had friends.

Bryant collapsed in his seat on the midnight train to Hogsmeade. As one of the less traveled lines, he could usually find a quiet, cozy seat alone near the back of the train where he’d sleep off the rest of the booze before returning to Hogwarts in the morning to teach his class. It was a life that was slowly killing Bryant, but he couldn’t tell Mac no. Not after everything his cousin had done for him.

Bryant rested his head on the window glass and stared out at the empty platform. Soon the train would take off and the sights of rural Britain speeding past would lull him to sleep. His mind began to drift, first to the pretty young Slytherin alum at the club, and then, inevitably, to Abbey Chandler.

Of all the people Bryant owed the most to, it was Abbey. He’d considered looking her up from time to time. It wasn’t too hard to contact someone in the magical world. But even Bryant wasn’t too dumb to recognize that reaching out to Abbey would only hurt her. As painful as it was for him to admit, she truly was happier without him in her life.

He sighed, then whispered, “Where are you right now?”
    
    Abigail Chandler

[Abigail Chandler]

​​

HELLO MR PERFECTLY FINE,
HOW'S YOUR HEART AFTER BREAKING MINE?

Across town, Abbey was living her best life. At least that’s what Witch Weekly would print in their next issue. The blonde former model turned businesswoman sat on a leather couch. Around her, wizards and witches in their late twenties or early thirties tried to harmonize as they belted out a birthday song for the man of the hour: Vince Kilgour. Abbey’s boyfriend of all of three months was turning thirty and his fellow teammates had thrown him a surprise party. Naturally, Abbey had to show up and put on an act of being the perfect girlfriend.

She swayed along to the song but her lips didn’t move along with the words. Instead, she was nursing her fourth drink of the night. Her gaze trailed along the table in front of them. It was littered with presents and bottles of alcohol. The gift she had wrapped for him was thrown in with the rest and lost somewhere in there. Vince tried to blow out the candles but someone had placed an enchantment to make it harder for him. They all laughed and he leaned down to place a kiss atop of Abbey's blonde locks. She smiled back at him. It was always like this; they would show up at events, take lots of lovey pictures and then go their separate ways. Abbey liked it this way, she wasn't fond of letting anyone get too close anymore.

The party seemed to go on forever but she finally managed to escape. She made up an excuse, something about a business meeting early in the morning. The cool night breeze hit her straight in the face and it felt nice but it wasn't enough to sober her up. She sort of dragged her feet along as she navigated her way to the train station. Her head was spinning a bit and she wanted nothing more than to sit down and rest until she got to Hogsmeade.

The Hogwarts Express was usually empty whenever she took the red eye train ride. Tonight seemed different. Every compartment she walked by had one or two people scattered about. She heard someone talking about their lesson plan for the week and she realized some of the Hogwarts Professors had spent a night out in London. Or she could be imagining? Abbey didn't usually drink so she was a bit tipsy and her mind could be playing tricks on her. She almost swore that she saw Liliana Quinn huddled in a corner when she looked in through one of the windows.

Abbey had enough of this night. She made her way to the back of the train, her jacket in her hand and trailing on the floor behind her. The blonde always chose the last compartment on the left. This had been the one she sat in on her way to Hogwarts for the first time. Abbey stopped right outside, a solemn expression on her face as she thought about that day. That one choice had brought so much pain and so many mistakes when she was younger. She felt a pang in her heart and it truly sucked. Her blue eyes took a second to peek through the small window near the door and her heart nearly jumped out of her chest. She closed her eyes and shook her head, she was sure this was the alcohol again.

The compartment door was ajar and she just had to slide it a few inches to fit through the entrance. Abbey slowly walked in, her eyes never leaving the familiar face of Bryant Tannen. He was so obviously some sort of drunken hallucination but it didn't mean that it didn't hurt her all over again. Abbey took a seat opposite of him. She studied him and then let out a soft laugh as she looked out the window and into the dark night. She stayed like that for a minute before the corner of her lips pulled down to form a frown. She brought her hand up to the left side of her chest where her heart was racing again.

How long had it been since she allowed herself to think about Bryant? Years? No, maybe months. He always seemed to find his way to her mind and it always took her by surprise but this was different. This felt real. Abbey inhaled deeply and as she exhaled, a small sob escaped from her lips. She could feel the hot tears running down her cheeks before she could force herself to stop. As always, Bryant Tannen broke her heart.

Bryant Tannen

[Bryant Tannen]

As Bryant waited for the train to begin its exit from the station, the compartments began to fill up with laughter. The midnight train to Hosmeade was small, but it was able to run every weekend because of the number of Hogwarts faculty and general staff desperate to escape the sight of the Scottish countryside for just a little bit. Maybe they could have made the trek to Hogsmeade and then disapparated but then, of course, this thread wouldn’t exist.

Bryant resisted the laughter from the other compartments for a few reasons. First, he resented that he was a miserable drunk. Every time Bryant followed Macbeth to one of his socials, everyone insisted on liquoring up to have a good time. Of course Bryant enjoyed the occasional drink, but too many and soon he was reminiscing about old times. That wouldn’t have been so bad if old times weren’t the only thing Bryant ever had. It took him too long to realize what a good thing he’d had with Abbey. And though he was genuinely happy to see her succeeding in a world that literally nobody expected her to even tackle let alone absolutely dominate, it hurt just a bit to know that she had to cut him completely out of her life to do it.

Second, Bryant resented his colleagues for being so happy. Of course, there were a lot of members of Hogwarts staff and they all suffered through their own private traumas, but in Bryant’s eyes they wouldn’t be laughing if they weren’t so happy. When Bryant was drunk, he looked at professors like Sherrod Macready with absolute contempt. The difference between Bryant and the rest of them was that most professors had begun teaching because it was their meaning in life, but Bryant had started teaching to find some kind of meaning in life. It was like wearing a suit that didn’t quite fit, and he could feel everyone waiting for him to mess it up. These were all thoughts Bryant would share after three or four drinks, and likely the reason he was sitting alone in his own compartment tonight instead of partying it up with Liliana Quinn.

Okay, there were a lot of reasons that he wasn’t partying it up with Liliana Quinn, but whatever.

“Where are you right now?” Bryant whispered. And when Bryant heard a noise at the door, he looked up to see the not unwelcome face of Abigail Chandler standing in the doorway. It was as if he’d summoned her from thin air.

Bryant had long imagined his reunion with Abbey. When she first left, he thought of how they would catch up, maybe over some drinks. He wanted Abbey to see how much he’d grown, so he always imagined that their reunion was over drinks. Then they would just pick up where they laughed off, continuing as if nothing had ever really happened. Their split would just be a little blip in an otherwise steady, lifelong friendship. That was just how Bryant imagined their reunion at first, one month, two months, three months after she left. But soon seasons were passing and then years. The more time that passed, the more unreachable Abbey became. Each new life experience was another brick in a wall that Bryant couldn’t scale. He knew that when they sat down face to face in ten, twenty, thirty years from now, they would be completely different people with nothing left to share.

There was an absence of feeling in accepting that. Bryant had struggled for years trying to find his way back to Abbey. Every time he thought of her voice, her eyes, her hair, her lips, her smile, he felt a sharp pain in the pit of his stomach. It would rise up into his chest and dissipate into a short breath. It was an awful feeling, but he accepted it as the only proof he had that Abbey had been a part of his life. That Abbey had been something in his life. One day, Bryant realized that he hadn’t thought of Abbey the day before. Then he tried to think of her voice, her eyes, her hair, her lips, her smile. And there was nothing. That feeling had vanished just like her. And she was gone.

Bryant blinked and Abbey was sitting in the seat across from him. They just sat there in silence as the two contemplated if they were each other’s drunken illusions.

Abbey was the first to break. It started with a deep breath, and before Bryant had even made sense of what was unfolding on this train, she was sobbing. This wasn’t the first time a girl had cried in front of Bryant, but it was the first time he’d managed to make one cry without even opening his mouth. The realization suddenly occurred to him that the real life honest to Merlin Abbey Chandler was sitting in his compartment crying. He quickly stood up and slid the door of the compartment shut for privacy, then moved over to the same seat and sat down next to her.

“No, no, no, no,” he said, failing to fight back tears of his own. “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” he spoke slowly, still very intoxicated and horrified by the awareness that he was going to blow the reunion he’d imagined on some kind of drunken blunder. “Can I touch you?” he asked, kind of awkwardly holding his arm around her in a space between himself and her body. Abbey nodded, or made some noise that sounded like a yes, and Bryant pulled her into himself.

As he held her close in the small space of the train compartment, he released a heavy sigh. “I don’t even know if your real,” he admitted. Bryant closed his eyes as he continued, “But I feel this too. I miss you so much every goddamn day.”

He could feel Abbey dissolve from his grasp, and when he opened his eyes he knew there would be nothing here but the empty space of a train compartment. Just a drunken fantasy after all, too good to be true.

But then he did open his eyes, and Abbey was still there. He was still holding her, she was still sobbing, and he was crying there with her.

And Bryant suddenly realized that this was all very real. And in the pit of his stomach, he felt a familiar pain begin to stir.

    Abigail Chandler

[Abigail Chandler]

​​

HELLO MR PERFECTLY FINE,
HOW'S YOUR HEART AFTER BREAKING MINE?

After Hogwarts, Abbey still had this fantasy of what her relationship with Bryant would be like once all the distractions were removed. She felt it in her heart that he would come around eventually and give up on his silly quest to be with a Slyhterin. It had been a new chapter in their lives. Once they both graduated from Hogwarts they had a chance to have a more adult-like relationship and interactions. No one could say that Abbey didn’t give it her all, but when time came down to it, Bryant was the same boy she had met at Hogwarts.

Abbey absolutely hated thinking about her past. What was supposed to be a carefree time at school was always clouded by the heartbreak she had experienced time and time again. But what she hated most of all was the person she had started to become. Abbey was raised to be a good person, but every time she saw Bryant flirting with some girl, she felt an anger deep inside her. That anger was often followed by guilt and insecurity. She knew this wasn’t how love was supposed to feel like.

After Bryant broke her heart for the last time, Abbey had newfound resolution. She was going to move past this. Abbey knew she owed it to herself; to the little, blonde girl comforting Bryant on their first train ride to Hogwarts. To the sixteen year old staying up all night to finish both of their homework. And to the woman she wanted to become.

She’d accomplished so much in the past eight years and she did it all without anyone holding her hand, but from time to time she would think of Bryant. It was painful to think about the life they could have had together and she ended up crying every single time. It took a long time for her to toughen up. Abbey wasn’t the same naive, sweet girl she’d once been. Her heart felt cold and closed off to anyone other than her parents.

Yet, as what she still believed to be a hallucination of Bryant asked her if he could hug her, she nodded. His touch felt hot against her exposed shoulders and there was a warmth wrapping around her heart. It only made her cry even more. Abbey leaned against Bryant’s chest as he whispered to her. He felt so familiar against her and she wanted to stay like this for a while longer. Once she sobered up, she could continue to pretend like she was fine. All she could do was cling on to his shirt.

"I miss you. I hate this so much. Why can't I forget you?" she whispered back to his words.

The realization must have hit them both around the same time because once she took a chance by looking into his eyes, they were much too familiar to be a drunken dream. His eyes reflected the same astonishment in her eyes. She felt her body tense up, her eyes widened and she pulled back from him. Her hand was still on his chest and she could feel his heartbeat against it.

"This isn't real, it's not happening. I had too much to drink and I'm just feeling lonely so I'm imagining things. Right?" Her eyes searched his for confirmation.

Bryant Tannen

[Bryant Tannen]

By now Bryant had come to accept that the Abbey who was sobbing into his chest was real. In all of the scenarios he’d imagined, he never considered that their meeting would be a chance encounter on the train to Hogsmeade, both of them too drunk to really acknowledge that any of this could be real. Even if Bryant hadn’t been drinking that night it would have been difficult to accept the truth of it all. Bryant had long accepted that he was never going to see Abbey again. Her life was so different now. She had supermodel friends and Quidditch star boyfriends. In the summer he lived with his half-brother in a one bedroom apartment, the rest of the time Bryant lived in the same castle that he’d spent all of his time with Abbey. While Abbey was seemingly living her best life, Bryant felt like nothing had ever really changed for him.

As Bryant held her close, the thought occurred to him that this could be his only chance to talk to her. The last time he’d seen Abbey, however many years ago it was, he hadn’t even considered that it could be the last time. There was so much he wanted to say to her now. So he sat there, holding her tight and categorizing all of the things he wanted to say to her. There was general catchup: “How have you been? Oh me? I’m good. Got hit by a bus.” A little bit of gossip: “Did you hear Liliana Quinn dumped Martin Abbott?” He wanted to tell Abbey everything. About his time at sea, his capture at the hands of pirates, building schools in South America. He wanted to tell her that he was on the midnight train to Hogsmeade because of his new job, that he’d taken the position at Hogwarts because he was searching for a way to be a positive difference in the world.

But as Bryant ran through all of these topics in his head, Abbey cried, “I miss you. I hate this so much. Why can't I forget you?”

And when Abbey spoke, all of Bryant’s thoughts disappeared, replaced by just two words. “I’m sorry,” he said as his tears dripped down into Abbey’s hair. “All I’ve ever wanted to say to you, all I’ve ever wanted you to know is that I’m sorry.”

Abbey looked up into Bryant’s eyes now, and he could see the pain in hers. He realized that she wasn’t just a successful supermodel with a hot Quidditch star boyfriend. She was still a girl hurting over a boy.

“This isn't real,” she said. “It's not happening. I had too much to drink and I'm just feeling lonely so I'm imagining things. Right?”

Bryant was beginning to doubt himself again. Abbey looked real, she felt real. The pain in his stomach was coming in waves and as he studied her the features of her face he realized how comforting it was to get lost in her eyes. He hadn’t noticed how close they were. That in their small moment of shared anguish, their lips had been inching closer until he could feel Abbey’s breath on his face. He’d never seen her like this, never felt her like this.

“Abbey…” He began regretfully, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop what was coming.

It’s not real. It’s all just a dream.

And so, Bryant kissed her.

Their lips met, and soon Bryant’s hands were moving up from Abbey’s back where they eventually rested gently behind the nape of her neck. Once they were touching, Bryant didn’t want to let go. He knew the moment the kiss broke they would be back in reality and they would have to acknowledge that this wasn’t a dream come true. So Bryant held onto her for as long as he could. It felt too good to let go. And as Abbey’s lips moved, sinking deeper into the kiss with him, he knew that she must be feeling the same thing.


    Abigail Chandler