The train is just south of Manchester when Hyosang jerks awake. At first he thinks he must have hit his head on the window dozing off but as he raises a hand to his forehead to rub away the pain, someone drops into the seat opposite him.

Hyosang blinks at the countryside rushing past them - his head doesn’t hurt after all.

"Sorry, I thought you were asleep,"

Hyosang glances over at the boy on the other side of the carriage, “I was,”

"Oh. Sorry,"

Hyosang can’t think of anything to say, and judging by the way the other boy is staring panic stricken at the floor he can’t either. Awkward silence is not what Hyosang was hoping to fill his first Hogwarts Express ride with, hence the empty carriage - he’d rather talk to no one than struggle through strangers in an attempt to find someone who has something more interesting to say than mumbled pleasantries.

The problem of course is that when you’re eleven, it’s hard to think of anything more interesting to say yourself.

"Are you," the other boy starts, then swallows like he’s chasing the words back down, he doesn’t even raise his eyes.

"I’m a first year," Hyosang knows where this is going, "Jin Hyosang, nice to meet you,"

"Kim Seokjin," the boy reaches over to meet Hyosang’s extended hand and his grip is surprisingly strong, "I’m a Year Seven…I’m in first year too"

They each fall back into their seat with an exagerated sigh. Seokjin’s eyes flick up to the luggage rack above Hyosang’s head and he points at Oscar’s cage,

"What’s with all the owls?"

"What?"

"Everyone has an owl," Seokjin frowns for a moment but then a horrible thought clearly occcurs to him as his mouth drops open. aghast, "they’re not a requirement are they? I swear the list said they were optional,"

"Owls are optional," Hyosang says slowly, "people bring their own because they like knowing the bird carrying their post. The school has owls you can use though, you’ll be fine,"

Seokjin stares at Hyosang like he’s grown an extra head, “the post? You mean like the letters we got about being accepted to…to Hogwarts in the first place?”

"Well yeah I mean how else do you get mail?" Hyosang laughs and reaches into his pocket for a chocolate frog. By the time he’s got it open the look of bewliderment is still frozen on Seokjin’s face.

A thought occurs to Hyosang, “are you muggleborn?”

Seokjin shows no sign of understanding

"Are you the first wizard in your family?"

"Oh!" Seokjin looks astonishingly relieved, "yes. I didn’t even know I had any magic until I got my letter and one of the teachers from the school came to explain all about Hogwarts to my parents, I just thought I was lucky,"

"Wow…so you’ve like, always lived without magic?"

Seokjin knods, “yeah. Except for the stuff I used to do by accident, Mrs McGonagall says that they’re gonna teach me how to control it though,”

Hyosang lets out a long, loud peal of laughter that has Seokjin freshly confused again in no time,

"What’s so funny?"

"M….Mrs McGonagall!"

"Did I say it wrong?"

"I’ll say, she’s Professor McGonagall,”

Seokjin frowns, “Professor? I thought professors only worked at universities?”

"What are universities?" it’s Hyosang’s turn to look confused as Seokjin stares back at him in horror,

"Wizards don’t have universities?"

"Well I dunno, tell me what they are and I’ll let you know,"

"They’re a place you go after you’ve finished school so you can learn more and get a better education,"

Hyosang nearly chokes on a mouthful of chocolate frog, “no we don’t have those,”

Seokjin opens his mouth for what Hyosang predicts is going to be a long and boring speech concerning the importance of bettering oneself through education and decides that it would be prudent to cut him off before he can get started,

"So what have you done with your magic?"

Seokjin’s mouth snaps shut, he looks a little put out and not a little confused by the question, “you mean like since I got my wand?”

"No, before that. I’ve heard some muggle borns do really crazy with their magic before the Ministry tracks them down,"

"What’s the Ministry?"

Hyosang shakes his head, “that’s not important! I wanna know what you did to get yourself noticed,”

"Oh. It wasn’t anything much really, I was just using it to cheat at Mariokart. Although I didn’t know I was doing it so I’m not sure it really counts as cheating…"

"What’s Mariokart?"

At first Seokjin’s expresssion is blank, then shocked, then concerned “you don’t know Mariokart?”

Hyosang shakes his head

"It’s a videogame,"

Hyosang shrugs.

Seokjin lets out a traumatised wail and collapses along his bench,

"No videogames?" he hisses, "are you trying to tell me that a complex magical society manages to exist in tandem and yet seperate from the rest of the world, keeping absolute cover for hundreds of years and not one of you wizards was smart enough to invent videogames?"

"I guess not," Hyosang pulls out another chocolate frog. He considers offering one to Seokjin but he seems to be far too busy be the state of wizarding society for sweets, "what are they?"

"They’re games played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a monitor or other display,” Seokjin whispers from his disadvantaged position, hunched over backwards in his seat. Hyosang thinks it looks rather uncomfortable and that Seokjin’s explanation doesn’t make sense,

"Speak English,"

Seokjin sits up and suddenly he’s all business, “ok so you have a computer or a TV or maybe a gameboy or something-“

"What’s a computer?"

Seokjin stares at Hyosang like he’s a lost cause, “if you don’t have computers and you don’t have videogames then what do you have?”

"We have quiddich, and magical chess," Hyosang pauses, "hey wait a moment, you’re a wizard too you don’t get to pull that ‘us and them’ ,"

"Oh you know what I mean," Seokjin snaps, reaching into his suitcase and pulling out a quill and parchment, "now listen carefully I have some important things to explain to you."

Seokjin’s scruffy handwriting is a testament to his lack of familiarity with quils and he talks too fast when he’s excited, but by the time the train pulls into Hogsmead Hyosang thinks it might be worth asking his parents for a Wii for Christmas.