On Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, Nios looked at Harry, who was still curiously looking around, and slowly pulled out a metal wand from his Arms.
Actually, this was just a toy he casually made with Alchemy, offering no enhancement to spellcasting.
He just felt that if he were to fight someone in the future, it would be quite spectacular if this thing suddenly turned into a dagger and stabbed them.
"Let's go," Nios said flatly, casually waving his wand at his and Harry's luggage.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
Several invisible forces instantly lifted the luggage!
"Pfft—Ow!"
The box in Azazel's mouth suddenly broke free upwards, taking a few of his teeth with it! Blood instantly spurted out, and he clutched his mouth, rolling frantically on the ground.
"Nios! You dog! This is murder!"
Nios ignored Azazel and walked directly towards the deep red train that was spewing steam, his luggage obediently floating behind him.
Harry looked at the blood-spitting, rolling plush toy on the ground, hesitated for a second, then scooped him up, tucked him under his armpit, and hurried to catch up.
"I thought these smoky old relics could only be seen in Muggle history books!" Azazel, with a lisp from his missing teeth, grumbled indistinctly from under Harry's armpit.
Thanks to Nios's "thoughtful" service, moving the luggage was effortless.
The two walked all the way to the end of the train before finding an empty compartment.
Just as they sat down to catch their breath, the compartment door was pulled open again.
A red-haired boy with a bit of ash on his nose, carrying an old suitcase, stood at the doorway; he was the youngest son of the family Nios and Harry had met outside the station.
"Uh... sorry, everywhere else is full, can I sit here?" he asked somewhat awkwardly.
"Of course."
Harry moved further in. The seat next to Nios was already occupied by Azazel, whose mouth was covered in blood.
After Harry helped him put his luggage on the rack.
No sooner had the two sat down than the compartment door slid open again with a "whoosh," and two identical faces peered in—it was the twins.
"Hey, little Ronnie!"
One of them winked.
"We're going to find Lee Jordan, heard he got a palm-sized poisonous spider! So cool!"
"Oh." Ron was unenthusiastic, clearly not having any particular fondness for spiders.
The other twin's gaze, however, was like a searchlight, fixated on Harry's forehead, as if trying to burn through his fringe.
His brother elbowed him hard.
"Harry!?" The one who was elbowed blurted out, his voice tinged with incredulous excitement.
"Hm?" Harry instinctively responded.
"Ha! I knew it!"
One of the twins grinned widely.
"Hello, Harry Potter! I'm George Weasley, this is Fred Weasley, and as for this little fellow, he's our dear brother, Ronald Weasley! You can call him Ron."
"We've got to go find Lee Jordan, see ya!" George interrupted Fred, pulling him out.
The two closed the door with a "bang."
Muffled voices could vaguely be heard from outside the door: "Fred! You idiot! Even asking questions requires strategy! If Ronnie tells Mum, our new inventions will end up in the bin again!"
Azazel loosened the paw covering his mouth; the bleeding had stopped, and new teeth were visibly sprouting.
He shook his head at Harry in disappointment. "Kid! Your vigilance... someone just says 'Harry' and you respond? Is your forehead plastered with a 'I'm the Savior, come and gawk' label?!"
Harry hadn't fully processed Azazel's "safety lesson" when he was interrupted by Ron's suddenly heightened scream.
"Ah—!!! Wh-what is this thing?!"
Ron pointed at Azazel, his eyes almost popping out, his body pressed tightly against the compartment wall.
"Don't be scared, Ron!" Harry quickly reassured him, "This is Mr. Azazel, he's a good... uh... anyway, he means no harm! Really!"
Harry tried to make his tone sound convincing.
Ron's terrified gaze darted between Harry's sincere face and Azazel's blood-stained dog face, and finally, trust in the Savior barely overcame his fear.
"You... you're really Harry Potter?" His voice was still a bit shaky.
Harry nodded.
"Then... that..." Ron pointed to his own forehead, his eyes full of curiosity. "You really... you know..."
Harry pushed aside the fringe on his forehead, revealing the distinctive lightning-shaped scar.
Ron gasped, his eyes wide as saucers.
"You-Know-Who did this?"
"Yeah," Harry put his hair down, "but I don't remember it."
"Don't remember anything at all?" Ron asked eagerly, leaning forward.
"Just remember a lot of green light... and then I didn't know anything else."
"Wow..." Ron's gaze seemed glued to Harry's face, and it was a while before he suddenly realized his rudeness, quickly shifting his gaze to the corner of the compartment, as if he had suddenly developed a strong interest in the demon book in Nios's hand.
"Is your whole family Wizard?" Harry found talking to Ron much easier, unlike the alchemist next to him who was as cold as ice.
"Oh, of course! My mum has a distant cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him."
"Then you must know a lot of magic?" Harry recalled the blond boy with his nose in the air at Madam Malkin's shop.
Ron didn't answer directly, instead steering the conversation back to Harry.
"I heard you lived with Muggles afterwards?" Ron leaned in curiously, "What are they like?"
"Terrible," Harry said truthfully, "Of course, not all Muggles are like that. But my aunt and uncle and cousin... they're a nightmare. I really wish I had some Wizard brothers."
"Five!" Ron said with a hint of helplessness in his voice, "I'm the sixth in my family to go to Hogwarts. Bill and Charlie have already graduated; Bill was Head Boy, and Charlie was Quidditch Captain."
"Now Percy is a Prefect, and Fred and George... although they play pranks all day, their grades aren't bad. Everyone thinks they're especially interesting and expects me to be like them."
"Even if I become a Prefect? There are already five ahead of me." He shrugged, with a touch of self-deprecation.
"With five older brothers, you'll never get to use anything new. See, Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand."
He pulled out a deeply sleeping, fat rat from his inner jacket pocket.
"And Percy's discarded rat, Scabbers. All he does is sleep. When Percy became a Prefect, Dad gave him an owl as a reward, and Scabbers became mine."
Ron's face flushed slightly; he felt he had said too much and subconsciously glanced at Nios, who was holding a book.
Nios felt the gaze, slowly closed the demon book, and the cartoon eyes on his eye patch turned to Ron.
"Neos Chaos." He introduced himself concisely, lifting his chin towards Azazel, "This is Azazel."
Azazel immediately jumped up from his seat, striking what he considered a cool pose: "That would be me!"
"Cool!" Ron's fear was replaced by novelty and envy, his eyes sparkling as he stared at Azazel.
Nios's gaze fell on the drowsy rat in Ron's hand. That thing... was clearly a transformed human.
Recalling the legend that Wizards seemed to have a tradition of transforming people into animals, Nios suddenly felt that this world was not so dull after all.
"Your pet," Nios's tone carried a hint of imperceptible interest, "is also very good."
Ron's attention was again drawn to Nios's eye patch: "Your eye... is it injured?"
Nios's lips curved into a shallow, unfeeling smile: "Want to see?"
Even Harry couldn't help but stare curiously at the strange cartoon eye patch.
Just then, the compartment door slid open with a "whoosh," and a smiling Witch, pushing a snack cart piled high with treats, poked her head in: "Dears, want to buy something to eat? Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Chocolate Frogs, Pumpkin Pasties..."
"Yay! Snacks!" Azazel instantly forgot his toothache, cheering as he leaped from his seat, darted to Nios, and extended his paw: "Nios! Money!"
Nios pulled out the undetectable extension bag from his inner suit pocket and tossed it to him.
Azazel caught it, and with an air of wealth, pointed at the cart: "Auntie! Three of everything!"
The Witch looked at Azazel's small frame and kindly reminded him: "Little one, can you eat all that?"
"I'll only eat one portion!" Azazel imperiously pointed his small paw at Harry and Ron. "The rest are for these two boys!"
"No, no!" Harry and Ron said in unison, Harry quickly reaching into his pocket. "I have money!"
"I brought sandwiches!" Ron also held up the tightly wrapped greaseproof paper package his mother had prepared.
Azazel directly ignored their politeness, generously stuffing a handful of Galleons into the Witch's hand: "Keep the change! The rest is a tip! Thank you for your excellent service!" With that, he dumped a mountain of snacks onto the compartment floor.
Seeing their somewhat awkward expressions, Azazel tore open a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and poured them into his mouth, then mumbled, pointing at Nios: "Don't be polite with him! This guy is an Alchemist; if he wants to, making money is as easy as drinking water!"
Ron looked at Nios in confusion: "A... an eleven-year-old Alchemist?"
Nios placed his hand on the table, a white light flashed, and the table grew larger. Azazel, seeing this, moved all the snacks onto the table.
Seeing this, Ron stared blankly at Nios.
Seeing Ron's expression, Harry recalled Madam Malkin and the blond boy's shocked expressions at the time. Was Nios's Alchemy different from others' Alchemy?
"Is Nios's Alchemy... special?" Harry asked Ron.
Ron frowned, trying to organize his thoughts.
With a dad obsessed with modifying Muggle objects and two twin brothers who loved making prank items, he had picked up a bit of knowledge by osmosis.
"Nios's seems different from what my dad and George and Fred do," he scratched his hair.
"My dad and them have to carve dense runes on all sorts of things, then assemble them to work, or directly cast spells on things... Nios's..."
He pointed to the table that had instantly grown larger.
"'Poof,' a flash of white light, and it... was done? It feels like... like he directly transformed the object into what he wanted?"
Harry listened, half-understanding.
"Alright, alright."
Azazel's mouth was full of Chocolate Frogs, and he indistinctly interrupted their academic discussion.
"You'll have plenty of time to broaden your horizons later! For now, eat!" He waved his paw grandly.
Harry and Ron exchanged glances, and with food before them, they temporarily set aside their doubts and joined the snack-devouring team.
Nios only tasted one cauldron cake before immersing himself in the demon book again.
After a while, he felt someone cautiously tug at his sleeve.
He was at a crucial part of the book, and being interrupted, a strange irritation welled up in him.
Nios shifted his gaze from the book, his cold eye patch turning to his side.
A girl with thick brown curly hair and large front teeth sat next to him, her eyes filled with scrutiny.
This little girl reminded him of a certain celebrity from his previous life.
At the compartment door, a round-faced boy, whose eyes were red and clearly had been crying, stood there.