The new equilibrium in the compartment was a fragile, precious thing. It was a space defined by quiet awe and nascent friendship, a silent understanding that had been forged by an act of profound, transformative kindness. Harry, still subtly marvelling at the feel of clothes that were actually his, was looking at Ariana with a new light in his eyes. She was not just a friend; she was an anchor.
Ariana, for her part, had returned to her book, The Unifying Principles of Intent. Midnight, who had slept through the entire magical display with the profound indifference only a cat can muster, remained a perfect circle of black fur beside her. The compartment had become their sanctuary, a self-contained world moving through the larger one.
But the sanctuary was not destined to last.
The first interruption came with a hesitant rap on the compartment door, followed by it sliding open to reveal a tall, gangly boy with a shock of fiery red hair, a long nose, and a generous smattering of freckles across his face. He was clutching a fat, grey rat that appeared to be fast asleep.
"Excuse me," the boy said, his voice laced with a hopeful uncertainty. "Do you mind? Everywhere else is full."
Harry, still buoyed by his recent transformation and eager to engage with this new magical world, looked at Ariana for a cue. Ariana's eyes flickered up from her book, her gaze sweeping over the newcomer in a single, comprehensive assessment.
Ron Weasley. The sixth son of a pure-blood but financially struggling family. Fiercely loyal, but also insecure, prone to jealousy, and possessed of what her former life's memories would describe as the 'tactical awareness of a teapot'. He was a good heart wrapped in a layer of immaturity.
She saw a boy, not a future best friend for a prophesied hero. And her current intellectual pursuit was far more engaging than small talk with a stranger. She gave a single, almost imperceptible nod of assent, a gesture that conveyed permission without welcome, and immediately dropped her eyes back to her page. The message was clear: You may exist in this space, but do not expect me to entertain you.
Ron, however, directed his attention to the more approachable of the two. "I'm Ron, by the way. Ron Weasley."
"I'm Harry Potter," Harry said, and a flicker of something—was it triumph?—crossed Ron's face. He had stumbled into the compartment of the celebrity.
"So—so it's true!" Ron blurted out, his eyes wide. "I mean, do you really have the… the…"
"The what?" Harry asked, though he knew perfectly well what was coming.
"The scar!" Ron whispered, leaning forward conspiratorially.
Harry sighed, a gesture of someone already growing weary of his own legend, and lifted his fringe.
Ron stared at the faint, lightning-bolt scar as if it were the crown jewels. This was the Harry he had heard about in stories, the Boy Who Lived. He didn't seem to notice the well-made clothes or the newfound confidence in Harry's posture. He saw the myth.
The conversation that followed was an awkward, boyish affair. Ron unwrapped a lumpy-looking sandwich and complained about his mother, pulled out his broken wand, and tried, with disastrous results, to turn his rat, Scabbers, yellow. The spell produced a puff of green smoke and a foul smell, but the rat remained resolutely grey and asleep.
Through it all, Ariana did not look up. The sound of their chatter was a low, buzzing distraction, like a fly against a windowpane. She simply tuned it out, her mind absorbed in a chapter discussing the metaphysical implications of using Intentio to influence sentient minds. To her, the boys' conversation was mundane, predictable. It was the white noise of a world she was rapidly intellectually transcending.
Their little gathering was interrupted a second time not by a knock, but by the compartment door sliding open with an arrogant swagger. In the doorway stood the pale, pointy-faced boy from Madam Malkin's, flanked by two boys who were built like miniature trolls and looked about as intelligent. Draco Malfoy, with Crabbe and Goyle in tow.
Malfoy's grey eyes swept the compartment. He sneered at Ron's hand-me-down robes and the sad-looking sandwich. His gaze lingered on Harry's new, stylish clothes with a flicker of confusion, then landed on Ariana. His sneer faltered. She hadn't moved. She was still engrossed in her book, her magnificent panther-in-disguise asleep beside her, a picture of such serene, untouchable elegance that it seemed to rebuke his very presence.
"Well, well," Malfoy drawled, recovering his bravado. "They were saying all the way up the train that Harry Potter was in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"
"Yes," Harry said, his voice tight. He was on his feet now, standing beside Ron, a united front against the intruder.
"And you," Malfoy said, his gaze shifting to Ron. "Red hair, and a hand-me-down robe… you must be a Weasley." He spat the name like an insult. He then turned his attention fully back to Harry, ignoring Ron as if he were a piece of furniture. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there."
He extended a pale hand, an offer of alliance. Harry stared at it, his expression hardening.
"I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks," he said coolly.
Malfoy's face flushed an ugly pink. His attempt at securing the prize—the friendship of the upper hand. He noticed the candy Harry and Ron had bought from the trolley witch, a small mountain of Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.
"I'd be careful if I were you, Potter," he sneered. "Unless you're a bit wider than you look, you'll be joining him," he jerked his head towards Ron, "in the Weasley family robes."
At that moment, as if summoned by the rising tension, the door slid open for a third time. A girl stood there, already dressed in her new Hogwarts robes. She had a bossy, know-it-all air, bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.
Hermione Granger. The future brightest witch of her age. But right now, she was just an insecure, slightly overwhelming girl desperate to prove herself.
"Has anyone seen a toad?" she asked, her voice slightly shrill. "A boy named Neville's lost one."
Her eyes took in the scene: Malfoy and his goons squared off against Harry and Ron. Her gaze, however, was immediately drawn to the still, silent figure in the corner. She saw Ariana, her posture perfect, her face a mask of sublime concentration as she read a thick, unadorned book.
Her mind, already cataloging everything, registered the girl's ethereal beauty, the unusual quietness, and the title of the book, which looked far too advanced for a first year.
"Oh, are you doing magic?" she said, spotting Ron's broken wand still in his hand. "Let's see, then."
Ron, flustered, was about to try his failed spell again, but Hermione cut him off, launching into a lecture about how she'd tried a few simple spells herself and they'd all worked for her. In a matter of seconds, she had established her intellectual superiority, leaving Ron looking both irritated and impressed.
Her gaze then fell on Harry. "Holy cricket, you're Harry Potter!" she exclaimed, her bossy demeanor momentarily forgotten. She then launched into a rapid-fire recitation of all the books she'd read that mentioned him.
It was during this speech that Ariana finally moved. Not because of the noise or the drama, but because she had finished her chapter. She marked her page with a thin slip of silk, closed the heavy tome with a soft, definitive thud, and looked up.
Her luminous periwinkle eyes, holding the calm of centuries, swept over the tableau. She saw Ron's resentful awe, Malfoy's frustrated arrogance, and Hermione's desperate, information-fueled attempt to connect. They were children, playing out their pre-written roles, jockeying for position in a social hierarchy that had not yet even been formed. She felt a profound, intellectual disinterest in the entire drama. It was like watching ants scuttling over a dropped sweet.
Her gaze met Hermione's. For a moment, she saw a flicker of something she recognized: a thirst for knowledge, a desire to understand the world through a framework of rules and facts. It was a familiar hunger, though Hermione's approach was to consume information, while Ariana's was to deconstruct it. There was potential there. A mild spark of interest. But it was overshadowed by the girl's current lack of social grace and her grating need for validation. The Hermione of the future, tempered by friendship and real-world peril, would be a formidable intellect and a loyal friend. This version was simply… exhausting.
Malfoy, seeing he had lost the attention of the room, decided to make a final, thuggish play. He made a grab for the sweets on the seat. But before his hand could touch a single Chocolate Frog, something moved with impossible speed.
Midnight, who had appeared to be a dead-asleep ball of fur, uncoiled. She didn't growl or hiss. She simply moved, a blur of pure black that shot from the seat to the floor, positioning herself directly between Malfoy and the sweets. She sat there, perfectly still, and looked up at him. Her violet eyes, now glowing with a cold, intelligent light, held a clear and unambiguous warning. It was not the look of an animal. It was the look of a sentient being expressing its profound displeasure.
Malfoy froze, his hand hovering in mid-air. Crabbe and Goyle, who had been snickering dumbly, fell silent. There was something deeply unsettling about the little cat, something that made the hair on their arms stand up.
"I suggest you leave," Ariana said. Her voice was not loud. It was quiet, melodic, and utterly devoid of emotion. But it cut through the chatter and tension in the compartment like a shard of ice. It held an authority that was absolute. It was not a request. It was a statement of fact. You will leave.
Malfoy stared at her, then at the unnerving cat, and then back at her. He saw no anger, no fear, no engagement at all in her beautiful, placid face. He saw only a vast, serene dismissal. He, Draco Malfoy, scion of a powerful and wealthy pure-blood family, was being dismissed as one might dismiss a fly. It was more insulting than any shout or hex.
He flushed an even deeper shade of red, mumbled something about "filthy blood-traitors and mudbloods," and practically fled the compartment, his two hulking bodyguards stumbling after him.
The tension in the room popped like a pricked balloon. Ron let out a shaky breath. Harry just stared, impressed.
Hermione, however, was intrigued. "That was an interesting application of non-verbal social pressure," she observed, her analytical mind kicking into gear. "And your cat is very… protective. Is it a particular breed?"
"She is unique," Ariana replied, her voice giving nothing away. She reached down and stroked Midnight behind the ears. The cat instantly relaxed, the cold light in her eyes fading, and she leaped silently back onto the seat, curling up once more.
Hermione seemed about to launch into a dozen more questions, but the moment was lost. "Well," she said, remembering her original purpose, "I'd best go look for Neville's toad. You two had better change into your robes. I expect we'll be arriving soon." She gave Ron a slightly disapproving look, then bustled out of the compartment, her head full of new data points to analyze.
The compartment was quiet again. Ron looked at Ariana with a new respect. Harry just looked grateful.
"Thanks," Harry said.
"He was an inconvenience," Ariana stated simply, reopening her book. "His presence was
disrupting my reading." The message, though she may not have intended it, was clear to Harry. She hadn't defended him or Ron out of some sense of schoolyard loyalty. She had acted because Malfoy was an unwelcome variable in her controlled environment. And in that moment, Harry understood something fundamental about her. Her world was built on a foundation of order, logic, and quiet contemplation. And she would, with serene and absolute finality, remove anyone or anything that threatened to disturb it.