"Mhm! I still don't know which ones taste best, but now I can try all of them."
Harri's voice was bright with undisguised excitement as her fingers carefully traced the wrapper of a Chocolate Frog.
"And I wanted you to try them too."
Vera looked into Harri's shining green eyes, filled to the brim with simple joy and the eager desire to share.
She hesitated for a moment, then lightly picked up a Chocolate Frog. A faint tremor shivered through it beneath her fingertips.
"Then thank you," she said softly.
Hermione had already torn open hers in impatience.
"They say they're enchanted, but once you bite them they stop moving—oh! A card!"
A wizard card slipped out of the wrapper. On it was the face of a man wearing half-moon spectacles, with a crooked long nose and silver hair and beard flowing down around him.
"It's Albus Dumbledore!"
Harri immediately leaned over to look. "Who's that?"
"He's the Headmaster of Hogwarts!" Hermione said excitedly. "You didn't even know that?"
Harri gave an embarrassed smile. "My aunt and uncle never told me anything about the wizarding world."
At once, Hermione launched into an enthusiastic lecture on all of Dumbledore's achievements.
After squinting at the fine print for a while, Harri turned the card back over and was startled to find that Dumbledore had disappeared.
"He's gone!" she exclaimed.
"In the magical world, the people in photographs can move," Vera explained softly, watching Harri's eyes widen in astonishment. "You could call it a kind of Transfiguration, I suppose."
Harri looked as if she only half understood. She opened another Chocolate Frog, but before she could catch it, the thing shot through her fingers with a whoosh, traced a graceful arc through the air, and vanished right out the window.
Vera watched the little frown of disappointment appear on her face, then slowly unwrapped her own. The instant the Chocolate Frog tried to leap away, she pinched it neatly between two fingers.
"The trick is in the angle of the wrist," she said softly, holding it up for Harri to see. "Once you've caught it, it won't move anymore."
Harri's eyes widened in admiration. She hurriedly opened another Chocolate Frog, reached to catch it—
and the new frog sprang away in one powerful bound, flew in a perfect arc through the air, and landed squarely on top of Hermione's head.
All three girls froze.
A second later, Hermione's shriek and Harri's helpless laughter filled the entire compartment.
Watching the scene, Vera finally couldn't help laughing too.
Startled by the sudden uproar, Nox leapt from Vera's lap to the luggage rack and looked down on the chaos from above.
"Don't move!" Harri said, trying not to laugh as she carefully helped Hermione remove the Chocolate Frog from her hair. "Sorry—I'll definitely do better next time."
Vera shook her head, drew her wand, and murmured, "Scourgify."
The traces of chocolate left in Hermione's bushy brown hair vanished at once. Hermione let out a sigh of relief and looked at Vera gratefully.
"Thank you. I didn't expect you to already know spells like that."
"I've seen house-elves use it a lot at home," Vera replied calmly.
Then she flipped over her own card. It showed a witch in blue robes—Morgan le Fay, a sorceress from the age of King Arthur.
Nox showed intense interest in the Chocolate Frog, its amber eyes fixed on the one in Vera's hand.
"No, Nox." Vera gently pressed down the cat's eager paw. "Chocolate is poisonous to cats."
The white cat let out a resentful rumble and jumped up onto the luggage rack overhead.
Harri asked curiously, "Can she understand what you're saying?"
"Her Kneazle blood makes her cleverer than an ordinary cat," Vera explained, then casually handed the Chocolate Frog to Harri. "Here. You can have it."
Harri took it, but kept staring at Vera.
"Are you always like this? Giving the good things away to other people?"
Vera paused faintly. "I'm just not used to sweets."
"Liar." Harri suddenly leaned closer, green eyes sparkling with mischief. "You ate raspberry ice cream that day. I saw you."
Vera froze. She hadn't expected Harri to have noticed her back then—still less to remember something so trivial. For a moment, she didn't know how to respond.
Hermione tactfully cut in.
"Look outside! I think we're almost there!"
All three girls turned to the window at once. Between the distant mountains, a towering castle blazed beneath the setting sun, its high spires stabbing into the sky, its countless windows reflecting golden light.
"So that's Hogwarts…" Harri whispered, her green eyes filled with yearning.
Vera gazed at the ancient castle, and suddenly the crystal near her heart trembled.
She felt a powerful pulse of magic coming from the direction of the castle, as if it were calling to her.
The Magic Circuit within her began spinning faster, golden lines flickering faintly beneath her skin.
Without drawing attention to herself, Vera pressed a hand over her wrist and suppressed the restless stirrings of her Magic Circuit for the time being. Taking a slow breath, she raised her wand and lit the compartment lamps.
"We should change into our school robes first. It'll get colder once it's fully dark."
The three girls immediately began bustling around in a flurry of preparation. Vera used magic to change her clothes easily, while Harri and Hermione helped each other straighten collars and sleeves.
The train gradually slowed, then finally came to a stop beside a tiny, dark platform.
By then, twilight had fully faded, and night had quietly fallen.
The platform was full of noise. Older students were streaming off toward the distant carriages, while the first-years clustered around one extraordinarily tall figure—
Hagrid, holding a swinging lantern in one hand.
The three of them deliberately waited until the crowd had thinned before leaving the compartment. Harri glanced at Vera and hesitated.
"Do you want me to push?"
Vera shook her head. With a light tap of her wand, her body floated lightly once again and settled back down into the wheelchair.
"Let's go."
Vera pushed her chair forward and took the lead toward the compartment door.
Nox sprang neatly back into her lap.
The moment they stepped off the train, the cold night air made Harri shiver. She instinctively looked at Vera, then tucked the blanket over Vera's legs a little more securely.
"Careful not to catch cold," she explained in a small voice, blushing when Vera looked up at her.
In the darkness, it was hard to see Harri's face clearly, but Vera still thanked her softly.
Somewhere in the night, she thought she heard Harri laugh. Then the girl headed toward Hagrid in the distance.
"Hagrid!" Harri waved excitedly.
The half-giant turned around, his face breaking into a broad grin as he called out a greeting.
His booming voice immediately drew the attention of many of the first-years around them, and especially once people noticed Harri and Vera, the whispers began spreading at once.
"So that's Harri Potter…"
"And the girl in the wheelchair beside her—that's the Black girl, isn't it… poor thing…"
.....
patreon.com/RuneA
If there's a particular novel you're enjoying on Patron, please give it a 'like' so I know to focus on it