The Hogwarts Express slowly pulled into the tiny, dark platform at Hogsmeade Village. The moment the doors opened, all the first-year students surged toward the narrow exits like a breached dam, crushed into a mass. Chattering voices, owl cries, and the clatter of luggage blended into one chaotic din.
Silas was shoved this way and that by the crowd. Frowning, he felt that his personal space had been seriously violated. He turned to Hermione, who was being squeezed just as badly and was trying her best to protect her thick book, and complained, "It's so crowded... What do you think, Granger? This experience is terrible."
Hermione used an elbow to fend off the people shoving beside her as she replied, "Yes, there are too many people! Oh, right, Silas, we're friends now, so why do you still call me Granger? You can call me Hermione. Oh, right!" She suddenly remembered something, and her tone grew excited. "I think I saw Harry Potter on the train just now! And his friend, a red-haired boy, they..."
Silas had little interest in gossip about The Boy Who Lived. All he wanted now was to escape this chaotic crowd. He looked over the sea of heads, then toward the enormous figure at the far end of the platform, waving a lantern in their direction like a small mountain—it was Hagrid.
"I can't take this anymore," Silas declared decisively, his tone filled with the resolve of someone who had had enough. "I have to make use of the Z-axis advantage."
Before Hermione had time to react, his Levitating Cloak billowed at once. With a whoosh, it carried him out of the packed crowd, lifting him lightly into the air as he flew low toward Hagrid, leaving Hermione and a group of stunned first-years behind.
Hermione watched Silas "fly" away, so shocked that her jaw nearly dropped. She shouted after his rapidly shrinking back, "Hey! Silas! What am I supposed to do?!"
Her voice was instantly swallowed by the uproar of the crowd.
Just as she began to feel helpless and angry, however, a golden circular portal made of sparks suddenly appeared beneath her feet without warning! It was not upright, but spread flat across the ground like a magic circle.
"Ah—!" Hermione only had time for a short cry before her entire body "fell" into the portal.
The sensation of weightlessness lasted less than half a second.
The next moment, she found herself standing steadily at the other end of the platform, beside Hagrid's enormous figure. Silas had just put away his cloak and landed lightly beside her, wearing the relaxed expression of someone who had just wrapped up a job.
Silas patted his robes, which had not gotten dusty at all, and gave the still-shaken, slightly dazed Hermione a smile that clearly said, Praise me. His tone carried a hint of smugness:
"The great Sorcerer Supreme never forgets his friends! Hermione," he said, turning toward the gamekeeper, whose eyes had widened at the two of them appearing as if by magic and whose beard had even curled up in shock, "this is Rubeus Hagrid, Hogwarts's gamekeeper. Hagrid, this is Hermione Granger, a friend I met on the train."
Hagrid looked at the two who had suddenly appeared, especially Hermione, who still had not recovered her senses, and exclaimed in his deep voice, "Merlin's Beard! Silas, you... Your entrances always scare the life out of me!" Then he quickly gave Hermione the friendliest, most honest smile he could manage. "Hello, Miss Granger! Welcome to Hogwarts!"
Hermione looked at Silas, then at the towering Hagrid, then recalled the miraculous—and somewhat frightening—trip through the portal. Her mouth opened, but in the end, all that came out was a long sigh full of helplessness and amazement.
They followed Hagrid's huge figure down the steep, narrow path from the small slope where the station stood. The September night in the Scottish Highlands was already bitterly cold, and the chilly wind carried the dampness of the lake, making the first-years in their thin robes shiver.
Silas tightened his Levitating Cloak around himself—the cloak thoughtfully gave off warmth—but he still could not help shuddering. He muttered under his breath, "Scotland in September is fucking cold..."
Hermione, beside him, frowned disapprovingly at the profanity, but the cold left her in no mood to correct him.
Silas clearly had no intention of enduring the low temperature. He raised a hand again and drew a small circle in the air. A portal quickly opened, and he reached through it, precisely pulling out two bottles of Butterbeer that were still steaming.
"Here." He pressed one of the bottles into Hermione's hands. "I warmed them up in my dorm beforehand. It'll help you warm up."
Holding the warm bottle, Hermione felt heat seep into her palms and drive away some of the chill. She gratefully took a small sip, and the sweet, warm liquid made her feel much better. But her curiosity was immediately stirred. Looking at the portal that had just vanished, then at Silas's empty hands—aside from his bottle of beer—she finally asked the question she had been holding in all the way:
"Thank you, Silas. But... you said 'dorm'? Which dorm were you talking about? And I've been wanting to ask, where is your luggage? When you boarded the train, I only saw you carrying that cage with the little animal in it."
Silas was happily drinking his own Butterbeer. Hearing this, he answered naturally, "Oh, Hogwarts's."
"Hogwarts's dorm?" Hermione froze for a moment, then realized what he meant. Her voice rose sharply in surprise. "So when you said dorm, you meant... you lived at Hogwarts before you enrolled?"
She remembered Silas's unbelievable abilities on the train and how unusually familiar he seemed with Hogwarts. A bold guess rose in her mind.
Silas nodded, took a large gulp of Butterbeer, and casually dropped a bombshell. "To be exact, I lived there for four years. Since I was seven."
"Pfft—!" Hermione nearly choked on her Butterbeer. She began coughing violently, her eyes wide as saucers as she stared at Silas in disbelief. "F-four years?! Since you were seven?! How is that possible?! Doesn't Hogwarts only admit students eleven and older?"
She felt the framework of common sense she had only just built about the wizarding world being casually smashed apart piece by piece by the boy in front of her.
Silas looked at her shocked expression and shrugged, as if it were no big deal. "Well, my situation was a little special. Professor Dumbledore gave special permission. Mainly so I could... uh... practice some rather unusual magic without blowing up my home or central London."
Hermione stood there with her mouth open, unable to speak for a long while. Images flashed through her mind: the wandless Levitation Charm on the train, chocolate appearing out of thin air, portals that allowed instant travel, and the astonishing fact that he had moved into Hogwarts four years early... Suddenly, the anxiety she had felt over being "behind" seemed so insignificant and ridiculous before the immense "anomaly" that was Silas Cyril.
She silently took another sip of Butterbeer, feeling that the amount of information she had received tonight was even greater and more shocking than when she had received her acceptance letter. Looking at the magnificent castle across Black Lake, growing clearer beneath the moonlight, she felt for the first time an emotion toward her coming life at Hogwarts that went far beyond nervousness and anticipation—something far more complicated and difficult to describe.
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