Starting school

On September 1, Duoduo took Aya to King's Cross Station.

Aya wore her school uniform, paired not with black robes but with a loose hooded coat that hid her cat ears. She looked fairly normal in the crowd.

"Aya, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters is in the wall between platforms nine and ten. There will be wizards guarding it, and other young wizards will be there too. Do you need me to take you in?" Duoduo asked. It was the first day of school, and Hogwarts would be busy today. She had to get back to the castle to help prepare the feast and clean up.

"No, I can do it!" Aya held Xiaohua in her arms. After nearly a month of learning, she felt she had gained a modest understanding of human nature. She was no longer the narrow-minded young member of the Spirit Clan trapped inside an invisible wall.

"All right, then. Once you reach school, a professor will lead you, so don't worry, Aya. Call me if you want my help. Names have magic, and I can sense it." Duoduo straightened her coat and gave her these instructions. She had come up with them after watching so many parents send their children off to school. Aya would definitely be happy.

"Thank you!" Aya's eyes shone, and her tail slipped out from beneath her coat to brush gently over Duoduo's hand.

Duoduo broke into a brilliant smile. "Then I'll see you at school!"

Aya agreed and watched Duoduo disappear with a pop.

Tucking her tail back into her coat, Aya headed into the station.

There was nothing between platforms nine and ten. Beneath the two plastic signs, Aya spotted a vaguely familiar black-haired boy pushing a luggage trolley with a cage containing a white owl on it.

It wasn't time to board yet, so Aya stood behind him and watched him curiously. He seemed a little flustered because he didn't know where to enter Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

As he turned to look around, he spotted Aya in her familiar-looking uniform. His eyes lit up, and he pushed his trolley over. "Hello—you're also, also, um, a first-year, right?"

Aya nodded. "A first-year at Hogwarts. Are you looking for the entrance?"

"Yes, could you tell me-" the boy began eagerly. Looking at Aya's expressionless face, he paused and hurriedly introduced himself. "Oh, I'm Harry, Harry Potter. Could you tell me where the entrance is? I asked the guards here, but none of them seemed to know."

"Duoduo said it was in a wall?" Aya tilted her head and looked around. "Honestly, I don't know which wall." Aya knew nothing about mathematics.

Harry thought for a moment, then it dawned on him. "I know!" Laboriously dragging his suitcase, he went behind the third pillar between the two platforms and cautiously reached out to test it. His hand passed through the wall, and he said delightedly, "It's here! Thank you!"

Aya shook her head. "Aren't you going in? I'm going in now."

"Oh, oh, right, I'll go first-" Harry pushed his heavy luggage trolley through the wall, and Aya followed him inside.

A scarlet steam train stood beside the platform, which was crowded with passengers. No matter how many times Aya saw the vehicles in this world, she was still somewhat afraid of them-their horns were shrill, they moved fast, and they smelled unpleasant. They were torture to her somewhat keen senses.

"Coming through-coming through!" a voice called behind her. Aya stepped aside, and a red-haired boy came charging through the wall with a luggage trolley, nearly colliding with Harry.

Aya turned and moved farther away. Besides the owls in cages, there were many cats of different colors on the platform. In just two minutes, two cats had already gathered at her feet.

But Aya didn't like other cats. Although she was a member of the Spirit Clan, she still had some feline habits. Cats were solitary animals, and she refused to get too close to other cats.

Nimbly dodging a cat that approached her, Aya carried Xiaohua around the crowd toward the back. The first few carriages seemed to be packed with students, and she wanted to find an empty one to sit in.

Near the rear of the train, Aya climbed aboard. There weren't any strong, strange smells on the train. She found an empty compartment and slid the door open, but just as she was about to close it, she discovered that Harry had followed her.

"Er, sorry, but this is the only empty compartment left. Can I sit with you?" Harry asked a little bashfully, looking at Aya's dark eyes and expressionless little face.

Even with a face as pretty and cute as hers, that expression made Harry feel a little pressured.

"All right." Aya nodded. Duoduo had said she needed to make friends at school, so she had to be a little friendlier to her classmates.

Harry brought his heavy suitcase into the compartment and first put his beautiful owl on the luggage rack. But when he tried to put his luggage up afterward, he couldn't lift it.

"Do you need help?"

"Want a hand?"

The two voices spoke at once. They belonged to Aya and a red-haired boy, who had another person with an identical face behind him.

Aya stared at the two identical people in surprise. This was the first time she had met people with the same character model here.

"Merlin, miss, can you help too?" the other red-haired boy asked with a laugh. It wasn't that he looked down on her; Aya wasn't even as tall as Harry.

"I can." Aya blinked and let go of Xiaohua. Xiaohua jumped to the floor and suddenly grew, filling the entire compartment and squeezing Harry and his luggage out. He nearly fell over. His eyes widened and his glasses slipped down to the tip of his nose as he watched Xiaohua reach out a paw, effortlessly sweep the luggage inside, and put it on the rack.

"Merlin!" the red-haired boys exclaimed together. "That's so cool! Is this some kind of magical creature? Doesn't the school forbid pets like this?"

"This is a cat," Aya explained seriously. Xiaohua returned to her petite size and jumped back onto Aya's lap.

The two red-haired boys, who had only been passing by, stopped and squeezed into the compartment with Harry.

"Hello, I'm Fred Weasley!"

"Hello, I'm George Weasley."

The two spoke together. Aya nodded. "Aya, Aya Hawthorne."

"All right, Aya, your cat-" Fred rubbed his hands together, and George finished, "Can you show her to us?"

Aya held Xiaohua up and swung her around. Like all liquid cats, Xiaohua's lower half swung up. "Xiaohua, my cat."

"Oh, a simple name-"

"But a completely extraordinary ability!"

The twins spoke one after the other. They were about to say something else when a woman called from the train door, "Fred, George, are you on the train?"

"Coming, Mum!" they answered. Turning, they gave Xiaohua a regretful look. "See you at school, Xiaohua!" Then they got off the train together.

Harry shifted over to sit by the window and awkwardly straightened his fringe. "Er, hello, Hawthorne. You can call me Harry."

"Aya." Aya put her cat on the compartment table and took off her hood.

"Ah-right, Aya." Harry saw the cat ears on Aya's head and remembered that she was the girl he had met in Diagon Alley that day. It wasn't his fault; Diagon Alley had been so extraordinary to him that he'd been busy looking at all the strange things. If not for Aya's cat ears, he might never have remembered a girl he had happened to meet that day. A little pleased, he said, "I remember you. We met in Madam Malkin's shop!"

"I remember you," Aya said. "You were with a really tall man."

"Yes, that's right, I went with Hagrid that day!" Harry relaxed a little more as he spoke.

Outside the window, the twins who had just gotten off were talking with their family. Their conversation seemed to be about Harry.

"Why do they know you?" Aya asked curiously, making no attempt to hide that she was eavesdropping.

"Oh, maybe because of what happened to me when I was little?" Harry paused. "Because of the scar on my forehead?"

"A scar?" Aya turned to look at him curiously. There did seem to be a faint scar behind his somewhat messy hair. "That's nice. You're the only person I've seen here with a scar on your face."

Harry was a little embarrassed and annoyed by her words and was about to interrupt when Aya continued, "Honestly, those people I know always like to make scars that go all the way across their faces. They seem to think it makes them look manly. Yours is just right, a hero's medal half hidden. It's much better than theirs."

"...All, all the way across their faces?" Harry's eyes widened. "Isn't, isn't that disfigurement?"

"But they think it looks cool." Aya stroked Xiaohua's fur. "Hard to understand their taste, isn't it? Some of them even put one across an eyeball. They don't mind even if they go blind in one eye."

"B-blind? Wouldn't, wouldn't that leave them disabled?"

"Ah, who knows?" Aya shook her head. "But I don't have one, thankfully."

"Is the Wizarding World that dangerous?" Harry asked cautiously.

"I don't know. That's how it is where we're from. I haven't been in the Wizarding World long either," Aya said. "When we met in Diagon Alley that day, it was the first time I'd learned that wizards existed."

"Is your family Muggles too?" Harry asked, a little delighted. Meeting someone like himself as the first fellow first-year had reassured him somewhat. Only after asking did he remember Aya's cat ears. Her family probably wouldn't be ordinary people.

"Nope, I don't have a family."

"..." That was a little too much in common.

Harry was at a loss for words. He didn't even know how to comfort her, since he didn't have a family either.

The train soon started moving. The young wizards saying goodbye to their families on the platform quickly boarded, leaving their reluctant families to watch the train slowly disappear into the distance.

Aya watched the twins' mother standing on the platform with a little girl, waving at the departing train until it turned a corner and they were out of sight.

"Is there room here?" The youngest red-haired boy in the twins' family slid open the door to Aya and Harry's compartment. "Everywhere else is full."

Harry glanced at Aya. Seeing no reaction from her, he nodded to the boy.

"Hello, I'm-" He had just begun speaking when the compartment door opened again. "Hey, Ron!" The twins who had just left had come back. "Want to see a spider? Lee Jordan got a really big tarantula!"

Ron wrinkled his nose and said, "Oh." The twins' gazes passed over Xiaohua, who was lying quietly on the table, and settled on Harry again.

"Harry, I'm Fred."

"I'm George."

"This is our little brother, Ron Weasley. We forgot to introduce ourselves to you just now!"

"It's all because of that captivating cat-"

"But we have something to do now."

"See you in a bit!"

Harry was swept along by their words and didn't remember what either of them looked like. He could only stare blankly and say goodbye along with Ron.

"Goodbye to you too-oh! Miss Kitty!" Fred looked back at Aya and only then noticed the ears on her head.

"Merlin, you're a half-blood!" George's eyes widened too.

"Maybe?" Aya looked down at her human feet and answered.

"All right, goodbye again, Miss Kitty. We still have something to do-" the twins said, closing the compartment door behind them.

After his boisterous brothers left, Ron's gaze kept moving between Harry and Aya. In the end, his curiosity about the Chosen One won out. "Are you really Harry Potter?"

Ron seemed very curious about the scar on Harry's forehead, so Harry swept his fringe aside to show him.

"Are you famous?" Aya asked curiously.

"Merlin! He's-" Ron said eagerly. "He's the Chosen One! Didn't you know?"

"I didn't know." Aya shook her head.

Ron gestured excitedly as he told Aya the story of Harry the Chosen One. Aya looked at him in surprise. "You're amazing!" He soloed the big boss!

"Er, actually, I don't remember anything. Well, maybe I only remember a lot of green light," Harry answered.

Ron stared at Harry for quite a while before realizing he seemed to be a little rude. He turned to Aya. "Are you a half-blood?"

"I'm from the Spirit Clan. There are lots of us where I'm from." Aya's ears twitched.

"The Spirit Clan? How come I've never heard of them?" Ron frowned and rubbed his chin as he thought.

Harry asked him curiously, "Is your whole family made up of wizards?"

"Ah, yes, that's right." Ron came back to himself. Since he couldn't figure it out, he stopped thinking about it. "Although I think Mum has a distant cousin who's an accountant?"

"Then you must know lots of magic?"

"Er, y-yes, I suppose."

The boys quickly struck up a friendship. Aya took the bag of sweets Dumbledore had given her out of her backpack. It also contained some ordinary sweets she had later bought for herself in the Muggle World. She put it on the table and began sorting through them one by one.

She had to collect the pretty wrappers she liked. They were shiny and beautiful.

"...I have five older brothers. When you have that many, you never get anything new. I wear my eldest brother's old robes, use my second brother's old wand, and even inherited the rat my third brother didn't want anymore." As Ron spoke, he started to pull his fat gray rat out of his inside jacket pocket, but Harry stopped him.

"There's a cat!" he said.

"Xiaohua won't attack anyone unprovoked," Aya said, her head lowered as she counted how many sweets of her favorite flavor she had left. They were Honeydukes sweets from Dumbledore. Aya thought they were delicious and had asked Duoduo to buy her some, but they were rather expensive, and she still had a debt to repay, so she hadn't been able to buy very many.

"Really?" Although Ron was somewhat displeased with the drab gray rat, he did care for it.

"Of course-" Aya drew out the words and looked up.

Ron pulled a rat with a yellow name above its head out of his inside pocket.