Making Friends

People in Aya's world had green names floating above their heads if they were friendly, yellow if they were neutral, and red if they were enemies.

Since coming to this world, Aya had seen nothing with a name above its head. When she suddenly spotted a yellow name, it took her a moment to remember what it meant.

Back in her original world, though, most somewhat aggressive animals had yellow names, so Aya didn't pay any attention to why the system had classified this fat rat as one.

"All right, his name's Scabbers. He's too old to be useful now and sleeps all day. Dad gave Percy an owl when he became a Prefect this year, and they couldn't anymore—I mean, so Percy gave me the rat." Ron's ears reddened, and after looking at Xiaohua's beautiful fur, he pulled Scabbers closer to his chest.

Harry noticed Ron's discomfort and told him that he'd only been able to wear his cousin's old clothes before, and had never received a decent birthday present.

"Then I'm better off than you," Aya said, somewhat pleased. "I've gotten birthday presents twice!"

"...That's not much better," Ron muttered, and Harry gave him a gentle nudge with his elbow.

Harry changed the subject, looking curiously back at Xiaohua, who was rummaging through Aya's bag of sweets. Although he was curious about the sweets inside that he'd never seen before, he wouldn't ask for any. "Is your cat unique to the wizarding world too?"

"Probably not." Aya ate a sweet, then smoothed out the wrapper, took a notebook from her backpack, and tucked it inside. "This kind of cat is unique to where we come from too~"

"Merlin—you have a storage bag?" Ron asked enviously, watching Aya take something out of thin air.

"Yep, everyone where I come from has one too~" Aya answered.

"How come people where you're from have everything?" Harry asked enviously. If he'd had a storage bag, he wouldn't have had to struggle so much with his luggage earlier.

"They sell storage bags in the wizarding world," Ron said. "But some of them are pretty expensive. My family can't afford one, anyway."

"I don't know anything," Harry said, looking a little worried. "I don't know a thing about the wizarding world. There was no trace of wizards in my life before. Maybe when I get to school, I'll be the worst student. I can barely understand those books..."

"We have to read books too?" Aya looked up, abandoning her candy wrapper. One cheek bulged slightly. "Is school where they teach people to read books?"

"...See? No, you won't be. There'll be lots of other students from Muggle families besides you two, and they can learn quickly too." Ron was a little speechless, but he still asked, "Haven't you ever been to school? Or been taught by your family?"

Aya thought about her life in the sect when she'd first come into existence. "Well, I suppose I have been to school, but people where I come from don't read books."

"Wow, really?" Ron immediately put aside his earlier thoughts, a little envious. "No exams? No memorizing books? Do you have to do homework? The homework Percy brought home this summer was as thick as half my arm!"

"Nope. We all fight wooden dummies. As long as our attacks meet the standard, we pass the test," Aya said proudly.

"...Why don't you have any expression?" Ron asked hesitantly, listening to her upbeat tone while looking at her expressionless face.

"Professor Snape said it's called 'facial paralysis'~" Aya said.

Harry and Ron both looked at a loss for words. They exchanged a glance and silently agreed to change the subject.

The three chatted as the scenery outside changed to open countryside, with flocks of sheep and herds of cattle appearing from time to time. Looking at the vast map, Aya found herself wondering whether the train would run into an invisible wall—it was much faster than she was.

At half past twelve, a smiling woman came down the aisle pushing a food trolley. She slid open the compartment door and asked, "Anything from the trolley, dears?"

Harry had been hungry for a while, so he immediately stood up, stepped over Ron's legs, and went to pick out something to eat. Ron, meanwhile, took a sandwich from his package and muttered that he'd brought his own.

Aya had brought food too: a lunch Duoduo had made with love. To help Aya make friends, she'd prepared plenty of steaks and sandwiches.

Harry came back carrying an armful of snacks. He seemed to have bought some of everything, and after bringing them into the compartment, he put them all on the table. "Let's trade. I'm starving-"

He watched Ron take out his sandwich a little awkwardly and Aya conjure several lunch boxes out of thin air, then took out two pasties and handed one to each of them.

Aya couldn't resist any kind of food. If she hadn't spent so much money on sweets from Honeydukes, she would have gone to buy some snacks just now too.

"Thanks." She accepted it without hesitation and said frankly, "This is the lunch Duoduo made for me, for making friends."

"Er, thanks." Harry and Ron each took a lunch box. When they opened them, they found steak cut into strips, with a few florets of broccoli and some small sandwiches on the side. The portions weren't large, leaving room for other things afterward.

"Who's Duoduo?" Harry asked curiously, spearing a piece of steak with his fork. "The person who takes care of you?"

"She's the House-elf who takes care of me," Aya answered happily. The pasty tasted very good. "The headmaster thought I had no one to look after me, so he sent one of the school's House-elves~"

The steak Ron had put in his mouth fell back into his lunch box. "Merlin's smelly socks! Headmaster Dumbledore?!"

"Yep, Duoduo's been a huge help!" Aya said firmly. "The school is so nice-"

"Headmaster Dumbledore?" Harry had seen the name on his acceptance letter.

"Don't tell me you don't know? Oh, give me a Chocolate Frog, will you? Here-just as I thought!" Ron took a snack from the table and opened it, then pulled out a card. "Look! This is Dumbledore!"

Aya leaned over for a look. Dumbledore wore his half-moon glasses in the picture, and his nose was crooked too. "Yes, that's him!"

Harry turned the card over and read the description. "'The greatest white wizard of our time'?"

"Of course," Ron said confidently. "He's also the strongest white wizard. With him at Hogwarts, everyone feels safe sending their children there to study. But I really didn't expect him to take notice of you."

"Oh—he's disappeared!" Harry interrupted.

"Of course." Ron was easily distracted. "You can't expect him to stay there all the time, can you?"

Aya was oblivious. She was actually half full after the pasty, and after forcing down a piece of steak, she put the rest of her lunch back in her backpack. Looking at Harry's snacks spread across the table, she reluctantly took a few Honeydukes sweets from her bag and shared them with the two boys, then happily tried the snacks Harry had bought.

The scenery outside had grown somewhat desolate, with stretches of dense forest replacing the fields.

"Excuse me." The compartment door opened again. "I wanted to ask, have you seen my toad?" A round-faced boy came in, his eyes full of tears. "I've lost him again. He's always trying to run away from me!"

All three in the compartment shook their heads. Aya was still chewing a Chocolate Frog—it was harder than any chocolate she'd ever eaten, and after working at it for ages, she still had a large piece left. Seeing that none of them had spotted it, Neville burst into tears. Apparently, he seemed to have searched from one end of the train to the other without finding anything.

"Maybe I can help you?" When faced with a request like this, Aya was always in the habit of accepting the quest-though perhaps there weren't any here—so she spoke up.

"Really?" He wiped away his tears and looked at Aya hopefully.

"Xiaohua, catch the toad!" Aya stood up, and Xiaohua jumped down from the table, went around the two boys' legs into the corridor, and raced off. "You'll have to wait. Xiaohua's very good at finding things like this."

"W-won't your cat bite my toad to death?" As he spoke, he started crying again.

"My cat won't attack other things unprovoked," Aya explained once more, but the boy clearly wasn't listening.

"I don't understand. If I had a toad, I'd want to lose it as soon as possible," Ron muttered inside the compartment, pulling his old wand from his luggage. "But I've only got a rat right now. I wanted to make him prettier yesterday, but my spells only work some of the time."

As he spoke, Aya saw a girl come hurrying down from the other end of the carriage. She had bushy brown hair and rather prominent front teeth.

"Oh, Neville, did you find your toad?" she called before she'd even reached them. "I went through the rest of the compartments in this carriage, and they all said they hadn't seen him!"

"She said she could help me find him, so we're waiting," Neville answered tearfully.

"Oh? What can you do?" The girl came closer and asked Aya, "I'm Hermione Granger. Who are you?"

"Aya Hawthorne. My cat's already gone to look." Seeing the girl turn her attention to her head, Aya added, "I'm a Spirit."

"A Spirit?" Hermione frowned. "I've never seen that race mentioned in a book."

"Maybe it just wasn't in the books you read," Aya said.

"Then I need to read more books. I still don't know enough about the wizarding world. I'm a Muggle-born wizard. Before I got my acceptance letter, I was even preparing for the entrance exams I was going to take next year." Hermione spoke a little quickly. Aya's mind hadn't caught up, but she'd already nodded twice.

"How long until your cat gets back?" Hermione asked, tapping her toe against the floor, sounding somewhat doubtful. "Can your cat find him?"

"Back any moment. Xiaohua's already found him," Aya said, taking another bite of her Chocolate Frog.

No sooner had she finished speaking than Xiaohua came bounding back from the end of the corridor, carrying a toad with stiff limbs in his mouth.

"Trevor!" Neville shrieked and hurried over to rescue his pet, not knowing whether he was alive or dead.

Xiaohua obediently let go. As soon as Trevor fell to the floor, he righted himself and tried to escape, but Neville snatched him up. "You're all right, thank goodness-" He started crying again.

"Quest complete~" Aya said, turning and sitting back down in the compartment. Hermione instinctively followed her movement with her eyes and looked inside, only then noticing that two others were sitting there. The red-haired one was holding a wand and seemed about to cast a spell, which caught her interest.

"Oh? Are you doing magic?" She walked over to Aya and sat down beside her as if they were old friends.

Ron stared for a moment, at a bit of a loss. Seeing everyone looking at him, he cleared his throat. "All right, then-" He recited an incantation Aya couldn't understand and waved his wand. Nothing happened; it had clearly failed.

Hermione raised her chin and asked in a somewhat questioning tone, "Are you sure that's a real spell? It doesn't seem very good. I tried a few simple spells at home too, for practice, and they all worked, but no one else in my family knows magic. As far as I know, Hogwarts is an excellent school of magic, so I memorized all the textbooks. Of course, that's the basics. I'm Hermione Granger. Who are you?"

She rattled off a long speech, leaving Harry and Ron staring blankly. It took them quite a while to recover and introduce themselves.

Hermione kept rattling on to Harry. "Oh? It really is you. I know all about you too. Of course, I bought a few extra books, and they all mentioned you."

Harry looked a little stunned. "Mentioned-mentioned me?"

Hermione continued rapidly, "Goodness, you really don't know anything about it. If it were me, I'd do everything I could to find out all about it. Do you know which house you'll be sorted into? I've heard Gryffindor is the best. Dumbledore graduated from there, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad either-oh, I have to go back. I wonder if Neville's still in the corridor. You'd better hurry and change into your school robes. We should be there soon."

She went out and left with Neville.

"Wow," Aya exclaimed without expression. "She talks so fast, and she's read so many books."

"Your expression looks a little sarcastic," Ron muttered. "Whichever house I'm sorted into, I don't want to be with someone like that." As he spoke, he tossed his old wand back into his luggage, cursing George for tricking him.

Aya didn't understand what he meant. She stared at him for a while, until Ron blushed, before turning her attention back to the snacks on the table.

The unpleasantness soon passed. After Harry and Ron talked about the sorting, they moved on to Quidditch, which seemed to be a very popular sport in the wizarding world.

Aya listened with great interest. The only sports in her world, aside from running dungeons, were PVP. There had never been such a harmless competition-flying through the air looking for a little ball, how interesting!

Aya was still listening to Ron describe several exciting matches he'd watched when the compartment door opened again. Aya really wanted to set the room to invitation-only.

"I hear Harry Potter is in this compartment?" At the familiar drawl, Aya looked up and saw someone she knew.

"Oh, hello, Mr. Malfoy," Aya greeted him.

Draco froze, the words half out of his mouth catching in his throat. He turned and saw the girl he'd met once before, whose features were hard to miss. "Er, hello? Um... Aya?"