A/N: Sorry this is a day late compared to my AO3 update! I tried to upload yesterday but my laptop decided to troll me. Nothing would save properly. The site was also getting stuck on me every few minutes. So I had to wait.


Chapter 2: The Start of a New Age, Part 2

Wolfgang wishes people would stop judging. She loses herself in detective fiction. Will befriends a Legilimens. Lito has an existential crisis.


Wolfgang.

They hadn't entered through the barrier to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters yet, but Wolfgang could already feel people staring.

Inside King's Cross, it wasn't difficult to tell the magical families from the muggle passerby and the muggle-born students who had not realized this world existed until their eleventh birthday. Robes stood out against a sea of t-shirts and button-ups, which were much more sensible clothes for an early September weather.

"We should go," Wolfgang mumbled.

"Coward. Let them look," his cousin Steiner hissed. Then, raising his voice, "Show them who owns this fucking world."

"Steiner," Wolfgang's uncle Sergei warned under his breath. Sergei raised his chin, casting dismissive glances at two muggle men pushing a trolley past them. "Discretion. Remember what I told you."

It was bullshit that Sergei would make an effort to demand discretion from his son at all. Sergei himself harbored the same views, after all. Wolfgang tilted his head slightly, meeting the eyes of the common European viper wrapped around his uncle's neck—a snake named Albern, currently piled comfortably on top of the sable fur collar of Sergei's robe.

Not exactly subtle yourself, Sergei, Albern hissed.

Sometimes it was like Albern could read Wolfgang's mind. Wolfgang looked down, breaking eye contact with the snake so no one would get suspicious. It was good to know someone was on his side, but Wolfgang couldn't exactly respond in Parseltongue in broad daylight. Sergei wasn't aware that Wolfgang understood any of the hissing. Neither was Steiner.

"Fine, father," Steiner drawled, rolling his eyes. "Whatever you say, father."

Steiner pushed his trolley forward, purposefully bumping it across the side of a muggle woman's duffle bag on the ground before crossing the barrier. The woman tutted her tongue and pulled the bag closer. She narrowed her eyes at Wolfgang before turning her gaze to the snake that Sergei was wearing like a scarf.

"Wolfgang, go," Sergei urged, nudging Wolfgang forward with a rough hand on his shoulder.

Wolfgang didn't need to be told twice. He shrugged Sergei's hand off and made a move for the barrier without another glance behind. But he did whisper a quick goodbye to the snake, his hissing masked by the sound of his trolley's wheels against the marble floor. Albern had been good company while he lived at his uncle's, as far as a snake went, and he knew Albern could pick up sounds better than a human. He half-expected to be smacked in the face with the solid brick barrier. Still, he pushed on. The faster he got away, the better.

The platform was packed with families saying goodbye; groups of older students reuniting with each other after the summer; and apprehensive first-years climbing aboard, trying to seek out new friends. Wolfgang hurried forward to bury himself among the crowd so his uncle and cousin wouldn't find him again. A trio of Ravenclaws pushed past him with their own trunks, then turned back for a second glance.

"It's him," Wolfgang heard one of them whisper. He kept pushing his trolley and looked down at his shoes and focused walking forward, grasping his wand tightly in his hand, which was hidden by the sleeves of his robes. Left, right, left, right. "The Bogdanow."

"I can't believe they still accepted him," the second boy said. Wolfgang hurried past, trying not to let his scowl show. "Him and his cousin."

He made his way to the train in brisk steps. As he hoisted his trunks up to the nearest storage compartment, he was careful not to meet the house-elves in the eye. House-elves were ordered to be polite to all students, just like the ones at home were to his uncle and cousin, but Wolfgang knew there was that look in their eyes. All the students had that look, too, as he squeezed past crowds in the corridor of the train carriage, peeking at every little window on the compartment doors to find one that was empty.

The look in question was a look accompanied by hushed whispers, discreet reaches for wands inside pockets, and parents pulling their children close. It was nothing new for Wolfgang. Nothing different from the looks he used to get in Berlin.

Wolfgang wasn't blind, but he doubted people cared that he'd noticed.

If these people were to ask Wolfgang what he thought about his family, he would have told them he was nothing like them. He was not arrogant like Steiner, or viciously cunning like Sergei, or a Death Eater like his father, Anton Bogdanow, who had been caught in Hogsmeade on the night of the Battle of Hogwarts, terrorizing villagers with other Death Eaters in silver masks as they waited for the protective barrier around Hogwarts to break. Uncle Sergei's involvement in the same ordeal, though not supported by official evidence, was an open secret.

Of course, no one asked, and when no one asked, Wolfgang knew not to tell. The Bogdanows were notorious blood supremacists. People assumed Wolfgang was no exception. So it was his word against theirs, and all of his words would be seen as a lie.

"Excuse me, please," a girl said beside him.

Wolfgang moved to step out of the way, turning to see who spoke. The first thing he saw of the girl was her unruly black curls, forced back by a golden headband that was dangerously close to slipping. She met his eyes and nodded, thanking him for clearing her path before heading out again, down the steps to embrace a smaller girl who looked like her sister. She spoke softly in Hindi as her sister continued to sob.

There was something familiar about this girl.

He was still standing in the same spot when she climbed back on board. She opened her mouth to greet him, or perhaps to ask him to move again. Before she could do either, Steiner opened the door to the nearest compartment, trunks in hand, and shoved her to the ground. He stomped over to the luggage racks and tossed his belongings at the house-elves, who reached out their flimsy arms to catch the trunks before they could fall.

"Mudblood," Steiner hissed at the girl before slipping back to his compartment. Wolfgang caught a glimpse of Aivar and Mikhail, Steiner's cronies, before the door slid shut.

Wolfgang walked over to the girl and extended a hand. She reached for it, pulling herself up.

"His assumption was ill-informed," the girl said after standing. "My parents are magical. We dress like muggles for the sake of discretion. And regardless, he shouldn't have used a slur. There's no justification behind blood supremacy besides arrogance and bigotry."

"I'm sorry he said that," Wolfgang said.

"You don't have to apologize for someone else's mistake." The girl moved past him, waving at a boy who was peeking his head out of a compartment from across the carriage. "My friends and I are planning to play some exploding snap. Would you like to join us?"

Wolfgang shook his head. "Maybe some other time."

She was clearly disappointed, but she gave him a smile and walked on without him.

As the clock approached noon, it became clear that most compartments in this train carriage were full. Wolfgang contemplated moving to the next carriage, even if it meant squeezing past a group of Gryffindor boys who were blocking the path, watching him with narrow eyes. He dodged their gaze and turned back to look again, walking slower this time. When he reached the other end once more, he noticed a girl with short black hair sitting alone in a compartment with no other bags beside her own.

Slowly, he pulled the door open, peeking his head inside. The girl looked up from her book abruptly, lowering the wand in her hand.

"I was—sorry, I'm… do you mind if I sit with you?" Wolfgang finally blurted out, annoyed that he didn't think of what to say.

She shrugged, and he took that as a yes. He slipped in quickly and sat on the opposite end after shutting the door, hugging his backpack to his chest. A minute later she looked up at him, blinking once. "Are you going to stare at me for the whole ride?"

"No," he said quickly, putting his bag aside.

Outside the window, people were congregating in groups to say their last goodbyes. Wolfgang counted the number of pointed hats worn on the platform.

"I'm Sun. Sun Bak."

Wolfgang was surprised Sun was still talking to him. He thought she'd regretted the decision to let him in. Her name sounded familiar. He remembered seeing the name Bak in the Daily Prophet… something about a trading agency? Her father's?

"I'm Wolfgang."

"Bogdanow. I know who you are," Sun said.

So much for a fresh start. But Wolfgang wasn't surprised. After his father's trial last May, the entire nation flinched at the sound of the Bogdanow name. Would Sun react the same way?

He snuck a glance at Sun and was surprised to see her smirking.

"I know who you are, too," Wolfgang decided to say.

"I see we've both got a reputation we did not want," Sun said. "How about we forget all that and start over?"


M̶i̶c̶h̶a̶e̶l̶.

She ducked into an alley and pushed her back flat against the wall, ears perched to any sound of footsteps around. Her enemies were far enough for her to make a run for somewhere unexpected. Far enough for her to ditch them for good.

She pulled the hood of her cloak around her head in case anyone saw her face.

Not that she had to. She was a metamorphmagus, and she could change her appearance at will. It didn't matter if her face was seen. This wasn't even her actual face; it was the disguise she'd morphed herself into that morning, standing in front of the mirror with a portrait of a girl from centuries past.

She didn't notice the figure dangling on top of her until a large hand closed around her mouth, and the other grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. She wanted to scream, but no sound came. Her body began to tremble even though she couldn't move an inch.

Her father was shaking her awake, tapping the pocket watch fixed to the inside of his robe, shouting that it was "nine in the morning, for Merlin's sake, why are you still in bed?", and "your sister's been ready for an hour, have you been staying up late again?", and "it's a two hour drive to London without traffic now get dressed!"

Father wasn't entire wrong. She had stayed up the night before, reading Guinevere Gray and the Queen's Chalice under her bedsheets with her glowing new wand clenched between her teeth. Lumos had been easy enough to master.

The Queen's Chalice was the newest and longest book in her favorite series by far. It was sent to her by owl a week ago just as she was contemplating how she could go about ordering a copy once she was at Hogwarts, away from the prying eyes of her parents. (To Miss Marks, the parcel read. Beneath it was her address, including the exact location of her room in the Marks Manor. No return address. Happy belated birthday. —Y)

She was still thinking about her dream as they crossed the barrier into Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. This was the third book in the Guinevere Gray Series, a collection of diary-style anecdotes from the perspective of Guinevere, a metamorphmagus who used her ability to work as a vigilante detective. This story began on a red train not unlike the Hogwarts Express, when Gwen stumbled upon a box of tarot cards with half the deck missing.

"Michael," Janet, her mother, hissed. "Michael, did you hear what I just said?"

She tried not to flinch at the name and looked up for a quick second to show Janet she was listening. Before she could catch a glimpse of her reflection against the train window, she let her gaze fall back down on her shoes. "Yes, mother," she mumbled with a scowl. "You said you wanted me to send an owl tonight."

Jamie, her gray spotted owl, let out a disgruntled chitter in his cage on top of her trunks. He'd warmed up to her since she'd bought him for her eleventh birthday a month back. She liked to think Jamie shared her sentiment about conversing with her parents.

"And?" her father prompted.

Her parents were standing side by side, finishing each other's sentences as they took turns giving her every last bit of discipline they could before the train would leave. Her sister Teagan was standing a few steps away, watching the conversation with uneasy eyes as she swayed back and forth on the balls of her feet. Teagan did that whenever she was witnessing a confrontation. Janet and Lawrence Marks were a unit; she and Teagan were anything but.

"You told me to speak to the professors after class. Ask for assignments ahead of time. Practice the spells on weekends instead of—" she paused, trying to recall their exact words—"fooling around."

"Unbelievable," Janet said.

She tensed. She hadn't thought mother would tell her off now in front of all these people.

But Janet wasn't looking at her. Janet was glaring to their left, where a girl with bright purple braids was talking nonstop at her mother, flailing her hands around as if she were trying to put out an invisible fire. The purple hair wasn't the only thing that stood about the girl. It was also her denim skirt and pink-and-black striped tights, all the things she wore that made her impossible to miss. She carried her presence with ease, catching the eyes of the people who were looking.

In front of everyone, the girl's purple braids turned blue.

"Amanita!" her mother chastised, shaking her head. It sounded only half-hearted.

So Amanita was a metamorphmagus like Gwen. A sting of jealousy pinched her heart. She would have given anything for an ability to change her appearance at will. Learning that powers like this could only be acquired by birth had been heartbreaking.

"As we were saying." Her father's voice pulled her attention back. "Stay in line. Be on your best behavior. We will be writing to Headmistress McGonagall to check on your progress. No more nonsense."

Nonsense. He'd said it as if she'd ever deliberately sabotage their lives and draw attention to herself when all she wanted to do was hide. As if what happened in Chicago years ago, and the subsequent embarrassment that followed her family like shadows, was her fault.

"Yes, father," she responded automatically.

She was looking at the Hogwarts Express again, at the scratches on the metallic shell of the carriage covered by fresh red paint. If people looked close enough, they could still see small ridges underneath the perfect façade where the layers had chipped off, and the bigger gashes in the shells that were filled in and camouflaged with the rest of their surroundings. She wished the house-elves hadn't painted over it all. Painting over the train was like covering up scars. Scars told stories that voices might not. Guinevere had said this in her second book, The Lost King. She thought Gwen had a point, though she understood that it was easier to keep these things out of sight, out of mind.

"Michael!" Janet hissed, snapping her fingers.

Don't. Call. Me. Michael.

The metal handle on her trolley was rattling quietly enough that only she could hear. Jamie was fluttering his wings nervously in his cage. She put a hand on top of all her trunks, urging the shaking to stop as she looked up. The last thing she needed was another incident.

Standing by her mother was Mrs. Sandoval and her son Vincent, a second-year. They had joined her family for tea two weeks ago, and two weeks before that. While the Marks had many acquaintances from work, the Slytherin side of their social circle had dwindled since the war, reduced to only half a dozen families who hadn't allied themselves with Death Eaters. Families who had managed to evade most of the social backlash that followed.

"Oh. I—g-good morning, Mrs. Sandoval," she muttered. They must have gotten here when she was looking at the train. "Vincent."

"I just wanted to stop by before I have to leave," Mrs. Sandoval said in her cheery voice, a pink-lipped smile spreading across her rounded cheeks. "You excited for Hogwarts?"

"I am, yes," she said. Vincent gave her a polite nod, which she returned.

"Well, I'll be off, Janet, Lawrence. Take care. Come now, Vincent."

Vincent was guided away after a quick goodbye. She shifted her gaze to the door of the nearest carriage before turning to the clock hanging high on the wall. "I should go, too," she made an excuse, forcing herself to meet her parents' eyes. They needed to be convinced she wasn't intending to escape. "It's almost time. I'll write."

They didn't protest, so after a farewell she hauled her trunks inside the carriage and handed everything except Jamie's cage and her backpack to the house-elves stationed there. Before she could enter the corridor and search for a compartment, owl in tow, a hand pulling on the back of her shirt stopped her.

"Can you write to me, too?" Teagan asked, having followed her inside.

"Yeah. Of course." For the first time today, she meant it. "I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you, Mike," Teagan said, pulling her into a hug.

She just had to ruin it, she thought dejectedly before breaking away with a strained smile.

Before the train departed, she sat in a compartment alone, one facing away from the side window where parents and other children were saying goodbye. She thought about closing the door; she almost did, but the walls started closing in the moment she went to pull the door shut. She pushed it back open and decided she would just have do something to distract herself from the noise of everyone chatting.

The Queen's Chalice was buried underneath the many contents of her backpack, waiting for her to let it breathe again. She'd had to hide it as much as she could lest father decided to check her things one last time before she left. This story had a way of pulling her away from the real world. She was Gwen again, a detective who could become somebody else at the drop of a hat. She was ducking behind an alley by the train station where she was on a stake out. In fourteen-minutes and thirty seconds, a passenger would get off the two o'clock train to Cornwall, and she would catch the train before it departed again, hoping to find the deck of tarot cards he'd left behind…

She was jolted from Gwen's world when someone knocked on the doorframe of her open compartment. The train was already moving through the outskirts of London. She turned to her guest, a small, skinny boy with round glasses too large for his face. He was hugging a book the size of his chest.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," he said. "Some boys in the compartment I was in decided to play exploding snap, and I would prefer not to get my favorite book incinerated on my first day. Do you mind if I join you? "

"Oh. I, uhh…" she muttered, her gaze dropping to the floor beneath them as she spoke. "Yeah. Okay."

"Thank you! I'm Hernando."

Hernando pulled the compartment door shut. She frowned but didn't tell him to stop. It was easier for her to stay in a closed space when she wasn't alone. He sat opposite of her and dropped his giant book on the seat beside him with a thud, eyeing at Jamie in his cage beside her with great interest.

"I'm—"

She opened her mouth, but stopped. Maybe she should have been thinking about names instead of reading. Maybe one of those names could have been good, or at least fitting enough, that she could try referring to herself as such. But no. She didn't know anything about Hernando. She didn't know if Hernando could be trusted, and she had enough scars on her body to know not to test it.

"I'm Mike," she finally mumbled. The name left a bitter taste in her mouth.

If Hernando wondered why she'd hesitated, he didn't show it. He waved at Jamie, who gave him a happy hoot, tilting his head sideways to examine his human companion. Hernando turned his gaze to the book clutched tight in her hands. "What are you reading?"

She felt her face flush. What would a boy think once he found out she was reading a book meant for girls?

"It's… it's a detective novel." She lifted the cover up to show him, then immediately put it down before he could get a closer look, drumming the cover with her fingers quietly. "About… about this girl named Guinevere Gray. She's a metamorphmagus."

"I love detective fiction!" He beamed.

She let out a breath in relief and let the book fall into her lap. She opened her mouth to say likewise, but he started speaking again. If she weren't so nervous, she'd have chuckled at how apparently chatty he could be. "So there are detective novels in the magical world as well! I've been meaning to look for fiction involving magic ever since I got my Hogwarts letter. Do you have any recommendations? I heard The Tales of Beedle the Bard was a good place to start, but I was hoping for a more modern interpretation. And—wait, first of all, what's a metamorphmagus?"

She spent the rest of her ride explaining the plot of the Guinevere Gray Series with many, many interruptions. Hernando was well-versed in the art of derailing conversations; amidst explanations of the villain Dr. Reno and his double-identity, she'd also been given lessons into the basics of muggle forensics. She'd come to know that while the methods of deduction appeared to be similarly structured in both worlds, science, as opposed to spells, made solving crimes a vastly different experience.

It was too bad that she'd hidden the first two Guinevere Gray books deep inside her trunk. She hadn't expected anyone to be interested in them during the ride, but Hernando seemed destined to prove her wrong. He was a muggle-born, yet he seemed to fit right into the world she had grown up in, the one that was wrong for her in so many ways.

She wondered how Hernando would feel if he ever found out everything about her.


Will.

Will walked across the barrier with his dad, their steps slow and uneven, mixed with the staccato of a cane thumping against the ground. Under his father's shadow, Will felt the scrutiny everywhere he turned to look. He clutched his wand with the standard three-fingered grip, the handle resting comfortably in the center of his palm, ready to aim at a moment's notice.

People looked on in awe and whispered to each other as the Gorskis emerged onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, pointing not so discreetly at the war hero with the pronounced limp. Michael Gorski was a Senior Auror, and he had been assigned to take over Mad-Eye Moody's task force after Moody's unfortunate death. He had been on call on the night of the Battle of Hogwarts, and it would turn out to be the last fight of his career.

Diego waited up ahead, standing by the train with his trunks. His parents beamed amiably at the sight of Will and his father.

"Gorski! About time—I thought you were gonna bail!"

"Bail from Hogwarts? Please," Will quipped.

A group of older Gryffindors were making a beeline for the open door beside them. They stopped at the sight of Will and waved. Diego returned their wave while Will froze, enjoying the attention in a way Will never could. After the boys had gone, Diego's dad pulled him aside, whispering some last-minute advice about Quidditch. His mom, meanwhile, tutted her tongue and muttered about the lack of safety precautions the school had for flying.

Will turned back to face his own dad. Michael was leaning against the side of the train, panting as he rested his leg. The metal of his prosthetic was heavier than flesh and bone, and artificial limbs—even magical ones—could grow unbelievably hot during the summer. Michael gave Will a shake of his head when he caught Will's frown, a little "don't worry about me, son" kind of look that was far from convincing.

"Be sure to watch yourself. Watch who's around you. In front of you. Behind you," Michael advised. "They know your name now up at Hogwarts. Some of 'em might wanna befriend you. Others might not be so friendly. Constant vigilance, remember?"

"Yeah, dad. I'll be careful."

"Protego," his dad reminded him again. "That's the spell. You got it? This—" he parried with his wand—"is the proper wand movement. You wanna cast it nice and quick."

"I got it, dad," Will said. It had been the first spell his dad had taught him the moment they got back from Diagon Alley on his birthday. The one spell he would never dare to forget.

Will had asked his dad why he needed to learn a protection charm after the war had ended, and his dad had explained that enemies still lurked out there. Michael may have been forced to retire from the Auror Department, but Dan, Diego's dad, would drop by their house every night after his shift and update his old partner on Auror business.

Most of the runaway Death Eaters had been captured, but Britain was far from safe. Fenrir Greyback was among the escaped, and he was the one who had given Will's dad the cursed wounds that severed his lung and one leg. Greyback was arguably the most dangerous of the runaways, the one the Aurors prioritized when assigning task forces. The Ministry had even gone so far as to put up wanted posters of Greyback in the muggle neighborhoods, leaving no details except Armed and Extremely Dangerous—Do Not Approach and the number to the one and only telephone the Ministry had.

"Train's almost leaving," Michael reminded Will. He gave Will a gentle push on his shoulder, urging him forward. "Go on."

"I'll write," Will promised.

"Sure you will! You'll get new friends and forget all about me!" His dad laughed. Will cracked a smile. Before Will could say anything else, his dad began to cough, deep and racking, his chest heaving with the force of it. After a minute he breathed in deep and waved Will off. "I'm fine. I'm fine."

"Send Dan a patronus if you need anything," Will reminded him.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Michael tried to sound nonchalant, but Will could hear the smile in his voice. He'd never say it out loud, but Will knew he liked that Will cared. "Now go."

Will handed his trunks to the house-elves by the storage racks and headed inside. It didn't take too long to find Diego—he only had to search for the loudest compartment. He opened the door and was greeted by a bunch of students he'd never seen before. Something told him it was his family name that drew them over.

The person that caught his eye was the girl with the light brown braid sitting in the corner, the only one who didn't get up and introduce herself and ask if he'd been receiving "top-notch combat training from the Michael Gorski". She was wearing a gray dress with a purple shawl large enough to swallow her whole. Maybe that was the purpose of it; she seemed to have retreated into the laced fabric like it was an armor shielding her from everyone else.

Perhaps the girl didn't hear Diego and the others at all. She was wearing these blue earmuffs with a wire hanging down that Will sometimes spotted muggles wearing. A white cat was curled up on her lap, eyeing everyone in the compartment with a wary look. In her hand was a small box, within which a circular disc was spinning. The girl finally saw Will looking as he went to sit down across from her. She met his eyes and gave him a small nod.

"This is Riley," Diego introduced, slipping into the seat next to the girl. "She's awesome. She let us share her compartment."

Will rolled his eyes. Diego was a great friend in many ways, but he had a penchant for barging into all kinds of places uninvited. Something told him he'd have begged Riley to let him and his new pack stay even if she'd said no.

The first two hours of the ride passed by agonizingly slowly as Will was forced into a game of Gobstones. He snuck glances at Riley whenever it wasn't his turn to capture a stone. She was staring out the window, stroking her cat, frowning like she might have a headache. He wondered if she found everything too loud. Maybe her earmuffs made things quieter for her.

It was only when an older Gryffindor boy peeked his head into the compartment and invited them to a game of Wizard's Chess that the compartment cleared. Will declined the game and stayed behind. He joined Riley at the window, propping his arm against the tray table that had been pulled up in the space between them.

"Sorry about Diego," Will said. He didn't know if Riley could hear him. "He's usually a cool guy, but he can be a bit…"

"Too much?" she suggested, taking off her earmuffs.

"Yeah."

"It's okay. I don't mind."

He looked at Riley's earmuffs again, tracing the wire linked to it to the device in her hand. Maybe the earmuffs were charmed with a noise-cancellation spell. Or maybe the wire was charmed with signals, and the box was a receiver, a radio of sorts.

"These are called headphones," Riley explained."They're—"

She stopped abruptly when she realized he was looking at her wide-eyed. Her shoulder tensed, and she looked down, fiddling with her wires. Her headphone wires. "They're muggle inventions," she finished in a small voice. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

"You're a Legilimens," Will realized.

Riley nodded. She was looking at the cat on her lap, trying to avoid his gaze. "I can't help it sometimes," she confessed. "Hearing people's thoughts. I try to block them out, I really, really try. But something always slips through."

That was the danger of Legilimency—those who didn't have the ability desired it; those who were born with it suffered from it. There was a Legilimens named Kareem in the Auror Department who helped with interrogations, not because he was passionate about detective work, but because he felt an obligation. Like Will's father, Kareem had been injured in the war. Unlike his father, it was his mind that the Death Eaters broke, not his body. They had torn up every memory inside him until there was no Kareem left.

"I believe you," Will told her. He offered her a smile, a sign that he would never turn her away. "I won't tell."

Riley met his eyes finally but couldn't smile back. He wondered if she'd seen what had just crossed his mind. If she'd seen what some people in this world were willing to do to those like her.

"Not even Diego?" she asked.

So it wasn't only his bad memories that slipped through. Riley had delved in deeper and seen some good ones, too. "Not 'till you're ready," he told her.

"Thank you. That means a lot." She picked up her cat and moved across to sit next to him, their shoulders touching. "This is Snowball," she introduced.

The cat purred at the sound of her name. Will held out his palm. "Well, uhh, nice to meet you? Snowball?" He looked at Riley. "Is this how you introduce yourself to a cat?"

Riley chuckled. Snowball raised her paw and placed it on top of Will's palm, giving him a stern look. "I think she likes you," Riley said.

Will spent the rest of the ride indulging in Snowball's many attempts to get his attention while he pestered Riley about the ins and outs of muggle technology. Riley told him about the CD player, about the way songs were recorded and sold using these circular discs with tiny etchings on one side that turned into vibrations. ("I don't know how, exactly. My muggle school hadn't covered much.")

Talking about muggle life seemed to have made Riley happier, and Will could see why. It was incredible that the magical world believed themselves to be self-sufficient when the muggles were excelling in their own way, entertaining themselves in a way magical people would never think to do.

"So the CD player's basically like a record player?" he asked.

"You know about those?"

"Not a lot." He said in a quieter voice, embarrassed that the word record player was just about all he knew about muggle technology. "I've seen bits and pieces of things from the muggle world, but I didn't grow up there."

"I see." She handed him the earmuffs—no, headphones—and pushed a button on the side of her CD player. "You can give it a listen. Do you know any muggle music?"

"Not really." He said quickly, then added, "Some. A song or two."

She showed him a song called Come To My Window by Melissa Etheridge. The style weren't so different from the music he heard growing up, but there was something unique about hearing it through headphones in public. It was like being in on a secret no one around you knew. It wouldn't be the first time he'd felt that way.

It had always been a possibility for Will to live like Riley did. His mother was muggle-born, and when she had been alive, there was always music in the house. Will could have learned about how muggles lived so he could understand how his mom saw the world. But that possibility was taken away from him when he was three years old, when his mom had passed away, and his dad had tried to lock up all memories of her.

"I'm sorry about your mother," Riley said.

"Thank you."

Will didn't know why he let Riley hear all this thoughts when he barely knew her. But he didn't mind. She had a way of listening that made people feel heard.

Could you miss someone you never really got to know?

"Yes," Riley answered with a sad smile. "You could."


Lito.

Making friends before the start of school sounded easier in theory. Everyone on the Hogwarts Express had retreated into a compartment before the train started moving. They had probably known their travel companions for years. Lito imagined these kids growing up together as neighbors, hosting Quidditch competitions in their backyard with some sort of magical invisibility shield so muggles could never see.

Lito walked down the aisle and clutched the folded letter tighter in his hand, his finger running along the creases as he recalled what it said for the hundredth time:

Dear Lito,

School started two weeks ago. It's a new school this time. It's weird being here without you. Still weird. Then again, this is an all-girls boarding school. The boys are on the other side of the fence, so I wouldn't have seen you anyway.

Lito counted four more compartments completely filled and shuffled out of view before one of the kids could catch him staring through the small window on the door. Two older boys ran past him, chasing each other with wands in their hands that were shooting sparks. The lit wands reminded Lito of sparklers on Cinco de Mayo.

Everyone keeps asking about you, the letter continued. It was written in Spanish, and it was one of the only reasons Lito hadn't forgotten how to write the language he'd spent the first nine years of his life learning. They were all like, "Where did Lito go? Did you know? Did he go somewhere fun?". I'm sure I've already complained about this. Anyway, the questions were getting pretty annoying. Last summer I got fed up, so I lied and told them you were recruited for a super-secret spy academy where they teach you how to phase through walls and drop from a rope on the ceiling.

Lito had chuckled when he'd read it the first time. María didn't know how right she actually turned out to be. Neither did Lito, until the day before his eleventh birthday, when Professor McGonagall knocked on their door as they were having carnitas and pulled him head-first into a world he didn't know existed.

"You looking for a place to sit?"

A voice stopped him in his track as he was about to cross to the next carriage and hope for better luck there. He turned back and saw a small, skinny girl peeking out of her open compartment the middle of the carriage. He didn't know how he'd missed her the first time. She tilted her head to watch him, her silky black hair sliding past her shoulders. She appeared to be alone.

He walked over, stopping a few paces by the door. "Can I… join you?"

"Your call. I don't bite."

She sounded American. Why was she in Britain? Had she moved here like he did?

"Thanks," he said. He slid into the compartment and closed the door before they could draw attention from anyone else.

"Well, I wasn't gonna let you wander the halls for seven hours."

"The ride takes seven hours?"

She gave him a sly grin. Folding her arms, she looked him over from head to toe. "You're a muggle-born, aren't you?"

"And you're not," he deduced back, trying hard not to sound disappointed. She was already dressed in uniform, and she looks at him like she knew things. Was he the only muggle-born? "Is your family all magical?"

"As far as I know." She shrugged. "I'm Daniela. You can call me Dani."

Daniela. She said her name in the same accent as Lito would.

"I'm Lito," he said. "Hablas español?"

Dani looked at him in surprise. Lito frowned at the intensity of her gaze. It was impossible to look away, but he couldn't tell why. Her eyes were the same dark brown as his, but it was like staring into a well as you were falling in head-first with no way out, thrust down there by an invisible hand. His stomach lurched with the force of it.

"Sí. My family's Mexican," Dani explained.

She broke the eye contact quickly, choosing instead to look out the window. The strange sensation in his chest dissipated as soon as she broke eye contact. Rain was picking up outside, but it was still warm where he was. Some kind of thermal magic at work?

"I don't remember it much, though," Dani continued as she drew random shapes on the fogged-up window with her finger. "We moved to America when I was four. I was in California for most of my life. And then the war happened, and then we moved here, where the sun never shines."

"The war? The one with the… the Death Eaters?"

"You heard about that?"

Lito nodded. He didn't know enough about magic to know how bad it was, but his parents had been ordering the Daily Prophet since they'd found out he was a wizard. The first article he'd ever read was from the day before his birthday. There was an article about Hogwarts reopening after the Battle. It was terrifying to know there could be a war bad enough to destroy a fortress made of magic, yet the muggles side of the country, including himself, remained completely oblivious.

That was Lito's first impression of the magical world: they were too good at keeping secrets.

"Professor McGonagall told me," Lito said simply. He felt like explaining all his thoughts about the Second Wizarding War would be silly, since Dani, surely, already knew how deadly magic could be.

"I've always wondered how that worked!" Dani beamed. She was looking at him again, but this time she had one hand over the other on her lap, her fingers drumming against her leg every few seconds. "I mean, if your parents couldn't use magic, how'd you find Diagon Alley?"

"Well, Professor McGonagall went to my house on the 7th, and she explained everything, and she turned into a cat—"

"Ooh!" Dani looked impressed. "I didn't know she's an Animagus!"

"A what?"

"An Animagus. She can transform into an animal. So her animal form's a cat, 'cause you can't pick which animal you get to be, it's supposed to be based on your personality and inner strength and whatever."

Lito stared at her, wide-eyed. Just how much was he missing out on?

"What else happened?" Dani prompted.

"So she turned into a cat," Lito continued, his voice lower now. It didn't seem all that impressive that he had this one story about magic, when Dani, surely, would've seen so much more in her life. "She proved she wasn't just scamming us. And she explained that this sometimes happens, this… well, me being the only wizard in my family. She took us to Diagon Alley and showed us where everything was, and then she turned and disappeared from thin air."

"Apparated," Dani corrected. "You mean she Apparated."

Lito groaned, running a frustrated hand through his hair. "I'm gonna fail at this school, aren't I?"

She pursed her lips for a second, thinking. It made Lito feel like he was being investigated by the police. He felt like it was impossible to keep anything hidden under her gaze.

"Take out your wand," she decided.

"Why?"

Lito was already opening his bag, though, reaching for the fine handle and pulling the wand out. He tucked María's letter into the side pocket. If Dani saw it, she didn't ask.

"Your wand worked for you before in Ollivander's, didn't it?"

"Mr. Ollivander said it chose me," Lito recalled.

"Mine, too."

She leaned forward and pulled her own wand out of the shaft of her right boot. They compared their wands side-by-side, marveling at how different they looked. Dani's wand was about three inches shorter than his, and hers was medium brown while his was black. There were also swirls carved into her wand's handle. They untangled into curved lines, climbing upwards until they reached the middle of the wand and gradually faded from there.

"So you think you're behind 'cause I came from a magical family," she said. "Because I know how I'm supposed to cast a spell. I know what magic can and can't do. That's all true. But knowing all that isn't the same as learning to control your own powers, and I've only had a day to practice that."

Before Lito could ask why, they heard a knock on their compartment door. Lito looked through the window and saw a dark-haired older boy glaring at Dani. Dani swallowed hard when she saw him, but stood up and blocked her body against the doorframe, opening the door by only an inch.

"We got a compartment. Come over," the boy demanded. He was standing close enough, he could easily be whispering these words into Dani's ear.

His English sounded American like Dani's. His voice, though, was much deeper than Lito's, on the verge of changing. It made him sound more intimidating than it ought to be. By the way Dani was fidgeting with the hem of her skirt, it didn't seem like she welcomed the idea of hanging out with the older boy, either.

"No thanks, Joaquín, we're good," Dani said.

Joaquín looked past Dani's shoulder at Lito, scowling distastefully at his muggle jeans and t-shirt. "Who's this?"

"I–I'm Lito," Lito mumbled.

Lito wondered if Joaquín had even heard him. If he did, he clearly didn't care to acknowledge it. "Come on, Dani," he tried again.

Dani crossed her arms, looking at Lito, then back at the unfriendly boy. "I'm staying here."

"Suit yourself." Joaquín turned away, slamming the door shut before Dani could do it herself. He'd slammed it so hard that the door popped back open, sliding ajar so Lito had a view of Joaquín walking away.

"You know him?" Lito asked, staring at Joaquín's retreating form. Even from this distance, Joaquín looked like one of those bullies who was always readying himself for a fight. Lito had never been picked on by bullies, but he wondered if the circumstance would change if he went to a school where he knew nothing, and people like Dani knew everything.

"He's a family friend," Dani explained. "Anyway, I was saying, we're technically not supposed to buy a wand 'till we turn eleven. And my birthday was yesterday. Our Hogwarts letters came a bit earlier this year though."

"Really?"

Dani nodded. "Guess they wanted everyone to be ready ahead of time, what with the school reopening and all. So I got my wand early, except my dad locked it away and didn't give it to me 'till yesterday."

"Is he strict?"

"My dad? That's… one way to describe him." Dani chuckled. She looked away again. "Anyway, yeah. My birthday was literally the day before we start school. Pretty close call, huh? I could've had to stay home another year."

"Pretty close," Lito agreed. "My birthday's on August 8th."

"Oh. Not much earlier, then. Have you tried practicing?"

"Not really."

"I know a simple charm we can start with." Dani waved her wand in the air in a deliberate motion without uttering anything. "The movement looks like this." She traced the shape again, slowly. An arc that curved upwards, followed by one that curved downwards, followed a small, downward flick. "And you're supposed to say Wingardium Leviosa."

"What does the spell do do?"

Dani took off her bracelet and held it in her left palm. With her right hand, she pointed the tip of the wand at the bracelet and said the spell as she guided her wand into the movement she'd just shown him. The bracelet took a few seconds tossing and turning before it hovered an inch above her hand, vibrating intensely.

"It's supposed to levitate things. I can kind of do it, but I'm gonna need way more practice. If you're really good, you can lift a whole person with this charm."

He laughed. "Really?"

"Eventually." She let go of the spell. "Now, you try."

It took Lito three hours to get Dani's bracelet to leave her palm, but it stayed, supported by thin air, for five seconds. Dani whooped in glee. Lito, on the other hand, was grinning, embarrassed that he took so long to get it, but also relieved.

"Being muggle-born doesn't mean you're destined to fail," Dani told him. "That's the whole point of going to school. None of us know how to control the powers we were born with. We're all starting from ground zero. You're just gonna have to trust yourself."

"Easier said than done."

"That's true." She leaned in closer with a conspiratorial smirk and whispered, "But between the two of us? It took Joaquín a month to get that spell I just taught you."


A/N:

And so we have the main 8 all introduced. Whoo! Next up is the sorting, one of my favorite parts to write... so far :D

Thank you all so much for the love I've been getting on various platforms! I am a greedy gremlin who feeds on the love and anguish of my dear readers. For those of you who hadn't been spoiled by my endless rambling, have you got any predictions as to which houses these kids might end up in? What about the soon-to-be extended family, aka Hernando, Neets, Dani, and Felix? Let me know in the comments... If you dare. *Dun dun dunnnn.*

In terms of posting, I'm gonna try and hold myself to an "every other weekend" update schedule. I feel like it's the most reasonable timeframe, given that I CANNOT write short chapters, and I also have a beta and sensitivity reader.

And I'm trying to get the rest of this story plotted, which is turning out to be a lot harder since it's part of a series. Just how much should I reveal? Hmm...