Aurora stirred with a groan. She recognized the signs... the headache, the fuzzy memories, and the numb hands and feet... of all the places to have had an attack. She sat up, pulled the headache cure she carried everywhere with her from beneath her travelling cloak, and tried to recall what had set her off this time. About the only good thing her attacks resulted in was that the rampant magic super-charged any magical compounds nearby, including her headache potion. It took only the tiniest sip of the foul-tasting liquid to ease the pounding behind her red, dry eyes.
She began with the last thing she could clearly recall, a cloaked figure entering the compartment. Slowly fragments came back to her, and she painstakingly found the timeslot they belonged to, and begun to put the puzzle back together. She'd given the boy a haircut to fix his brother's butchery... she'd learnt who he was, and they'd had a long conversation about being lonely, and the importance of one's choices. They'd become friends.
Then her brother had come... he'd broken the moment, scared Pardus off... then... nothing. That must've been when the attack had begun. She had the vaguest memory of James apologizing. That, presumably, was why there were no ember-bordered holes in the walls. Aurora pinched the bridge of her nose and tried not to cry. Would James be afraid of her now too? Nobody said it, but they didn't need to.
Everyone in her family who knew of her condition feared her, that she could go off at any moment and kill them. That was why, rather than sitting in one of the compartments her numerous cousins just about filled, she'd found her empty, isolated compartment at the back. They all avoided her, looked at her with caution in their eyes, and talked about her behind her back. That was what had made her the loneliest, growing up, but she hadn't told Pardus that, out of fear that if he knew, he'd be scared of her too.
Although she wanted to be honest with him, because she knew that honesty was important for friendships, she didn't think there'd be much of a friendship to be worried about if Pardus discovered her secret, and began to think of her as a bomb which could go off at any time and maim him. Aurora frowned as she considered her next move. She glanced at her Muggle watch. There wasn't much time.
She reached her left arm up behind her, so that her forearm, which was covered in a thick, black, woollen arm-warmer, was level with the luggage rack above her. She pulled the whistle from inside her jumper with her right hand, the silver instrument hung low around her neck on a simple string. She blew on it softly and slowly. It made no sound audible to the human ear, but the one it was intended for heard it perfectly.
A tiny kitten, black with stripes the colour of Aurora's hair, clambered from the small, fluffy-blanket-lined wicker basket which it had been napping in, and dug it's minute claws deep into the arm-warmer. Feeling the kitten's weight on her arm, Aurora smiled, and brought her hand to her lap, where the diminutive animal disembarked. Aurora pulled a harness from her pocket, and secured it on the animal, which didn't fidget or complain in the slightest.
Using her wand to summon parchment, quill, and ink from her hand-luggage, a large floppy bad made from a patchwork of different-coloured suede, and with a wooden handle; she quickly wrote the letter. Finishing it off in a hurry, she rolled it up and tucked it into a small black cylinder, which she then clipped onto the kitten's harness. Whispering a few words into the animal's ear, Aurora told it who the letter was for, as well as a few other instructions.
When that was done, she watched as the feline jumped gracefully from her lap, and out of the door, which she both opened for it, and closed behind it, using her wand. Shortly afterwards, the train ground to a halt. They had arrived at Hogsmeade station. Aurora prayed as she took her bag down that Whisper's message reached Pardus in time.
She'd arrived at the station in London already dressed in her school robes, so she hadn't needed to change on the train. She was eager to begin the 'Hogwarts stage' of her life. She'd heard so many stories of the castle, and of the horrendous antics her relatives had gotten up to in it, particularly her uncles, Fred and George, who were currently the richest wizards in the world thanks to their popular joke shop, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes.
She stepped off the train, onto the platform. It wasn't long before she heard the renowned call of the Grounds Keeper, Hagrid, calling all Firs' Years to his side, and she spotted his lantern. She'd heard many times how large he was, but he still wasn't anything like what she'd pictured. He truly was as big as a lean-to, with feet which could've worn small boats for shoes, and hands large enough to use for tea-tables. His curly black beard could've hidden a colony of wild midgets in it. Any ancient, legendary pirate captain would've been bright green with envy at the sight of it.
