Troublesome Feline

Newt and Serra stood side by side at Hogsmeade station, waiting for the Hogwarts Express to arrive and take them home for the holidays. Their trunks were piled around their feet. Serra's trunk was filled with clothes, spell books, and other personal items (her portable television and VCR—which she had never gotten to work inside of Hogwarts due to the lack of electricity—as well as a collection of Game Boy cartridges and cassette tapes). Newt's trunk contained his cauldron, the only thing he owned that had survived the fire in his dormitory room.

Serra had received near-perfect scores on all of her mid-term examinations. For her mid-term test in transfiguration, she had given her cat, Flower, wings. They looked like a raven's wings except that their feathers were the same bright purple color as Flower's fur. Professor McGonagall had been impressed both by Serra's creative use of partial transfiguration and by the fact that the cat's wings, which sprouted from her back near her shoulders, actually allowed the cat to fly. Flower had stretched her new appendages and soared several times around the classroom; it had taken Serra several minutes to coax the cat down from the ceiling by offering her a piece of pumpkin bread (the cat had already been caught and tucked tightly underneath Serra's arm before she had realized that she didn't care much for the bread).

Newt had received better grades than he had expected. The two tests he had dreaded most (those for charms and transfiguration, both of which included practical examinations) had gone better than he had expected. During his charms test, he had managed to levitate a feather by heating the air underneath it. He had been worried that Professor Flitwick would subtract points from his score because he had not spoken the spell out loud (in an attempt to disguise the fact that he wasn't using the spell he was supposed to). The professor, however, had been impressed by Newt's use of nonverbal magic (which, Professor Flitwick told him, was very hard for most wizards to accomplish) and had given him bonus points on the exam.

For his mid-term exam in transfiguration, Newt had given Flower the ability to breathe fire. When he had designed the spell, Newt had thought it would be amusing and harmless; as soon as he had cast it, however, he had discovered that he had been wrong. Flower had quickly struggled out of Serra's arms and had resumed circling through the air around the room's ceiling, this time terrorizing the other animals in the classroom by shooting streams of fire at them. The cat had refused to descend, even when students throughout the class—fearing that the written portion of their exams would be destroyed by the cat's fiery breath and that they would have to retake them—had begun to offer their snacks (chocolate frogs and every flavor beans, among others things) to her. Eventually, Professor McGonagall had summoned a house elf, who arrived with a tray of sausages left over from that morning's breakfast. Upon seeing the proffered meat, Flower had eagerly descended and, after reheating them with a burst of flame, had quickly consumed the sausages on the tray. Soon thereafter, the cat had once again been tucked firmly under Serra's arm. Newt, much to his surprise, had passed the test.

Flower crouched in her small travel cage, which sat on the platform next to Serra's trunk. The cat apparently disliked being confined to the cage; she belched fire at the ankles of anyone who came within range. A passing student made the mistake of walking too close to the cage and jumped backwards towards Newt and Serra when his shoelaces caught on fire. His shoulder connected with Newt, who was knocked sideways into a pile of luggage. The pile trembled portentously for a moment, and then fell forward onto Newt's head and shoulders. The boy hurried away without apologizing, trying to smother the flames on his shoes.

Serra grabbed Newt's wrist and yanked him upright. He stumbled for a moment on the fallen luggage that was scattered around their feet and almost fell again. Serra caught him by the shoulders to steady him; he winced with pain and bit his lip to keep himself from crying out.

Serra gave him a questioning look. Without warning, she grabbed a sleeve of Newt's robes and yanked it up his arm, revealing a row of painful-looking purple bruises.

"Roc is still beating on you?" she asked indignantly.

Newt didn't immediately answer. Ever since Newt had set fire to the Ravenclaw tower, Roc had been beating him up almost daily.

"Newt," Serra continued, "if you don't stand up to him, he's never going to stop beating you up. He's four times yours size."

"I set everything he owns on fire, Serra. He has good reason to be mad at me."

"That's ridiculous," Serra yelled. "His stuff burned while you were fighting dementors, while you were trying to save your life."

"Yeah, but nobody believes me," Newt said gloomily.

"I believe you," Serra said defensively. "And Luna believes you too."

"But she said it was impossible to kill a dementor," Newt objected.

Serra shrugged.

"She told me it wouldn't be the first time she had been proven wrong."

Newt pulled his sleeve back down over his arm and, because he couldn't think of anything else to say to Serra, began picking up the fallen luggage and stacking them in a neat pile.

To change the subject, he said, "Why do I have to share a room with a third year student anyway? Shouldn't the first year students be put together?"

"I think that's the way they do it in the other houses," Serra said; she had also begun picking up the fallen trunks and suitcases. "But in Ravenclaw they always put first-year students in rooms with older students. The older student is supposed to be a kind of mentor, somebody who helps the new student figure out how things are done at Hogwarts. It's supposed to encourage us to learn from one another; kind of like an apprenticeship."

Newt snorted derisively. The system obviously isn't working in my case, he thought.

"Haven't you finished reading Hogwarts: A History? It describes how the four houses of Hogwarts were founded and it lists the differences between them."

Newt had stopped reading his copy of Hogwarts: A History when he received his arithmancy textbook (which he had found to be immensely more interesting). Both books, however, were now gone; nothing remained of them but ashes. He had gotten through the remainder of the first half of the year by borrowing books from Serra and his professors. He would have to buy new books before returning for the second half of the year. He didn't want to think about how that would affect his mother, who didn't have much money.

"My roommate is a girl named Cho Chang," Serra continued. "She's in her third year, like Roc."

Newt, still lost in his thoughts, made a noncommittal grunting sound.

"She's nice, I guess. She seems a little flaky though. Her giggly little friends always come into our room and gossip while I'm trying to study."

Newt and Serra let their conversation trail off into silence. They quickly finished restacking the trunks that Newt had knocked over. The Hogwarts Express arrived soon thereafter; its brakes squealing and hissing as it pulled into Hogsmeade station. Flower, who apparently thought the Hogwarts Express was hissing at her, hissed back at the crimson train and shot a stream of fire towards it. Several students jumped out of the way as the jet of fire screamed past them.

Serra lifted Flower's cage off of the station floor and whispered reassuringly to the troublesome feline. Newt grabbed one end of Serra's trunk (which was fuller and much heavier than Newt's trunk) and she grabbed the other. The two of them boarded the train together, Newt and Serra carrying her trunk between them, Newt dragging his behind him. They found an empty compartment and sat down together; they sat in companionable silence as the Hogwarts Express raced back towards London.

Disclaimer: I own Roc Cudgel, Ophid Strange, Serra Athena, Newt Phaeton, and Newt's family. Game Boy is owned by Nintendo. All other characters and locations are owned by J. K. Rowling.