The train loomed before her, engine painted a familiar cherry red, and Harriet sucked in a sharp, deep breath as she stared at the Hogwarts Express in front of her. It looked the exact same as the many times before that she had climbed aboard, only this time she was floundering around in the past with a simple goal to keep her head down and out of trouble.
"Missstresss," Argentum hissed, a familiar, almost comforting weight on her shoulders by that point, and she took another breath, ignoring the side-eye Shacklebolt was giving her before making her way towards the train.
"Not now, Argen," she murmured, her voice as quiet as humanly possible. The goal was anonymity and somehow Harriet doubted she'd get that what with being the only parselmouth since Tom Riddle to walk through the Hogwarts Halls.
"Stay safe and out of trouble, Evans," Shacklebolt called softly behind her.
Harriet nodded at that, turning briefly to acknowledge the man and his words before she ventured aboard the train with abject apprehension. She was in unknown territory with the bare bones of a plan which involved nothing more than to stay down and keep out of trouble, much like Shacklebolt had asked of her.
She wondered, briefly, is the Slytherin House would allow that of her, before deciding that yes – yes, they would. Slytherins were sneaky, and that was what she would have to be. There would be no more charging headfirst into things like a Gryffindor. She was a stealthy, sneaky Slytherin now, no matter how much Ron would probably would lament about it in the future. If she ever got to see him again, that was. "No more thinking on that, Harriet," she muttered, grateful for the fact that she had been hustled off to the platform at a ridiculously early hour. There were less people about to hear her muttering to herself and subsequently think her strange or out of the ordinary.
Her footsteps seemed to echo amidst the silence, and she found the nearest available compartment and swiftly unloaded her things. The – perhaps in hindsight – slightly ostentatious trunk which had earned some raised eyebrows from Shacklebolt went on the rack above her head, and her magically expanded bag bought on another whim went on the seat to her left as she settled in by the window. Curious, she peered out onto the empty station, a shiver creeping down her spine at just how quiet it seemed. She was used to a bustling station and the stares of everyone around her. The lack of both of them was welcoming and yet eerie.
Harriet bit her lip, grunting as Argentum made himself at home and Alekhine hooted in the cage which she promptly let her owl out of – where her dear feathered friend immediately found a perch next to her trunk above her seat. "Be careful up there, Alekhine," she murmured, watching as her owl promptly hid her face in her feathers and went to sleep.
"Feathery-sssoft-huntresss will be fine," Argentum informed her, and Harriet only rolled her eyes at that name.
"Alekhine would not appreciate being called soft," she murmured, snorting as she thought of the bloodbath which would ensue. Alekhine was vicious when she wanted to be – like when she took her talons to the creep who had tried to follow her down Horizont. A smile crept onto her lips at the memory, and dimly, Harriet wondered when things like that had become funny to her. Time travel could warp anyone's mind, or so it seemed to her.
"Ssshe hass no ssscaless," Argentum argued, curling up in her lap as she took her eyes off her silvery snake and focused on procuring some reading material for the long journey ahead. "Ssscaless are the bessst and only defence one needsss."
"I have my wand which is the best and only defence I need," Harriet muttered, ignoring Argentum's huff as he settled down and made himself invisible once more. Rolling her eyes once more at the snooty snake she had found herself stuck with, she delved into her bag, pulling out a text on Ancient Runes – Elder Futhark, to be precise. It was one of many different runic languages which she would be studying that year, and something which might be able to get her home if Plan A decided to work nice and smoothly.
All too soon though, she heard the sounds of more people arriving, and her heart sank at that. She glanced down at her robes, noting the lack of any house crest and bemoaning about how that would only make her stand out all the more to anybody who decided to join her compartment. She was going in for third year, and all of her other supposed yearmates would have already been sorted and already formed their cliques and groups.
There would be no golden trio. No silver trio, she should say, for her that time around.
A soft sigh escaped her, and she valiantly stuck her nose in her book and prayed nobody would decide to join her there in her lovely, quiet compartment towards the back of the train. Naturally, of course, that didn't happen.
There came a soft knock at the door, and then the wood and glass door slid open, and two purplish grey eyes peered around the compartment before locking upon her. Brown hair fell dead straight around her face, nose twitching as she almost seemed to sniff the air, and Harriet had the misfortune of catching her gaze with her own. She almost looked familiar in some ways, but she couldn't place the resemblance. "Oh, hello," the girl spoke, a sly smile coming to curve at her lips, and Harriet caught sight of the Slytherin crest on those robes. A fellow housemate, and a fellow classmate, if she was any good at judging ages. "Mind if we join you?" she asked, but Harriet knew it was anything but a request. There was something in that gaze; a hunger which she couldn't just work out. It unnerved her all the same, and Harriet shrugged at that.
"The more, the merrier, I guess," Harriet mumbled, blinking as the girl plonked herself on the seat opposite, her blonde friend following her in a bit more sheepishly.
"Sorry about her," the blonde said, hefting two new trunks in and up onto the rack above. "She likes to intrude on other people's spaces."
The brunette huffed, rolling her eyes. "It's hardly her space – this is the Hogwarts Express, in case you forget," she said matter-of-factly. "Besides, how could I resist coming in when there's someone so very interesting tucked away in here…" Purplish grey eyes rested upon her, a chin resting on her hand as she leant forwards.
"Interesting?" Harriet echoed, a frission of nervousness creeping down her spine because she was supposed to be boring – the complete opposite of interesting.
"Well you're definitely a third year, unless there's something wrong with my nose," the brunette said, and she frowned in response because how did smell come into it? What did she smell of? Teenaged youth? "However I don't recognise you in the slightest, and I've made a note of all of those in our year group." Her nose twitched, face pulling into a sneer. "Even those brash-headed Gryffindors who think they are the cream of the crop."
"And?" She raised an eyebrow, fighting the urge to fidget pointlessly on her seat given how she'd once been one of those Gryffindors. Probably.
"Who might you be?" she asked, and her blonde friend only sighed.
"I am Florence Greengrass, and my overbearing friend here is Avarice Lestrange. A pleasure to meet you…" the blonde – Florence – trailed off, looking at her pointedly, and Harriet took it like the cue it was.
"Harriet Evans," she said, not holding her breath as she stared at the two purebloods in front of her and waited for them to sneer at her or exit the compartment, not wanting to be tainted by her so-called impure blood.
Florence looked at her, green eyes glancing between her and the trunk above her head. "Halfblood, I would presume," she said.
Harriet stared at her, confused. "Yes," she stated, reminding herself that these people were not Malfoy and his cronies. Though they were probably close enough.
"Well, it's unlikely that a newblood would be able to get their hands on a Jacorice Trunk. They only usually sell them to purebloods, and the occasional halfblood if they appear wealthy enough – and we all know that muggle fashion is a ways away from our own," Florence said by way of explanation. "So, halfblood you likely were, and I was correct in my conclusion." The blonde folded her arms, tossed her hair back, and smirked, even as Harriet frantically tried to mull over that information.
"You keep up with… muggle fashion?" she mumbled, blinking at the odd influx of strange information.
"Well we are part of the progressive fact—ow!" Florence hissed, rubbing at her side where Avarice Lestrange had just elbowed her harshly. "Honestly, Ava, if you've sat with her then clearly she's going to be a Ravenclaw or a Slytherin so she'll find out about the factions and our allegiances sooner rather than later."
Harriet frowned, despite the fact she was all but certain that she was going into Slytherin. "I could be a future Gryffindor or Hufflepuff for all you know," she grumbled, vainly trying to go back to reading her book.
Avarice snorted. "Please. You'd rip out throats in Gryffindor, and you're far too vicious for Hufflepuff," she said, and Harriet rankled at the blasé declaration. She had been a Gryffindor once before.
"Vicious?" she echoed, frowning for what felt like the thousandth time that day, even as the sound of the train beginning to move reached them.
Avarice sighed, staring at her then before her gaze flickered up to the rack above her head. "Owls are oftentimes a reflection of their master, unless they're a family owl, and yours has been eyeing me up like I'm prey from the minute I walked in," she stated, a large grin appearing on her face. "Hence – vicious, although perhaps only under certain circumstances which I hope you'll show me, darling…"
Harriet blinked, thoroughly under the impression that Alekhine had been asleep the entire time. "Darling?" she mouthed, thoroughly weirded out by the appearance of the two, their apparent calmness about her being a halfblood, the knowledge they apparently had about muggle fashion, and the fact she was being called pet names by a strange Lestrange of all people to get called names by.
"You'll get used to it," Florence informed her, like she would be hanging around with them a lot from then on, and Harriet felt an odd shiver down her spine.
It almost felt foreboding.