Chapter Two: All Aboard the Crazy Train

Harry had just gotten acquainted with Luna Lovegood's distinct brand of strangeness when he heard a furious argument erupt in the car next to them, albeit one weakened enough by distance that he couldn't make out any words. He would have preferred to just stay out of it and hope it subsided on its own, but then Colin and Dennis Creevey burst through their car door from the direction all the noise was coming from, looking quite distressed.

"There's a bunch of kids yelling really loud in there," Dennis said. "I don't understand anything they're saying, either."

Hermione put her hands to her mouth, probably imagining barbs and swear words far too colorful for young ears, before marching toward the door and beckoning to those behind her. "Ron, come on! These are the kinds of things prefects need to handle!"

Ron followed suit, Harry deciding to stick with him for now while Luna, Ginny and Neville stayed behind. One train car later, they'd found the source of the problem.

Harry didn't recognize any of this car's passengers, although all of them stood out. Only one of them had an outfit that seemed to fit; a shorter girl with eyes of an uncomfortable shade of red. She at least had the robes and hat down, even if the massive staff she carried killed the image a bit. Meanwhile, none of the other three wore anything even remotely close to the norm at Hogwarts: both of the other girls wore dresses (the taller one would have been dress coded at just about any regular school) while the boy had what looked like a green tracksuit on. All of them were currently getting into it with each other over… something. Now he understood what Dennis meant when he said he didn't understand them, everything they said just sounded like gibberish.

That didn't stop Hermione from intervening, though. "Excuse me!"

While Harry didn't know if any of them understood English yet, they could at least pick up on her tone of voice. Their argument stopped almost instantly.

"I'm not sure what's going on with you four, but you need to keep it down," Hermione said. "It's not just you on the train."

All they got in response was more gibberish. They were trying to communicate something, all right, but nothing about it was comprehensible.

Hermione seemed equally stumped. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand anything you're saying. Do any of you know English? Or Spanish, I know some of that too."

The kids she addressed huddled together like they were trying to conserve body heat, whispering to each other. After about thirty seconds or so of this, they broke apart, and one of them, a girl about Ron's height with electric-blue hair and matching eyes, started speaking in identifiable words. "I'm sorry. I understand English, I'm just not used to speaking it."

"I've never seen you guys before," Ron said. "Where are you from? Are you transfer students?"

The girl's expression grew pinched. "That's not important. Let's just say that trust me, you wouldn't understand."

It didn't come even close to answering the question, but it turned the atmosphere just awkward enough that trying to continue that line of conversation became an uphill battle at best. Ron said nothing more on that subject, and the topic switched to simple introductions. While the blond girl caused some confusion when her preferred name was revealed to be Darkness (which set him on edge, although he didn't think Voldemort would be anywhere near that obvious if he sent a spy to Hogwarts) everyone else went rather smoothly, although with only Aqua capable of speaking, it took far longer than it should have.

Then it came time to discuss the upcoming school year, Hermione taking the lead there. "Have you heard anything about the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?"

All she got in response was Aqua shaking her head.

Hermione changed the subject. "What year are you guys going into?"

Aqua shrugged. "We're just starting here, so first year, I guess?"

Harry decided to say something, just because none of them looked eleven and he had experience with how persistent the Hogwarts faculty could be to make sure their students started on time. "Why didn't you get your Hogwarts letter until now?"

"We got found out late," Aqua said. "We've learned quite a few things on our own, enough to defeat a demon king back home, but this is our first crack at a formal education in magic."

While Harry's opinion of the four of them took a sharp dive for saying something that ridiculous on multiple levels and Hermione paused while trying to parse everything Aqua had just said, Ron was the only one among them who could be counted on to ask the simple question that resulted. "What's a demon king?"

"Turns out it was just some guy," Aqua responded. "Learning that was really weird, by the way. So much insanity and destruction and all it took was one guy with some high-level magic."

At this point, Harry began realizing these kids had to be making stuff up. While he had no context on what the term meant, for all intents and purposes a demon king just sounded like an analog for a Dark Lord in their homeland, wherever that was. Even in a four-against-one battle, the four of them even being a credible threat to someone like Voldemort or even one of his Death Eaters without any actual training made little sense to him. Even with Ron and Hermione by his side, he knew if the three of them faced Voldemort head-on, they'd lose. Badly.

With the unease in the room going through the roof and with none of them appearing to have any reasonable means of continuing the conversation, Hermione took initiative, deciding to somewhat haphazardly revisit the reason the three of them were here in the first place. "So, are you going to keep your arguments a little quieter from now on?"

All four of them nodded.

"Good. Hopefully you four have a great first year at Hogwarts," Hermione said. She and Ron left the car at almost the same time, leaving Harry with no realistic choice other than to follow. Starting a conversation with Luna may have been awkward, but it beat the nonsense those four were packing.

After Harry, Ron, and Hermione left their car, Kazuma began to consider what he needed to do to prepare himself for what was coming. He had passing knowledge of Harry Potter as a thing because it'd been everywhere for a while even in Japan, but it'd never been his kind of entertainment, so all the finer details were lost on him. Other than the faintest grasp of the overarching plot, he may as well have been going in blind. Megumin and Darkness wouldn't know anything for obvious reasons, and while Aqua might have more knowledge than he did about the subject matter, he also knew better than to rely on it given her track record. However, his lack of any means of communicating with people outside of the three standing with him now made deciding his first course of action rather simple.

"Aqua, can you force-feed me English? I think the other two would appreciate it as well."

"No problem," Aqua said. "Just be aware that…"

Kazuma groaned. "Yes, I know I might go poof. Just do it already!"

Aqua grabbed his head and the vaguely-familiar sensation of his skull filling to capacity hit him like a bowling ball to the face. He panicked for a second, thinking that maybe Aqua had overdone it and left him a drooling vegetable, but then it disappeared and Kazuma still had all his mental faculties. Watching as Aqua did the same for Megumin and Darkness, he then had to figure out what in the hell his plan was while the three girls started practicing holding conversations in English.

Kazuma understood the butterfly effect. The four of them existing was going to throw off the original plot at least a little whether he wanted it to or not. While they had some control over how much of that occurred, none of them controlled the actions of the other characters so things could still derail in a hurry. And in a school setting, he'd be forced to interact with other people on the regular, further increasing the risk of kicking a hornet's nest in the process. With so many variables to handle and potential plot threads to get involved in, the four of them would have to be extra careful to even have a chance of making it out of this one without something going horribly wrong.

"Uh, Kazuma? You're drooling…"

"Gah!" Kazuma's hand went to his face as he frantically scrubbed all evidence of that away, hoping against hope that Aqua hadn't seen that. Unfortunately, judging by all the giggling coming from her, she had. Hopefully he'd be able to avoid her for a while after this, otherwise he'd get to hear jokes about that until the end of time.

With that embarrassment sort of taken care of, now he returned to his plan. Or rather his lack thereof, other than to be left alone to regain his ability to use magic in peace. Aqua said this universe had magic that was relatively easy to learn, but difficulty for her was a sliding scale. She might be able to pick everything up in an instant, but aspects of or even the entirety of the magic system might remain inaccessible for him, Megumin, and Darkness.

As he transitioned from one thought to the next, Megumin's crimson stare caught Kazuma in its gaze. "You were clearly thinking hard about something, what about?"

"Planning." Simple enough. Kazuma thought it got the point across.

Aqua interjected, her voice still tinged with a bit of giddiness from Kazuma's earlier display. "Do you have one?"

"How about we try and keep a low profile from now on," Kazuma said, trying his hardest to adjust to speaking English. "I'd like to get roped into as little main-character shit as possible for a while."

"No main character shit, got it," Aqua said. "So, what's the plan for that?"

Kazuma sighed. "I'm not sure how that'll work out in the long run, but I think just staying quiet and staying put is a good start."

Thankfully, Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness all followed that advice, the three of them taking seats next to each other, Kazuma moving to the row in front of them.

That set the theme for the rest of the journey to Hogwarts. Apart from a visit by some kind of snack cart, from which Aqua bought a couple of weird chocolates that the four of them needed to chase around the room before they could eat (and which he refused to consume anyway, because he'd known exactly where those frogs had been and it wasn't anywhere appealing), the remainder of the train ride passed without much of note happening. While a few other kids ultimately made their way into the train car out of lack of places to sit and/or curiosity, one look from Kazuma and all of them knew better than to engage.

Professor Grubbly-Plank had a lot on her mind as the Hogwarts Express arrived at the station. While according to what she'd heard from some of her colleagues, the professor she'd be standing in for didn't have the most stellar reputation in that regard, he still stood as a fixture of Hogwarts. That left her with quite the void to fill, and while she remained unsure she'd be quite the replacement, nothing stopped her from trying her very best.

Currently, her duties had little to do with teaching, merely focusing on getting all the new arrivals into Hogwarts without causing any trouble. This led to a little bit of strain on her voice caused by calling as loudly as possible for all the first years to come to her, but that could be fixed without much difficulty. This going well was more important than her voice's integrity.

Everything went according to plan, until she saw a group of students joining those assigned to her that most certainly didn't look like first years. The youngest one of them could at least pass despite the noticeable height difference from most of her peers, but the other three, no way.

She flagged one of them down as subtly as she could, then started addressing them with perfunctory ease. "I know you may want to experience the boat ride again, but it's for first years only. Could you four please find your way to the carriages?"

The lone boy in the group took the lead there. "We are first years, miss. Or at the very least this is our first year here, I'm not sure where we're getting placed."

While that seemed like a ludicrous lie, stranger things had happened at Hogwarts. While she hadn't heard any tales of students being accepted to Hogwarts late, perhaps instances had occurred in the past that she was unaware of. That didn't explain why one of them had to be at least eighteen, though, so she remained unconvinced.

Therefore, she took another stab at getting them to tell the truth. "Can you at least tell me what House you're in, so I can get someone to help you?"

"I'm sorry, miss," the tallest member said. "I have no idea what that means."

The other three just shook their heads in succession when she looked at them. At that point, Professor Grubbly-Plank conceded that either they were telling the truth (as strange as it was) or were better liars than she had time to handle at the moment. It wouldn't do to arrive at Hogwarts late. Thus, she just dropped the issue and returned to her primary duty, beginning to direct the first years (and whoever the new arrivals were) to the boats.

"Let's go, everyone, let's go," she said. "Four to a boat, it doesn't matter who you're with!"

As she expected, once they reached the end of the path to the lake, most of the students just piled into the boats with whoever was nearest. This included the four suspect first years, who all clambered into the same boat, the boy sitting in the front and the tallest girl taking the rear. Once three scans of the surrounding area proved that she hadn't missed anyone, she climbed into a boat of her own.

On her cue, all of the boats began gliding across the lake. A handful of the students fell backward from the sudden movement, but most of them took it quite well, all things considered. At the very least, everyone stayed out of the lake; apparently, at least one student accidentally falling into it during transport wasn't an uncommon occurrence.

Before long, Hogwarts dominated everyone's line of sight, causing the vast majority of students to ooh and ahh, and Professor Grubbly-Plank to smile. Even after all this time, the sight of Hogwarts looming in the distance remained just as breathtaking as she'd remembered it.

Dumbledore was helping put the finishing touches on the Great Hall before the students arrived when he noticed Professor McGonagall rushing toward him with a piece of parchment in her hands. What drew Dumbledore's attention for real was the uncharacteristic expression she wore, sitting somewhere between unease and panic.

"There are four new names amongst the first years that were added since the last time I checked," McGonagall said. "I don't remember us sending acceptance letters to any of them, and none of them have last names that match any other students. Could you please look at this for me?

Of course, Dumbledore was happy to oblige her there. Scanning the parchment as McGonagall pointed out the rogue names, he determined if he'd seen or even heard of any of them before.

He had not. "I must admit I've never seen those names before, either."

"Do you believe this is some sort of trick?"

"Perhaps," Dumbledore replied. "After the Sorting is complete, I should meet them in person to be safe. If this is a trick, I might as well unravel it now, and if it's not and they're simply new to Hogwarts, it's my duty to help them integrate as painlessly as is feasible."

McGonagall nodded. "Would you like me to send some of the other professors for backup just in case things go wrong?"

"Don't worry about it," Dumbledore said. "For now, just help Professor Grubbly-Plank escort the students here to be Sorted."

McGonagall heeded his advice, swiftly vacating the hall to meet Professor Grubbly-Plank at Hogwarts' entrance. With no one else requiring his assistance at the moment, he sank into thought.

While he wouldn't put it past Voldemort to try and gain intelligence against him by sending a spy to infiltrate Hogwarts, he also believed he was smart enough to send students with names simple enough to not draw suspicion. Considering two of the four odd students out apparently had no last names and one of them had a name befitting someone from a traditionalist pureblood household without any pureblood ties whatsoever, that wasn't the case. This could be an obvious trick, or nothing malicious at all.

Either way, this could certainly make for an interesting year. If his first meeting with these new students didn't prove to be his last, he'd just have to keep an eye on things in the long run.

I'm in Kazuma's boat here: their mere presence in this universe is bound to cause significant ripples whether they want that or not, and trust me, they're going to do a whole lot more than just exist here. The canon plot of OoTP is probably going to go out the window in a hurry at this rate (although this isn't out of distaste for OoTP: in my opinion, it's flawed but still a very enjoyable read).

Everyone's getting Sorted next chapter, which should definitely be interesting. Past that, I'm not sure what'll make the cut and what will get shunted to a later chapter, but I've got some ideas. However, my update rate will likely slow down as chapters get longer and/or college gets in full swing.

Thanks to Shaedy Hoe and 8-bit pirate for the last chapter's reviews, as well as everyone who favorited, followed, and continued to read this story! I hope to see you all again next chapter.