The Hogwarts Express trailed out of King's Cross, gradually picking up speed.
There was an eager rhythm as the train moved, a vibrancy in pace and voice that could never be achieved by normal machinary. It was the first thing Natasha noticed when the door slid shut behind her. She stood still for a moment, collecting her thoughts.
"May I sit anywhere on the train?" she asked of Ron and Harry in front of her, "Or is there a separate compartment for teachers?"
"No, there isn't. Teachers don't usually take the train," Harry said. "I wouldn't sit down just anywhere, though, there are some people who won't…leave you alone, so to speak."
"You mean there are people that're downright annoying," Ron said flatly. "Like Malfoy. If not Malfoy, than Creevey. 'Oh, a new teacher! FLASH!' You'll be blinded."
Harry snorted, but seemed to struggle to remove the amusement from his expression. "Better Colin than Malfoy, Ron."
Oh, a new teacher? Flash? Natasha thought nervously. I hope he's talking about a camera.
But after a moment of deliberation she assumed this was just usual student banter, and didn't comment. She had decided to ask a minimal number of questions, and take any more strange happenings, as there seemed to be many concerning these Hogwarts people, in her stride.
Then again, walking through a wall into 'Platform 9 ¾' was enough strangeness for one day, she felt. Even though all this was making a lovely change from her usual day-to-day drone, whatever it was. Perhaps this really was some bizarre anarchist organization, disguised as a school.
"Alright," she said uncertainly, "I'll take any carriage recommendation you give me."
"Hermione will want to meet you," Harry said.
"Hermione?"
"Another friend of ours," Ron said, "All around know-it-all. But a nice one," he added quickly at Harry's look. "Plus, she's good around exam time…"
"Ron."
"Joke, mate." Grin fading, Ron suddenly gave his own cheek a light slap. "Hang on, I'm supposed to be…you know, in the Prefects' Carriage, and all that jazz…" His ears pinkened. "Of course, I wouldn't mind sitting with you if you wanted…I could pretend to be supervising the carriage, or something…"
Harry cracked a grin and waved him away. "Get out of here."
Ron squeezed past and hurried back down the corridor, leaving Natasha and Harry alone and slightly uncomfortable without Ron's keen conversational input.
"Hermione'll be with the prefects too," Harry said. "I guess we'll just have to find a compartment on our own. There are two that haven't been full so far…shall we take a gamble?"
Natasha nodded, her eyes fixed on a strange mark she'd noticed on his forehead. She could see it now through his tousled black fringe. A scar, shaped like a bolt of lightning.
Harry noticed her gaze and frowned. "Yes. Er…" He watched her expectantly, seemingly waiting for her to say something.
Things like scars and tattoos had always fascinated Natasha. She quickly stopped staring, not wanting to be seen as rude – but she knew he'd noticed her fixed eyes. "That must have been a nasty cut, to leave a scar like that…how'd you get it?" she asked innocently.
His eyebrows shot down and up again, expression flickering from surprise to confusion. "You don't…you didn't…" he shook his head and turned around again. "Sorry. Never mind."
He kept shaking his head as he led the way down the corridor once more.
What's the matter with him? Maybe it's something personal..maybe I shouldn't have asked. Natasha cursed mentally. Offending anyone around here was the last thing she wanted to do. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry…"
"No, it's all right," Harry said, stopping at a sliding door. He looked at her puzzledly one last time, almost as curious as she had been a moment ago – but with a slight smile. "In fact, it's sort of refreshing."
Refreshing? Curiouser and curiouser.
He slid open the door. The compartment had a few scattered occupants – two rather vacant-looking, hulking boys that glared at Harry on sight, a gaunt blonde girl with her nose buried in a magazine – 'The Quibbler' – and a tiny little boy who was fiddling around with an oversized camera.
The little boy looked up. "Oh! A new teacher!" He aimed the camera, and Natasha was almost blinded by the flash that followed.
"Come off it, Colin," Harry said sharply, and Colin immediately scooted over for them to sit down.
"I guess Ron might have done better in divination than he thought," he muttered, "even if he always said that it was a load of hogwash."
The girl opposite looked up from her book, fixing her bulbous eyes on them with an air of vacant calm. "Greetings, Harry. Back for another year, I see."
"Obviously," he said, but quietly. "Luna, this is…"
"The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. I know."
Natasha wanted to ask how she knew, as there was obviously no way for her to have guessed – since she was not, in fact, going to be teaching at all.
"My Aunt Sariane was thinking of applying for the position this year," Luna continued in her flat voice, "But my father needed her to accompany him on a trip to Yugoslavia to investigate the breeding grounds of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. They migrate there, you know. Obviously, the trip was more important."
"Obviously," Harry echoed again.
"You've said that word twice, Harry," Luna said dreamily. "You must understand that not everything is as obvious as you would have it seem."
Harry was leaning back by this time, watching her with a faintly elevated brow in the way someone would watch a boring show on the television – but at Luna's last comment he seemed to start a little. "No, it isn't," he agreed in a stronger tone, and Natasha could have sworn his eyes flickered towards her.
She quickly got a book out from her bag and opened it at a random page to avoid his searching gaze, immersing herself in reading one sentence over and over again, nodding as though it was the most fascinating thing in the world.