Alex Smith stood looking at signs. There was Platform 9, and there was Platform 10, and there was a boy pushing a trunk with an owl in a cage into a pillar. Ah. That would be how you did it then. He looked around and then pulled his own trunk—it had wheels—behind him as he walked straight into the same pillar and through. A scarlet red old-style train sat at the platform and people of all magical stripes stood around him. Damned trains, why couldn't they just set up Portkeys instead? Behind him, another boy walked through. The kid looked about his age, and with that black untidy hair, those glasses, and that "Yeah, yeah" expression on his face, the kid could be his cousin. So Alex walked over to the kid.
"Hi." The guy's voice came out cold. Alex recognized that particular tone. The kid was withdrawn. "Who are you? I don't know you."
"The name's Alex Smith. I'm a transfer student. American. Sixth year. You?"
"Harry Potter." He waited. Alex obviously disappointed him with his lack of open-mouthed gaping. Of course the American had heard of the "Boy-Who-Lived," but he didn't really care. "Nice to meet you. So we just get our stuff up on the train and find somewhere to sit?"
"Pretty much." He looked like he was going to say more, but a red-haired guy and a girl with bushy dirty blonde hair ran at him screaming his name, and by the time he'd disentangled himself from them Alex was gone.
Harry was a little shaken by the fact that this kid Smith didn't show any reaction to the name. Even the most controlled person he'd met had at least widened his eyes a little. It was refreshing, to say the least. He was about to add something when Ron and Hermione basically tackled him. He carefully disengaged himself, and by the time he'd managed that Smith had gone off toward the train.
"Who was that?" Hermione, of course, wanting to know everything. Ron piled on top of her question. "And why haven't you given us any real answers to our letters?"
Harry simply shrugged. "Told me his name was Alex Smith. Transfer student."
Ron pressed. "You didn't answer my question." The only answer he got was a shrug from Harry and a look from Hermione that told him clearer than words not to push any further. So he changed the subject. "Did he tell you anything else?"
"Not too much. He's American, and he's in our year. That's all he told me."
Hermione looked surprised. "Transfer students are incredibly rare, Harry. Especially outside of the European schools. The Americans don't go by O.W.L.s, so he'd have to have gotten some kind of special dispensation. The last time we had a transfer student from anywhere was twenty years ago, from Beauxbatons. Before you ask, it was in Hogwarts, a History." The three looked at each other, and then the whistle told them to get on the train.
Alex found an empty compartment and sat down. Comfortable. He might as well take a nap. Damn time difference. His internal clock was still somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, and he was tired. He'd almost gotten to sleep when two things happened at the same time that together dismissed any chance of him sleeping. First, the train started moving, and the rumbling on the tracks meant that it was going to be just as impossible to sleep on this thing as it was on a Muggle airplane. Secondly, a girl walked into the compartment.
She was beautiful, in the way that ice is beautiful. Perfect waist-length blonde hair, perfect face, impossibly perfect body, fair skin, and blue eyes, and a very icy expression. Coldly, haughtily, she said, "Good day. The other compartments are either full or have people I do not chose to sit with in them. Therefore I will sit here unless you mind."
Alex nodded. "Not at all." He said it politely, in perfectly mannered tones that he'd learned from his mother. He'd had to go to several formal receptions, and the child of a diplomat was supposed to be just as diplomatic as the parent. No coldness in the tone, no warmth, nothing but pure politeness. She got it. He could tell that. Her face might have been expressionless, but her body language told him a lot. She was somewhat wary, somewhat curious, and not at all interested. Inwardly, he sighed. Outwardly, he gave no sign. "Alex Smith."
"Blaise Zabini. Slytherin House."
"Transfer student. No House yet."
"You are American." It wasn't a question, so Alex didn't answer it. "What year will you be joining?"
"Sixth year." He saw her nod in answer to that.
"Well, welcome." She didn't sound like she meant it. Alex recognized the going through the politeness crap tone. He was struggling to think of something else to say when a trio burst in through the door. Two gorilla-like brutes followed the obvious leader, a blonde boy with a smirk on his face.
"Hey, Frost Lady, you want to come with us and warm up a bit?" The goons leered at those words.
"No, thank you, Draco. Why don't you go bother Potter, he's probably more open to your advances, and more to your tastes." Alex chuckled at the not-so-subtle insult that Zabini delivered without batting an eyelash.
"Something funny, transfer-boy? What happened, the Americans expel you? Oh, yeah, I know who you are, my father's on the Board of Governors. Washington Institute of Magical Studies. Sounds like a psychiatric ward to me."
Alex yawned and stood up, towering over the boy, although this kid Draco wasn't short. Alex wasn't very heavy, but he had height. Then he grinned evilly at the kid. "It was. You'd have fit in perfectly. Draco Malfoy, I presume? I've heard of you too. Your father's on the Board of Governors." Alex let out a little snort to show what he thought of that. "I'll see you around, Draco." He snorted again, then gave Malfoy a little shove and slid the door closed in his face. Holding it closed, he fiddled with the lock so it could only be opened from the inside, and then he sat down again. "Quite the little annoyance you have there."
Blaise merely nodded. "No arguing with that." She was still cold, but her coldness seemed a little less…overbearing, somehow.