She sat in an empty Hogwarts Express compartment with an old book in one hand and a shiny red apple in the other. She'd purposefully traveled to Hogwarts on the day after the first day of term, having begged her grandfather to make an exception for her. Alena was sure that some people at Hogwarts would be less than excited to have a relative of the headmaster as a classmate and wondered just how welcoming everyone would be. It was a much better idea to slip into the castle discreetly—perhaps no one would even notice her arrival this way.

She was reading The Alchemist for the—fourth time? She'd lost count, but it was one of her favorites, especially for occupying her mind during train rides transporting her toward her preordained fate. Unfortunately, she couldn't quite concentrate on this particular ride, as there was an unanticipated feeling in her gut.

The Lovegood girls had been secretly teaching themselves a bit of an obscure branch of magic known as accumency—obscure in the sense that it was rarely known and Alena's grandfather hadn't made it a point to teach it to her. This magic was similar to divination, but without the prophecies and foretelling; and there was no palm, tarot card, or tea leaf reading of any sort. Alena had no interest in foreseeing the future or dabbling into the past. She just wanted to be able to perceive energy from objects and individuals—to have a better understanding of that which surrounded her.

She was born with a natural gift for legilimency, but she felt early on that entering someone's mind was altogether too much of an invasion. It made her feel—icky. Rather than trespassing into people's minds, she preferred to feel and interpret the energies they put out into the world instead. There was no extracting of memories or thoughts; there was only a mere interpreting of a person's stratus, nimbus, aura—whatever it was that they radiated. It was the more ethical alternative to legilimency, she believed, and as soon as she learned how to control her abilities as a legilimens, she had stopped using that field of magic altogether.

Like divination, accumency was seen as a hazy and undefined science—which made absolutely no sense to the Lovegood girls. To their knowledge, there was no occlumency equivalent of it, which meant that people couldn't hide or manipulate their true energies and intentions.

Regardless, the girls considered it as more of an abstract art than a precise science, anyway.

Alena had been practicing non-verbal and wandless accumency on her own for some time—but she had not yet completely mastered it this way. She always had to actively and willingly try to use accumency; at least that's what she had experienced so far.

It was different on the train.

It was unpremeditated.

It just pervade her without permission or warning.

The receptive witch could sense a fiery conflict in the air around her. She focused on the opalescent water droplets sliding along the surface of her window. Luna always reminded her to fix her eyes onto the nearest natural element when trying to read energies. Her first suspicion was that something she'd brought along with her had been tampered with—perhaps someone had hexed one of her personal belongings. She examined her bag carefully. After a while, she realized it wasn't an object she was feeling, but a person. There was strong contempt being directed at her, but also—there was a tinge of admiration. Aversion and inclination... all at the same time. Perhaps there were two people?

Homenum Revelio.

She cast a human-presence-revealing spell using only her mind, courtesy of her grandfather's intense teaching methods.

The spell alerted her of the presence of one other person somewhere within the same car as her, not in her direct view. Although the person's energy was causing her a certain discomfort, she didn't feel any sort of danger, so she decided to brush it off for the rest of the ride. Whoever this person was would be revealed to her at some point or another.

XX

Finally, the train came to a halt. Alena sighed and sat for a minute before she gathered her things slowly and made her way to the empty Thestral-drawn carriage. She, of course, greeted the majestic Thestral with a gentle caress before settling inside, ready to continue her strange journey to the castle. The Thestral didn't move.

"Hmm, you feel it too, don't you?" She sighed and waited, looking around at her gloomy surroundings. "It's alright, friend."

It wasn't long before a tall and slim silhouette emerged from the train, approaching the carriage in the most unmotivated manner. It was a boy in an all-black suit, piercing ice-grey eyes, and snowy blonde hair, like hers. He stepped onto the carriage without saying a word. Alena took in a big gulp of air as soon as he was within close approximation. Evidently, it had been his disheveled energy she'd been perceiving. His eyes met hers, but he quickly shifted them away, almost in a panic.

"Hey," she said through a small, awkward smile. Not a single muscle in his face moved. Alena pointed her eyebrow, slightly irritated.

Brilliant. A Slytherin snob.

He sat neither next to her nor in front of her, which was the next curious thing he did.

The rest of the ride was half torture, half hilarity for Alena. She admittedly hated lots of things, but near the top of her list was awkward situations. The slightly amused witch was starting to think he may be a ghost or mere figure of a man. He had a dreadful scowl on his face the entire time, which caused her to wonder if he knew who she was or if he was just incredibly disgusted by her. Ultimately, she decided to be utterly unaffected by it and convinced herself that his unkind expression had nothing to do with her.

As distant as he was attempting to be, Alena caught him a few times trying to catch a glimpse of her from the corner of his eye. She had to admit, she had been well entertained by this displeased phantom fighting his curiosity of her. She fought against the urge to ask what caused him to have such oppugnant feelings about her without even knowing her, but she figured he probably had no idea either.

The carriage arrived at the gate, where a single mint-colored suitcase was already waiting for her. Next to it were a series of trunks with the initials D.M. elegantly monogrammed at the bottom. She stood to step off the carriage, and as she nearly reached the exit, the phantom boy shot up and left the carriage before her. She froze for a minute, a bit shocked at his sudden movement. He walked a few tentative steps as if he were going, then backpedaled as if he changed his mind. He finally settled on standing at the edge of the carriage door and reached out for none other than the hand of the girl he had ignored the whole ride.

She looked at him, puzzled, but allowed him to help her off the carriage. His hand was delicate and nervous.

"Thank you," she said. He looked at her for a half-split second, his face finally relaxed and sans-scowl. He didn't look pleased, but at least he didn't look utterly repulsed. The energy he emitted was still very much—hot garbage.

As he strode off, she saw him make the hand that touched her into a tight fist and then release it to extend his fingers—almost as if touching her had burned or left a lasting effect on him. She looked at him with suspicious eyes.

What a drama queen.

"That's Draco Malfoy," a soft voice said from the steps of the castle, interrupting Alena's fixed gaze.

In less than an instant, her face erupted with a radiant grin, and she could almost feel the happy chemicals splashing around in her brain.

"Luna!" she paced forward and wrapped her arms around her cousin's small frame. "How sweet of you to come and greet me, love bug."

"Oh, of course. Just like I said I would, remember? I've been waiting all day for you, Harlie," replied Luna.

"The Lovegoods girls are back," Alena couldn't contain the happiness of being reunited with her twin flame.

"Indeed, we are," replied Luna, grinning. They walked toward the castle, elbows interlocked.

XX