Just before the train took off, the youngest of the redheaded boys from earlier stumbled in.
"Mind if I share with you? Most of the other compartments are full or have way too many girls in them."
Staros frowned slightly as a train this size could hardly be full, but noted to rather shoddy clothing and the oft repaired trunk the boy had and decided that he had probably been coldly pushed away by some of the better off students or was embarrassed looking at many of the better dressed students. Glancing at Harry's clothing, he noted a similarity in how the two were dressed if one assumed a low income. Taking into account that this boy was the youngest of at least three older boys, he likely had more hand-me-downs than clothes of his own and didn't want to be stuck in a compartment with people who would look down on him.
"Sure, have a seat," said Harry. "We were just talking about what we've seen so far of the wizarding world."
Staros stood and helped the boy put his trunk up on the hold shelves before sitting back down and saying, "Yeah, neither of us have seen anything like it before."
As the redhead sat down, he said, "You muggle born or something?"
"Muggle? Oh, right. That's you Brits' term for mundanes. No, I'm born in a magical family but I have never been to Britain until recently. We've been in exile for a while and I'm the first to come back and attend Hogwarts in three centuries."
"Cor, so long? What'd they exile you for?"
Laughing, Staros replied, "Don't really know. I was never too good at the lengthy family history. Annoyed my tutors to no end. Some argument one of our ancestors had with King George or something. Couldn't have been too bad. Exile is a pretty light punishment when you piss off a king."
The other two boys chuckled at that. Then Harry said, "My parents were both magical, but they were killed by Voldemort when I was a baby so my aunt and uncle raised me. I didn't even know I was a wizard until a few weeks ago."
Harry and Staros both noticed the flinch from the other boy when Harry said Voldemort and both shared the same confused look.
"Blimey! Don't say You-Know-Who's name like that! About gave me a heart attack!"
"Um, ok. Sorry about that. I didn't know you weren't supposed to say his name."
"No worries, mate. Anyways, I'm Ron Weasley. My whole family's magical, except for mum's second cousin. He's an accountant or something, no one talks much about him."
"Staros Marcus. Pleased to meet you, Ron."
"Harry Potter, nice to meet you, Ron."
"Cor, THE Harry Potter?"
Looking like he was going to be sick, Harry sighed and pulled his bangs back again.
"Blimey." Ron's ability to blunder into especially painful areas was fast becoming apparent as was Harry's lack of desire to be known as THE Harry Potter.
"So, I picked up a couple wizard newspapers a few days ago, and since you're our resident expert, Ron, could you tell us about a few things? Like what is this weirdly named game, quidpick? Quicksquid? Something like that?" said Staros in an attempt to break the sudden silence, especially since America had its own Quiddittch teams. Sitting between a fanboy and his dream was a little weird.
"Quidditch you mean? Just the most amazing game ever!" Apparently having picked the right subject, Staros and Harry sat back and listened to Ron go into very minute detail about the oddly named game. Players, positions, the balls, the pitch, moves; all were described with great enthusiasm and a lot of hand waving.
Conversation turned to other wizard subjects like Ron's older brothers, Bill and Charlie. Also touched on were the famous, or infamous depending on who you ask, Weasley twins, Fred and George and their array of pranks, descriptions of which had all three laughing like madmen and nearly on the floor at times. Staros talked about the weather in Britain and California and despaired to the other two about how he would never see the sun again, or be dry, or warm. His hysterics had the other two laughing some more and constantly assuring him that it was much, much worse than he feared. Harry told them about what happened when Hagrid came to pick him up. Everyone shared a good roll when he told them about Dudley's tail and Vernon's alternating red and white faces.
About this time, the lunch lady came by and asked if they wanted anything. Seeing Ron's hungry but despairing look, Harry's equally hungry but confused look, and wondering about British treats himself, Staros offered to buy everyone a bit of everything. Harry looked surprised but nodded, Ron looked just as surprised, but also jealous and hurt at the same time; the sign of a proud family that rejected charity, but at the same time, Ron WAS only eleven and all kids are a tad greedy.
"Don't worry about it, Ron. I have no idea what any of this is really and by the looks of it, Harry has never tried any of it either. We're going to have you tell us what is good and what to avoid here."
Ron looked warily at Staros for a moment before grinning and running through a list of things on the cart that were his favorites, as well as a number of things they should try just for the experience. After all was said and done, they had left very little of the trolley untouched. Staros paid the lady and thanked her before settling back to try out some of the oddities before him.
"These are chocolate frogs," began Ron's lesson on the British wizarding world's sweets and candies. Sugar quills, cockroach clusters, blood pops, Bertie's Every Flavor Beans, and many more were covered, tried, eaten, and discussed in great detail. The Beans were Staros' favorite item as he loved the calculated risk you took trying to guess the flavor based on smell, color, and consistency before eating one. There just wasn't anything like this back home. Laughs were had all around as some guesses were very far off. Harry got his first look at wizarding pictures with the collector's cards from the chocolate frogs and it was explained to him that wizarding photos captured a few seconds of time, sometimes even a few minutes of the actions and replayed them over and over. Wizarding paintings were explained as having a bit of the memory and personality of the person in them, really useful if you wanted to consult various historical personages, family ancestors, or whatnot about their lives and current opinions. The printed pictures were a little of both.
Discussion moved into spells and Staros showed off some of what he already knew, mostly little household charms useful for keeping one's room tidy. Harry admitted to having only just started into his books with no idea what half of it meant. Ron said he knew a couple spells, but wasn't very good at them, offering to show them one his brothers had shown him but he hadn't quite gotten the hang of. Harry welcomed the chance to see more magic while Staros offered to see if he could give any pointers on the spell to make it work better.
Ron pulled out his wand and then reached into another pocket and pulled out a sleeping rat. Explaining that it was his older brother Percy's pet rat, Scabbers, from when he started Hogwarts, but he didn't need it now that he had an owl his parents had bought him for making Prefect, he got himself ready to cast the awaited spell when the door suddenly slid open and a bushy haired, very energetic girl burst in.
"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville here has lost his," she said while indicating the shy, slightly pudgy boy with the worried look behind her.
"No. Can't say that we have," said Harry.
"Are you sure…" began Ron.
"That he brought him on the train, yes," the girl said slightly annoyed, obviously having been asked this question more than once. "Are you going to do some magic?" she asked, seeing Ron's wand in his hand. "I've read all of our course books and can't wait to be allowed to do some more myself. None of my family is magical so it's all so very exciting. Come on then, let's see it." All this came out as she plopped herself down next to Ron.
The boy, Neville, had quietly entered the compartment by this time and stood next to Staros. Staros nodded a greeting to the obviously very shy boy, gestured for him to sit down, which he did with a slight smile, and turned to Ron to see what would happen.
Ron sat there slightly stunned for a moment until the command trickled through. Then he squared his shoulders and began to cast the spell.
"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid fat rat yellow!" Ron said as he waved his wand in a circle over Scabbers. Nothing happened.
"Are you sure that's a real spell? Well, it's not very good is it? I've tried only some simple ones myself, just for practice, but they've all worked for me. Maybe you need to work on your wand movements or something? Oh, and I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, you are?"
Everyone was in awe as all of this spilled out so rapidly from the girl's mouth that she scarcely seemed to breathe. For a few seconds, silence reigned.
"Oh, sorry. I'm Staros Marcus." Staros said, half-bowing from his seat.
"Ron Weasley."
"Neville Longbottom."
"Harry Potter." This of course, set her off again.
"Are you really? I know all about you of course. I picked up a few extra books for background reading and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."
Harry just kind of stared into space, looking dejected and fearful all at once.
"Harry's been raised by mundanes, apparently ones who didn't inform him of his status in the magical world, Ms. Granger. He only just found out about magic around the same time you did," said Staros.
"Oh, I am sorry. If you want to see what they've written, I can loan you the copies I have anytime you want. Have any of you wondered what house you'll be in? I've asked around a bit and I'm hoping for Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best. Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw would be just as nice. Anyway, we better get back to finding Neville's toad. You three better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon. Oh, by the way, Occulus Reparo." Again, the girl amazed everyone with the amount of words she could squeeze into a single breath. By the time the other three had shaken it off, she and Neville had left and everyone realized that she had repaired Harry's glasses with a simple spell.
"Wow," said Staros. "Are all the girls in Britain that, um, energetic?"
Harry didn't know what to say, merely shrugging as he took his glasses off to look them over. They were good as new, maybe better.
Ron laughed, "No, only a few. Our neighbor, Luna is pretty quiet. Barmy, but quiet. My sister is a bit loud, but she takes after mum. Whatever house I end up in, I hope she's not in it though. I'd be around the bend inside a week." With a sigh, he looked back down at his rat. "Stupid spell. George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud."
"George is one of the twins from earlier, right?" asked Staros.
"What house are they in?" asked Harry, putting his specs back on.
"Yeah, that's them. They're in Gryffindor." Ron seemed to become a bit more depressed as he pocketed Scabbers. "Mum and dad were in it too. Dunno what they'd say if I didn't get in. Ravenclaw prolly wouldn't matter, but imagine if I was put in Slytherin." The last was said with a shudder.
"That's the house Vol-, sorry, I mean You-Know-Who was in?" said Harry.
"So what?" asked Staros. "One bad apple turns the whole barrel? Just because a nut case came out of that house doesn't make the rest of them a bunch of psychos."
Ron looked at Staros like he was an idiot and simply said, "Yeah, well all his toadies came out of Slytherin too. Every Dark Wizard we've ever had comes from there."
Harry noticed the tension and changed the subject, "What do your older brothers do now that they're out of school?"
"Charlie's in Romania studying dragons and Bill's in Africa working for Gringotts. Speaking of, did you hear there was a break in at Gringotts? It's been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don't suppose you'd get that with muggles. Wizard newspaper. Someone tried to rob a high security vault."
Staros cocked his head to the side. "Aren't the goblins a little, um, over reactive about break-ins and such? I remember the sign over the doors promising pretty nasty responses to being where you don't belong. What happened to the robbers?"
Ron shrugged. "Nothing. That's what's so big. They never caught whoever it was. My dad says only a really powerful Dark wizard could have pulled it off but according to the Prophet, nothing was taken which makes it doubly odd."
Further discussion was halted by the second sudden slamming open of the compartment door. In strode three boys, one pale and blonde, and the other two ham-fisted, dark haired and standing like bad imitations of hired muscle. The pale boy's clothing was from a finer cut than most anyone else they had seen, but appeared impractical for travelling north to Scotland. Staros had similar clothing in his trunks, but had chosen to wear something a bit warmer as he was still trying to get used to the colder clime.
"Is it true?" he asked. "They're saying that THE Harry Potter is in this compartment." The boy was looking at Staros as he said this, probably assuming that his better clothing made him the obvious choice. "You him? You should really watch the types of people you hang out with. You wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea about you. I can help with that."
Staros looked the boy up and down, and then glanced at his two fellows behind him. "Yes, I'm sure you think so. However, as I can see that you have obviously not been instructed in proper manners, I kindly ask for you to leave. Preferably now."
The boy looked a bit shocked that someone would talk down to him and made an obvious effort to stay calm. "Yes. Well, you probably don't know who I am. These are Crabbe and Goyle. I'm Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."
Ron gave a slight snigger at the boy's name, but before Draco could say anything to him, Staros stood up and said, quite coldly, "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Malfoy. I am Lord Staros Aniken Marcus of the House of Marcus. This here is Ronald Weasley of Clan Weasley and Harry Potter, scion of House Potter. Now that the introductions are concluded, could you please tell me why you felt it necessary to burst into a closed compartment without even the courtesy of knocking first? We were discussing some rather interesting things and would so love to return to our conversation."
At first, Draco had looked to be about to explode on Ron, but with the declaration of Staros' title and the rather long, formal introductions, he seemed to become lost as to what to do. Blinking a couple of times, he murmured something that could have been taken for an apology before leaving the compartment looking slightly dazed.
For a moment, everyone stood still and looked at each other. Then all three boys started to twitch at the mouth slightly. Twitches turned to half smiles, grins, and then to snickers and full belly laughs.
"Dear gods, that was fun!" declared Staros, wiping a tear from his eye.
"Are you really a Lord?" asked Ron who appeared to be trying to contain his ribs.
"Yeah, but I wouldn't worry about it much. Being Lord of three frozen rocks in the North Sea isn't exactly much to write home about. Old family lands and whatnot. I'm sure your family has a much nicer home, or at least more hospitable since no one been to ours in three hundred years."
Ron frowned for a moment, but seemed to accept this and didn't press any further.
"Did you see the look on his face when you asked him about knocking?" said Harry, sending all three back into fits of laughter.
Two additional interruptions of Staros and Harry's 'Intro to Wizardry by Ron Weasely' happened both being people who had decided to come and meet the one and only Harry Potter. The first was a rather polite Italian boy their age who introduced himself as Blaise Zabini. He said that he stopped by because Draco was making a big stink about Harry with the Slytherin prefects and he wanted to see this "upstart blood traitor's spawn" for himself. After seeing Harry, he shook his head and told the three that Harry looked about like any other kid on the train so he didn't see what all the fuss was about.
The other interruption was by a Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis both of whom merely wished to meet the new players on the field as it were. Harry looked very confused at this and Daphne's rather disappointed look after meeting him spoke volumes to Staros. As Staros was the one who had opened the door for her, he took this moment to lean in and whisper to her.
"I know, he's not much to look at is he?" said Staros quietly to Daphne. "Hard to believe he's the scion of House Potter. I do believe the boy truly has no idea of his status in magical Britain."
Daphne shot Staros a pointed look that promised a longer discussion at another time before saying her farewells and leaving the compartment. Tracey just smirked before waving goodbye and following her.
Sometime later, as the Hogwarts Express pulled into the station at Hogsmeade, the three boys had gotten dressed in their school robes, Ron eyeing the other two's newer clothes with barely concealed jealousy. Harry's were plainer, but obviously of decent cut, while Staros' robes were of obviously finer material. Not the best, as they later saw when they encountered Draco again whose robes were made of a light silk and cotton mix, but still better than average, with a fit that bespoke of several fittings rather than sizing charms. Ron's robes were obviously repaired more than once and resized a couple of times as well and the manner with which he put them on spoke volumes about his dislike and embarrassment.
Harry seemed oblivious to Ron's looks, but Staros saw them often enough to make him wonder if he should be searching his pockets to make sure everything was still there. What few treats the boys had not already eaten were divvied up, Staros giving Ron a somewhat larger share in an effort to assuage his jealous nature, holding on to only the Beans for himself, and packed into their trunks, which they were told to leave onboard to be sent to their rooms later. Staros frowned slightly at this and discretely tapped his wand against the crest on his trunk to activate the special locks. After checking each other over to make sure all was in order, they made their way out of the train and down with the other students.