train ride p2
Percy flops down in his seat casually, his brow furrowed in thought.
“What’s a muggler?” He asks. The black-haired boy(or very-terrifying boy, as Hermione had started calling him in her head) shrugs.
Could they really not know what muggles are? Hermione meets the eyes of her friends, and Harry shakes his head in suspicion.
"They're... non-wizards." Hermione says, cautiously watching the expressions on their faces. "You don't call them that?"
Percy and his friend(maybe? Or just very scary acquaintances? Hermione isn’t really sure) meet each other’s eyes puzzledly.
"Not really," Percy finally says, eyeing them weirdly. "But your name for them is cool, I guess."
The other boy rolls his eyes, flopping down to sit beside Percy. Percy gives him a chiding look.
“Nico! What did we say? You have to introduce yourself,” Percy chastises, glancing very unsubtly at Hermione and her friends. The other boy — Nico — groans and covers his face with his hand, but Percy just gives him a disapproving look that reminds Hermione way too much of her mother.
For a moment, she struggles with putting both of these Percy’s together: the one who’d scared the life out of Draco Malfoy, and the one who was currently berating his friend for his social skills, or lack thereof.
Finally, Nico turns awkwardly to their group, sighing in resignation.
“Hi. My name is Nico di Angelo.” He says monotonously, before glaring at them in a silent dare to say anything remotely rude back. Percy, however, seems to be pleased with his introduction, because he ruffles Nico’s hair appreciatively.
Nico accepts the hair-ruffling with all of the grace of a surly teenager, before sullenly grabbing one of the sweets from Percy’s pile.
“Hey! Those are mine!” Percy complains, as Nico takes a big bite out of a chocolate frog.
Nico rolls his eyes. “It’s one piece of candy. Out of your very large pile. You’ll live.”
Percy huffs, dragging his candy pile protectively towards himself. “Stay away from my candy, thief.”
Nico gives him an affronted look. “I’m the thief? Please. You’ve been accused of stealing at least twice.”
“Yeah, dumbass, the key word being ‘accused.’ I was innocent.”
Nico snorts. “Innocent might be going too far.”
Percy, apparently out of retorts, resorts to throwing a jelly bean at him in retaliation, but Nico smoothly catches it and pops it into his mouth.
“Oh, thanks.”
His expression quickly changes from satisfaction to disgust as the flavor reveals itself, and Percy grins victoriously.
“What does that one taste like? Karma?” He says gloatingly, as Nico spits out the remains of the candy.
“I don’t like you,” he mutters.
“But I’m giving you candy! What’s not to like? Come on, have another…” Percy shoves the remaining box of jelly beans in his friend’s face.
Nico edges away from the proffered sweet like it has rabies. “I’m going to hit you.” He says warningly.
“No you won’t.”
“Yes, I will.”
“Mmmm, I don’t think so.”
“I’m pretty sure I will, actually.”
“You’d never hit- Ow! What was that for?”
“Oops, my hand slipped. Pass me one of those chocolates, will you?”
Percy hesitates, but a warning glower from his friend hurries him along and he grabs a Chocolate Frog from his pile and tosses it to Nico defeatedly.
“So, why’d you come here anyways?” Percy asks interestedly, after Nico finishes his Chocolate Frog. “I mean, other than for the fact that I’m awesome to be around.”
Nico’s lips twitch for a moment, like he’s about to smile, and he leans back in his chair contentedly.
"The guy in my compartment's an asshole," he says.
"Oh? Whatsh hish name?" Percy asks, mumbling through a mouthful of a pumpkin pastie. Nico must be used to his friend’s eating-and-talking habits, because all he does is send him a mildly disgusted look before continuing.
"Blaise Zabini." Nico states, before smirking at Percy's raised eyebrow. "Real great guy, other than every time he opens his mouth."
Hermione dimly remembers Blaise, a Slytherin in their year who was friends with Draco. He was nice, if you were pureblood, Slytherin and just as cruel as he was.
"Seems like a great guy," Percy comments amusedly.
Nico glares at the floor like it's personally responsible for all of his problems. "By the time he was done talking, I wanted to jump off the fucking train."
Hermione's eyebrows shoot up, but Percy seems about as unsurprised by this as anything else his friend has said and just laughs.
"Hey, did you hear about the Houses here?" Percy asks.
Nico nods. "Yeah, there’s four, right? That's why people have different colored cloaks." For a moment, Nico turns to Percy, a rare amount of interest on his face. "Is there any one in particular you want to get into?"
Percy looks thoughtful for a moment. "I'd like the one with the blue cloaks." He says, gesturing to Luna's cloak. "Blue's a great color."
Hermione bites back the rising words in her throat, about how Houses are supposed to be about traits and personal values and not about your favorite color.
Nico just looks amused, but apparently he's on a similar wavelength to Hermione because he comments, "I think you're supposed to want to be part of a particular house for more than just the color of their cloaks."
Percy shrugs, unrepentant, before turning to Hermione and the others sharply. Hermione is barely able to stop the surprised squeak that exits her mouth from the intimidating sea-green eyes that land on her.
"Which house is the blue one?" He asks, gesturing to Luna's cloak.
"Ravenclaw." Luna says, smiling dreamily. "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure." She recites, watching Percy with a surprisingly focused gaze. Actually, now that Hermione thinks about it, she's never seen Luna so focused on anyone before.
Percy just nods mutely, and Nico snickers, a sound that sounds so unlike him and reminds Hermione of a child.
"Yeah, that's definitely the House for you." Nico says, and Percy jabs him playfully in the stomach.
"I guess I could work a green cloak too," Percy muses.
Nico smirks, looking at Percy critically. Finally, he concedes. "I guess it'd go well with your eyes." Nico grudgingly says, and Percy looks positively ecstatic at the compliment.
"Awwww, Neeks, that's so kind of you!" He says, throwing an arm over Nico's shoulder in a friendly manner, much to Nico's obvious dislike. Surprisingly, though, Nico doesn't move away, instead just rolling his eyes and poking him in the shoulder.
They settle down, finally, as Percy busies himself with showing Nico the vast variety of candies he'd gotten from the trolley. Neville had promptly fallen asleep, snoring softly, leaving Luna, Ron, Harry and Hermione to watch the transfer students subtly(or in Luna’s case, very obviously).
"Did you learn anything else from Blaise?" Percy asks quietly, and the entire group snaps to attention silently.
"Yes, actually." Nico says, his voice low. "You know there's a thing like racism here, but with blood?"
Percy glances at him curiously, and once again Hermione meets Harry and Ron's eyes in surprise.
Was this some sort of play? They couldn't possibly never have dealt with this. Hermione, for a moment, feels a sort of rising hope at the idea that there were wizards and witches that weren't prejudiced against others for their blood, that didn't even know it existed.
Hermione shakes off the rapid-firing thoughts in her head, coming back to the conversation.
Nico nods. "Supposedly there's a thing where people with "pure" blood are supposed to be more magically adept than others?"
Percy frowns. "Is it true?" He asks.
Nico shrugs. "I don't know, but I don't think so. I asked around and supposedly the smartest person in our year is "muggle-born", so..."
Hermione can't help the faint blush that powders her cheeks, and she looks down at her lap, trying to focus.
To concentrate, she thinks about parts of the previous statement. The way Nico had said "muggle-borns" was odd, like he'd really never used the word before. Maybe they really didn't call non-wizarding people muggles.
Percy looks mystified at this revelation. "That's so weird." He says, before a dawn of realization seems to hit him. "Oh my gods, that must be what that pale boy was going on about."
Hermione frowns at the strange phrase. Gods? Was this part of some religion?
"Yeah, some people are really iffy about it." Nico comments dryly. "I guess having pure blood is good? But having parents that aren't wizards and witches is bad?"
Percy shakes his head confusedly. "People are so strange. Wait, so, does that make us... half-bloods?" There's an amused glint in Percy's eyes that tells Hermione that she's missing something.
For a moment, Percy and Nico share a secret smile, clearly finding something funny about it.