The Train
Asha yawned, slumping tiredly against the side of the train carriage she’d stumbled into. It’d been a week since she’d flown to London from Adelaide, and her internal clock was still scrambling to catch up. It certainly didn’t help that Scotland was eight-and-a-half hours behind Central Australia, so when her internal clock had been telling her it was time to get up, it had still been midnight. With a sigh, she reached into the overhead rack and pulled out the book she’d started reading midway through the twenty-two-hour flight. It was long, and she was glad of that, because she’d only packed three books, and this was the last one. Yes, Dragonflight was a good book, but she could only read it so many times.
The compartment doors rattled, and she sat up, blinking tiredly as they slid open to reveal a small, black-haired boy.
“Hello,” he said, looking at the mostly-empty compartment. “Do you- do you mind if I sit here? All the other compartments are full.”
She shrugged, gesturing loosely to the compartment seats.
“Be my guest, man. I’ll probably not be much good in the way of company, though,” she said, swallowing a jaw-cracking yawn. The boy nodded in thanks, sliding the door closed behind him as he slipped into the other window seat.
“Sorry, by the way. I didn’t introduce myself, did I? I’m Harry,” the boy said, holding out a hand to shake. Asha took it, shaking firmly.
“Asha. Pleasure to meet you, Harry,” she swallowed another yawn, rubbing tiredly at her eyes. “Sorry, sorry, I had a long flight.”
Harry looked at her curiously.
“Flight? Where’d you come from?”
“Australia. I’m a transfer student, but because we start a year earlier than you Brits do I’m joining the first-years again. And as such, I have to be sorted . . . Again.” She yawned again, and Harry was left blinking at the wordvomit that he had just endured.
“Again? What house were you in in Australia?”
“Huh? Oh, I was a Taipan. We, uh, we have seven houses. It’s a higher Wixen-Mundane ratio back home, so we have a larger school base and a larger number of Houses to make up for it. We’ve got Taipans, which are my lot, I suppose they’d be like your Slytherins, really, with a mix of Ravenclaw, I suppose. And then there’re the Bilbies, which are like your Hufflepuffs, and the Emus, who’re a mix of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, and the Brumbies, who’re just plain Gryffindors, Koalas, who’re like Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, Magpies, who’re like Ravenclaws, and Kookaburras, who are Slytherin and Gryffindor. Am I rambling? Shit, I’m rambling, aren’t I? Sorry, man,” she trailed off, grimacing apologetically.
“Nah, it’s fine. You’re tired, right? No-one thinks right when they’re tired.” Harry looked like he was going to say more when the compartment door banged open and a dishevelled redhead stumbled into the compartment.
“Sorry, but can I sit here? Everywhere else is full.” The boy said, and Asha held back a groan. This one was loud. She and Harry glanced at one another, then nodded. The boy soon introduced himself as Ron, and she settled back against the window as he and Harry quickly started up a conversation. She could feel Ruth squirming around in the pocket of her hoodie, and sighed internally. She’d been hoping the nosey little Ouroboros Snake would stay where she was, but apparently not. A small, white nose poked out of her pocket, and a tongue flickered out, tasting the air. Seconds later, the rest of the little snake emerged, and there was a strangled cry of terror from Ron as she made her way up to nestle in Asha’s short-cropped blonde hair.
She groaned and reached up to untangle the ruler-length snake as she started coiling through her already-messy hair, bringing her down to eye-level to give her a flat look. Ruth just laughed at her, coiling into loops around her fingers.
“You’re a right handful, you know that, right?” She hissed, narrowing her eyes. Ron squeaked again, louder this time, and scrambled back into a corner. Harry was just staring at Ruth in fascination. Her gaze drifted over to the terrified redhead, and she blinked tiredly at him. “What?”
“You- you have a snake! And you can talk to it! What the hell! Why do you have a snake?” Ron was pressed as far into the corner as he possibly could be, and she rolled her eyes at him, putting Ruth back in her lap. She hissed a chuckle and darted back up to nest in her hair again.
“Fuck you, Ruth,” she hissed, glaring up at her hairline. Ron squeaked again. “Yeah, I have a snake. Her name is Ruth. Yes, I can talk to her. I live in a country that is well known for having multiple species of highly venomous snakes. It’s also known among our Wixen communities that Parselmouths are five times as common as they are in Africa, which is sayin’ somethin’, ‘cause they have a ratio of ten Wixen to every Parselmage. And I have Ruth because she decided I was hers.”
Ron stared at her in terror, eyes blown wide, and focused on the last thing she’d said.
“She- she decided you were hers? What does that even mean?”
“It means that an Ouroboros Snake decided I was worth protecting.” The train car filled up with noise as both boys started talking at once.
“She’s an Ouroboros-”
“Wait, most people can’t talk to snakes-”
“Protecting?”
“Am I missing something he-”
The compartment door banged open, and a blond boy stuck his head in, flanked by two burly, dark-haired boys that looked like they shared three-and-a-half braincells that didn’t even live in their heads.
“What’s so loud in here- There’s a snake in your hair.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious. Ruth! Settle down, for the love of the gods!” Ruth stopped trying to tie knots in her hair, and instead poked her head out above her forehead, flickering her tongue out at the new boy. He was looking a little pale, actually. About as white as his hair, and that stuff looked like he bleached it. “Hey, man, you good?”
“Don’t mind him, he’s a Malfoy.” Ron butted in, and the blond boy snapped out of . . . whatever that was, immediately.
“That’s rich, coming from a Weasley,” the blond boy snapped, and then turned back to Asha. “I’m Draco. Draco Malfoy.”
She gingerly shook the offered hand, and Ruth slithered down to smell her hand when he let go. Draco never took his eyes off the Ouroboros Snake, and she lifted her head to stare at him. He stared back for several seconds before looking back up at Asha’s face. She realised she hadn’t introduced herself yet.
“Oh, sorry, I’m Asha. And this is Ruth,” she held up the hand with the offending serpent wrapped around it, watching the way Draco blanched, and the two burly boys he’d walked in with backed up a little, only stopping when their backs hit the other side of the corridor. She hid a chuckle as Draco abruptly turned away from her.
“No need to ask who you are, you’ve got red hair, freckles and hand-me-down clothes, so you’re obviously a Weasley.” Ron bared his teeth at Draco, and Asha worried for a second that they would start a fight in the compartment. She hugged her book – A Game of Thrones – and Ruth closer to her chest, just in case. After a few seconds, though, Draco scoffed and turned to Harry. “And who are you?”
Harry jumped, apparently not expecting to be talked to, and reddened a little.
“I’m Harry. Harr- Harry Potter,” he said after a pause, and then cringed a little. Why is that name so familiar?
“Really? Wicked. You got the scar?” Ron burst out, apparently forgetting Draco as he leaned forward to look at Harry again. Harry nodded mutely and lifted his fringe to reveal a jagged, lightning bolt scar across the right side of his forehead. It looked raw, almost, as though it was still healing. “Wicked,” Ron breathed, leaning even closer.
Draco shoved him back by the face, ignoring his spluttering protests.
“Don’t be rude, Weasley. A pleasure to meet you, Potter.” Harry just nodded mutely, flattening his hair again to try and hide the scar. She saw the two boys from outside drifting closer again, apparently having forgotten the fact that Ruth was in the compartment. Ruth decided that was a good time to remind them that she existed, yawning widely and proclaiming that she was, in fact, quite hungry. Draco and Ron both jumped and cringed away, and the boys at the door backed away again.
Asha sighed and stood up, putting Ruth in her hair for a moment to reach for her suitcase. Pulling out a freeze-dried mouse, she took Ruth off of her head and held out the small rodent. Ruth stretched her jaws wide and snapped up what was for her a week’s worth of food. By the time she’d finished swallowing the creature, she was almost twice as wide as she had been beforehand, and also quite sleepy. She murmured quietly as she made her way slowly back to her hoodie pocket, which had been outfitted with an extension charm, heating and humidity charms, and a charm that disconnected it from the rest of the outfit so that it couldn’t be affected by outside temperature or humidity or jostling or any similar issues.
Draco was staring at her in shock, and Harry seemed faintly amused. Ron was white as a sheet, and was making a distressing squeaking sound while clutching at a grey lump that Asha had previously disregarded. Now, she saw that it was a rat; a very old, very mangy rat, but a rat nonetheless.
“Relax, Ron. Your rat is much too big for her to eat. Besides, she’s just eaten a week’s worth of food. She’ll be out of it for a long while.” Ron still looked like he was going to scream, but he relaxed his grip on the rat, which woke up and started snuffling around. Draco made a strangled noise and backed out of the compartment, saying that he should get back to his own compartment.
Asha snorted as he left, nestling herself back against the compartment wall, staring at the window. A few minutes passed, and Ron and Harry went back to their conversation. The compartment door rattled with the train movement. Her eye twitched. The compartment door kept rattling on its track. With a grunt, she pulled out her wand and pointed it at the door. Harry and Ron stopped talking to watch her as she flicked the tip sideways. The door slid almost all the way closed before a hand stopped it. It slid open to reveal a bushy-haired brunette with a nervous-looking boy behind her.
“Hello there, Neville here’s lost a toad. Have you seen it?” The girl asked, not even bothering to provide a name. Asha sat up a little bit straighter.
“Uh, no, we haven’t seen one. But-”
“Oh, are you doing magic? Let’s see, then.”
Asha sighed through her nose, closing her eyes for a second, then pointed her wand right at the girl and cast.
“Accio Neville’s toad.”
A shriek burst from the girl, and a similar noise came from further down the train, and then a very disgruntled-looking toad came zooming through the compartment doors to plop smack-bang in the middle of her lap.
“Is this him?” She asked, tucking her wand back into her sleeve. The boy – Neville, she assumed – nodded rapidly and she deposited the scowling toad into his hands. How the toad managed to look so upset with the world, she had no idea, but it was certainly amusing. “If you want something to keep him in, I think I have a live-feed container in here that you could use.”
Neville nodded enthusiastically, and she stood up again to get the container out of her suitcase. Neville took it with a grin and a quiet ‘thank you’, slipping the toad into the container and clipping the lid shut again. The two left after that, and with a flick of her wand the compartment doors were closed again. Seriously, what was it with people here not closing doors after they’d left?
The train ride was peaceful until a loud clattering outside the door roused her from the light doze the train had lulled her into. The compartment door slid open to reveal a squat, older Witch pushing a sweet-laden trolley. It was at that moment that her stomach reminded her she hadn’t eaten since six that morning, and she leaned forward with the boys.
“Anything off the Trolley, dears?”
“Do you have any Cornish Pasties?” Were the first words out of her mouth. The Trolley Witch looked confused for a moment, before nodding, and pulling out something she called a Pumpkin Pasty. Asha nodded and shrugged, handing over the requested sickles and knuts. She bit into it hungrily as Ron said something about his mother having made him a packed lunch and Harry ordered one of everything, much to Ron’s amazement. Asha smiled as Ron and Harry shared food and Harry was introduced to Wizarding sweets.
The ride was quiet after that, and Asha woke up when one of the boys shook her awake, telling her that they were getting close to the castle and that she should change into her robes. She nodded in thanks and pulled down her suitcase, clicking the setting over to ‘apartment’ before opening the lid. She climbed in, winking at Harry and Ron, who gawked at her as she disappeared. As the lid closed, she heard Ron mutter ‘Wicked’, and Harry asking Ron where he could get one.
She changed quickly, transferring Ruth to a pocket of her robes that was similarly enchanted to her hoodie, and clambered out of her suitcase again. She switched the setting back to ‘Storage’ and stowed it in the rack overhead again, settling back into her seat. The rest of the ride was quiet, aside from Harry and Ron’s chatter about Hogwarts and the expected curriculum. At one point, Harry had asked her what she’d learned at the school in Australia, and that had led to Ron asking where she’d gone.
“I, uh, it’s called Red Rock Academy. Dumb name, I know, but it’s only a few kilometres from Uluru so it’s kinda accurate.” That comment had led to a discussion about what Uluru was, and where, and what life had been like, and she’d found herself quite enjoying the time together by the time the train pulled in at Hogwarts. But now, it was time for the first-years to be Sorted.