The moment Sherlock bluntly pointed out that Luna had the entire compartment to herself because the other students had been excluding her, the air in the carriage turned to stone.
But then Luna herself, the very person at the centre of it all admitted it without a trace of embarrassment, and whatever awkwardness had solidified simply burst like a soap bubble and drifted away.
And this was precisely why Mrs. Holmes had been so certain Luna and Sherlock would get along.
That complete, unself-conscious frankness—the kind that owed nothing to social convention was something neither Hermione nor Gemma possessed.
Since Sherlock and Hermione had already taken the seats across from Luna, Harry settled into the bench at the adjacent table. Ginny naturally shifted to sit beside him, and Ron, after a brief survey of the arrangements, dropped into the empty seat across from them.
Glancing over, Hermione noticed Luna had drifted back into that vague, unfocused state of hers—eyes glazed, as though her mind had floated clean out of the compartment.
On impulse, she turned and asked gently, "Did you have a good summer, Luna?"
"Quite a lovely one, thank you."
Luna answered on instinct, her voice airy and light then seemed to remember something, eyes brightening. "Though it's a pity I couldn't stay at Sherlock's house the way Hermione did. That would have made it even lovelier."
∑（°A°;）
Everyone except Sherlock who maintained his usual unperturbed composure stared at Luna.
'What has gotten into her today?'
'Determined to say the most outrageous thing possible, is she?'
"So what you're saying is—"
Hermione drew a slow breath and drew her gaze on Luna. "You wanted to stay at Sherlock's house too?"
"I did. My father wouldn't agree to it, unfortunately."
Luna nodded with a faint note of genuine regret in her voice.
" "
Everyone looked at her again.
'You really just… said that.'
Having delivered this statement, Luna raised her upside-down copy of The Quibbler to shield her face and said nothing more.
Harry and Ron exchanged a glance with raised eyebrows.
Hermione shot a quick look at Sherlock, her lips parting slightly then she thought better of it and said nothing.
Ginny pressed her mouth into a firm line, shoulders trembling, fighting desperately to keep the laughter from spilling out.
Sherlock, entirely unbothered by the atmosphere he had apparently conjured in the compartment, simply said to Luna, "Give me your magazine."
Luna handed over The Quibbler without a moment's hesitation. Then—
Stared!
As though the sight of Sherlock flipping through the pages were, somehow, the most interesting thing she had seen all day.
Hermione: "…"
Outside, the Hogwarts Express thundered on—clack, clack, clack—the rhythmic drumming of wheels on iron rails carrying them away from the noise of the city and into the wide, open countryside.
The weather that day was peculiarly unsettled. One moment golden sunlight poured through the windows, pooling across the seats, stretching everyone's shadows across the floor. Then, without warning, clouds massed, the sky was darkening sharply as wind sent dead leaves skittering past the glass in blurred streaks.
The train ran fast and smooth. Its gentle rocking had the tune of a lullaby.
Hermione had been talking quietly with Sherlock, who would glance up from the magazine now and then to reply. Then, gradually, her voice fell silent. A moment later, he felt a soft weight settle against his shoulder.
He didn't need to look. Hermione had fallen asleep.
Across the aisle, Ron caught sight of this and immediately nudged Harry with his elbow, then cut his eyes meaningfully toward Ginny.
Harry and Ginny followed Ron's gaze. Hermione lay with her eyes closed, breathing slow and even.
Ron's implication was obvious: something is definitely going on with those two.
Harry and Ginny looked at each other, a shared flicker of resignation passing between them, and both glanced away.
As for Luna—having surrendered her magazine to Sherlock, she had propped her chin in her hand and was watching the line of his profile with wide, candid eyes, apparently fascinated.
Her gaze was clear and dreamy at once. No one could have said what she was thinking. Sherlock seemed, to her, considerably more interesting than anything the magazine contained.
About half an hour later, the rumble of wheels on a trolley came drifting down the corridor, accompanied by the witch's warm, familiar call. The food trolley had arrived.
Harry's face lit up. He said a quick word to Ron and Ginny, then strode out of the compartment and returned shortly with an armful of sweets, which he piled onto the table.
Most of it was Chocolate Frogs.
He had recently joined the general obsession with collecting the wizard cards inside.
Ron had given up on completing his collection long ago; he was now focused entirely on eating the frogs themselves. Ginny helped Harry unwrap them, the two of them swapping duplicate cards and murmuring about the witches and wizards pictured on each one.
Then Hermione stirred. Her lashes fluttered; she rubbed her eyes and came slowly back to herself with expression still hazy. "When did I fall asleep?"
"Because you didn't sleep well last night."
"How did you know that?"
"It wasn't difficult to tell from how you were this morning, my friend."
The exchange was perfectly unremarkable—not a single word ambiguous between them. And yet to everyone else listening, it carried the unmistakable warmth of two people who had long since stopped needing to explain themselves to each other.
Was this really what happened when you lived with someone for a while? Could it truly work such wonders?
Ginny watched the two of them, turning a wizard card over and over between her fingers without quite realising it, and found herself thinking: Should I ask Mum and Dad if I could stay at Grimmauld Place for a bit this holiday—the way Hermione did?
Just then, the compartment door slid open, and Neville Longbottom stepped in, followed by Parvati Patil. Both wore prefect badges pinned to their chests, gleaming even in the dim light.
Neville was clutching Trevor, his fat, round toad who was writhing and kicking with impressive determination, trying his utmost to escape. Neville's round face was beaded with fine sweat, the hair at his forehead damp, his complexion was slightly pale. He had clearly been doing a great deal of running.
"Hey, Neville, Parvati—congratulations, both of you!"
Hermione was the first to speak, her smile was warm and genuine.
Ron wasted no time—he grabbed Neville and pulled him down beside him, then immediately reached for the badge on his chest.
"Ron, what are you—"
"Ha, you're going red! Let me see it properly."
"No, Ron, stop it—!"
"Hold still, let me see!"
Neville struggled uselessly. The badge was duly confiscated. He pulled a long face, but somehow, he felt oddly pleased.
He had faced so much doubt on the way here. Students from Gryffindor and every other house alike had been visibly stunned to learn he was a prefect. Ron's approach was forceful, yes—but it was also, unmistakably, a form of recognition.
Sure enough: "Ha," said Ron, turning the badge over. "Honestly, you wear this a lot better than Percy ever did."
"They had us split up and report to the head boy and head girl for instructions—we had to patrol the corridors—didn't realise how tiring it would be…"
Where Neville was careful and tentative, Parvati was at ease. She reached up to pat the light sweat from her temple, a note of exhaustion through her voice.
Her gaze swept across the table of sweets; her eyes sharpened. "Oh, are those Chocolate Frogs? Hermione, could I have one?"
As Hermione's roommate for years, the two had always gotten along well. But since it wasn't her food to give, Hermione offered an apologetic smile and turned to Harry, asking with a look.
"Harry, would that be all right?" Parvati followed Hermione's gaze toward him and gave him a playful wink.
Ginny's brow furrowed subtly. She said nothing.
"Of course." Harry nodded, picking up two Chocolate Frogs—one for Parvati, and one for Neville.
He noticed Neville trying to manage Trevor in one hand and accept the frog with the other, all rather awkwardly, and simply held out his own hand. "Here, let me take him. You look done in—sit down and rest."
Neville nodded gratefully and surrendered the toad with unmistakable relief. Then he peeled back the wrapper with great care and took small, tentative bites.
Before long, a ring of chocolate had appeared around the corners of his mouth.
"You'll never guess who the Slytherin prefects are," Parvati announced, leaning forward with the bright, slightly self-satisfied air of someone relishing a good piece of news.
"Draco Malfoy," said Sherlock, without looking up.
Hermione let out a cold laugh. "And the girl is Pansy Parkinson, I assume."
"Come on, you two, don't do that—it really takes the fun out of it." Parvati couldn't help laughing; she slapped the table lightly. "Fine, then. Who are the Hufflepuff prefects?"
Hermione said nothing, and glanced toward Sherlock instead.
"Ernie Macmillan. Hannah Abbott."
Still without lifting his eyes. Still without variation.
"What about Ravenclaw?" Parvati pressed, undeterred with a gleam of challenge in her expression.
"Anthony Goldstein." Sherlock finally glanced up, meeting her eyes for just a moment. "And your twin sister, Padma."
"Sherlock." Parvati stared at him, incredulous and amused equally. "I'm genuinely starting to wonder if you snuck into the prefect carriage and eavesdropped on our whole meeting."
"There are other ways of knowing who the prefects are," Sherlock replied, slowly, closing the magazine and tapping the table lightly with one finger. "Prefects are supposed to patrol the corridors. A little observation is all it takes."
"So you did go to the corridor to observe?"
"No."
Parvati: "…"
She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Her expression said everything.
Those who knew Sherlock well enough were all biting back grins.
"You don't have to make it so complicated, Parvati," Hermione said at last, taking pity on her roommate and stepping in. "The prefects from each house are almost always the students with the most influence in their year."
She added a silent rider in her own mind: Gryffindor excepted.
At the other table, Neville had finished his Chocolate Frog. He brushed the crumbs from his hands, eyes bright, and produced a small clay pot with a kind of worshipful pride, holding it out for Harry, Ron, and Ginny to see.
Inside it sat a small grey thing, roughly the size and shape of a miniature cactus—but where spines should have been, its surface was covered entirely in swollen, blister-like protrusions. Strange. Vaguely unsettling.
"This is a Mimbulus Mimbletonia," Neville announced, practically glowing. "My great-uncle Algie got it for my birthday—all the way from Assyria. They're incredibly rare; Hogwarts greenhouses might not even have one. I'm dying to show Professor Sprout. I wonder if she'd want to try propagating it."
Everyone knew Herbology was Neville's subject. The moment he talked about plants, he became a different person—the shyness fell away, and something bright took its place.
The Mimbulus Mimbletonia itself, however, was grey and lumpen, its surface a mass of those bulbous bumps, and it looked disturbingly like a diseased organ. Something about it gave off an air of vague wrongness.
"All right, Neville—what does it actually do?" Ron squinted at it, curious despite himself.
"Loads of things! Watch—let me show you—"
The moment Herbology was involved, Neville sat up straighter. He reached into his pocket with great ceremony and withdrew a quill, holding it delicately between two fingers, nib pointed toward the Mimbulus Mimbletonia.
Hermione, still half-listening to Parvati, caught the movement from the corner of her eye. Her expression changed in an instant. She lunged forward.
"Stop—!"
Too late.
The Mimbulus Mimbletonia detonated.
Every blister on its surface ruptured at once, unleashing a torrent of thick, viscous, dark-green liquid that sprayed in every direction like a burst pipe.
Slimy green streaks hit the ceiling and clung there. The window was smeared opaque. The table, the seats, and everyone in the compartment were splattered.
Ron and Ginny threw their arms up to shield their faces, but not fast enough—both ended up with a generous coating of sticky green slime matted into their hair, as though they had been presented with matching hats made of something deeply unpleasant.
Harry, meanwhile, caught the worst of it.
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