Tiera lay still beneath the thin duvet, acutely aware of the small, restless form breathing beside her. The only light in the attic came from the grime-coated skylight, casting faint, elongated shadows of the window frame onto the sloping walls. Hagrid's heavy, rhythmic snoring occasionally drifted up from the first floor, a low, comforting rumble.
"Hey, Tiera, are you... are you still awake?"
The question was barely audible, a hesitant, fearful whisper that traveled only a few inches. Harry's hand, small and tentative, brushed against her arm under the covers.
"I am, Harry. What's wrong?" Tiera replied, her voice soft and deliberately warm, banishing any hint of fatigue or irritation. How could I possibly sleep when you've been tossing, turning, and radiating pure, nervous energy beside me? she thought, a faint irritation quickly overridden by strategic necessity.
"Oh. Nothing, really," Harry murmured, his body briefly freezing with the awkward guilt of an unwanted presence. "I just... I couldn't sleep. I haven't kept you up, have I?"
"Not at all, Harry. I couldn't sleep either," Tiera assured him, rolling slightly toward him to face the dark. She needed him to talk, to continue solidifying the carefully constructed foundation of their shared hardship.
"It feels so incredible, doesn't it? Just like a dream. I can't believe that magic actually exists, that there are real schools like Hogwarts."
"It's like a dream," Tiera agreed, allowing a genuine smile to touch her lips. "Even though I've known about it for a little while, I still wake up impressed by the sheer impossible reality of it all."
She paused, then added gently, "By the way, Harry, you don't have to whisper so quietly. Hagrid is huge, but he's sleeping downstairs, and we're all the way up here in the attic. You can talk as loud as you need to. It won't bother him."
"Ah, okay," Harry whispered back, though his voice rose only fractionally, still fragile, like the cautious mewing of a stray kitten.
Tiera sighed internally. It was a perfect illustration of his ten years under the Dursleys' roof—the habit of silent suffering, of making himself small and unheard, was deeply ingrained.
Harry was an heir, a celebrity, and a magical saviour, but tonight, beneath the covers, he was still the same little boy confined to a dusty cupboard. That quiet subservience was exactly what Tiera needed to overcome to build their partnership.
Feeling the immediate emotional safety Tiera had manufactured—a shared history of abandonment and hardship—Harry finally began to open up.
He recounted everything Hagrid had told him about the wizarding world, his parents, the story of the scar, and the immense, almost unbelievable irony of him being Harry Potter. Then, with a flood of pent-up trauma, he recounted the ten years of deliberate, suffocating neglect and cruelty he had endured at his aunt and uncle's house.
Tiera listened patiently. She knew the narrative from books and films, yet hearing the actual, raw voice of the victim describe the psychological degradation of living under a staircase still stirred a faint, uncomfortable ache beneath her steely focus. She offered small, supportive comments, careful affirmations that reinforced the trust she was building.
"There's just so much on that equipment list, though," Tiera murmured, shifting the conversation to practical concerns. "Wand, robes, books, a cauldron... it adds up."
"I know! Hagrid is picking us up first thing in the morning to go to Diagon Alley," Harry said, the excitement returning to his voice, momentarily overcoming the shame of his recent admissions. "I can't wait."
Tiera asked the strategic question, keeping her voice light but tinged with concern. "Harry, I... do you have any money? I mean, actual wizarding money?"
Harry's excitement instantly deflated. "Money? No. Not a cent," he replied sullenly. "Uncle Dursley would never spend money on something... something freakish like a magic school."
"Don't worry, Harry," Tiera said quickly, swinging her legs off the bed and onto the cold floor. She moved swiftly in the dark, pulling open the third desk drawer and retrieving the object she had strategically placed there earlier: an old, worn cowhide bag.
She placed the heavy bag on the bed between them. Harry flinched at the soft, weighty clank of metal from inside.
"What is that?" Harry whispered, his eyes wide as he stared at the shape in the moonlight.
"It's money," Tiera stated simply. She pulled the drawstring open, revealing a thick stack of Muggle notes—£10, £20, and £50 denominations—tucked alongside a few pieces of ancient, slightly tarnished gold coinage.
Harry gasped. He had never seen such a large volume of currency in his life, and the sight of the gold was astonishing.
"Tiera... but..." Harry stammered, unable to form a complete thought.
"This is money, Harry," Tiera repeated, focusing on the notes, minimizing the shine of the gold. "This is what I saved up since running away from the orphanage when I was six."
The stack represented approximately £1,100—every penny she had earned and kept over the past five years from her restaurant job and the petty, organized "magic tricks" and delivery work she had performed on the streets.
This money had originally been Tiera's escape fund, intended for a plane ticket back to her home country and her family's parallel-world estate once she turned twelve and could fly alone.
But the Hogwarts letter had changed everything. The discovery of a magical world meant a new frontier, a more rewarding investment.
"I hope this money will be enough to cover our initial school expenses," Tiera said, her tone serious.
"Wait, Tiera, our expenses? What do you mean?" Harry asked, stunned.
Tiera looked him straight in the eyes in the dim light. "Yes, Harry. If you truly don't have any money for tuition and supplies, I can help pay for you. I've been working for years, saving up." She paused, letting her voice catch with a carefully measured hint of sacrifice.
"If it's not enough, if we need more... I'll have to sell these gold coins." She picked up one of the ancient coins, turning it so the moonlight reflected a pale sheen. Her expression was one of wrenching reluctance. "These gold coins are the only true heirlooms my family left me. I've kept them for twelve years."
"Oh, no, Tiera, absolutely not!" Harry immediately recoiled, pushing the bag away. "I can't take your money. It's too much, and they're your heirlooms!"
"But Harry, we're friends, aren't we?" Tiera pressed, her hand resting over the bag. "Friends help each other. We are both alone in the world, and we have to rely on each other now that we're heading into this unknown place."
"But Tiera, this... I could never repay it." Harry's voice was thick with guilt. He had nothing to offer her in return.
Oh, yes, you will repay it, Tiera thought with merciless clarity. You'll repay it with connections, with fame, and with a guaranteed source of gold from your vault.
"I don't want you to repay me, Harry," Tiera insisted, tilting her head and letting her voice soften into a vulnerable plea. "I've just wanted a true friend ever since I was small, ever since the orphanage..."
Tiera launched into the fabricated story of her life—a tragic masterpiece of calculated embellishment. She spoke of losing her parents young, the incessant bullying at the orphanage, the fear that drove her to run away to the streets, the desperation of often going hungry, even having to fight stray dogs for scraps of food from bins.
She described the profound loneliness and how, until she met the kindly Chinese restaurant couple, she believed she would die cold and forgotten on the unforgiving streets of London.
The reality was far darker and more organized. While Tiera had been only six, her adult mind had quickly cataloged the resources of London's street children. She had not starved; instead, she had quickly established herself as the silent, clever center of a disciplined group of a dozen homeless youths.
They didn't beg; they ran highly coordinated small-scale theft rings, acted as couriers for local gangs, and performed planned organizational fraud. Her only true "suffering" came from the constant internal war—the mental torment and self-condemnation of knowingly shedding the morality of her past life to survive.
But children, Tiera knew, only understand and feel sorry for pain they can visualize. Adults must learn to strategically weaponize the sympathy of others for adequate benefit.
Tiera's sincerely delivered performance was devastatingly effective. Harry, already emotionally raw from his own decade of deprivation, listened in choked silence. His guilt over accepting her money was swiftly eclipsed by a profound, heart-wrenching pity for a girl who had endured even worse suffering than himself.
"Tiera... I'm so sorry," Harry finally managed, his voice cracking. He buried his face in his pillow, his shoulders shaking beneath the duvet as silent tears began to soak the cheap cotton sheets.
He was deeply moved, not just by her story, but by the fact that this brave, self-sufficient girl was offering him her last measure of security, her treasured family heirlooms, simply because she considered him a friend.
Tiera felt a familiar, unpleasant flicker of guilt deep in her stomach, the remnants of her former moral conscience. She hadn't wanted to make him cry.
Yet, she quickly crushed the feeling under the cold weight of necessity. She truly hadn't offered the money out of pure altruism, not even for the protagonist of her favorite series. What Tiera needed was not just a friend, but an ally—one with wealth, connections, and fame.
She remembered the four indispensable factors for success she had learned from ancient cultivation novels in her previous life: Wealth (money), Friends (connections), Methods (spells/Merlin's notes), and Territory (Hogwarts/the Library).
By leveraging a small amount of Muggle currency and a manufactured tragedy, she had successfully secured the most vital component: Friends. Harry was her entry point, her emotional shield, and the key to the vast resources of the wizarding world. The sound of the Galleons was still ringing in her ears, a promise of power and protection that dwarfed any fleeting sense of guilt.