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Despite the way he'd gone pale, Isaac's brown eyes, who I'd gotten used to seeing always radiating nothing but boredom, were narrowed with determination. Didn't seem like I'd have to worry about him turning his coat now.
"What do we do?" he asked, eyes flitting between the door and I.
I let myself breathe out. I was becoming too jumpy in my short time being Octavian. "Go check who it is."
"Why me?" he snapped back.
I rolled my eyes. "Don't whine, mate. If it is Cassius, then he's going to blow up the whole carriage if he sees me, fancy lock or not. If it's you, just say you're in here with a girl or something."
"He's never going to believe that," he said glumly, then caught himself. "I mean, uh, you know Annelia? From Ravenclaw? She laughed at me the one time I tried to get her to go out with me to Hogsmeade in third year. Haven't tried with any girl since, and I'm pretty sure everyone in Slytherin knows it too."
I could barely restrain myself from reaching down at my waist again, pulling out my invisible gun, and giving myself a harsh case of lead poisoning.
Putting my head down at the table, I only muttered quietly, "Holy shit, we're actual losers."
The knock came again, a little more forceful this time.
There was a beat of silence, then Isaac stood up. "Fine, fine, I'll check." He swallowed audibly, gave me one last look, then walked toward the door. He raised his free hand to open the curtain, then stopped just before he touched it. "You don't have any other tricks to make them not able to see me, do you? A one way mirror kind of thing?"
I lifted my head long enough to give him a droll smile.
Isaac just nodded. "Okay, okay, I got this." It seemed he was speaking more to hype himself up than anything.
Clearly, he had no future as any kind of enforcer if I ever built up my own faction. Kid might be good at watching people and sussing out secrets, but he was a pussy through and through. Then again, that only meant he'd gone above and beyond what he was comfortable with to help me out when he knew Cassius was on my ass.
He must have been a wreck waiting for me to get the enchantment on the door done. It hadn't looked like it at the time, but I already knew he was at least passably good at hiding his emotions.
This much of a show only meant he was more willing to be himself around me now, and that was progress in my books.
"Well, here goes nothing." Isaac shook himself up one last time, then he drew back the curtain the tiniest amount possible so he could look outside. Whatever he saw there, made him start. "What in Merlin's name…"
Before I could say anything, he reached down and opened the door without prompting. From where I sat, I couldn't see anything as Isaac was blocking up the way. It wasn't Cassius and Justin though, that's for sure. I would be able to spot Justin's neanderthal-like forehead above Isaac even if I had my head shoved out the window.
I heard a small voice start to speak, but Isaac drowned it out, "Wait," he said, then he took a step out, looked down both ends of the carriage aisle, and sighed in relief. "Alright, we're good."
When he stepped back inside, a confused Rose Potter stood in our compartment doorway. Beside her, Ron and Hermione looked just as baffled. "Uhh, sorry," she said. "Wrong compartment."
She turned to leave, but I beat her to it. "You're not looking for a runaway toad, are you?"
Rose and her friends froze. It was the first thing that came to my mind, but I knew I couldn't let the opportunity of introducing myself to the canonically important golden trio go out my door this easily. Besides, if I ever got to the point of fulfilling my promise to Severus and brought Lily Potter back from the brink of permanent vegetable-ness, I didn't doubt I'd get the girl-who-lived gift-wrapped as an ally to me.
It would serve me well to make in-roads with Rose as early as possible.
Hermione reacted first. "How do you know about that?" she asked, frowning.
I saw Rose pull Ron back as he had continued to walk and step up beside Hermione as if to back her up. The way she stood all stiff told me her guard was all the way up. Guess that's what happens when you've spent two years being antagonized by Slytherins and suddenly one of them starts trying to butter you up. Smart girl.
I put on my best smile. "I saw you running up and down the Express last year asking that at every compartment, so I thought you were just trying to keep up with the tradition."
Red crept up on Hermione's face all the way up to her hairline, and her eyes went down to her shifting feet.
Ah, fuck. She thought I was making fun of her. I forgot Hermione was still a tightly packed bundle of insecurities at this point. Next to her, Rose's frown turned into a scowl, and the last thing I wanted was to start a fight with someone who's plot armor was thicker than a troll's skin.
"I'm joking, of course," I said, raising two hands up in the air. "I hope you found him too. I had one growing up that drove my father mad with its croaking. I loved him for that. Oh, where are my manners? I'm Octavian, by the way. Octavian Prince."
"You don't look like a prince," Ron blurted out.
Rose elbowed him in the stomach, but I just gave a good-hearted laugh. "And you don't look like a weasel. See how that works?"
Ron's face got red too, only not in embarrassment. His fists balled up beside him. "You—"
"Just a joke, kid. You know, about how names don't make a person." I raised my eyebrows as if to point out how obvious it had been. "A very Gryffindorian sentiment, mind you."
Surprisingly, Ron Weasley had the minimal social skills to appear embarrassed, but it took another nudge from Rose to get him speaking.
"Ugh, right." He scratched his head and gave me a tentative smile. "Sorry 'bout that, mate."
An awkward silence fell upon the five of us, and even my genial smile was starting to strain.
Isaac, who just stood beside the door this whole time like a weirdly dressed square-crow, glanced back at me like I'd grown a couple heads. I could recognize how strange the interaction must sound to him, but I didn't even bother acknowledging his looks.
Against all odds, Hermione was the one to rally first.
"We did find him, actually," she said, brushing down her robes with both hands. Despite her refound bravado, her eyes hadn't left her shoes. "During the boat ride with Hagrid. His name is Trevor."
"Trevor the toad," I called, because it just sounded like the kind of thing that needed to be said out loud. "Well, I'm glad you found him. But since Trevor is accounted for, what are you looking for this year, then?"
"Fred and George," Rose said. She didn't have a problem looking me in the eyes. "The Weasley twins," she added, as if they weren't infamous enough throughout the whole school.
"Oh I know who the Weasley twins are," Isaac muttered in a grumpy voice. All three Gryffindor kids turned to him in unison, and suddenly that bored mask of his was on again and he just shrugged. "Got a face-full of pie during their first year, and it's hard to forget the time they had all the Slytherin's boys' underwear dyed red and gold last year for a whole week."
"Oh yeah." I nodded, chuckling at the memory. It wasn't so fun when Cassius made me give him all my money so he could buy himself new ones in Hogsmeade, but I didn't need to let them know that. "Wonder how they managed that."
Isaac grunted in reluctant agreement. Even the Slytherins had to give them props for that. "What did they do this time?" he asked.
"Dunno," Ron said. "Something 'bout ren-de-ring services for payment." He shrugged as if the words held no meaning to him. "All I know is they were too happy this morning and that's never a sign of anything good."
Hermione huffed. "I for one I'm glad we didn't find them," she said, going from looking down at her shoes to looking down over her nose at Ron. "Professor McGonagall looked livid when I saw her running back to the castle earlier, and I don't want to be involved in any of it."
For some reason I couldn't fathom, Ron took that personally, and the two of them continued to bicker back and forth like a well-oiled machine so seamlessly that they only stopped when Rose grabbed them by the collar and started steering them away.
"Well, we should get going either way." The smile on her face was not-quite genuine. "Thanks for the help."
Not showing my surprise, I gave them a little wave that Hermione was the only one polite enough to reciprocate.
It was quite a Gryffindorish-ly rude end to our conversation, and I got the distinct idea that Rose's impression of me didn't come off like I wanted. I supposed older Slytherins might be too scary as of yet, but I could go off of this start easily enough. Building trust was a slow game for traumatized kids.
Still, that was more personality than I expected Potter to have at this point in the game. Besides her mother being alive, and the lack of a Basilisk this year, I wondered what changes to the timeline might have caused that.