FicWad

-I-I-I-

Still Friday, September 1, 1991

-I-I-I-

The compartment was silent, but it was a comfortable silence. The strange boy had pulled a muggle notebook from his pocket as the train began to move, and had spent the time since writing in it with an odd silver pen.

Neville didn't really mind the quiet, but he could feel his curiosity growing. "I'm Neville," he offered quietly, knowing the other boy would hear the unspoken question in his voice.

The stranger glanced up and gave him another shy smile. "It's nice to meet you. I'm..." He stopped and looked rather puzzled.

Neville watched as he hesitated, a little hurt. "It's all right, you don't have to tell me," he said quickly, pushing away the hurt and the tinge of resentment that came with it.

The messy-haired boy quickly shook his head. "No, it's... I want to tell you, I'm just... not sure which one I'm supposed to be using."

Neville was startled. "You have more than one?"

"Yeah. My birth name and the name I earned when I turned ten," he said with a slightly embarrassed smile. "I'd rather use that one, but..."

"But your birth name would have been the one on your letter, and that's the one the teachers will know you by." More and more Neville was beginning to feel glad he had picked up /Hogwarts: a History/. He hadn't realized it would be this useful so quickly.

The boy nodded. "It sounds stupid, I know," he said self-consciously.

Neville shook his head. "No, no, it doesn't," he reassured his new friend. "Don't worry, things like this have happened before. People have had their names changed, or been adopted..." Neville didn't miss the way his friend twitched just a little at that last bit, and he smiled internally. That explained a few things. "You can go talk to the Headmaster after the Sorting Feast. He should be able to help you."

"The Headmaster?"

The pureblood nodded. "Albus Dumbledore. He's in charge of Hogwarts. Gran said he could have been Minister of Magic if he wanted, but he turned the position down."

With a curious frown, the other boy set his pen down in the notebook in his lap. Neville blinked at the unexpected sight of the obviously hand-drawn sheet music that lay within its pages, until he heard the boy ask a question.

"Pardon?" he asked, flushing. "I didn't catch that."

"What's the Minister of Magic?" his friend repeated, saying the words as though he'd never heard anything so ridiculous in his life.

For a second, Neville could only gape, until suddenly he understood. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were muggle-born!"

"A what?" It was the dark-haired boy's turn to blink.

"Muggles are people who don't have magic," Neville explained, leaning forward as he took on an unfamiliar role- that of a teacher. "When they have a child with magic, that boy or girl's called a muggle-born, since they don't know anything about magic or the wizarding world."

The boy frowned. "I'll be the first to admit I don't know anything about wizards, but I know plenty about magic. Master Taka's been teaching me for five years."

The wizarding world was the largest and most powerful gathering of magic-users in the world, but by no means was it the only one. The strange boy must have grown op in one of the smaller, more isolated groups. "Really? What kind of magic do you know?" Neville asked.

"Affinities, mostly." Neville had never heard of that kind of magic before, but the boy didn't seem to notice the confusion on his face. "Master Taka's affinity was with plants, so he taught me a lot about growing and using them. My affinity is music." He gestured towards his notebook, losing quite a lot of his shyness as he talked about magic.

Neville could understand how plants were magical- they could be used in potions, and a few were even sentient. But music? He was about to open his mouth to ask when he realized just how far they'd drifted off topic. "You know, you never said what your name was," he said instead.

Green eyes blinked at him, startled, and an embarrassed smile tugged at the boy's lips. "Oh. Right." He looked shy again, and Neville couldn't help but mourn the loss of the boy's earlier ease. "I'm Kaze."

The wizard repeated the unfamiliar name. "Kaze..."

Kaze smiled. "It means 'wind'. There's a kind of ceremony when you turn ten, and what your name is depends on what happens during it."

"That sounds complicated." Absently, Neville reached into a pocket, and paled as his fingers met only empty air. "Oh, no..."

The other boy looked concerned. "What's wrong?"

Neville glanced up. "It's Trevor," he said miserably. "My toad. He's missing again."

"Again? This happens a lot?" Kaze asked, and the wizard nodded unhappily. "Well, where did you see him last?"

Neville tried to remember. "I know I had him on the platform-" Gran had made sure of that, "-but after that, I don't know."

Kaze thought for a moment, then stood. "Right. Then he's probably still on the train somewhere." He set his writing pad down on the seat he had just vacated, then held out his hand. "Come on. I'll work my way forward and ask the other students if they've seen him if you take the back."

The pureblood was mildly astonished at the sudden change in demeanor in his previously shy friend. It was as though now that he had a purpose, Kaze was a completely different person.

But even so, there was almost no hesitation before Neville reached out to take the proffered hand and was helped to his feet.

-I-I-I-

Draco sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. He was fond of them, he really was. They'd all known each other for years, their parents having thrown them together in their own little pureblood play circle when they were all young children.

But really, as he listened to Pansy babble nervously about Hogwarts and to Crabbe and Goyle stuffing their faces with what they'd bought from the snack trolley, the Malfoy heir felt rather like strangling all of them.

Well, perhaps not Morag or Blaise. MacDougal was staring pensively out the window at the passing scenery, while the black youth had pulled out a Transfiguration textbook and seemed totally engrossed in its pages. Draco wasn't terribly surprised when he looked more closely to find it was a third-year course book.

As for himself... he was completely, utterly bored. Well, the blonde supposed he could just pull out some of his own textbooks, but he'd already read through them, and the idea didn't appeal a second time.

Draco sighed again, reaching out to snag one of Goyle's Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Really, it had only been a couple of hours, he thought, popping the green and white jelly bean in his mouth. He should have been able to entertain himself at least this long.

Hmm. Mint cream.

Pansy's chatter stuttered to a halt as there was a quiet knock on the door into the compartment. Draco sat up, and though his face remained expressionless inwardly he was relieved something had broken the monotony. "Come in," he called regally.

The door slid open, and Draco bit back an automatic insult as he saw the boy in muggle clothing standing on the other side. "Excuse me," the boy said politely, bowing his head until his longish hair nearly hid his face. "Might any of you have seen a toad onboard?"

The Malfoy heir knew Pansy was puffing up like an adder beside him. The Parkinson family was easily one of the most virulent pureblood families when it came to muggle-hating, and he could practically feel her outrage that a mudblood would dare talk to them- until, that was, he cut off her impending tirade with an abrupt gesture that froze her in shock.

Draco studied the patiently waiting boy with narrowed eyes. There was something subtly... off about him, alerting the instincts his father was often heard to boast of as befitting a true Slytherin.

He was perhaps just a little bit taller than most boys their age, maybe even taller than Draco, but his frame was slender, and the blonde had a feeling he would never be very bulky. Hair that was either black or the darkest red he had ever seen blocked the boy's eyes from sight, though he recalled they had been a vivid green from the brief glimpse he'd had of them.

But none of that was what was bothering him. No, it was something about the clothes... More specifically, the way the boy was wearing them, as though he'd never worn such clothing before.

Draco relaxed, smirking. This was no more a mudblood than he was.

"I might have seen one near the prefect cars up front," he offered, keeping his voice neutral; after all, he still hadn't figured out what game the strange first-year was trying to play.

At that, the boy's face lifted a little, and Draco again saw bright green eyes smile at him. "Thank you." The stranger nodded gratefully, then turned and left, sliding shut the door behind him.

It was a long minute before anyone spoke. "What the hell was that!" finally burst out of Pansy. "How could you be nice to that, that..." Words failed her.

"That wizard?" Draco suggested delicately, leaning back against his seat and tenting his fingers on his chest. "Because he certainly wasn't a muggleborn."

Blaise twitched an eyebrow. "And what brought you to that conclusion?"

The blonde wizard smirked again. "Well, it was fairly obvious... Provided you actually looked at more than the clothes. He looked about as comfortable in muggle clothing as a snake about to shed."

Morag frowned thoughtfully, then nodded, and Draco knew he at least had seen the same thing but hadn't realized what it meant. "But why would he wear them, then?" Pansy asked, mystified.

"That's the mystery, isn't it?" Draco tilted his head up to stare at the gently swaying ceiling, a surprisingly contented smile on his lips. And why not be content? There was nothing he loved more than puzzles; he loved shifting the pieces until they fell into place. Now he had a true puzzle to occupy his time at Hogwarts. And besides.

He wasn't bored anymore.

-I-I-I-

Neville turned at the gentle touch on his shoulder to see Kaze's quietly smiling face. "I believe this little fellow belongs to you," the boy said serenely, holding out his hand. Neville grinned with relieved delight as he found Trevor sitting docilely in the outstretched palm, and reached out to take the toad.

"Thank you," the wizard said gratefully, slipping his wayward pet into his pocket. "I don't want to think about what Gran's reaction would have been like if I'd really lost him again."

Kaze's smile widened a little with what looked like genuine happiness, and his green eyes sparkled. "It was no trouble, really. None at all."