Inside a train with a black and red engine sat an athletic boy with sharp, ocean-blue eyes and black hair. He was talking to a tomboyish girl with shoulder-length brown hair and a boy with short brown hair. They seemed to be having a good time. At times, they’d laugh at the black-haired boy's jokes and at times he’d show them some magic.

“Fine, here you go. Avis!”, chanted the black-haired boy as a flock of birds started appearing from the tip of his wand.

The brown birds had a white belly and a steak of black around their eyes. They flew around in their compartment and chirped.

“Whoa, are those sparrows? Come here birdy.”, the girl laughed and whistled.

The brown-haired boy scoffed, “Why’re you so amazed? Just some bloody birds, ain’t they?”

“Sure, they might be small birds but... Oppugno!”, the black-haired boy chanted with a laugh.

Immediately, the birds started to fly in formation and started diving. With each dive, they would peck the brown-haired boy's head.

“Ow! Ow, ow! I’m sorry, time out, time out,” even though the boy submitted, he still had a smile on his face.

The other two laugh and with a flick of his wand, the black-haired boy sent the birds out the window. Looking at the brown-haired boy's disheveled appearance, the others laughed only to be joined by the boy himself.

The black-haired boy waved his hands to try and calm them down, “Okay, okay, you guys stay here, I’ll take a peek at George and Fred, see what they’re doing.”

“Fine, but as soon as you come back, you show us another spell.”, the girl pouted.

Seeing her childishness, the boy gave in, “Yes, yes, I will. My spells are only here to entertain our dear Kate.”

“W-What?”, the girl's cheek became rosy and she glared at the boy. But the boy just gave a light chuckle and left the compartment.

This black-haired boy was naturally Sol Balor who was in the Hogwarts Express. He had been talking to his friends Katie Bell and Cormac Maclaggen.

Sol started walking from car to car, passing many compartments. He could see students in threes or fours in every compartment. Some were merrily chatting, some playing with joke products or eating what they got from the trolley lady.

Speaking of the trolley lady, there she is! Standing in front of a compartment, she’s offering her services. Sol comes up to her, in order to pass through, he needs her to move.

“Excuse me, would you mind moving a bit?”

“No worries, dearie. Just wait a bit, won’t you?”

“Yeah, sure thing.”

After her transactions with the student were complete, she started moving forward. After moving a few steps she sidestepped to allow Sol to get by.

“Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. Would you like something to eat?”

“Oh...uh... if you insist then please give me a chocolate frog, please.”

“Here you go, dearie. That’ll be five knuts.”

With a chocolate frog in hand, he headed off again. Soon, he came in front of a compartment in which two ginger boys and a boy with dark skin were huddled together.

Haah~ they’re hatching a plot again.

“Oi, what’re you two doing?”, Sol called out with a suspicious gaze.

Hearing the voice, the three flinched, only to turn around and see Sol looking at them.

“N-Nothing, we were just-“

“-talking about our studies.”

“Yeah, that’s it. We decided to become serious in our studies,” Lee added.

As soon as they said that, they saw Sol calmly put two fingers of his hand to the wrist of the other and again put it to the side of his neck.

“What are you doing?”, asked the three, clearly puzzled.

Sol let out a sigh and said calmly, “Oh nothing, just checking to see if I’m dead.”

“W-Why?”

“Cause only when I die will I see you guys study, seriously, couldn’t you nitwits find a better excuse?”

“Hey, we take offense to that.” retorted George.

“We do study, you just don’t see it,” the twins started to deny my claims.

“Yeah, yeah, lame jokes aside, what’re you doing?” Sol changes the topic, though this was the main topic to begin with.

“Just thinking of making a simple prank product,” Lee confessed.

“Hey! We were supposed to keep this a secret.”, the twins exclaimed.

“Honestly, could you keep a secret from Sol?”, Lee asked.

“That's...”

“Thought so,” it seems Lee has rested his case.

In the midst of all this, the man in question had only one thought in his mind.

Just what the hell do these guys see me as.

Sol exhaled and turned to leave, “Just do what you want.”

“Oi, Sol, could you do us a favor?”, Fred beckoned.

“What is it?”

“Could you check how Ron is doing?”

“Yeah, with him being the way he is, I doubt he could’ve gotten a seat, much less make friends,” George added.

Sol wasn’t surprised as the twins always teased Ron like this, “Wow, with the way you guys talk about him, people are going to start doubting if he’s adopted or not.”

“He is adopted.”, both the twins confirmed with a mischievous grin.

“Yeah, yeah, sure I’ll check him out.”, Sol waved his hands and left their compartment. The three boys seeing that Sol was gone, huddled together again, no one knowing what sort of plot they were hatching.

Sol walked past the compartments again with a smirk on his face. Hah! So contradictory. Joke about him behind his back but still look out for his wellbeing. If you’re gonna act, act the whole way.

Sol kept walking by compartments but didn’t find that ginger boy. He walked a bit more before he froze. He glanced inside a compartment only to see a ginger-haired boy.

Hey, there he is!

But the rest of the scene was a bit weird as well. Ron was sitting beside a boy with dark brown hair wearing glasses and opposite them was a girl in school robes with her wand out. She had long brown hair which was a bit frizzy. She had a scholarly air about her. It seemed like she was going to cast a spell.

So Ron's with Harry, huh.

As Sol watched, the girl flicked her wand and a gust of air flew out from the tip of her wand. The gust was strong enough to blow aside Harry's hair revealing his lightning bolt-shaped scar.

Right, I couldn’t look at that scar before, I'll do it now.

“Woah!”, the two boys looked amazed.

“That's the Hot Air charm, isn’t it?”

The occupants of the compartments turn around to look at the speaker only to see a boy with black hair and sharp, ocean-blue eyes.

“Eh, Sol? What're you doing here?”, the two boys ask but then turn to look at each other in surprise.

Ron felt that it was a bit incredulous for Harry to know Sol, so he asked, “You know Sol?”

“Yeah. He came to my house once.”

“You're getting along with Harry, aren’t you?”, Sol chimes in.

“Yeah, I am. The other compartments were full and look at the number of sweets he bought,” Ron confirms.

“Seeing you indulging in them, have you thanked Harry, you numpty?”

“Oh...uh...”

“It doesn’t matter. It was nothing,” Harry waved it off.

At that moment, Sol's impression of Harry rose several levels.

What a polite chap he is!

“Harry...”, Ron looked at him gratefully.

Sol let out a sigh before directing his attention to the girl seated across them.

“And who might this young miss be?”

“That's-“, however Ron couldn’t finish as the girl cut in with her introduction.

“I'm Hermione Granger and you are?”

For a tenth of a second, Sol's expression had turned a bit odd.

Oh God, she really is one of those scholarly types. Just hear that tone of hers.

Nonetheless, he introduced himself, “Sol Balor, Gryffindor second year. So what were you guys doing?”

“Well, Ron here was chanting an incorrect spell. I was here showing them some of the basic spells I learned.”, Hermione explained.

“Oh, what were you trying to do?” Sol asked Ron.

“I was trying to turn the bloody rat yellow.”

At the mention of the ‘rat’, Sol's gaze turned a bit hostile but it quickly turned normal.

“Is that so? Let me show you guys a spell.”, Sol felt it was a good time to pose although he did have an ulterior motive.

Soon the gazes of the other two boys and Hermione turned expectant as Sol took out his wand. Wand in hand, Sol walked into the compartment, taking a seat beside Hermione. He looked at the assortment of sweets on Harry and Ro's lap. Then he did several actions in quick succession.

Sol flicked his wand first and at the same time activated Mana Eyes. He then flicked his wand again but this time chanting Carpe Retractum. Although the scenes he saw with Mana Eyes shocked him, he kept his cool and finished his show.

The Carpe Retractum coiled onto a licorice piece and pulled it to Sol. As the licorice landed on Sol's hands, he blinked once, getting rid of Mana Eyes.

His observation revealed two things: one was something he guessed while the other was something that would give him a lot of worries. Still, he breathed in and out before saying with a smile, “How'd you like that?”

“Wicked!”, the two boys exclaim.

“Gosh! You can only learn that spell starting from the third year. Didn’t you say you were a second year, Sol?”, asked Hermione switching from being amazed to being confused.

Sol flinched at that.

Shit, I forgot! I should’ve shown off with moderation.

With a light laugh, Sol gave an excuse, “Haha, this is the third-year spell I know. Others can do something like this as well.”

Staring holes into Sol, she asked, “Really?”

“Yeah, you can do it too-“, Sol scratched his head, “-anyway seems like you guys are already friends, so I’ll ju-“

“Acquaintances,” Hermione cut off.

At this, both Harry and Ron's face bore an awkward expression. But Sol became a bit surprised before laughing.

“Pfft~ haha!”

“What's so funny?”

“You! Why would an eleven-year-old like you say something like that?”, Sol spoke while laughing. “You shouldn’t draw lines like that at your age.”

“Hmph! You’re talking like you’re much older.”, scoffed Hermione.

Sol stood up and looked at her, “Knowledge is important but so are relationships. Hopefully the next time, I see you guys, the three of you will be friends. See ya!”

As Sol opened the door to leave, Hermione asked, “Your eyes changed color when you chant the spell, didn’t they?”

Hearing her words, Sol stopped before saying with a faint smile, “That was just your eyes playing tricks on you.”

Then, Sol left waving his hand under Hermione's suspecting gaze.

As soon as he was out of their sight, his expression became solemn. The sight he saw through Mana Eyes repeated in his mind and his thoughts raced.

So, I was right. The rat is an Animagus. No bigger than that, Harry seems to have another soul inside him. Even that isn’t the problem. If the soul was white, I wouldn’t be thinking of this now, would I? It’s the fact that the aura of the soul is a disgusting shade of black. It’s like a miasma contained inside Harry's pure white soul. Rather, it coexists with his soul. Though this soul isn’t that evil, it’s still evil enough. Haah~ I really hope this doesn’t end up causing problems... who am I kidding? It’ll most definitely cause problems, won’t it?

As Sol kept on worrying, he came back to his compartment but not before donning a smiling expression. He entered and started merrily chatting with Kate and Cormac again as the Hogwarts Express reached its stop...

...His worries ever-present.