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The interior of the compartment was a pocket of cold, quiet ambition stitched into the loud, chaotic fabric of the Hogwarts Express. Outside, students ran through the corridors, shouting greetings and laughing with a carefree energy that seemed to belong to another species. Inside, there was only the rhythmic clatter of the train on the tracks and the low, precise murmur of conspiracy.
Kaelen sat opposite Daphne, his new, perfectly tailored Muggle coat a stark black against the worn scarlet of the seat. His posture was relaxed, but his presence dominated the space. The constant, unnerving smile he had cultivated over the summer was firmly in place, a polite and terrifying mask that made his grey eyes seem even colder by contrast. Across from him, Daphne Greengrass was the picture of pure-blood elegance, her composure a match for his own. Beside him, Theodore Nott sat in a state of rigid, watchful attention, his earlier intellectual arrogance replaced by the focused subservience of a well-trained hound.
"Your analysis of the author's work was astute," Kaelen was saying, his voice a soft, conversational purr that was somehow more menacing than a shout. He was referring to the book on psychoanalysis he'd sent her. "His obsession with parental influence is a significant flaw. He fails to grasp that trauma is not merely a wound to be healed, but a crucible in which a superior will can be forged."
"He is a Muggle," Daphne replied, a delicate shrug in her voice. "His perspective is limited. He sees a cage; a wizard sees a tool for focusing the mind. The chapter on sociopathy, however, was a more accurate portrait of ambition unburdened by sentiment." Their exchange was effortless, a continuation of the intellectual courtship they had conducted by owl all summer. It was a language of power and psychology that Nott, for all his intelligence, was not yet fluent in.
"The soul-leeching rune you tasked me with researching," Nott interjected, eager to prove his worth, "it appears in only one text in my family's library. The Maleficarum Codex. It is not an attack curse. It's a preparatory ritual. The author theorizes it was designed to hollow out a vessel, to make a soul more… pliable… for possession or consumption."
"Voldemort's contingency plan," Kaelen mused, the name rolling off his tongue with a casual disdain that made Nott flinch. "Pathetic, but thorough. He was not just wearing Quirrell; he was preparing to devour him. Keep researching. I want to know if the process can be reversed. I want to know if a hollowed soul can be… refilled."
The implications of the question hung in the air, chilling and monstrous. Nott swallowed hard and nodded, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and a dawning, fanatical awe. This was the mind he now served.
It was in the midst of this cold, strategic planning that the compartment door slid open.
The girl who stood there seemed to have been assembled from a dream. Her hair was a cascade of dirty, tangled blonde that fell to her waist. She wore a necklace of what appeared to be butterbeer corks and a pair of earrings that looked suspiciously like radishes. But it was her eyes that arrested the very air in the compartment. They were large, silvery, and seemed to be focused on a point several inches beyond the back of Kaelen's head. She was not looking at them; she was looking through them.
The immediate effect on Kaelen was something he had never before experienced. His mind, that relentless engine of analysis, calculation, and control, that fortress of icy logic he had spent years perfecting… went quiet.
It wasn't a forced silence, not the brutal suppression of emotion he practiced with his Occlumency. It was a genuine, profound, and deeply unsettling peace. The constant, humming storm of strategic thought, the endless processing of variables and threats, simply… ceased. He could feel the cold, hard edges of his own mind, and for the first time, he was aware of them as a cage. This girl's presence was like a key turning in a lock he never knew existed.
Daphne's eyes narrowed, her hand instinctively moving towards the wand concealed in her sleeve. Nott simply stared, his mouth slightly agape, utterly baffled by this bizarre intrusion.
"I'm sorry," the girl said, her voice a dreamy, ethereal whisper. "All the other compartments seem to be full of Nargles. They're particularly bad this year. They steal your thoughts, you know." She drifted into the compartment and sat down next to Nott, who flinched as if she were made of static electricity. "My name is Luna Lovegood."
Kaelen's mind, free from its usual storm, observed her with a pure, untainted curiosity. He felt the smile on his face soften, losing its predatory edge and becoming something closer to genuine. "Nargles," he repeated, the word alien and fascinating on his tongue. "Describe their metaphysical properties, Miss Lovegood. Are they sentient? Do they operate with a hive intelligence?"
Luna's large, silvery eyes finally focused on him, and she smiled a real, gentle smile. "Oh, they're quite clever. But not very organized. They're attracted to closed-mindedness. It's like a sweet scent to them."
Daphne stared at Kaelen, utterly mystified. He was engaging with this… this lunatic… as if she were a visiting dignitary.
"Then this compartment," Kaelen said, his smile widening as he glanced at Nott and Daphne, "must be a veritable feast for them." It was a joke, a piece of genuine, teasing humor so out of character that Nott looked physically ill.
At that moment, the compartment door slid open again. Three older Ravenclaw boys stood there, their faces set in sneering masks of superiority.
"Well, well, look what we have here," the leader, a prefect with a beak-like nose, said, his eyes fixed on Luna. "Lost again, are we, Loony? Or just spreading your insanity to the snakes this year?"
Luna's dreamy expression didn't change. "Hello, Roger. Your head is full of Wrackspurts today. It's making you unkind."
"You watch your mouth, you freak," another boy snarled, stepping forward.
Kaelen did not move. He did not stand. He simply turned his head, and his smile, which had been softened by Luna's presence, snapped back into place like a shard of obsidian. It was wider now, colder, and filled with a terrifying, gleeful promise. The temperature in the compartment seemed to drop ten degrees.
"Gentlemen," Kaelen's voice was a soft, pleasant murmur, but it had the chilling effect of a snake coiling around their ankles. The three Ravenclaws froze, their attention torn from Luna and fixed on the smiling boy who was radiating an aura of absolute, patient menace.
"My apologies," Kaelen continued, his smile never wavering. "You seem to be under the impression that this is an open compartment. It is not. You have also made the unfortunate mistake of insulting my… guest."
The prefect, Roger, tried to muster his authority. "And who are you to—"
Kaelen cut him off, his voice still a silken whisper. "I am the person who knows that you, Roger Davies, spend every Tuesday night crying in the Owlery because you are terrified you will never be as brilliant as your older brother. I know that you, Marcus, stole a Niffler from Care of Magical Creatures last year and have been using it to skim galleons from your own housemates. And I know that you, Stephen, still wet the bed when you have nightmares about your mother leaving."
He delivered the information with the calm, detached interest of a man reading a grocery list. Each word was a perfectly aimed dagger, sliding into the deepest insecurities of its target. The boys' faces went from arrogant to shocked to utterly, nakedly terrified. He hadn't just insulted them; he had flayed them, exposing their soft, pathetic underbellies for the world to see.
Kaelen's smile became almost beatific. He was enjoying this. The ripple of their fear was a palpable thing, a delicious vibration in the air. This was the joy of being an Angra.
"Now," he said, his voice dropping to a final, chilling whisper. "You are going to apologize to Miss Lovegood for disturbing her. Then you are going to leave. And you are going to forget this conversation ever happened. Because if I ever hear of you, or anyone else, bothering her again… I will graduate from revealing your secrets to creating new ones for you. And trust me when I say that the nightmares I can craft are far, far worse than the ones you already have."
A thick, suffocating silence descended. The Ravenclaw prefect, his face the colour of curdled milk, turned a trembling visage to Luna. "S-sorry, Lovegood," he stammered. Then the three of them practically fell over each other in their haste to get out of the compartment, sliding the door shut with a final, terrified click.
Kaelen turned back to Luna, his smile instantly losing its predatory chill and becoming gentle once more. The shift was so sudden, so absolute, that it made Daphne's breath catch in her throat.
Luna, who had been watching the exchange with a serene, detached curiosity, simply smiled back at him. "Thank you," she said, her voice as dreamy as ever. "They were very loud. It makes it hard to think."
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