The end carriage hid a little pocket of privacy the way a hand hides a coin. I found it and claimed it the way one claims a foothold on a cliff — quietly, precisely, and with a ward.
The repelling charm I set was subtle: not the crude, screaming barrier that drew notice, but a modified politeness. The door resisted intrusion with a small, almost apologetic shove, and only if I willed it would a person notice the panel and step around it. To anyone else the compartment was merely occupied; to the right people it would appear empty. I threaded into the spell a fingerprint key of sorts — a phrase of intention that let me choose who could approach and who would be gently nudged away. It felt elegant, like etiquette done by magic.
When Harry Potter stepped in, he was smaller than portraits made him, a boy with a shock of dark hair and eyes too large for his face. He was nervous in the wholesome, public way children are when the world regards them like a curiosity. He sat opposite me with the cautious politeness of someone who'd been taught to expect smiles and sometimes not receive them.
"Hello," I said, introducing myself as simply as a man would give his name in a drawing room. "Tom Grindelwald."
He blinked at the name — curious, not frightened. Perhaps Grindelwald had the same mythic hush that my history used to make my name heavy. Perhaps he felt the comfort of a name that promised stories. He shifted a little closer, the way people lean toward warmth.
We talked like two boys might in the first, necessary politeness of strangers. I tilted conversation toward things a child would find interesting — a book he liked, an owl's habits, a small joke about the train's food carriage — and then I slipped into patterns that set me apart. I seeded a memory about the way I liked to solve problems, a casual comment about how I found rules useful when you learned which ones to bend, and a trimming of boredom that sounded suspiciously like confidence.
Harry grew relaxed. He laughed once, a small sound of surprise. His nervousness thawed. He asked a question about the castle, about ghosts, about the cupboard he'd once lived in, his questions framed by a polite curiosity and a strange, steady courage. He was like an instrument tuning itself under the hand of someone who knew which string to pluck.
He would be useful. That assessment felt clinical and also a little tender. The old Tom had never had friends who stayed; the new plan was different. Allies could be forged, taught, and rewarded. Friends might last if they thought choice had made them. Harry's trust could one day be used to bend public opinion, to soften a prodigy's anger into an asset, or—to my more private calculation—to watch a boy who carried fate like a scar and learn where the fault lines ran.
When Ron Weasley tried the door, the repelling charm did its quiet work. He pushed as any eager boy would, sure of the world like a child sure of a game, and the door shivered with such gentle discouragement that he heard the wrongness and moved on without dramatics. He found a different compartment, found friends who were louder and more congenial. He left without suspicion. The charm made it look as if the compartment was simply occupied; in truth I had arranged every detail so that he would not cross me or Harry at that moment.
Good.
Ron was the sort of gravity that pulls good plans into clumsy orbits. He was loud, jealous when magnified, and too attached to the tides of loyalty that meant less to me than advantage. He dragged people into sentiment; he complicated incentives with clumsy affection. I would not break him; I would simply keep him away from the center of the plan. If he had to exist in the margins to keep Harry hopeful, then let him. The geometry of influence is often triangular: a center, a satellite, and a distraction. Ron could be a distraction.
Harry and I spoke until the countryside went back to fields and the castle rose like a storybook from the train. He asked if I had friends. I answered in ways that stitched a small warmth into the question: I said yes. I said I preferred a few close people who were honest and capable.
He smiled as if he liked the sound of that. I let him.
The compartment door hummed at my touch, responsive and obedient. The repelling charm pulsed in the wood like a heartbeat; it would remember the favours I granted and the faces I allowed inside. I stepped out with Harry at my side, and he walked like a boy who trusted his new companion.
Trust, for me, was currency. I counted it. I spent it strategically.
At the foot of the stone steps I felt the familiar whisper of risk — Dumbledore's attentive mind, the Ministry's curiosity, the petty heroics of stubborn adults — but for the first time in a long string of plans I allowed myself the small comfort that this particular seed had been planted without thorns.
We would begin small. Then I would grow influence. Then I would quietly rearrange the pieces until the endgame no longer looked like prophecy but like arithmetic.
I looked at Harry and thought: he is not a threat yet. He is a hinge. He will be useful if I make him so. And in that soft, dangerous conclusion, I let a child's smile settle into place and made a friend the way a general drafts a plan — with care, with calculation, and with relentless patience.