"I read about him in a book," Ted Epiphany said as he extended his hand and shook hands with the somewhat reserved Neville.
"Hello. My name is Ted Epiphany. You can just call me Ted."
"H-hello… just call me Neville," the chubby boy replied nervously.
Neville looked like the kind of child who had been bullied his whole life. His face practically said, Please pick on me. Go ahead.
Ted suddenly found himself a bit worried about the Voldemort issue.
Neville's reaction to Ted, however, turned out quite different from what he expected.
Ted didn't ask to see his scar.
Neville visibly relaxed.
Ever since he was little, whenever someone learned who he was, they would inevitably ask to see the scar.
Neville hated showing it. The scar had cost him both of his parents.
But he never really knew how to refuse people's requests.
Ted's decision not to ask about the scar immediately earned Neville's goodwill.
Hermione then pointed at the mouse-eared boy and continued the introductions.
"This is Jerry. He's also a new student this year. We'll all be classmates!"
Ted shook Jerry's hand.
"Nice to meet you, Jerry. You can call me Ted."
"Nice to meet you, Ted!" Jerry replied brightly, his eyes lively and constantly darting about.
After that, however, the compartment fell into a slightly awkward silence.
Neville barely dared to speak, and he avoided making direct eye contact.
Jerry seemed like he wanted to say something, but being in a strange environment made him restrain himself.
He was thinking that although Neville and Hermione had not shown any prejudice toward his identity, he wasn't sure what this new student—Ted—thought about it yet.
Hermione, on the other hand, was quite talkative. She kept flipping through her textbooks and discussing spell theory with Ted.
Meanwhile, the other two boys quietly observed him.
They had already witnessed Hermione's abilities—both her personality and her magical talent.
Neville, despite being from the prestigious Longbottom family, hadn't been able to cast a single spell before recently.
In fact, it wasn't until he was ten years old—during what his uncle jokingly called the "falling-from-a-window experiment"—that his magical power finally manifested in a burst.
Before that, many people pessimistically believed that the Boy Who Lived might actually be a Squib.
Imagine that tragedy.
The Boy Who Lived… a Squib.
The pressure Neville had grown up under was unimaginable.
Rumors circulated about him—unflattering ones. Things like "the slow-witted savior."
The pressure weighed heavily on him.
All Neville wanted was to be a perfectly ordinary wizard.
An unremarkable one.
But that wasn't easy.
Now that these three new classmates weren't staring at him like he was a zoo exhibit, Neville felt a great sense of relief.
As for Jerry, being a member of the Mouse-Ear tribe, he had technically been born in this world—but many pure-blood wizard families didn't treat demi-humans like true natives.
His family struggled financially, and in daily life he had to be careful not to cause trouble.
He had only touched a wand for the first time half a month ago.
Meanwhile, Hermione—coming from a Muggle family—had already mastered several spells!
And the boy she kept mentioning—the one who had guided her in magic—Ted…
What kind of person was he?
Ted naturally noticed the two boys secretly observing him, but he didn't mind.
After a while, Neville gradually grew accustomed to the new atmosphere in the compartment and relaxed quite a bit.
Jerry, meanwhile, became fascinated by the two smooth wooden beads in Ted's hand.
Sometimes Ted's hand wasn't moving at all, yet the beads would slowly rotate on their own.
Was that magic too?
At that moment, Ansu finally managed to wriggle free from Hermione's grasp and flew onto the luggage rack, hurriedly grooming its feathers.
While pecking at them, the raven muttered,
"Caw! Caw! That girl was too close!"
Hermione adored Ansu so much that even Magic, the owl in her cage, seemed jealous and kept staring at the raven.
Naturally, Ansu attracted the attention of the other two boys.
Neville especially stared at the bird with envy while holding his toad, Trevor.
The raven's glossy black feathers shimmered with a faint blue sheen. It was clever, lively, and could even speak human words.
By now Ansu was nearly fully grown.
With a body length of nearly thirty centimeters, it had become quite a large bird.
At that moment, the passengers inside the compartment heard a young girl's voice coming from the platform outside.
"Neville! Mum, I see Neville! Mum, can I go onto the train to look at him?"
"Neville isn't an animal in a zoo, Ginny. You can't just go stare at him. And you've already seen him before."
"That was when we were little! I don't even remember!"
Ted casually glanced out the window.
He saw Sirius and his wife standing nearby to see Holly off at the train.
They were chatting with the red-haired Weasley family.
Neville had clearly heard the conversation as well. He shrank slightly toward the window.
If possible, he probably wished he could squeeze himself into the wall and become invisible.
Even though he was now known as the Boy Who Lived, Neville still seemed overly honest and lacking in confidence.
If someone had no particular strengths, people would praise them for being "honest and well-behaved."
Perhaps the pressure he had carried since childhood was simply too heavy.
And his grandmother didn't seem particularly skilled at raising children.
She was more like a pressure-generating grandmother.
Soon it was time for departure.
The train began to move, heading north from London toward the Scottish Highlands.
Once the train started rolling, everyone's mood improved.
Hogwarts wasn't far now.
Just a few minutes later, a knock sounded on the door.
The sliding compartment door opened, and a red-haired head poked inside.
"Excuse me, could I—oh! No, it's full here too! All the compartments are full."
The red-haired boy withdrew his head with a blank expression.
But a few seconds later, it popped back in again.
"Neville?"
Neville forced an awkward smile.
"Hello, Ron."
Ted thought to himself:
Ah—Ron Weasley.
One of Hermione's two useless men, as the jokes would have it.
Unlike Harry in the original story—who had grown up with Muggle relatives—the Longbottom family was a well-known pure-blood wizard family in Britain.
It wasn't strange that they had connections with the Weasley family, who were also pure-bloods.
Moreover, Neville's parents and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had both been members of the Order of the Phoenix, so Neville and Ron had already met before.
Seeing someone he knew, Ron looked visibly relieved.
At least there was a familiar face here.
"Um… could I squeeze in?" he asked. "There's no room anywhere else."
Ted glanced around at the others.
"Come in. We're all classmates. Since you're already here…"
"Thanks! Thanks!" Ron said gratefully as he dragged his patched-up suitcase inside.
A compartment designed for four people could easily fit five.
After all, some vans could hold ten or even twenty passengers if people tried hard enough.
Ron turned out to be quite talkative.
After introducing himself, he began chatting enthusiastically.
With him warming up the atmosphere, Jerry—who had been holding back—also joined the conversation.
Hermione and Ted occasionally added their own remarks, and the mood in the compartment quickly became lively.
Even Neville relaxed enough to contribute a few sentences.
Naturally, a group of young wizards soon began discussing Hogwarts.
The topic quickly turned to house sorting.
Neville looked discouraged.
"I'd like to go to Gryffindor… but I think Hufflepuff is more likely. Honestly, I'll be happy if any house accepts me."
Ron immediately disagreed.
"How could that be? You're the Boy Who Lived!"
Neville gave a bitter smile.
"More like the lucky idiot who survived."
At least Neville could laugh at himself.
His mentality wasn't bad.
Most eleven-year-olds wouldn't be able to handle that kind of pressure.
Ted tried to comfort him.
"Actually, the Sorting tends to follow your own wishes. If you truly want Gryffindor, then hold firmly to that thought. The Sorting will probably send you there."
Ron looked skeptical.
"Really? Do you know how the Sorting works? Fred and George told me it involves some kind of dangerous test, but they refused to tell me what it is!"
Ted grinned.
"That's part of the tradition. You'll find out when the time comes."
Everyone else thought the same thing:
People who speak in riddles should be banned from Hogwarts.
Realizing that Ted, Hermione, and Jerry didn't know much about the wizarding world, Ron became delighted and immediately began sharing stories about himself.
He proudly mentioned that he owned a flying broomstick—the Comet.
Although, to be honest, it probably wasn't faster than a well-rested butterfly.
Ron complained that almost everything he owned was second-hand.
His wand had belonged to his second brother Charlie.
His robes came from his eldest brother Bill.
His wizard chess set had been passed down from his grandfather—a true family heirloom. The chess pieces often claimed they were older than Ron's grandfather.
Even his pet rat Scabbers had belonged to his third sister Peggy before him.
Ted glanced at the rat in Ron's hands.
Peter, he thought.
I mean… Scabbers.
Ted tried to comfort Ron.
"Don't worry about it. If anything, my situation is worse than yours. Everything I own except my wand came from second-hand shops that I spent two months searching through. I don't have any family, and after graduation I'll still have to repay my student loans."
Ron immediately apologized.
But inside, he felt a lot better.
As the saying went:
You're afraid your friend might suffer… but even more afraid they might succeed.
People's circumstances were always relative.
Then suddenly—
Ted froze.
He had just realized something.
"Wait… what did you say? Who? Your third sister?"
"Peggy?"
Wasn't Peter Pettigrew supposed to be a rat inherited from Percy?
"Ron," Ted asked slowly, "how many children are there in your family?"
"Seven!"
After asking a few more questions, Ted finally confirmed it.
Well, well…
Percy had somehow become Peggy.