After leaving Diagon Alley, life for Vincent and Harry didn’t seem all that different.
The only real changes were that Vincent had switched to reading Hogwarts: A History, and Harry had started carrying his wand around, eager to discuss magic with him.
Otherwise their days stayed as quiet and uneventful as the years before.
One thing did strike Harry as strange: Aunt Petunia’s attitude toward him no longer carried the open disgust of previous years.
It had turned odd and hard to read.
“Vincent, what do you think is going on?
Aunt Petunia’s even been saving dinner for me lately.
It can’t be that she’s suddenly going to miss me just because I’m leaving for school, right?” By the end of the sentence Harry was already laughing at himself.
How could Aunt Petunia ever feel anything like missing him?
She’d always wanted him gone as soon as possible so he’d stop wasting their money.
He had spent his entire miserable childhood under her roof—never enough food, never enough clothes, sleeping in the tiny cupboard under the stairs.
Now that he was finally leaving for school, the idea that she had suddenly decided to be kind felt wrong in every way.
It felt like she had something to hide.
Vincent turned a page in his book and answered casually, “Maybe she’s looking at someone else through you.” Harry didn’t hear him.
He was too busy turning his wand over in his hands, trying to figure out what other miraculous things it might be able to do.
He hadn’t noticed, but Vincent had seen it more than once.
Several times while Harry was talking to him in the yard, Mrs.
Petunia Dursley had peered over the garden wall, watching in secret.
The look in her eyes was no longer the old contempt and dislike.
It was a deep, quiet nostalgia.
Vincent knew that look well.
His adoptive parents used to look at him the same way—seeing their dead son through his body.
Who was Petunia Dursley seeing when she looked at Harry?
Her dead sister?
People said the two of them had a terrible relationship.
Mrs.
Dursley wouldn’t even allow Harry to mention his mother in the house.
The moment the subject came up she would react like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, ready to claw him.
She did that often enough anyway.
Vernon Dursley and their son Dudley had never been shy about hitting Harry.
Vincent was only an outsider.
He couldn’t step into their family business.
All he could do was quietly slip Harry candy and painkillers whenever the boy was hurt.
Harry didn’t take Vincent’s words seriously.
Anyone who had been bullied like that since childhood would never believe the bullies had suddenly changed and wanted to get along.
He scattered breadcrumbs for Hedwig.
The beautiful owl cooperated for a little while, then started preening her feathers and ignored him completely.
“Vincent, aren’t you going to bring a pet to school?” Harry had never owned anything of his own growing up.
Having Hedwig felt like treasure.
Vincent answered mildly, “No.
Taking care of a pet is too much trouble.” He didn’t like pets.
Owning another life was a complicated business.
If someone could discard their own child, what was a pet compared to that?
For some reason the finely featured boy from Ollivander’s shop came back to him—beautiful, wealthy, and still not happy.
They were alike in that way.
Both of them possessed advantages other people envied, yet both knew their own hands were empty.
Vincent glanced at Harry, who had started playing with Hedwig again.
He had been observing this particular specimen for a long time and still couldn’t figure out the source of the boy’s happiness.
Perhaps the story of the “golden boy” could only be understood in the magical world that had created him.
Vincent lowered his eyes to his book.
There was no joy or sorrow in them—only emptiness.
After a birthday neither of them would forget, time seemed to speed up.
In the middle of Harry and Vincent’s daily anticipation, the start of term drew closer and closer.
At last they packed everything they owned and headed for King’s Cross Station.
Before leaving, Vincent sent a letter to his adoptive parents.
He explained that he would be attending a special boarding school and might not be able to come home for a long time.
If he was slow to answer their letters, he hoped they wouldn’t worry.
Even though he knew they would never write back, he still told them how to reach him.
He had asked Harry’s large friend and learned that America had its own wizarding schools.
If his adoptive parents ever wanted to, they could still send letters the wizarding way—owls could carry a family’s thoughts across the ocean.
What Vincent actually wanted wasn’t their thin affection.
He wanted the large sums of money they could send.
The surname Riddle had been given by them.
His striking looks had come from the birth parents he had never met.
Both things carried secrets, and Vincent liked exploring secrets.
Harry and Vincent stood in the crowded chaos of King’s Cross Station.
It was the start of term.
People pushed carts and luggage in every direction.
Parents lingered on the platforms giving last-minute advice while their children looked both excited and nervous.
Only Vincent and Harry seemed to have nowhere to go.
“Your friend didn’t tell you how to get in?” Vincent asked.
“The Headmaster Dumbledore who bought you ice cream didn’t tell you how to get in?” Harry shot back.
Vincent: “…” Harry: “…” The first real obstacle on the road into the magical world: they couldn’t find Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
Without it they couldn’t reach the school at all.
Harry stared at the flowing crowd and felt a sudden wave of helplessness.
Vincent gave him a push.
“Come on.
We’re asking for directions.” Harry looked around in disbelief.
“Almost everyone here is ordinary.
How are we supposed to ask about that?” Vincent stayed calm.
“We ask one person at a time.
We didn’t come all the way to the train station just to miss Hogwarts because of something this small.
Being treated like a freak for a few minutes is nothing compared to becoming a wizard.
We’ll never see these people again anyway.” The finely featured boy’s eyes were steady.
As long as the result was achieved, the process was a detail that could be ignored.
Harry began walking back and forth between Platforms Nine and Ten, asking every person he could reach where Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was.
After Harry had questioned two people, Vincent suddenly spotted a familiar figure in the crowd.
Asking strangers one by one was slow.
Finding other wizards heading to Hogwarts near the platforms would be much faster.
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters had to be somewhere close.
If they simply waited, students would eventually appear.
As for why he had sent Harry to ask random people… the boy needed something to do.
“Young Master Nott, the head of the family is too busy today, but he asked me to give you an entrance gift.
It’s already in your trunk.
He hopes you’ll study hard at Hogwarts and uphold the Nott family name.” Theodore gave a cold little laugh.
Uphold the name?
How exactly was he supposed to drag the pure-blood name any lower?
The Dark Lord’s defeat by a child had already destroyed whatever prestige they once claimed.
The boy from Ollivander’s shop.
He was definitely going to Hogwarts too.
Vincent put on his polite business smile and started toward his rabbit.
His rabbit walked straight into the barrier wall and vanished.
Vincent: “…” How was he supposed to follow that?
He saw Harry lingering near the wall where people were disappearing.
He was about to go over and tell him they had found the way in when Harry, pushing his tall stack of luggage, stepped backward and bumped into someone.
A large family.
Excellent red-haired genetics.
A slightly plump woman was calling to her children.
When she saw Harry, a soft expression immediately appeared on her face.
A kind, warm, good-hearted woman.
Vincent liked people like that.
They saved a lot of effort.
“Harry, I’ve found the entrance to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
Oh—hello, ma’am.
Are you all heading to Hogwarts as well?
Your family looks so lively.” Molly Weasley was a thoroughly kind person.
Vincent, carrying only a small bag, smiled and thanked her twin sons for helping with the luggage.
In the same breath he praised her warm manner and pretty face with a few well-chosen lines that sounded almost like poetry without tipping into flattery.
Two or three sentences were enough to make Molly beam.
Kind people saved effort—in the most practical, physical sense of the word.