Hogwarts coursework was actually fairly simple.
That was Ariana’s main thought upon finishing her eighth reading of the textbooks.
For her, memorizing a few books after a couple of glances was hardly a challenge.
Reading them over and over was mostly a way to pass the time—and to ensure practice made perfect.
Even though everyone was entering the same year, children born into wizarding families had undoubtedly learned heaps of magic long ago compared to a regular kid like her!
The mere thought made Ariana intensely anxious.
*Good heavens, she was a whole decade behind them!* Talk about losing at the starting line!
Anxiety!
Time to read the books one more time!
Aside from reading, she also secretly tried practicing a few spells.
Knowledge had to be combined with practice, after all.
The results were generally quite good.
The most notable achievement was using the Levitation Charm to float a rag up to the ceiling.
She wasn’t entirely fluent with it yet—the rag kept falling on her head during the process—but she did manage to clean the whole ceiling in the end.
The journey had been arduous, which made her absolutely furious when she finished the entire orphanage ceiling and discovered a spell called *Scourgify* hidden in the back of the book.
Still, after testing it a few times, the results were a bit streaky—likely because she was figuring it out on her own—which made her feel slightly better.
*Lumos* was another great success.
Extremely practical for late-night bathroom runs without turning on the lights.
Unfortunately, she misjudged her power output once, causing her wand tip to ignite with a blinding glare.
The roosters in the backyard thought dawn had broken and started crowing at the top of their lungs, waking nearly the entire orphanage.
Those were just minor hiccups, though.
Her real setback came with Transfiguration.
Ariana had wanted to fix Mrs.
Brown’s favorite chair—the one that always needed a brick under one leg—but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make the short leg grow longer.
As she waved her wand around in frustration while swearing under her breath, a stray movement triggered a spell reaction, and the entire chair blew up into splinters.
Uh-oh.
She was in for a beating now.
However, she drew a valuable lesson from the disaster.
By constantly recalling her motions and mental state during the chair explosion, she managed to systematically replicate the mini blast, naming her creation the “Little Firecracker” spell.
While its power was minimal and its offensive capability practically zero, it was extraordinarily effective at cracking nuts.
Which was wonderful, because Mrs.
Brown loved buying leftover chestnuts from the previous year—cheap, plentiful, and popular with the kids.
But after a year in storage, the shells had shriveled and hardened, leaving Mrs.
Brown’s fingertips bruised red every time she tried to peel them.
Not anymore!
Enter Ariana: the high-speed, fully automated chestnut buster of the orphanage.
She cracked chestnuts quickly and cleanly, and if you tasted carefully, there was even a subtle toasted flavor to them.
Regrettably, after two solid weeks of eating chestnuts, the orphans wept and begged her to stop, claiming they were turning into chestnuts themselves.
The Chestnut Buster was forced to retire.
The Chestnut Buster remained deeply unsatisfied.
Time flew by, and before she knew it, September first had arrived.
The departure time on her train ticket was 11:00 AM, but Ariana was already standing at the orphanage gate by 5:30 AM, fully packed and ready to go.
The little kids who came to see her off were so sleepy they could barely keep their eyes open.
“Ariana…
isn’t it a bit too early to leave?” Ariana frowned, eyeing the group of sleepy chicks.
“I wait for the train; the train does not wait for me!
Besides, I’ve never taken a train before.
Of course I have to go early to give myself a safety buffer for mistakes!” “That goes for you lot, too!
When you take a train to school in the future, get to the platform early!
Better early than late, better ahead of time than behind!
If you miss the train, you have to buy another ticket—do you think our money grows on trees?” The little ones nodded timidly under her scolding, agreeing trembling, which effectively wiped away any lingering sadness about her departure.
“Ariana,” Mrs.
Brown said with a gentle smile after letting her finish lecturing the kids.
She stepped forward to adjust Ariana’s collar.
“Take care of yourself.
If anyone picks on you, tell us.
I’ll go speak to your headmaster.” “I will.” Ariana raised an arm aggressively.
“Don’t worry about me, Susan!
I don’t think any of them can beat me in a fight anyway!” Mrs.
Brown’s worried face instantly went blank.
“You’re not allowed to pick on others either!” Ariana didn’t answer.
She was already bustling off into the distance, clutching her luggage enthusiastically.
Mrs.
Brown watched the lively little bird spread her wings and fly into the horizon.
*** Ariana had severely underestimated herself.
Even though she had never been to King’s Cross Station or taken the Underground before, she followed the signs smoothly and arrived at every transfer point without a single hitch.
When she stepped into King’s Cross Station, the clock read exactly 8:00 AM.
“Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.” Ariana looked down at her ticket, then raised her eyes to the solid brick divider hanging between the plastic signs marked 9 and 10.
“Hmm.
See?
Good thing I came early,” Ariana muttered calmly to herself.
“Now I have plenty of time to run around frantically looking for the way.” She checked her ticket once more.
No mistake.
She did a lap around the surrounding platforms, ensuring no hidden corner held a sign for 9¾, before circling back to the wall between Platforms 9 and 10.
It had to be here.
Recalling how Dumbledore had tapped the bricks to open Diagon Alley, Ariana narrowed her eyes and began counting the bricks on the wall.
Twelve bricks per row horizontally.
Vertically, fifty-two bricks if bounded by the top of the signboards, eighty-four if bounded by the peak of the semi-circular arch, and two hundred twenty-four if bounded by the overhead ceiling vault…
Since it was Platform 9¾, the starting reference point should be on the side of Sign 9, taking the intersection of the horizontal and vertical coordinates…
Ariana quickly identified three test bricks.
Drawing her wand, she tapped the first one.
The tip of her wand sank right through the brick, as though the wall didn’t exist at all.
Ariana’s eyes widened.
She cautiously reached out and pressed her hand against the wall—it passed through just as effortlessly.
She drew back her hand and smiled.
She knew how to enter Platform 9¾ now.
Grasping her luggage, she walked straight into the solid wall.
Light flickered briefly before her vision cleared.
She found herself standing on a platform beside a deep red steam engine, an iron archway overhead bearing the words *Platform 9¾*.
She was a genius!
Ariana gave herself a small mental compliment.
Like a proud cat that had just won a battle, she puffed out her chest and boarded the train with her head held high.
It was still early, and almost all the carriages were completely empty.
Ariana picked a compartment at the very back of the train.
She had never ridden a train before, but she had heard they went very fast.
If the driver couldn’t see clearly and crashed into a mountain or a boulder, sitting in the back might give her enough time to jump clear.
She was destined to become a supreme witch; she couldn’t afford to perish in a train wreck.
She pulled out *A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration* and began reading to pass the time.
As the sun rose higher, the platform outside grew noisy.
The hubbub swelled until eventually, someone knocked on her compartment door.
“Excuse me,” a boy with messy hair and bright green eyes poked his head in cautiously.
“Do you mind if I sit here?
Everywhere else is full…” “Not at all,” Ariana said.
Seeing the veins bulging on his hands as he struggled with a heavy trunk, she casually flicked her wand.
“*Wingardium Leviosa.*” The trunk floated smoothly toward the overhead luggage rack and settled down lightly.
“Wow, thanks!
That was amazing,” the boy said, his emerald eyes sparkling like a sunlit lake.
“Are you an older student at Hogwarts?” Ariana maintained a reserved air.
“No, I’m a first-year, actually.
I’m Ariana Rich.” “Is your whole family wizards?” Harry asked, looking genuinely curious.
*What was that supposed to mean?* Ariana eyed Harry with a flicker of vigilance.
Although *A History of Magic* didn’t state it outright, Ariana—having read it ten times—had shrewdly pieced together from scattered phrases that in past centuries, some wizarding families harbored deep prejudice against Muggle-borns.
What, was she running into a remnant of feudal bigotry on her very first day of school?
This boy looked silly enough to haul his luggage by hand instead of using magic, but his trunk was heavy, meaning he had bought a lot of things.
He even had a fat owl as a pet.
He clearly came from a wealthy aristocratic wizarding family.
Was he about to look down on an orphan from a Muggle orphanage like her?
“No.
I don’t have a family,” she said coldly.
“I lived in an orphanage.
No one there could do magic.” If he dared to say anything rude, she was going to blast him with a Little Firecracker right then and there!
Ariana tightened her grip on the wand hidden in her pocket.