September the first, the first day of the new school term.
Mirabelle was inside King's Cross Station, a bustling hub packed with Muggles.
She wore a white dress shirt with a blue tie at the collar and a vest over it. White knee-high socks rose up to meet the hem of her old-fashioned box-pleated skirt. A black robe was draped over her shoulders like a cape, its arms left hanging free, and somehow, without any visible means of support, it held perfectly in place no matter how the air moved around her. Several passersby glanced at her with open curiosity as the robe refused, through every breath of wind, to leave her shoulders.
'Hmm, it should be somewhere around here.'
Dressed in her brand-new uniform, Mirabelle checked the paper in her hand against the surroundings.
Her destination was Platform Nine and Three-Quarters at King's Cross Station. The barrier between platforms nine and ten stood directly before her, which confirmed she had come to the right place.
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters , naturally, no such platform existed by any ordinary measure. But that was only from a Muggle perspective. A witch or wizard would not be confused in the slightest.
With her luggage still on her back, Mirabelle walked towards the barrier without hesitation, and the next moment she was stepping through an iron archway marked 9¾.
Beyond it, a scarlet steam locomotive stood waiting at the platform. A sign above read: Hogwarts Express, departing at 11:00. Cats of every colour wound their way between people's legs, and owls called out here and there, pets brought by students, most likely. Everywhere she looked, uniformed students and their parents were talking, embracing, and exchanging last-minute advice.
Mirabelle's own parents, the Beresfords, were not among them. They had seen no reason to take time away from work merely to see their daughter off, and more to the point, Mirabelle herself had told them not to bother.
In their place, her devoted house-elf, Holger, stood at her side. He had accompanied her under a Disillusionment Charm, not uttering a single word the entire journey, and had made it this far without once being detected by a Muggle.
"Well then, young lady, please take care of yourself."
"Don't slack off too much. Until the time comes, keep up the pretence of loyalty to the Beresfords."
"Of course. We shall leave no stone unturned."
Holger was a house-elf who served Mirabelle alone. The Beresfords, however, knew nothing of this arrangement. As far as they were concerned, he remained their faithful servant, working dutifully at the estate. In practice, he had been cutting corners wherever he found the opportunity, but the couple had yet to notice. The house-elf who had once worked harder than anyone else had, it turned out, an equally exceptional talent for doing the bare minimum.
After handing over the last of her luggage, Mirabelle boarded the train without looking back. Holger Disapparated behind her without a word of complaint.
She made her way towards the rear of the train, found an empty compartment in the fifth carriage, and sat down. She would have preferred the very last one, but the final row of compartments was already full.
The train began to move not long afterwards, and the view outside the window fell into a blur. The station slipped out of sight, giving way to vast open fields stretching as far as she could see. They were pleasant enough for a while, but Mirabelle soon lost interest and reached into her bag.
She pulled out a novel she had recently purchased and flipped through it, hoping it might fill the time. After roughly ten pages, she closed it.
'Tch. Reading it all the way through was a mistake. A book I've already finished is useless for killing time.'
She had worked through every textbook and reference book between the day she bought them and this morning. Worse, her mind possessed something close to perfect recall: anything she had seen once was retained in complete detail, rendering revision entirely unnecessary.
It was an advantage in every practical sense, but from the perspective of entertainment, it was a thorough inconvenience. No matter how gripping a story might be on first reading, once she had finished it, every detail was fixed permanently in her memory. A story read twice offered nothing. For someone who genuinely loved novels and films, this ability was a quiet but persistent irritation.
She was reluctantly pushing the book back into her bag when a knock came at the compartment door and it slid open.
"Um, excuse me... is this seat free? Everywhere else seems to be full..."
The boy who entered was short and round-faced, carrying himself with the anxious air of someone bracing for something unpleasant. He was visibly nervous , far too nervous, in fact, given that he had not yet even arrived at the school.
Mirabelle let out a quiet sigh, pointed to an empty seat, and turned to look out the window, arms folded. She would pass the time with the scenery, for now.
"Oh , thank you..."
The boy sat down with hesitant gratitude, but Mirabelle did not respond. She had no particular interest in him. He seemed equally reluctant to speak to her; he fell silent almost immediately, though he glanced in her direction every so often as though trying to work himself up to saying something, only to be stopped each time by the unapproachable air she made no effort to conceal.
This strained quiet continued for some time, until the clock reached half past twelve and a rattling clatter sounded from the corridor. The compartment door opened, and a smiling woman with dimpled cheeks looked in.
"Anything from the trolley?"
Lunchtime already, Mirabelle thought, and turned her attention to the cart.
The selection leaned heavily on sweets: Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, which Mirabelle had a particular aversion to, chocolate frogs, pumpkin pasties, and cauldron cakes that did not look especially kind to the stomach. Still, she was somewhat hungry. A drink and a pasty would be sensible enough.
"Pumpkin pasty, pumpkin juice, and a chocolate frog."
"Of course, thank you, dear."
She handed over the silver coins, tore open the pasty's wrapping, and took a bite. The pastry was soft yet carried a satisfying crispness to it; through it came the pumpkin filling, rich and buttery, the flavour and warmth of it spreading across her tongue in a way that was genuinely pleasant.
She uncapped the pumpkin juice next and drank. The sweetness of it, and the cool freshness, was a welcome contrast to the warmth of the pasty. It was not simply blended pumpkin, either, apple juice had clearly been added, lending a faint tartness beneath the sweetness, making it easy enough to drink even for a child.
'...Having pumpkin in both the juice and the food was perhaps a mistake. Next time, the juice alone will do.'
Last, she unwrapped the chocolate frog and bit into it. Whatever it looked like on the outside, the inside was simply chocolate, and the clean, familiar sweetness of it settled pleasantly on the tongue.
'The chocolate frog was the right choice. It makes a good contrast to all the pumpkin.'
It was a lunch rather more heavily weighted towards sweets than she would have liked, but she was reasonably satisfied. She was wiping her mouth with a napkin and enjoying the quiet aftermath when the boy across from her began to fidget, systematically dismantling the peace.
He was checking his bag, peering under the seat, searching every corner of the compartment with increasingly watery eyes. The sight was genuinely irritating.
At last, having apparently steeled himself, he spoke to her in a voice close to tears.
"Um... have you seen my toad?"
"I wouldn't know."
Could this boy not manage even one pet? She replied without looking away from the window, her tone making her feelings on the matter quite clear. Whether he lost his pet or suffered for it was not her concern. It was entirely his own fault for failing to keep track of a single toad.
He mumbled an apology and shuffled out into the corridor to search.
'It seems we still have quite a while before we arrive...'
She ought to have brought at least one of the novels she had not yet finished. With that thought occupying her mind, Mirabelle closed her eyes and let herself drift towards sleep. If nothing else was available to fill the time, sleep was the simplest solution.
She was nearly there when the compartment door opened again.
"Excuse me , has a toad come back in here?"
It was not the boy. It was a girl of the same year, with chestnut hair that was less voluminous than it was simply unruly, sticking out in places as if it had never been properly attended to.
Her features were not unpleasant, but there was nothing especially striking about them either, and her front teeth were slightly too prominent, giving her a faintly squirrel-like appearance. Her potential, on the other hand, was clearly quite good, probably very good indeed, which made the complete absence of any effort to present herself all the more unfortunate. That was Mirabelle's first assessment of her.
"...Who are you?"
"I'm Hermione Granger. A new student at Hogwarts. Actually, I have to say, it's remarkable how many different kinds of magical creatures there are in the wizarding world. If I were to have a pet, it would have to be an owl, they can deliver letters, which is enormously useful. My family aren't wizards, so I was completely surprised to learn that owls carry letters. When my Hogwarts letter arrived, it was delivered by a white owl, and honestly, seeing that made me want to come here more than anything. It was just so magical. Oh, that's right, what's your name?"
"..."
Hermione had delivered all of this in a single, unbroken breath.
Even Mirabelle was briefly taken aback. Then she matched the name to her memory and understood.
So this was Hermione, the heroine of Harry Potter. Muggle-born, and yet a student more diligent and academically accomplished than virtually anyone else at Hogwarts. In practically every situation Harry and his friends had faced, she was the one who arrived at the answer first. Harry and the others were, in many respects, simply following the path she laid out for them. By that measure, she might well have been the most capable of the three. Quite an impressive girl, all things considered.
"Mirabelle Beresford."
"Lovely to meet you, Mirabelle. But getting back to the matter at hand, has a toad been in here? Actually, since you're in the same compartment, you ought to come and help look for it."
She had exactly the commanding manner Mirabelle remembered.
Mirabelle decided to forgive her for it. She had earned the right to speak that way. Mirabelle's own conviction was that highly capable people should carry themselves in a manner befitting their abilities, which was, of course, precisely why she herself spoke condescendingly and acted as though she occupied a tier above everyone else. It was simply arrogance made visible, the natural expression of someone who genuinely believed herself superior.
"He can find it himself. It's his own problem."
"That's an awful attitude. You're in the same compartment, you could at least help look."
"It's too much trouble. It's entirely his own fault for losing track of a single toad."
She dismissed the argument with a calm finality and drank the last of her pumpkin juice. It was not unpleasant, but the strong flavour was better suited to a meal than to quenching thirst. Mineral water would have served that purpose far better.
"Oh, honestly! You just can't find it yourself! That's what this is really about!"
"...Is it."
Mirabelle set the empty bottle down and sighed.
A transparent provocation. The problem was that this girl might not have intended it as one — she might genuinely believe what she was saying. Being condescended to and dismissed on the very first day was hardly a pleasing experience.
'I suppose there's no avoiding it,' Mirabelle thought, and reached into her breast pocket to retrieve Pyotr.
"Your first job, Pyotr. Find the toad and bring it to me."
She set the rat loose into the corridor and sat back, legs crossed, and waited.
Barely thirty seconds later, Pyotr returned with the toad clamped in his mouth, dropped it onto the table, the boy cried out "Trevor!", and leapt up onto Mirabelle's folded legs. He sat there with his chest puffed out, visibly pleased with himself. She rewarded him with a small piece of cheese and scratched him gently under the throat.
The notion that rats liked cheese was more urban legend than fact, it was said, but these were creatures of the wizarding world. Their tastes evidently ran a little differently to those of their ordinary counterparts.
"That is how a pet is handled. Allowing it to escape in the first place is a failure of training, not merely management."
She directed a brief look of mild exasperation at Neville, then glanced across at Hermione, who had gone quite still.
It seemed she had managed to silence the girl for the moment. Mirabelle felt a small measure of relief settle over her and turned back to the window.
"Th-thank you..."
She heard the boy's voice but did not respond, letting her attention return to the passing countryside.
Naturally, Hermione stepped in again almost immediately. She puffed out her cheeks and spoke in a sharp, raised voice.
"They just thanked you! The least you could do is acknowledge it!"
"Does no one ever tell you that you're too much of a busybody?"
Mirabelle replied with an expression of tired patience, not looking away from the window. She had known from memory that Hermione had this sort of personality, but experiencing it directly was something else entirely. No wonder she had struggled to make friends. That said, Mirabelle did not particularly dislike people who did things their own way.
She turned to look at Hermione with a wry smile.
"Let me offer a piece of unsolicited advice. Do something about your hair and your general grooming. You have real potential, and you're squandering it."
"That is absolutely none of your business!"
Mirabelle let herself enjoy Hermione's reaction for a moment. The girl turned a vivid shade of red, spun around, and marched out of the compartment.
Mirabelle watched her go, then leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.
For the next four years, until Voldemort's return, Hermione, Harry Potter, and Ronald Weasley would navigate one crisis after another together. But the truly dangerous figure was the one steering them from behind: Dumbledore.
Over the coming four years, it would do no harm to monitor their movements while quietly building her own strength. If Dumbledore was directing them, then by extension, tracking their actions would allow her to infer his thinking and anticipate his next move to some degree.
All the same, she would prefer to draw Harry and Hermione closer, if it could be managed. That would mean departing from the original course of events, which would in turn make Dumbledore's future actions harder to predict.
It was an extraordinarily difficult balance. Turning the problem over in her mind one final time, Mirabelle surrendered herself, at last, to sleep.
++++++
This time, Mirabelle made contact with Hermione and Neville on the train. She has no particular interest in Neville, however, she didn't even ask his name and didn't realise this was that Neville from the story. A missed opportunity.
Meanwhile, Mirabelle, who knew full well it was a cheap provocation, took the bait anyway. Her pride being what it is, this sort of thing works on her rather reliably.