The current Hexy level is Green

---

She'd never expected that this would happen.

Well, she knew of it, the offer Zoe had given, the notes exchanged in preparation, but still Hexy never thought that she would actually be doing this...

Riding the Hogwarts Express. The full ride home. Not as Casey.

And why? Maybe because of the contract made with Zoe.[1] Or helping her adjust to a new wand last week.[2] But slowly over the Fall term, Zoe Torret had gone from annoying know-it-all to...likable.

At least, not when Zoe did stuff like accusing Casey of purposefully banishing grubworms into her face.[3] And that was the thing. Place Casey and Zoe in the same location and, contract or no, they would spend the whole time miserably tolerating each other. Whereas by happenstance when Casey was playing 'she'...

Hexy didn't even know why she liked it that Zoe liked her, someone who offered a personal invitation to her place for Christmas. It sounded like a better portion of the holiday than whatever the O'Dohertys were doing. Since the heirloom wand of Leprechaun hair was again under Ainbheartach's ownership it was like no one cared about what the prodigal grandchild was doing even more than usual. Martin had mentioned attending an opera around New Years but nothing else was talked about.

For once, being alone in one's section of the oversized manor did not sound appealing. So when someone else offered...

---

So why was she so damn nervous?

Everything had already been taken care of. Dingy was going to gloss things over with the rest of family and Casey's trunk was already off. That just left her with a carry bag and the reflection that she needed more clothes because spending several days in the same shirt and pants and sweatshirt she always wore as Hexy was going to be strange and smelly.

Even though Zoe had seen her at times she could relax, now being relaxed had to be part of the act. Part of keeping to every story she had told Zoe, part of maintaining and expanding the same persona.

Thinking about it too much was giving her a headache. So she wanted to stop thinking.

"Ow!" Walking into a wall in the Hogsmeade station wasn't the distraction she had been looking for. Her first clenched and her arm raised. Two inches short of punching the wall she realized what she was doing. That brought up a scream repressed by tight lips and teeth, muffled yet high pitched and shrill.

You know what? Hex it all, she wasn't going to freak herself out into a bundle of spineless nerves. She'd faced acromantulas[4] in the forest, untold abominations in the castle basement[5] and she was the only person ever to think of dual wielding two wands.

Releasing a sigh the size of the dragodirigible Salem had arrived on, Hexy spun around and fell back against the wall of the station, leaning while balanced on her heels. Zoe said they could find a compartment together so for starters Hexy was just going to go with the flow.

1.	This Should Make Up for It Right? - Nov 7
2.	Soulfire - Dec 13
3.	An Apple a Day Keeps the Poison at Bay - Nov 4
4.	Eight Sides to Every Story - Oct 10
5.	Get That Before It Gets You! - Nov 27

Finally! The term was over, which meant one thing: winter break! Yes, one of the best times of the year, when Zoe got to go home and show off the magic skills she'd learned, celebrate with family and, most of all relax. And this year, like most before, she'd not be completely without things from Hogwarts, as Hexy was coming home with her.

Unlike Hexy, Zoe had been looking forward to it since the day they first agreed. She saw this as a chance for the two to bond, especially because, in a way, they had only recently met, if one was to only consider the actual time the two spent together. The guest room had been prepared for Hexy, Lily herself happily informing Zoe she had cleaned the slight layer of dust that covered much of the furniture of the relatively unused room.

" 'Scuse me, sorry." Zoe nodded to a student she'd bumped with her trunk, which floated next to her. In her right hand, retracted into the sleeve of her robe, Zoe held her Puck fairy wand, maintaining the Locomotor with bound the truck. The wand was doing quite well with the enchantment. "Merlin, where is Hexy?" she muttered to herself.

Looking down, Zoe saw the sleek figure of Snowy was still at her heels, expertly weaving around everyone else. If only she could be part Kneazle, and sense people's aura. As soon as they came to a break in the crowd, Zoe stopped, looking down at the cat. "Snowy, can you sense where Hexy is?"

Snowy meowed almost disapprovingly, but still began to walk towards one of the Hogsmeade station walls, and Zoe followed. However, even though Snowy wound around ankles just fine, Zoe apologized to everyone she walked past on the way, attempting to not lose sight of the moving white fur.

Finally, after bumping more than a few people and nearly tripping over some student's cat and falling on her face, Zoe made it to the wall. "Hexy, there you are!" Even though the two weren't that close, Zoe's relieve led to her giving the Hufflepuff a little hug as a greeting. "I couldn't find you," Zoe said, once they were farther apart one more. "Sorry I took a while."

Snowy meowed at Zoe's heels for attention, and Zoe laughed, bending to stroke her. "Thanks, girl."

"Ok!" Zoe touched her trunk to steady it. "I'm ready to get on. Let's go find a compartment, you can choose. I don't really care."

From her vantage point against the wall, Hexy saw the faces of other people milling about before catching the train. Familiar faces, barely recognizable faces, unknown faces. And to them, was she a known or unknown face? Hopefully the latter.

The dynamics of the crowd changed. Someone was trying to verge through the collected people, headed by a small white creature that came out of the assembled throng first. A cat. That cat of Zoe's, which meant...

"What is that thing crossed with, krup?" Was Snowy smelling her? The cat was always dodging around Zoe in times past, like the day back in the October Hogsmeade Weekend.[1] This might be a bad thing.

"Well I'm here, so...eeh..." Zoe was hugging her! A moment that nearly froze in time. It was just the one arm of Zoe's, given all she had in her other hand. Hexy's innards tensed as if her intestines were coiled from springs. Her arm twitched, fingers flexing in cuff of her sleeve. And then time snapped back into a present. Hexy was more relieved when Zoe stepped back because she might have pushed her off or wiggle out of the embrace, though how with her back against the wall?

There was a slight pause after Zoe backed up a step where Hexy's eyes were wide. Then she noticed Zoe bend to her cat. "Compartment. Right, come on."

When she spun off towards the train she felt blood in her face increase in temperature. That or the cold was tingling her skin. Had she actually come all the way to the station in only two layers without realizing it was cold?

"People usually load from the back." She led Zoe to a car a few behind the engine. She flung her bag into a empty compartment, then crashed onto the seat right next to her bag.

1.	Non-Nosy Nosing Around - Oct 3

Zoe nodded at Hexy's comment, as if, after three and a half years at Hogwarts, she still didn't know how the Hogwarts Express was boarded. As Hexy began to walk off, Zoe picked up Snowy, put the white cat on top of her floating trunk, and followed.

Entering the compartment after Hexy, Zoe sat opposite from the Hufflepuff, the trunk floating into the trunk compartment after Snowy had leaped off of the top. She dropped the wand next to her. "Very good for the first enchantment, I must say." Snowy curled onto the compartment seat next to Zoe. "I've got money for trolley candy, enough for both of us." She clinked a few galleons that she had taken from the stash her parents had given her for first sememster Hogsmeade expenses.

Zoe rose, closed the compartment doors, and settled back into her seat. "Oh, I'm just so excited to get back home. Mum and Dad always wait to decorate the tree until I get home, we'll probably do that tomorrow. It's really fun, to put decorations on top, I get to use my broom. I'm sure they'd let you help me with that." Hexy didn't seem to be storing a broom in her bag, so she'd have to lend hers, but it wasn't like Zoe brought her broom to Hogwarts.

Removing her robe and folding it beside her, Zoe took Snowy onto her lap. "Did you bring anything to do on the train ride?"

"Finally getting it to work, huh?" Hexy said of Zoe's wand. Hexy was in a slump, her shoulders low against the back of the seat with her body at an angle, mostly comfortable except for the bulge of the coin purse in her pocket. When Zoe mentioned paying for treats Hexy stopped short of saying she could pay for herself. For one she didn't know how much money she could pass off as unsuspicious and secondly it allowed her an opportunity to experience mooching, the thought causing her lips to curl up in a brief and pleasant manner.

She watched with eyes half closed but curious as Zoe started gushing about the holidays. "Decorating on broomstick? Just how tall is your tree?" Or living room, for that matter. She hadn't thought the Torrets lived in that big of a house. Though her tone wasn't skeptical, rather enthused because decorating via broom did sound cool.

"Anything to do?" Hexy hunched up, reflective. Crap. She hadn't thought about what Zoe and she would be doing to occupy the ride to London. She was too used to traveling alone with either a spellbook or the occasional brooding session. What did she even do for fun? The realization sprung up that she didn't have any hobbies outside practicing magic, nothing particularly engaging. No chocolate frog cards or exploding snap decks in her arsenal.

Shifting her posture she was about to feebly apologize (not that she knew why she needed to) when she felt an unusual shape at the bottom of her bag. Hexy straightened as she retrieved a Wizard Cracker. Though Casey had been called 'Grinchly' around the holidays by some muggleborns in times past, snapping crackers at the holiday was very enjoyable, the satisfactory BANG of popping a cracker regardless of what the prizes were. She'd been collecting them earlier than usual, the recent Transfiguration end of term making nostalgic the unit Sandusky had on Transfigured explosions.[1] Course, the attraction of revisiting transfigured explosions came from changing the crackers, a rather optimal model for the lesson, to have nasty surprises instead of candy, mice and hats. Not that she readily thought of it as a prank, one side of her brain at work intrigued by the subversive threat that could be presented from an otherwise innocent party favor. So long as there were no damn flower petals in future experimentation.

Hexy held out the other end of the cracker so Zoe could pull. "One before the holiday proper."[2]

1.	Pick a Patch of Pumpkins - Oct 26
2.	Christmas Crackers: This way they could both come up with prizes that further give them something to do.

"Umm... well the ceiling is at least ten feet high and the tree usually goes up to the ceiling, so around that." Zoe could tell that Hexy liked the idea, and this itself made her feel more excited. "That's why we have to use the broom, it'd take two of us stacked on top of each other to do it by wand. Of course, we could use a ladder or levitation, but broom decorating is twice the fun!"

She frowned slightly as Hexy shifted. Was something wrong? It was times like this that Zoe found the Hufflepuff odd, very to herself and not used to social things. But it wasn't long before a silver cracker was presented to her, causing a smile as big as a crescent moon to come to Zoe's face. Yes, it was childish, but she loved the thrill of a surprise. "Don't mind if I do!" And she pulled hard.

A bang went off and the whole compartment filled with thick blue smoke. Zoe coughed a couple times before laughing, not able to see Hexy. "They're going to think we're dueling or the likes." Slowly, the blue coloration disappeared from the air, leaving a hat visible on the floor.

Zoe snatched up the hat, assuming a very haughty voice. "Don't I look fabulous?" She lifted her chin, clasping her hands around Snowy. "Frederick! Bring me an iced beverage!" Whether one knew Zoe or not, seeing her acting this goofy was odd. For whatever reason, she had caught the holiday cheeriness, and laughed at the very thought, removing the hat. "Ok, done with that...."

"Now what's this?" She picked up a pack tarot cards on the floor. "Oh, Merlin, tarot cards." Zoe looked up at Hexy. "Can you read these? I honestly have no idea..." She removed what kept the desk together and handed it to Hexy. "Never been one for divination myself, but right now why not." Perhaps the cracker had gifted them with some intelligent tarot cards.

It took the moment the smoke emitted from the cracker for Hexy to remember that there was a reason she only opened such party favors in a large space with good circulation. The obscuring smoke covered her dropping her half of the cracker to cover her face and eyes. It didn't hide her dry cough that coughed for three beats. She edged herself over to the window to crack it open, letting the smoke out the sounds from the station in.

There was a bunch of stuff where her lap had been. Most of the prizes from the cracker, including: what must be a meta joke, a popper inside a popper, only this was a plain noisemaker that said 'Xmas Thunder' on the side with a picture of sleigh-bells; a dragon model as long as her hand that looked like a color changing newt; and several mice. Mice! The most unoriginal live surprise to find in a wizard cracker! Until Hexy noticed that they were Ice Mice[1], the sugary confections.

Then Hexy looked towards Zoe. Instead of covering her mouth because of a cough she covered it to stem laughter and spit. It was an act so stupid and unexpected of Zoe Torret that Hexy found it immensely funny.

"Tarot?" She glanced to the cards. She knew of tarot, general tosh sellers in Diagon Alley and family diviners passed off using these cards. But Casey had never taken Divination. Would it be better to have Hexy take it, for a difference? She could feign knowledge about tarot quite easily. From her observation Divination was all about making stuff up anyways.

"Let's see that. Weird." Spreading out the deck she found the cards had pumpkins and dead trees with wind rustling their bare branches. Just how long had this cracker been sitting on the shelf to be the wrong season altogether? "For one thing it's stuck on Halloween instead of Christmas."

She shuffled the 'Decemberween' stack, faces down. "If I was to pick a card for you..." With a more dramatic flair than intended Hexy pulled out a card from the middle of the deck. Upside-down. That meant something significant, didn't it? She flipped it to see what looked like the landlady of Honeydukes in a powdered wig holding the world's largest pumpkin pasty.

"The High Priestess."[2] That was a card she could fudge, regardless of unusual graphic. The High Priestess was considered the most Slytherin and/or Ravenclaw and female card of the deck. "You are, usually, a person that maintains a balance between knowledge and intent and best help others that need to make big decisions. You like being in the know of all the details and would never make a decision unless so informed. However, you might reveal something unflattering about yourself in the near future. As it was flipped," Hexy explained, referring to the card.

1.	HP Wiki
2.	referenced card image by grumphyfl at deviantart

"What the..." Zoe looked at the spread out cards. "Well that's certainly odd. Freaky pictures... Ooh! Ice mice!" She picked up the package of squeaking squirming candy, tearing open the package and snatching one up by the tail. "Here, girl." Snowy licked her chops as the sweet mouse was dangled over her, taking it whole. "Two left, one for me, one for you," Zoe said over the squeaking of her cat. "That is, if these little candies don't crawl away... Wait!" Zoe held the pieces of the torn plastic together in one hand, her new wand in the other. "Adhaesia." There was a squelch as it sealed, although not very well. "It'll do."

Zoe listened intently to Hexy as she explained the drawn card. At first, Zoe thought Hexy was just trying to rattle off what she knew about her, but Hexy hadn't seen her in enough social situations to determine half of it. Or had she? Zoe couldn't quite recall what she had revealed about herself.

"Unflattering? About me?" A joke in response to something taken as a joke. She was going to follow it with some remark about her cup size, but figured that'd be too weird a comment. Had the smoke gotten to her brain? "Too bad you're coming to my house then."

With a smile, Zoe picked up the top card of the tarot desk. "And for you...." Zoe threw the card onto the compartment floor. It faced Hexy. "Hanging Man?" She picked it up, examining the hanging scarecrow. "That's odd, hanging people usually hang from their necks. Well, for one thing you're apparently not suicidal."

Zoe looked at the card intensely, as if the meaning would just pop out at her. C'mon! She had found meaning in some muggle books, why was this hard? "You see the world from a different perspective. Or you're going to in the future. You're going to or have found a new way to look at something." She sounded so stupid! "Sorry, I'm bad at this." Quickly, she put the card back into the pile.

"Um..." Zoe did her best to not blush. "Do you have any more tarot reading methods?" She picked up set of miniature broomsticks.[1] "Or we could play 'Escape the Dragon on a Broomstick'." She motioned to the model dragon, clawing at one of the seats.

1.	They're like finger skateboards, but broomsticks.

Hexy took back her portion of Ice Mice. To be had later. Or maybe she should have them before the train started moving, but it was 50-50 on whether she might get motion sick after eating.

Though it had been troll scatting on her part, Hexy grinned a playful smirk. "Well, if it's going to happen it would have to happen on the holiday, wouldn't it?" The prospect of Zoe being caught in an unflattering circumstance sounded plenty of fun...previously, Hexy might of thought of how useful of leverage an embarrassing secret could be. But that wasn't what she wanted in this circumstance. If her little prediction of Zoe did come true, well then, she might consider Divination a little differently.

The card drawn up for her showed a scarecrow nailed the wrong way to it's tree. "That looks like the one that Salem guy animates around sometimes." He had it the day of the Body...Swap...

Was that significant? Because what had happened to the fish freak when the split...erugh...[1]

All previous brain activity to the puzzleing Body Swap circumstances was forgottem as her mind moved to other matters.

Hexy picked up the dragon model. It had turned orange. Dragons were always impressive, the one section of her Creatures text that she regularly read, but she couldn't place the breed.

"New way of looking at something? That's..."Her mouth opened and then closed with her lips sucked in. Then she laughed. "Heh heh. The cards are all vague enough that anybody could indentify with them at one point or another."

"There's something about card cutting. Though using Diffindo seems harsh." Was that a joke?  "But your idea sounds fun. Do these things actually fly?" She held up the model, turning a brighter orange by way of rancid egg yolk. "Though I could just Wingaridum it if you pitch the little broomsticks."

1.	This is like a big meta joke, a scarecrow Hangman when Casey's 'double swap' placed Helio in Mace's scarecrow.

How Hexy held back her words made Zoe ponder whether it was she who was about to reveal something unflattering, or at least some sort of secret. "I guess you can say that. But that's the point of tarot cards, isn't it?" Of all Divination techniques, tarot cards had always, to her, seemed like one of the falsest, though it was hard to make an order. Sure, she believed in the powers of Seers, but that was about it.

Zoe's mood lightened with Hexy's joke, no longer forcing a smile. "Well, dragon models have the fire-breathing capability of a campfire, so I wouldn't be surprised if it could fly." She opened the package, removing one of the brooms and examining the side. "Nimbus 2100. ...These used to be popular a few years ago." The model was placed onto the seat cushion and Zoe's middle finger and ring finger straddled it. Feeling a wave of first-year nostalgia, she commanded, "Up!"

The broom shot up, levitating Zoe's hand off of the seat. "Yay!" Rotating her wrist, Zoe navigated the broom through an imaginary obstacle course. "Hmm.... needs a better rider." And so a doll was summoned from her trunk and shrunk to the size of a finger.

"And no, the fact that I have a fairy doll isn't an embarrassing secret," Zoe said without looking up, now posing the doll on the broom to secure it in place. "It's from one of my non-magic folk friends so it's not correct. And I was seven when she gave it to me." Ok, so maybe the fact that she was explaining it meant that it was embarrassing. "Adhaesia. Locomotor."

The little broom-riding fairy began to fly around the compartment, performing loop-de-loops and zigzags. "Alright, we have a broom and a rider and a dragon." Merlin, this felt like when she played make-believe games with the girls in her village before her Hogwarts years. "So.... you'll be the dragon, I'll be the fairy?"[1]

1.	Only now do I realize this post went nowhere... Sorry I didn't give you much to work off of.

"Hmm." Hexy shuffled the irregular holiday tarot cards back together before laying them off to the side. She contemplated the dragon model as it approached a golden sheen. She pinched its wings and tossed it lightly in her hand. It could glide, at least.

"Nimbus 2100, now that was a pure showcase broom. Built to look fancy before they thought of how it flies. First issued models got recalled because they handled horribly after a certain height. Made the second issued 2100 that had the flying problem fixed all the more attractive." It was easy to rattle this off because both models of brooms were in her extensive broom collection. Even if the only broom Casey could stomach riding was a Comet 470, owning nearly every racing broom in exsistance felt...hang on. It didn't sound too weird for her to be into brooms as part of this character, did it? Maybe not, Hexy had already expressed intrest in Zoe's method of tree decorating by broom. It wasn't like she had said she owned the Nimbus 2100 models.

As Zoe worked the broom in her fingers, Hexy pulled out her wand. Levitating the dragon model would give her the most control over it. "That's a fairy?" she asked when Zoe brought the doll out. "Muggles are wierd if they think fairies look like little girls."

So Zoe had this doll since she was seven? And had it to school all this time? Cute. Hexy expected Zoe slept with the doll every night. Not very unflattering but nearly there.

"So, rider on broom outrunning a dragon. Throw in a gold egg and we have the last TWT before they increased the number." If Harry Potter had been a girl with a flower in her hair and a dress meant to be flower petals or leaves. With her own spell to puppet the dragon Hexy directed it to careen around the compartment then level down behind Zoe's broom rider, maw open wide.

"That broom is as good as toothpicks."

Zoe didn't seem weirded out but Hexy's knowledge, but instead fascinated. She always liked those who knew a lot of stuff, especially if it was something she didn't. "Wow, I didn't know that! Guess it's kind of embarrassing.... my uncle owns a broom shop for leisure brooms, he's really into that stuff." She lowered her voice. "He loves racing brooms but he's not talented enough to make them, don't tell anyone I told you."

"I know, I know, it looks nothing like a fairy. The head-body proportion is laughably off. At least this fairy has clothes made of supposed plants. You should see some of the other fairy dolls. Silk with lace or patterns..." Zoe  shook her head. "Did you know non-magic folk believe that fairies can live three hundred years, or more?" Snowy meowed for more attention, and Zoe pet her with a free hand. "It's ridiculous the myths they come up with."

She looked from the doll to Hexy, accepting her words as a challenge. "Burn my doll and your dead. The broom I don't care about."

The fairy swerved, dipping down and left. It picked up speed, beginning to curve back and forth as if weaving through invisible obstacles.

"But wait!" Zoe exclaimed, just as she made it complete a vertical U-turn to avoid crashing into the compartment doors. "This fairy..." She pointed her wand at her doll, saying the incantation of the Antler-Growing Hex under her breath. Two small horns grew from its yarn hair. "Is a Puck Fairy!" The doll flung it's arm back. "And it jinxes the dragon! Quasso!"

No...No....No...Nope...No...

The train hit a bump, lurching under Alvis's feet. He caught himself on the walls of the corridor, swaying with the motion of the car. So long as he was catching his balance again, he turned his head to the left and peered into a nearby compartment, just in time to spot a teal-haired first-year struggling to reinforce a wobbling tower made from...were those Exploding Snap cards?

On instinct, Alvis ducked. The tower collapsed with a series of noisy bangs, spewing hot air and smoke through the half-open window. The occupants of the compartment started coughing and cursing -- "Dammit Ted, I told you the idea was rubbish!" -- and Alvis, crouching low to avoid the smoke, hurried on his way.

He popped back up a safe few compartments away, waving off the last of the smoke with his hands and a half-amused shake of his head. "First years. Good grief."

Vaguely aware that there were people nearby, he slid his eyes to either side to make sure the occupants didn't think him an absolute loon. When they landed on exactly one of the people he'd been looking for, they lit up. His face brightened into a smile and he knocked twice before opening the compartment door, just to be polite.

"Zoe, there you are. I've been looking everywhere for -- oh." He stopped in the doorway, realizing that a second girl -- small, brown-haired, and with a particularly bright face -- sat on the opposite bench. Of course there was another girl here. Zoe wouldn't be traveling alone.

Alvis braced himself against the doorframe and inclined his head to the strange girl. "Hello. I'm sorry to interrupt." He turned his attention back to Zoe, beaming. "I've been looking for you. Well, you and Casey -- have you seen him? I swear I've been up the whole train and there hasn't been so much as a hair..." He shook himself. No going off-track. "Sorry. I wanted to give you something. Can I come in? I can come back later if you're too busy..."

Somewhere in the settling into the car and making of snacks and merriment Hexy missed feeling the train starting, or recognizing the significance of the landscape moving away from her out the window. Her focus instead was on manuevering the dragon model. Zoe's idea had sounded more dorky than fun at first but now that she was into it Hexy was enjoying herself.

"Pah, the flames on these things can only roast chestnuts." Vending stalls that served roasted chestnuts were right outside of Weasley's in Diagon.[1] Hexy watched for openings to have her dragon knock Zoe's doll off the broom as the Ravenclaw paused to change spells.

She was working on a maneuver to dodge Zoe's oddly fired jinx when the door slid open. And out of the corner of her eye she saw...

Norling!

It didn't matter what Alvis said his plains were or him saying he was looking for Casey. Just seeing him caused Hexy to momentarily freeze in a slight fraction of time. Just long enough to miss dodging the spell. Her eyes flew up away from Alvis to notice the dragon model get hit with the spell, blue spreading along the scales and eyes flashing. Enough to notice that as it shook it was out of her control, another lurch of the train rounding a bend sending the dragon on a collision course for Alvis.

1.

HP Wiki

Just as Zoe was starting to have fun, the compartment doors open. Her eyes darted to the side, meant to just find out who was there before preparing for whatever Hexy was planning, but when she saw Alvis the broom, doll and all, dropped right from the sky. All concentration on her Locomotor was lost.

"Alvis, h- ow!" The sudden bump caught her completely off guard, and her head knocked the back of her seat. Her eyes closed for the shortest of moments, but when they came open again Zoe saw the dragon model going straight for Alvis. Her heart skipped more than one beat.

Zoe might have had a heart attack right there, if a not for a flash of white joining the flash of blue. Snowy caught the tail in her mouth so expertly, a skill that had been obtained from years of her moving bird toy. She crushed the still shaking model under her weight. The cat looked up at Zoe, and the girl knew that if Snowy could talk, she'd be saying to thank her later.

"It-I... Yeah, come in. It's safe... now..." Everything was said unsurely, slowly, as Zoe fed what would have been her ice mouse to her still unsatisfied cat. "Here." She patted the space next to her. "Hexy this is Alvis, Alvis this is Hexy. Hexy, I've told you about Alvis, haven't I?" Surely she had brought him up when they discussed the Yule Ball.

Casey. Yes, that had been what Alvis had mentioned. He had been looking for Casey and her. "Alvis, honestly, why would I know where Casey is? Not to be rude, but you know what happened last time we shared a compartment." The first, and worst, train ride to Hogwarts.

"Casey is probably the last person I'd share a compartment with...." she added under her breath, not at all realizing the irony of the statement.

"So..." Zoe picked up Snowy and took her onto her lap, petting the cat. "What was it you wanted to give me?"