With Christmas approaching, heavy snow blanketed the entire castle. Ever since the last class ended yesterday, the Christmas holidays had begun.
Early in the morning, Kate got up and packed her luggage; today they would board the train to London.
According to the plan, all 980 Hogwarts students would disguise themselves as middle-school students from the United States on a study tour, traveling back and forth over twelve days among London, Aberdeenshire, Angus, and Dundee.
The chief leaders were Snape and Flitwick, accompanied by six subject teachers responsible for helping them manage the students.
The specific routes and itinerary had been reported in advance to the Ministry of Magic and the Muggle Prime Minister.
Out of the students' sight, Aurors and Muggle bodyguards would protect them in secret, maximizing the safety of this study tour.
As for why the Ministry of Magic and the Muggle Prime Minister would permit nearly a thousand young wizards to come and go in groups within England—that, naturally, was thanks to the Shafiq family stirring things along behind the scenes.
Mm... although her household now consisted of just herself and the old butler—a lone orphan and an old man, which did sound a bit pitiful—the influence amassed over a thousand years still endured.
To say nothing else, every official of note in the Ministry of Magic today had, decades ago, received more or less funding from her ancestors.
Truly, one generation plants the trees under whose shade another rests. Now, whatever she wanted to do—so long as it wasn't something major enough to shake the magical world—would basically get the green light.
After packing her luggage in short order, she dropped Fluffball off at the school's owlery, where Hagrid would help look after it and wouldn't let it go hungry.
With everything ready, the moment she stepped out of her room she saw the Slytherin girls coming out of the dormitory too, all chatting and laughing.
Even Amber Wilson came running over, looking bashful, to ask whether she had settled on a roommate for the study tour.
Faced with this young lady's sudden favor, Kate—though she couldn't figure out just what about herself attracted her—still tactfully declined the invitation.
Besides that, quite a few other girls greeted her as well.
She hadn't realized it, but at least among the girls, she was no longer the one being isolated and shunned.
It was just that she had always spent her time with Hermione before and had never paid attention to any of this.
After greeting each of them one by one, Kate finally squeezed her way out of the cluster of girls with some difficulty. The moment she left the Common Room, she could hear the Prefects keeping order.
The dungeon passage was rarely this noisy. The little snakes lined up in order of year and height, then, led by several Prefects, made their way to the lawn outside the castle.
By then, a great many people were already standing densely packed on the lawn.
Snape stood with a cold face in front of a bunch of little tykes, keeping everyone well in line.
"By year order, starting with the first years—board the train in an orderly fashion!" He had used a Sonorus Charm, and his voice could be heard across the entire lawn.
The four Academies advanced together and, led by Hagrid, boarded the train, each claiming their own compartments.
As Kate boarded, she spotted Luna's signature eagle-decorated hat hanging in front of one of the compartments.
She smiled silently, and after struggling to squeeze through, pushed open the door to find Luna sitting quietly in the compartment, reading.
"May I sit here?" Though she asked, she had already gone ahead and seated herself across from Luna.
Luna shrugged and handed her a newspaper—the latest issue of The Quibbler.
Kate flipped through it idly for a while, then saw Hermione come in dragging her luggage and plop down beside her. "This spot's nice—I saw Harry and the others are right across the way."
"Good morning, Senior Hermione." Luna lifted her head and greeted her first.
Hermione pursed her lips, took several portions of breakfast out of her pouch, and handed them over. "Just call me by my name—I don't put on airs the way Kate does."
"I put on airs?" Kate couldn't help laughing, picking up a sandwich and taking a bite.
As a fellow descendant of the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight families, she was far warmer and more approachable than Malfoy.
"I think calling her Senior Kate sounds nicer." Luna's silver eyes blinked gently, and a hint of a smile appeared on her pale little face.
Kate chimed in cheerfully, "I think so too!"
Watching the two of them so in sync, Hermione kept her smile, only biting down hard on her bread without a word.
Before long, Cho Chang came in too. Sensing the silent mood in the compartment, she immediately said with a grin, "Hey, guess what I just saw?
There was this little boy carrying a camera around taking pictures everywhere, and he got hauled up by a Prefect—looking as pitiful as a little chick."
Hermione laughed behind her hand. "That's Colin—he's a little fan of Harry's!"
"A fan of Harry Potter's?" Luna joined the conversation with interest as well.
The mood in the compartment instantly livened up.
The girls got to talking, and even disturbed Harry in the compartment across the way, prompting him to open the door with a helpless look and protest, "Can't you change the subject?"
"No!" Cho Chang raised her eyebrows and refused with a beaming smile.
Harry let his head droop. "Fine—as long as you're happy."
Both compartments couldn't help bursting into laughter.
It wasn't until the train began to move that Harry, seeing no one had eaten, paid out of his own pocket for a big pile of snacks, which the two compartments shared.
At this, Kate—the wealthiest person present—could only eat her snacks in silence.
It was nice, though—at least with Cho Chang there, she didn't have to worry about things turning awkward.
Time on the train always flew by, and as they neared the station, they had to change out of their wizard robes.
Cho Chang had meant to step out and come back once everyone had changed one by one, but Kate held her back.
"We're all girls here—what's there that can't be seen?"
With that, Kate set to it herself, deftly changing out of her wizard robes and pulling out a thick down jacket to put on.
The others in the compartment silently exchanged a few glances before lowering their heads and changing their own clothes.
Somehow, as they changed, the girls' faces actually grew a little flushed—especially Hermione, whose ears turned a translucent red.
Poor things—probably from the cold, she figured.
Thinking this, Kate simply cast a Warming Charm on each of them.
After getting off the train, everyone—led by Snape—passed out through the wall one by one; the time spent on this alone was no less than an hour.
But it was plain to see that, although the Potions Prince had achieved much along the path of Potions, having had little contact with the Muggle world, he was unfamiliar with many modern mechanical contraptions.
Still, he had done his homework in advance: not knowing how to ride the subway was no problem—he simply plucked Kate and several other Muggle-born students out of the crowd and had them give a demonstration.
And so the whole group clogged up the subway entrance for a dozen or so minutes before finally boarding, and after seven or eight stops they at last reached the hotel that was their destination.
The Prince Hotel—one of the Shafiq family's properties.
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