The Boy who died - Ready for Anything

Anything sweet for you?

POV of Cat-Lee Miller

I carefully slid open the compartment door and dared to smile at the five girls inside. When they noticed me, they fell silent in their previously animated conversation. Interesting.

"Excuse me, but is this seat still free?" I asked the silent occupants, pointing to the seat next to the strawberry-blonde girl. Her name was Ariana, as I would learn shortly after. The girls nodded at me kindly in response. There we go.

I sat down and we introduced ourselves to each other. I learned that the others were named Hermione, Parvati, Bella, and Ginn - and of course Ariana - while I introduced myself as Cat-Lee Miller.

"What house do you think you'll be in, Cat-Lee?" Ginn, who sat across from me, asked curiously.

"I'm not sure..." I evaded the question. What answer would they expect? "I'd just rather not be in Hufflepuff..." it then burst out of me when she continued to look at me questioningly.

A moment later, I wanted to slap my forehead. God, what was I saying here?

Ginn's expression became thoughtful. "My older sister was a Hufflepuff," she explained to us then. "So I would be ok with that."

I shrugged and gave her an apologetic smile. I was just about to explain to her that my comment wasn't meant to be so harsh when the compartment door opened and a friendly-looking witch with a trolley in front of her asked:

"Anything sweet for you, my dears?"

She didn't need to ask twice! We all bought Pumpkin Pasties, Chocolate Frogs, Licorice Wands, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans... and pretty much everything else that was available.

The only one who didn't buy anything was Ariana. She just sat there with a sad look on her face. I looked at her questioningly, whereupon she dejectedly explained that her parents were very poor and therefore couldn't give her any money. Well, something could be done about that. I immediately offered to share sweets with her, but she shook her head.

"I can't accept this..." she said uncertainly. I hadn't expected such hesitation. After all, they were just sweets.

"Yes, of course you can," Parvati suddenly chimed in, fortunately.

She and the others now also offered to share their sweets with Ariana.

"Then you don't have to worry about eating someone's share. We've all bought too much anyway, and I don't mind giving you some," Parvati said with a grin to Ariana, offering her a chocolate frog.

She seemed close to tears and thanked us all before hesitantly accepting the Chocolate Frog and unwrapping it. It almost jumped away from her, but she just managed to catch it before it could land on the floor.

Smiling, she put the frog in her mouth and looked at the collector's card. Rarely had I seen someone so happy about a single Chocolate Frog!

I leaned over to her and recognized Dumbledore, our headmaster, on the small picture before he disappeared. Ariana was still examining the card as if she had never seen one before.

"Of course..." I thought.

If her parents really had so little money, then she probably didn't have as large a collection of Chocolate Frog cards as I did - and apparently Parvati, Ginn, and Bella, who were eagerly trading cards right now.

"Ariana?" I addressed her as she still couldn't take her eyes off the card. "If you'd like, you can have cards from me. I have so many duplicates and triplicates anyway..!"

It really wouldn't hurt me, and they would make a good foundation for Ariana's collection. Finally, she looked up and her expression told me that she would love to have the cards.

How simple everything was sometimes.