Lia West was one of the potential heirs of the West family, an influential pureblood family with roots in magical Britain.
She had originally planned on going to Beauxbaton, the school for magic in France, like her grandmother, as Hogwarts had not been a serious educational institution, only serving to further the prestige of the Headmaster and give young wizards an exciting start into their lives as wizards and witches, while also teaching them the bare necessities needed to even call themselves that.
Not enough to make them capable enough to actually further magic research if they didn't study for themselves mind you.
Additionally the West family was innately defined by their wealth and businesses, resulting in every new generation of heads of the family having to make at least some kind of addition to it.
And since the British economy wasn't exactly worthwhile she decided it would be better to start with making connections in Beauxbaton while actually learning something, not that he needed the additional etiquette classes though.
Well, after magical Britain had a huge shift in almost everything her Grandfather started bugging her again over going to Hogwarts, the school he had also gone to, and her assuring herself the conditions at Hogwarts were far better now, she gave in.
But then she arrived at platform 9 3/4 and almost immediately noticed a factor she had not expected to be a problem; bigoted pureblood heirs trying to make an influential friend to please their family, some in more annoying ways than others.
So she used plan B; hiding her face behind her scarf and searching for an empty compartment in the train, far enough from everyone else so no one would find her by chance, but then it went wrong again:
When she was still walking further back inside the train she suddenly noticed people at the end of this wagon checking other people in front of her, which were probably purebloods judging by their clothes.
With no other options left Lia finally entered the next best compartment, not knowing how much more interesting this would make her life in the long run.
After entering the compartment and blocking the window she quickly looked around it and seeing only one student, probably from African descent, she decided to sit down on the seat opposite of him.
Then everything became a bit more like a fever dream than reality for a short moment:
When she sat down she saw a flicker in the corner of her eyes, but when she looked there she didn't see anything and while she was starting to feel relieved, she suddenly saw a flicker again, this time against the light coming in through the window she saw the silhouette of a snake, headed directly towards her!
But when she realised she was not reacting even nearly fast enough something surprising happened again:
The other boy caught the snake directly behind her head at her neck and held it so she wouldn't be able to bite them.
If it was over with this, maybe she could have left this compartment with just a small scare, but at this moment she heard loud hissing from her left side and due to it holding it's head high enough for the sun light from the window to shine through it she was able to see it; another snake, just like the first one.
Directly next to her unprotected left hand she had tried to get as far away from the other snake as possible.
She jumped up with enough force to hit her head on the ceiling before falling down again, due to the small compartment still not far away from the snake and with a sharp pain in her head.
…
After the whole situation was resolved, Julius was now faced with the problem of some girl he didn't know and didn't want to know originally knowing about the two crystal vipers.
And if the girl wasn't completely braindead she should know that only the pets of people were allowed in here and only one per person, which left her with the choices of believing Julius somehow sneaked into the train or Habol had smuggled him in against the rules.
The problem with the second option was quite obvious but even the first one would quite obviously strongly restrict him as the school would have to put wards and similar things to work if they believed there was a rogue crystal viper inside the school and this would obviously thwart his plans.
But for some reason he couldn't shake of the feeling he knew this girl even though he couldn't see all of her face.
Anyways, this left him with the choices of either revealing his form again or finding some other solution and fast.
~Habol, could you do me a favour and say I am your snake and Rachel is the snake of a friend of yours who just went to the toilet?~
‚I guess it's at least worth a try.'
But Julius' hopes were shattered just as fast as they emerged:
~Sorry Julius, I already have my own pet so it wouldn't work to deceive her; if she ever sees me with it, it's over.~
~Well shit, any other ideas?~
After having lost his last option, Julius decided to face it; he transformed directly in front of her.
"Nice to meet you, my name is Julius Abraxus", Julius greeted her while holding out his hand.
After a surprisingly short moment of hesitation the girl pulled down her scarf and introduced herself too while shaking Julius hand.
Not that this was still needed now that Julius could see the face of the probable heir of the only business which could possibly hold a candle to his own in magical Britain; Lia West.
"Now that we have introduced ourselves I would propose a deal:
I don't want to be found and you want to keep you being an animagus secret I suppose, so how about us helping each other?"
…
After Julius hurriedly agreeing and them working out the details of a plan to keep Lia's „pursuers" from entering the compartment the train started with a slight jerk, starting the strange trio on their journey to becoming full-blown wizards.
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Maybe part three next? I'm not sure yet.
Thank you for reading!