Hailey slowed down as she approached the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten at King’s Cross on September First. Two days after their shopping trip, Hedwig had brought her a second letter that bore the Hogwarts crest, the first being the one with the shopping list in it. This one hadn’t been much more than an official acknowledgement, unless one counted how it included a golden ticket stamped for the Hogwarts Express at Platform Nine and Three Quarters at eleven o’clock.
She still had half an hour to go to get on the train… but the letter had also informed her of how she was supposed to reach the nonsensical platform number.
All she had to do was walk straight through the barrier between platforms nine and ten. The barrier looked quite solid.
Then, she allowed her trolley to bump against the barrier… and quite suddenly, with a bit of a gut-wrenching feeling like she had just been lobbed a hundred feet, there was no barrier in front of her. Instead, she was facing a mostly empty platform with a steam train parked at it. Even without reading the side- it said ‘Hogwarts Express’- she knew she was in the right place; this had to be the only steam train in regular passenger service in the entire country. All the rest had gone diesel or electric long ago, to her knowledge.
She sighed, glanced behind her, suppressed a chuckle, and headed for the train. It was time for her to load her luggage- which included Hedwig- onto the train, then get changed into her Hogwarts robes.
Then she could put her trolley away and strike up a conversation.
Bonbon let out a small sigh as the purpose of her excursion today recrossed her mind. The Hogwarts Express was sitting at the station platform, waiting for students to board; as a matter of fact, it had arrived almost an hour after Bonbon had.
She was people-watching again. She’d done a lot around Diagon Alley and, even though she’d been sidetracked for a few hours by Hailey, she’d returned to it.
After all, a matter of hours into her own first day in this world, she’d been in the apothecary when Starlight Glimmer, that student of Twilight’s that had fallen through the mystery portal into Britain a year before she had, had spotted her.
Starlight Glimmer… was a second-year student, and the ex Management Team Lead of the then three-day-old Hogwarts Student Instructor Program. She hadn’t been the ex team lead yet, technically- but by the time they’d left the shop… she had been.
Because she’d inducted Bonbon herself to that position, as almost infinitely better qualified… Her words, not Bonbon’s, though she couldn’t disagree that she was better qualified. Starlight evidently had way too high of an opinion of the Agency of which Bonbon was not only a part of but one of the finest of.
But however she’d gotten that position, it was hers and she was going to put her all into completing it successfully. Objective number one… was to recruit Student Instructors and, ideally, Head Student Instructors. But the number of instructors was the priority- she needed to ensure that there were enough of them.
And the target numbers were daunting. She needed to locate almost a thousand instructors overall, of which a minimum of just under four hundred would have to be second-year students.
But she’d met them. Quite a few of the prospective instructors were not… ideal by any stretch of the imagination, so she had spent the entire month since the shopping season working odd jobs in Diagon Alley- mostly helping various shopkeepers to restock shelves, with how fast things were flying off them- and used that as an excuse to stay around for the whole month, constantly observing and witnessing all the students moving around. She’d revised a number of her Instructor picks after discovering better candidates- and today, with her people-watching on Platform Nine and Three Quarters, she’d revised another couple.
With the numbers made up… it was time for her to go after the number one prize.
Hailey.
The girl had demonstrated almost alarming observation and memory retention abilities that, given even a little bit of training, would turn her into an extremely formidable Head Student Instructor and possibly even Management Team Lead. She’d probably give her Defense Against the Dark Arts; it felt like the girl was extremely smart on top of her ridiculous skills, making her entirely too good to be true, and Starlight’s reports for what the classes had been like the year before painted the subject into a corner. No doubt the girl would be able to spice it up and ensure everyone got a quality education, despite the subject’s track record of worthless Professors that Starlight had relayed from upper-year students.
And that wasn’t counting the appearance of the phoenix; those were so rare, both in Britain and in Equestria, that there was really no telling what it meant.
Speaking of that encounter in Eeylops Owl Emporium, when she’d decided to get close enough to gauge for herself the girl that had turned one Draco Malfoy from a snobby troublemaker into an Instructor candidate in about five minutes…
The girl had proceeded to make her uncomfortable from basically the moment she entered the shop. She’d embarrassed Bonbon by reminding her that she was wearing a nametag for the first time in her life, and paired it with a joke in a way that made it very difficult indeed for Bonbon to maintain her mental defenses and self-control. A laugh had gotten out- not that she was all that worried about those, it was just a side effect of her training.
Then, when she’d turned the question back and deliberately used the girl’s name- which she’d overheard in only one of the three different scenes Hailey had named, namely when Petunia had pointed out the ice cream parlor and Hailey had promptly asked Ginny if she wanted ice cream.
The girl’s response had been to harden her tone and expression and ask her how she knew the name… But the timing was off.
The girl had initially brushed off the name… but her expression had hardened when she’d given that little white lie about having been thinking about getting an owl.
In other words, the girl had detected her lie, and deliberately picked the name to nail her on instead.
That would be the first time anyone had ever seen through her deception in over a decade… and the girl made it look easy.
So then it came to today. She was using a regular newspaper, rather than the Agency-issued one-way paper she frequently used- and she was holding it upside-down, and using a far more mundane method of people-watching over the top of it. The point of that was to, hopefully, help disarm the girl by giving the appearance of not trying so hard.
Yet she was actually working the hardest she’d ever worked… well, close to it, at any rate.
The thing was… unless she missed her guess, Hailey didn’t just have elephantine memory, but inhumanly elephantine memory- possibly as far as perfect recall. There were techniques she could use to manipulate someone with that kind of memory… but they didn’t work for long-term relationships. All she could do was use more ordinary techniques to guide her into the relationship and attempt to distract the girl from them with various other ‘sloppy’ techniques, such as the upside-down newspaper.
The upside-down newspaper that nobody else on the station was likely to notice.
Even if the girl ended up not having the aptitude to be a Student Instructor, she would be extremely useful in a quality control role. She wanted that girl on the management team, almost or else.
But she couldn’t force her. Especially with memory and observation skills like that, the girl was probably a lightning-fast learner, and if she built their relationship on resentment… Well, she’d seen a few Agents pay for underestimating people like that with their lives- and one of them hadn’t been that far below her on the rankings, which had meant that she had been assigned to eliminate that Agent-killer. It had been the most difficult mission she’d ever completed, but she’d pulled it off. Such was the gap in skill between her, the number one finest Agent in the Agency, and even the number two best Agent, that she had been able to use a rapid surprise technique to eliminate the fast-learner before they could learn her techniques.
But what that meant was that this girl was likely to learn her techniques just by dint of being near her, whether their relationship was on resentment or not- or even whether they had a relationship at all or not! There wasn’t any getting around that- and she was determined to see that it was a positive relationship built on trust. There just wasn’t any other way around it, unless she wanted to create a monster far worse than the Lord Voldemort people had been too frightened to tell her about.
Fortunately, though, the girl seemed to be good-spirited… which was a very good sign, and meant there was potential for the girl to forgive her blunder in Diagon Alley… as it seemed she already had, in Diagon Alley.
Which reminded her. The girl had detected her lie, and responded strongly to it… but had not responded strongly to the revelation that she’d been watched. As a matter of fact, she’d gotten the distinct impression the girl thought that had been amusing, rather than worrying.
She could not lie. Not without risking detection and animosity, at any rate. She wasn’t sure if she could even bend the truth- who knew exactly what tells the girl was watching, and exactly what she didn’t like!
It was all she could do to be as friendly and honest as possible, within the limitations of her job and her vows to Celestia as an Agent.
Quite suddenly, Bonbon sensed something getting close- and glanced over to her left… but as expected, it was just someone pushing a luggage trolley, putting it in the corral that her bench was set up against.
Specifically, it was Hailey putting her trolley away, and wearing her Hogwarts robes.
Bonbon scanned a couple lines of the newsprint upside-down. The story was about a Gringotts break-in that had happened a month before, in which nothing was stolen- the thief had broken into an empty vault. It wasn’t really enough to garner her attention, so she peered overtop her newspaper again.
There was Draco Malfoy, looking distinctly uncomfortable with two large, thuggish boys in tow. Yes, he was still an Instructor candidate, though she wasn’t sure yet just what subject would suit him.
Not that she was familiar with any of the subject matter, so basically all of her subject assignments were likely to be inoptimal, at first at least.
Then Hailey sat next to her. “Your newspaper is upside down,” she informed her calmly.
“It is,” Bonbon agreed, turning the page. “You’d be the first to notice.” Unfortunately, none of the plans she’d come up with and studied- even rehearsed, to some extent- for the last month had involved Hailey initiating contact, so she really only had one choice: Wing it. Fortunately, that’s what she was best at.
“I’ve also noticed you’re people-watching again,” Hailey mused. There was definite evidence of both amusement and curiosity in her voice.
“I am,” she agreed. “I was made the Management Team Lead for the brand-new Hogwarts Student Instructor Program, formed because of the huge numbers of students falling through from my world into this one. And with those numbers…” She shrugged. “You can never have too many candidates.”
“Aaaand I noticed that you’ve been very specifically not watching me,” Hailey observed again, merriment dancing in her voice.
She looked at her, then sighed and averted her eyes. “Yes. I’m not a fan of repeating mistakes.”
“Well yes,” Hailey agreed, “but it seems like you’re really worried about getting caught watching me. Or even looking at me, for that matter- and I’m curious why?”
“Well…” She paused, uncertain of how to continue. Today made two out of two times they’d met… in which Hailey had made her uncomfortable in less than sixty seconds. She hadn’t realized her efforts would be that visible; the girl’s observation skills must be through the roof, possibly even compared to her own.
“And you’re so high-strung you’re blowing off steam by making deliberate rookie mistakes.” She gestured at the newspaper.
Bonbon laughed. “Well… Yes and no. This isn’t… blowing off steam, it’s rather…” She sighed. “An attempt to hide the high-strung-ness,” she muttered darkly.
Hailey chuckled softly, looking out across the platform. “You see any good candidates?”
“I’m sitting right next to one,” Bonbon answered calmly, looking up at her. It looked like she’d draped her hair down over the front of her robes as well as her back, completely hiding her nameplate from view.
“Well of course you are,” Hailey answered instantly. There was a second’s silence, then Hailey blinked and turned to look at her. “Wait, you mean I’m a candidate?”
Bonbon smiled in spite of herself. She couldn’t tell if that delayed reaction had been genuine or faked. “Yes, I do. You’re probably the best one I’ve seen yet.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, that can’t be right.” She leaned back, looking out at the station again. “I can’t be that good. That’d just be cheating.”
“Well yes,” Bonbon conceded. “It is a bit of a ‘too good to be true’ situation, but…” She shrugged. “I know a great way to find out.”
“Oh?” Hailey looked at her. “What’s that?”
“It’s just a little…” She paused, putting her paper down and looking out at the station. “Study session, I suppose you could call it.” She shrugged. “Sorta lesson-and-test-in-one, so to speak, but it’d take a fair amount of time, so it’s not something I’m going to be happy putting you through unless you’re willing to take advantage of such candidacy, assuming we’re able to confirm it.”
Hailey looked at her, then shrugged. “So why don’t we do it? I’ve got a compartment to myself right now, unless you’ve already set one up?”
Bonbon met her eyes. “You want to become a Student Instructor?” It was bewildering. She’d never once considered that Hailey might view the Student Instructor position as desirable… which would tend to mean all her plans had been useless even if Hailey hadn’t been the one to start the conversation.
Hailey shrugged. “Yeah, why not? Sounds like fun.”
“... Oh,” Bonbon muttered. “Then we might as well get to it.”
“Weren’t you people-watching?”
She shrugged. “It’s getting so crowded there’s no point anymore. People are getting too goal-oriented, so nobody’s exposing any of the qualities that mean anything towards or against candidacy any more.” She gestured out at the station, which had become quite packed by now; it was about ten minutes to the train’s scheduled departure. “And are you sure you’ve got a compartment to yourself, and that nobody else has moved in in the meantime?”
She gave her a knowing smile. “Yep, I’m sure.”