C'est la Vie

5 children sat silently in a compartment aboard the Hogwarts Express. Kara Pendragon lost in her mindscape, Sir Harry Potter reading through his books again in preparation for the year, Draco Evans-Black and Ronald Perevell staring at each other with confusion, and Daphne Greengrass looking at the passing scenery. This situation was so radically different from what they had thought it would be that the children couldn't bring themselves in to speak to each other.

----

Ron was bitter. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had accepted that he was technically a pureblood but until this moment it had never hit home what that meant. His brothers couldn't even bring themselves to joke about the new situation of their two youngest siblings.

Ron stared down at robes far nicer than he had ever seen in his short life, pondering the wealth they now had because Harry Potter had too much money. Yes, he was bitter. But he also felt bad for Harry. Having to take all that one...it was beyond his comprehension.

He stared at the ring on his finger as well. Heir Perevell. For the first time in his life, Ron had thrown himself into learning for a week. He was about 11 years behind where he now needed to be for one of the sacred 28 families. He laughed in his head, Ronald Weasley is dead.

----

Draco Black was horrified. He had never seen his father off balance, his mother so enraged. He had retreated into himself these last few days. He had always been a pureblood heir and had always been proud of that, but the difference between being heir Malfoy and heir Black was severe. Malfoys had money, a lot of it, but the Blacks had ancient magics and a historical weight that most couldn't comprehend. The Blacks predated the Bible, being originally Egyptian under a different name.

And across from him sat Lord Black, among other things. He had tried to help Harry and Ron where he could but he wasn't an amazing teacher. His father, for the first time in his not exactly long life, had told him that the 4 people he currently sat with would be the most powerful people in the wizarding world. Harry Potter, lord of 10 pureblood houses. Kara Pendragon, heir of Avalon, something so terrifying even wizards tried to deny the existence of. Daphne Greengrass, who was originally supposed to be *in* Avalon, and was to marry Lord Potter. And finally a boy Draco thought he'd never hold respect for, Ronald Perevell, who looked incredibly out of his depth.

This year would be a long one, if not interesting.

-----

Kara sat inside her palace. Her mindscape had come easy to her, as a natural occlumens. This mindscape was the true core of her life. Everything she learned stayed in here, a place for her to go over everything again and again. It was how she went through her education so fast and why she had been conditioned on Occlumency first.

If she had known, as a little girl, that being a prodigy would have caused her so much pain she would have never tried so hard to impress. She worked so hard to get ahead of her quotas and goals so that she might have that little bit more time to herself, but they never ran out of things for her to learn. She was never intended to finish her schooling at 9, never intended to earn Excalibur at 11, never intended to go through a 20 year plan in a tenth of the time, but she did.

Though in the end, what she truly regretted was what she took from others. Her cousins and siblings would be forced to match up to her. She took their childhood from them. Then she thought of Harry, to whom she had done the exact same thing.

She was broken out of her thought by a girl with bushy brown hair opening their door.

"Have any of you seen a toad?"

Kara grimaced, "No, what's its name?"

"I...Trevor."

She pulled Excalibur from her back and raised it towards the roof a bit. Pushing magic into the sword, she started visualizing a toad.

"Place your hand on the hilt."

"I...okay?", she very tentatively touched Excalibur.

"Push your intent forward. Imagine a flow going into the sword, same as pushing magic through a wand."

She didn't respond but seemed to be concentrating, it was adorable.

"I summon thee Trevor the toad."

With a pop, a toad appeared in the air unit a foot of the ground infront of Kara. Everyone besides Kara yelped in surprise. A boy that was coming to Hermione ran and grabbed it while mumbling thank you's.o

"How? I haven't read about anything like this!", the bushy haired girl spoke.

"You...do realize that most of magic isn't taught outside of families...right?", Daphne questioned the girl.

She remained quiet for second, then had an irritated look. "Why would anyone keep magic to themselves!?"

"A bit quieter, please. You're muggle-born, you know nothing of our culture, be very careful saying things like that, Miss..?"

"Granger, Hermione Granger. I've read through all of our books and didn't see anything not involving a wand, that seems rather important."

Draco spoke then, "A wand is a crutch that most wizards, including purebloods, sadly, don't have the power to overcome. Excalibur is just a different kind of crutch, not that Kara would have needed it on her own."

"That can't be true, why would a magical school not teach magic?"

Surprisingly, Ron spoke up. "The example my mom gave me is this, can you think of a single altruistic use of a love potion?"

"I...no, no I can't, actually. I'm guessing they're illegal?"

"""""Nope"""""

"Why!?"

"Wizarding world is fun, isn't it?"

"But...that doesn't make-"

"-sense? Does it make sense to let go a potential advantage over another possible enemy family in the interest of sharing magic?"

"Well...no, but-"

"But what?"

"I...why wouldn't they tell you this before entering this world."

Draco chose to speak again, "Because you are an intruder. Purebloods have a word for you that I'm pretty sure Kara would cut me open if I used, but let's just say the magical world does not accept you with open arms. If any... muggle-born...knew the truth of our world they'd never join it."

"Careful Draco, wouldn't want the leader of the light to find issue with you.", Daphne joked.

"Don't insult him. I know you may have your issues with Dumbledore but my family has been saved more than once by that man.", the former Weasley retorted.

"I just hope no one calls him the second coming of Merlin around Kara. She cut my Dumbledore card from my chocolate frog in half."

"Because Merlin would be insulted. Man was a slytherin through and through."

"I herd slytherin has mostly dark wizards."

"""What""", was the response from Daphne, Draco and Kara.

"I mean...she's not totally wrong. It's a bit of an exaggerated truth.", Ron said.

"Slytherin is mostly about ambition, or avoiding expulsion from your family if your dark, but the core value technically is ambition." Harry had learned that from a book he picked up about the ancient families.

"I want to be a Griffindor, that's where Dumbledore went."

"How unbelievably arrogant."

"Hush it Daphne, she's just excited. Also a bit antisocial, I'm taking it.".

"What did I say?", Hermione was slightly hurt.

"We likely know collectively more about the magical world than you'll ever know, Hermione. Other than Harry, we've all lived in this world our entire lives. Think of it like France or America, it's just not the same culture."

She seemed really upset at that.

"I'm going back to my compartment."