A harsh caw! of alarm rings out from the bird perched on Ophelia's trunk, as she tries to solve this problem the only way she knows how.  Does the Stick make the problem go away?

No!  It does not!  Ophelia is hunched over, pulling her cap over her face, her hands over her ears, her eyes screwed shut as she tries to figure out what the hell is happening to her!

Focusing all her attention on the strange hostile feeling lets her sort of feel out the shape of it, like picking her way through a minefield instead of having a bomb go off right next to her head. Everyone here is scared, and angry, and they don't really know how to stop.

"Um! Bird shhhh! Not helping!" Lily reaches out to Ophelia, pats her shoulder and hand. "Hey, hey - what's the matter? Can I help?"

"So much angry and it's loud - talk to me, keep me focused on your voice or - oh, that works, just - contact, keep me focused - I'm - working on it."

And she is.  It's difficult.  But she's doing it.  Finding ways to twist through the space of possible motions of her mind to accomplish something useful is hard enough without the minefield, but - Lily's not scared.  Lily's not angry.  Lily's right there.  Focus on her.  It'll be alright.  She can handle this.  She can pick her way through the minefield, or build a wall, or a fence.  She just needs a little bit of time, and Lily to be there, to be safe and comforting and comfortable like she is.

She's at least stopped having the psychosomatic stop-everything reaction, so now she can do things like move, or pet and thank the bird for trying, even though her wand can't do miracles.

"It's.  I'm.  I can -- Let's...get on the train.  It won't be as loud on the train.  I hope.  I - really, really hope.  Because if it keeps being this much of a constant atmosphere of threats and violence barely restrained, and I keep - feeling every single punch not thrown, spell not cast...I don't know what's happening, but...

"There's Trouble in Wizard Britain, Lily.  I - had hoped I was wrong.  That I hadn't really been - feeling hints of violence, that the recommendation of Healing was just about doctors being scarce - but...there's so many people ready to cause harm...I don't know how to stop it..."

"Oh dear," says Lily, sympathetically, and continues with the supportive shoulderpats, which transition steadily to supportive handholding as Ophelia resumes something resembling normal Ophelia function. She nods seriously at the explanation, and then as they're headed onto the train, adds, quietly, "I bet how we stop it is like what Professor McGonagall said. We stop it by learning as much as we can, and fast."

The history books, written decades hence, will say that the war started a year ago. When they will report it ended - well. That remains to be seen, doesn't it.

Ophelia makes it onto the train, slowly and carefully picking her way through the subdued crowd like she's in a minefield.

She is, but it's not physical.

She really hopes there's open cars that aren't as full of pain and hatred somewhere.

There are empty cars! The Evanses, an enthusiastically punctual people, have gotten them here not too close to the deadline, and people are still arriving on the platform, so there are many compartments yet unclaimed.

It is considerably quieter, both literally and figuratively, on the train, even before the doors close. There's an undercurrent of anxiety and fear, among the embarking students, but most of the war is stored, at least right now, in the adults milling about outside. Things haven't gotten bad enough that teenagers are getting directly involved. Mostly. Yet.

"...it's better in here.  Thank goodness."  She's finally stopped curling inwards.  "Not good, but...We could theoretically stop holding hands if we wanted to.  I imagine that neither of us want to."

Lily is a generally pro-handholding person, constitutionally, and especially when it's her best friend. She squeezes the hand she's holding encouragingly. "Mm-hm. Eventually we'll want to read probably," a two-handed activity, especially with large textbooks and small hands, "but first I want to make sure you're okay."

"I...I think I'm better than I looked.  It was just - so much, from a - sense and direction I hadn't realized I had - that my reaction just...went very far.

"Also, we could totally..."

Ophelia gestures with the hand she's not holding as she mimes supporting a book in their laps,

"And then turn pages with,"

She squeezes Lily's hand, gently.

"Though it'd be pretty awkward, I think, so maybe we'll just have to lean against eachother as we read to keep up our human contact quota.  I've honestly been through most of the books already, you know how I get when I can't sleep...Maybe I'll look at some of the science worksheets I filched from the secondary's recycling bins last graduation season; I figure Hogwarts probably doesn't subscribe to science journals or have the usual textbooks, so - I'm trying to keep up.  ...I still don't know why people would throw away their hard-earned knowledge when they're done learning it, do they think they just won't need it ever again?  But their loss is my gain, I guess."

She's clearly still ramble-worthy nervous, but putting a brave face on.

"...I wonder if we're allowed to use our wands yet."

"Oh, of course you have." Giggle. "Well, that sounds like a good idea, science always makes you feel better."

Lily cheerfully fishes out her charms textbook - she hasn't even close to read all her books yet, she's been sleeping a normal amount and fighting with Petunia an abnormal amount - and then tucks her feet under herself in such a way that she can lean companionably while she reads.

"McGonagall said 'until we get to school' but it's not like you could possibly violate the Statute of Secrecy on the magic train, right?"

"This is the Hogwarts Express, after all.  It's school-branded.  Therefore it's reasonable to believe we are on school grounds, because this is clearly school property.  Which means we can use our wands."

Ophelia's been reading Hogwarts' books for, like, years, so she's probably read them cover-to-cover at least twice.  Except for the new ones.  Those she's just read one time.

"I'm very excited to actually get to do Transfiguration, and Potions.  Those are very don't try this at home sorts of subjects.  Like chemistry."

She'll just murmur Wingardium Leviosa at her trunk to open the lid, drawing her acacia-vine wand instead of the inherited ebony because she needs to get a feeling for how it handles - since she can, now, and magic is honestly pretty neat so she wants to do lots of it - and then grab a binder of someone's notes where it's barely wedged inside the chest.  Looks like - huh, they put physics and math in the same binder?  Physics with calculus?  Ooh, this might be interesting.  Now where'd she leave that pencil...

"Oh my gosh, yeah, it's going to be so cooool."

Companionable study hangout time!

They'll be interrupted not too long after they settle in, by a knock on the door and then the door sliding open.

"Good morning," says a pale, dark-haired boy, leaning into the compartment, and then by way of explanation, "sorry, everywhere else is full." He glances between Ophelia and Lily and the decidedly non-owl bird perched in the luggage rack, thoughtfully appraising. "Do you mind? I - " brief flash of hesitation " - haven't got, uh. Any friends to sit with." Half a smile. "Yet."

The bird is indeed thoughtfully appraising him; he has a good eye.

"I don't see why not; just...try to not - hm, no, that wouldn't...

"...Just...try to maintain a calm environment, please.  The station was painful."

Calm is. Not really his forte.

"R....ight. Yeah. 'Kay." He sits down and curls up against the window, knees to his chest, and tries to ignore the creeping sensation that something horrible is about to happen any second and be completely his fault. He taps his fingers against his foot, restlessly. "...Painful?" 

"The violence that was very specifically not happening.  Was very loud.  And unpleasant to experience."

She is being friendly and open, look at this, it's so good, do not say something rude to her, do not, you are fully capable of not -

Imperious smirk. "Oh, just that? Hogwarts is not kind to fragile people these days, you know."

WHY ARE WE LIKE THIS, OH MY GOD.

Shit.

" - I mean, uh. Um. That sounds like. It sucks? ......... hi I'm Sirius Black who are you."

Suspicious squint. "Lily Evans, possibly not very nice to meet you."

Ophelia, once she processes what the fuck just happened, is honestly concerned for this boy!  People don't just have a reflex to be haughtily superior and then trip over their own tongue backtracking for no reason!

"...Are you alright?  I don't...You said that, and I don't think you meant it.  So...are you possessed by an asshole ghost, or something?

"I'm Ophelia Prince.  And - your asshole ghost is right that normally merely nearly-impending violence shouldn't be that much of a problem, to give it the benefit of the doubt that it was - badly - warning me that people actually get into fights at Hogwarts, but it missed the implication that I could actually perceive the not-quite-impending violence."  She sighs.  "I don't think it'll be as much of a problem as the sheer surprise of finding out I can probably actually read minds, instead of being very good at guessing, by feeling how ready everyone was to - do violence to - eachother, ended up being, because now that I know something's happening, I can probably fix it."

He has never been all right in his life actually.

He giggles, and relaxes quite a bit. "An asshole ghost? Nah, if anything I've got a ghost what tells me to shut up when I've been an asshole. I ignore it usually on account of how everybody I know completely deserves to be insulted continously."

"I think the ghost that tells you to shut up when you have been an asshole is called 'your conscience'."

"Can't be, we don't have those in my family."