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Chapter 1

"Hey, Harry?"

Hmm?" Harry mumbled.

"What'd you reckon the letter we got off the school meant by 'this year will offer a new and interesting experience for students'?" asked Ron, from across Harry.

Ron was both excited and nervous at this piece of news as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry tended to exhibit some strange surprises. Harry was getting more and more impatient with Ron, especially since this was about the fiftieth time Ron had enquired this. Harry himself was rather curious but had decided not to press the matter since it couldn't be any dark or dangerous. Just a few months ago Harry had defeated Lord Voldemort, and suppressed all the dark forces involved. He was pretty sure that there was nothing in the world that could catch him off guard anymore; perhaps the school was finally going to offer some kind of genuine activity of magical importance. Hopefully the mere fact that he was Harry Potter wouldn't affect the course of the year. Therefore Harry simply shrugged at Ron's query.

Another voice now spoke up from the window seat beside Ron on the Hogwarts express.

"Ronald, obviously if Harry knew something he would tell us. According to that letter from Hagrid there's to be a new style in teaching. He wrote that he couldn't say much more in a letter, so we're just going wait, aren't we?"

Hermione was reading "Hogwarts A History" yet again. The train had only just pulled out of platform nine and three quarters about five minutes ago. They were speeding up as the train passed London; there were still a few students about hunting for spare compartments. Their own compartment door slid open slightly and two cold blue eyes peered through, then the person hurriedly closed it and paced away quickly.

Draco Malfoy had become a bit of a loner since the summer when most of his friends either had been killed or sentenced to Azkaban for life. The Malfoys themselves had been spared on the grounds of "being controlled by the Dark Lord and therefore are spared of all accusable crimes".

"Still a bit of a prat, ain't he?" Ron spat as Malfoy left. Ron maintained a bitter hatred of Malfoy and took every chance he got to throw insults, or trip him up, as he had done when they met him on a summer day trip to Diagon Alley. Harry couldn't exactly say he liked Malfoy now, but what had happened was in the past, and Harry had made a decision to forget everything. But of course the rivalry between them lingered on.

Hermione commented instead, as she was a bigger chatterbox. Harry had become rather quiet after all the events of last year. Ron and Hermione suspected it was simply due to pure relief of massive pressure, and didn't bother trying to talk him out of it. Ron tried to cheer him up on the sly, however nothing proved effective, and he soon left the matter.

"Come one, Ron! Give him some credit, he hardly has friends, half of Slytherin got wiped out or were removed from school, their parents were so ashamed. Gosh, Ronald, don't you read the Daily Prophet." Ron didn't, no, but now turned back to Harry.

"We still hate him, right Harry?.... Oi Harry!"

"What?"

Harry wasn't really listening to all the chatter, he was actually thinking of Ginny. She had caught a violent flu bug over the summer and wasn't coming back to school straight away. He was worried about her, it felt terrible to be separated when they finally had the freedom to be together. Harry was now wondering why he was even coming back to school. There was really no point, any Auror firm in the wizarding world would sign up the famous Harry Potter for life and pay him how many ever galleons he desired, finishing school wouldn't make the slightest difference. But Ron's parents and Hermione had insisted so here he was.

Before Ron could explain to Harry what the current conversation was, they heard some very loud voices coming from up the corridor. The owners seemed to be getting closer as the noise was increasing. They could now catch parts of the conversation between these people.

"If we weren't so late…"

"Ikkaku, how can you possibly do your hair, when you have none?"

"SHUT UP!!!"

"At least we caught up, now be quite, you're annoying the Captain."

Ron was not pleased to be interrupted like this and stomped outside to investigate.

"Who the hell is making all then noi-"

Ron found himself almost nose to nose with a large bald man, scowling.

"What? Got a problem red head?"

"N-no s-sir" Ron managed.

"I'm killing you for that comment Ikkaku. Prepare to face the rage of Renji and Zabimaru!" Ron now spotted an even larger man behind the first. He was incredibly muscular and heavily tattooed, with startling blood red hair all tied into a long pony tail that stuck up on end. His eyebrows were shaped like lightening, there was a bandana tied around his forehead and he was glaring back at the bald man with dangerous eyes. Very intimidating indeed. Both men were clothed in black robes, different from the Hogwarts school uniform.

The big red headed one moved in to punch the bald man, but was stopped instantly by someone else behind him, grabbing his arm.

"Matsumoto, what are you –"

"Stop it Renji, you're upsetting the captain, again. God! Yumichika, do something!"

Ron now became aware of three others behind the first two. A strawberry blonde woman with ridiculously large breasts, a small child with silver/ white hair and another man, perhaps, Ron wasn't quite sure. This was because of the bob haircut, feathery eye lashes and neat robes. The child had its eyes lowered and was frowning. They were all clad in black robes as well; however in addition to this the small child was also wearing a white sleeveless robe over his black garments.

"Sorry, Matsumoto-san, they're just really high spirited you know. Please forgive them Captain, they're just very enthusiastic about this little trip." The man (perhaps) answered.

"Move kid!" the attention of the bald man had now turned back to Ron.

"Umm, yeah sure." Ron backed up into his compartment and flumped into his seat. The noisy people sauntered off down the corridor mumbling something about sitting on the roof.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron said to himself.

"Looks like you just upset some new students, Ron. Maybe that's the new surprise, a school transfer?"

Hermione was half right. The rest of the journey went smoothly and there were no other disturbances apart from the odd bang from the roof and the same familiar voices from before.