DISCLAIMER: After recovery from a rather unfortunate bout of delusion, I have come to realize that sadly, I am not J.K. Rowling and I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 1

Hermione Granger had a lot of hair.

Taming said hair was a problem for Hermione Granger. No matter what she tried, her head generally looked like a large frizzy puffball trying to eat her face. Fortunately for her, the color was not a total loss. In fact, her chocolate brown hair had a cool tone too it. The absence of golden tones brought attention to her creamy complexion and the freckles dotting the bridge of her nose. She looked in the mirror, paying close attention to her face. Her aforementioned complexion remained unblemished, and had thankfully been that way through all six of her previous years of schooling at the Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Her nose was elegant, but didn't point upwards in a fashion that had made so many others look snobby. Her eyes were large and reminiscent of a doe, big and brown. Her full lips were lightly pigmented, and overall, Hermione's look was a classic one. The hair, however, was anything but. Today, Hermione had chosen to let it down in all of its fuzzy glory. Wearing her typical charcoal skirt, white oxford, and scarlet and gold striped tie, Hermione strode through the brick wall at between platforms 9 and 10 with confidence, pushing a cart that held two trunks and a cat that looked remarkably like a pug.

The atmosphere at Platform 9 ¾ was busy, very busy. Parents of first years were bustling about, waving and crying as they watched their little precious board the train for the first time ever, lamenting the loss of their firstborns and acting like they would never see little Tommy-wommy or Katiekins again. Second year parents were waving goodbye to their kidlets, begging them to write and giving them messages of love, whereas the parents of anyone third year and up might as well have been wearing a sign that said "I am so over this shit."

Hermione looked around, heading right pushing her cart until she felt a rough jerk and felt herself losing control of the cart as Crookshanks, the cat who as I already mentioned, resembled a pug, began to slide off of Hermione's trunk. Restoring balance to the creaky cart, she ducked around to the side and put the screeching cat back where she belonged. Looking for the culprit, Hermione cringed when she heard the familiar drawl.

"Watch it mudblood," spat the platinum haired boy. His gray eyes didn't sparkle, their ice made them appear almost matte. His gaze was sharp, piercing, but his face had softened. His features were not quite as angular and sharp as they used to be, and his jaw was wider, more masculine. The one thing that could not be argued, however, was that he still bore the undeniable resemblance to a ferret. Hermione paled at the sound she had come to dread, the sound of her arch-nemesis, the Joker to her Batman, the Harvard to her Yale, the peanut, to her peanut allergy. Her color returned as she snickered, realizing that muggle-phobic Malfoy couldn't understand any of the comparisons she made if he tried. "Try not to infect me if you can, I'd like to start this year disease-free and keep it that way if you please." He smirked in satisfaction as he watched Hermione ever so slightly flinch. The insult wasn't even particularly witty, she was just furious that he thought he had the right to belittle someone based on blood. With an angry glance and an arrggghh, Hermione did an about-face and stormed off, pushing her trunks and her cat trying to make as best a furious exit as she possibly could. Her exit was undeniably ruined, however, when she tripped trying to avoid, quite ironically, a toad and lost a loafer in the process. Malfoy began to laugh with his cronies, the thickheaded Crabbe, the awkwardly skinny Goyle, and the obnoxiously self-centered Blaise. Hermione gave another angry noise, this time a hrrmpph instead of an arrgghh, and walked off as if her blood was boiling.

As soon as Hermione was out of sight, Draco turned around and cradled his foot, his toe in undeniable pain. "Bloody whore," he muttered. "Watch your language mate," reminded Blaise in a singsong voice.

"Shut it Zabini," retorted Draco. He was angry, but not because his toe hurt-a lot, but because he actually liked watching Granger leave. She had grown up over the summer; there was no doubt about that. Her figure was more defined, but she wasn't sickeningly skinny. Either Granger had shortened her skirt by a few inches, something very not Granger-like, or she had grown 3 inches, a more likely explanation. All the better to see her legs, thought Draco. Hold up—Granger wasn't attractive. Why was he thinking of her like this. He shuddered, deciding that yes, he just might be sick. Some 2 minute bug, a virus, temporary insanity, those were all perfectly good explanations. Happy with his newfound rationalizations Draco skipped, eh hem, walked, looking quite macho if he did say so himself, to class, his black robes billowing out behind him.

Hermione then proceeded, as quickly and carefully as possible in order to avoid further embarrassment, to the baggage compartment, dropping of her trunks. Next she took Crookshanks' cage and placed it with the other cats in the cat compartment, handing her beloved pet off to a sneezing, sniffling, man who was hilariously allergic to the very animals that had been charged to his care. She ran to the nearest door, and with a hop, Hermione was on the train heading towards her last year at home.

Without a doubt, Hogwarts was Hermione's home. "Why not with her parents?" You may ask. Well, to put it simply, Hermione expected it would be quite difficult to call two coffins six feet under, 'home.'

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AN: Sorry for the short chapter, just wanted to get a bit of an introduction going. This is my dreamfic as it were, how I've always wanted other fics to go. I will try to break my 5-chapter curse, I promise.