Disclaimer: Everything (apart from the OC Aurelia) belongs to JK Rowling.

This is my first FanFic, so please be gentle :) Constructive critisism is welcome.

It's just the intro, the next chapter will be a bit longer, I promise.

If you like this, then I'll post it. :)

Enjoy! And please review.

Chapter one: Meeting on a train

With a last, sweeping glance around the crowded train station, Aurelia McKenzie borded the waiting train. In that glance, she saw people of various ages, tears in their eyes and waving to their loved ones, wondering how long it would be untill they saw them again. In that glance, she saw many people, but none that she either knew or recognised.

But the fact that nobody had come to see her off didn't bother Aurelia. In fact, it suited her just fine. No teary goodbyes. She hated scenes like that, like the ones she had just witnessed on platform nine and three-quarters.

Aurelia felt her eyes prickle as they started to tear up, betraying both her calm composure and hidden emotion. So maybe she was bothered, if just slightly. But she was a McKenzie. She would deal with it.

Once aboard the train, Aurelia pushed passed the crowds of students to find an empty compartment.

She wanted to put off having to talk to anyone for as long as possible. So she was going to a boarding school, Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry to be exact, but that didn't mean she actually had to talk to anybody, did it? Maybe, just maybe, as she was starting school in what would be her fifth year, the other students would just ignore her?

She clung to that thought. That hope.

Aurelia had never been very good with people, could never interact with them properly. A boarding school was her worst nightmare. But that was the way her cards had been dealt, and so that was that.

After a few minutes of pushing herself along the train, Aurelia finally found an empty compartment. She almost sighed with relief as she opened the door and plonked herself down by the window. For a moment she had thought that she would actually have to share with other students; awkwardly knocking on the door, asking if that seat was taken, then sitting down, trying to scoot as far away from the person beside her as possible, keeping her eyes fixed elsewhere.

But that scenario seemed almost welcoming to her as she looked out of the window, at the same scene that had made her go all teary-eyed and pathetic earlier. She shook her head, roughly, as if trying to get the image out of her head.

"No... no, I will not break down."

Taking in deep gulps of air Aurelia managed to calm herself before she started to cry again.

Once she could feel the gentle motion of the train, indicating that it was now moving, Aurelia rested her head against the back of her seat, and let that same gentle motion rock her to sleep.

*****

"Dracooo... Draco!?"

'For Merlin's sake, not again.'

They weren't even at school yet and already Pansy was doing his head in.

"Draco, darling? Where are you going?"

"For a walk," he growled. And with that, Draco Malfoy left the compartment he was sharing with his fellow Slytherins; Crabbe and Goyle, who looked extremely confused by his departure, Blaise Zabini, who was staring out the window, completely uninterested in what was going on around him, and Pansy, who was apparently still shrieking at him.

Not looking where he was going, and not really caring, either, Draco pushed his way down the train and barged into what seemed like an empty compartment.

Once inside, however, he found that it was not. On one of the furthest away seats slept a girl around his own age, about average height, he guessed, though he couldn't really tell with her sitting down. She was very pretty.

The girl was already in her school uniform, which allowed Draco to admire her curvy figure. The blouse hugged her body nicely, and her skirt was hitched up, revealing more flesh than was deemed modest, due to the girl fidgeting in her sleep. Her hair, short and purple, was cut into a sharp bob under her rather pointy chin. She had lovely, full lips, and high cheekbones, with a small silver hoop through the side of her nose and light brown freckles, speckled across her face.

And they weren't Weasley freckles either. They made her look almost cute.

Then he caught sight of red and gold thread on the girls uniform, which he had previously missed while assessing her looks.

"Griffindor"

Draco frowned. No matter how pretty the girl was, she was tainted, merely by the fact that she was in that house. The same house as Potter, not to mention the Weasel and Mudblood.

Though he had to admit, tainted as she was, Draco was tempted.

She was exactly his type. Curvy, and with a "creative appearance", as Blaise would call it. He hated girls who were too thin, too blond, too mainstream.

Girls like Pansy.

Taking a seat as far away from the girl as he could manage, Draco deliberatley let his mind wander to other things.

Hell, he would take the devil over Pansy any day.

*****

The moment he heard the crash, Fred sprinted, followed closely by his mother's screams.

As a goodbye present to their mother, Fred and George Weasley had decided to play one last prank before leaving for school. They had done it on the platform, hoping to run onto the train before their mother caught them. But although Fred had managed, George wasn't so lucky.

Fred chuckled. 'Oh well, suppose it's payback for the last time he ran out away after a prank, leaving me to get all the blame.'

They were early, and very few students were on the train yet, so Fred managed to find a compartment easily.

It was their compartment, the one that he and George had used since their first year in Hogwarts, and cooked up most of their plans in. This would be their seventh and final year at Hogwarts, and he would miss it.

Deciding to play yet another prank, this time on his unsuspecting brother, Fred stowed himself away in the overhead luggage space, closing the creaky door behind him. When George came in, he would jump out, hopefully momentarily scaring him.

Fred chuckled to himself again, but this time more mischievously.

Around ten minutes later Fred heard the door to the compartment open rather warily, and the squeak of the seats telling him whoever had come in had sat down. He got himself ready to fling from his hiding place, hand poised at the door of the luggage space, ready to fling it open.

But then he heard the unmistakable sound of a girls voice.

"No... no, I will not break down!"

That wasn't George. And the train was starting to move now, rocking him back and forth in the luggage space. Their mother must be giving him a sterner talking-to than usual, keeping him back. But what was he to do? Wait here? It was awfully cramped. After all, he hadn't planned on being in there for more then a few minutes.

In the end, Fred decided to wait for George, hoping that he would come in soon and chase the girl out, so he could finally go ahead with his prank.

Around another fifteen minutes later, Fred heard the door open yet again and got ready to fling himself from his hiding space. Again.

But the voice he heard speak, and which rooted him to the spot, was again not that of George, but of Malfoy.

"Griffindor"

Wait, that was him. He was a Griffindor. He couldn't have spotted him, surely? But then Fred remembered the girl who had come in earlier. And it made sense. She must be a Griffindor.

Though the word was said with distaste, Fred heard no reply from the girl, and Malfoy spoke to further, either. Instead, Fred heard a second squeak, as Malfoy sat down, too, indicating that he was staying.

'Oww Fred you really mucked this one up, didn't you? I bet George knew, somehow, that I would do this, and let these people come in here on purpose so that I would stay in here. Yea, I bet he's having a right old laugh at me now.'

So Fred decided to wait, still, either until George finally came to find him, or until they reached Hogwarts. Whichever came first. Bursting out now and making a scene would only make George laugh more.

However, it seemed as though that was not how Fred's cards were dealt, as just as he was thinking how lucky it was that neither the girl or Malfoy had decided to stow any luggage away overhead, the train shuddered to a halt, throwing everything forward, including Fred.

He was launched out of his hiding space and onto the middle of the floor, between a bewildered girl, with extraordinary purple hair, and big, round hazel eyes, and a frozen Malfoy, who unfortunately did not stay like that for long.

"WHAT THE HELL!?"