Sorry that it starts off a little slow, and that the chapter is so short, but don't

worry- you'll be cracking up in no time! I promise! Well, I can't actually PROMISE you that, but I sincerely hope that you do, as this story is supposed to be humorous. I can, however, promise that I will do my best. Enjoy!

Oh yeah- my disclaimer! "Harry Potter" and the names of the characters, items, events, and places

therein are trademarks of J.K. Rowling under license to Warner Brother Incorporated.

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Chapter One- Changes

The train station was packed with students new and old, all ready to go back to Hogwarts.

"Harry, over here!" Ron called, waving his long arms above his head frantically. Harry rolled his eyes and sauntered over.

"Guess what, Harry! Guess what!" Ron squealed, smiling hugely.

"What?" Harry asked curiously. Ron was acting pretty strange, he was usually pretty excited to go back to school, but he almost jumping up and down, and he wanted to know what was up.

"Dad got promoted!"

"What!" This was new. Harry had always thought that Mr. Weasley would never have given up his job in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department for anything in the world. Obviously he'd been off the mark.

"Your dad got promoted... is he still in the same department?" Harry asked.

"Nope. Now he works in the Department of Mysteries. He's an unspeakable. Can't tell any of us about his job, of course, but he says it's wicked interesting. I've always thought it'd be cool to work there. Maybe Dad could convince them to let me in after I get out of school," Ron said thoughtfully, that grin still plastered onto his face

"They aren't going to let you in just because they like your dad, Ron."

Both Harry and Ron looked 'round to see who had said it, although though they already knew. You could tell who it was even before seeing her brown bushy mass of hair, or actually... it wasn't bushy at all...

"Her- Hermione?" Harry stuttered. She looked so unlike herself that it was hard to believe that the girl standing in front of them was the same Hermione they had seen at the beginning of the summer, their best friend.

"What did you do?" Ron asked, dumbfounded.

"Nice to see you too, Ronald," she retorted, and rolled her eyes. "Hey, Harry."

"Hey," he said, still staring at her. She looked so different. In fact, she looked kind of...hot!

Whoa! Way creepy! Harry thought. This is one of my best friends, the bushy- haired buck- toothed bookworm/genius that I can always count on when I'm in a pinch with homework. She's not supposed to be this alluring! But she was. She had cut her hair to her shoulders, and she was wearing makeup, earrings, and a necklace. Wait! Stop everything! What has happened to the world? Hermione wearing makeup and jewelry? Most certainly.

Yet there was more: She was wearing a rather low- cut tank top that showed so much skin, it was bordering on being considered a bikini top. She had gotten her navel pierced, and a small tattoo of a star was clearly visible rather low on her midriff. She was carrying a sequined bag and flip flops to match. She was also wearing a pair of Miss Sixties, which were all the rage in London, but Hermione had never been one for trends...

Harry's eyes traveled all the way down to her feet and came back up to rest on her cleavage...

Wait! No! Ew! Harry thought. This is Hermione! I'm not supposed to notice these things on her! This is starting to get a little too strange for me... Harry shuddered and shook his head, trying to get the mental image of himself and Hermione to go away.

"Uhhh, Harry, you okay?" she asked tentatively. He looked stunned. He was being a little quiet, too. Usually he had something to say after not seeing her for the entire summer, most times, it was to complain about the Dursleys. No complaints were escaping his lips, though, so he had either had an excellent summer, or he was just feeling a little off.

"Huh? Oh! Yeah! Sure," Harry replied, snapping out of it. She still looked hot, though. He blinked. Yep, still hot. Harry looked down at her shoes to avoid looking at her face; this was way embarrassing.

As they all stood there in a sort of awkward silence, Harry's eyes drifted over to Ron's shoes, and, to make things even stranger, instead of Ron's well- worn white trainers, he saw shiny new black oxfords. Harry felt like he was in some parallel world or something, because nothing was normal. Then, he noticed that Ron wasn't wearing old hand- me- down jeans, his pants actually fit, and they weren't jeans. They were tailored black trousers with white pinstripes going down them. They were obviously from some expensive boutique that gave off an air of sophistication. Somehow, it reminded him if Malfoy.

Harry stared at Ron in confusion, and saw that he had thrown his matching jacket over his shoulder, and that he was wearing a white button- down shirt and a red and gold striped tie. His hair was even slicked back. He looked completely different! How had he not noticed this before? What had happened to the Ron he knew!

Harry felt a little lost. Both of his best friends were almost completely unrecognizable, but he was still the same, you're average middle class kid, wearing department store jeans that were a bit short, year old trainers, and a t- shirt with a few holes. Ron shifted uncomfortably.

Toot! Toot! The train whistle warned everyone that they only had five minutes left.

"Oh, no! We'd better hurry, or all the compartments will be taken!" Hermione exclaimed worriedly, making a mad dash for the train, her trolley bouncing behind her as she tugged it along. Crookshanks didn't look too happy about it.

"Come on, Harry, she's right. We don't want to get stuck with some bonkers new first year," Ron sighed.

"Or worse," Harry said, "Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle."

"Uuuggh!" Ron shuddered. "I would rather barf up slugs again than sit with them, and take it from me- hurling slugs is not fun."

Harry laughed. "I'm sure. I might actually prefer Malfoy and his thugs to that."

"Come on, you two, the train's about to leave!" Hermione called from the open door.

"Alright! We're coming!" Ron called back to Hermione. He then turned to Harry. "God, she reminds me of my mum sometimes," he mumbled. "Still, we'd better get going.""Yeah," Harry replied, and started hauling his trolley towards the train. Things couldn't be all that different. It was probably no big deal. When they got to school, they'd start their classes, and complain about teachers and "forget" to do homework instead of messing around and quidditch practice would start up soon...

Maybe he could cope with this. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad. Maybe not.

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Sorry it's been so long since I first wrote this. I hope you find the updated version at least

a little better. I'm sorry I've been neglecting you, dear readers. I sincerely hope you haven't turned

your backs on me already.

I do have more in store for you all as well. I am going to publish a second chapter for this

story very soon (and when I say very soon, this time I actually do mean it) and I'm going to be

"fixing" my other fanfics, since it's been some time since I wrote them.

From there, I'm going to try to be pretty regular in updating all of them, and I'm planning on

starting a new Final Fantasy fanfic, for a wider audience. Thanks so much for reading!