A/N I know you all know this, but none of these characters or inventions are mine they all belong to J.K Rowling.

ChapterOne -

Where do I Start?

"Where do I start. I mean honestly… you want to know about my summer? My summer has been horrible. The Dursley's ignored me the entire time, which I usually don't complain about, but one gets lonely when all you have to talk to is an owl…no offence Hedwig. I feel like a complete low-life when I am at their house, as if I don't belong…but of course I don't belong. Sorry, you're going to get the worst of this, as I haven't talked to anyone the entire summer. You where in Italy, Ron had got himself grounded for the entire summer, and Sirius…" suddenly it seemed hard to talk. Harry swallowed, took a deep breath and then continued, "he isn't with us any longer… I swear I cannot wait to get to school and finally be home again, go to Quidditch practice, study for class, go to class! Anything to take me away from this reality." He paused, "horrid reality."

Hermione looked at her friend with deep concern. She needed to make him smile, laugh, even cry, anything was better then this horrible depressed state. She needed Ron, he was always good in these situations, always knew how to lighten the mood, make Harry laugh. But, Ron had gone to help Ginny with something involving an ant farm and a piece of leather…so she assumed he would be sometime. So, with that decided she did only what she knew how too. She put an arm around Harry's slender shoulders and comforted him.

"Harry, it's ok. Ron and I are here now; I promise you that you will never be alone. Please, lets start our sixth year off with a smile. Come on, the only way to try and get through this sane is to stop focusing on the past and to focus on the future, can you do that?"

"Easier said then done, Hermione."

Harry leaned over with a sigh and rested the side of his head on Hermione's shoulder. Completely lost in thought, in the thoughts of his parents and godfather. He closed his eyes and began to hum to himself, what he hummed he did not exactly know but it was soothing none the less. Pictures of his parents were running through his head as well as pictures of Sirius…"He's finally back where he belongs, right next to my dad." He mumbled, barely audible.

Hermione absentmindedly moved her hand back and forth over Harry's back, soothing him. She smiled when he began to hum to himself and could not help rocking slightly to the rhythm of his voice. She heard him mumbled something but did not hear properly what he said, and then she saw that a smile was caressing his lips. She smiled. Her presence was helping, she hoped.

Suddenly Harry realised what he was doing and sat upright very abruptly. "Sorry, must have dozed off…" a soft blush slowly crept across his cheeks. He busied himself with cleaning his glasses. Hermione was surprised by the abrupt change in nature and shrugged her thin shoulders.

"S'ok, no worries."

After cleaning his glasses, Harry put them back on, stood up, and walked across the cabin to his trunk. He rummaged through it for a moment or two before returning with a deck of cards. "Exploding Snap?" he offered.

Hermione budged over allowing room for a playing surface between them on the seat. She took a quick glance at her watch, "Ok, but after that we should change into our school robes. We should be arriving in about an hour and a half." He nodded in agreement before dealing out the cards. They began to play.

After about three rounds of the game, Hermione in the lead, although Harry insists it's because he is being a gentleman and letting her win, she stops for a moment and takes another glance at her watch. She looks around; "I wonder where Ron has gotten too…"

"I don't know, he has been missing the entire journey so far…which is kind of odd."

She picks up the deck of cards and begins to shuffle them absentmindedly "Why was he grounded over the summer?"

" You don't know?" He asked as a smile formed on his lips.

She looked at him, eyebrow raised "no, he refused to tell me…I only knew he was grounded because he was allowed to send out a owl to his friends telling him why he was not contacting them…I'm assuming you got one, right?"

Harry nodded his head " Yeah, and I also got the full blown story on why he was grounded, pretty funny actually. You see he was…." Just then, as if Ron had heard them talking about him, he slid the door open and stepped into the cabin.

Harry stifled a laugh and Hermione's jaw fell open.

"What happened to you?" She said placing the deck of cards down before standing up and offering him her seat. He walked over and plopped down as a wind of dust followed.

Ron had on his normal day clothes but instead of there usual clean yet wrinkled state they were in fact torn in some places as if someone had taken a knife to them, along with this they were covered with dirt, as was his face. He also had one long scratch on his left cheek.

Hermione repeated, "What happened to you?"

Ron grumbled an inaudible reply.

Harry had a grin on his face this was thoroughly amusing him.

Hermione was taking a more responsible approach to it, "I'm sorry, what did you say?" She walked over to her trucked and brought back with her a baby wipe, handing it to Ron who took it and began to wipe down his face and somewhat clean the scratch on his left cheek. After he had finished with the wipe he placed it next to him on the seat, stood up, and then began to try and tell the story. But, it came out in nonsense words because he was in such a frustrated state; he finally resorted to trying to act it out that only caused his audience to laugh even more. However, he did try.

Harry watched trying to figure out Ron's hurried movements. Something had jumped out at him; it seemed and had tackled him to the ground. They rolled over something full of dirt, Ginny's ant farm no doubt, it seemed as if Ron was then pummelled for some time after that before this thing finally jumped off as if satisfied and walked away…

By the end of this display Hermione was in a fit of giggles as was Harry.

Ron glared, "S'not funny!"

In the midst of giggles Hermione managed to ask, "who on earth did this too you?" And Harry added, "because I would love their autograph!"

"Crookshanks! Your stupid cat who I was actually starting to like!" Ron stumped his foot in a child like manner. Hermione managed a loud snort out of laughter and Harry was now in a silent fit of giggles, his hands clutching his stomach.

Ron looked at his friends and seeing that he was not going to get a sensible response stormed over to his trunk, snatched his school robes out, and stormed out of a room with a barely audible, "I'm going to go change."

His friends sat in disbelief as they watched his storm out on them. They sat in silence for a moment, looked at each other, and then burst out laughing again. Hermione was the first to sober up, "that was priceless!" she said rubbing the tears from her eyes.

"I love your cat!" Harry said, then added, "man, that felt good…I needed that."

She smiled; Ron always knew how to make Harry laugh.

The great hall was just as Harry had remembered it, although it had only been a summer since he was last here it felt as if it had been years. That's how painful his summer was, counting down the days. Him, Ron, and Hermione were all sat around the Gryffindor table with all their friends and a little group of first years who sat nervously on the very end on the table unable to decide what to eat first. The feast had of course already started and the first years had been placed in to the four different houses. Ron who had cleaned himself up was now scuffing his face was pieces of chicken and mashed potatoes, he was ignoring Hermione and Harry but only in good fun. Hermione was picking out a second helping of steamed vegetables when she looked over at Harry's plate and noticed he had yet to pick out his first helping.

She placed some steamed vegetables on his plate and he looked up at her in surprise, "eat," was all she said. He turned to his plate and began to slowly eat what she had given him.

After the feast was over Dumbledore made his usual announcements, no one was allowed into the forbidden forest and the caretaker Filch had added some new things to his forbidden item list. Then Dumbledore with a wave of his hand sent them all to bed. Hermione and Ron stood up and began to lead the first years to the Gryffindor common room; Ron had obviously forgotten his thing with ignoring her because he was being extremely nice as they walked up the staircase. It wasn't until she noticed some of the first years giggling that she realised Ron had placed a note on her back, which said, "Kick me." So, she kicked Ron instead making the first years giggle more openly.

However the head girl walked past and coughed loudly making them both stopped and led the first years in a more professional manner.

When they had finished Ron said goodnight to Hermione and went into his bedroom. Harry was sitting on his bed flipping through the pages of his photo album that Hagrid had given him at the end of his first year. Ron plopped loudly on his bed making Harry turn and look.

"What's up man?"

Harry shrugged. Just then Seamus and Dean walked in the room deep in conversation, it seemed Dean was deep in telling Seamus all the ins and outs of football, Seamus was politely listening. Harry shoved the photo album under his pillow.

"I'm going to go to sleep. What's our first class tomorrow?"

"Charms, night Harry."

Harry lay down on the bed and before he could even pull the covers over him, he closed his eyes and feel into a restless sleep.