Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters or any part of the Harry Potter world, as much as I wish I did. They are all property of the wonderful J.K. Rowling. :)

Chapter 1

Hermione pinned her prefect's badge to her robes. They had just boarded the Hogwarts Express about ten minutes previously, but there was the usual prefect's meeting in the prefect's compartment, and as a sixth year, she felt the need to be quite prompt. She planned on showing up quite soon even though the meeting wasn't for another half hour. And even then, it probably wouldn't start for yet ANOTHER half hour because Malfoy always strode in twenty minutes late and disrupted everything for at least another ten minutes.

She rolled her eyes. Some people just couldn't take responsibility seriously. She was surprised that Malfoy was even allowed to return as a prefect this year after all of the stuff with Umbridge last year. Hermione personally thought that all of the Slytherins should be kicked out of their honorable standing because of their discrepancies against the school.

"Don't you think so, Ron?" she asked, voicing her opinions out loud to the redhead next to her.

"Huh?" he said, obviously lost in one of his Ronnish dazes.

"Oh never mind," Hermione said feeling annoyed, "Let's just go."

Ron protested, of course. "Hermione! The meeting isn't for another half hour!"

"Yes, well we'll just look better when we're early."

Ron shook his head. "You go ahead. I'll meet you there."

Hermione, feeling more annoyed by the second, stomped out of her compartment and headed toward the prefect's compartment down the aisle. She was looking at her feet while she walked, as she always did, and suddenly crashed into something…or someone, apparently.

"Watch it, Mudblood," Malfoy said with malice in his voice.

"What are you even doing here?" she asked him incredulously, letting his snide comment fall off of her without a care.

"Going to the prefect's meeting obviously," he said, shrugging.

She raised an eyebrow at him suspiciously. "You're always late. Not just for this, but for every meeting EVER."

"Well," he said with a nasty smirk, "Maybe I've decided to punctually bless everyone with my presence today."

With that, he strode off, leaving Hermione staring after him. Wait a second… he was going to make it to the Prefect's compartment first! She had to beat him. She charged him, ready to knock him down to make it into that compartment first. She collided with him for the second time in five minutes, and she knocked him to the ground this time.

Embarrassingly enough, she landed right on top of him. She quickly stood up, but not quite quickly enough. She smelled how enticing his cologne was and found herself immediately wondering what it was. She was just about to ask when she remembered who she was talking about: MALFOY. She sniffed, pointed her nose in the air, and happily walked into the Prefect's compartment with an air of victory. First one there. She had beaten Malfoy. Who cared if no one was there to see it?

Malfoy came walking in just a few seconds later. His blonde hair was tousled and sticking up in the back from their collision. Hermione didn't make eye contact with him, but he walked right up to her and got right in her face. She could smell the scent again. Even more fascinating to watch was the angry expression on his face. She could practically taste the steam coming off of the boy's skin. She loved knowing that she was the one who had caused this frustration.

"If you EVER put your filthy hands on me again, Granger," he said in a surprisingly menacing voice, "I will curse you into so much pain that you won't know your own name. You will beg me to stop. And I'll make you think I am stopping only to turn around and kill you. Do you understand me?"

Hermione quivered and nodded. For the first time in her life, she felt honestly afraid of Draco Malfoy. She caught a glimpse of something on his left arm…some dark shape. She had seen it because the sleeve to his robe had somehow fallen backward, exposing the perfectly white skin underneath it.

"Malfoy, what's that?" she said, pointing at his arm, but before she could get the sentence out, he had already stowed it away.

"You should know," he said, trying to cover up the embarrassment he felt that she had seen the Mark. "And it should serve as a reminder for why you will NEVER touch me again."

He sat down across the compartment from her. People began filing in for their meeting, and no one seemed to notice that Hermione and Draco were having an even more odd time around each other than usual. Usually, there was only hatred spewing from both parties. This time, there was a mixture of hatred and fear, something that left Hermione feeling quite on edge.

This was going to be an interesting year.