CHAPTER 1
Draco's POV
"But, Drakey, don't leave us," whined Pansy as she clung to my robes. I rolled my eyes where she wouldn't see and turned back to her.
"I've got to, Pansy," I told her. "There's no room for all four of us anywhere. You just stay with Crabbe and Goyle and I'll fend for myself." She whimpered but let go of my robes. I turned and left to go to the next car.
The Hogwarts Express was ridiculously crowded that year. It was pure luck that we had found those three seats with another group of Slytherins, but it would have taken a miracle to find four.
I wove through the lines of students who crowded the corridor, constantly on the lookout for an empty seat. Then, finally, the crowds seemed to dwindle and I was left at the back of the train. There, to my surprise, was an entirely empty compartment. I unceremoniously swung open the door, closed it, locked it, and sat in the corner by the door. It was only then that I noticed that there was someone else in the compartment.
Sitting across from me, in the corner by the window, was a girl in black muggle clothes. Her head rested on her elbow as she gazed out the window at the passing English countryside, ears plugged with little stoppers connected with a wire. She didn't even acknowledge my existence, much less my entrance.
"Sod off," I growled. She merely raised an eyebrow at me and put her head back in the crook of her elbow. "I said to sod off." She took a bud from her ear and stared at me.
"This isn't a reserved compartment. I'm staying here," she told me with a steely glare.
"Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?" I sneered. "I'm a Malfoy." Maybe that would scare her off.
Quite the opposite actually happened. She merely glared at me and adjusted the buds in her ears.
"Does the name 'Malfoy' not mean anything to you?"
"It means that you depend on your name to get what you want instead of your abilities."
"That's it," I growled and stood, striding over to her and lifting her by the collar of her shirt. "Get out of this compartment."
"Resorting to violence? I'm sure someone of your high status was taught to use their words." I flung her to the door.
"Get out."
"No." She walked back to her seat and sat down, readjusting one of the plugs in her ears. This was going to be even more difficult than I had thought. I smirked.
"Mudblood," I sneered.
That was when she lost it.
She ripped the buds from her ears and stormed over to me, caging me in her arms.
"As a matter of fact, I am. Do you have a problem with that?" she asked menacingly. Her brown eyes seemed to radiate fire. I gulped. She wasn't joking around.
"You're the mudblood. I think you're the one with the problem." I almost gagged when I realized my father would have been proud.
She grabbed me by the throat, seemingly collected aside from her fiery eyes. I legitimately feared for my life.
"Don't fuck around with me," she warned before letting me go and plopping back down in her seat.
We didn't say a word to each other for the duration of the trip, but I used the time to assess my opponent.
She had dark brown eyes and brown hair spun up into a clip on the back of her head, tan skin, baggy black clothing, and a backpack which sat at her feet. Her eyes stared unseeingly out the window of the train, giving me a clear view of a pink scar that ran across her left jawbone. She didn't look like the fighting sort; but from what I knew of her after the little stunt she pulled, I knew that scar must have been from something violent.
And although my assigned task that year was that of repairing the vanishing cabinet, I was still determined to find out how she had gotten it.