A/N: I'VE FINISHED MY EXAMS! NO MORE SCHOOL EVER AGAIN! Anyway, now that I'm finished with school I will have all summer to spend on this fic, which is super exciting for me because I love writing this story! I hope you guys enjoy reading it just as much. This week there is a little change as this chapter is what I'm calling an 'interlude' into the past, every three chapters there will be an 'interlude' which will show a scene from the trios past in this parallel universe. This chapter is Halloween and Hermione, Draco and Harry's first meeting as friends:) I hope you guys enjoy it!

FIRST INTERLUDE: HALLOWEEN

...

"I love Halloween," Harry cried happily as he and his best friend Draco swept into the Great Hall for lunch, half the day had already been and gone but the best part of Halloween at Hogwarts was the feast that occurred at dinner time, or so the two first years had been told.

"I hate Halloween, it's stupid," Draco grumbled, throwing himself down on the Slytherin bench and taking a handful of crisps grumpily. Harry rolled his eyes at his grumpy friend, the only reason Draco was annoyed was because Harry had gotten the space he wanted on the Quidditch team, two years earlier than Draco had planned to get on the team. However, after Harry's display during their first flying lesson, it was obvious that the young wizard had a talent for the sport and its position of Seeker so Draco didn't mind. If it was anyone but his best friend, then he would be angry.

"You're stupid," Blaise Zabini countered from opposite him and Draco shot him a glare, despite already being here for two months, Draco was still only close friends with Harry, he had even forgotten Crabbe and Goyle slightly because all they had done was follow him around anyway, and he didn't class that as a friendship.

"Shut up," Draco shot back just as a group of first year Gryffindors entered the Great Hall and sat down. One of them was Ron Weasley, an insufferable boy who had met Harry on the train to Hogwarts, they had gotten friendly but then Harry had accepted Draco's friendship and it all went downhill. Since the Weasley's and the Malfoy's didn't exactly get along, Weasley told Harry to choose between him and Draco, Harry apologised to Ron and said he couldn't choose between two people he had only just met which angered Weasley and made him stalk away towards a goofy looking boy with a pet toad, overgrown teeth and a stupid surname which was Longbottom?

Of course, Weasley wasn't best buds with the goofball, when he got sorted into Gryffindor he became close friends with an Irish half-blood called Seamus Finnigan and a muggleborn boy called Dean Thomas, the three of them spent their entire lessons causing as much havoc as possible which had landed them a number of detentions in Draco's favourite subject, Potions. The only reason it was his favourite lesson was because the Potions professor was the head of Slytherin house and was extremely biased towards his own house. He docked hundreds of points off other houses everyday but if anyone from Slytherin messed up, they would be docked ten points at the most.

Weasley, Finnigan and Thomas didn't like this one bit so set about to make the Slytherins look as if they were in trouble in front of other professors. It did work for a while, until Draco sneakily shot a tickling jinx Weasley's way which had him writhing and giggling whenever McGonagall tried to get him to talk. Since then, Draco and Harry had been enemies with Weasley, Finnigan and Thomas; vowing that they would never be civil to each other ever again.

"Aw Drakie, don't be such a party pooper."

Draco turned towards the annoying voice that was Pansy Parkinson, she seemed to have some kind of one sided fascination with him which drove him insane 24/7, he edged slightly away from her as she scooched next to him, her eyelashes batting madly and her dark hair hanging limply past her cheeks. Though he was flattered by her constant admiration towards him, she was bothersome and drove him up the wall with her ceaseless clinginess. She had recently made up some kind of ridiculous pet-name for him which was 'Drakie'. It made him sick to his stomach just hearing it spout from her mouth but now Harry had decided it was rather amusing and thought it was even funnier to start using the pet-name.

"Please don't call me Drakie ever again," Draco deadpanned which only made Harry and Blaise snigger whilst Pansy pouted.

"But Draki…"

"Don't even think about it," he snapped just as Theodore Nott came and sat between him and Pansy. Draco nearly hugged him in rejoice but refrained from doing so as to not ruin his reputation.

"Morning all," Theo said, smiling at his fellow house-mates. They all smiled back except for Pansy who looked extremely put-out. Theo continued. "So who's looking forward to the feast later?"

Blaise smacked his forehead and groaned. "Oh please don't start that again, I do not need Draco to moan anymore about how he hates Halloween."

Draco glared "Malfoy's don't moan!"

"Well this one does," he joked; Draco opened his mouth to reply but stopped when he felt Harry's hand on his shoulder.

"Ignore him,"

"Always going to get other people to fight your battles Malfoy?" Blaise teased and even though Draco knew his fellow Slytherin was only saying it to wind him up it did just that and he couldn't bear to sit with them any longer.

"Let's go," Draco said to Harry before standing up and throwing his bag over his shoulder. Harry nodded, understanding why his best friend wanted to leave, and did the same. There were only a few minutes until lunch was over and they had charms anyway.

The two Slytherin boys walked out of the hall just as Dumbledore was announcing that the rest of the school should get ready to head to their next lesson, Harry and Draco picked up the pace so that they didn't get caught up in the stampede of students who would soon flood the halls.

"Blaise is being an idiot Draco; he's only pushing your buttons."

Since being friends with Harry, Draco had picked up on a few muggle phrases, 'pushing your buttons' was one of them.

"I know that Harry, but it still annoys me, he acts like he's so much better than me,"

"Like I said before, just ignore him."

They rounded a corner and spotted the door to the charms classroom in the distance. Unfortunately they weren't the first people there.

Charms; along with Potions, Transfiguration and Flying; were the only lessons that the Slytherin's shared with the Gryffindor's this year. However, the Gryffindor's weren't the quietest of people and news did travel fast around a school this size.

The only other person outside the classroom was a small girl with wild bushy hair and an open book in her lap. She was laughing at something and Draco couldn't help but notice that she was slightly buck-toothed. She looked up from her seat on the floor when she heard the two boys approaching. Harry gave a weak smile since he was polite to everyone, Draco merely sneered as per usual.

The girl in question was Hermione Granger, the bossy know-it-all of Gryffindor who had made her intelligence known on the first day. To be frank, Draco found her irritating that she was so clever but at the same time rather intimidating; he had seen the way she had chastised Weasley about his lack of completed homework and Draco had decided there and then he would not want to be on the wrong side of Hermione Granger, ever.

Despite her bossy personality towards her fellow Gryffindors, the Slytherin's in her year were a very different matter. When she saw Draco and Harry coming her way she slammed her book shut and stuffed it into her bag, struggling to get up with the weight of all the books in her shoulder bag as they drew closer.

She didn't look at them, instead choosing to gaze at her glossy Mary-Janes. Draco raised an eyebrow every time she looked up before returning her gaze quickly to the floor again.

Slowly, more and more students appeared for class. Unfortunately for Draco, Pansy arrived rather quickly and latched onto his arm straight away, refusing to let go until they had to enter the classroom. Blaise turned up shortly after Pansy and apologised for the way he treated Draco, Draco returned his apology with a half smile and a curt nod. Blaise looked rather pleased with the response he had received since he was obviously expecting worse.

Weasley and his followers sent the group of Slytherin's plenty of dirty looks as they marched over to Hermione. By the amount of respect they sent her way, Harry and Draco could only guess that they weren't befriending Hermione because they enjoyed her company or personality, perhaps more along the lines of the fact she was clever.

"Afternoon class, please come in and take your seats," Professor Flitwick said once the door was opened and the class was lined up outside. Draco trundled inside behind Harry and sat down in his usual seat between Theo and Harry, the other Slytherin's seated their selves around him, Pansy taking the seat directly behind, much to his dismay; she and her friend Daphne Greengrass had already started giggled and whispering and the lesson hadn't even started. They were almost as bad as Lavender Brown and her best friend Pavarti Patil.

The Gryffindor's sat in the benches opposite them, for the first week the teachers had tried to get the Slytherin's and Gryffindor's to sit together but they had failed miserably so had decided to stick with their first plan and let the students sit where the wished to. Of course Weasley was next to Hermione and constantly asking her how to do it; Draco put his wand down and listened to the conversation. So far, all Weasley had managed to do was wave his wand around vigorously.

"Stop, stop, stop, you're going to take someone's eye out," Hermione snapped, pushing his wand down and away from her so that he was aiming at Finnigan's head. "Besides, you're saying it wrong. It's Leviooo-sa, not Levio-saaa."

Weasley snorted. "Well you do it then if you're so clever."

Hermione rolled her eyes and simply turned back to her own feather,

"Wingardium Leviosa," she said calmly, moving her wand only slightly. Draco felt transfixed to her feather as it floated gracefully into the air. The ease at which she did it only made Draco more eager to beat her.

Weasley moped around for the rest of the lesson whilst Hermione read her book again. Draco managed to succeed in making his feather fly just after Hermione and Harry minutes later, with a little help from Draco.

At the end of the lesson Professor Flitwick told them that their homework was to keep practising the spell until they could do it without a single thought. There next lesson was a week from then so they had plenty of time.

Walking through the Transfiguration courtyard towards their next class, Care of Magical Creatures, Draco and Harry came across Weasley, Thomas and Finnigan snickering about something.

"…I mean she's a nightmare, 'It's Leviooo-sa, not Levio-saaa', no wonder she doesn't have any friends,"

The pair of Slytherin's immediately knew who the three Gryffindor's were laughing about. Thomas butt in after Weasley had finished.

"The other day I asked her to check my Potions homework and she brought it back with all these corrections on it, telling me I had to write it again. Oh yeah, and don't even get me started on those teeth."

"They're terrible, I wouldn't be her friend even if she was the last person on earth," Finnigan said, his hair still singed from when his feather had blown up during Charms.

"I think she heard them," Harry whispered into his ear, pulling him away from the cruel words that were spouting from the Gryffindors' mouths. He pointed towards a mass of bushy hair that was disappearing back into the school, when she turned a corner Draco could see the tears running down her face and felt slightly bad for the muggleborn Gryffindor, Weasley was right, she didn't have any friends, but that was only because none of her fellow Gryffindors tried to communicate with her, all because she was a know-it-all.

...

"This is stupid,"

"You're stupid,"

"Oh don't start that again," Daphne groaned as she sat down next to Blaise, opposite Draco. It was the Halloween feast and Draco still wasn't enamoured with the treats and sweets that were scattered all over the four house tables.

The two Slytherin boys hadn't seen Hermione Granger since they had spotted her run off a few hours before. When she hadn't turned up to their last lesson of the day, which was a big surprise since Hermione Granger was the top student in the year and loved school, Harry had started worrying that she had done something stupid but Draco assured him that he didn't need to worry about some silly girly Gryffindor since she was probably just crying in her dorm room over what Weasley and his gang said about her earlier.

However, Draco's words were proved false when the first year gossip queens, Lavender Brown and Pavarti Patil, entered the hall. They were whispering about something that Draco could only make out when they passed him.

"…And she's been crying in the girls' loos ever since, pathetic if you ask me…"

Draco and Harry looked at each other, not even needing to hear a name to know who the two girls were talking about.

"Are they on about Granger?" Pansy sneered from her seat beside Daphne. "I agree with them, she is being pathetic,"

Draco, Harry and Blaise looked at each other with raised eyebrows at Pansy's 'hypocritical' comment. They snickered whilst the two girls looked on, confused.

"What are you laughing at?" Pansy asked, her nasal voice seeming squeakier than usual. Draco physically winced at the sound.

"Nothing that you'd find funny," Draco said when Harry and Blaise failed to even try and answer the question. They always put him on the spot because they thought that he would be able to warm Pansy. Wrong. Why would he try and do that when he didn't even know or care about the meaning of her very existence? If he tried to warm her then she would think that he was leading her on, and he didn't want that at all.

Pansy sulked, pouting her fat lips so that her face looked even more pug like than usual.

"You know Draco, you should be nicer to your fellow Slytherins," she whined. Draco just rolled his eyes, taking a doughnut and shoving it into his mouth for some kind of excuse to be silent.

The usual chatter that flooded the Great Hall echoed off the walls as hundreds of students discussed this year's Halloween. First years squealed in delight whilst older students merely commented on the positioning of the floating lanterns. It was a cheerful noise until the large oak doors slammed open. A shrill cry bouncing around the room as it did so.

"TROLL, TROLL IN THE DUNGEONS!"

Professor Quirell, the school's Defence against the Dark Arts teacher, stumbled towards the centre of the hall; his face stricken in horror as he stopped to face Professor Dumbledore, who had now stood up and was facing his colleague.

"TROLL IN THE DUNGEON," Quirell paused. "Thought you ought to know," he let out before losing conscious and collapsing into the stone floor.

There was silence for a few seconds until the entire population of the hall broke into screams and shrill cries. Draco could hear Pansy shrieking in his ear as the students pushed their benches aside and shuffled through the thick crowd desperate to get out of the Great Hall.

"SILENCE!"

Everyone turned around to see Professor Dumbledore standing up and gazing at the students in front of him.

"Do not panic. Prefects, please safely return the rest of your house to your common room. Teachers, you will follow me to the dungeons, does everyone understand?"

Harry and Draco followed Maria Dunham, one of Slytherin's Prefects, out of the Great Hall and towards the dungeons. Unfortunately for the Slytherin's the troll seemed to be exactly where their common room was. They were just lagging behind when Harry grabbed Draco's arm, pulling him to a stop. Luckily they were near the back of the pack of Slytherins so no one paid any attention to their sudden halt.

"What?" Draco snapped. Even though he would never admit it, he was quite scared of the troll and actually wanted to return to the common room so that he could be tucked up warm and safe in his four poster bed.

"Hermione,"

"What about her?" Draco urged, confused about his best friend's sudden concern for the bushy haired Gryffindor.

"She doesn't know,"

"About what?"

"The troll," Harry stressed "Lavender and Pavarti said that she was crying in the girls loos. We need to get her!"

Draco grimaced. "I don't want to be caught by some ten foot troll just because you want to play the hero."

"Draco," Harry groaned "What if the troll got her? Would you ever forgive yourself if you let her die?"

"It's not our responsibility; she has her own friends,"

"Really? Because from what we heard earlier, I wouldn't say that many of those Gryffindors are her real friends."

Draco frowned before sighing in defeat. "Okay, but if we die because of you, I will kill you."

Harry grinned, then he checked for any wandering eyes before pulling Draco away from the group and down a corridor that he knew led to the girls' bathroom.

"I think the troll's left the dungeon," Harry muttered as they neared the bathroom. Heavy footsteps could be heard nearby and they were too loud to belong to a human adult.

"You think?" Draco said sarcastically as the next second a huge, gruesome creature lagged past, dragging his wooden club behind him lazily. Draco gulped as the troll groaned.

"He's heading towards the girls bathroom," Harry whispered. "Let's go,"

"You mean we're actually going after that thing?"

"If we're going to save Hermione,"

"You mean, if you're going to save Hermione. I couldn't care less if she died. Better her than me."

"You don't mean that," Harry snapped before creeping forward. Draco's eyebrows burrowed anxiously as he followed his spectacled best friend gingerly. He really did not want to be on the wrong side of that club.

A piercing scream sent a shiver down his spine and for some reason urged his senses to sprint. Harry's seemed to be doing the same as the next minute the pair of Slytherin's were running as fast as they could towards the girls' bathroom, which was where the scream had erupted from. They burst through the door to see a wreckage of broken sinks and toilets. There was another scream but all Draco could see was the gigantic troll that stood in front of him, his groaning mouth slightly open and a dribble of saliva was dripping down his chin. If he could see the troll's face, the troll must be looking at them.

"Watch out," a female voice shrieked and Draco barely had time to register his actions before a large club hurtled his way, he flung his body on the ground as Harry ran around the troll, finding Hermione.

"How are we supposed to defeat it?" Draco called to Harry, he knew trolls were dumb but it would still be a struggle for a first year to take down a fully grown mountain troll.

"Perhaps you could use its club, surely that would knock him out?"

"Oh yeah," Draco said sarcastically, ducking as the troll sent another blow his way. "I'll just kindly ask him if I can have his club."

"They're dumb; perhaps he'll give it to you."

Draco snorted. "They're dumb, not insane. Plus I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to lift it myself,"

"Then levitate it," Hermione voice called out. Draco frowned dodging yet again out of the way. The troll's beady eyes seemed transfixed on him. Pulling out his wand he held it in front of him, pointing it at the club.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

The troll tried another blow at him but sent nothing but air his way, as his club was now floating in midair, right above him head. Draco released the spell just as the troll looked up.

The club fell downwards, landing with a surprisingly heavy thunk a top the troll's thick head. Then he fell, Draco had to take a few big strides back so that the humungous body didn't break him. He stuffed his wand into his pocket as Hermione and Harry appeared.

Once the three of them were together, Hermione reached forward to kiss Draco on the cheek, and then she did the same with Harry.
"Thank you so much, if it wasn't for you two I'd be dead."

For some reason, Draco felt himself blush at the kind words.

"You're Draco and Harry right?" she asked and the two Slytherin's nodded "I'm Hermione."

"Nice to meet you Hermione," Harry said sweetly and the muggleborn Gryffindor smiled.

"You too," she managed to get out before the door swung open and five adults marched in.

...

A/N: Thank you so much for all the feedback! I hope you enjoyed the first 'interlude' and throwback to how Hermione, Harry and Draco's friendship started:) next week Defence Against the Dark Arts class! The first few chapters are just setting the scene and are a little boring, but I promise they will become more exciting very soon!

Thank you so much again, and remember that all your feedback is great.

See you next week:)