The moment Violet saw her parents after crossing through the barrier to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, she immediately let go of her trolley and went running up to them. The three of them embraced each other in one big hug, and any remaining worry Violet had about what was going on disappeared entirely.

"Oh, sweetheart, it's been busy but we'll always be fine!" Genevive told her, pressing a kiss to the top of her daughter's head. "You do need to stop worrying so much!"

"Lots of late nights too…" Thomas added. "We would have had Remus look after you, but he's been under the weather. Besides, it seemed like making sure you were with your friends was the best idea - how has this week been?"

The three of them broke apart, just as Bill came over with Violet's trolley. He handed it back to the girl with a mockingly unimpressed look, and then meandered off back to his family before she could even say thank you properly.

"It's been okay. I read a lot," she said. "But… I did play a little bit of Quidditch yesterday. One game only. I'm awful as a Chaser… I think I'll stick to keeping my feet on the ground."

"Understandable," Thomas chuckled. "Can't say I didn't try to make you a Quidditch player. Enjoy yourself this year, love. You may want to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas actually."

"Tom!" Genevive hissed at him, batting him on the arm too. Violet looked between her parents, confused.

"Why?" she asked suspiciously. "Is this to do with what Bill and Charlie were hinting at yesterday afternoon?"

They looked shifty, and so started to usher her back towards her friends. Thomas handed her her satchel and grabbed the trolley. "Never you mind, off to school with you!"

Violet sighed. "Fine. Love you mum, dad," she said softly. She gave her mother's hand one last quick squeeze and scurried off back to her friends, while her parents went to go offload her suitcase onto the train, which she brought her owl with her. Even though time with them had been short just now, she was grateful for it all the same. Besides, she still had to say goodbye to the Weasleys too.

"Enjoy the year, Vi," Bill said, patting her on the shoulder. "I'm sure the lead up to Christmas will be of interest to you…"

She scowled for a moment. "Right. It was good to meet you, Bill. You too, Charlie," she added, turning to the more freckly Weasley, before addressing their mother. "And thank you again, Mrs Weasley, I really appreciate you taking me in and letting me be around my friends for the last week of summer."

Mrs Weasley beamed down at her and pulled the girl in for a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. "You're a wonderful guest, Violet - don't be a stranger next summer, alright?"

"Of course."

With that, Violet hurried over to Harry, Hermione, and Ron - who had already said their goodbyes - and they boarded the Hogwarts Express, now tasked with finding an empty compartment to sit in. Thankfully, that didn't take too long, and they got settled in quite nicely. As the train set off from the platform, they all gathered at the window to wave towards their families before the vehicle ultimately sped up and left them all in the distance.

Hermione and Ron sat on one bench, opposite Harry and Violet on the other. They were quiet for a moment, before they all had the same collective thought.

"What's happening at Christmas?" Violet asked.

"What's going on at Hogwarts this year?" Ron also questioned at the same time.

Silence, again.

"Scratch that - what were you and Bill talking about the other night?" Harry turned to Violet.

She groaned, realising the meaning behind his final words, and face palming.

"Oh no, what did he say?" Ron was worried now.

"Well… both he and my parents mentioned Christmas, but there was something more pointed about the way Bill mentioned it…" Violet muttered. She bit her lip, and then ultimately bit the bullet. "He's under the impression that I have a crush on Harry."

"How did he come to that conclusion?" Hermione had raised an eyebrow as if questioning the elder Weasley brother, but there was something in the way she was looking at VIolet that seemed rather accusatory. It was as if she knew why Bill had spoken to her about it. Of course Hermione would be able to guess - she'd shared a room with Ginny for most of the summer, after all.

"Possibly because of how Harry spoke about me while staying at the Burrow." Now it was Violet's turn to throw the accusatory eye at Harry. The funniest part was that before he narrowed his eyes at her, his cheeks briefly turned a very light pink colour.

He regained his composure quickly. "Violet talks more during late night conversations. I mentioned that, didn't I?" Harry shrugged as if it was the most simple of explanations.

Still sceptical of his reaction just now, and thinking of the moment they'd had under the tree in her back garden the previous month, Violet still followed up on that to save him from any further embarrassment on that subject. "Essentially, there's been a couple of instances in the past year where Harry and I have been able to talk, and I've personally felt comfortable enough to share certain things about myself. You all know what I'm like. I kept the whole thing about my family hidden from you long enough - is it really that surprising I'd only tell one of you more about myself than the rest?"

She felt guilty for that, really, not sharing the same things with Hermione and Ron as she did with Harry, but she put that down to her deep rooted desire of being left alone - still. She liked her privacy, and she knew that somewhere down the line she would open up to Ron and Hermione more.

"To be completely fair to you, Violet, Harry has seen you in your more… vulnerable moments," Hermione concluded. There was nothing malicious in her tone, and in fact she had turned quite soft. "It makes sense that you'd tell him different things. By no means does that mean you have a crush on him though, does it?"

"Absolutely not," Violet reaffirmed. "And I'm pretty certain Harry doesn't have a crush on me either, just so we're all on the same page?"

"'Course I don't," he told her. "Besides, who has time for that anyway?"

"Mate, literally you - Cho Chang? The Ravenclaw match?" Ron pointed out. Hermione smirked and pulled out a copy of the Daily Prophet, which had a photo of Voldemort's mark blasted right across the front page of it.

"Cho Chang?" Violet wasn't entirely sure of who the girl was.

"Year above us. She's Ravenclaw's Seeker. Harry went a bit googly eyed at her during that match last year."

Harry kicked Ron in the shin.

"Oi!"

"Knock it off," the dark haired boy grumbled. "Besides, we have got to talk about Violet's reaction to Bill at the World Cup!"

"We really don't…" Violet's voice was strained, and she pulled a book out of her bag in an attempt to escape the conversation. "I was fine by the end of the week. It was nothing. Seriously."

"And the whole thing with Cho was nothing either. I'm over it."

"Tell yourself that rather than me…" Violet flipped open to her marked page in a nonchalant manner. There was a bit of an awkward silence, but it was probably for the best at that point. She then cleared her throat. "Anyway, weren't we supposed to be speculating on what was going to be happening at Hogwarts this year?"

"I don't think it matters what we think it is - we'll be wrong," Hermione said. "But the Christmas comment from your parents and Bill makes me believe there'll be an event of some kind around that time."

"Like what?"

"I have a few ideas…"

"Of course you bloody do…" Ron mumbled, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

"How about we move on from this?" Violet then muttered. "Before we start spinning too many theories… Harry mentioned the other night to me he had a bad dream and wanted to share?"

"Oh! Yeah…" The boy in question sat up a little straighter before launching into a story of how he saw Voldemort, Pettigrew, the snake, and a third man who he didn't recognise. They killed a Muggle man, and were talking about someone completing a task. Harry was clearly unnerved by the dream, particularly because it had made his scar hurt.

Whatever reaction he'd been hoping for, Violet knew he hadn't been expecting her to stay quiet while Hermione and Ron spouted off about what he should do about his scar in particular. For the time being, she did what she did best: she listened. She waited. Then after some back and forth between the other three, Violet very quietly spoke up with a suggestion that she realised had not been thrown out yet.

"Have you told Sirius?" she asked.

"No - no I haven't. That's… that's not a bad shout, actually. Thanks," Harry said with a smile.

At that moment, the lady with the treats trolley stopped outside their door and asked if they wanted anything. Both Harry and Ron jumped up immediately while Hermione and Violet remained seated and struck up a conversation.

"So what happened with security at the World Cup, do you know?" Hermione asked Violet, who shook her head.

"I only said bye to my parents today, I didn't really think about asking mum about what was going on. Her and dad only really wanted to reassure me that nothing had happened to them in the past week, but they've definitely been busy."

"Dad said they had loads of security," Ron piped up when he sat back down with some sweets. "That's why it's been mental this week. Violet's mum is probably chasing leads on Death Eaters."

"More than likely, yes."

Harry sat back down next to Violet, only without any sweets or chocolates, a slight smile on his face. Something had made him forget what they were currently talking about. Violet eyed him oddly, but thought nothing of it, despite the fact there was a strange, niggling feeling at the back of her mind telling her it was probably to do with a girl.

What the-

Abruptly, Violet put down her book.

"I need some air," she said, getting up and leaving the compartment, much to the bemusement of her friends.

The lady with the trolley wasn't too far ahead of her, and Violet could see a trio of girls just beyond her. It made her wonder if it was them, and curiosity took over. She walked up the length of the train, watching as they moved into a compartment, and acted like she was waiting by an open window near them. She was close enough that she could hear them talking as they had not closed the door.

"He's always staring at you!" said one girl.

"Oh - no he's not," said another, with a Scottish accent. She seemed quite shy.

"Come on, Cho, you told us about the Quidditch match…"

Violet's jaw went taut, and she leaned with one arm up against the window. She mentally slapped herself, wondering why the hell she was getting like this? It was just Harry. Her friend. Why was she getting so upset about the prospect of him staring at another girl? Or the idea of another girl clearly giving him butterflies in his tummy?

She thought back to that moment under the tree in her garden yet again, unaware that Harry was talking of exactly just that…

"Is she alright?" Ron asked as Violet left the compartment in a hurry. Harry was staring at the now empty spot next to him, and he reached over to play with Violet's book for a moment, as something in him knew that her running out was because she knew he was thinking about a girl. He innocently flipped through the pages and suddenly the image of her snapping her fingers directly in front of his face flashed right before his eyes.

"Something happened over the summer," he said suddenly, dropping the book and giving his other two friends his full attention. "We had lunch, and were sitting under this tree in the garden, and… well… she caught me staring at her scars, but then… we just sort of… there was…"

"Did you kiss?"

Harry looked mildly off put by that. "What? No! There was a very obvious moment when she caught me staring. Snapped her fingers in my face, and her hand just hovered then until I had to move it."

"So were you lying earlier about having a crush?" Hermione asked.

"No."

"Do you think Violet was lying?"

"No - she wouldn't lie. She might be just as confused as I am."

"Say you did have a crush on her, would you act on it? Be honest."

Harry was quiet for a minute as he thought about it carefully. Would he act on a crush on his friend? Maybe he would. It was Violet. Nothing would go horrifically wrong if - hypothetically - he admitted something like that to her, right?

"Probably, yeah. She's… nice. But I don't have a crush on her."

Silence, once more.

Harry took a deep breath and stood up, reaching for his bag from the above storage space to grab a quill and some parchment so that he could start writing his letter to Sirius. As he was in the middle of that, Violet made a return to the compartment, considerably pensive. She went back to her book without a single word uttered, and Harry used Hedwig to send off his letter to Sirius.

Whatever awkward peace they had for the next half an hour was ruined by Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle deciding to poke their heads in and irritate them. Such was the error of Violet leaving the compartment door open, and she pinched the bridge of her nose when she realised it was too late.

"So you're still hanging out with the Mute, then?" Malfoy goaded from the doorway.

"Firstly, maybe stop calling Violet that, and secondly, just because our door was open it didn't mean we actually invited you to join us," Harry said coolly.

"How are you even friends with someone who doesn't talk?"

"I only talk to people I like, Malfoy," Violet glanced up from her book with a very dry smile on her face. "I don't like to waste my breath. Please leave us alone."

He looked back at his friends. "Can't imagine her entering." Malfoy turned to Ron. "What about you, Weasley? Want to bring a bit of glory to the family? Finally get some money?"

Ron went red, but still stood his ground. "What you on about?"

At this, Malfoy actually ended up laughing. "A father and a brother at the Ministry - and you don't even know! Oh, this is hilarious. My father told me ages ago… Surprised you don't know either, Merryworth - isn't your mother an Auror? Thought they might have told someone who's clearly got a death wish on their head out of pity, going after the Death Eaters..."

In an instant, Violet snapped her book shut loudly, and she was standing with her wand aimed at Malfoy, nostrils flaring. There were angry tears in her eyes, and the look on her face was enough for the three Slytherins to take a small step backwards. Even so, it didn't stop them from laughing.

"We're not worth your breath but worth a hex? Maybe a detention before the year has started?"

Violet took a few steps forward and Harry leapt out of his seat in front of her so he could grab her around the middle and stop her from going any further.

"Get off me, Harry-"

"Not. Worth. It," he reminded her quietly. She made eye contact with him and a tear ran down her cheek, finally spilling over. Her shoulders slacked and she lowered her arm, but didn't sit down until she watched the Slytherins completely leave the compartment.

Once they were gone, Harry closed the door and he turned back around to see Violet was sitting with her head in her hands, and her shoulders trembling. Ron and Hermione gave him rather pointed looks, so he sat down next to his friend and put an arm around her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Don't apologise," Hermione said, reaching across and patting Violet on the knee. "He was completely out of order. He always is."

"Don't hold me back next time," Violet then said, wiping her eyes and sniffing as she sat up straight, Harry dropping his arm as she did so. "If - if he steps over the line again, let me hex him."

"I'll join you next time. But he's not worth getting into trouble over before the year's started," Harry said.

"Bloody prick…" Ron murmured. "I'll have him if you two don't."

"It honestly doesn't surprise me that he hasn't learned when to stop even after I punched him," Hermione added, earning a chuckle from Violet. That had been the intended effect of the comment, so the bushy haired girl smiled.

The rest of the journey still had a sour note to it after that. Even though Violet went back to her book, she would sniff every now and then and rub her eyes, as if trying to stop herself from crying again. She couldn't keep what Malfoy had said out of her mind, no matter how hard she tried. Her friends left her be, while throwing her the odd worried glance, because they knew that at this moment in time, if they tried to talk about it again they wouldn't get anywhere.

Then as if things couldn't get any worse, a thunderstorm struck up as they neared Hogwarts.

Hello! I'll be updating once a week from now on, either Saturday or Sunday depending. :)

Comment?

-OL.