A/N: Here's the next chapter for all those who like the story! R&R!
Disclaimer: You guessed it, I don't own anything. JKR does. Damn her. I want it!
The Carriage Ride.
When they pulled up at the station, they did what they had to do and went to find Ron. They strained their ears for the sound of Hagrid's bellow to the first-years but only heard Professor Grubbly-plank's call.
'What happened to Hagrid?' Harry asked Hermione. She just shook her head and kept walking around to find Ron. They found him shortly after with Fred and George helping him with their stuff as well as their own.
'Thanks guys. We owe you.' Harry said when they got up to them.
'Nothing doing, we're glad to help our friends.' Fred said, waving away what Harry said and handing back Hedwig's cage to him and his trunk.
'Yeah, you don't owe us anything.' George answered. With that, he handed Hermione back Crookshanks and her trunk and they both walked off to find Lee Jordan. They waited for the next carriage to come for them and the found themselves waiting with Pansy, Malfoy and the strange new girl that Harry had taken a fancy to. Hermione spotted them first and turned around so quickly she hit Harry in the side of his face with her hair.
'Hey, what was that for?' He asked, then he saw Hermione's face and turned around. He caught sight of Malfoy turned back to choke on his hand.
'What's up mate?' Ron asked, thumping him on the back.
'Malfoy.' Harry mouthed at him, and Ron sneaked a look behind him too and his face turned red with anger and disgust. Hermione threw both dirty looks and looked down the way to see another carriage coming, but the other three got there quicker. Malfoy was looking at the ground and Pansy was silently snickering, while the other girl just stared confusedly at Malfoy and shot quizzical looks at Pansy.
'What's wrong, Draco? You look scared or something.' She asked.
Harry heard her voice and thought that he had just heard an angel. Her voice was soft and sweet. He went wide-eyed and looked at Ron. He had wide eyes too at the beautiful sound coming out of the girls' mouth. Hermione rolled her eyes and got into the carriage with her stuff, for it had just turned up.
'I'm fine. Ask her about it when we get into the castle.' Draco muttered. Harry and Ron choked back a gag and stuffed their hands back into their mouths. Because of this, Harry almost dropped Hedwig, making her hoot indignantly at him.
'Sorry, Hedwig.' Harry whispered to her. He poked his finger into the cage to stroke her feathers but she moved away from him and turned her back to him.
Ron and Harry helped her with her trunk and they all got their stuff in one side of the carriage. The others got their stuff in the other side and sat quietly, apart from the small snickers coming from Harry and Pansy. Harry patted Hermione's arm and fought the smile that was burning to come onto his face. She looked at him and gave a small smile before turning to look back out the window.
Hedwig still wasn't talking to Harry, so he decided to try giving her owl treats.
'Hey Ron, hold Hedwig for me will you?' He asked, putting her onto his lap.
'Yeah sure.' Hedwig shot daggers at Pig with her eyes and turned her back on him too.
'Hedwig doesn't like anyone today, does she?' Ron asked as Harry tried to fish some owl treats out of his trunk.
'Nope, she's been in a bad mood ever since I left Uncle Vernon's. Won't talk to anyone. Mind you everyone's tried. She's also too arrogant when it comes to behaving in front of Pig. Whenever I get a letter from you he's flying around all over the place, then I send a letter back by Hedwig 'cause Pig's on my bed resting, she acts like it's a big deal.' Harry said, finding the owl treats and pulling them out. 'But it's better to have her on your side than not, 'cause she bites hard, not her usual nibble, but she nearly took my finger off once when I wouldn't let her out hunting. Wouldn't talk to me for days, or look at me either. Here you go, and get over it.' Harry told her, giving her an owl treat and taking her back from Ron.
'You know, she might be behaving badly because some creatures aren't treating her nicely.' Hermione added.
'Uncle Vernon's never nice to her, if he had it his way she'd never leave the house. But since third year he's been giving me a lot more leeway. For obvious reasons of course.' Harry told her.
'I'm not talking about your Uncle. I'm talking about a certain creature.' Hermione said, emphasizing creature.
'Him? Nah. He's not allowed within ten feet of my room unless I'm in there with him. Unless he wants to be fed to the thing in snuffles room. And trust me, he'd feed him to it.' Harry said.
'If snuffles touches a hair on that poor things head I swear-' Hermione began.
'You'll what? Tell him to rack off? He owns him Hermione, whatever snuffles tells him to do he does it, no point arguing with him about it. I rather agree with him on it. Evil little devil he is. Deserves to be fed to it.' Harry said. Ron laughed a little and Hermione shot him a filthy look.
'Harry, that's murder if he does that and you know it. And I will argue the point with him during the holidays. Snuffles is horrid to the poor thing.' Hermione said and turned her back to him.
'Great, now my owl and my friend don't like me. But I'm telling you Hermione, he deserves it.'
'The same way snuffles deserves to be punished for coming to the platform with you today too? What do you have to say about that, Harry?' Hermione shot back at him.
'He didn't do anything wrong, Hermione, he wanted to see me off, that's all. And plus, he gave me something that he couldn't give me at home with Mrs. Weasley around. Sorry Ron, but your mum is a little overprotective of me.' He added to Ron.
'Hey, no problem. She knows you don't have a mum so she pretty much adopted you.' Ron said.
'Are you talking about that dog that was at the platform with you, Potter?' Malfoy asked.
'Yeah, what about him?' Harry asked.
'It's just, father and I saw him and father was giving him dirty looks the whole time. I asked him why and he wouldn't tell me anything.' Malfoy answered.
Hermione looked at him smugly and turned back to look out the window. Harry himself had turned sheet white.
'Don't say anything, Hermione.' He said in a small voice.
'Oh, I wouldn't say anything to anyone but Mrs. Weasley. They first thing I'm doing when I get up tomorrow is writing a letter to her.' Hermione said.
'You wouldn't. She'll tell Dumbledore!' Harry said, turning her around to look at him.
'Dumbledore deserves to know that snuffles has been disobeying his rules. He should have never left the house. I told him it was a bad idea, but he didn't listen to me, did he? No, he didn't, it's his own fault.' Hermione answered.
'So you will punish him, but you won't punish the creature for calling you a whatever that filthy name is.' Harry said.
'He calls Ron and the Weasley's blood-traitors, and you a filthy half-blood.' Hermione said. 'And I think his brains been corrupted by his filthy owners.'
'Yes, and the Weasley's and I get him back when he's not looking.' Harry muttered.
'WHAT!' Hermione yelled.
'You shouldn't have said that mate, now we're in for it.' Ron groaned and covered his ears, getting ready for the explosion. Harry followed suit and soon did the Slytherins, sensing that Hermione was going to explode too.
'What on earth did you do to him, Harry Potter!' Hermione shouted.
Harry sank down into his seat.
'What did you do to poor Kreacher, Harry? Tell me or I'll ask Fred and George and give you a detention!' She screamed.
'Hermione! Shut up! He was still alive when you saw him last, wasn't he? That means we didn't kill him! He hasn't been fed to the animal yet, has he?' Harry yelled back. Hermione glared at him strongly and didn't talk to him. Draco however, picked something up.
'Wait a moment, Granger just said the name Kreacher. Isn't he the Black family house-elf?' He asked.
Ron and Harry looked like they were about to strangle Hermione but looked back a Malfoy instead.
'No, that's not who we meant. I didn't even know my Godfather even owned a house-elf. Sorry, can't help you there.' Harry said, still glaring at Hermione.
'You can't get away from me that easily Potter. That dog at the station, that was Black, wasn't it? I know because my father whispered his name under his breathe, and Kreacher's his house-elf, I know that because he's been to my house a couple of times to speak to my Mother and Father. How else could Black have gotten out of Azkaban? He turned into a dog and got out. Smart man, but he should know the ministry will catch him.' Malfoy said.
'What if I told you Sirius was completely innocent and Pettigrew himself was an animagus?' Harry said, 'What would you say to that?'
'I'd say that I'd probably believe you. After all, someone can't get blown up so badly that they only have a finger left, that's stupid. That'll also explain how he escaped.' He answered.
'Pettigrew cut off his own finger and turned into a rat after blowing up the whole street and escaping down the sewers. The whole thing was meant to frame Sirius. But he wasn't even my parents' secret keeper. Pettigrew was, that's why Sirius went after him in the first place.' Harry explained.
'Sorry about this Potter, but your parents must have extremely dumb to put Pettigrew as secret keeper. He was a pathetic little boy in school and as far as I know he was after as well.'
'Well, my parents must have thought that Voldemort, stop it Ron, wouldn't have thought about them using Pettigrew. They changed from Sirius to Pettigrew at the last minute, so no one knew the change, they even spread it that Sirius was the secret keeper, so as not to cause suspicion, but that didn't work obviously. So Voldemort must have known to go to Pettigrew anyway. Although he may look it, he's not all that dumb.' Harry finished.
'Insulting the Dark Lord Potter? Courageous. I know many who don't even speak his name.' Malfoy confided.
'Why not? He's human, just like the rest of us. So I treat him like any other human. He wants people to fear him, so I'm not going to give him that satisfaction.' Harry answered
'There aren't many people out there who will believe you, Potter. But I think that's why he wants you gone. Because you don't fear him.' Malfoy said, leaning back and folding his arms.
'He's a coward, he'd rather see me wandless and trying to fight him than without. Then he acts surprised when you come out to face him alone. A mouse would be more fearless than he is. The fact that he knows I'm more powerful than him threatens him though, I think.' Harry admitted.
'More powerful? In your dreams Potter! No one's more powerful than the Dark Lord!' Pansy said.
'Oh yeah? I can name one. Dumbledore, he's defeated him countless times. And he's the only man that Voldemort fears. Ron now you're just getting pathetic.' Harry said, turning to him.
'Look, you're the one that keeps saying the name, it's not my fault.' Ron said defensively.
'Weasley, you have to get used to the name, being friends with Potter I thought you would have learnt that already.' Malfoy answered.
'It's not as easy as it looks, especially growing up with a family that all do the same thing, Malfoy.' Ron said.
'Think of where you were this summer, every single person apart from you and your family says his name. I got Hagrid out of flinching by yelling his name to the heavens in the hospital wing once, and I'm going to snap you out of it too.' Harry told him.
'Oh joy.' Ron muttered. Harry smiled and patted him on the arm.
'So you do know where Black's staying, don't you Potter?' Malfoy asked.
'I'm not saying I do, I'm not saying I don't.' Harry responded.
'What if I said you can trust me; that I hate what my father does. And you know full well what he does after last year; and I believe you full well about Black and him being innocent. Also about the Dark Lord being back. Whereas you'll only find a few who will actually believe you on that. And that the Dementors attacked you during the summer.' Malfoy said.
'After all the years of your teasing and torment Malfoy, can you really expect me to trust you so easily? And how did you know about the Dementor attack?' Harry asked accusingly.
Malfoy laughed lightly. 'My father works at the Ministry remember? And I guess I can understand your hesitation in trusting me. But how can I show you my trust?'
'You'll have to figure that one out yourself. Come on, we're here.' He said.
'Ladies first.' Malfoy said. The girls gathered their stuff and left, leaving the boys to get their stuff and join them outside too.
'I'll show you somehow Potter- I mean Harry. I will.' Malfoy said once they saw the carriage leave.
'I'll believe you on that.' Harry said, holding out his hand for Malfoy to shake. 'Truce?' He asked.
'Truce.' Malfoy answered.