CHAPTER TWO - THE HOGWARTS EXPRESS

Harry was a bit wary of boarding the train for his return to school after Easter break and for good reason. As soon as he had boarded the Hogwarts Express, his previous thoughts of ease for the rest of his Fifth year (disregarding his O.W.L.s of course) had quickly been stomped on and thrown far, far away.

The first words he heard as he walked down the narrow hallway of the train, trying to find his fellow Slytherins, were "Hey, there's He-She Potter! It looks as stupid as ever!" from the ever-so-eloquent Ron Weasley. Harry grimaced and turned around, wiping all emotion from his face before facing his biggest bully.

Ron Weasley and his friends, Seamus and Dean, were the bane of Harry's existence. He had known Ron since they were very young. Mrs. Weasley babysat him when he was younger and Harry had taken an immediate liking to Fred and George, Ron's twin older brothers. Ron hadn't liked that at all and had made it his life mission when he was just six years old to make Harry's life miserable.

"You're really not that clever, are you?" Harry asked the redhead, rolling his eyes as he opened up the compartment door. He rolled his trunk into the compartment and greeted Draco, Pansy, and Blaise warmly. Ron sputtered and turned a very interesting shade of puce as he took up a position in the doorway, Seamus and Dean behind him.

"Well, at least I'm not a freak like you!"

"Nothing about me is a freak, Weasley. At least I have real friends who like me, instead of having lackeys who are afraid of me," Harry glanced at Seamus and Dean as he sat down between Pansy and Draco, both of them glaring at the red-headed intruder and his "friends".

Ron sputtered once again, turning his face almost as red as his hair. He stepped out of the doorway of the compartment and slammed the door shut. They could hear him still as he yelled at the other Gryffindor boys, "Bloody Potter, I can't believe that it thinks it can get away with trying to fool everyone. I'll make sure it regrets this."

Harry turned to Pansy with a hint of tears in his eyes, "Why does he have to be that way? I literally transitioned years ago. I thought he would find some new material by now." Pansy took pity on him, looking at the door to see if anyone was looking, and took him into her arms. Draco gave her a look, which she returned tenfold, and he reluctantly placed a hand on his friend's back and patted awkwardly. Harry let out a small sob, and Draco gave Pansy a look that said What am I supposed to do? as he continued patting Harry's back.

"Hey, Harry," Pansy whispered, as she pulled back from their embrace, "I'm going to go talk to Draco in the hallway, okay? I want you to keep Blaise company while we're out, we all know he doesn't do much without the three of us." She looked at Blaise with a teasing look, and Blaise gave her back a face that could have made his grandmother cry.

Pansy grabbed Draco's arm and dragged him into the corridor, shutting the compartment door as gently as possible, not wanting to disturb Harry.

"You have got to learn how to be a real human being sometimes. I know your father messed you up when you were younger, but I thought that with him in Azkaban, you might have figured out how to do that by now."

Draco's face dropped. He leaned against the compartment's door, covering the window. His mother had remarried when Draco was barely seven, his biological father had long ago been thrown in Azkaban for his associations with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. His step-father was the only father that he knew, but he was still a properly-bred pureblooded man, with strict ideals for love and punishment.

"I'm sorry that I'm so bloody screwed up! I'm trying to keep up with everything now, but it's hard to do that after a summer of avoiding my still emotionally-stunted family. The only normal person in my family is Cassiopeia." Draco looked exasperated, and he gesticulated wildly with his hands as he spoke. Pansy grabbed them out of the air and held them at his sides. Proper pureblood men don't gesticulate wildly, he told himself as he stiffened at her touch.

"What you need to do right now is be there for Harry. He's got a lot going on and he's going to need all the support we can give him right now and throughout the school year. You know how much Weasley hates him," said Pansy.

"You don't think I know that?" asked Draco indignantly. He took his hands from Pansy's grasp and raked his fingers through his gelled hair. "He's one of my best friends. I'm going to protect him to the best of my ability, I'm sorry that I don't know exactly how to comfort someone."

Pansy looked appropriately apologetic as she said she was sorry. She hadn't thought about it that way and the look on Draco's face had made her feel horrible about what she had said.

Just as she was about to apologize, a couple of rambunctious Third year Ravenclaws had burst through the door of the compartment next to theirs, and loudly interrupted Draco and Pansy's conversation. They collectively fell silent, and the Slytherins' faces quickly dropped into their trademarked emotionless façades. Draco opened the compartment door behind them and shuffled them both inside, leaving the Ravenclaws in the hall, thus ending their conversation.

Pansy gave Draco an apologetic look and sat down in her previous spot while Draco did the same. Harry looked up, dried tears marking his cheeks and a quizzical look in his eyes.

"Are you guys okay? I thought I heard shouting."

Pansy started to respond, "We—"

"We just had to clarify about a bet we made earlier this year, we got a little heated but I won in the end," interrupted Draco, looking smug but giving Pansy a look as soon as Harry turned away. His face seemed to say not now.

She gave a slight nod of her head, and replied, "It was about the youngest Weasley boy and if he was still a tosser. I was thinking maybe his brothers would shape him up, but apparently he's still an arse. Draco won a couple galleons off me."

Pansy played her part well, Slytherins were used to white lies.

"I'm going to use them to buy loads of sweets when the trolley comes around."

Harry grinned widely, his face lighting up for the first time since boarding the train, and Draco offered him his handkerchief. He thanked him and took his leave for the restroom.

Blaise and Draco hefted Harry's trunk into the overhead compartment while Pansy pulled her sleek, black hair into a neat ballerina's bun atop her head. They seemed to have a slight struggle getting Harry's trunk to fit, but after a bit of shoving, it seemed to slot into place. They turned to face Pansy, faces red and struggling to catch their breath.

"You boys think that only playing Quidditch will keep you in shape? Do you ever try to condition yourselves on the ground and not on a broom?" she ridiculed them, shaking her head and poking fun at them for the millionth time for being out of shape. They'd had the same conversation at least ten times a year, but it was always satisfying for Pansy to see their reactions on their faces.

"You always try to make that argument, but we still prevail every year in the Quidditch cup!" refuted Draco, while Blaise nodded enthusiastically.

The Italian still hadn't spoken since boarding the train. He hadn't spoken (or understood) much English when he arrived at Hogwarts for their First year, and so he was generally assumed to be quite quiet and stupid by the majority of the school. On the other hand, when with Draco, Pansy, and Harry, Blaise was a whole different person. His English had improved dramatically in the first year of their schooling, as had the rest of their little group's Italian as they helped him acclimate to the new language, plus he had a wicked sense of humour.

"Mum told me that this term of school would be the toughest we would experience until our Seventh years," remarked Blaise, as Draco and him took their seats in the compartment. Still catching his breath, Draco hummed.

"Your mum is quite right, Blaise. My mum and step-father said about the same. They really pressured me to study as much as possible for the rest of the term. They want me to take up Lucius's business after I graduate."

Pansy picked at her nails as the boys chatted about the study methods they were going to try this term to cram for their O.W.L.s. They were all pretty set on what career paths they wanted to take, and planning to add more courses when they got to their N.E.W.T. levels. They kept getting ahead of themselves though, they still had to sit exams this year to even advance to N.E.W.T. level.

Pansy belonged to a Noble and Ancient House, and as such was expected to excel academically, as well as socially. She needed to make the correct connections to ensure that she would have a desirable marriage contract. Her family wasn't the only House that felt that way, she knew that Draco's parents at least felt the same. Her parents had been eyeing Draco for a prospective betrothal contract for the past few years, ever since she had come home after her First year with endless stories about him, their friends, and their adventures.

She hoped that if she and Draco were betrothed that he would let her pursue a career and not expect her to remain at home with any children they eventually had. Pansy shook her head, shaking herself out of her thoughts. No fifteen year old girl should be worried about such things. These were things she shouldn't have to think about until after her sixteenth or seventeenth birthday but yet she was worried. It was the one thing her parents consistently spoke to one another about, avoiding each other otherwise. One last thought entered her mind before she fully left her contemplations: would she end up with someone she could truly love and cherish as her own?

Draco and Blaise looked up when Harry reentered the compartment, looking relieved to see him. Harry sat next to Pansy and she looked up from where she had been staring off.

"Did you get lost on your way back from the loo?" teased Blaise. Draco laughed and Harry blushed slightly.

"No, I just got caught up talking with some of the Ravenclaws in our year. Did you know Padma and her sister got to spend their holiday at their grandmother and grandfather's home in India? I've never been. I keep asking my dad to see India, maybe see the village where my grandparents grew up. It would literally be so awesome, they have so many different kinds of snakes there too. Could you imagine if I snuck one home!"

And just like that, they all clicked back together with a bout of laughter. Four friends on their way to Hogwarts for the last term of their Fifth year. Not expecting anything in the least.

How wrong they were.