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"Hermione, tell me about Italy.  How was it?" asked Ron politely as soon as he, Hermione, and Harry were seated on the Hogwarts express.  Hermione, apparently very eager to tell someone of her summer vacation, said loudly, "Oh Ron, it was lovely!  Warm all the time, not like dreary old London.  And Oh!—".  She said this with such a start that neither Harry nor Ron could be spared a little jump. Hermione, oblivious to this, continued: "there was this beautiful old Library where I would just come every day."  Harry and Ron both smiled inwardly, for Hermione spending her whole vacation reading did not surprise them at all—they could not think of anything that their best friend liked to do more than read.  Well, possibly her schoolwork.

The three chatted effortlessly for a long time, especially since they had shamefully not sent many letters to each other over the summer.  They quickly forgot that fact, however, and continued to talk—Harry about the terrible Dursleys, Ron of his heavy quidditch practicing, and Hermione of her N.E.W.T. review  ("I just didn't know which ones to review first—muggle studies or arithmancy!").  By the time the three had run out of things to say, the lunch trolley was stopped by their car.  Harry fished out a pocketful of coins to buy his friend's cauldron cakes when he noticed a billowing of long dark hair from behind the trolley. He sat, transfixed for a moment, until the girl floated away.  Regaining his senses, he hoped that Hermione and Ron had not seen the look on his face, although by the quizzical looks on their faces, he doubted it. 

"See a ghost mate?" asked a grinning Ron who had just bitten into his cauldron cake.

"Nah…" replied Harry, trying to act as casually as he could, although he could not get his thoughts to move from the girl with the chestnut hair.

"Well!" said Ron cheerfully after he'd finished his lunch in a total of two bites.  "I do wonder what Malfoy has been up to all summer.  I wonder if he's gotten any uglier."  As Harry and Hermione knew well, verbally abusing Malfoy, even if he wasn't there, was one of Ron's favourite things to do.  Not that they could blame him, however.  The Malfoys had always been terrible to the Weasleys, and Draco was a particularly terrible Malfoy.

"I hear that he's been studying up on his defense against the dark arts" said Hermione.

"Ha!" cried Ron ltoudly, "I knew it! I knew he would fail, that little bastard!"

"Ron!" shouted Hermione, who tried her hardest to give everyone fair chances, even the Malfoys.  As she saw Ron shrink away, a little frightened, she went on in a softer voice, "what I meant by that was that he's taking advanced lessons.  He'll probably be better than all of us this year.  Except maybe Harry!"  As she beamed at him, Harry couldn't help blush a little bit.

Ron, remembering that he finally had some pocket money, said "Listen you two.  I'm going to get me a chocolate frog.  Still have my birthday money.  Might even treat the two of you!"  With that he did a little skip out the door for the other's amusement.

"His appetite is insatiable!" said a giggling Hermione.

            As Ron spotted the lunch trolley slowly moving its way up the train, he began to speed towards it, and bumped into someone coming from the car next to him.  A few moments later, he realized that it was a girl.  She was now looking for something on the ground, and Ron, being the gentleman he considered himself to be, picked up a large shiny silver badge that was lying near his foot.

            "Is this it?" he asked her.

            "Yes!" she replied in an accent he couldn't quite figure out, "thank you!"

            Ron was dumbstruck for a moment, because he didn't believe that he'd ever seen anyone so beautiful.  Her dark brown hair fell past her shoulders in soft waves, and her eyes, which Ron had noticed first, flashed green flecks out of their dark brown surface.  When she went to take her badge from Ron he noticed how small and smooth her hands were.  She gave him another glance of her perfectly white teeth, said goodbye, and then walked off down the hall.  Ron, forgetting completely what he had left his train car for, wandered brightly back into it.  When he stepped into it, his memory came flooding back to him. "oh, sorry" he said "must have forgotten".

            "Ron, what, uh, else were you doing out there?" said Harry with a smile.

            "Shut up!" said an indignant Ron, throwing his robes at Harry.

The three of them were calmly absorbed in their own things for a time—Harry with his broomstick polishing, Ron with his thoughts, and Hermione with her seventh year textbooks.  Finally, Ron asked, "Harry, did you see that girl with the brown hair".  Harry, pausing a moment to ponder his answer said,

            "Well, you know, I've seen more than one."

            Ron, choosing to ignore this comment, said "she's probably a couple of inches taller than Hermione; she's got long dark hair, and these beautiful eyes." He sighed.

            Harry, sure that this was the girl he had seen earlier that day said "Yeah, I saw her—well, the back of her head, but still."  Excited to learn that his mystery girl was a mystery no longer, asked "so you saw her? Did, did you talk to her?"

            Ron replied, crestfallen, "well, not really.  We just kind of bumped heads in the hall." Ron blushed and Harry snickered.  "She dropped her..her head girl badge" said Ron, looking at Hermione, who appeared to be keenly less interested in her textbooks at the moment.  "I wonder who she is, and what house she's in.  I've never seen her!"

            Finally Hermione said softly, "I know who you mean".  Only then did she look up from Defense Against the Dark Arts: Level Seven.  "She's new this year, and she's a seventh year."

Harry and Ron looked at each other, and then Harry said, "But I thought that to get into Hogwarts you had to start as a first year." 

Hermione sighed.  "Had you read the Daily Prophet, Harry, it would have saved me time from explaining this." Hermione paused, eyed Harry and Ron with exasperation, and then said "As it is, I can't have you ignorant about everything, can I?".  She gave a small smile.  "She came from Durmstrang, but switched to Hogwarts because her parents had no idea  she'd be learning so much of the dark arts." At this she rolled her eyes dramatically.  "Utter rubbish if you ask me."

"And Dumbledore just accepted her, like that?" asked Ron, who was by this point in his life, coming to think that Hogwarts rules didn't count for anything anymore.

Hermione replied, no longer patronizingly, "I guess that it is a bit strange, but maybe this situation has never arisen before." Then she said softly "Dumbledore does have his ways."

Harry and Ron,  satisfied for the moment with their knowledge of that particular fact, were almost inclined to change in their robes (for they figured it would only be another half an hour till the train rolled in), when Ron remembered something. "Hermione?" he said softly, with a bit of fear in his voice.

"hmm?" she said, already deeply absorbed in her textbooks.

"Were you not chosen to be Head girl?".  For a moment he wished that he could take back his words.  Hermione closed her book quietly and looked him straight in the eyes, while Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Well, I guess not!" said Hermione after moments of silence, more quietly than either Harry or Ron expected.  "I don't really know why—it isn't as if they mail you a letter telling you why you weren't chosen." Said Hermione with a smile that she hoped masked her embarrassment and her hurt.  She had had around two weeks to calm herself since not receiving the one thing she had been waiting for all summer.  She could cover up her feelings so that Ron and Harry would see only the brave and proud Hermione.

Despite feeling terrible bitterness towards the girl who had stolen her head girlhood and so obviously both of her friend's affections, she couldn't but wonder who this girl really was.