"Ahhh. . . Hogwarts Express," sighed Ron, lying back on the cushioned seats lazily. "Last time we were on here, I ate too many chocolate frogs. I almost threw up when I finally got home."

Harry said nothing as he put his bag in the luggage rail above the seats. Last time he had been on the train, he had been suffering from lack-of- Sirius. Luna had comforted him in a rather strange, Luna-like way, and it had worked - he had felt happier - but still the very tinge of Sirius meant an ache to his heart.

Hermione came in, holding a note, beaming. She sat down and quickly unfolded the note, reading it over and over again.

Ron and Harry watched her for a while, puzzled. After a few more minutes had passed and she showed no disposition to tell them what was so evidently exciting to her, Ron gave up. "What is it, Hermione?"

She looked up. "What's what?"

Hermione giggled nervously. "Oh, just a letter from Viktor. . ."

"What?!" cried Ron. "You're still writing to Krum?"

"Yes, isn't he sweet!"

As neither Harry nor Ron saw Krum as sweet, nor had they received letters from him, they just looked at Hermione as if she was crazy. "Her-my-ninny. . . you're mad," said Ron slowly, casting an amazed look at Harry.

"What do you know?" snapped Hermione. "You were just about bent over backwards all that year to get his attention! You even asked him for his autograph!"

Ron's ears were beetroot red; it was obviously something he didn't want to be spread around. "Well, at least I didn't fall all over him like you did!"

Hermione seethed. "For your information, Ronald, I did not 'fall all over him'!"

"Well, it looked like it to me!" scowled Ron. "Why don't you just go and join him in Bulgaria if you love him so much!"

Hermione smirked. "Well, maybe I will!"

Ron's eyes almost popped out of his head. "Sorry?"

"I said. . ." mocked Hermione, "that maybe I will."

"But. . . but. . ." floundered Ron.

"Viktor has just sent me an owl," said Hermione triumphantly. "He's going to be coaching Quidditch at his school this year, and he said they need someone like me to go and help with administration and research and things like that. It's the sort of thing I've always wanted to do, and I could complete my school training there as well. I'm seriously thinking about going."

Ron was furious. "You can't go, Hermione!"

"Watch me," threatened Hermione fiercely.

Harry decided it was time to get between the squalling cats. "Hermione, Ron, calm down."

Both heads swivelled around immediately.

"Hermione, I don't really think you should go. We need you here."

"Says the hero of Hogwarts," said Hermione sulkily.

Harry looked like he had been slapped. He felt it, too. Hermione had never before said something like that to him. When everyone else had been running away from him and calling him crazy and a liar and stuck-up, Hermione's head had never been swayed by all of it. Even Ron had suspected him of putting his own name in the Goblet of Fire in their fourth year. Hermione had never been so foolish. When everyone else was either congratulating him and treating him like a celebrity, or being fiercely jealous and making snide comments about him, like Malfoy, Hermione had treated him just as she normally would. And now. . .

Hermione had noticed this too. She was looking at Harry as if she had just said the most horrible thing in the world. "Oh my goodness, I'm sorry, Harry! I didn't mean it, you know I didn't!"

"Yeah, well, maybe you're the sort Durmstrang needs, after all," said Harry in a flat monotone. He stood up and walked out to the corridor. He sighed as he walked down the corridor to an empty compartment. He could hear Ron's voice calling, "Harry! Harry!" and then snapping wrathfully at Hermione with "Now look what you've done! Why'd you need to blow off at him?"

Leaning on the windowsill, he stood and watched the world go by. Harry wasn't really upset; just a little shell-shocked. He supposed that in a few minutes he would go back into Ron and Hermione's compartment and everything would be normal. Maybe Ginny or Neville or Luna would be there; maybe Seamus or Dean. He would sit down, perhaps shortly answer a few of their questions, pointedly ignore Hermione, and then be back to normal. He wouldn't forget though; he couldn't. So far, bar perhaps the Dursleys and Snape, and they didn't count, Hermione had been one of the very few people he knew who would never treat him like the general populace treated him. Dumbledore was one, Lupin was one, and Sirius was one and Sirius was gone. He sighed again.

A slight movement behind him succeeded in whipping him around. Not for nothing had he faced Voldemort four times; his reactions were now bullet- fast. No deathly danger greeted him. It was Cho.

"Hi, Harry," she said, a slight blush on her cheeks. "I - I just thought I'd say hi."

"Hi," he replied hesitantly.

"How were your holidays?" she asked.

He almost grinned, but couldn't control the sarcasm in his voice. "Splendid, the Dursley palace is, as usual, five-star and a delight to be in."

Cho gave a small smile. "Those Muggles?"

"Yeah, it wasn't the best summer possible. How were yours?"

"Great!" she smiled. "I went to the seaside with my family . . . Roger Davies came too."

"Oh," he said, feeling she was expecting him to say something.

"Well . . . bye," she said.

"Bye," he replied.

He smiled a little. If things had gone differently . . . it might have been him spending the holidays with Cho. But then, he wouldn't have been allowed to, would he? And anyway, Harry Potter was over Cho Chang. To tell the truth, he was a little annoyed with people like Cho - she was so girlish. Not to say that all girls were girlish. Cho magnified femininity a thousand times and expected you to know it. He smiled again, and started to walk out the door to return to his friends' compartment. He had almost forgotten everything about Hermione - for the moment anyway - when -

CRASH! Harry was flung off his feet and landed sprawled on the ground as all the lights went out. The whole coach was plunged into darkness, and on a wicked angle. Harry managed to stand up tentatively as sparks flew from the F. M. T. C. (Flimsybottle's Magical Train Circuit) and he pulled out his wand quickly. What on earth was going on? He couldn't make out anything in proximity to him as they had stopped in a tunnel; quickly he murmured, "Lumos!" The carriage lit up.

Harry crept down the coach to his friends' compartment. The train was eerily silent, and he had a feeling not dislike the one he had had in the Ministry of Magic that fateful evening a few months ago. He quickly opened the door of Ron and Hermione's compartment. They were lying on the floor perfectly still, and Harry's heart suddenly raced. Not his friends!

But as he was about to throw himself down next to them and shake them, Ron started to move, and Hermione rubbed her eyes. "Harry!" she said, seeing him outlined behind the faint light of his wand. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," said Harry. "Shhh! What's that?"

He heard screams coming from down the hall as some of the smaller students plunged themselves into terror. He heard some of the prefects trying to stop them, and he heard Malfoy saying contemptuously, "Shut up, you snot- nosed little idiots!" But the wails went on, and rose until everyone was completely confused. People rushed past the door, trying to see what was going on. Ron sat up and rubbed his nose. Neville fell out a window. Although Harry couldn't see, Luna sat in the corner of her compartment, her nose buried in her copy of the Quibbler - otherwise, everything was chaotic.

Then a voice, over everyone else's. A voice that poured relief into the hearts of many. "Would everyone please calm down, and return to their seats?"

"Dumbledore!" gasped Hermione. "What's he doing here?"

The train suddenly lifted a few inches into the air, and hovered slowly along the tunnel until they were out in the open again. It was somewhat relieving to see each other in real light again, and the shrieks slowly abated. Dumbledore's voice came again, amplified as if by a megaphone, but actually by the Sonorus charm. He sounded very serious. "Will all Hogwarts students please leave the train and gather by the nearby stone bridge - that is a command!"

Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged quick glances and followed this order, jumping out from the train which was tipped up at a strange angle. They ran across the grass, Hermione pulling a little first year who was absolutely white with fear. All the students assembled around a small bridge leading over the steep ditch to a paddock. Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen. Nobody said a word, but all stood still, nervously awaiting whatever was to come.

All of a sudden, a brilliant flash of green light came from the upturned train. Harry almost sprang up and rushed off to the train - green light was known instinctively to him as the Avada Kedavra curse. But as he was about to jump, a voice came from the train. "No, Harry, I am in no need of help, thank you." Dumbledore appeared from the train and made his way down the steep bank to where the students waited. A sigh of relief wafted through the whole crowd, although Harry could see people like Malfoy looking mutinous.

Dumbledore looked very serious about something, although a smile wrinkled his face briefly in the students' direction. "Nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about," he said slowly. "Just a minor glitch in the spell used at Platform Nine and Three Quarters; the train almost overturned because of it. You are all very lucky that there are no serious injuries. Now, I am going to repair the train, and you will all travel on in perfect safety to Hogwarts. Understood?"

A murmur arose from the crowd. Dumbledore understood perfectly. "Now, now, there is no use in being pedantic about travelling in previously overturned trains. It will be quite safe once I'm finished with it - trust me. And I will be travelling with you. Now, everybody get on board."

They all turned around to see the train restored perfectly to the shining coaches they had been in when they had left King's Cross. Everyone scurried back to the coaches; it was windy outside. "Hello, Harry!" grinned Neville, who had caught up with the three of them. "Good summer?"

"Not particularly," said Harry, smiling at the peculiarly brave Neville. "Yours?"

"Oh, not much better," said Neville. "I just - I just went to St Mungo's a lot." He beamed.

Harry was confused. This was the first time Neville had said anything regarding his parents' condition without shying away from the topic or looking extremely upset. "But." came out his mouth before he could stop it.

"They're getting better, Harry," whispered Neville conspiratorially. "My mum called me by my name the other day."

"That's great, Neville," said Harry, smiling back. "That's really great!"

Neville was about to reply when Harry felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around. "Harry, you will come with me," said Dumbledore.

Harry's stomach leapt. "But sir, I didn't do anything!"

"I know," Dumbledore replied, with a wry smile. "My, you'd almost think you had done something the way your mind jumps to conclusions, Harry!"

Harry smiled wordlessly and followed Dumbledore to the train. What on earth was going on? Should he tell the headmaster about his dreams? With a troubled sigh, he climbed onto the train and sat down in the carriage Dumbledore led him to.