"Oof! Watch it!" I wince, brush my brown hair out of my face, and pick up my dropped baggage. And hear a snicker followed by a drawling voice,

"I'd rather kick a football than watch where I'm going Granger....especially around a mudblood."

Snickering, I retort, "You would lower yourself to playing 'Vulgar muggle games'?"

Heat colored his voice as he retorted, "You watch it. Nowadays, that You-Know-Who is around, you don't know who you can trust."

"And she needs to because.....?" Looking up, I drop my bags again and throw my arms around Harry. Backing away I hear, "Where's Weasel? Did he miss the the train again?" Finally turning around I look into cool grey eyes. "If you weren't too busy looking over your nose you would see that he's right there." And I point to a group of unmistakeable redheads, managing a rude gesture to him while doing so. The tallest of the group spots Harry and me, yells, "Hullo Harry! Say, Hermione..." and then curses as he drops his cage, which erupts into a twittering and hooting that was heard above the crowd at Platform 9 3/4.

"Bloody pigeon," Ron mutters still struggling with his luggage as he finally gets to us. As I see Malfoy starting to make a response I proclaim,

"Glad summer's over. We can use magic again! I've been practicing hexes....." When saying that, I shoot a look over at Malfoy. The clear morning sun highlights his blond hair, unmistakeable grey eyes, and tan? "Remember what those did a couple of years ago? That was......"

WHOOOOOOOT!

Grimacing I pick up my baggage again and remark to Harry, "If that gets any louder, we'll all go deaf. What a way to start the year! I wouldn't be able to take notes..." While saying so, we all shuffle into a line and hear Ron remark, "Want to to buy Hermione a pair of those ear-thingummies Harry?" Then a certain tall someone treds on the hem of my robes causing me to stumble. And cuts in front of me.

"See you Harry! We'll come around on our patrols." Readjusting my Head Girl Badge I make a face at Ron and say, "I still can't believe that you didn't get Head Boy." And continue onto my lecture of how he should have behaved the first four years so that he would have been.

In the jostling I nearly miss the,

"Well Granger, we're stuck together." Sitting down between the Head Boy (Guess who.) and Roger Davies, I reply, "What jolly great fun we'll have." And leave it at that. And stand up again amidst the snickers of the other prefects.

"Well this year, we're doing something different. There is no Yule Ball pause for the groans but something else. A school trip." A collective gasp went around. I continue, "It's for fifth years and above. Now that most of you are sixth years," I gesture to a packed group of people, "and some are fifth years...Welcome." A smattering of applause fills in the space I leave, "As you know this takes great planning." Pulling out my wand, I construct diagrams filled with names of the prefects and group titles. "There are planning sessions that will consist of...." His emotionless, almost bored voice interripted, "Your working together with other houses." As the prefects glanced at each other he continued, "There will be evenings that we will get together and plan in groups....Which the Ministry of Magic states, '....Will encourage the different houses to work together, such as when a time comes that they will have to bond together against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.'" As the Slytherins smirked at one another, Malfoy continued tonelessly,

"Etcetera. Okay, meeting's over. Go patrol the cars to keep magical outbreaks from happening. You might as well go with your group members to 'Get to know them'" As people crowded around the one diagram, I pinched Malfoy on the arm. "You know what? I've spent most of the summer planning how to say that....."

"And probably would have talked for another hour before you got to your point." Smiling with smugly, he continued, "It was more of a 'Let's get this over with shall we?' thing. Suppose you didn't notice your group members......"

DOES THIS GUY DO OCCLUMENCY? As he sauntered away, (NICE BUM...what the?) I took deep breaths. At the insistent tugging of Ron, we did our patrols with Terry Boot and Padma Patil, pausing to break up a fighting Gryffindor and Slytherin (confiscating the FRED&GEORGEW prank wands), and dealt with the issue of an overflowing toilet. But the time we reached the car with Harry, Luna, Ginny, and Neville, I was slightly nauseous from the swaying of the train, and the not-quite-right-tasting chocolate frog I had been offered by Ron.

"Bloody Geezes Harry, you wouldn't believe the jolly old fun we've been having." Ron sighed exasperated. "A hexed toilet, do you believe that? And that blasted Blaise Zambini just can't leave Dennis Creevey alone. I swear, if we have to break those two up again, we'll have to have a bloody patrol who follows them. Too bad we can't deduct points,"

"If we could deduct points Weasel, we wouldn't have to worry about the Gryffindors winning the House cup would we?" And there stood Wonderboy flanked by his two bodyguards.

"Are Crabbe and Goyle your left and right arms?" I blurted before thinking about what I had just implied.

"No, just your worst nightmares." Came the cliché back.

"Malfoy, that is so old. Just go, we don't need your sniveling face in our car." Harry stood up and walked up to him. Their noses almost touching, there was hardly a difference between their stances. As Harry's jet black hair stood up in clumps, Malfoy's was slicked down with who knows what. As the tension tightened almost visibly between them, Crabbe and Goyle advanced. I sighed and stuck out my foot. And heard Goyle fall closely followed by Crabbe. As Malfoy whipped around to threaten me I muttered,

"What's your problem? Afraid you'll lose your balance without your two arms?" I knew it was a lame crack, and so did he. He gave me one last icy glare (did it reach his eyes?) and snapped to the two mountains of flesh struggling to get up off the floor,

"Get up you buffoons....we have work to do." As he swept out of the room, the train puttered to a stop and the final whistle signified our arrival at Hogwarts.

"What happened to you this summer Hermione? Oh bloody hell where's Trevor? " Neville asked surveying our train car.

"Cat got my tongue." Was all I answered.

We stepped off the train to another year of Hogwarts.....little did we know what was being planned right that moment.

-In a cave not far enough away-

"My Lord, I will have my son confirmed as a death eater at Spring Equinox." A flash of blonde hair appeared in the moonlight, soon followed by a black cloaked figure bowing and the cold click of the Death Eater's heels along the floor. As soon as he left the room, a cruel high voice intoned,

"Good. Where is Avery? He was informing me of a trip. Hogwarts. This WILL be the end of Harry Potter and his comrades. Time to end this once and for all......."

My first chapter of my first fanfic. I will write the continuation as soon as I can. What will happen next? Maybe with something with Dobby and havoc in the Great Hall...... Please R&R.

whereintheworldaremyshoes