From the last chapter…
As cheerfully as possible, Harry spit out, "Umm… Ron here has something he'd like to say to you…"
Ron shakily stepped forward, "Umm, Hermione? There's something I've been wondering about………"
"Umm… Ron I already know what you're going to say, and my answer is… well, no. I really want you as my best friend just as it's always been," she said shortly and then turned to pay for the book she was reading.
Ron turned and stomped away. "I knew it! Why did I ever listen to you Harry! She likes someone else and you know it! Wait…. She likes YOU Harry! Agh! This is the worst day of my life!" snapped Ron as he stalked away.
"Wait! RON!" yelled Harry but he was too late. As he ran into the bathroom he could hear Ron putting a sticking charm on the door.
Harry decided to go on a catch up to Mrs. Weasly and Ginny. "Hey Ginny! Did you get all you books? 6th year sure is tough!" called Harry, but his feeble attempt to make small talk failed and she just turned away in a sniff. She apparently still had second thoughts about breaking up with him last year. Harry knew that she still had feelings for him, but he was more intent now on finding the remaining four Horcruxes.
The Hogwarts express rumbled on and Harry was nearing his 4th hour on the train when he heard a familiar voice, "Hey Potty." He slowly turned around to stare up at the gaunt face and straight blonde hair that was Draco Malfoy.
"I see you escaped from Azkaban early just to come to school," retorted Harry.
"Expelliarmus!" cried Malfoy and just in time to stop Ginny's famous Bat Bogey Hex.
"Immobulus!" yelled Neville but the spell missed Malfoy and hit Goyle, who fell over stiff as a board.
"Petrificus totalus!" screamed Harry as he got control of his wand once more and Malfoy became stiff as a board with his legs folded under his body and unable to move. He pointed his wand at Crabbe who ran off to the sylthrien compartment.
At that moment something occurred to Harry, maybe Malfoy had gotten away from the death eaters. He was still alive, AND he was in school. Maybe he wasn't a death eater anymore.
Slowly, he pulled up the sleeve of Malfoy's robes to see that there was no dark mark, but a large, ugly, scar where it appeared that someone had cut the skin away. He kicked Malfoy out into the corridor and mutterd, "Mobili-Malfoy" under his breath. Malfoy stirred and Harry went off down the train's long corridor to find the prefect's compartment.
Hermione and Ron were not looking or speaking to each other, but both seemed to have triumphed looks on their faces. "Oh, bloody hell, what happened here now?" Harry exclaimed angrily.
"RON was trying to convince me that he knew that I liked someone else, then said it was YOU Harry," huffed Hermione.
"OH HELL I CANNOT DEAL WITH THIS!" Harry screamed and stomped back to his compartment where Ginny, Neville, and Luna where waiting.
"What's with the sour look Harry?" asked Luna, not even bothering to look up from the Quibbler.
"Oh, nothing… Ron and Hermione are just in a fight again, something about Ron liking her and she liking me," sighed Harry and looked at Ginny longingly. Ginny returned the look but with great resentment in her eyes.
Harry stared out the window wanting desperately to do it all over again, and to have his friends not fight until the train rumbled into Hogwarts…
Professor McGonagall was now seated at the throne of the headmaster and most of the other teachers where there as well. Hagrid was not there, he was probally out visiting Gwamp or Witherwings, but once again he was late as usual.
Professor McGonagall did not make a speech she just merely tapped the sorting hat with her wand and it began the sorting.
After the sorting finished she snapped her fingers again and food appeared. The atmosphere was dreary and solemn but the feast dragged on until the Prefects lead the 1st years out.
Harry walked up and greeted the fat lady and said the new password, "Pensive," but whenever he said it he felt all the sadness of Dumbledore being gone wash back over him like an emotional waterfall. But there was no time for that; he had to find Hermione and Ron!
"Hermione!" he called after he saw her long brown hair turn into a dormitory.
She popped her head back out, "Hey Harry," she said, but she sounded rather tired.
"I have something to tell you, come down here!" he called because remembering the time that he and Ron went to climb the girls' staircase and it became a slide, impossible for them to get up. She came down and sat on the couch. "Ok, well I don't think Malfoy is a death eater anymore. He can't be! He's back at school and his mark's gone!" said Harry, half-shouted.
"What? How did you see his arm, what are you talking about Harry, you're not making any sense?"
"Well, on the train we kind of had a little duel and I used a immobilizing curse on him then looked at his arm and all there was there was a scar so I'm assuming he just cut it off," said Harry all in one breath. Hermione looked astonished, but strangely happy.
"Well, I think I err… better go see what Professor Slughorn thinks about people who, err… cease to be death eaters," Hermione said quickly and then turned off.
"Oh GOD she's such a bad liar!" thought Harry to himself and dawned his invisibility cloak and made off to catch up with her.
She turned and went up and down all the stair cases and seemed to think she was being tailed. She looked behind herself nervously as she ran.
"God, where is she going?" Harry thought to himself, as she ran down yet another flight of stairs, "She seems to be heading for the dungeons, but she took the wrong way to get to potions… wait why is she turning here… The Slythrien common room!"
And indeed she stopped right in front of the Slythrien common room and mumbled something at the portrait, it swung open and Harry had just enough time to follow inside before it slammed shut.
"Goyle, you're back so soon?" asked Malfoy, turning around form the small, lethal looking, instrument he was tinkering with.
"Yes," said Hermione in a rather low voice. At that moment he noticed that 'Hermione' began to get taller and noticeably fatter and suddenly he realized that it must be Goyle under the influence of the polyjuice potion! He grotesquely changed back into himself and went up to his dormitory to change back into his robes. Harry took a seat on the couch and waited stick still, for something to happen.
Meanwhile back in the Gryffindor common room….
Hermione was waking up from a long peaceful sleep… in the storage closet? "Neville? What happened?"
"Oh, hi Hermione, I thought you went down to the dungeon to see Professor Slughorn?" said Neville brightly.
"I did what?" asked Hermione, "Where's Harry?"
"I think he followed you down to the dungeon under his invisibility cloak. Umm… Wait a second here…."
"AH! Someone's impersonating me using the polyjuice potion! And I think I know just who… come on Neville!" she cried and grabbed him by the ear.
A struggling Neville followed her down into the dungeons.
Back at the Slythrien common room…
Goyle returned as his normal, brute-like, spineless, self now dressed in his Slythrien robes and stood beside Malfoy.
"So," sneered Malfoy, "What did 'Saint Potter' say about our little run-in on the train?"
Dum dum dum….. more tomorrow!