Draco had them leave bright and early so they would be one of the first to arrive at Platform nine and three-quarters. There were very few other students there yet and none that Rhyann knew. Narcissa left them with a weepy hugs and a purse of coin for the semester. Lucius gave his son a proud handshake and a cold good-bye to the dreamer with a warning look to make sure she followed his orders.

Not long after they boarded the Hogwarts Express, the new Head Boy declared he had to go up to the front car to sit with the Head Girl and the Prefects, and receive their instructions for the semester. Rhyann waved him off to go attend his responsibilities and had a bit of time to enjoy some silence before the train started filling up.

Millicent was the first to arrive and sit with the petite teen. They had not seen much of each other over the summer and Rhyann guessed that was because the bigger girl liked to take a break from all the social games that went on during school. She could completely sympathize with that desire. Drucinda and Pansy arrived together not long after. The blonde had let her hair grow long and had it in swirling curls with the quiet brunette had cut her hair short.

They congratulated Rhyann on Draco getting the position of Head Boy even though she could not figure out why anyone would be applauding her for what he achieved. They then talked of the school year ahead and Pansy started to get a bit teary that Jasper was not going to be there. The train had left the station by then and Millicent had to take Pansy for a walk to the bathroom so that the blonde could fix her face.

Not too long after the two Slytherins left the section, Harry, Ron and Ginny walked by, stopping when they saw the dreamer. The-Boy-That-Lived had lost a lot of his boyishness over the summer. Like Draco, he had gotten leaner and taller as well as losing the look of a child in his face. He looked unsure of whether he should say anything or not. Ron looked a little more ragged himself. She had never paid all that much attention to his younger sister, but Rhyann noted that Ginny was now of the same height as her brother and glaring at the Slytherins in an unfriendly manner.

Rhyann felt a smile automatically come to her lips and wondered why it did. She also had a little bit of hope that Hermione was with them, but the mousy teen was nowhere to be seen. She motioned them to come into the section. "Hi! Come and sit. How was your summer?"

Harry and Ron eased their way in. The scarred teen was more relaxed at the welcome, sitting next to Rhyann. Ginny stubbornly remained in the aisle while her brother sat across from his best friend. Drucinda, unsure of what to do in this situation, mumbled an excuse and squeezed out, leaving them alone.

"Hi Rhyann." Harry greeted he with a shy smile. "It's good to see you. I had hoped that we would all get together over the summer… but it seemed like you were busy…"

She frowned a little. There was one reason that she could not see them over the summer: Lucius. Rhyann knew that he read all her incoming mail and she did not doubt that he got a hold of her outgoing letters as well. So she had been extremely cautious as to what he wrote. Everything seemed curt but she had encoded each of her excuses with Arithimancy formulas to say the real reason why she could not see them. Now that they were away and she was certain that neither of these three could be a spy for her boyfriend's father, she could speak freely. "I had wanted to, honestly. Yet my uncles were gone the whole summer and I had to stay at Malfoy Manor. The Master of the household made sure I didn't associate with anyone he did not deem proper." She said this bitterly and then added curiously, "I had encoded the letters to Hermione with Arithimancy formulas to tell her what was really going on. Did she not figure them out?"

The Gryffindors seemed quite surprised that she was not pleased with the Malfoys. Ron gave a shake of his head. "No, Hermione didn't figure it out. I bet she's going to get all frustrated with herself now after we tell her she missed it!"

"I never thought there would be any code or anything." Harry seemed a bit disappointed in himself that he did not think to look for something like that. "You spent the whole summer with… the Malfoys?"

"I could only imagine that would be one hoppin' party after another! Especially after what happened." Ron said in a near growl and his sister seemed to go more rigid in her place in the aisle.

"I don't want to talk about that now." Rhyann dismissed the subject, not knowing exactly what the Weasleys were getting agitated about other than their hate for the Malfoys. "Where is Hermione, by the way?"

"She's in the front car. She's Head Girl this year." Harry replied and then Ron immediately added, "We never heard the end of it for the past week!"

Rhyann's dark eyes opened wide and then she burst out laughing. The three Gryffindors gave her strange looks. Ron folded his arms. "It wasn't that funny. She can get pretty annoying sometimes doing stuff like that."

Getting a hold of herself, the dreamer continued to chuckle. "No, it's not that. It's just that Draco is Head Boy! I'll be surprised if they haven't tried to kill each other yet!"

There was a few seconds of stunned silence and then the others broke out into gales of laughter as well. Ginny leaned against the side of the car, holding her stomach. "Hermione is going to freak out!"

"Oh, I'm feeling more sorry for Hermione. I'm just lovin' this 'cause it will drive Malfoy bonkers! The git will probably be permanently red in the face!" Ron guffawed and then made a strange sound as he tried to swallow his laughter, looking apologetically to the petite brunette. "Oh, I'm sorry, Rhyann. I know Malfoy is your boyfriend."

Rhyann continued to smirk and gave a little unconcerned shrug of her shoulders. "No need to apologize. I think it's hilarious too. And I do feel sorry for Hermione, but certainly not for Draco! He might actually learn something having to work with her."

The Gryffindors all grinned brightly at that pronouncement. Then Harry looked at her quizzically. "Are you and Draco still together?" Once he asked the question, it seemed like he bit his tongue and wished that he hadn't.

She nipped at her lower lip. No matter how much she wanted to share the pain of her situation with someone, she could not do so in her present company. It was Harry Potter and a couple of Weasleys. She was still a servant of the Dark Lord. She did not think any of them would understand either. None of them had any love for the Malfoys and she could easily see them encouraging her to get away from them, to report them to the Ministry or something. Rhyann would not risk her family though. So she could only reply: "Yes, we're still together."

Harry looked down and away. Ron and Ginny exchanged glances as if they almost had expected something else. Also, with the affirmative answer they had gotten, the flat tone of it did speak more than the few words that were said.

"It shall make for one entertaining year, if nothing else." Rhyann added, anxious to change the subject once again. "So how was your summer?"

The three of them exchanged a different sort of look this time. Harry plucked at some unseen piece of lint on his robes, his voice suddenly quiet and somber. "Did you not hear or read it in the newspaper?"

She could feel the tension suddenly come back and thrice as thick as before. "Hear what?" Rhyann knew she was missing out on something important here. "I didn't see a newspaper all summer. Mrs. Malfoy thinks it improper that ladies let themselves be bothered by the news. She had her own social magazine that she let me read though."

Ron and Harry both looked like they were going to say something, but seeing the other starting to talk, stopped themselves. Ginny narrowed her eyes at both and then focused her glare on the Slytherin. "Our brother, Percy, was tried and convicted and sent to Azkaban. They claim that he was a Death Eater and that he killed Nattie Fluttershar. They also said that he was planning assassinate the Minister. It's all a bloody lie, of course! They don't know…"

"Yeah, a bloody lie!" Ron cut off his sister before she could say any more. "Percy might have been a bit angry with our family, but he would never do something horrible like that. It just isn't in him!"

Rhyann knew her face must have been pale with shock. Her lips were slightly parted as she fought to process the information in her head. She knew very little about Percy Weasley. She wasn't sure which brother he was in their big family, but last year he had been Junior Assistant to the Minister. Hermione had mentioned in passing that the family was going through some hard times with him, but she was sure it would all work out in the end.

She remembered the Dark Lord telling her that he had an initiate killed last year's DADA professor. The curse that he had used to kill the old crone was a terrible one. It horrified even her. If Percy was charged over the summer with that crime, he could have very well been the initiate that Voldemort had been talking about. He was also in a perfect position to learn all the Minister's secrets and then assassinate him. If Percy was cut off from his family, he could have been vulnerable to her Lord's influences. She knew the fear, the awe and the draw of promised power.

"I'm… I'm sorry about your brother. I didn't know…" Rhyann did sound genuinely sympathetic. She once did not think it was in herself to harm someone, but she found she could do so more easily than she imagined. There was no reason to think Percy would not have been the same way. Of course his family would never see him as such, but that did not mean that he could truly be that way.

"You were with the Malfoys all summer and you never heard anything! Lucius is a bloody Death Eater. Everyone knows! But no one can touch him. He is always at the Ministry and he doesn't even work there. And he was at all of Percy's trial, smiling so smugly at the judge!" Ginny barked, gripping the door frame so tightly her knuckles were white. Her face was turning red with her anger and was nearly as bright as her hair.

"Ginny!" Harry gave her a look, but it was not harsh. He, too, felt his friends' pain.

"Well, it's true." Ron huffed. "Malfoy probably rigged the whole bloody thing."

"It probably is true." Rhyann agreed. There was no reason she would defend Lucius. She detested the man as much as they did. She could not tell her reasons to the rest of the world, but she would like to see him tried and sent to Azkaban too.

All of them looked at her as if waiting to hear some sort of confession of secrets that she knew. The dreamer wished she did have something for them. "I won't deny he's a cruel man. I don't know anything of what he is involved in." It was not totally true. She knew that he did not deal in business fairly for he had her inside the sleeping minds of his rivals and associates. "They kept me in the dark and blocked off from most of the world like some fragile little gem. I have my own issues with him and you would not catch me shedding a tear if some Auror caught him in the middle of some dark business."

"I'd like to do each of the Unforgivable Curses on him in turn!" Ginny muttered intensely and got another look from Harry.

"Not if I get him first!" Ron grumbled and ignored the look he was given.

Harry stood up and motioned for his friend to do the same. "We'll be at Hogwarts in a bit. Best we get back to our seats and wait for Hermione."

"Tell her hi from me." Rhyann tipped her head back to look up at him. "Oh, and about the letters too. I'm sure I'll have more classes with her again this year."

Harry nodded as Ron slipped past him into the aisle. He stood there for a moment, awkwardly running a hand through his hair. "I'll see you around too?"

She gave him a little fae smile. "Yes, you will."

He lowered his voice to just above a whisper. "Meetings will start up again this year. I'll have Hermione tell you."

"Okay." Rhyann nodded and gave them all a parting nod. "See you all later then."

Ginny said nothing and disappeared down the hall. Ron dipped his head too and followed his sister. The scarred teen smiled as he slipped out of the section. "See you, Rhyann."

Once they were gone, she let out a long, slow breath. She had not even realized she was that tense. Rhyann could only imagine what else she had not known about over the summer. She wondered if Draco knew all that happened as well. Not that it was his responsibility to tell her what was happening in the news, but something like Percy Weasley's trial was important. She had always wondered who killed Fluttershar and saved her from completing the act then being blamed for it herself. She almost felt grateful that she knew who it was now.

A few minutes later, Draco stormed into the car and sat down next to her. His face was indeed red. "Do you know who is Head Girl this year! Hermione Granger! A mudblood! I can't believe they're doing this to me!"

Rhyann had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing.