Ted reached Kings Cross station at 10:30. Not caring about the hundreds of muggles bustling by, he followed Professor Longbottom's instructions and sauntered straight through the divider between Platforms 9 and he emerged he found himself facing a large scarlet train.

Ted lifted his trunk onto the train. He had to remember to use both arms to lift it and pretend that it was actually difficult to carry. He walked past several compartments full of vermin that he would now have to call his classmates, in search of an empty compartment.

As he approached a compartment towards the back he started to feel quite buoyant. He ignored the next few compartments until he reached a compartment that reverberated with loud laughter. Ted peered inside and saw the two girls from Hexes sitting next to a boy. The trio was sitting across two other pretty girls and another boy. Everyone in the compartment seemed to be laughing at a joke Victoire told. Nobody noticed Ted standing outside precariously balancing his heavy trunk on a single palm, staring at Victoire, mesmerized. After several seconds of staring Ted remembered that he needed to actually speak. He decided to turn his hair turquoise to try to impress her again.

"Hey Victoire." Victoire looked up at Ted and a dazzling smile spread across her face and her eyes widened with joy too.

"Who's your friend Victoire?" one of the girls sitting next to Victoire asked. She had light brown skin, large loopy dark brown curls cascading down her back and large eyes that were pools of sea green. She wasn't as beautiful as Victoire and her sister, but she definitely was something special.

"This is Ted, I met him at Hexes," Victoire said.

"Hi, I'm Priyanka," said the girl with the green eyes. She smiled at him and extended her hand outside of the compartment for Ted to shake. Her smile wasn't as dazzling as Victoire's, but it was quite warm and inviting. Ted shook her hand.

"Nice to meet you," said Ted. A few moments of awkward silence went by as no one else introduced themselves to Ted. Finally one of the boys spoke up.

"So, can we help you with something, Todd?" Ted felt safe enough in his masculinity to acknowledge that this boy was incredibly attractive. He had a crisp tan, deep blue eyes, and black hair straight out of a Weasley catalog. He had rolled the sleeves of his robes all the way up to his shoulders to show off his tan muscular arms, like a true douche, Ted thought.

The other boy in the compartment was shorter with large muscles, while the first boy had more lean muscle. The other boy had blonde hair and a tan that matched the first boys. Ted wondered if the two boys had laid out in the sun on one blanket tanning together all summer.

"Ted," Ted corrected. Ted wished he could sit with Victoire, but he wanted to get away from these lofty losers as fast as possible.

"My bad. So what up with the blue hair? Are you like, part peacock or something?" The compartment roared with laughter. The boy flashed a gleaming white grin. Ted wanted to knock his perfect white teeth right out of his mouth.

The boy turned back to the four girls and made a funny remark, probably in reference to the group's previous conversation. The compartment rattled with laughter again. Ted was completely forgotten by the entire group –even Victoire and Priyanka – as they continued to laugh and joke. Victoire spared him one brief glance, then turned her head away and let a platinum curtain of hair fall in front of her face, hiding it from Ted as she joined in the conversation, full-fledged.

Ted stood outside the compartment, feeling more embarrassed than he ever had in his life. The mortification quickly turned to blazing anger. How dare these brainless wizards make him feel like this? He felt the handle of his trunk break in the fist he didn't realize he had been clenching.

Calm down he told himself. It will feel amazing to pulverize the morons right now, but in the long run it will ruin everything you worked so hard for. He took several deep breaths then lifted his trunk and walked away from the idiotic lot that Victoire was a part of. His anger and embarrassment completely barricaded Victoire's Veela charm. What was he thinking, feeling any interest in a stuck up bitch like her? He should have just screwed her then ditched her like Mark had suggested.

Ted continued to fume as he searched for an empty compartment to sit in. Unfortunately he couldn't find a single one. The best he could find was a compartment with only two boys in it. One boy was a small scrawny boy who was deeply engrossed in a textbook. He must have been a second or third year student. The other boy looked about Ted's age. He was a pale blonde boy, with a pointed face, and was deeply engrossed in writing something on a large parchment pad.

"Is it cool if I sit here?" Ted asked the boys. It was outrageous that humans had to ask permission to sit with other humans in the human world. A werewolf would never have to ask permission to sit with other werewolves. The two boys looked up from their work, gave Ted one curt nod each, and then resumed their respective work. Ted placed his trunk into the overhead compartment with one hand. He knew the two boys were too occupied to notice.

Ted chose to sit next to the boy writing on the parchment pad. He was afraid that if he sat next to the scrawny boy he might accidentally send him flying out the window with a cough or a sneeze.

Ted was annoyed that both boys were occupying the window seats. At least he could have laid his head against the window and slept easily. He was exhausted from all the time he'd spent with Liam and Charlie the past few nights. Then again, the pale boy sitting next to him probably needed the window seat more than Ted did, considering how pale he was. Ted glanced over at what the boy was so engrossed in writing. It turned out he wasn't writing; he was drawing. He was drawing a picture of two wizards dueling against each other. One was leaping in the air dodging an attack and the other was firing a bright red spell at him. The drawing was pretty damn good.

"Nice drawing," Ted said.

"Thank you," The boy responded without looking up, but Ted noticed a smile play on his lips.

Ted looked across at the other boy who was reading Advanced Potion Making. "Reading a book well beyond your years I see. Impressive," Ted told the boy. The boy finally pulled the book away from his face. He was even paler than the other boy and had dark circles under his eyes, and a deep scowl above them. He also had a long nose.

"What do you mean? I'm in 6th year and I'm reading a 6th year Potions book," said the boy, clearly annoyed. Ted felt embarrassed. But it wasn't his fault these dumb wizards were getting scrawnier by the day.

"Oh sorry," said Ted. "I'm new here."

"Are you new to brain cells?" The boy asked sardonically. Ted couldn't help but smile at the boy's quick wit. It was certainly better than a stupid joke about peacocks that Ted had heard earlier that day. The boy gave Ted a few seconds chance to respond. Ted chose to let it go, so the boy dove back into the book, nose first.

Ted looked back and forth between his dreary companions. This was going to be a long train ride. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but his head kept lolling around on his seat. At some point someone poked him hard in the ribs to wake him up. His neck was aching and his mouth tasted like he had been sucking on someone's dirty socks. He opened his eyes to look at a plump woman's face.

"Anything off the trolley, dear?" Ted looked around and saw sweets piled up next to the other two boys. The sight made Ted's stomach growl. He hadn't eaten anything that morning in his rush to get out the door, and he had a werewolf appetite. He was thankful that Liam had packed him all those sandwiches.

Ted bought a small pack of spearmint flavored Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. The lady charged an outrageous price of two sickles for the small pack of gum, but Ted needed it for the taste in his mouth. After she left, Ted pulled his bag of sandwiches out of the side compartment of his trunk. He pulled out some toad food and slipped it into Sparky's tank before sitting back down.

Liam packed eight venison sandwiches with mayonnaise. He threw in a bag of pickles. He must not have had time to put them in the sandwiches. Ted dug into the eight sandwiches happily. He forced himself to eat neatly in front of his company. He offered each of them a sandwich. They looked at him as if he were offering them a dead raccoon. Ted shrugged and continued to eat.

After Ted ate the eight sandwiches, he popped a piece of gum in his mouth and offered a piece to his compartment buddies, the silent brothers. The silent brothers each took a piece of gum, shocker, silently.

"Do you guys know how to talk?" Ted asked. The boys nodded. Ted rolled his eyes. The boy reading the potions textbook smirked.

"Maybe if you had something interesting to talk about, maybe we would talk," he said.

"Why don't we talk about why you're a sulky, little, emo nerd who likes reading Potions textbooks?" Ted countered.

"Because the words of the Potions textbook are more interesting than any words I've ever heard come out of the mouths of Hogwarts students over the last five years," The boy replied dryly. Ted couldn't help but like his sarcasm.

"I've only been around Hogwarts students for a few hours, but based on what I've heard so far, I can fully trust what you just said," Ted said. The boy smirked. "I'm Ted by the way."

"Simon," The boy said with a wave.

"What's your name, Picasso?" Ted asked the other boy. The boy looked up from his artwork, though Ted could tell he hadn't been drawing during the entire conversation.

"Leo. And no offense, but you two are weird," said the boy, but he was smiling in a good natured way. "And by the way thanks for noticing my artwork. You're probably the first person at Hogwarts to ever have noticed it." Ted smiled.

"What year are you in?" Ted asked Leo.

"Fifth."

"Oh ok," Ted said then after a pause asked "Do you know Victoire?"

"Everyone at Hogwarts knows Victoire," Leo stated matter-of-factly. "She's the most beautiful creature to have ever graced the halls of Hogwarts. I'd give anything to draw her naked. Why do you ask about her?"

Ted hesitated. "I met her a couple of weeks ago at Hexes. We danced and she got me a drink, and she seemed really cool." At that moment Simon put his book down and Leo set his parchment pad and quill aside, and both boys leaned in closer to hear what Ted was saying.

"No way," said Leo.

"She danced with you?" said Simon.

"And bought you a drink?" said Leo.

"No way," said Simon.

"When it comes to girls, I don't lie," said Ted. "But then when I met her on the train today she was kind of, well, a bitch."

"Now that sounds more like Victoire," said Simon.

"I don't get what caused the change in behavior," said Ted. He didn't know why he was complaining about a dumb girl to these guys. But these guys seemed pretty cool…for wizards. "I mean one minute she seems really cool, and the next minute she's hanging out with a couple of guys with a combined IQ less than my left foot."

"Ah, Jason and Neil, I like to call them Victoire and Dominique's box of tampons. They are obsessed with the girls and follow them around Hogwarts like lost puppies. Victoire and Dominique pretty much just use them like tampons," said Simon.

"Who's Dominique?" Ted asked.

"Victoire's sister," Simon replied. Ted always forgot about Victoire's sister even though she had the same killer looks and Veela charm.

"I don't know," said Leo. "They've been hanging out with those guys for years now. They seem like a group of best friends."

"No way. They've been trying to hook up with the girls for all these years, but the girls won't give them a chance. They just want guys who will follow them around laughing at all of their jokes and agreeing with everything they say, but they seem to think they are too good to date any of them. Mind you, despite the fact that they are total bitches, they are too good to date any of those brainless losers," said Simon.

"Why do you guys think they're bitches?" Ted asked, not that he was disagreeing with them.

"Because they only talk to people who they think are cool or good looking enough to talk to them," said Leo. "Let me break down their gang for you. There's Priyanka and Gwen. They are the most beautiful girls in fourth and fifth year, after Dominique and Victoire of course. Then there's Neil and Jason. They're both prefects for Ravenclaw and Gryffindor."

"What's a Gryffindor?" Ted asked. But Leo was already on a roll.

"Plus Jason is the Captain and Seeker of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and Neil is the leader of the Art Sector of Montage."

"Montage?" asked Ted. Leo ignored him.

"And they're both at the top of their class."

"I wouldn't say they're at the top of their class," Simon said bitterly.

"Are they in sixth year too?" Ted asked.

"Yup," said Simon.

"Great, I'll have to see their ugly faces in all of my classes," Ted grimaced.

"Wait, you're in sixth year too? Why have I never seen you before? Did you transfer from Drumstrang?" asked Simon. Ted fed Simon and Leo the story about how he was homeschooled all these years but wanted a change. Ted was glad that they were no longer talking about Victoire's tampons.

"It was a good idea to join Hogwarts during the N.E.W.T years. It will open you up to better career opportunities," said Simon.

"Uh-huh," said Ted flippantly. Joining Hogwarts sure was going to open Ted up to great career opportunities, as the supreme ruler over wizards. Ted would have to remember to give these guys high positions in the new world order, well, as high as he could give to wizards.

"Dude, you were better off being homeschooled," said Leo. "Hogwarts sucks."

"Why do you say that?" said Simon.

"Come on, you yourself said all the students are idiots," said Leo.

"Yeah they pretty much are," said Simon. "But we get a great opportunity to learn magic at Hogwarts."

"True. But Ted is a lucky bastard who has parents who can teach him magic at home," said Leo. "I wish I had that."

"Are your parents muggles?" Simon asked. Ted found it funny that these boys had been sitting in the same compartment in a train for hours, and were just now starting to get to know each other thanks to Ted.

"My mom is," said Leo. "My dad is a bastard who knocked up my mom, told her he would help her take care of me, asked her to name me after a constellation because of some stupid tradition in his family, and then ditched her. Then I found out I was a wizard like my father. I was excited and thought maybe my father was a cool guy after all. Then when I came to Hogwarts, everyone hated me because apparently my father worked for a dark wizard a long time ago, and somehow everyone at Hogwarts knew."

"Who was your father?" Ted asked.

"Draco Malfoy."