It was nine o'clock sharp when Lucia and Genevieve arrived at platform nine and ¾. Genevieve was in a quite a mood and Lucia was equally irate.
"I don't understand why we must be here two hours early. The train leaves at eleven." Genevieve muttered, throwing her hands up dramatically before facing her daughter and asking "Do you think perhaps they have a surprise for us?"
"No mother, I have no notion as to why they would wake us up at such a horrendous hour, other than the fact that they are a disgrace to humanity." Lucia snapped back, pushing her cart of luggage.
"My dear, you must have an inkling of an idea, since you know them so well." Genevieve replied sarcastically.
It was moments like this when Lucia looked at her mother in a new light. She was usually a bimbo with little to say but pointless comments on fashion and the weather. She never attacked anyone on their manners or opinions; simply let someone else take control.
"I pretend to have no such thing; I just know what I know. And I know that they are terrible people." Lucia stuck up her nose in a snobbish fashion before carrying her baggage onto the train.
They had always arrived somewhat early so Lucia could claim a compartment for her and her friends. Usually she marked it in some way, like last year when she filled it up with forget-me-nots and daisies. It was deemed a bad decision after one of her friends, Meghan, had an allergic reaction to the flowers and nearly had her throat close up. This year she simply charmed the door to sing incessantly to anyone who wasn't her or her chosen companions.
Lucia didn't have many friends at Hogwarts, she was actually known for being quite the ice-queen. But the friends she did have were elite in whatever they did.
Katherine Turnplan was an expert in transfiguration. Her skills rivaled the infamous Hermione Granger's and they were often compared. She was tall in a stature, and very awkward looking. Her lank hair was unkempt and a dull shade of blonde. She was plain, but a very agreeable young woman.
Bernice Puncible on the other hand was quite a disaster. She had some of the highest marks on her owls that the school had ever seen but never did her work. The teachers disliked her and often ridiculed her openly as a waste of a desk, but her value could not be argued. She had a soft, round face framed by turquoise hair. She was not a normal looking girl, her large eyes made her seem alien and other worldly, but it matched her personality perfectly.
Meghan Dunlap was perhaps the least intelligent of the bunch. She was a Hufflepuff who managed to join the group through tutoring sessions with Katherine. Her long oak hair was stark straight and shiny, while her astonishingly blue eyes were small and almond shaped. She was extremely attractive but with little to show for it since she rarely socialized outside the small group.
There were very few people on the train that early in the morning, a few eager first years with their teary-eyed parents and maybe a few over achievers who wanted to get the front compartments. But none of them interested Lucia; they were all the people who unknowingly made her life at Hogwarts harder.
As she began to head for the exit she heard an ever familiar voice from down the hall.
"Now which compartment are you in." Draco Malfoy smirked, "So I can avoid it like a muggle."
"If you go near it you'll know" Lucia replied, exiting the train.
She let out a chuckle when she heard the start of the song "Love Fool" and a menagerie of swear words. It was fairly easy to entertain a cynic like Lucia.
"Lucia darling," now where had she heard those words before? "How are you my dear? You look so lovely in that skirt, is it Yonfellows? Oh I do love his designs."
"Hello Narcissa, Lucius." Lucia regarded them before turning to her mother.
"I was just asking them the reason we were meant to meet them at the station so early." Genevieve smiled a sickening smile before putting her hand suggestively on her hip. "I simply despise being woken up after such a wonderful dream." She looked at Lucius and shifted her weight subtly, but enough to reveal a slight amount of cleavage and accent her waist.
"I'm sure it was wonderful. Would you care to tell us about it?" Lucia asked her mother, feigning innocence.
"Maybe some other time my dear, when you're older." Lucia let out a bark of laughter.
"That was attractive Sometimes." Draco said, exiting the train.
"Did you like my singing compartment," He huffed for a moment "I thought you would." Lucia said before turning back to his parents. "Now I'm curious as to the answer of our question."
"We simply thought that we ended on a rather sour note last night, and we hoped to maybe have brunch with you before our children leave for their last year." Narcissa replied, grasping onto Draco's shoulder and smiling.
"That would be lovely!" Genevieve replied enthusiastically before grasping her own daughters shoulder.
"No it wouldn't." Said Lucia.
"And why would that be?" Asked the ever curious Draco.
"I promised my friend Meghan that I would be here at ten to do our annual predictions of the next year!" Lucia said, exasperated.
"Honestly Lucia, you just sit there commenting on how ugly all the young men are and make snide remarks about the girls. its gossip, you can skip it." Genevieve huffed.
Draco just smirked before saying "Perhaps you and my parents may go, and I will stay with Lucia."
Narcissa and Lucius looked pleased by this idea while Genevieve stayed indifferent.
"That would be lovely." Cried Narcissa, suddenly making her way to Genevieve's side. "I dare say we should go now for fear we won't get seated."
"Yes, what a wonderfully convenient idea." Lucia grumbled, slowly creeping back towards the train.
Once their parents had left, Lucia vowed to depart from Draco and relax in her compartment, but that was not to be the case.
Back in her compartment she attempted to start reading the History of Magic textbook only to be interrupted with the sound of singing and Draco, slamming the door behind him.
"I must say you have gotten attractive this summer."
"I beg your pardon."
"I said you've gotten attractive."
"I'm sorry?"
"No need to apologize."
"I wasn't."
"Are you flirting with me?"
"Honestly? No."
All the while "Love Fool" was playing in the background.
"Will you leave my compartment please?" Lucia finally snapped, after hearing the song for the third time she was rather annoyed.
"Not if you insist on being rude to me." Draco nudged closer to her.
"Oh but I do insist Malfoy, I most certainly do." Lucia stood up, placing her book on her lap before grabbing on to Draco's robes and pulling him out of the compartment.
It happened to have been the first time she instigated physical contact with him and she was quite lost by what had compelled her. She wasn't a physical person, whether it is anger or passion she had always been very passive towards her natural physicality. But he was so infuriating to her. There was no way she could be peaceful with him. He didn't respond to her sarcasm or her insults, he simply watched her and playfully attacked back.
"Now really Sometime's, there's no need to do that." Draco laughed, grabbing her back playfully before staring into her very serious eyes and pushing her back into the compartment.
"There is need when I can no longer think. You are a dreadful distraction Malfoy, honed on disrespect and hate." Lucia spat at him, letting go of his robes. "I can't stand people like you, people who can't understand the need to live a happy life."
"You should talk, you shove all chances at a connection away with words and expect them to sit down and take it. I may have made you suffer abuse after abuse but I know how to connect with someone."
"So you connect with Voldemort. What a lovely connection, marked by the scar on your wrist." She ripped his sleeve back to reveal the dark imminent mark before stepping back, quite at a loss for words. "And-and besides, you don't know me, how I live. You make all these assumptions and spew them like a fountain." She was nearly raging then, he was infuriatingly accurate in his assumptions it scared her.
"You barely even know your mother. Or if you do you refuse to let her know you." Malfoy retaliated, yanking his sleeve to cover his mutilation. "Don't think I haven't noticed your abusive remarks and-"
"I want you to leave," she pointed at the door "now!" She advanced towards him sharply.
He left the compartment in a rush quite unlike him and went down the hall to his own compartment.
Lucia was at her wits end thinking about what he had said. He had been right of course, she knew that much. It was not the content of his speech that disturbed him but rather the lips they came from. Surely he did not know her nearly that well? No one knew her that well besides herself. She had made sure that no one could read her like Draco just had.
She leaned against the window and stared at the still walls of the platform and sighed. He would simply need to rethink what he thought of her, because she could not be so easily understood.
It was ten thirty by the time Meghan had entered the compartment with her three suitcases and a fawning younger boy in tow.
"You must know what I did this summer." Meghan cried before hiking up her shirt to reveal a belly-button piercing.
Meghan was the kind of girl that had very little tact. She often bent over in the wrong skirts and wore heels she couldn't walk in. Her illogical decisions often embarrassed her friends but she never cared because it was simply the way she worked.
"Don't you just love it, it's absolutely precious!" She sat beside Lucia and shrugged off her shoulder bag before instructing the boy to set the bags on the overhead compartments. She continued to chat to Lucia while the boy stood expectantly like a dog. As if he had done his task and now he expected a tasty treat.
"I hate to disappoint you," started Lucia at the boy while examining her nails "but there is nothing here to keep you." The boy looked sorely distraught before he exited the compartment.
"What did you mean?" Meghan asked before pulling her shirt back down.
"Things, horrible things." Meghan laughed at this. She always liked Lucia's negative nature.
"I suppose you didn't get a boyfriend this summer?" she lifted her perfectly waxed eyebrow before leaning into Lucia like a child about to hear her favorite story.
"You already know the answer to that one. I didn't, I never do, and I won't be disappointed if I ever will." Lucia smiled sweetly and fluttered her eyelashes playfully.
"But why? They are ever so attractive this year. You know that Jorge Kornel guy? No? well he is extremely attractive. Not to mention Draco, I saw him in the halls and-"
"Don't even talk to me about Malfoy." Lucia pushed her head in her hands and rubbed her temple. "I can't stand that miserable prick."
"I'm sure he'd be disappointed to hear that." Meghan laughed before taking an avian water bottle out of her bag and sipping it calmly.
"What in merlins name do you mean by that." Lucia grabbed the water bottle before she could take another sip and looked at her curiously.
"I don't know, he was just asking me questions about you. I didn't tell him anything. But I saw Marisa Gifle in the hall and she has lost a ton of weight. She looks so good, I can't believe it." She grabbed the water back and took a large gulp. "I went on an all liquid diet and I lost ten pounds, but my doctor said it was mostly muscle."
"Hun, you didn't seriously do that stupid diet." She looked at Lucia guiltily. "You look fine! Why do you worry so much? You're beautiful."
The conversation was interrupted by Katherine and Bernice bursting in. They were giggling loudly and whispering into each others ear but when the door shut behind them they burst into loud yelps.
"Draco Malfoy is so mysterious." Bernice yelled, her eyebrows rising and falling in an expressive ark. "Dunno' whether I'll be able to resist this year."
"I don't understand you, he's a death eater." Katherine started.
"An ex-death eater." Meghan corrected.
"That doesn't matter; he was in Azkaban for goodness sakes." Katherine sat on the opposite side of Lucia.
"Anyways, he had quite an interest in you Lucia." Bernice said, sitting next to Katherine and pulling out her latest drawing project.
"He asked all these questions. Some of them were really strange." Katherine continued, smiling widely before pulling out her knitting.
"What did he ask?" Lucia was now curious about these questions that Draco Malfoy was asking her friends.
"Oh they were just questions. Like where you were born, what your favorite subject was, where you like to go in the free time." Bernice shrugged.
"We lied on all of them." Katherine laughed, leaning over her half-made socks. "We said you were born in Ecuador, that you loved Divination and that you spent all your free time in Trelawney's room." Both let out a bark of laughter.
"He asked me the same questions!" Meghan cried before they started a conversation about Lucia's possible future liaisons.
By now Lucia was perfectly infuriating. What right did he have to ask questions about her? Especially after pretending he knew everything and how she works. In fact she wasn't quite sure she wanted to even give him a reason to ask. He just was being greedy, taking and taking like he always does.
Lucia stood up, excusing herself for a trip to the loo. She rushed down the hall, opening up every compartment door in a maniacal fury until she finally opened his compartment.
He was alone, reading the newspaper and pushing his hair behind his ear. Lucia couldn't help but think that he was attractive when his mouth was closed.
"Now where exactly do you get off asking my friends questions." Lucia advanced on him, standing in front of him with her hands on her hips.
"I'm sorry?" He looked up from the paper with an innocent look on his face.
"Why are you so interested in me? I'm not interesting!" she was yelling by now. Pulling fury from places she never knew existed.
"You're really hot when you're angry." He stood up, and then put the paper down, his face close to hers.
She didn't back up, she didn't need to. That would be showing intimidation, acknowledgement and most importantly, fear. She felt all three of those things but didn't want him to know so she just whispered.
"Our parents are waiting for us to say goodbye outside the train." And left.
Draco wasn't quite as confused as she was. In fact he was quite amused. This façade he was playing with her was nearly as fun as playing quidditch. The best part was her fury; he'd never seen such raw animosity. Instead of immediately joining her he waited a few moments before exiting the train.
They said their goodbyes and hugged their parents. Making numerous promises they would never dream of keeping.
As the train whistle blew Lucia leaned over and muttered in his ear "Stay away from me Malfoy." He only smirked.