This is long overdue, I'm so sorry! I got caught up with school and life and I needed time to sort things out. Everything belongs to J.K Rowling with the exception of the characters I created. Enjoy! :)

Once they had arrived at King's Cross, each clutching their cart, had started running to the platform. Fred, George, Hermione, Ginny, and Ron had all gone already, and only Harry was left.

Just as he looked forward and started to pace towards the brick wall, his eyes found their way back to a familiar head of waves.

"Your father would be proud, Malena." A woman, who Harry assumed to be Malena's mother, sighed as she hugged Malena tightly.

"Sí, Mamá. Te amo." Malena clenched her eyes, holding back tears, muttering other Spanish words at her mother. "I need to go or I'll be late."

Her mother patted her shoulders and gave her daughter a small smile, before letting Malena turn her cart around, now facing Harry.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" She said lowly, gesturing towards the platform.

"Oh, right, sorry." Harry murmured, passing through the platform and quickly boarding the train, undoing his trunk and covering Hedwig's cage with his robes.

He took a seat alone, waiting for Hermione and Ron to come back from chatting with Neville about the World Cup.

Malena sauntered through the narrow hallway, but stopped as she saw the nearly empty compartment with only Harry inside.

"Are these seats taken?" She asked, subconsciously biting an edge of her bottom lip.

"Um, Hermione and Ron are coming over soon, but there's space for one more person."

Malena nodded and took the seat across from his, next to the window. "I know I'm not exactly welcome, but all the others are taken." She shook her head, grabbing a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans from her bag.

"What makes you say that?" Harry asked, crinkling his eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes, chewing down a cinnamon flavored bean. "Don't play dumb, Potter."

"Well, we've never had any good experiences with Slytherins. Neither have the rest of the houses, really. You've all earned quite the reputation." Harry chuckled lowly.

Malena's expression changed completely, as if she had been caught unaware. "With all the glorified crap that's been spread by the press idolizing you as a modest hero, I wouldn't have taken you as presumptuous." Malena glared at Harry, wiping the grin off his face.

"Assuming you know me based on what the press says makes you just as presumptuous." Harry shrugged, hiding his hands in his pockets.

"Pardon?" Malena scowled, twisting the plasting bag's top so the beans wouldn't scatter out while inside her bag. "You and the rest of the Weasleys basically cowered at the sound of 'Slytherin'. Without even knowing me!" She snarled. Harry noticed how her brown orbs became darker as she got angrier, and how her tongue twisted and turned in her mouth, spitting every word like a dagger.

"You don't know us either." Harry responded quickly, clenching his fists under the jean fabric.

"Well, if you could assume, then so can I. You're a judgmental git."

"Hah, really?" Harry's laugh was obviously cynical and he simply turned his face towards the window, watching the landscape.

Malena breathed deeply, annoyed, and rested her head against the window's frame, hoping to fall asleep, but before her eyelids had closed completely, she heard footsteps approaching the compartment.

"There you are!" Hermione smiled widely. "Hello," she chimed at Malena.

"Hi." Malena forced a small smile at Hermione, reminding herself Hermione had nothing to do with her recent row with Harry.

Ron, on the other hand, tensed the second he acknowledged Malena, but Hermione quickly elbowed him, making Ron scrunch up his lips and raise his eyebrows at Malena.

The rest of the train ride was awkward. Hermione kept trying to make small talk, but Malena excused herself for a nap and asked Hermione to wake her when they were near.

After Malena felt Hermione's fingers tapping on her shoulder, she shook her head and walked out of her compartment to reach for her robes in the back.

"Why was she here?" Ron asked as soon as he heard her footsteps fade until they were no longer heard over the loud chatter among the rest of the students.

"There were no other available spaces." Harry replied, dully.

"What's up with you? Both of you?" Hermione frowned.

"She called me a judgmental git." Harry grimaced dryly.

"Well with how you've both been behaving, I only assumed anyone with two fingers in front of them would have noticed by now! You're both ridiculous!" Hermione's tone sounded stern and her eyebrows furrowed in disapproval.

"But Hermione, she's got to have some evil in her, God knows how bad she reall-" Ron was quickly interrupted by Hermione.

"Ronald Weasley, she just lost her father!" Hermione stressed, dropping her fists on her thighs. "And she thinks it was her fault! You've got to have at least a bit of empathy!"

"Hermi-"

"That's enough." All of their heads looked over to the open compartment door where Malena stood, already decked in her Slytherin uniform and holding a cage with a hooting, brown barn owl. "It's pretty obvious I'm not wanted here and although I appreciate you trying, Granger, it seems some people have assumed they already know it all, when in reality, they know nothing. Now, if you'd excuse me and get your inflated heads out of your arses, I'll be leaving." She never raised her tone, but her words managed to sting them nonetheless before she calmly shut the door and turned on her heel towards the narrow hallway.

"I guess you deserved that." Hermione muttered, a small smirk curling on her lips as she watched Ron swallow his pride and Harry stare at his shoe's laces.

Once the first years had been sorted and the feast began, Harry's eyes had kept going back to the Slytherin table, where Malena was seated. She had looked better now than before. She had more color and her eyes seemed less dark, but still, as she stared blankly at the food around her, he noticed the idea of her father's death had yet to dawn over her.