Chapter 1

She's Leaving On a Train

Don't When She'll be Back Again

"You're kidding me, right?" Chris Rodriguez asked, incredulity lacing itself into his words. "You're actually trying to frizz your hair? What ever happened to, 'I can't go outside until I tame my hair because it's way too frizzy'?"

11 year old Arizona Veltra rolled her eyes. "I have a quest. This is part of it."

"How?" Chris asked. "It's hair!"

"Let's just say it's part of my cover," Arizona shrugged. "I was told to do this, Chris."

"You got your blue streak removed," Chris frowned. "I thought you said you would never get it removed because it was a 'part of your very first prank and it made you who you are.'"

"Like I said, it's part of the quest." That didn't stop Arizona from looking dejected, eyeing her hair like it was the bane of her existence.

"You're not even going to wear your bright pink lipstick?" Chris inquired. He knew how much it meant to her. Everyone at camp thought it was a stupid quirk, but Arizona had quite the happy childhood and she wanted to remember it. The lipstick had been her older sister's before she died. Arizona had had the Aphrodite cabin preserve it so that it would never run out.

Arizona shrugged. "It's all a part of the quest. And you know how hard it is to get one of those ever since Luke failed his two years ago."

"You're going to throw yourself away because of a stupid quest?" Chris was now trying to desperately not shout. The daughter of Hermes was just like his sister (on a totally unrelated note, Chris was furious that his father would not claim him), and she was pretty much losing herself.

"It's necessary," Arizona smiled wanly. Everything Chris was telling her was starting to sink in. "Don't worry. Next summer, I'll be back to normal."

Arizona was nervous.

It wasn't because she was going to be the new kid on the block, the one who didn't know anything about the wizarding world. No, in fact, she was confident that she knew much more than any of the other muggleborns.

No, Arizona was nervous because she was going to be playing a character. And she was going to have to stay that character until Christmas break. It was like some sick, twisted form of method acting.

Did she mention that she hated actors?

Arizona-no, Hermione looked up. (This acting was going to take some getting used to to!) There he was. Harry Potter. The boy-who-lived. He was scrawny, with emerald green eyes and scruffy black hair. There was a certain light in his eyes... Oh gods, was he being abused?

Arizo-Hermione mentally added another character trait in her mind. Hermione Jean Granger was compassionate. To anyone or anything she came across.

Harry Potter was surrounded by a family of redheads. A little girl was staring up at him in wonder. He was her hero. They're going to fall in love someday. There was another one, about his age. Those two are going to become best friends someday.

"Arizona?" Hermione-Arizona-whoever she was looked up at the warm blue eyes of her mother Jane Veltra-Granger and the friendly brown eyes of her stepfather. "Good luck."

"We're proud of you, sweetheart," her stepfather said.

She was encased by her family in a warm hug before they pulled away. "Get good grades!" Jane called as Hermione walked through the barrier.

"Like I have a choice!" Hermione called back laughing.

The sensation was strange. Lugging her trunk through a brick wall. It sent shudder through he spine. The barrier was unnatural. The barrier was magic. And not the familiar kind of magic that made delighted shivers tremor through her. It was-for lack of a better description-wizard magic.

Hermione yanked at the handle, wondering why she was instructed to pack so many books (she was dyslexic, for gods' sakes!). Unfortunately, the glorified box refused to move. The handle broke, and Hermione felt herself lunging at a poor blond-haired and silver-eyed boy.

"Ow!" the boy cried, finding himself under an admittedly heavy girl in the middle of a train station.

Much to Hermione's disgust, the man who seemed to be the boy's father was simply looking at them in distaste instead of trying to help them. The bystanders watched the whole exchange, laughing.

"Sorry," Hermione apologized profusely, her face turning beet red at all of the attention. "Let me help you up." She stuck out her hand, watching his reaction curiously. He seemed to stare at the hand before grabbing it.

"Thanks," the boy muttered, pulling himself up.

"Sorry," Hermione apologized.

"You said that already."

"I'm just really sorry," Hermione explained, blushing. "My trunk wouldn't budge and just... Sorry. I'm Ari-Hermione Granger."

She stuck out her hand. This time, instead of wasting all of that time staring at it, the boy took it immediately and shook it firmly.

"Draco Malfoy," the boy introduced himself. His eyes flicked over to his father, who was staring at him grumpily. "So, are you a half-blood or a pureblood?"

"Half-Muggleborn," Hermione replied, stammering a bit.

"Half-muggleborn?" Draco arched an eyebrow, looking amused.

"Not a half-blood," Hermione amended. "I'm a muggleborn."

Draco bit his lip, his eyes flicking over to his father.

"I read that there is a bit of-so to speak-racism from purebloods when it comes to muggleborns," Hermione said, getting into character. "So I assume you're a pureblood?"

"Yes, I am," Draco said. "Don't tell anyone this, but I honestly don't care about the whole blood thing. However, I will have to act as though I hate you for the rest of the year. I apologize in advance."

"Proud pureblood father?" Hermione bit her lip to keep from smiling.

"The worst," Draco said. "You're smart for a muggleborn."

"You're kind for a pureblood," Hermione retorted, offering him a small smile. "I swear I will never repeat anything from this conversation unless granted permission, Malfoy."

Draco nodded at her, seemingly trying to suppress his smile, before walking to his annoyed-looking father.

Hermione stared at the pair. She had already changed into her Hogwarts robes, getting into character. Now, all she needed to do was find out how to gain Harry Potter's trust. That redhead and Harry Potter talking to each other and acting like best friends in their train compartment. They didn't even notice that the entrance was peeking open. She was mulling over ways to talk to them when Draco snuck up behind her.

"Just go talk to them," he said.

Hermione yelped, spinning around and picking him up by the collar on instinct.

"Man, you're strong," Draco grunted.

Hermione's cheeks reddened. "Sorry, Draco. Reflex." She shrugged like, What can you do? Before putting him back down.

"Interesting reflex," Draco said. "As I was saying, you should go talk to them. Befriend them. The Weaslye's, that redhead's family, are good people. And Harry Potter. You can go home and tell your parents you made friends with a celebrity."

Hermione chuckled. "Just go up and talk to them? Making friends is that easy? Back at home it was easy to make acquaintances, but friends? Half of my potential friends tried to beat me up."

Hermione's face heated up when she saw that Draco was staring at her.

"What?"

"You're just interesting, Granger," Draco smiled. "Just go talk to them."

With that, he walked off. Hermione couldn't help but roll her eyes. Boys were confusing whether they were wizards, demigods, or not.

Inhaling deeply, Hermione walked over to the two boys only to be intercepted by a round-faced boy.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Neville. Have you seen my toad?"

Hermione gave the boy a wan smile. "I'm Hermione. And no. I haven't seen any loose toads. I have seen a couple with their owners, though, but that obviously won't help."

"Can you help me look?" Neville prodded.

Hermione mulled over her choices. If Harry decided to become friends with this bloke (not even a day and she was going native), she would have to be in his good books.

"Of course," Hermione decided. "Why don't we go in that compartment?" She pointed to Harry and the Weasley's train compartment.

"But I already asked them five minutes ago," Neville said.

"A lot can happen in five minutes," Hermione replied with a near-desperate undertone.

"I suppose you're right," Neville caved.

Hermione slid open the train compartment door completely revealing the redhead with his wand out, a unicorn's hair glinting out.

(A/N: The following dialogue in italics is taken directly out of J.K. Rowling's book. I do not own them.)

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," Hermione asked, feeling overly bossy and rude. She knew the Mist was doing its work because the pair of boys were looking at her in a bit of contempt.

"We've already told him we haven't seen it," Weasley said looking disgruntled. The word 'leave' was clear on his face.

Hermione stared at the wand in his hand. She had performed a bit of magic when she had met up with a descendant of Hecate (Ollivander, she recalled his name) and found her wand, but seeing an actual spell from a pureblood? (Albeit, a pureblood labeled a blood traitor, but a pureblood nonetheless.) Never.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it then," Hermione said.

Weasley looked aghast, a little embarrassed, and maybe a little bit proud. But mostly embarrassed. The redhead coughed to clear his throat.

"Er-all right.

"Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow

Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow."

He waved his worn-out wand, but nothing happened. Hermione resisted the urge to laugh at him.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" Hermione asked. "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice-"

Very simple indeed. Like opening locked doors (which is a daughter of Hermes perk) and light the tip of her wand.

"-And they've all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all,"

Yeah right.

"It was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard-I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough-I'm Hermione Granger by the way."

Hermione felt very stupid and annoyingly smart (which is contradictory, but who cares?) and obsessive and just about everything she wasn't.

"I'm Ron Weasley," the redhead muttered. Great, he didn't like her. Though, how could he with the way she was acting? She wished that this was as easy as talking to Draco.

"Harry Potter," Harry said. Like she didn't know.

"Are you really?" Hermione felt her eyes widen as she acted like the little, bushy-haired nerd she was told to be. "I know all about you, of course-I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twenty-First century." (A/N: I tweaked the last title to make the Percy Jackson series and Harry Potter series happen during the same time period.)

"Am I?" Harry asked, looking a bit nauseous.

"Goodness, didn't you know, I would've found out everything I could if it were me," Hermione said, actually feeling shocked this time around. "Do either of you know which house you'll be in? I've been asking around and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best;"

Lies. She really wanted to go to Slytherin. Because of not only Draco, but because it appealed to her the most.

"I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad..."

No. It would be awful.

"Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."

With that, Hermione turned a heel and left, followed closely by Neville.

"Maybe we can ask around a bit more, Hermione," Neville suggested.

"You can go do that, Neville," Hermione said. "I'm feeling a bit nauseous all of a sudden from all of the moving around this train has done."

"Okay," Neville said, not even noticing Hermione's bad acting. He turned around to go ask another compartment.

Frowning deeply at her failure to befriend Harry and Ron, Hermione walked over to another compartment and collapsed into a chair.

"You didn't hit it off with Potter and Weasley?"

Hermione was coming to love that voice.

"I blew it."

"Why don't you make friends with other people?" Draco asked.

"You don't understand, I need to be friends with Harry and whoever he's friend with," Hermione said. Her voice was muffled because her head was buried in her knees, which were pulled up to her chest.

"Enlighten me," Draco said.

Hermione lifted up her head and stared straight into Draco's eyes.

"One day."

"And what does that mean?" Draco inquired, a smirk tugging at his lips.

"It means that I am going to leave now and try again," Hermione replied easily, standing up with Draco mimicking her.

"I'm going to make them hate me so they don't get mixed up with the wrong crowd," Draco explained, shrugging.

"And you let me get mixed in with the wrong crowd?" Hermione scoffed.

Draco bumped her shoulder with his. "Just until the train stops. And if you still like me, then we can be friends. But not in public."

"Ashamed of me already, Malfoy?" Hermione teased.

"No, of course not," Draco said seriously. "I'm afraid of what my father would do. Honestly!" He added when he saw Hermione's incredulous look.

"Fine," Hermione pouted, falling back into her seat. "Only take a few minutes though. Because we can apparently not be seen together in public.

A few minutes later, Hermione was walking briskly over to the compartment. She rolled her eyes as she saw the other students running up and down the corridors very childishly and had to suppress a laugh when Draco came stumbling out and winked at her.

I'm with a pair of mindless, idiot clones, he mouthed.

Hermione stared straight on, smiling internally at Draco.

"What has been going on?" Hermione exclaimed.

"I think he's been knocked out," Ron ignored the brunette. Hermione crossed her arms, huffing, as the two of them continued to chat as if she wasn't there.

When they finally turned to her, she dug her heels deeper into the land of 'this girl is really annoying and I don't want to be friends with her' in both Ron and Harry's books. She turned a heel, yet again, to go back to her compartment.

"Again?" Draco raised an eyebrow.

"Making friends is hard," Hermione groaned.

I updated this because I was re-reading HP and I realized how inaccurate this was. So... Here you go.