Harry checked his trunk one last time, making sure he had everything he needed. Parchment, Quills, all the boring stuff were there, although he could probably replace them, but also The Marauders Map, his Invisibility Cloak and also his Firebolt which somehow managed to survive the war. Those were his prized, irreplaceable possessions. As a last minute addition, he threw in the veela books he had borrowed from Hermione. Perfect. Oh, he had almost forgotten about the one final thing to do before he left. He had found out that to retract your wings, you had to be calm, and will them in. Apparently when the book described submissive veela instincts as "flight" responses, that was literal, so when he was feeling particularly distressed his wings would emerge. He took a few deep breaths. Casting his mind to events that made him feel calm, he settled on Quidditch. He always felt at peace when zooming around the skies on his firebolt, and the quidditch stadium was his happy place, his memories of quidditch untainted by war and bloodshed. When he felt his wings retract into his back, he sighed. It was slightly uncomfortable to have his wings retracted. It was hard to explain, but it was like his back was being squashed by an overly heavy rucksack or something. Oh well. He would just have to get used to it, if he didn't want the whole wizarding world to find out. "See you, Big D!" Harry yelled into the depths of the house. "See ya Harry!" Dudley yelled back, from… somewhere in the admittedly rather large house. With everything sorted, and his trunk and Hedwig's cage in his hands, Harry apparated directly to platform 9¾ . He had passed his apparition test last month, after getting lots of practice from the war, and although the sensation of apparating was unpleasant, it was efficient and helped him avoid journalists and "fans". He did not want his new predicament all over the Daily Prophet. Harry stepped on board the scarlet Hogwarts Express, and started walking up through the corridor of the train, checking the compartments as he went. He wanted to find his friends quickly, because there was a lot of pointing from the nearby compartments and the platform, either combined with excited whispering or confused muttering. Or both. At literally the end of the train, Harry found the right compartment. Inside was Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny and Luna. He slid open the door and entered the compartment, lugging his trunk behind him. Ginny was whispering something into Luna's ear as he passed them, their fingers intertwined. Hermione and Ron were talking about something or other, and Neville was reading a thick book, probably about some kind of plant. Harry turned, and reached up to put his trunk in the overhead luggage storage, but frowned. He wasn't going to be able to reach. He sighed, and made to clamber onto the seats, but Ron grabbed it out of Harry's hands and stowed it on the shelving for his friend. "Bit too short now, aren't you Harry?" Ron asked jokingly. Harry rolled his eyes at his friend, and stuck his tongue out at him, childishly. So far, nobody else had really looked at him, and Harry was slightly nervous. How would they react? Would they notice? Ok that was a stupid question of course they would notice. Neville looked up at Harry first, and smiled briefly. "Oh hi Harry!" He said in a friendly way, as if nothing about him was amiss. When Neville said this, Ginny and Luna looked up as well. Ginny's eyes widened, her eyebrows raising in confusion as she looked at her ex, and all the visible changed that had occured. Luna simply got up and hugged Harry briefly, with her usual "Hi Harry," Before drifting off to re-join her girlfriend. Harry let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding in relief that none of them had said anything, or made it particularly awkward. Yet. ~oOo~ Draco Malfoy strutted onto the train as if he didn't have a care in the world. He revelled in the attention as students from the other carriage turned to glare at him, the ex death eater and scum of the earth in their eyes, before their eyes widened in shock and they gave him an awkward, dazed sort of smile. Draco Malfoy had this effect on people now. He had gained the veela allure and his father had taught him how to use it to the best effect, and he felt great. His wings were glamoured, hidden from the sight of anyone else using an illusion spell engineered towards veela, but he was aware of them, and they made him feel powerful. His good day was made all the better when Ernie Macmillan from Hufflepuff actually stepped out of his compartment, seemingly to confront him. Draco simply turned up the wattage of his allure and the boy just stuttered "Di-did you know that I found a way to reverse death?" Malfoy smiled cruelly. "Did you? That's nice. Why don't you go back to your compartment and tell all your friends about your enormous crush on me?" The boy simply nodded dumbly in response, gave him a hopeful smile, and walked back into the train compartment. Draco sighed. He had a submissive somewhere, and Draco hoped that he was on this train, although the chances were slim. It would be a boy of course, Draco had never really liked girls, especially Parkinson. She helped him keep up appearances, but that was all. If he was on the train, he would be an eighth year, as his 19th birthday occurred slightly after Draco's. Knowing his luck, though, it would be a Hufflepuff, or worse, a Gryffindor. He entered an empty compartment and waited for his friends to find him. ~oOo~ A few hours later, Harry excused himself to use the toilet. He wouldn't usually go alone, because he didn't want to be intercepted by a gaggle of fangirls, but he really did need to go, and it would seem stupid to ask someone to go with him. He exited his compartment and made his way down the train. He was literally at the opposite end to where the toilets were, unfortunately enough for him. He dodged a scary looking Romilda Vane, stepped around a gaggle of third year girls, some of whom were taller than him, to Harry's annoyance, and finally made it to the toilets. It was on the return journey that things went wrong. He was making his way back up the train, when a door slid open, and Harry accidentally crashed into the person in his haste to return to his friends. Harry immediately stepped away, to start apologising, before he looked up, and up a bit more, and saw that it was none other than Draco Malfoy. ~oOo~ Draco's friends had found him of course, and they were all chatting and gossiping happily, pretending that the rest of the school didn't hate them. It was a classic pureblood strategy, to avoid the issue and hope it wouldn't present a problem, even though they all knew that it eventually would. At one point, however, Draco got hungry, and decided to see if he could find the trolley witch and get something to eat. He had always had a sweet tooth, but now his sugar cravings seemed even bigger than they were before, and he was hungry. As he exited the compartment, a small figure with jet black hair bumped into him. The figure stepped away quickly, and looked up at him, craning his neck, mouth half open in an apology. It was… Potter? Draco could have sworn Potter wasn't that short. Shorter than him, but not that short. Had he really grown enough that he reduced Potter to a midget? ~oOo~ Harry looked at Draco, who looked different. He was so tall! And there was something different about him, though he couldn't pinpoint what it was. Lots of people looked different to him now, with his new eyesight, but he thought there really was something different about him. Malfoy was looking back at him with an expression that matched Harry's own, although that quickly switched to anger. "Watch it Potter!" The blond boy spat , maliciously. "Surely with four eyes you should be able to see well enough not to bump into people?" Shit. Harry could actually see perfectly well with his glasses on – even better actually, with all of this veela stuff. It was just – well… It was just that Draco was so much bigger than him now, and he was definitely threatening, and something told Harry that he really shouldn't say anything back, and, while the human part of him really did want to stay and fight Malfoy, the veela side wanted nothing more than to run away. So he did. With one panicked glance at Malfoy, Harry fled, almost sprinting back down to his compartment. Even worse he could feel his distress affecting his wings, and his back was twisting as his wings fought desperately to break free. No! Harry reached the compartment door and flung it open, darting inside and slamming it shut as quickly as possible. Then, he hissed in shock and discomfort as his wings erupted from his back, ripping through his t-shirt and jumper. Great. Ginny and Neville both gasped as Harry's black fucking demon wings unfurled from his back. Hermione was looking intrigued, as if Harry was a particularly interesting science project, which made harry slightly uncomfortable honestly, Ron looked slightly exasperated, and Luna just looked serene as ever. "What happened mate?" Asked Ron in concern. "I ran into Malfoy, bearing in mind that he's like, over six foot and he started on me, and I blame my instincts, but I fucking legged it. He must think I'm a nutter." "He already thinks you're a nutter mate." Ron told him in what was obviously intended to be a comforting tone. "Plus who cares? It's only Malfoy." Meanwhile, Ginny was spluttering in confusion. Harry sighed. He had a lot of explaining to do.
