Harry Potter boarded the train, thanking the woman and her sizeable family for helping him and dashing up the steps. He took the first empty compartment he found and waved at them out the window.
A few minutes later, in stepped Ron Weasley, the boy from the platform. He found himself smiling.
"G- Hello," he said politely, quickly remembering to speak English. He'd almost spoken Gobbledegook instead.
"Any chance I could sit in here? The rest of the train is full," The boy inquired hopefully. Harry nodded, and the boy closed the door behind him and sat down.
"You're Ron, right?" Harry asked, recalling what the woman on the platform had said to the boy. "I'm Harry, it's nice to meet you."
Galldaxe had instructed him not to reveal his last name - any of them - unless absolutely necessary.
"Yeah, that's me!" Ron nodded happily. "You're the guy from the platform! Where were your parents?"
Harry sighed. "I'd... well, it's... a touchy subject," he admitted. "not really a fun one."
Ron gained a sad look. "Oh. Sorry."
"Not a problem," Harry was quick to reply. "I expect a lot of people will be asking me that. May as well get used to it now." He still remembered the day Galldaxe had explained in detail what had happened.
Harry had met Galldaxe again in Gringotts, where the Goblins quickly became enamoured with him. With Galldaxe's introduction and a re-test for his bloodlines, he'd been given the chance he needed to get into the tight group the goblins made of themselves. They were perfectly willing to work him through his vaults, leaving a confused Hagrid to wait it out on the first floor and inform Harry how Gobbledegook wasn't exactly a standard language.
There was a rickety sound, and Harry's eyes looked up to see a woman with a trolley filled with sweets he'd never seen before. "Anything off the trolley, dears?" She asked sweetly.
Harry glanced at Ron's sandwich, which honestly looked better than anything he'd eaten, and to the tantalizing sweets which had fully captured Ron's attention.
"We'll take a bit of everything," he decided, pulling a few galleons out of his pocket. He waved Ron to the trolley to take his pick, and once Ron picked his jaw up off the floor he got everything worth getting.
Harry grinned at his Dumbledore card, reading and re-reading the information on it. It was like a treasure trove; knowledge and sweets in the same place. It was definitely Harry's favourite.
"I got about six o' him," Ron boasted in between nibbling on his Bertie Bott's carefully. "He's the headmaster o' Hogwarts. I bet we'll see him at the sorting."
Harry nodded, taking in the information. He was really hoping to see this man.
He glanced down at the card and hummed. Dumbledore was gone, just like how that picture of Galldaxe's grandson moved and rushed around.
He heard a prim 'ahem' from the door, and glancing up, saw a bushy-haired girl who peered in disapprovingly and asked, "Have either of you seen a toad? Neville's lost one."
Ron shook his head through his food and Harry replied, "Sorry, I haven't. Want me to help find it?"
"Sure, thanks," She responded, moving away to let Harry through after he assured Ron that he'd be right back. Pulling out his wand, he focused on what he wanted to do.
Turning around, he caught sight of a boy following Hermione closely. Smiling, he asked, "You're Neville, right? Tell me about Trevor, I'll see what I can do." Neville nodded and quickly began describing the lost toad, which Harry quickly got a visual image of.
"Right," he nodded, then gently lowered his wand like a divining rod. Focusing on the search, he willed it to glow in different colours depending on proximity. His silent magic had worked much, much better now that he had a wand.
It glowed blue, but slowly transitioned through the rainbow until it hit red. Grinning, Harry began to follow it down the aisles until they reached one of the booths.
"In here," Harry said firmly, dousing his wand's spell and knocking. A curt "Come in!" resounded from inside, and Harry opened the door.
Inside were three boys, two of which were large and overbearing, but had an incredibly Dudley-esque appearance - in Harry's book, two fools. The other was obviously a stuck-up boy, from the looks of it; everything pointed to a spoiled upbringing, from his combed hair to his peering down his nose. It was so Dudley that Harry spotted it immediately.
"Sorry for intruding, but there's a toad nearby that belongs to another student," Harry informed them, "in this compartment. If you'd please stand up for a moment, we'll get it out." The blonde, obviously disgusted, hopped to his feet, while the other two followed his lead.
Harry repeated the searching spell and found it hiding under one of the inner seats. Knowing that it would be impolite to just get to his knees and reach under, he continued on to will it out of hiding.
A few moments later, Trevor hobbled out, and Harry quickly scooped him up, passing him on to Neville, who thanked him and quickly raced out of there. Harry smiled sadly; he looked just like how Harry expected he looked before Galldaxe had found him.
"Thank you, and sorry once again for disturbing you all," he said quickly, stepping back as the students relaxed. Before he could leave, however, the blond stopped him.
"You must be Harry Potter," He announced firmly. "I'm sorry to see you associate yourself with the muggleborn, but I have no doubt it is merely a short association. You may know me as the Malfoy heir, Draco." He held out his hand.
Harry was horrified. Galldaxe had informed him on polite actions; this was ridiculous. A Malfoy had no place initiating this, and it was obvious he wanted to trick Harry into a firm friendship. Politics, the worst part of the wizarding world. Harry frowned.
"Pleasure," he hissed, barely keeping the disgust out of his tone, "but I'm afraid I must be going. I have a friend holding a compartment for me and I'd rather not keep him waiting." With that, he stormed away, smirking as he relished in the gobsmacked expression of the Malfoy heir.
He would put that boy in his place.
Hermione dashed up next to him. "He was so rude!" She fumed, wringing her fists. "Why, I-"
"Calm down, he's got pureblood manners," Harry assured her. "He'll get what's coming soon enough, with manners like that. There are enough halfbloods around that he'll have half the student body breathing down his neck by Halloween."
Hermione smiled at that. "Good," she nodded firmly, "he deserves it. But on another note... you're Harry Potter?" She continued incredulously.
Harry nodded. "But please, for the love of magic," he begged, "don't talk about it. It's going to be bad enough when they yell it out to the school at the sorting."
Hermione nodded. "Alright. Speaking of sorting..."
"Don't know anything much, but Galldaxe, friend of mine, he told me that we'd be called up one-by-one. Barely takes any time at all." Harry replied, already guessing her question. "Relax. I highly doubt they'd test us this early in the year."
They returned to Harry and Ron's compartment and said their goodbyes as the train chugged along, close to reaching Hogwarts.
The rest of the year flew by for Harry. He made sure to get average grades, as usual, and made sure to study as much as he could outside of class. He didn't want to cheat with time-turners; after all, they were illegal, but his spare time was running short, what with Ron distracting him too many times to count.
A few subtle hints, and he managed to include Ron in a few study sessions of Harry's. Under the guise of 'exploration' or 'research for getting back at Malfoy', really the boy was so stressful to be around, Harry had managed to keep up his study agenda. He liked Ron, he really did, but the boy was too lazy for his own good. He bet if Ron had had an animagus, he'd be a sloth.
Hermione was equally as troublesome for the opposite reason. She was desperate to get good grades, and only through lots of convincing was she able to let go of forcing the three of them to study their arses off. Harry had managed to calm her down, and her grades actually went up when she let herself relax a bit, which finally sealed the deal for her.
She didn't have to know that Harry studied nearly as much.
Halloween had been quite eventful, what with the troll - Harry had put up a plethora of shielding spells, and promptly instructed Ron on what spells to use to defeat the troll. It was difficult adapting, no spells he would have normally used were ones Ron knew, but with a bit of quick thinking he'd gotten Ron to drop the monster's club on its own head, after some dastardly distraction techniques from Harry.
Harry was shocked at Christmas to see he'd gotten presents. The cloak being the highlight - he'd really have to thank whomever gave it to him, and he had his suspicions about who it could be, considering the behaviour of one spectacled sock-lover - but there were other things, as well. He'd worked hard and managed to sneak some presents for Ron and Hermione, too, though he hadn't been able to get anything particularly spectacular.
Ron's present had been, much to Ron's glee, a set of anti-prank tools. Harry knew that the Weasley twins would have a hard time getting around them - it should leave Ron ready to defend himself from surprise spiders during the summer, if he kept it appropriately hidden.
Hermione, on the other hand, had been a bit easier to buy for. She appreciated muggle things more, and after a bit of debate, he got her a particularly smart study tool set. It was built to create some of the symptoms of what muggles called 'photographic memory', and she had immediately put it to use once Harry had confirmed that it was completely legal.
"I can tell you how it works, if it makes you feel better," He had offered, and she'd finally caved in after a detailed explanation and thanked him thoroughly.
Finally, the Philosopher's stone had been fought over. He was terrified, but using Hagrid's flute he had been able to get past Fluffy, and using a few of the weak calming spells he knew he'd gotten Ron to stop struggling and had worked through the Devil's Snare. The rest of the tests were a bit more of a strong point for Ron and Hermione; even Harry hadn't known much about riddles and potions, though he promised himself to study a bit over summer. He enjoyed his burning weapon supplied through his hands; he hoped to harness that sooner or later. Perhaps it was all his own ability.
Overall, as he headed home on the train, he felt better than he had ever felt in his life.
A/N: Year two next. Then it gets really interesting.