Hence, it was with extremely contrasting thoughts and emotions that Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy reached King's Cross a few days later on September the first.

Draco had never felt more inferior to everyone else before. He'd never really gained true respect at Hogwarts since year one, and the little reputation he had left of being a pureblood and having a very well-connected father had been stripped off him since last year. He had become a person hated by all the students in general, except the few Slytherins in the same situation. But the one thing he had never thought could be risked by any possible factor in his life was his wealth. He had mocked other people for being poor and not being able to buy all the luxuries he could afford, countless times. Now he had been reduced to nothing less than a pauper if nothing more; he had to depend upon a pouch of Galleons for money. Though no one around him knew it, Draco felt lower than anyone else.

As for Hermione, she was resting at a high of emotions which was the polar opposite of what Draco was feeling. She felt particularly content; seeing friends, little children saying their goodbyes to their parents, the chatter and bustle - everything around her gave her a sense of normalcy and security. She loved everything on the platform and finally thought that her decision to come along to Hogwarts was a decision well taken. Also, the Head Girl badge in her pocket waiting to be pinned to her robes once she changed made her more thrilled than she could say. It was her dream come true, after all. A dream she'd had since day one at Hogwarts.

"Hey, Hermione!" she heard a female voice say behind her. She spun around and saw the Patil twins beaming at her. "Oh, hi, Parvati, Padma!" Hermione greeted cheerfully, giving them each a hug. Harry and Ron were greeting Dean and Seamus enthusiastically. Oh, it felt good to be among friends again.

***

Aboard the Hogwarts Express in a compartment with Harry, Ron, Neville, Ginny, and Luna, Hermione felt at peace with the world. Sure, the compartment felt crowded, but they were all laughing too hard to notice that. Even Luna had put down her Quibbler and had joined in the fun. Hermione and Ron didn't feel like patrolling the train as a part of Prefect duty; they couldn't see any other Prefect doing the same, anyway, and Hermione rather thought that McGonagall had allowed the rowdiness just to let it be.

Ginny cracked a particularly good joke and everyone, including Hermione, roared with laughter.

But then, she suddenly felt a mad urge to leap out and strangle Neville, who was laughing the loudest. For a moment, blood rushed into her ears and her insides roared with inexplicable fury. Almost immediately afterwards, she felt a sharp stab of pain in her left arm. She gasped abruptly, and everyone's heads turned toward her. "What happened, 'Mione?" Ron asked. "Feeling okay?"

"Um, yeah - I'm - " Hermione broke off again as she felt yet another blast of pain. She mumbled quickly, "Guys, I'll be back - er - bathroom," and sped out of the compartment.

She almost ran to the bathroom, feeling the pain in her arm get more and more intense. She had no clue as to what was happening; she had never felt such pain out of the blue before. However, it did remind her of something... that night in Malfoy Manor...

Hermione reached the bathroom, shut the door, gasped out, "Muffliato," and then pulled up her sleeve. Now she knew why the pain reminded her of that particular incident.

It was as if someone was dragging a blade through the already-carved letters of her 'Mudblood' scar, drawing a liberal volume of blood. Hermione almost screamed as the invisible blade went over the curve of the letter 'u', tears finding their way down her cheeks. There was nothing she could think of - the pain was blinding. She felt like the blade was not going too deep, just going over the word as if to prevent it from fading. Hermione's knees gave way as the blade reached the 'b'. She couldn't think straight anymore. She felt like she could chop her arm away. It had been quite some time since their expedition and she had lost the strength to bear such pain.

And as suddenly it had started, it stopped. Hermione was left gasping on the floor, her scar covered in blood, copious amounts dripping down on the floor. Slowly, very slowly, she got up and put her hand under the cold running water. She sighed in relief as the cold water eased the stinging and washed away the blood. Drying her hand, she scourgified the blood that had dripped on the floor. Looking at her arm, she saw that the scar looked darker than earlier, and the area seemed raw. Pulling down her sleeve to cover the scar, Hermione took a deep breath and headed back for their compartment, deciding that she couldn't tell anyone just yet.

***

Draco sat in a separate compartment with his only remaining friends: Pansy, Blaise, Theodore, and Goyle - friends he could trust because they had been in the same hell as him, and the five could share things no one else would understand.

 The sky was getting darker rapidly and none of the little group was speaking. All of them were just staring into blank space. And what could they have talked about? About how their holidays had been?

Presently they realized that they could not be far from Hogwarts as the sky was now almost pitch-black and the first stars were beginning to show, and the landscape was composed entirely of vast stretches of fields, though it was too dark to see clearly. Pansy broke the utter silence of the compartment with a short statement, voice hoarse from hours of silence, "I'm going to change." She took her robes and went out of the compartment.

Hearing this, the boys stood up too, and changed into their school robes. After a little hesitation, Draco fished around in his pocket for the object that he'd hidden away from everyone else for so long. Oh, come on, Draco thought, who are you lying to? You were hiding it from your own eyes because you know you don't deserve it in hell.

He took out a silver gleaming badge with the Hogwarts crest and with the words 'HEAD BOY' written in green.

Blaise, Theodore, and Goyle gaped. They had a lot of reasons to.

"You're Head Boy?" Blaise asked, his eyes wide with disbelief. "You're Head Boy?"

Draco nodded slowly, his eyes never quite meeting theirs.

Theodore smiled widely, went to him, and smacked him on the head.

"OW!"

"You idiot, you prat, you never told us!" Theodore held Draco by the shoulders, then hugged him, grinning. "We're friends of the Head Boy now!"

Pansy chose that moment to enter, and her face plainly showed that she felt bewildered. "What on earth?"

"Pansy, do you remember Draco telling us he'd been made Head Boy?" Goyle asked, grinning just as wide.

"Draco's been made what?" Pansy exclaimed, stood for a moment, then hugged Draco hard as well. "Congratulations!"

Draco couldn't bear it anymore. He held Pansy's arms and put them away from him, not quite as gently as he'd wanted, and said in a low voice, "Please, can we not talk about this?"

"Excuse me?" Blaise said incredulously. "Come on, Draco, this is something! One doesn't hear that their best mate's Head Student every day!"

Draco sighed. "See, you guys don't understand..."

"What do you mean? Don't you want to be Head Boy?" Goyle asked, blinking his eyes stupidly.

This set Draco off.

"Of course, I want to be Head Boy! I've dreamed of being a Head ever since I first heard about Hogwarts! I've dreamed of having this little badge on my robes since before I turned two! It's always been my ambition, my goal, to get the badge and make my father proud. Of course, what I didn't know was that a horrid black tattoo would be burned onto my arm by a tyrant I hated, nor that there wouldn't be much of a father to impress!"

Draco paused, breathing heavily, suddenly feeling exhausted. He didn't want to appear weak and nagged himself for letting those words slip. He leveled his voice, or at least tried to.

"We are not like the others," he spoke in a low voice. "We're enemies of the school and slaves of the damned Dark Lord, and that is not going to change even though he's dead. What we showed was plain cowardice. No, don't say anything, Pansy, you know we could have opposed them. You know the better choice was to die fighting against the Dark Lord than live on his side. We all had a choice. But we were cowards. We didn't dare. And that is precisely what makes me unfit and undeserving of this grand title of Head Boy. And I'm going to return this badge to McGonagall tonight."

There was a long silence. All his friends were looking down at their shoes and no one dared speak.

Finally, after several uncomfortable minutes, Theodore said quietly, "We're sorry, mate. We really are. You go ahead and do what makes you happy. We're always with you."

As Draco saw the turrets and towers of Hogwarts approaching, he felt that the Golden Trio's friendship was famous for nothing. His own friends would never leave his side; he felt sure of it.