Unnoticed

Another Year

"Well you could have made that one a little more obvious Theo!" I laughed after getting onto Platform 9 3/4 , pushing my cart in front of me. Theo had performed a wild dance into the platform, leaving a couple Muggles who had caught notice of him very confused when he vanished—and making it harder for me to get through, since I definitely couldn't let any Muggles see two people disappear. I wouldn't want to cause unnecessary attention to be drawn to the platform entrance, which Theo knew. He did it with the sole purpose of annoying me.

"You're welcome for the show," he replied, with a smirk and a bow. "Now let's go get a compartment."

I rolled my eyes and followed him onto the train. I had said goodbye to my mom before getting on the platform, and Theo's dad didn't even come, so we had nothing else to do.

"Theo!" I heard someone yell as we walked through the corridor. I turned around and Malfoy was beckoning us to his compartment. I gave Theo a look.

"Go," he told me, ignoring my silent plea to sit somewhere else. He knew I wasn't going to get a compartment on my own. Sometimes some of my other friends sat with us in a compartment, but they all had boyfriends in other houses this year, so they were sitting with them. I turned and trudged into the compartment Malfoy was in, and selected the seat closest to the door.

"So," Malfoy started once the train started moving, "have you guys heard?"

"Heard what?" I asked.

"About the tournament?"

I shot a confused glance his way.

"The Triwizard Tournament. Durmstrang and Beauxbatons are coming to Hogwarts in a little to compete in it against us. My father heard about it, the Minister told him. Strictly speaking we aren't supposed to know until the feast tonight."

"Doesn't Victor Krum go to Durmstrang?" Theo asked. He was sitting next to me, with Goyle on the other side. Malfoy, Parkinson, and Crabbe sat across from us.

"Yeah," Malfoy answered, "Father actually considered sending me to Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts, you know. He knows the headmaster, you see. Well, you know his opinion of Dumbledore—the man's such a Mudblood-lover—and Durmstrang doesn't admit that sort of riffraff-"

"I'm going to the bathroom," I told Theo, standing up and interrupting Malfoy. I just hated when he started ranting about Muggles and Muggle-borns, since my mom was a Muggle and I was practically Muggle-born. I walked out of the compartment, making the decision to sit somewhere else for the ride to Hogwarts.

I roamed up and down the aisles, but the only other compartment with room held none other than the Golden Trio- Potter, Weasley, and Granger. I figured sitting with them would be better than listening to Malfoy moan about Muggles, so I conjured a book from my bag (which sadly was still in the other compartment), then entered their compartment. They all looked up when I opened the door.

"I'm going to sit in here if you don't mind—just gonna read. I was sitting with some Slytherins, but-"

"Say no more, you're welcome to sit," Granger said, gesturing to the empty seat next to her. I shot her a smile and sat down, pulling my feet up under me and opening my book.

"Are you trying to become an Animungus?" Granger asked, seeing the title of my book was about Animungi. I decided to have some fun.

"Nosy, much?" I asked, squawking a bit—I had turned into a parrot. I discovered over the summer that one, I could transform whenever without getting in trouble for using underage magic, and two, when I was a parrot I could still talk in short phrases.