Becoming Beta

Chapter 7

Hermione Granger was not excited to begin her sixth year at Hogwarts. She hadn't recovered from the curse that Antonin Dolohov had hit her with until halfway through the summer, and was still on a potion regimen and would be until almost Halloween. Last year had been the worst year yet at Hogwarts, and it was getting harder and harder to explain to her parents what was going on. She had kept them in the dark as much as possible, but being on a potion regimen most of the summer and healing from a dark curse with no known counter-curse, had been rather difficult to explain. In the end, Professor McGonagall had told her parents that it had been an accident during exams, and that Hermione had had a worse reaction than most people do to that type of curse. A lie of course, but a necessary one if Hermione planned to continue her studies at Hogwarts. And while, she realistically knew that her survival chances were extremely poor due to being best friends with Harry Potter, she was loyal to a fault.

Hermione was on her way to King's Cross Station with her parents. They had finally come around to letting her go back to Hogwarts, so she was doing her best to not ruffle any feathers until they had arrived. She loved her parents, she really did, but she knew she belonged in the wizarding world. No way was she going to let some creepy megalomaniac take over the world she belonged in. And Harry, bless his heart, was not going to be defeating Voldemort on his own. Hermione was determined to be there each step of the way, helping Harry and ridding the wizarding world of Voldemort once and for all. Hermione was a very determined witch.

Bidding her parents goodbye at the train station, she told them she didn't need them to walk her to the platform. She knew it was uncomfortable for them to watch her disappear into a wall when they couldn't follow, being muggles. She found a trolley, and hauled her trunk with Crookshanks' cage on top and made off for Platform 9 ¾ where she stowed her trunk on the train and let Crookshanks out of his cage to roam free while she headed up to the prefects car for the first meeting of the year.

As the train pulled away from Kings Cross Station, the last prefect entered the cabin, Draco Malfoy, and the Head Girl and Boy started the meeting. Having been a prefect last year, Hermione knew the spiel already, prefects could only take points from their own house, and could only scold and recommend students for punishment to house heads of other houses. Head Boy and Girl would assign patrol times and routes. They were told that if a prefect couldn't make a patrol time, then it was their responsibility to find someone to swap with them. On and on the meeting went. The only new item this year was that patrol was to be done in pairs from different houses and years. Last year they had patrolled with their prefect pair, which meant every patrol Hermione had gone on had been with Ron Weasley. Ron was sitting next to her in the meeting and they exchanged looks at this last bit, Ron bumped her shoulder and gave her a smile. Hermione smiled back.

That was when she started feeling like someone was staring at her. Hermione didn't want to attract the attention of the Head Boy and Girl, so she looked to each side of her to see if she was being watched, nobody was turned her way. So it must be someone behind her. She and Ron had sat near the back of the car in order to make a fast exit when the meeting was over, there was only one row of seats behind them. She turned away to cough so she wouldn't disrupt the meeting and see behind her and caught the gray eyed stare of Draco Malfoy. Well, that at least answers the question of who's staring at me. She raised her eyebrow at him, questioning why he was looking at her. He suddenly seemed to realize he was staring and shook his head and looked away.

Hermione turned back to face the front of the car just as the Head Girl and Boy were concluding the meeting. That was weird. She shook her head and looked at Ron as he stood and tugged her arm.

"Come on 'Mione, let's go find Harry and Ginny," Ron called over his shoulder pulling Hermione after him. Hermione still felt like she was being watched and turned around to see that Malfoy was looking at her again. What a creep. He smirked and she scowled at him and hurried out of the car after Ron.