A new year at Hogwarts was about to begin. Harry had just been through hell at the dursleys home and is more than excited to be back at hogwarts. This place always felt like home to him, here people liked him, he was being appreciated and looked up to. Living with the dursleys had made him believe that he would never be able to feel loved and have friends that actually cared about him. Just the thought of hogwarts as a place he can come back to and feel welcome and at home at is a reassurance he always wished for.

He was already on the hogwarts express, walking through the hallways and searching for the compartment with Hermione and Ron sitting inside. The bustling noise of the driving train and the vibration of the ground filled the air.

Harry was beginning to loose hope in finding his dearest friends, due to the fact that he has been through more than half the train now, just as he saw one of the compartment doors open a few meters in front of him. The silhouette seemed oddly familiar but before Harry could get his hopes up, said person turned out to be none other than Draco Malfoy. As if the day couldn't get any better, after Malfoy had closed the door to his compartment his gaze fell upon Harry.

Harry sighed inwardly, of course Malfoy had to notice him now he would have to deal with a git making his life hell. He already started thinking about how he would escape Malfoy, maybe he could just ignore him and continue his path, but before this thoughts evolved into any more than that, Draco srode towards Harry and started talking.

"What a surprise meeting you here, Potter. Where did your guards Granger and Weasel go? Maybe they had enough of protecting the famous star who is too much of a coward to fight for himself." even though Malfoy smirked a little he didn't seem to be that enthusiastic to hear the answer to his question.

Also not in the mood to argue Harry answered rather unimpressed "I could be asking you the same, although I would say that between you and me you are more likely to be a coward." he stared him straight into the eyes before he started making his way through the rest of the train, bumping against Dracos shoulder in the process.

Clearly annoyed by the whole conversation, Harry still can't stop himself from turning around to get a last peek of Malfoys reaction to his counter. To his surprise Draco has not moved the slightest bit. He was still standing there he stared at the place Harry just stood at a face of disbelieve decorating his features. How weird, was Harry really able to get to Malfoy this time, or was he just not expecting him to actually respond by himself? Either way he sure managed to get some kind of reaction out of Draco. A little more pleased with himself he finally sees the streak of red hair standing out through the compartment window.

He opens the door and is delighted to see his friends again, after a long time of being separated.

"Hey guys." Harry smiles from ear to ear, now that he met Ron and Hermione the feeling of returning to your home slowly comes back to him.

"Hi Harry, nice to see you again, how was your summer? You won't believe where my parents took me in the holidays! We visited Italy, it was beautiful!"

As Hermione continued talking Harry's thoughts found their way back to his meeting with Malfoy earlier. Why didn't he respond with a snappy remark or something alike. He didn't even sneer or anything he just stood there frowning. Maybe Harry just misread Malfoys gestures or Malfoy wasn't in the right mood today or something like that, the next time he would confront him everything was probably going to be alright. Harry was over thinking everything again their confrontation just felt kind of odd.

After a while the train was about to reach its destination and Harry went to one of the bathrooms to change into his robes. From afar he could see Draco as he entered a bathroom, a few compartments away from him. Before he entered Malfoy looked up and their eyes met for a short while until Malfoy looked away and went inside. Harry mirrored his movements and went to change as well.

It wasn't long until the train came to a halt and Harry, Ron and Hermione took a carriage towards Hogwarts.