Hermoine Granger, rushing eagerly out of the Hogwarts Express, didn't see the small but sharp rise on the doorway. "Wait up—" she started to call after her long-legged friends, before her foot caught and she tipped forward. She was bracing herself for impact, lamenting already her smashed ink bottles and cursing her clumsiness—when she was stopped by an arm snaking around her waist. "You'd best watch where you're going, Granger," said a cold, familiar drawl.

Hermione twisted around in surprise, trying to push away. The arm held her firmly to him. "Malfoy! Let go of me!"

"This is the thanks I get for saving you from tripping on the first day of sixth year? Fine. I'm sure you can take care of yourself." He loosened his grip and, jerking away from him, she nearly fell off again. Pulling her back to him, laughing, he held on even tighter this time. "You are a walking disaster, Granger."

"Hey! Malfoy! Just what do you think you're doing?" Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, who had only turned around just in time to see him pull her to him for the second time, were rushing up to their friend. They both looked more than a little angry. From third year, when Hermione had landed the infamous slap, Malfoy had definitely grown into a tall, broad shouldered young man. They had, too, though Ron was a little taller and still lanky, and Harry was slightly shorter up as well as across. Hermione had gone through all her growth spurts some time ago with the rest of the girls, and though they knew she was capable of taking care of herself, she looked small next to Draco Malfoy.

"I'm saving your friend from her own clumsy feet, Potty, Weasel." Releasing her and giving her a hand down from the train, Draco bowed with a flourish and a smirk and, just like that, left.

Ron clearly wanted to go after him, but Harry made him wait. "What was that all about, Hermione? Are you all right?" Ron was muttering about slug-spewing spells.

Laughing, Hermione reached up to pat Ron on the cheek. "Surprisingly enough, I really did trip, and he really did catch me. Honestly, Harry, you know I can take care of Malfoy. If I can't turn him into a ferret, I can always hit him again."

Ron took his hand away from the cheek Hermione's hand had touched, saying angrily, "Well, he was holding you a lot closer and a lot tighter than he needed to. Besides, even if he hadn't been, why do we need an excuse to go beat the brains out of that git?" Harry, too, was looking longingly in the direction of Draco Malfoy.

"Please, you two. If you start a fight now, you'll miss the Sorting and end up with detention before school even begins. Let's try to have you see more than a couple of Sortings before you graduate. In any case," she looked bemused, "He stopped my ink bottles from smashing and my hands from skinning. Who'd have thought?"

"Yeah, well," Harry said darkly. "If Malfoy were being nice to me, I'd stay even farther away from him than when he's trying to hex me."

And Hermione could not help but agree.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I hope you liked the first chapter! Before we continue, a little context is in order. This is a story I wrote under a different username, and then abandoned over a year ago. A little while ago, I came back to my old account, which I had not updated for a long time, and the rush of memories was overwhelming. I was inspired to continue--until I realized that this story was my writing when I was fourteen years old. Not up to today's standards. I decided to completely overhaul it--rewrite it under a new account, delete it on the old one, and use the old one only for reviewing. This is the result. On the slim chance that you read the earlier story, you will find that the first couple of chapters are only edited for fluency, while the later chapters take a considerable change in content.

One more thing: This story takes place in sixth year, and is not HBP compliant. I just didn't want to change it from what it was; I had written it before HBP came out, and I like it best as a sixth year piece.

Thank you for your patience, and on with the show!