Sympathetic smiles

"That's a rubbish nick name!" George and Fred said in sync with each other, "We can do better than that!"

"They aren't trying to be rude, Maya. They just like to give everyone terrible nick names to annoy them!" Hermione scowled at the twins.

"What do they call you guys?" I asked, leaning back on the seat.

"Well, we call Harry The boy who lived, self explanatory. We call Hermione The brains of Gryffindor, self explanatory, and Ronald is the Rat boy because he has a pet rat." Fred explained. Ron shook his head in disappointment.

"You have a rat?" I asked, holding in a laugh.

"Yes. His name is Scabbers." Harry said laughing. Since he was laughing I decided that there was no point in holding in my laugh so I joined him and soon enough so did Hermione and the twins.

"Stop laughing!" Ron shouted, on the verge of tears.

"Sorry, Ron." I said holding back my laugh, "Can I meet him?" Ronald nodded, stood up and walked out of the compartment in the direction of the pets' storage.

"A rat?" I whispered, trying not to laugh again, "Named Scabbers?" The other four people in the room nodded grinning from ear to ear.

"He is always accusing my cat of eating the disgusting little thing! Crookshanks would never do such a terrible thing!" Hermione exclaimed.

"You have a cat! Oh, please let me meet them! I have always wanted a cat but my family simply can't afford one!" I begged.

"Of course! He gets very motion sick so I can't show you him until we get to Hogwarts, but I promise that you can see him then!" I was so happy. I loved cats so much! They are so small and cute. In third year, Cedric had promised me that he would buy me a cat in either 6th or 7th year but that probably wouldn't happen so anymore I wanted to spend as much time with other people's cats as possible.

Another tear escaped my eye at the thought of Cedric.

"Oh, no Maya. I thought we had helped but apparently not." Harry said, starting to rub my back again.

"What's wrong, Cat girl?" George asked.

"That's perfect! Cat girl!" Fred stood up and jumped with joy. Cat girl?

"Out of all the things you could have called her, you chose Cat girl?" I heard Ron close the compartment door. "They wouldn't let me bring Scabbers out because it's apparently too cold for him out here." He groaned sitting back in his seat between the twins.

"Actually, Cat girl is probably one of the least annoying names Fred and George could have come up with, Ron." said Hermione. That probably was true. I quite liked the nick name Cat girl. I was lucky they didn't pick anything worse.

"You didn't answer my question," George reminded her, "What's wrong?" I wiped away the tear that he had previously seen fall down my face. Ron whispered in George's ear and then in Fred's. They both nodded at me and gave me sympathetic smiles. I forced myself to smile back at them. These were the only friends I had. I had to keep them close.

*20 minutes later*

Out of nowhere, I felt a slight chill enter the compartment, making me shiver.

"What the bloody hell is that!" Ron screamed. When I say screamed, I mean screamed. It sounded like a bird screeching. The ginger boy was pointing at the compartment door. I followed his gaze to see a large, black, cloaked figure opening the door. The train's window froze over and suddenly, everyone's teeth began to chatter.

*Everything went black*

"Maya? Maya, please wake up! May?" I could hear Hermione's soft voice next to me. I slowly opened my eyes. I was led down on the four seats that Hermione, Harry and I had originally been sat on. This was the second time I had fainted that day. 6 people were in the compartment, looking down on me with worried faces. Wait. 6 people? Previously, there had only been 5 people (not including me), but now there were 6.

A man around the age of 35 was searching through a bag on the 4th seat (near my feet). He seemed to have found what he was looking for and turned to face me. In his had was a chocolate bar which he then handed to me.

"Eat this," He said, " It will make you feel better." I nodded, sitting up carefully. The man smiled at me, collected the bag by my feet and left the room.

"What happened?" I asked Harry who was sat next to me now.

"Well, long story short, a dementor from Azkaban came on to the train, searching for Sirius Black. When you saw it, you must have passed out in fright because you fell straight into Hermione's lap." He told me. I grinned at Hermione to apologize and she shook her head in response.

"I don't mind," She said laughing, "Only a few moments later, the dementor started to suck the happiness out of you but Harry jumped in the way. It tried to suck out his happiness but Professor Lupin came in just in time to stop it. Harry passed out like you, but he woke up a few minutes ago." I looked over at Harry who still looked a bit pale from fainting.

"Eat the chocolate, seriously. I had it and it really does help." Harry said quietly. I looked down at the chocolate in my hand. I slowly took of the rapper and began to eat it.

"Hey! Can I have some?" I heard a girl's voice say. That wasn't Hermione's voice. I knew deep down who's voice it was. I didn't want to look. I couldn't. Harry, Ron, Fred and George all stood up and stood in between the door an myself. Hermione didn't move. She just sat their smiling at me as she held my hand.

"Get out right now, before I rip your head off!" Harry yelled at the girl in the door way.

"I just wanted to say hello to my friend." It was Martha.

"Do you want to speak to her or not? She might want to apologize to you." Hermione whispered in my ear so that only I could hear her. I nodded gently.

"Let her in boys. May wants to see what she has to say." Hermione stood up and moved the boys towards their seats so that they could sit down.

"Maya, I was wondering if I could maybe speak to you in private. I want to explain what happened and I need to apologize for what I did and for what I didn't do." Martha asked. The boys and Hermione looked skeptical. I gave them a reassuring nod at left the compartment with my ex best friend.