"It was worth it, Y/n," Blaise said.

"Of course you think it was!" I exclaimed.

Blaise and I had just hexed a group of 1st years who had just walked into the Slytherin compartments wearing Ravenclaw robes. Not all Slytherins are like this, I certainly wasn't, until, of course, I met Blaise Zabini.

We had been inseparable ever since 1st year. And much to my displeasure, he is completely in love with Pansy Parkinson, also known as the most desperate girl in school. I wouldn't say I am necessarily jealous, but her presence just arouses all the anger that has ever built up inside of me. She is gripping and pouncing on him at all times. She does it to every single guy that simply lays an eye on her, including the so called, "Slytherin Prince," Draco Malfoy. Although some might call him a Prince, I believe he is one of the biggest gits in the school, second to Pansy.

Slytherins of all years continued filing into the empty compartments within the one and only Hogwarts Express. Blaise sat across from me on the plush seats and I looked from him to the crisp leaves hanging from trees out of the window and then back to the glass compartment door where kids whizzed by. Blaise and I began to chuckle at the hopeless sights of first years scrambling nervously, attempting to find new friends.

As if we were ever that clueless.

Laughing til our lungs collapsed, we finally settled down and devoured the high-as-a-mountain pile of chocolate frogs next to me, as they were practically begging to be opened. Blaise bit his chocolate frog from the bottom up and left it's tiny head staring up at him. He then used his thumb and pointer finger to pick up the tiny frog head, thoroughly examining, though I still smiled at his odd behavior.

"Blaise what are you doing with that?" I ask, utterly confused after a few seconds.

He smirked at me and chucked it straight at my face. The frog head croaked and I let out a loud yelp of fear and disgust at Blaise's effort to faze me. Of course it worked, as he knew I had a fear of frogs. He wheezed at his own prank, which made me slightly smile, to which I immediately wiped off my face and pretended to be angry, mostly to make him feel guilty.

Blaise, still wheezing, looked up and saw my bad impression of anger. All I could feel in that moment was pure joy and happiness. I had a best friend and I was truly happy, which most teens at my age couldn't relate to. Moments like this could last forever. Right?

Blaise's smirk quickly disappeared when he looked at who was walking up to our compartment door. I observed Blaise's quick change in expression and followed his gaze to the familiar glass door. Just as I glanced up, a certain boy, tall, blonde, yet handsome, opened the door and glowered at Blaise. His eyes then traveled around until they fell onto me. The cold, harsh glare of his eyes flared daggers into my soul and he arrogantly raised one eyebrow as he scoped out every pore etched across my face.

I found myself staring and internally shook my head from the trance that had absentmindedly struck my brain. Draco seemed to notice that he was examining my every move because he also shifted uncomfortably for just a split second. His gaze eventually fell back on Blaise and his threatening pupils continued shifting to the both of us as he spoke.

"Well, look who we've got here. Are you lovebirds having fun?"

I bit my tongue and tried not to give in to Draco's common provoking.

Draco stared right at Blaise and stated, in an intimidating tone, "You better be careful Zabini. If you keep flirting with L/n then Parkinson will never like you."

He grinned as his own joke and turned to me. He took just a millisecond to come up with an insult for me and began, "I also would be careful if I were you Y/n. With a mouth that big you might not be able to catch it after all the running it's been doing."

"Malfoy, is that the best you can do?" I replied shortly. In all honesty, his insult sucked. He went easy on me.

He narrowed his eyes at my unusual assertiveness. That is the moment I knew I had won. This time at least. After all these years of Malfoy attacking me and Blaise, it's about time I did something about it. An intriguing feeling came across me, similar to being motivated to follow through with a New Years resolution. But in this case, motivation to stand up for myself and ruin Malfoy's rich and snobby reputation.

Malfoy took a final glance at both Blaise and I, turned his heel, leaving to find his group of friends that would worship him until the day they died. It was pathetic.

Blaise gawked up at me and I smiled, proud of myself too. He had never seen me degrade someone, especially the most arrogant kid in the school.

Over the rest of the ride we laughed and replayed the encounter with Malfoy until the train suddenly came to a standstill. Blaise and I grabbed all of our luggage, hexed a few "kick me" signs in the back of innocent children, and headed off to the carriages, all while excited to arrive at Hogwarts for the first day of third year.