Right, new story.

Harry as the Master.. It's bound to be interesting to write.

Anyway, I won't ramble this time... ENJOY! XD

Harry groaned as he leaned his head against the cold Hogwarts Express train window, trying to get his it to cool down somewhat. It was burning up, as it always did nowadays, when he got a headache, which had recently become really frequent... ever since Voldemort rose about two months ago, at the end of the school year.

He'd been having nightmares as well, horrible nightmares, in which he kept seeing Cedric's death, Pettigrew cut off his hand, and Voldemort - a horrible slimy looking thing - rise from the cauldron. So far, the whole two months of holidays which he'd had, he hadn't yet experienced a single night in which he didn't have a nightmare... or a single day on which Dudley didn't bully him.

Over the past year, while Harry had been at Hogwarts, Dudley had found a new hobby - boxing. It had helped his physique somewhat, the fat little boy was gone, instead, he was a fat huge man, with a decent amount of muscle hidden underneath all that swinging fat. While it did help that Dudley had a hobby, and was mostly out of the house, practising on little kids in the park, it did nothing to help Harry from Dudley bullying him. Boxing must have given him new courage, as while he still seemed afraid of Harry whenever he pulled out his wand, he didn't clutch his backside anymore, the moment Harry mentioned something relating to magic.

And then for no particular reason... Harry had gone and saved him, ending up in a heap of trouble, and with a warning from the Ministry that that was his last chance, and if he ever let another foot step out of line, he'd be sent back to the muggle world... and his wand would be snapped.

Dudley was family though, albeit family with contaminated with the 'Vernon Gene'. Harry snorted quietly to himself, imagining what would happen if the magic-gene passed onto Dudley's future children... But if Harry was honest with himself, he was pretty sure no genes could have survived Vernon.h

Feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rise, as they often did whenever he felt like someone was watching him, Harry glanced around the compartment. Ron was sort of stretched out on the bench, legs dangling off to the side, eyes closed and snoring deeply. Next to him, Hermione was pressed against the window, right across from Harry - and ultimately the one staring at him. Harry shot her a questioning look, blinking slightly, as he heard Ron murmur 'no maroon, no maroon' in his sleep.

"Another headache?" Hermione said loudly, seemingly not caring in the slightest that Ron was sleeping on the bench next to her. Harry frowned for a moment, what was happening between those two recently? Ever since he'd come back from the trail at the Ministry, they had been awkward and aggressive with each other, leading Harry to suspect that something unsavoury had happened between them while he'd been gone. But what? He groaned again as the thumping in his head got louder and louder, preventing him from thinking properly. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Pause. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Pause. Then again... and again. Like a never stopping drum.

Blinking the pain away, he forced the thumping to the back of his mind and concentrated on Hermione, eyes narrowing as he tried to block out the pain.

"Yeah." He finally muttered back, noticing Hermione's slightly impatient yet sympathetic expression. Rubbing his head, he tried to get that numb feeling out, the one one often got after a migraine. Stretching himself out on the bench, he folded his arms under his head and stared up at the ceiling of the compartment, noticing vaguely that although the train had been in use for a long time now, it looked as though it had only been finished yesterday.

"Harry, it isn't normal. You can't possibly be getting so many migraines, one after another. Do you think..." She hesitated for a second, as if not really sure about whether to say the next thing she had on mind, "Do you think it's an after-effect of You-know-who returning?"

Harry turned his head to the left to look at her, eyebrows furrowed as he considered her. "Nope, Hermione... I don't know who."

A small smile tugged at the corners of her lips and Harry raised an eyebrow at her as she opened her mouth. She paused, and stared at him for a moment. "Voldemort." She finally said with confidence and Harry grinned at her. Before he could say anything though, there was a loud thumping noise, and a loud groan as Ron slowly picked himself up from the floor, rubbing the back of his head wearily.
His eyes were wide and fearful, as if someone had just announced his death.

"Don't say his name!" He finally exclaimed as he rubbed his eyes, yawning slightly.

"Names are just titles. They don't really mean anything," Hermione said, equally passionately. "You could be called 'the Master' but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Are you a master of magic? A master of literature? A master of love? A master of time? A master..."

Harry had stopped listening to her, trying to make sense of the dull warm feeling he got every time she said the words 'the Master'. Was that odd? Yeah, it was, wasn't it? Didn't elves usually call their employers 'master'?

"Oi, Harry!"

Harry blinked once more, and instantly, his eye-sight slipped back into focus as he turned to look at Ron who was standing excitedly by the door of the compartment, which was open and standing outside, was the trolley lady.

"Want anything?" Ron asked, an impatient look on his face now.

Harry shrugged with indifference. Right now, he wasn't sure he'd be able to manage to swallow any proper food, much less, sweets. Ron rolled his eyes and turned back to the lady, ordering several handfuls of sweets.

Wait... Ginny and Neville had been there earlier on, hadn't they? And Luna? Hadn't Neville managed to spray them all with Mimbus Mimbeltonia pus?... At the precise moment Cho walked in. He voiced his thoughts to Hermione who had once more stuck her head into her book.

"They left," Hermione stared at Harry with concern, "Are you sure you're all right, Harry? Didn't you notice them leave? I mean they left about fifteen minutes ago."

"Well," Harry muttered back, through clenched teeth, as the pain in his head spiked, "I wouldn't be asking if I had."

"Yes, right..." Hermione blushed slightly, and turned to Ron who had by now closed the door, and was chewing on a liquorice wand, grinning happily as he settled back onto the bench. "Ron, we had better leave. The meeting starts soon."

At Ron's confused stare, she gestured at his badge. Ron's mouth formed a small 'o' and he scrambled to his feet, quickly following Hermione, after a small, squeaked out 'goodbye'. Rolling his eyes, Harry let himself relax, and rid his mind from any stray thoughts, figuring that if his mind wasn't as busy, his head-ache would calm down eventually.

It didn't.

Well, the head-ache sort of quieted down at some point, but the drum-like aftereffects continued. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Pause. Thump, thump, thump, thump.

Letting out a grunt of frustration, Harry swung his legs over the side of the bench and glared down at the floor. He hadn't slept properly in over two months... because of 'The Drumming'.

'The Drumming'... It seemed like an appropriate name for the 'thumps', which had been plaguing him all summer. At the beginning they hadn't been that frequent... perhaps once or twice a week. Now, he barely got an hour's rest. And it was driving him mad.

Gazing down at the slightly abnormally clean floor, Harry's eyes rested on the newspaper Luna had been reading earlier. Was it just him... or was that text written the wrong way round, left to right, instead of right to left?

Frowning, he picked up the newspaper, and skimmed the headlines, as a grin slowly stretched upon his face. The headlines were oddly hilarious, and lifted Harry's mood considerably as he grinned down at the paper, "Fudge a Pigmy Puff?" he whispered to himself, mirth clear in his voice.

"Anything interesting?" Harry raised his head, only to see Hermione leaning against the door frame, staring sceptically at the paper.

He grinned and gestured to one of the largest headlines, "Yeah, listen to this... 'Sirius Black; the criminal or Sirius Black the lead singer of the Hobgoblins?'" He flicked through a couple more pages and chose one at random. With another grin, he read out another title, "Dumbledore a Hippogrif in disguise?"

Chucking to himself, he folded the paper and passed it to Hermione and leaned back into his seat as Hermione, Luna, Neville, Ron and Ginny filed back in, the latter being a new addition to the compartment. Neville was still holding his cactus like plant - which really looked like some kind of poisoned organ - and Ron was still chewing on his liqorice wand, looking disgruntled about something. Ginny, however was smiling at Harry shyly - as she always seemed to be doing whenever she glanced at him.

"My father's the editor!" Luna said in a dreamy voice, at exactly the same moment as Hermione proclaimed that the Quibbler was a load of tosh. Hermione blushed and shot Neville and Ron a glare as they chuckled behind the plant.

"Well... Eh, it's not that bad... it's got some interesting..." Hermione glanced at the paper in her hand, searching for something to comment on. Harry grinned at Neville and Ron who's shoulders were silently shaking as they forced to keep their mouths shut.

"I'll have it back, thank you," said Luna coldly, grabbing the paper from Hermione's hands and flicked to page ten, then, she turned the paper around and continued reading, presumably from the same place at which she had been forced to stop when she left the compartment. Soon, she disappeared behind it, just as the compartment door opened a third time, and Draco Malfoy stepped in, followed by his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle.

"What?" Harry demanded instantly, not feeling up to arguing with Malfoy when the drumming was slowly becoming louder.

"Manners, Potter, or I'll have to give you a detention," Malfoy drawled as he flashed the badge hanging over his house crest. Harry flashed Ron and Hermione an accusatory look... after all they hadn't mentioned Mafloy was the new Slytherin prefect. "You see, Potter, I unlike you, have been made a prefect, which means that I, unlike you, have the power to hand out punishments."

"Yeah," said Harry, rolling his eyes, as he massaged his forehead. "but you, unlike me, are a git, so get out and leave us alone."

The others laughed silently at this comment, and out of the corner of his eye, Harry noticed Crabbe smirking at Goyle, who stood like a soldier, hands folded behind his back as he stared on, face emotionless. Well, it would have been emotionless, if not for the small smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Tell me, how does it feel to be second best to Weasley, Potter?" He asked. Harry frowned at him, trying to keep his swimming vision in focus.

"Shut up, Malfoy," Hermione replied sharply, seeing that Harry wasn't going to answer.

"Oooh, it seems I've touched a nerve," Malfoy said, in a sing-song voice as he sniggered at them, "Well, just watch yourself, Potter, because I'll be dogging your footsteps in case you step out of line."

"Get out!" Ginny exclaimed in a small, yet somehow powerful voice as she stood up and glared at Malfoy who was at least half a head taller than her.

Sniggering something about 'girlfriends', Malfoy departed, Crabbe and Goyle following him like faithful dogs. As Neville shut the door with his foot, Harry let his tense body relax into the comfortable bench, sighing with relief as The Drumming lessened slightly.

He vaguely registered the fact that Malfoy had mentioned dogging. Could he possibly know that Sirius was a dog animagus? And if he did.. Had his father told him?

The rest of the trip went by in a haze of jokes, sleep, sweets and reading. Well, mostly sleeping on Harry's part. After all, it wasn't every day the Drumming became almost non-existent so suddenly.

The moment they'd rolled into the station, Ron and Hermione had disappeared, to complete their prefect duties, leaving Harry alone with Ginny, Luna and Neville to search for a carriage to take them up to the school.

As he stepped out of the train with bleary eyes and yawning, Harry paused for a moment, to listen for Hagrid's reassuring voice exclaiming exhuberantly, "Firs'-years over 'ere... firs'-years..." But it didn't come, instead, a quite different voice, a brisk female cultured one, was calling out, "First-years line up over here, please! All first-years to me!"

Before he could take another step though, someone pushed him out onto the plat form. Twisting his body harshly, he sprang up to his feet and glowered at the second year who had accidentally tumbled against him.

"S-sorry... I didn't mean to. S-s-sorry!" The boy stuttered, an utterly frightened expression on his face. Harry suddenly realized he was scaring the kid, and closed his eyes and relaxed himself. What was wrong with him? Hadn't he ended up having a loud argument with Percy this morning? And the day before that... with Sirius? Why was he so full of anger?

"Where's Hagrid - oi, Harry, come on, we'll end up being last," Came Ginny's voice from behind him, and Harry snapped his eyes open and blinked a couple of times.

"Yeah. Right."

They ended up being last anyway to the horseless - carriages... Only they weren't horseless anymore. He slowly walked up to the last carriage, vaguely noticing that Luna was sitting inside already and stared at the creature pulling the carriage along.

The horse - well, it looked sort-of like a horse - was large, perhaps larger than a normal horse and seemed to have absolutely no flesh. Just a skeleton on which a dark coat clung to. It's head was oddly dragon-like and Harry blinked in shock as he gazed into it's eyes. He had expected them to be dark never-ending holes, much like he had imagined Dementor's eyes to be. Instead, two bright red-ish yellow coals burned in the centre, seemingly suspended by magic.

Stretching out a hand to touch it's head, Harry blinked when his hand touched a thick, sort of wet fur.

"Where's Pig do you reckon - Er Harry... What are you doing?" Ron had arrived and glancing over his shoulder, Harry noticed Hermione standing next to the carriage about to step in, but staring at Ron and Harry.

"Er... stroking the horse?" Couldn't they see it? Or was he really going mad?

"Horse?" Hermione was the one who had asked now and Harry hurriedly looked between his two best friends. He was going mad, wasn't he?

"Yeah! The horse pulling the carriages!" He paused, staring at their blank faces, "Look! Right there!"

Grabbing Ron's arm, he pushed his friend forward so that he was standing face to face with the horse. Ron stared blankly at the place in front of him, before turning to Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"There isn't anything there... What am I supposed to be seeing?"

"The winged horse! Harnessed to the carriage, can't you see it?" Ron kept staring at him, blinking every now and then. Harry sighed... what if he really was going mad?

"Are you feeling all right, mate?" Ron asked placing a hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry took a deep breath and gave him a grin, which he was sure looked more like a grimace.

"Yeah. I'm alright." No, he wasn't at all.

Stepping into the carriage, he sat himself down in the dark corner, and leaned his head against the curtains of the carriage, trying to ignore the odd looks Neville, Ron, Ginny and Hermione were giving him. Harry tapped his fingers upon his knee impatiently... everything would be fine when they reached Hogwarts... Just a few more moments. He'd waited all summer, surely he could wait another kilometre.

"It's all right," Came the voice from across him, and he slowly raised his eyes to stare at Luna who was also half-hidden in the shadows of the corner, "You're not going mad or anything. I can see them too."

"Can you?" Harry asked desperately.

"Oh, yes," Said Luna, "I've been able to see them ever since my first day here. They've always pulled the carriages. Don't worry, you're just as sane as I am."

So he truly was going mad.

So... I understand there's a lot from the book in here. But it was inevitable. The moment Harry opens the fob-watch... it'll all be my story from then on. To be fair though, I changed a lot in the dialogue so that it wasn't a complete copy.

Anyway, leave a review, tell me what you think...

Btw, to anyone who also reads my other fanfictions... I actually have a plot for this story, so I actually know what I'm writing XD.

Thanks for reading! (And for bothering to click on this story XD)