Chapter Text
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. Dwight D. Eisenhower
It all felt silly: packing a trunk, running through the barrier at platform 9¾, looking for an empty compartment on the Hogwarts Express. Hermione flung herself down on the bench and looked out of the window. The train seemed much smaller now. She turned sideways, pulled her feet up on the bench, and held her knees. She didn’t remember her feet even touching the floor when she was a Firstie.
“Hey.” The car door shoved open and Ron slumped in. “You found an empty.”
“Mhm,” she responded, not looking at him, staring out the window. There wasn’t anything to see, really. Just the interior brick walls of King’s Cross Station.
They sat in silence. Hermione didn’t feel like talking. None of them did, really. There had been a row earlier that morning, and the remaining uneasiness hadn’t left them yet.
***
Molly (which is what Harry and Hermione had taken to calling her now that the war was over) had made a huge breakfast for everyone: fried eggs, beans on toast, baked tomatoes, and rashers of bacon. When she called everyone down, only Ginny replied, seating herself and dishing up a plate.
“Trio! Breakfast!” Molly called from the base of the staircase.
Silence.
She stalked upstairs and found the Trio in Ron’s room - a musty space the three of them had been sharing all summer.
“Ugh! It smells atrocious in here. And what? Nothing packed!?”
Ron sprawled at his desk chair, tossing a quaffle in the air and catching it again, over and over. Hermione made eye-contact with him as she sat on the floor, and sighed. She tried picking up some of the random novels around her, shoving them under the bed.
Harry, sitting atop the bed, spoke up, “We don’t want to go.”
Molly stood up straighter, spluttering and indignant. “You don’t want to - well, I don’t really - “
A lump formed in Hermione’s throat. She hated to disappoint Molly. Molly, who had been like a mother to them all. Who housed her now that her parents lived abroad, now that they no longer remembered having a daughter. Who cooked and cleaned and hugged tightly, trying to wring these last few months out of her children.
“I told you,” Ron mumbled to Hermione, jabbing a thumb at his mother. “She doesn’t care what we want.”
Hermione crawled to standing, Kicking aside the papers and dirty clothes on the floor. She addressed Molly directly,
“It’s just that, now that the war is over, it doesn’t make much sense.”
Molly tempered her tone. “I know it’s been hard. I know you miss your mum and dad. And I know you’re scared of sleeping away from the boys.”
Hermione’s face burned with shame. She was meant to be staying in Ginny’s room. But after a year of camping-for-her-life with the boys, she couldn’t seem to sleep unless they were near. It probably seemed odd or inappropriate, but nothing funny was going on. It was just - well, the war.
Harry chimed in from his seated spot on the bed. “What can Hogwarts teach us now?”
“Yeah,” Ron added, “we saved the world for fuck’s sake.”
“RONALD!” Molly gasped.
“Oh come off it!” he yelled. He got to his feet and loomed over her. He’d grown inches over the summer.
“Don’t you tell me to - UGH!” Molly waved her wand and their trunks tumbled from the closet. Clothes and books whipped into a small tornado around the room, sorting themselves into their respective trunks. Hermione snatched a book out of the air - Hogwarts: A History. The lump in her throat pressed in, making tears sting her eyes.
“You’re making Hermione cry,” Harry said.
Ron punched the wall, denting the lath and plaster. “Hermione always cries.”
The punctuation of the punch halted the chaos. Molly seethed. “Downstairs. Now.”
Ginny tried making jokes to lighten the mood, but Hermione just pushed her beans around with a fork. Ron ate two servings, and Harry made himself extra toast with marmalade. Hermione didn’t know how they could eat when they were this miserable.
After a while, Molly came down the stairs, calmer and speaking in a tone as if they were toddlers.
“It isn’t as if Dad and I want to be home alone,” she started, “with George in Hogsmeade and Percy in Muggle London,” her voice trailed off. Hermione knew she was thinking of Fred. Charlie had gone back to Romania and Bill and Fleur stayed at Shell Cottage. But Fred was gone-gone.
Molly sighed and continued, “there is a special mandatory course for the Eighth Years and I think it might help.”
Eighth Years. It sounded strange to Hermione’s ears. Eighth Years. It didn’t even make sense. Hogwarts only went to Year Seven. They were all well over age now. But because of the war, none of last year’s Sevens had finished school. No NEWTS meant no jobs - even for the Golden Trio, she supposed.
“What course?” Harry asked, buttering more toast.
“Parents got this note,” Molly pulled a Hogwarts letter from her apron and held it out.
Ron snatched and read out, “In light of the post-traumatic stress disorder incurred by Eighth Years as a result of the Second Wizarding War, students will be required to participate in Group Therapy. This course, taught by Wizarding Mental Health expert, Healer Vashti Valetudo, will meet weekly for the entirety of the school year. Attendance at Group Therapy is a prerequisite for all NEWTs.” He slammed the letter on the table, the surface shuddering enough to spill Hermione’s tea across the parchment. “This is bullshit.”
Molly closed her eyes, too tired to correct Ron’s foul language. She simply said, “you’re going.”
***
“How’s your hand?” Hermione asked, still looking out the window at the brick wall of the station. She tucked her chin against her knees on the train compartment bench.
“‘S’fine.” He made a fist and examined his knuckles. They were bruised and scraped from the punch earlier that morning. He reconsidered, “got any dittany?”
“There’s murtlap in my bag.”
“Thanks.” Ron plopped down on the opposite bench and used his long arms to lean in, span the compartment, and swipe the small, beaded bag from Hermione’s side.
Harry joined them in the car, and the tension in Hermione’s body eased a little. She untucked herself and put her feet on the floor making room for the final trio member. They were together, they were safe, and they were headed to Hogwarts. She leaned her head on Harry’s shoulder.
As the train sped up, they eased into the kind of conversation they could only have with each other.
“It feels like years since we were there,” Hermione offered.
Ron said, “it’s only been, like, four months.”
Hermione nodded. “Seems pretty toxic to send us right back to the scene of it all. ‘No safer place’ my arse.”
That made the boys laugh, and the tension finally broke completely.
“Are we supposed to put on robes?” Harry asked. “I don’t even know if I packed any.”
“I’m not wearing a bloody tie,” Ron agreed, tugging at his T-shirt. “We were out there killing horcruxes and they think I give a shit about House Points?”
“Eighteen inches of parchment,” Harry squeaked in a perfect Flitwick, “on the best charms to protect a campsite.”
Hermione raised her hand, nearly lifting her whole body off the bench, mocking her younger self. “Ooh! Ooh! I know! I know!”
“Hell yeah, you do, ‘Mione,” Ron laughed, and high fived her across the compartment. They all laughed, which no one else might understand - they had to laugh at all of the dangerous stuff from last year. It was laugh or cry.
After a while, Ginny slid open the compartment door with Neville and Luna in tow. She had taken to calling her crew The Silver Trio, which Hermione found mildly funny, and Ron hated.
“Can we squeeze?” she asked. She darted her eyes to Hermione, which Hermione immediately took to mean move so I can sit next to Harry. Hermione obliged, switching over to Ron’s side. Luna and Neville took places across from each other at the ends of the benches. Hermione noted that they let the toes of their sneakers touch in between them.
“Alright, you three?” asked Harry.
Luna piped up without hesitation, “I’m feeling quite nervous, actually. Like I have doxies in my belly.”
It was, as usual, an honest statement from an honest girl. Hermione felt the same, although the wriggling in her belly felt more like an occamy.
Nevile leaned forward slightly, and touched her hand. “What’s got you worried?”
“Ghosts.”
Ron snorted. “There’s loads of ghosts at Hogwarts. You’ve never been scared before. You chatted with Helena Ravenclaw regularly.”
“True,” nodded Luna. “But what if there are more now? What if they’re …” Her eyes grew wide and glassy, “our friends.”
Hermione put her head in her hands. She hadn’t thought of that. Fred … Colin … Lavender … the roster of the dead played as it had the many times she’d attempted sleep at the Burrow.
Neville took Luna’s hand. “I know. I’m nervous, too.”
Ron snorted again. “Okay, Mr. Sword-of-Gryffindor, what’s got you in a tizzy?” Hermione jabbed Ron gently with her elbow, reminding him to be nice. Not understanding, he hissed at her, “What?”
Neville went on, “well, it’s sort of like ghosts, I guess. Just memories. Every room in that castle will be full of ‘em.”
Hermione felt a pang of guilt. She had only been at Hogwarts for the final battle. Luna had been there until Christmas. But Ginny and Neville were there all year long. Before the battle, her last images were still of the Great Hall filled with kids laughing and joking and eating, or the library with squashy reading chairs and tables for serious study. She didn’t really know the Carrows, or have memories of Headmaster Snape.
“Do you think there’ll be quidditch?” Harry said, shifting the mood.
“Did you bring your broom?” Ron asked back.
“Yeah. It’s in the storage compartment with the trunks”
Talk turned to sports, so Hermione tuned out. She wished she could sit in the train and feel chatty and eat snacks. But she just couldn’t will herself to be sociable. Her stomach felt twistier the closer they got to school, and her head just felt heavy and tired.
She got up. “Loo,” she said simply.
Ginny started up, “Want me to -”
But Hermione had already closed the compartment door..
She made her way down the corridor, pressing herself to the side while the trolly witch passed. Hermione didn’t really need the loo. She needed air. Her head ached and her lungs felt tight. The caboose was usually a popular carriage, but Hermione went anyway, hoping to stand outside on its little balcony, alone.
Rolling her neck as she walked, she tried to stretch out the kinks that wouldn’t seem to leave. She wasn’t sure if it was from sleeping on Ron’s floor, or just general tension from the last months. The train felt fast and the walls seemed to tighten as she walked. The air was stuffy with the stink of teenagers. She tried to focus on the lit windows of the caboose. Air. Just some fresh air.
Hermione was so focused on getting to the last carriage, she didn’t notice that its balcony was indeed occupied. She gasped in surprise then, when a white-blonde head turned to her as she pulled open in the compartment door.
“Sorry, I -” She sucked in some of that precious, cool air as the blonde boy - blonde man - turned away to continue taking in the view.
He blew out a puff of smoke, and she noticed the end of a cigarette between the fingers that gripped the railing. He didn’t look at her as he said her name.
“Granger,” he growled to the rolling hills in the passing landscape.
“Malfoy.”