Disclaimer: Harry Potter is property of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. This story is not written for profit and no copyright infringement is intended.

Part I: A Lonely Heart Cannot Atone

Chapter 1

Hermione stood in her room at the Leaky Cauldron, having just finished folding the last of her new school robes. She laid them neatly on her bed along with her glossy school books, cauldron and potions supplies, some carefully selected Muggle clothes, and her fluffy ginger cat, Crookshanks, who was sprawled across The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Seven and a pile of eagle feather quills. Her brand new hide trunk sat empty, its mouth gaping open, waiting to be packed. Hermione referenced her Hogwarts supply list again, running over the checklist of books and other necessities listed there and checking off each item as she located it on the bed.

Once she was satisfied that all items were present, she pointed her wand at the trunk and gave it a little flick. The items on the bed jolted to life and began to pack themselves into the trunk. Crookshanks hissed as the quills tugged themselves from underneath him and zoomed away. He sprang up and tore after them, trying to whack them out of the air with his paw, but a binder had unlatched itself and enveloped the quills before he could catch one.

Smiling, Hermione took one last look at the trunk, its contents settled tidily inside. With a curt nod of approval, she shut the lid. Crookshanks looked up at her, an expression of unmistakable peevishness on his squashed face, and his tail jerked back and forth like a very fluffy whip.

There was a light knock at the door, and Hermione and Crookshanks both turned to see Harry poking his head inside the room. "Nearly ready?" he asked, walking over to stand beside her.

"I wish the two of you were coming with me," she said. He threw and arm over her shoulder as Crookshanks threaded himself between their legs, purring.

"Yeah, Hermione, I know. I'm glad you're going, though. It'll be good for you," he said.

Ron rapped on the open door and came in as well. "Almost done, Hermione?"

"Um-hmm," she said as Ron joined them in standing around her trunk. The three of them stared down at it, and Hermione felt a knot forming in her throat. This trunk and its contents symbolized so much: their childhood, what they fought for and what she was leaving behind, a whole year without Ron and Harry.

Hermione ducked from under Harry's arm and hugged Ron instead. "Can't you two come?" she pleaded. "Finishing school is just as important as Auror training!"

Ron flushed, and his eyes darted to Harry. He jerked his head pointedly at the door as if to say, "Get out while you still can, mate!"

"I'll just be out in the hallway, then," Harry said, and he made for the door, leaving the couple alone in Hermione's room.

Ron ran his hands over Hermione's bare arms and detached them from his neck, rubbing his thumbs over her knuckles. "Look, we'll be where we're supposed to be, and you'll be where you're supposed to be."

"But..." Hermione couldn't think of anything to say to that. She gazed into his blue eyes, tears welling up in her own.

"We'll send you loads of owls, and Ginny and Luna will be there, and Harry's going to give some sort of presentation to the D.A.D.A. classes, so you'll see him then. And we'll all be at the Burrow over Christmas and we'll meet you in Hogsmeade some weekends. You'll have more of us than you can handle, I reckon."

Hermione still seemed unconvinced. "I'll miss you both so much. I don't know what I'll do without you there with me."

"It won't be so bad, Hermione." Ron brushed away a tear from her cheek and tilted her chin up. "Besides, you'll be busy with studying for N.E.W.T.s, won't you?" He shuddered dramatically. "Better you than me!" She laughed without really smiling, and he kissed her forehead.

"I suppose you're right."

"That's my girl. Come on, then! Don't want to miss the train!"

Hermione nodded and bent to catch Crookshanks while Ron went to the door and called Harry back in. The boys both watched in amusement while Hermione wrestled Crookshanks into his wicker cage and shut its door.

Together, the three old friends turned on the spot, apparating to Platform 9¾.

Draco waited until the last possible second to come down from his room and say his farewells to his parents. He found them in the drawing room, where only months before Death Eaters had met to discuss their great plans for world domination, where blood had once stained the hardwood floor crimson. It looked vast and empty and unkempt now, without even a fire to warm the shadows.

His mother pulled his father up out of his customary chair, the one closest to the empty hearth. As Draco approached, he could hear her heated whispers to his father like the susurrus of autumn wind in the branches of the old elm outside the drawing room windows, now almost completely obscured by heavy velvet curtains.

"Mother, it's time," said Draco, hardly glancing at his father.

"I wish you weren't going, Draco," she said, her smile faltering a little.

Draco covered her hand with his. "I know, Mother." He was through arguing about it, and despite his mother's conclusion that his decision to return Hogwarts to repeat his seventh year was a bad one, he was determined. They stood for a long moment in silence, the stillness of the dim room pressing in on them.

"I'm going to be late," he said, and his mother flinched a little, startled by the suddenness of his words. Draco clasped her hand in his and squeezed it. "Mother," he said, and she turned wide eyes to him, "it's alright. Everything is going to be fine."

"But what if—"

"No ifs, Mother," Draco interrupted, trying to keep his expression kind despite his annoyance. "It took all the influence we have left to make this happen. You wouldn't have tried so hard to get me back into school if this wasn't as important to you as it is to me."

His mother made a dismissive noise and said, "Of course it's important to me, Draco. Your happiness is the most important thing, but—"

"No buts, either." Draco forced himself to smile encouragingly down at his mother's pleading face. "I have to go." His kissed her hand and released it, then stretched out his own hand to his father to shake. There was a tense moment, but his father took it and shook feebly, his eyes darting, flashing milky yellow and silver in the half-light, looking anywhere but at Draco's face.

Draco took a step back and turned to leave, but his mother cried out and flung her arms around him, sobbing into his shoulder. He looked up at his father with all the malice he could muster. This is your responsibility. Come here and help me, he thought. His father shuffled over and gently pried her away from her son.

"You will write, won't you?" his mother asked, tears running down her cheeks as his father dug dazedly in his robes for a handkerchief.

"Of course I will," said Draco, though he knew he wouldn't. If his mother was expecting daily reports on his progress at Hogwarts, she was sorely mistaken. But he wasn't going to bring that up just now. He just wanted to get to the station and let the train carry him away with his decision before he had time to change his mind. Or his mother changed it for him.

When it became clear that his father wasn't going to find one, Draco produced his own handkerchief and extended it to his mother, who took it with a sniffle. "I'll see you over Hogsmeade weekends and during winter break," he said, not wanting to mention the times they would definitely see each other that year. "It will be fine, Mother. I want to do this."

She blew her nose into his handkerchief and nodded. He gave her one last hug, then headed for the foyer where his trunk and traveling cloak waited for him, listening to her renewed sobs echoing down the hallway. That sound, the sound of his mother's sorrowful, slightly-muffled weeping, stayed with him as he apparated alone to the crowded platform of King's Cross Station.

People rushed past him where he stood rather awkwardly with his trunk and empty owl cage. Some passersby gawked, glancing back over their shoulders as they hurried by, or else pointed and muttered vehemently to their companions behind their hands. Draco tried not to let it bother him. There was definitely more of that on the way. Might as well get used to it.

The train's whistle trilled, and Draco dragged his trunk over to a line of luggage carts. The steam from the scarlet engine billowed up from the smokestack in a thick fog, and when he neared the front of the train with his laden cart wobbling along in front of him, he found it nearly impossible to make out the silhouettes of other people in the gloom. He spotted an opening in one of the train cars and made for it, thankful that this year, at least, he'd be able to use magic to load his trunk into a compartment, because he was quite sure that no one was going to help him.

Draco hadn't gone ten steps through the grey mist before the corner of his cart collided with a girl, nearly knocking her over. Something she was holding went careening to the ground ,hissing and sputtering as it hit the platform with a crunch. He managed to catch the girl's flailing hand before she fell and held her steady as she righted herself. She looked up, huffing and annoyed, and he realized who it was: Hermione Granger. She must have recognized him too, because she whipped her hand from his grasp and shot him a scathing look before stooping to recover the quaking and yowling animal crate.

Draco was about to say something, though he wasn't sure what, when someone behind him spoke. "What are you doing here, Malfoy?"

Draco turned and found himself nose to nose with Harry Potter. A whole gaggle of Weasleys glowered menacingly behind Potter, some of their wands drawn defensively. Without a word, he staggered backward, nearly bumping into Granger again, grabbed hold of the handle of his cart, and took off down toward the other end of the platform, face flushed and heart racing.

When Hermione and Ginny's trunks were safely stored in a compartment on the train, they headed back to the Weasleys again to say goodbye. By the time they got to the platform, however, Hermione could see that they had company. The press had arrived in full force to document the first post-war crop of students headed off to school. A year ago, Hermione would have happily read an article bearing just such news, but now she settled for hoping she and her friends wouldn't be spotted.

They passed a reporter Hermione recognized from the Daily Prophet. Quill and notepad in hand, she had just begun to interview a young boy and his family.

"And what's your name, dear?"

"Letholdus Adderbose," the boy said, his chest puffed out and his smile a bright contrast to his tanned skin.

"Merlin, what a mouthful," the reporter said with a grin, jotting down the name then glancing up at Letholdus' parents.

"It's a family name," Letholdus explained.

The reporter nodded. "So, Letholdus, how does it feel to be starting Hogwarts this year?"

Ginny jerked her sharply to the right, and Hermione didn't catch the boy's answer. She turned to Ginny ask what was the matter, but Ginny was glancing over her shoulder at a woman wearing fashionable pink robes and a bright purple button that read "Teen Witch Dish." Hermione groaned.

"The Dish" was Teen Witch's daily column of teen celebrity gossip. It was headed by Patience Bright, who Bill told them had graduated from Hogwarts the same year he did. He'd said she was an awful gossip at school, too. Hermione felt sure that if Slughorn had been around during Bright's time at Hogwarts, she would have been a jewel in his collection. A fashionable pink jewel. The whole thing made her want to scream.

"Hurry up," Ginny said, pulling Hermione along. "If the Dish sees us, we'll never get out of here."

They tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, but there was no hiding from the press when everyone they passed stared at them or shouted their names like an old friend. They found their group again, and Hermione immediately spotted two men with cameras standing a little ways off, snapping pictures of what she was sure they hoped would be a tearful farewell. Mrs. Weasley, who had noticed them too, glared with wintery disapproval while Bill, George, and Mr. Weasley did their best to block the cameramen from view.

"Just ignore them, mum," Ginny said, hugging her mother. "It doesn't matter."

A flash of bright light illuminated the fog of steam like lightning in a raincloud. Hermione hoped that the thick smoke would, at the very least, obscure their shot.

Mrs. Weasley pulled Hermione fretfully into her arms while Harry took Ginny aside for a moment alone. Hermione continued down the line, embracing Mr. Weasley, then George, then Bill and Fleur, before coming to a stop in front of Ron. More flashes of camera bulbs. It was hard not to feel like an animal in a zoo.

Ron pressed his forehead into hers and whispered, "I'll really miss you, Hermione."

"I'll miss you, too," she said, and then gave him a sheepish peck on the cheek, acutely aware of the crowd and the cameras and the whole Weasley family standing only feet away.

"Oi, 'Ermione!" yelled one of the cameramen over the commotion on the platform, "'Ow about a real kiss, then?" Hermione blushed scarlet, and Ron hugged her again as if trying to shield her from prying eyes and uncouth words.

"Why don't you sod off before I shove that camera—"

"George, please!" said Mrs. Weasley, gripping her son firmly by the arm before he could take two steps toward the cameramen. "Don't make a scene!"

"It's okay," Ron said to Hermione, kissing the top of her head. "Ignore them. You're going somewhere where they can't bother you anymore." Hermione nodded against his chest. She took several deep, bracing breaths, breathing in the familiar smell of him, then broke away.

"Alright, well, hurry up you two," called Mrs. Weasley as the train gave a final warning whistle. Hermione just had time to give Harry a quick hug (Flash!) before Ginny hooked her arm in the crook of Hermione's elbow and dragged her off toward the train, passed the reporters angling for an interview without so much as a glance in their direction. Together, they made their way to their empty compartment as the train began to move, and, waving from the window, they watched the Weasleys and Harry disappear from sight.

Ginny flopped down in her seat and let Arnold out of his cage. "I hate those vultures."

"Me, too," Hermione said. Nothing made her feel better about her decision to return to Hogwarts than the thought that she wouldn't have to worry about the army of cameramen and reporters and gawkers that hung around night and day. It was bad enough that the Daily Prophet ran an article at least once a week about the "young heroes of the Second Wizarding War," but Witch Weekly and Teen Witch kept up a relentless deluge of gossip columns and full spreads of misleading photos. They'd turned Hermione and her friends into caricatures of themselves, claiming to have the scoop on scandalous heartaches and break-ups and every other kind of melodramatic drivel they could think of to print. It was disgusting, and it was everywhere.

That was the very worst part: there seemed to be no escaping it. She didn't read the articles anymore, but she couldn't avoid the mountain of fanmail she received each week or the strangers coming up to her on the street, asking for a picture and an autograph and just a moment of the famous Hermione Granger's time. Her friends had gotten used to their celebrity in the months following the end of the Second Wizarding War; Hermione had not.

"So, I guess we'll be in the same classes this year, yeah?" Ginny said, changing the subject. She watched as her pygmy puff rolled around on the seat beside her.

Hermione sighed. "Looks like it. Are you going to carry on with Muggle Studies?" she asked, remembering that it had been a mandatory class Ginny's previous year.

"Yeah. I think it helps me get where Dad's coming from. Well, I mean, I think it'll help this year, now that there's a proper teacher and all."

"I expect so."

Crookshanks meowed from his cage, staring at Arnold hungrily. After a moment, Ginny changed the topic. "Do you know if you're still a Prefect? No one told me."

"I don't think so. My letter didn't say anything about it."

"Well, I hope you're not, for your sake. I think you'll have enough going on even without patrols."

Hermione nodded her agreement. She wanted this year to be as normal as possible. No surprises. Boring, if possible. Though Prefect duties generally meant attending committee meetings and patrolling the school after curfew, Hermione was relieved not to have to worry about it. "Speaking of patrols," she said, "who's the Head Boy this year?"

"Zacharias Smith." Ginny put her head in her hands dramatically, looking up at Hermione through her fingers and sighing. "He's going to be unbearable, I just know it. He's such a prat!" They laughed, and Hermione relaxed a little.

"Where's your badge?" Hermione asked, noticing Ginny wasn't wearing it.

"Oh, I pinned it to my uniform already so I wouldn't lose it. I just couldn't bring myself to wear it in front of Fre—of George," amended Ginny, recovering almost at once. "You know how he gets."

Hermione's stomach tightened again, and she forced herself to ignore Ginny's slip. It wasn't easy to pretend it didn't hurt. There was something deep and black with loss there that Hermione, like Ginny, tried to hide. She cleared her throat and struggled to think of something to fill the silence. "Why aren't you in the Prefects' compartments?"

"Let them wait," Ginny said with a careless wave. "I don't want you to have to sit here by yourself."

"No, it's okay! You should go, being Head Girl and all. I'll be fine," Hermione said as she dug around in her bag. "I brought a book." She procured A History of Magical Symbolism in the British Isles and showed it to Ginny.

"Great," Ginny said dryly. "Well, if you really don't mind, then I guess I'll head over there now. They might fall to pieces at any moment without the most under-qualified consequence of favoritism in the history of Hogwarts there to hammer the gavel or whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing."

Hermione understood Ginny's frustration at being made Head Girl without even having been a Prefect in years past, but she didn't know what to say. McGonagall, the new Headmistress, had wanted Ginny because of her involvement with the resistance at Hogwarts and her role in the war. She felt Ginny would command respect, and no one, including Ginny, could really argue with that.

Hermione watched Ginny stuff Arnold into his cage.

"Don't go anywhere," the redhead said, and she waved as she exited the compartment.

Hermione leaned against the window and propped her feet up on the seat. "I'll be right here," she said. The door slid shut.

Draco shoved his traveling cloak between his back and the window and leaned against it. He pushed his empty owl cage further into the opposite corner of the seat and stretched out on the cushion to read. Nobody had bothered him since they'd left King's Cross. People out in the corridor stared into his compartment sometimes, but no one had come in. Truthfully, he hoped no one did come in. He preferred to be alone.

Thumbing through the pages to find his place, Draco started in on chapter seventeen of The Definitive Guide to Defense Against the Dark Arts by Hector Nighthawrt and wondered vaguely who had assigned it. After all, there were at least three new vacancies to fill and applying to be a professor at Hogwarts School had come to be a bit like signing one's own death warrant. Whoever they got for the open teaching positions would have to be either very brave or very stupid. Or both.

Absently, he pulled at a black cord around his neck until two ornate keys slid out from under his robes. Draco stroked the craggy blade of the smaller bronze key as he read, distractedly weaving it through his fingers as the other key, a heavy black metal thing, rested against his chest. He had just turned the page of his book when he heard the door of his compartment slide open. He looked up, hurriedly shoving the keys out of sight in his robes again.

A girl with blond hair and protuberant grey eyes stood in the doorway staring fixedly at him. There was a brief pause, and he stared back, unsure of what to say or do.

"Hi," she said. Not waiting for a response, she came in and sat down on the seat opposite him, her hands under her thighs, still staring. He regarded her, nonplussed, then sort of nodded by way of greeting. She didn't seem to blink; she just stared and stared.

"You're Draco Malfoy," she said rather suddenly, "the boy who made fun of me and my friends for six years, the boy who tried to kill Headmaster Dumbledore, the boy who got the Dark Mark and became a Death Eater."

Draco pictured throwing his textbook at her, but said nothing.

"You're the boy who called Hermione Granger a 'Mudblood' and dueled Harry Potter and tried to have Hagrid sacked and helped Professor Umbridge break up the D.A. and helped those Carrow people torture students last year." There was another pause. She stuck out her hand. "I'm Luna Lovegood." Looking expectant, her hand waited there in the space between their two seats. Draco gaped at her.

Her hand hadn't moved. He sat upright, put his book on the seat next to him, and hesitantly took her hand. She shook it once, then let go.

"Why are you going back to Hogwarts?" she asked, repositioning to sit cross-legged on the cushion. He noticed her wand behind her ear, her Butterbeer cork necklace and radish earrings, and a magazine tucked into the back pocket of her jeans. She definitely seemed the type of person he would have teased, and he recognized her from somewhere else, somewhere he couldn't quite put a finger on...

He leaned his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands, considering how to answer her question. "Why do you care?"

"It seems like a realistic question to ask. Didn't you finish your seventh year already?"

Draco closed his eyes and sighed heavily, figuring that he was going to be answering this question a lot. "I didn't take the N.E.W.T.s."

"So they're letting you come back for the whole year? Why don't you just sit for the exams again?"

"I got a special exemption."

"Oh?"

Draco looked up at the girl. She seemed only politely interested, as if there were a more pressing, unrelated subject that she would rather be thinking about. "Yes," he said. "My family made a very generous donation to the rebuilding of Hogwarts castle." He tried not to sound proud of that fact.

"Really?" The Lovegood girl cocked her head and thought about this, some of the dreamy nonchalance fading from her eyes. "Interesting. I wonder if your parents think it will keep you all out of Azkaban."

Draco stood up in fury and crossed to the open door as if to get away from her, stuffing his hand into his pocket to grip a crumpled piece of paper there, then rounded on her. She was watching him with vague curiosity. "Do you talk to everyone like this?"

She didn't seem intimidated at all. "I think so," she said. "Do you mind if I stay in here for a while. It's much quieter."

He felt foolish just standing there, his hand in his robes' pocket, seething while she regarded him with placid interest. "Sure," he said stiffly. She took the rolled up magazine out of her pocket, opened it, and began to read.

Draco's eyes widened when he saw the magazine's front cover. The title read The Quibbler. The main headline, sprawled over a picture of Draco's father and mother, read "Impending Trials Will Decide Fate of Death Eater Family". Other, smaller headlines advertised a quiz titled "Do You Know Your Invisible Creatures?" and two articles called "Revisiting the Blibbering Humdinger" and "Magical Parasites and You".

Draco released his hold on the newspaper clipping in his pocket and slumped back in his seat. He grabbed his book and tried to take his mind off of how awful this year was going to be.

"By the way," said Luna without looking up from The Quibbler, "if I'm ever trapped in your cellar again, Gurdyroot tea is my favorite."

A/N: This story is an update of an old one of mine, Atonement. If you recognize it from somewhere, that's where. —Abbs