GRAMMAR CORRECTION: 07/15/2011

EDITED: 12/21/2010

Just to clear things up, the war has already found place, everything went exactly as in the books except for the things you'll read in this chapter. Harry has spend about a week with the Dursleys to make sure they were okay, and to cast a few protecting charms over their house, Hermione could probably have done it quicker, but Harry insisted on doing it himself. That's why it took about a week.

{Working Title} It's Alright – Chapter one

There's a shadow hanging over me,
Oh, yesterday, came suddenly
The Beatles - Yesterday

'Hermione!' A boy with pitch black hair, which was perpetually untidy, shouted. His green eyes sparkled with joy, as he walked over to the girl with the wild brown curly hair. Harry Potter was as thin as ever, though maybe a bit more muscled, as an outcome of his Quidditch playing probably.

The usual second hand Muggle clothes, that always were about sixteen sizes bigger than he was since his cousin Dudley Dursley passed them on, were replaced by a robe that actually fitted. His round glasses were wet from the rain, which was pouring down like it would never get another chance to, and a faint scar was to see behind his fringe. The girl with the wild curls, Hermione Granger, smiled at him.

'Harry! How've you been?' She hugged him. He chuckled. It was a stupid question, of course. Harry hated to be with his uncle and aunt. They hated having him around even more. Until Harry's eleventh birthday, he'd lived in the cupboard beneath the stairs. Vernon and Petunia Dursley had a great hatred against anything that wasn't as it should be. Their son might even be worse. He was about the size of a car and had rather aggressive hobbies. He left Harry alone though (mostly).Because he was terrified of magic ever since the half-giant Hagrid had hexed a pig tail on him. With a pink umbrella, that is.

'Depressed and lonely, as usual.' He grinned at her. 'But luckily it was only for a week this time. Having matured helped too, of course.' She smiled at him. He got to use magic whenever he wanted now (a fact the Dursleys had found utterly unpleasant). 'Have you seen Ron yet?' Hermione asked. She did so because the three of them would spend the rest of their holiday at the burrow. Harry shook his head.

Just then, a tall gangly boy with fiery red hair walked towards them. His face was covered with freckles, his long nose positioned underneath blue eyes, and above a wide lopsided grin.

'I heard my name?' He stated.

'Ron!' Harry and Hermione yelled at the same time. Hermione waited for a while as the two best friends smacked each other on the back. She smiled. Even though Harry had grown about a head, Ron still lingered far above the both of them. He was the tallest bloke in their year and even taller than most older guys.

His twin brothers, Fred and George, for example, were two years older than he was but quite a bit shorter. The Weasleys were sort of split in two different types, the long and gangly, containing Ron, Percy and Bill, and the shorter and broader Weasleys, Fred, George and Charlie. Even the short Weasleys were tall, though. Hermione didn't stand a chance against them, even Ginny was taller than she was.

'Hermione.' Ron smiled at her. She hugged him after she placed her bags with new schoolbooks on the pavement. She was finally going to take her N.E.W.T.s this year. Harry and Ron were too. They both wanted to become an Auror, which means they had to have at least five N.E.W.T.s with the grade "Exceeds Expectations".

Hermione wasn't sure what she wanted to be yet. Just to be prepared, she was taking nine classes. That was far above average, most wizards took about three or four and there were plenty that did not even bother to take them.

Hermione, though, was overjoyed that she finally had the chance to finish her education. Though, she doubted she would really go. She had a vague suspicion that Harry only pretended to go back, only to leave quietly to fix things on his own, believing he protected her and Ron by that. She vowed to herself she wouldn't let that happen. She was happy she had the option, though, over the past few months, she'd been worried that Hogwarts wouldn't reopen after the war at all. A shudder crossed her spine when she thought about the war.

All the innocent people who had died. How Fred had almost suffered the same faith, but Hermione herself was with him at the time, nothing had ever seemed so important than to save Fred, it felt as if the fate of the whole world depended on it, and when the green flash was only a feet away of his chest, she had conjured small birds – the same one she had send at Ron when he had kissed Lavender – in front of him, the birds had died instead. She hadn't had time to wait for a reaction, because she and Ron were chasing the Death Eater that had cast the deadly curse, she hadn't seen Fred since.

But she hadn't been able to help everyone. Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks had left their son, Teddy, behind as an orphan. Colin Creevey, who shouldn't even have been there, died to save his hero.

And if that wasn't bad enough, Voldemort fled when Neville had killed Nagini, realising he'd have to kill Harry another time. Because even though his arrogance was great, the Dark Lord wasn't stupid, and he knew when a battle was lost. So not only did their people die, their task wasn't fulfilled either. And of course, Harry blamed everything on himself.

While she thought about this, a lonely tear fell down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away with her sleeve, and got her thoughts back to school. She suddenly realised she didn't even know which classes Harry and Ron were going to take.

Hermione looked at Ron's bag, which was significantly smaller than hers. 'Which subjects are you going to take?' She asked him curiously. He grinned broadly. 'Same as Harry; Defence Against Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Potions, Charms and Herbology.' Hermione smiled. She'd already expected Harry and Ron would want to take as few classes as possible. She kept an eye on Harry though, she thought she saw a hint of sadness in his eyes as they talked about school, but it quickly disappeared when he caught Hermione looking.

'Which ones did you choose?' Harry asked her, his eyes glazing towards her bag from Flourish & Blotts that had made a loud thud when she had put it down. 'Same as you guys, plus Ancient Runes, History of Magic, Arithmancy and Astronomy.' Ron rolled his eyes. He'd already expected Hermione to be overenthusiastic. Harry on the other hand, looked at her with his mouth slightly opened.

'Hermione, you're taking nine classes? Don't you think that's a bit too much?' Hermione smiled. She knew he was worried because he thought about their third year when she had used a time turner, and had been exhausted all the time.

'You know I will manage. And this time, I don't have multiple classes at the same time, I double checked.' Harry shook his head, but smiled.

'You really are the brightest witch of our time.' He mumbled, more saying it to himself than to her. But she heard it and she felt extremely flattered. She shot him a quick "Thank you" and grabbed her bag back from the ground.

'Shouldn't we get out of this bloody rain?' Ron said, as water was dripping from his nose, and he himself was completely soaked. Hermione nodded. 'Yes. Where to, though? I don't know about you guys, but I've already bought everything I need.' A wicked grin spread across the boys' faces, and Hermione already knew the answer before they said it aloud. 'Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.'

She sighed, shaking her head slightly. But even though she would never admit it to anyone, she actually thought the twins were brilliant. She had always liked them, for being hope in the worst times, because that is exactly what they were. No matter how hard a time was, their shop, their products and them their selves, radiated hope. Whenever you went to the Weasley twins, whether you knew them or not, you came back grinning like an idiot. And though she tried to hide it, Hermione always came back as one of those grinning idiots.

Hermione looked around in the colourful, big, bright shop. It was comfortably warm, which was strange for a few seconds, because it was completely in contrast with the cold, wet weather outside. There were shelves and tables and showcases everywhere, all crammed with Weasley merchandise, boxes were piled to the ceiling, and it was completely packed with costumers.

Hermione shook Harry and Ron off by walking towards the Wonderwitch corner. She didn't get the chance to purchase things here last time, because they were following Draco Malfoy. But now, she intended to actually buy a couple of things. She grabbed one of the magenta baskets, the ones Muggles had in supermarkets, to place products in, the only difference was that these baskets floated beside you, and had the ability to lead you to products of your interest. Truly extraordinary. Hermione thought to herself.

Her basket led her to a room stuffed with charmed books, hexed quills, bewitched parchment and so on. She relaxed and smiled. She loved the smell of fresh parchment and books, whether they were bewitched or not. She stood there still, just plain content, for a while. But then her basket started patting softly against her head in impatience. She blinked a few times and walked towards the quills.

She did not need a spell-checking one, which could not be said for Ron, but a self-inking one would come out rather convenient. For some inexplicable reason, she was always out of ink. Ron and Harry repeatedly suggested that was probably due to the sizes of her essays. She smiled, she just couldn't hold herself back. She picked a handsome quill in a cardinal red, and gently placed it in her basket, that was already heading for another corner that was completely filled with parchment. Some simply coloured, some bewitched in a way similar to the Marauder's Map, others that would bite the one who'd write on it or would spontaneously burst into flames.

She stroked her fingers over some of the parchments, avoiding the biting ones, naturally. A warmth flowed through her, she would describe it as a weak love, if you would have asked her.

Unfortunately, she'd already bought parchment at Flourish & Blotts. So she followed her basket to a wall with notebooks from the ceiling to the floor. Some had just a simple colour spell on them, which caused them to flash in different neon colours. Some had big smiling portraits of famous wizards on the front, who could talk as well. A few looked just like the Muggle versions, there was a lot of variety. Hermione even spotted a Pygmy Puff diary which was fluffy, pink and round and needed, according to the description, to be hugged to open. Hermione was amazed by some of them. When she thought about it, she indeed wanted a notebook.

She had had one since she became nine until her letter for Hogwarts arrived. She had used it as a diary. She vented her feelings by writing everything down, in school she was bullied badly, sometimes even violently. And even though she had friends now, who stood up for her whenever someone tried to hurt her physically or mentally, she still couldn't tell them everything. They were blokes after all. She had no desire whatsoever to have a flashy neon-coloured fluffy notebook though.

She looked at her basket that was floating near a beautiful brown notebook with a very little golden "W" in the top corner. She stroke her finger gently across the cover. Then, she got a really weird but comfortable feeling. It was like the time she had first held her wand, only fainter.

She didn't believe in faith as Divination put it, but there was faith in other ways. The wand chooses the witch, miss Granger. Ollivander had told her. It felt as if this notebook chose her. She carefully picked it up, and placed it in the basket. The feeling she faded as soon as the notebook left her hands.

She stood there in awe, just perplexed. But her basket was rather impatient, and started patting against her head again, so she started following it once more. She came at a corner full of candy for pranks, and a mischievous grin (which was slightly out of place on Hermione's features) appeared on her face when she saw their newest product.

Gender Blender Gum
Contains five pieces, each piece will cause the user to become the other gender for a day. Sixteen sickles.

Lavender could use a day without her long blond pretty hair. She grabbed one package and placed it in her basket, which floated away again.

To her surprise, it led her to the Wonderwitch products. She watched all the products carefully. Which one could possibly be the one she held interest in? She didn't care much for Make-up Magic, but did grab one of the magical brushes, which was bewitched so that you could go through knots easily. (Her previous one had broken when she tried to get through a knot in her bushy hair.) The Pygmy Puffs were cute, but she was afraid Crookshanks would find them a bit too interesting. She didn't even bother considering to buy Love Potions. Her face flashed crimson when she realised why her basket had brought her here.

Patented Daydream Charms
One simple incantation and you will enter a top-quality, highly realistic, thirty-minute daydream, easy to fit into the average school lesson and virtually undetectable (side effects include vacant expression and minor drooling). Not for sale to under-sixteens.

She remembered the time she had called it extraordinary magic. She'd never seen Fred so proud. He had told her she could have one for free, but she didn't feel the urge to let them think she was avaricious, so she decided to just pay for it, unless one of the twins came on to the subject themselves. She placed the box with the swooning girl on the pirate ship in her basket, which then decided she was done and floated to the cash register.

She obediently followed it, to find a rather bored looking girl behind the cash register – which was sort of odd, since Hermione couldn't understand how you could be bored in this shop – with short blonde hair. If Hermione remembered correctly, her name was Verity.

'Hi, how can I help you?' The girl asked. Her voice was clear, but somewhere Hermione spotted a hidden sharp edge in it. Just like a splinter of glass, not to be noticed until you step on it and feel how sharp it really is. Hermione mentally shook her head. She hated it when people drew prejudices and were hypocritical, and at the moment, she was being both.

Hermione didn't need to answer Verity, as her basket had already landed before the girl. Verity held her arm nearby the pile of merchandise Hermione's basket had gently placed on the counter. At first, Hermione didn't understand why, but then she saw a small device around Verity's wrist. It looked a little similar to Muggle watches, only the spot where the clock belonged was replaced by a blank white square. After a few seconds the device beeped melodiously and a number appeared on the blank square. Verity quickly scanned it and then turned her gaze back to Hermione.

'That'll be six Galleons, eleven Sickles and twenty-one Knuts' She said. Hermione grabbed her enchanted little purse, she'd taken it with her everywhere since the war, it was rather convenient. She didn't see her wallet anywhere, so she summoned it. Two wallets flew into her hand, a black one and a red one. She gently placed the red one back in her purse, that one was for Muggle money.

She took out the wished amount and handed it over to Verity, who in her turn gave her back a magenta – how surprising – bag with a big orange "W" on it. Hermione took it from her and put it in her purse. This caused gaping and gazing from others, since the bag had been about three times as big as her delicate purse. After she did so, Ron tugged at her arm. 'Hermione, we're apparating home, are you coming?' Hermione nodded, she walked outside to see Harry there as well.

The three of them walked over to the apparation point and apparated to the burrow.

A/N: Thank you for reading my story! Please, whether you liked it or despised it, can you review and let me know?

Thanks to Jiraya Kyushu for pointing out a mistake I made! Please, if you see a typo or some other (grammar) mistake, let me know, and I'll change it. Thank you!

Yours undoubtedly, WT.