Chapter One

Finally, after so long, it seemed like everyone was beginning to recover in the Britain Wizarding World. To see witches and wizards bustling about, children running around screaming and laughing, and to not have the looming threat of war over their heads gave everyone that extra relief they'd craved for for years. It had been a rough summer, trying to rebuild after such a harsh and mentally straining experience. But slowly, with the support of each other and working as a community to rebuild the Wizarding World, they'd all begun recovering.

It was no different for the newly dubbed "Golden Trio", Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger. They'd taken the summer to help rebuild Hogwarts and help around the Wizarding Community. They stood as witness in front of the Wizengamot for the trials of Death Eaters, helped put those that were still alive behind bars in Azkaban. Hermione took it as a personal mission to help set up a Recovery Group for anyone who might need a safe place to talk about the war.

Then, after all that hard work between Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and Diagon Alley, everyone was ready to take that next step into their adulthood.

Actually deciding what to do was extremely challenging for each of them. First, it started with the offer from Kingsley, the new Prime Minister of Magic. He offered each of them a position in the Auror program, following the completion of their NEWTs. Hermione had been ecstatic to hear Kingsley was promoting the 7th Year Students to complete their education and used the situation as an excuse to reach out to the others of their Year. She sent out letters to everyone that was still alive, from the Gryffindors to the other Houses. Even Slytherin. When Ron had found out what she was doing, it had led to a huge argument. They reached a point where they were shouting and pulling poor Harry right into the middle of it.

When he had hesitantly picked Hermione's side ("Ron, you know we can't hate them just because of what their parents did. It's what started the whole war to begin with."), the redhead had stormed out and refused to speak to them for weeks. So, Hermione and Harry planned starting out the school year with just the two of them. Hermione compiled a list of students returning for Professor- no, now it was Headmistress McGonagall, so that her old professor could see to the letters being sent out.

Hermione was more than surprised to see a huge portion of Slytherin House returning for their final Year. At least, it was of those that had survived the War. She hadn't expected many of them to return her letters, much less for them to actually join in the school again. Most of them had kept their heads down and tucked quietly into their estates while their relatives and family friends were prosecuted. The only one she was most surprised to hear back from was Draco Malfoy.

Not only had Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy been brought forth for judgement, but Draco had been as well. He'd been one of the few Slytherins who'd actually taken the Mark and declared himself part of Voldemort's Army. Harry had taken the time to personally sit through their prosecution, spoken on their behalf, and had saved the entire Malfoy Family from many, many years of imprisonment in Azkaban. Yes, they'd helped a bit when the Trio had needed to escape after being captured by the Snatchers and Harry had saved Draco when they'd nearly died in the Lost Room*. Lucius had taken the brunt of their sentence, being given ten years in Azkaban, but Narcissa and Draco had been let free.

Hermione had rarely seen Draco or Narcissa, outside of their major charity events Narcissa had started. She funded much of the materials to rebuild homes and stores as well as Hogwarts. She started an Orphanage, a good one to help those who'd lost so much in the war, and even began fundraising to help the local communities.

So, to receive a letter from the Slytherin Prince politely stating that yes, he would be returning and that he greatly appreciated Hermione's concern in the matter, confused her to no end. She never imagined he would ever be civil to her in any way, letter or in person, despite the aftermath of the war. She thought about it for a while, brought it up to Harry. They discussed it a bit, but in the end Harry brushed it off to the side as nothing more than paranoia on their part. Hermione took his explanation and had to agree. They were just too paranoid after last year, surely there was nothing to worry about.

Ron came around in the last few weeks to school. He muttered his apologizes, made comments about how rough the summer had been, and promised to control his temper better. Hermione and Harry accepted him back without much arguing, understanding exactly how rough it probably was with the loss of Fred. They helped plan for the rest of the school year, Hermione started prepping them for the classes they'd need for the Auror program, and life seemed to move on smoothly.

The few days following their return to Hogwarts were chaos. The plan to get to Diagon Alley at least three days early got pushed further and further back until all they had was the day before. The rush and turmoil to get to Diagon Alley was crazy and as insane as Hermione always remembered it. She couldn't begin to explain how nice it was for some normalcy compared to the last few years. She and Ginny were packed and ready to leave bright and early that morning. Harry and Ron decided to leave their packing to the last few minutes before they had to leave for Diagon Alley. The girls waited downstairs, chatting and helping Mrs. Weasley pack a few more snacks for the train ride the following day. She bustled around between the kitchen and living room, clucking around like the Mother hen she was and scolding the boys for running behind.

Thankfully, they still left relatively early to get checked in at the Leaky Cauldron. They got their rooms situated, Harry and Ron together, Hermione and Ginny in another, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley in the last. Mrs. Weasley figured it would be better to send off the children to shop for their own supplies before eating lunch, so after a bit of settling in, the four young witches and wizards started back out into the crowds.

Hermione never thought she'd see so many people in Diagon Alley just after the final battle. The crowds were bustling and full of life. Children yelled happily, people laughed, and there were just all sorts of merrymaking around. It was contagious. Still, they needed to focus. So, with a deep breath, Hermione turned to the three and told them, "We'll have to hurry up today to get everything off of our lists. I figured we all have a quick account of what all we do have and make a chart of what we need to stop for. Then we can-"

"Come on, 'Mione, let's just go and shop for a bit," Ron whined.

Hermione huffed in annoyance. "I told you to call me Hermione. I don't like nicknames. Besides, we can't just go off and 'shop'. We don't have all the time in the world this trip, so we should plan it accordingly!"

Ron nodded his head, saying, "I understand what you're saying. But I do have one argument with it." With that said, the redhead grabbed hold of Harry and started to drag him away without another word. He threw over his shoulder in his quick escape, "We'll be at Quality Quidditch Supply!"

"Ronald Weasley! Get back here!" Hermione called, a frown already on her face. When he did no such thing and Harry had only waved at her sheepishly, she scowled and turned to talk to Ginny.

The redhead interrupted her, looking after the boys just as eagerly, "I should probably go after them and…"

With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, she told Ginny, "Go ahead, tell them to meet me at Flourish and Blott's in an hour, please!" Beaming, Ginny ran off after the two. Hermione shook her head and muttered, "Quidditch, honestly!" Still, this gave her an hour to explore the finer depths of the large bookstore and the ability to pick up her schoolbooks in the same trip. So, a bit reluctant and glancing where she knew the Quidditch shop was located, Hermione Granger started towards the large bookstore close by.

As expected right before the start of Hogwarts, the place was crowded. Many students bustled about, mostly for the books they would need. As usually, those books were displayed at the front of the store, so once she'd managed her way through the crowd, Hermione could find some solitude in the aisles with a much smaller crowd. She could worry about getting her schoolbooks once Ron, Harry, and Ginny had arrived. Besides, she had a large list of books she needed to get aside from those.

She hadn't been able to pick between Auror training and Mediwitch. After a bit of thought, she decided to let Kingsley know that she was thinking between the two and once she'd done a bit more research and possible job shadowing, she would give him a final answer by Christmas time. On top of research books for those positions, she also had a list of books she wanted to read for pleasure. It ended up being quite the list, so she could be a bit thankful for the hour she had to herself.

It didn't take her too terribly long to find everything that she needed on Mediwitch and Auror training, so she was left with looking through her list of light reading. Which wasn't always so light. There were plenty of books she wanted to look in on about new spells they'd yet to learn at Hogwarts, some history books, and general research she'd always been curious about, but hadn't had the time. She got all of those piled up in her arms, went over to the general fiction section and began looking through the titles. She wasn't one who usually read anything, but non-fiction, but on the occasion she wanted to look through what they had. From some science fiction (books that often involved these "wizards" always made her laugh), romance, fantasy, and mystery, she found they all still had quite the appeal to her. She promised herself she could only get four books for the trip to Hogwarts (as there was plenty more for her to read in the Hogwarts library), but by looking through a few titles, she easily ended up with a dozen she was having a hard time choosing from.

She was sitting on the ground in a pile of books, gnawing on her bottom lip, looking through about three different ones trying to decide, when she heard someone clear their throat. She began apologizing before she had a chance to look up, "Oh, I'm sorry if I'm in the way-"

But she was interrupted with a drawl she was very familiar with, "Don't worry about it, Granger."

Immediately, her head snapped up and she fixed her gaze on the familiar white blond wizard. She managed out, "Malfoy," without much issue, but she doubted she could say much more without snapping at him.

"How's the… research going? Or are all of these just for pleasure?" He was looking at her with those steely grey eyes, that ever present smirk on his face.

"It's a bit of both," she answered automatically without thinking. She continued, her voice clipped, "What do you need?"

"I just thought it would be best if we caught up. With the war over and everyone moving on, I thought we could put past aside our differences."

Her eyebrows rose and she scoffed, "What? You want to talk to a mudblood like me?" She remembered that she'd told herself she wouldn't be rude to any of the students. Still, she couldn't help herself with Malfoy.

He had the decency to at least flush a bit and glance around. He managed out, tone biting, "I don't plan to be calling anyone that any longer. Nor would I like to hear someone else say it."

"I'm sure, Malfoy. We'll see about that." No longer much interested in looking at the books around her, she got her feet, tucking the three she had been looking at and grabbing a fourth random title. With a quick flick of her wand, she sent the undecided ones back to the shelf and said, "I'll be going now. Don't want to make your day murky with my presence."

Just as she turned around to pick up the rest of her pile, she noticed Malfoy had the pile in his arms, glancing at one of the titles with his free hand. She worked her mouth for a moment, fighting the urge to stomp on his foot, and told him, "Give me my books."

He glared at her, snapping, "I'm just trying to help out a bit. You have quite the workload on hand." He shoved the books into her arms, not touching her directly. Scowling and without another word, she spun around on her heel and started out of the aisle, fuming. She didn't know what it was, but something about Draco Malfoy always riled her up too easy and too quickly. She didn't look back at him once, certainly didn't see the way he waved his wand and levitated down the books she'd put away just moments before.

Figuring it was easier just to purchase all the school books at once instead of waiting for Harry, Ron, and Ginny (there was too close a chance that she had to encounter Malfoy if she waited), she picked out her schoolbooks for the year, piled them up with her already heaping mound of books and went to check out.

It was half past 11, only an hour and forty-five minutes to go until they had to meet Mrs. Weasley, when Hermion finally emerged from the bookstore, her purchases put into her ever present beaded handbag she'd been using the past year. After quickly checking to make sure nothing could get lost in the ever expanding space, she looked around for signs of her friends, huffing in frustration when she couldn't spot any of them. She figured it was probably time for her to drag them from the Quidditch shop and started down the road. As expected, she could see all three of them from the window huddled around what had to have been the newest Quidditch book published. It was the only book they all picked up eagerly.

Grumbling, she made her way inside, ignoring the squeals of children, teens, young adults, and made her way next to Ginny. When the redhead saw she was standing beside her, she immediately put down the book she'd been looking at and gushed, "I'm so sorry! I didn't realize it was so late already!" That caught Ron and Harry's attention, who, noticing a sour look on her face, began babbling strings of apologizes. She waved them off without a thought. She decided it was a bad idea to bring up the Malfoy subject, not wanting to deal with their rants and threats.

Finally, she was able to drag the quidditch obsessed young adults to the shop next door; Amanuensis Quills. "It looks as if they've fully renovated!" Hermione said eagerly, working her way through the crowds in an attempt to get a better view. Everything looked as if it had been redone, from the shelving, the wallpaper, even the display racks for the new quills.

It didn't take too long before each student had found an abundance of quills, inks, and parchment. Hermione had to physically drag Ron away from the QuikSpell quills. She scolded him good ("You should not need something else to do your proper spelling, Ronald!"), checked over each of their purchases, and made sure they all had adequate enough supplies for the year. Thankfully, that seemed to be the final bit they needed at the shop, so they all checked out and tried to push their way through the crowds as quickly as possible.

Hermione had no problem bustling them through each store, from the Slug and Jiggers Apothecary to collect up the supplies they would need for Potions, Potage's Cauldron Shop for some new cauldrons, and even to Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment for a bit of browsing. It wasn't until they stopped at the last shop, Flourish and Blotts that Hermione hesitated. She doubted Draco Malfoy was still there, but even so... Almost reluctant, Hermione started, "I think I can skip this stop, I know that I'm looking towards finding a new toy for Crookshanks-"

"What are you talking about, 'Mione? I would have thought you'd love the chance to go around a second time in the bookstore!" Ron said, oblivious to the look on her face. Harry and Ginny noticed the expression on her face almost instantly, but decided it was best to stay silent.

Hermione hesitated again, almost opened her mouth to tell him not to call her that. Instead, she reluctantly nodded and followed the group inside. She kept near one of them at all times, no longer focused on the books around her. She glanced around periodically, focusing to make sure she didn't see Malfoy or any of his friends. She couldn't imagine they'd do anything stupid, but still she didn't want to risk having her friends try to pick a fight with him.

Thankfully, none of her friends had much focus wanting to browse through any of the books. Harry and Ron were quick to collect up all the texts for their classes. Ginny seemed interested in going through some of the other shelves, but when Hermione inquired, she quickly changed her tune and decided it would be best just to wait. As much as she wanted to press the issues, Hermione let it drop for the time being.

They got out about fifteen minutes later, chatting and heading back towards the Leaky Cauldron for lunch. Ginny wanted to do something memorable for the last night in Diagon Alley for their last Year of Hogwarts. After throwing out a few ideas, Hermione mused, "Well, why don't we come out and enjoy a nice evening at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour? We could all sit out here, do some last minute studying for the year-"

"Or we could just enjoy hanging out, playing some games." Ron gave Hermione a significant look. "You should take a night and just enjoy this."

She huffed, but instead of telling him about her need to be caught up before school started like they all expected, she gave him a bright smile and said, "I probably will. After all, this is our last year here for anything related to school. At least until the next generation."

They all grinned, thoughts of what the evening could be like floating through their heads, as they wandered back towards the Leaky Cauldron for the evening.

~A/N~

I'm sorry for such a long delay! I've been working different ideas and I finally had the perfect plan for this chapter! I'm hoping another chapter will come out sooner, I have everything planned out for the story!

Please R&R!

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