She is sitting in the dining hall on the first day of her eighth year, chin in her hand. The night before had been as much melancholy as celebratory. They'd had to acknowledge both the end of the war, and the cost of it. All the students who could come back to Hogwarts, and all the students who never would.
At the Hufflepuff table Hannah Abbott is talking animatedly with her friends. She'd cried during the feast last night but she seems alright now. Her Head Girl badge is pinned crookedly on her robes' lapel.
"Sorry," says Ginny, sliding into the spot opposite Hermione.
"Hm?" says Hermione, looking at Ginny.
"Head Girl," says Ginny.
There is a pause before Ginny adds, "That's why you were looking at her, right?"
"No," says Hermione.
She wasn't hurt that she hadn't been made Head Girl. She wasn't jealous. But there was still a part of her that wondered why. The other part of her that knew that it was something she'd never get, something to do with the last year and with the DA that hadn't been on the run.
"I thought you were gonna get it," admits Ginny.
"It's not a big deal," says Hermione. She and her friends may have saved the world but most of Hogwarts still remembers her mostly as a nuisance.
With Ron and Harry with the Aurors she doesn't know where she fits in. She may have had the idea for the DA but she had missed the entire last stage of its development. She hangs out with Ginny but Ginny's got other friends.
She goes on a Prefect Patrol with Anthony Goldstein that night; he's quiet, and lets her check in every room as though he's positive there will be nothing to find.
"Why aren't you Head Boy?" she asks, two hours in. Hands in pockets, he regards her thoughtfully and then looks down.
She lets him think before she prods again. "You were practically guaranteed it."
There is another pause. She has given up and moved onto the next classroom when he finally says to the opposite wall, "I told McGonagall I didn't want it."
Hermione hadn't expected that. "Why not?"
He twists one hand into his hair uncomfortably, looks somewhere over her head. "I- d'you know last year they'd pick us out and tell us to torture each other?"
"I've heard that," says Hermione.
"Yeah," says Anthony. "Well. I did it. Nine times."
Sometimes Hermione thought she understood things. And sometimes she found out that her classmate she'd just spent two hours with had tortured children. "Oh," she said.
"They stopped asking Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs," he says. "After a while. But they'd still ask us."
There is another brief pause. Hermione tries to decide whether she still likes Anthony. She is leaning towards "no" when he says, "You know why Hannah got Head Girl?"
"Because she was…" says Hermione. "Here, helping."
"Hannah didn't compromise her morals," says Anthony. He makes a face. "I mean, not a lot of the DA did. Outside of Ravenclaw, at least."
Hermione had compromised a few morals herself, last year. She knew Harry and Ron had, too.
"You asked Anthony ?" says Ginny. "God, he's such a downer. Don't ask him things."
Hermione shrugs. "I thought it'd be comparable. I guess not."
"If he didn't get Head Boy it was because McGonagall knew he didn't ever stand up to the Carrows," says Ginny. "Not when it counted."
"He gave it up," says Hermione, although privately she'd agree with Ginny's assessment.
Ginny sits on that. "Oh," she says.
"I'm glad I didn't get it," says Hermione. "I wouldn't have."
