It was bittersweet, sitting on the cold steel bench next to Ginny on Platform 9 3/4 at 10:45 AM as Mrs Weasley fussed over the zips and clasps on their trunks for maybe the tenth time that morning. Ginny was popping Every Flavour Beans into her mouth and making faces; Hermione was counting how many faces she recognised among the crowds. For every familiar face or old friend there were ten people she did not recognise. The new First Years, due to Hogwarts remaining closed for a whole year following the war to allow time for reparations, were a muddle of 11, 12 and 13 year olds, and the difference in that relatively short space of time was pronounced: some were small, childlike and rose-cheeked, still embalming that daisy freshness of sunny days spent rolling down hills and playing pretend; others were more elongated in both the limbs and nose, their faces somewhat chiseled from their former roundness and scowling with it.

The noise, the movement, the steam billowing in festoons from the front of the bright scarlet train… it should have been a welcome return to a home from home. But being here without Harry, without Ron, without any great number of classmates and adopted family who had lost their lives in their bid to save hers, it was difficult to muster that same excitement that had greeted her every September 1st since her 11th birthday.

From where she sat, Hermione had a good view of the entrance to the platform and she was enjoying the distraction of pondering who would pop through the barrier next. Among new and unknown students, she counted Luna with Xenophillius, Neville with his grandmother, Ernie MacMillan with both parents and a younger boy who could only be his brother, Romilda Vane with a woman too young to be her mum but who mirrored the cascading brown curls that Hermione so envied (her sister, perhaps?).

The barrier shimmered with its glamour once more and the lean figure of Draco Malfoy materialised, dressed head to foot in varying shades of black. Hermione let out a small 'oh' of surprise; she had seen none of his Slytherin friends and would not have expected him to return either. Lucius Malfoy may have been in Azkaban for his Death Eater crimes but his wife, Narcissa, had been spared incarceration - surely she wasn't so concerned that he finish his studies? She certainly hadn't accompanied him to the platform to wave him off, Hermione noted; he was alone. Almost as if he'd heard her exclamation, Malfoy glanced in her direction and, before Hermione could avert her gaze, their eyes met briefly. Something in her stomach had swooped sourly, as if the ground beneath her had unexpectedly dropped by a foot. Ever hopeful, her hand had fluttered to her side in greeting, but Malfoy's mouth formed a straight line and he lowered his head, tightening his grip on the handle of his trunk as he ducked onto one of the carriages of the train.

"I see he hasn't changed," Ginny piped up, nodding in his direction as she popped a lime green bean into her mouth.

"Mmm," Hermione made a non-committal noise. "We can't know that for sure."

"Ever the optimist," Ginny chuckled, before her smile twisted to a grimace and she grabbed the box of beans, peering at the diagram on the back. "Ugh… think this one's grass or something…"

Some minutes later, the two girls bid a tearful Mrs Weasley goodbye with promises to be good, and climbed aboard the train. Hermione followed Ginny along the centre of the carriages as she murmured to herself about Luna and Neville saving them a compartment. As they moved along, they passed Malfoy, leaning against the wall of the foyer where two carriages joined, with his trunk at his feet, his nose in a dusty leather-bound pocket book and a shiny new wand almost hidden from view protruding from the back pocket of his trousers. He gave them little regard, his steely eyes quickly assessing who had appeared in his vicinity before returning to the pages.

Hermione decided to forgo another attempt at politeness and followed Ginny's lead down the train where, a few compartments later, they found Neville and Luna sat at the window seats of an otherwise empty compartment.

Neville, now towering at least a foot taller than her, beamed at Hermione and set a small potted sunflower on the floor so he could stand and wrap her in a hug. Luna shot her her a smile that was as dreamy and whimsical as Hermione remembered it; her heart gave a happy little tug as she recognised the tiny dirigible plum earrings peeking out from between wefts of long blonde hair. The part of her that now thought of Hogwarts as unfamiliar territory without Ron and Harry retreated a little, her confidence bolstered by having two more friends at her side.

The train pulled away from the platform with a loud, low wheeze, sounding more and more agile as it gained momentum, and the foursome settled in for the long journey. The same witch with her trolley laden with treats appeared at their compartment door within the hour, offering pastries, sweets, chocolate and clanking glass bottles of cool pumpkin juice, frosted with condensation in the hazy September heat. Students rushed up and down the centre of the train, chatting and laughing and making good use of the grey area before they reached the castle when they could use magic freely without fear of reprimand.

Nothing had changed on the surface and yet the loss that had been sustained, from before the war had really begun to the time that had followed its end, seemed to lurk in the corners of the carriage like something dark and vacuous, a black hole or a tumultuous wave ready to pull them under if their thoughts or conversation should stray to that particular topic. Instead, the four friends chatted about how they had spent their time over the past year waiting for Hogwarts to reopen.

Neville had gone back to live with his grandmother and had got a part-time job in a local garden centre, tending to the plants.

"That explains the sunflower," Ginny said, nodding towards the bright yellow plant that was now perched on Neville's lap.

"Learning about Muggle plants was really interesting but it just wasn't the same without them trying to kill me," he lamented without a trace of irony.

Luna was living with Xenophillius in their absurd, rook-shaped house, a stone's throw from the Burrow in Ottery St. Catchpole; with the Quibbler now being one of the best-selling magazines in the wizarding publication industry, all hands were needed on deck and Luna had even had a few pieces of her own published in some editions.

Ginny was, of course, back at the Burrow with the Weasleys, as well as Harry and his godson Teddy Lupin who had become longterm lodgers. Their official place of residence was Grimmauld Place but, as Molly had told Harry sternly at the first Sunday dinner a few months after the Battle of Hogwarts, it was hardly a suitable place to raise a young impressionable lad, not at the very least before it had been redecorated. Ron and Harry were working with Mr Weasley at the Ministry (Harry part-time so as to have time to spend with Teddy); the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts department had been given much more space as well as respect under the new rule of Minister Shacklebolt and Mr Weasley had suddenly found himself in need of both a deputy and an assistant, roles which Ron and Harry now filled respectively. Ron was also helping George at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes during the busier Saturday shifts when Angelina - who was now George's girlfriend - had Quidditch practice.

Ginny herself had been dividing her time between looking after Teddy when Harry was at work and lending a hand in the post office in Ottery St Catchpole.

"It's dull as dishwater," Ginny smirked, "but the Muggle kids love my magic tricks." The group watched as she took a fat gleaming Galleon between her thumb and forefinger and Vanished it behind her ear. Then her nose began to twitch and she sneezed theatrically into her hands, where the Galleon suddenly reappeared to the group's hilarity.

"What about you, Hermione?" Neville asked when their laughter had died down.

"Oh, you know," she replied. "A little of this, a little of that. I spent some time at the Burrow." It wasn't strictly a lie. Hermione had indeed spent a number of months at the Burrow following the end of the war. That she had soon returned to her parents' empty house in Wiltshire was neither here nor there, nor were her reasons for doing so. Ginny, knowing her exaggeration, gave her a look but didn't betray her. The fact that Hermione had refused Ginny's pleas for her to stay that rainy night in August, and had ignored her subsequent owls until Christmas, was still something of a sore spot for the pair's friendship.

"That's nice," Luna mused, unwrapping a Chocolate Frog. "How is the search for your parents going?"

Hermione blanched, more surprised at Luna's knowledge of the fact than taken aback by the question itself; Luna had never exactly been one to beat around the bush.

"I hope you don't mind," she continued, "but Ginny confided in me some when you had your falling-out with Ron last summer." Hermione looked to Ginny, who at least had the good grace to look slightly flushed, but shrugged nonetheless.

"I was worried about you," she explained.

"Sorry, have I said something wrong?" Luna asked, her eyes if possible wider than usual. Neville had suddenly become inexplicably interested in his sunflower. Hermione took a deep refreshing breath, closing her eyes and shaking the fog out of her head.

"No, it's alright, Luna" she said, "and you, Ginny. Really." She reached across to pat her friend's hand; Ginny, still a little pink, smiled gratefully, her eyes shining. "The search, it's… well, it's going. That's about as much as there is to say. Australia is a big place."

Luna nodded serenely.

"I'm sure they'll be okay. If anything had happened to them while You Know Who was powerful, we would have heard about it."

Hermione wasn't so sure. She had just been Harry's sidekick, and her parents had been reduced to two completely unconnected Muggles thanks to her Memory Charm that had erased all memories of Hermione, Hogwarts and the wizarding world. The two easily could've been slaughtered with no more importance than any of the other Muggles killed during You-Know-Who's reign and Hermione's hope of ever finding them, alive or dead, was slowly waning.

"Thank you, Luna," she said, attempting a wry grin which felt more like a grimace on her strained face. Luna smiled, a hint of either sympathy or pity - Hermione couldn't tell - in her expression, before reaching for her rucksack and withdrawing the Summer Solstice edition of The Quibbler from its depths to show Neville the double page spread she had written about new research into the breeding habits and habitation preferences of the newly discovered Frosted Nargle. Hermione glanced up at Ginny, who had returned to her box of Every Flavour Beans. Her mouth full, she rolled her eyes and jolted her head towards Luna affectionately before wordlessly offering the box to Hermione. She plucked a pastel pink bean from the pile and popped it into her mouth. Moments later, her face twisted and she spluttered at the taste of the sweet.

"Well?" Ginny smirked. Hermione cleared her throat several times before answering.

"I don't know what that was but it wasn't grapefruit."

The view from the window grew progressively more green as the inner city's urbanity became more sparse. It became a wild patchwork of yellowing meadows embroiled with dark hedgerows, peppered here and there with stitches of sheep and swathes of purple thistles the further north the train drew. Hermione had settled at the window and opened her book, a thickset leather-bound edition with heavily thumbed pages ripe with the musty smell of age. Hours into the journey, the sun began to nestle below the horizon, dragging the colourful corners of the sky with it. The oil lamps in the compartments sprang to life with a fizz and a crackle and Hermione, jostled about by the movement of the train through the more rural terrain, had to narrow her eyes to focus on the page in the dim light. Admitting defeat, she closed the book with a sigh and looked around their carriage.

Neville, sitting opposite, was slumped against the window with his arms bundled around his chest, snoring softly in the throes of an afternoon nap. Ginny and Luna had bewitched the last of the Every Flavour Beans and were giggling as they hopped happily between their hands. Hermione checked her watch and, surmising that the train would be pulling into Hogsmeade in around half an hour, returned her book to her rucksack before standing up, her knees clicking from inactivity.

"Just nipping to the loo," she murmured, creeping between the girls' knees, narrowly missing a particularly exuberant bean that was attempting to clear the gap between their shoulders.

Hermione slid the compartment door behind her with a soft whoosh and a clatter and made her way along the train. The atmosphere that had been so boisterous earlier was now hushed and peaceful; every other compartment housed similarly lethargic students but occasionally a gleeful whoop or peal of laughter would permeate the otherwise drowsy silence.

She wobbled into the next carriage as the train jolted over a bump in the track. Her eyes fell on a pair of lean legs, clothed in expensively-tailored black trousers, one crossed over the other at the ankles. Nose still in his book, Draco Malfoy was sat on his trunk on the floor, leaning against the side of the carriage. If he noticed her presence in his carriage, he didn't acknowledge it as he held his book in one hand and swept the fingers of the other across it, using wordless magic to turn the pages.

After her initial flinch of surprise at seeing him, Hermione paid him about as much notice as he did her, but it was like his silhouette, his shadow, followed her to the next carriage, swimming around her head like the typical trope in so many comic books. Why was he sat on the floor? Why was he here at all? Why was he ignoring her? Malfoy never missed the chance to make her feel small. This silence, this lack of notice, bothered her far more than his cruel words ever had.

On her return journey, she had intended to walk straight through his carriage but it felt like walking through treacle. The quietness that emanated from him had her scrutinising her own every move, every rustle of fabric, every squeak of her shoe. She reached the door nearest to where he was sat, still on the floor, rocking with the train's movement, and she stopped with her hand on the door frame, her eyes on him. His hair was longer, swept back and behind his ears, but still glossy, still almost white. His fingernails were short and bitten but not ragged or untidy. He had removed his scarf and, beneath the collar of his jacket, she could see a small portion of the smooth expanse of skin, the top of his chest, unblemished but for the jagged top of a faint, silvery scar. Above that, his neck; and above that, his mouth, his nose, a pair of steel grey eyes that she now realised were trained not on his book but on her.

She swallowed thickly, feeling blood blossom pink in her cheeks as he crooked a questioning eyebrow at her. She waited for him to speak and, when he did not, she left, quickly returning to her own compartment in case he should follow her.

As she and her friends changed into her robes, those steel eyes lingered in her head. She had never seen such a look in them, a look that had made her feel like prey. A ghost of a memory swirled around her, a long-fingered hand on her jaw, a soft mouth hard on hers. She wondered if he remembered too.

She had never known grey was such a warm colour.