A/N excited to begin! Let's get started!
Chapter 1 - All Aboard The Hogwarts Express
"Bye Mum, Dad!" Hermione called, as she hurried off to find her best friends on the platform. It was September the 1st and everyone was getting ready to board the Hogwarts Express. Hermione was looking forward to starting her seventh year, although obviously much less than usual. There were deaths everywhere these days. She was positive the inevitable war was coming on. Hogwarts was currently one of the only safe places left - although even her school was considerably less safe than usual. She glanced back at her parents with damp eyes, hoping the slight break in her stability had gone unnoticed. They smiled and waved at her cheerfully, oblivious to what was to come. No one did know what was happening anymore. Not with the greatest and wisest man Hermione knew lying some hundred metres away from her school. He was one of the many that met the fate of whoever was disliked by 'him.' A tear rolled down her cheek and splashed down her jumper, the droplet dispersing into a hundred million pieces. Much like the world as she knew it. Falling apart and shattering. Piece by piece.
Hermione strained her neck to see if her friends were in the crowd, but the famous jet black hair and flaming red hair weren't in sight. She spent a further minute searching the platform, before deciding they must have already boarded. Sighing, Hermione hauled her suitcase to one of the doors of the scarlet red carriage, where a tall man in a red blazer and black trousers helped her with her suitcase up the steps, onto the coach. From there, she traipsed down the corridor, looking for familiar red hair, but in vain. "HERMIONE! Hey Harry I found her!" Hermione whirled around with a beaming smile to find Ron running down the corridor and giving her a clumsy hug, to which Hermione replied, with a genuine smile on her face. She was surprised her mouth muscles still knew how to do it. Harry rolled his eyes when he was dumped with Ron's suitcase, and kept a hold on Ginny's hand. Once the embrace had finished, all four of them huddled into the nearest empty compartment, Harry dragging both his and Ron's suitcases clumsily behind him. Then, Harry pushed Ron's suitcase over to him with a frown and Ron got the hint and grinned apologetically. They all lifted their own suitcases into the space above their heads, and sat down.
"How's your holidays been?" Ron asked Hermione. He was sitting next to her and the window, opposite Harry, who was next to Ginny. "It was fine," replied Hermione with an attempted smile. None of them bought it. "Mum was a bit emotional, she found a copy of the daily prophet under my bed and I ended up having to tell them all about the sincerity of Voldemort's return. I had being trying to keep them out of it," sighed Hermione, not meeting anyone's eyes. They all looked around, an invisible heaviness settling itself in the atmosphere. "But you didn't do - it?" Harry asked tentatively. Hermione's face fell.
"No," she replied firmly, " I'm only going to do it if the er, situation, gets any worse." Ginny looked confused.
"Er," she said quizzically, " what's 'it'?" Both Harry and Ron looked at Hermione, who nodded in consent.
"Wiping her parents memories," Harry heaved.
"Like so they can like forget that Mione's their like... Like their daughter," Ron said awkwardly, not meeting Ginny's eyes, which had widened. "That's horrible! Why do such a thing?" Ginny asked with a disbelieving expression.
"So that Voldemort can't track Harry Potter's moodblood's parents down. And kill them," Hermione clarified, looking up from the floor and staring hard into Ginny's eyes. Everyone flinched at Hermione's use of 'moodblood' and 'kill'. A tear fell from Hermione's eye and splashed onto her denim jeans. Everyone else looked uncomfortable and Ron put a protective arm around her, while Harry found an incredibly interesting spec of dirt on his fingernails. Ginny looked somewhat pissed at Harry's incapability to show Hermione a satisfactory amount of sympathy, and whacked him, hard round the back of the head. He bent over, clutching his head, and yelled "WHAT THE HECK GIN?" and she and everyone else laughed. Ginny smirked. She was somewhat proud of removing some of the newly settled heaviness from the air.
After about half an hour of brighter conversation, the lunch trolley arrived. "Anything from the trolley dears?" The plump lady asked. Harry and Ron both got up and walked out the compartment to choose. "Erm, four pumpkin pasties, four cauldron cakes, three liquorice wands, four chocolate frogs and... A box of Berti Bott's every flavour beans. Please," Ron looked at Harry after saying this for clarification, and he nodded. "Right that's... Three sickles and five knuts dears," the plump lady smiled. Harry shuffled through his pocket taking out two sickles, and Ron pulled out one sickle and the five knuts. They both thanked the trolley lady and brought the goods into the compartment and dumped them on the table next to the window. "Why only three wands?" Hermione queried. "Ginny dunt 'ike 'em," Ron said through a mouthful of pumpkin pastie. Hermione rolled her eyes at Ron's lack of manners, before taking a bite of a pumpkin pastie herself.
Once most the food was gone, which surprisingly only took about twenty minutes, Hermione said that they ought to change into their robes. So naturally, everyone took out their gryffindor robes and pulled them over their heads. They also pulled out their cloaks, as it looked pretty chilly outside. They still had a good couple of hours to go, and the food pile was diminishing quickly. There was only a handful of beans left. Harry took one and inspected it closely. "I reckon, that this blue speckled green bean, is apple flavoured," he said quietly. Ginny laughed and replied in a giggle, "I doubt it." Harry popped it in his mouth. No sooner than two seconds later however, his face contorted to one of great disgust. "Not apple?" Ginny smirked playfully.
"No," Harry choked and spat it into his palm and tossed the bad sweet into an empty cake wrapper, "Sprout." Everyone laughed.
"I just need a breather, Hermione giggled once the laughter had died down. With that she got up, picked up an orange bean and smiled, "orange," once she'd bitten into it, and walked out. Harry glared daggers after her. Ron and Ginny laughed a bit more. "Shut it!" Harry snapped. Ginny smirked and pecked Harry on the cheek. Harry tried to hold the glare in place but lost and kissed Ginny on the lips. Ron pretended to vomit and half shouted, "Get a room!" Ginny and Harry broke apart and glared at the annoying red head. Then they both grabbed a handful of sweet wrappers and threw them at him. Ron ducked but unfortunately got hit right in the face with a half chewed blue speckled green bean. "UGH! Harry you FUCKING RETARDED ARSEHOLE!" Ron yelled, wiping the sprout flavoured bean off his face with his sleeve in disgust. The saliva clung from Ron's forehead to the bean and was most disgusting to see. Both Ginny and Harry cracked up in fits of laughter while Ron leaned over to wipe his sleeve briskly down Harry's cloak sleeve. Harry wasn't quick enough and swore loudly as his long abandoned bean reunited itself with him. Harry glared at Ron. Ginny stifled a snort.
Hermione strolled down the corridor still a little giggly after the bean incident, and walked headlong into someone. "Sorry," Hermione looked up apologetically and froze at the face looking down at her. "Get out my way you filthy little mudblood!" Draco snapped at Hermione, who glared at him and held her ground defiantly, with no intentions of budging. Draco smirked. "No Scar Head or Weaslebee to help you now is there," Draco smirked. Hermione scowled.
"I am perfectly capable of fighting my own battles, Malfoy, remember that lovely black eye I gave you in third year?" Hermione smiled bitterly. "Move it mudblood!" Draco snarled. Hermione winced slightly.
"Is that really the only word in your vocabulary? Mudblood? Ooh I'm so scared!"
"You're a pathetic excuse for a witch Granger, now budge before I curse you into a thousand pieces."
"Don't you dare call me pathetic YOU FERRET! You were going to kill Dumbledore!" Hermione half screamed. For a fleeting moment, Draco looked distant and broken, but Hermione was sure she'd imagined it as his face became one of outraged and looked even more menacing than before. " Don't you Fucking DARE bring that up you hear me! That has nothing to do with you nor any of your moron friends. At least I'm worthy of my magic Granger, mudbloods like you don't deserve magic!" At this Hermione brought up her hand to slap Draco but he held a firm grip on her wrist and hissed, "No wonder you try to show off at school, to make yourself believe you deserve it! Now... Get out of my way."
Hermione wrenched her hands from him and hurried off up to the back of the train, where she shut herself up in the girls' toilets. Once safely inside a locked cubicle, she cast a silencing charm around the cubicle and screamed. She pounded her fists against the wall until her knuckles bled. She hated that word. Mudblood. "Mudblood," Hermione said, letting the sounds roll over her tongue. Don't deserve magic... She pounded her fists against the wall again and again. She didn't like the word for numerous reasons, one being that Harry and Ron thought she was at greater risk than them and were being overprotective. Two being that the word was a derogatory term and she felt small when being described as it. And then there was that death eater. During the holidays when she wasn't at the Weasley's, she'd been with her parents. They'd gone shopping in London and Hermione had taken a quick detour into Diagon Alley, to buy some more quills. It would have been fine, if she'd remembered that the street was crawling with death eaters. Even that was fine to an extent, but it was when one of them had recognised and walked up to her, that she'd hit him. Bad move.
She could see him now, snickering about how stupid she was. "Stupid little girl. Stupid little mudblood." He'd grabbed her arm and pushed her against the wall, and clever Hermione had her wand in her back pocket, which was pressed up against the wall. "Tell me, mudblood, what's a pretty girl like you doing wandering the streets all by herself?" He was breathing down her neck now, bringing his right hand up to cup her left breast. She felt sick. "Get off of me you beast!" She shouted at him. She then proceeded to yank his clenched hand off of her body and shoved him away from her. His eyes looked like cold slits of amusements behind his mask. "Come on mudblood, how 'bout a little magic at my place, that's all you mudbloods are for isn't it? And it'd be so much fun..." The masked man growled, but Hermione was already sprinting towards the magic brick wall, the man's words ringing in her head. She was not a slag. Not someone to just be used just because of her blood. Damn that word.
And that was why she hated that word. It made her feel as defenceless as she had done then, and she wasn't proud of feeling week. She wished she'd been able to see who it'd been. And then there was Malfoy. He was a death eater. She hated him. No she loathed that evil little cockroach. Why the hell did she let him get to her like that? She supposed she did push him over the limit there, back in the corridor. Harry had told her and Ron everything that had happened that night on the astronomy tower. How Draco had been supposedly forced into his task to murder Dumbledore. And how Snape had done it for him, without a seconds hesitation. So, theoretically, the only thing Draco had done wrong was become a deatheater. Only thing. She still loathed him though. Mudblood. Mudblood. Mudblood. The word repeated again and again and again in her head until she screamed, whipped round and punched the door, leaving a faint mark in it. Embarrassed, Hermione slipped out her wand and muttered "reparo," before drying her eyes, opening the door, and staring at her reflection in the opposite mirror in horror. She cast a quick cleaning spell on her face to remove the smudged mascara and left the room, slightly calmer than before. No one would ever know about that day, not even Ginny.
And then she bumped into Ginny. "Hey 'Mione, I was looking for y- WHAT IN THE NAME OF MERLIN HAPPENED TO YOU?" Ginny flung her arms round her best friend whilst Hermione silently cursed her obviously failed attempts to conceal her mental breakdown. Mental breakdowns were expected in times of war, but they were silly, and a waste of precious time in Hermione's opinion. They stayed embraced like that until Hermione muttered childishly, "Mudblood." Ginny undid herself from Hermione and cupped her face. "Malfoy?" she asked, "Omg that git will regret this. What else did he say?"
Hermione sighed and tried, "It doesn't matter. It was nothing," but Ginny wouldn't hear any of it and glared, so she gave in. "That I, that I don't deserve... Ginny do I deserve to be a witch?" Ginny looked aghast. "What the HELL 'Mione, why do you let a bastard like Malfoy get to you? How could you even doubt yourself?"
"Because I'm muggle bor-"
"No one gives a damn if you're muggle-"
"VOLDEMORT DOES! Don't think I'm so blind Gin. I've heard you all. You think I'm bound to be targeted and it's probably partially true. I know you have talked about it briefly before because I've heard you - don't try to lie to me! Because I'm a, a,"
"Don't you DARE Hermione Granger, you're a witch. You're brave, you're strong, and you're also an idiot for letting that bastard Malfoy get to you. Pull yourself together girl!" Ginny finished, almost yelling. Hermione gulped and the idiocy and stupidity tumbled down on her instantaneously, making her feel small and completely and utterly stupid. What had she been thinking. Still.
They both traipsed back to the compartment. Sliding the door open, Ginny walked in and sunk down next to Harry. Hermione pulled herself together and smiled, sitting next to Ron. She muttered a charm to fix her face and knuckles before anyone else could see. Ginny was about to open her mouth when both she and Hermione locked eyes. Hermione subtly shook her head and Ginny got the message. She then silently cursed herself for being so weak. Again. These breakdowns were happening a lot to her lately, but the worst of it was always in the privacy of her bedroom and silencing spell. Always. Today was no exception.
"Sooooo," Ron began about two minutes after the girls walked in and breaking the very awkward silence, "have you fully accomplished the wronski feint yet?"
"Erm, kind of. Still need a bit of practice though," Harry replied.
"Quidditch," Hermione muttered. All three Quidditch players scowled.
"When are tryouts?" Ginny asked.
"I still need to ask Hooch and McGonagall about that," Harry replied. They carried on with their Quidditch talk throughout the next half hour, when Neville and Luna came in holding hands. "Mind if we join you?" Neville asked. Hermione and Ginny budged up against Ron and Harry so that Luna and Neville could sit down. Luna took her seat next to Ginny and Neville next to Hermione . "So..." Ron began.
"You're..." Hermione trailed off.
"We're going out!" Neville grinned.
"Oh Merlin that's brilliant!" Hermione smiled amazed.
"So... Who asked who and when," Ginny smiled curiously.
"Hmm? Ohh Neville asked me on the way back from Hogwarts last year in the train. After all the traumas," Luna smiled in a bit of a daze as usual. Harry tried to hide a flinch at the mention of 'trauma.' Luckily, only Ginny noticed. "And then we spent a lot of the holiday together," Neville grinned, "Remind me how long you four have had your dates?" Harry looked at Ginny and hummed in thought. "About... Well it must've been about half a year? We started dating on the 14th of February" Harry declared proudly with a smile. Neville looked at Hermione, who opened her mouth and declared, "31st of July."
"You started dating on my birthday?!" Harry asked incredulously. Ginny, Ron and Hermione all looked at him. It had literally been a month and a day ago!
.
The six friends made small talk throughout the rest of the journey. Once finished on the subject of Neville and Luna, they moved back onto quidditch, and then onto school. None of them wanted to bring up the subject which had been in the back of their minds since Diagon Ally was raided and many shops left destroyed. None of them wanted to even think of the possibility that their world might be torn into shreds. None of them wanted to think about the inevitable war, whether it be sooner or later.
They reached the platform around dinner time and all the students in second year and above went off to find the magically pulled carriages. Of course, many people could now see the thestrals pulling them, as many of the young and old had now seen and witnessed a death of someone. People had heard all about them by now, so there was little shock about the strange appearance of the black winged creatures.
Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Luna and Neville all clambered out of the train and pulled their hoods up to accommodate the rain. When she reached the carriage though, Hermione stopped and stared. She'd never in her life seen a thestral before, apart from in books of course, and took awhile standing in front of the creature, hand outstretched, cautiously moving it towards its nose. Ron smirked behind her, half annoyed at her curiosity. "Dead freaky if you ask me," he grunted.
They were all drenched from the heavy downfall as they squeezed inside the small carriage and sat down, shivering. While they waited for the thestral to take off down the track, they watched the other students clamber out the train. Parvati and Dean were hand in hand, as were Ernie Macmillan and Padma Patil. "I swear they're always arguing," Ron smirked as Draco and Pansy had a furious, non violent and partially silent argument on the platform. "They're like the awkwardest couple in the school," Harry agreed.
"Parkinson is like, sooo persistent," Ginny said, rolling her eyes.
"I wonder if they'd actually be dating if Parkinson hadn't been bothering Malfoy for like ever," Hermione wondered.
"Who cares," Ron smirked, "They're both idiots." Everyone nodded fervently.
"It looks like everyone's got a date this year," Luna sighed, looking from Ron and Hermione, to Ginny and Harry, and then back out at the sea of heads outside. "And that's a bad thing?" Neville asked.
"Yes it is," Luna yawned, "with all the trauma, someone's bound to get hurt at some point." And that was the first breech to the subject of war they'd had since Hermione's holiday recount. Everyone silently turned to look out the window. Harry put an arm round Ginny. Luna rested her head on Neville's shoulder and Hermione took in the inevitable as Ron took her hand comfortingly. Someone was going to get hurt. She returned her gaze back outside, where Hannah Abbott and Michael Corner were kissing briefly. This was going to be one hell of a year.
A/N well that's the first chapter up! Let me know what you think. Next one'll be up next Tuesday!