Hermione took a deep breath, calming herself before swiftly walking towards the barrier at Kings Cross Station, welcoming her back into the wizarding world. It was the 21st August and she was travelling back to Hogwarts early along with a select few to finish putting the school back together after the final battle, only mere months ago.
After the Battle people needed time to heal, to reconnect, and find those lost loved ones. It had been hardest on her friends, Ron had lost a brother, and the way that George had taken Fred's' it seemed that he had lost two. Harry had flitted in and out of their lives, taking up residence at Grimmauld place now that it was no longer necessary for Order meeting to be held there. When Remus and Tonks died they left little Teddy Lupin in the care of his grandmother, Andromeda, however he was spending more and more time with the Weasley family. Teddy had taken rather a liking to Harry on the one occasion that they met, finding within his tiny little body to bring him out of his funk and the Weasley matriarch planned with Andromeda to get them to spend more time together as she was becoming more and more worried about his skinny form of the scraggly haired teen.
Hermione was battling her own demons though, as she was living in an empty shell of a home, her parents remaining in Australia with no memory of their only daughter. She could not bring herself to give them their memories back as she knew how disappointed and angry they would be with her, she preferred to think that they didn't know her at all than they knew her and didn't want her in their lives. So when she received her Hogwarts letter, she had proudly accepted her former head of house's invitation to complete her studies along with any other students that could not due to the regime of terror inflicted upon them over the past twelve months. In her letter she received a shiny red badge initialled with two golden letters 'HG'. Smiling initially that her initials matched that of the title she gladly took, she then began to cry as she no longer was able to share this time with her parents. However she pushed this thought to the back of her head and apparated to the burrow to show the Weasley clan and see who else had received a letter.
They all knew the pressure that rebuilding the school was getting too much for professor McGonagall and had been relieved when she had asked a large percentage of their fellow '8th year' students to return on shifts throughout the summer to aid the effort. Harry, Ron and Hermione had been asked to go for the first week after the battle, however she persuaded McGonagall to let her come at the end of the summer so she could settle herself in for the rest of the school year. Harry and Ron had accepted and spent the first seven day doing the heavy lifting, or levitating.
Looking around the platform Hermione noticed how strange the place looked when it was not overcrowded and bustling with families saying goodbye to their children. She had as always arrived early and the train wasn't even there yet. As many people had taken the end of the war as a chance to start anew, the express had added new stops en-route meaning that the train stopped for a shorter amount of time on platform 9 ¾ . As she was the first person on the station she took her trunk out of her bag (which was still under the undetectable extension charm), enlarged it and perched demurely on the edge looking towards the end of the platform where the train would arrive. She didn't have to wait soon before the bright red train barrelled through the arch screeching to a stop in front of her. Quickly reversing the spell she had earlier used on her trunk she stepped onto the engine very much grateful that she didn't trip on the stairs.
Before turning to head to the front of the train she caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye. 'That's strange' she thought to herself, as she swore there was no-one on the platform with her earlier.
The blonde man clad in skinny jeans and a hoodie also boarded to train, watching closely the movements of the brunette and her swaying hips.
a/n this is inspired by the song Skinny Genes by Eliza Doolittle, all of the characters are not mine! All of them are owned by J.K .Rowling!
Thank you for reading