Back To School

The next week at Grimmauld place was the slowest ever. Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Ginny were all forbidden to leave the building, and being locked up for a whole week indoors was torturous. As the days went by, the foursome quickly ran out of creative things to do, which resulted in many grumpy moods.

Luckily, boredom was the only thing Hermione was now suffering from. Within three days she had fully recovered from the effects of the Cruciatus curse. Physically recovered at least, the memory of the encounter, however would always be there haunting her.

Things had been slightly awkward between Ron and Hermione for the first couple of days, but everything eventually went back to normal, including their bickering.

"Ron, do you have my quill?" Hermione asked frustrated. She was trying to find a quill so she could write to her parents.

Ron looked down at her with annoyance. "No, I don't got it."

Hermione frowned. "Don't have it!" she corrected.

"Don't have what?"

"You don't have the quill, Ron," Hermione said with even more frustration. Ron returned her a look of bewilderment.

"I know Hermione, that's what I just said!"

"Oh, never mind!" She said and stormed out of his room.

Harry had remained mostly quiet, just as he had the previous year, with an occasional angry outburst. It pained Hermione to see her best friend in such a tormented state, she wanted to help him so much, but every time the subject was brought up he would heatedly deny he needed any sort of help or comfort.

Around the middle of the week the highly awaited Hogwarts letters arrived welcoming them back to school and informing them of the supplies they need. Hermione and Ron were also both pleased to see that they were still prefects. The letters this year also had a little extra contained within, for they had inside them the notorious O.W.L.S results.

Hermione had ripped hers opened as soon as she laid hands on it and as expected, she had done extremely well; results worthy of a genius in fact. Harry and Ron were slightly less anxious, but to their relief they both did surprisingly well. Not Hermione standard, but a lot better then they had expected. The three of them would all be taking N.E.W.T classes for Defense against the dark arts, Charms, Transfigurations, and unfortunately, Potions. They couldn't wait to see the look on Snape's face when they all showed up for his N.E.W.T potions class.

With Hermione's impressive scores she would also be taking N.E.W.T classes for Runes and Arithmancy. It looked to be another busy year for her, but she was grateful for something to take her mind off everything else going on.

The next day Mrs. Weasley and Tonks went out to Diagon Alley to retrieve all the school supplies for everyone. That night, they all packed and excitedly awaited the trip to Hogwarts the next morning.

The next morning the children were all escorted down to kings Cross with a whole lot of Order members. If muggles didn't think they were strange already, they certainly did now. They were bid a tearful farewell and were told repeatedly to be safe and stay out of trouble.

Once on the train, Hermione and Ron had to attend a short prefect meeting. During the meeting (which Ron day dreamed through the entire time) Hermione had to endure hatful glares from Draco Malfoy, who unfortunately was still a prefect. Was it possible that he was aware of what happened to Hermione only a week ago? If he did, she couldn't care less. Draco was going to get his one day soon too, and she was determined to be the one to give it to him.

As Hermione and Ron left the meeting, Ron finally noticed Hermione's discomfort.

"What's Wrong?" He asked, placing a hand gently on her shoulder. She stopped for a second to talk to him, but just then Draco walked up behind them and grinned wildly.

"Weasel and the Mudblood sitting in a tree," he sung in a cold voice and walked off past them. Hermione and Ron both glared in his direction.

"He is so immature," Hermione hissed. Ron only bit his lip and shook his head. If he said anything at that point, it would be something about killing Draco.

When the couple arrived at their compartment on the train, they saw Harry and Ginny Sitting next to each other on one side and Neville and Luna on the other. The group was all together now. Whether they had wanted it or not, the six of them shared a deep bond now. They had all been part of the infamous ministry fiasco and all experienced great fear and danger together.

Every one in the compartment smiled up at them and Luna got up out of her seat with a copy of the Quibbler in her hand and moved to the other side with Harry and Ginny. Hermione and Ron smiled back and took a seat next to Neville.

For the first hour the group made small talk. Mostly gossip and plans for the future, and no one dared bring up the Ministry or Voldemort. It was actually the last thing any of them wanted to discuss.

When the train ride started to feel like it would never end, they all started to drift off into their own little worlds. Harry sat reading about Quidditch, Ginny and Luna were looking at something highly amusing in the Quibbler, and Neville was sleeping.

Hermione glanced over at Ron and noticed that he had just finished three chocolate frogs and had just opened the fourth. Hermione shook her head and looked down and the space between them where he had set the collectible wizard cards from inside the frog wrappers. Hermione picked them up and began to read the backs of them enjoying all the interesting fact about the famous wizards. Just then, Hermione found a very interesting card.

"Wow!" Hermione gasped. Ron stopped eating and looked over at what Hermione was looking at.

"What?" He asked her.

Hermione leaned over to him to show him the card. He took it in his hand so now both of them were leaned close together holding the card.

"It's McGonagall! I didn't know this about her. She won an award for helping the Ministry 25 years ago, says she used transfiguration disguises to track down a group of dark wizards."

Ron Smiled "I knew that!"

Hermione looked at him questioningly.

"See Hermione, eating candy all the time can be very educational," He said self-righteously and she laughed taking the card from him and picking up another to read it.

Just then Luna let out a giggle and everyone looked at her quizzically.

"What's so funny?" Ron asked with an irritated tone.

"You know who would make a great couple?" Luna asked dreamily.

Hermione immediately rolled her eyes. Luna was probably looking at some ridiculous gossip sheet about all the wizarding celebrities.

"Who?" Ginny finally asked.

Luna smiled happily as if she had the juiciest secret in the world and wasn't going to tell, but unfortunately she did.

"Hermione and Ron of course…They would be so adorable together," She giggled. Ginny smiled knowingly and Hermione notice Harry let a small grin escape before he returned to his reading. Ron and Hermione however, both blushed furiously and protested immediately.

"No Luna…." Hermione started.

"Er, were just friends," Ron stuttered.

"Yeah, friends," Hermione agreed nervously.

Luna just shrugged. "Whatever," and went back to reading her magazine.

Ron and Hermione at this point were immensely uncomfortable and didn't speak to each other the rest of the way to Hogwarts.

I hope you liked this chapter! Please leave a review and I'll see you next chapter!