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#20 - the road home
Endtimes
- in which we learn how to deal with last days of school -
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Their last trip home from Hogwarts was rather subdued. Harry was sitting next to the window, quietly looking out at the landscape flashing by for what was most likely the last time ever. Luna was sitting next to him, legs crossed beneath her and one of her knees sticking into Harry's thigh. She seemed quite unaffected by the gloom that had settled on the other people in the compartment, and was humming softly to herself as she read one of her ever-present copies of the Quibbler.
Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville were all rather quiet though, sticking in a word here and there, but mostly feeling quite unsure of what to say. They had all rather imagined it would be different after Voldemort was gone, that they'd finally be able to live as they imagined they should have lived the last few years had Voldemort never even existed. But ever since that last confrontation between Harry and Voldemort, which true to tradition had taken place at the end of the school year, Harry had been quiet. He'd seemed especially distant, and didn't seem to want to talk or even think about it, and no one knew exactly what had happened except him.
All they knew was that all the angry and sad and determined and jumpy and desperate moods he had been in before seemed to have disappeared completely, and all that was left was a strange absent-mindedness, a feeling that he wasn't quite back in the same world as the rest of them yet.
So they all sat in a silence, only exchanging a word here and there occasionally, when the door to their compartment flew open and Pansy Parkinson burst in, followed by Millicent Bullstrode.
"Gryffindors! I'm going to miss you all so much!" Pansy declared, flinging herself onto Neville and giving him a big hug.
Neville looked quite bewildered. "Err... Yeah. Me too," he said, awkwardly, as Pansy let go of him and turned to Luna. "I don't know you, but I'm sure I'll miss you too," she said, giving her a hug as well.
"I'm not actually in your year," Luna commented calmly, but Pansy didn't pay her any attention as she had already gone on to giving Harry a hug and then turned to the other side of the compartment, where she continued the round of hugs first with Ginny and then with Hermione.
"I'm really going to miss you," she told Hermione. "Who am I going to think up creative insults about now?"
To everyone's surprise, Hermione nodded and hugged Pansy back. "I'm going to feel quite unimportant. No one will bother to make up really bad stories about me anymore." She paused for a while. "You do realise those insults were never very creative in the first place, though?"
"Whatever. Insults are insults." Pansy shrugged and let go of her, turning to the last person in the compartment. "I'm going to miss you the most though, Weasley," she declared as she threw her arms around him.
And then, she kissed him.
"You're so cute when you're completely confused," she continued, noticing his look, as she pulled back.
With that, she headed out of the compartment as suddenly as she had come in. Ron stared after her for a while, blinking in shock. Turning back to back to the compartment, he noticed Millicent, who been one step behind Pansy in delivering her hugs the whole time, looking at him.
"You're not going to kiss me as well, are you?" he asked her apprehensively.
She was satisfied with just giving him a hug, though, and left in Pansy's footsteps after that.
The original occupants (save Luna, who had gone back to reading her magazine as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened) turned to each other, still unsure of what to say.
And then, they all burst out laughing at the same time.
Harry as well, they noticed.