Chapter One
It appeared almost exactly the same as ever, but there were subtle differences. Students were bustling up and down the Hogwarts Express, stowing their trunks, organising their pets, baggsing an empty compartment or seeking a compartment with their friends already inside. There was much running up and down to see who is who and what is what, catching up with old acquaintances and making new friends, tripping over trunks and calling out across the carriages.
Despite appearances, however, there was a quiet restraint marking the student body, a general sense of light malaise and apathy. It was not obvious to all, but it was definitely noted by Cho Chang and Ginny Weasley, both of whom easily recalled the outrageous frivolity, the extreme enthusiasm and the boisterous atmosphere that had pervaded the carriages of past years.
Some pre-war and post-war differences were stark and others more elusive, some were personal, others mainstream, it was not to be expected that they could all come through such a traumatic event without effect. There could hardly be a single member of the magical community remaining untouched by the extended effort of one Tom Riddle to murder Harry Potter and to eliminate those undesirables from the population; muggles, half bloods, mixed breeds and those who associated with them. The remainder, the slim portion of those falling outside of such categories would, it was supposed, have become enslaved by him - the ruler of the world!
Personally, Ginny was aware that she was the last remaining Weasley at Hogwarts, after more than fifteen continuous years of there being at least one Weasley or other in residence at the school. On a more general note the total population of students on the train was hovering somewhere just above half of the usual number. Ginny had been trying to rebuild her own family in the wake of the war and looking around now she was wondering if there needed something similar doing at Hogwarts.
It was important not to forget, to actually remember, but it was also important to heal.
Healing was something Cho was all too familiar with, she had spent the best part of the last two years falling apart and then putting herself back together, in and around the effects of the war. Whilst might it be difficult for others to connect her situation to the war, it had all started for Cho,as for many, with the murder of Cedric Diggory, by Lord Voldemort. Which event generally became known as the starting point of the Second Wizarding War.
The student's of Harry Potter's cohort would have now been due to undertake studies in their seventh and final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but very few of those students had returned to school at all. Due to their age many of those older students had taken a more active role in the war including the defence of the castle in the Battle of Hogwarts.
The new Headmaster, Professor MacGonagall, had contacted all of those students to assure them that Hogwarts staff were committed to ensuring that all students were academically supported to rejoin their cohort without disadvantage. But the disruption to their education, indeed their lives, had apparently proved too challenging a hurdle for many students, who, as war veterans, couldn't see themselves returning to the classroom to raise their hand and line up in pairs. They continued to convalesce at their family homes, care for their loved ones or move into the workforce in either the magical community or in the muggle world.
None of the sixth or seventh year Slytherin students had returned. Despite assurances from the Headmaster that they were welcome and that there was genuinely no post war animosity, that all were keen to move beyond the competitiveness and division which had contributed to the conditions of war. But for various reasons, they were not returning to the classrooms of Hogwarts.
Neville Longbottom, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Michael Corner and Hermione Granger were the only returning seventh year students. Almost. Cho Chang had been enrolled in the year above them and her cohort had managed to graduate prior to the final battle, but hardly anybody would have been aware that she had failed to graduate along with her classmates. She had simply been lost in the tide of general student movement, fallen through the cracks. Her non graduation had been a secret, along with her other secrets; Cho had experienced a mental health crisis.
Now having finally and largely recovered, she had contacted the Headmaster with a request for special permission to retake her final year with a view to participating in a full academic load and hopefully graduating with honours. Headmaster MacGonagall had been very supportive in approving Cho's application to return to retake her final year, but she had also taken the opportunity to suggest (in her stern, over the rim of her glasses manner), that Cho's maturity and experience would be invaluable as Head Girl whilst Hogwarts continued to recover from the effects of the War.
And that's how Cho Chang found herself, after nearly a two year absence, back on the Hogwarts Express, with the shiny golden Head Girl badge pinned to her chest, dividing her time between the Prefect's compartment with Ginny Weasley and the Senior's compartment with Hermione Granger and her new cohort. When asked, Cho simply replied that she was retaking her final year and the others accepted her, and her answer, easily and without question.
Cho and Justin Finch-Fletchley, who was Head Boy, took turns with the other prefects walking the length of the train, supervising and sticking their heads into various compartments. If things were more subdued, it wasn't all bad news; no bully boy Malfoy and co., and no Potions Professor and Headmaster Severus Snape. Two huge forces of personality who so richly enjoyed seeking out opportunities to humiliate, stand over and oppress non Slytherin students. Their loss to the school was worth any price in possible dispiritedness or lack of general frivolity!
Being a Weasley and a Gryffindor would have made Ginny an immediate target, especially in the absence of her brothers and Harry Potter who had always made such reliable targets in the past and who would also have not hesitated in standing up for her. She was relieved to experience the version of Hogwarts that had survived both Snape and Malfoy, and she would take subdued over being publicly and relentlessly bullied, any day.
Being a Ravenclaw student, of exceptional beauty and popularity, Cho had avoided their notice until almost the very end, when Snape had observed with particular interest the sharp downturn of her marks and Malfoy had perceived Cho's frequent crying, emotional outbursts and connection to Harry Potter. But having finally come to their notice, she came in for a world of hurt, it was what they had done to Harry for years and she had wondered how he had survived it. She nearly hadn't.
She had never actually received a detention from Snape, but the lectures, publicly delivered derisive personal comments had chipped away at her already crumbling self esteem, confidence and resilience. Rather than reading her essays, noting errors and making comments along the way, he just began to scrawl a large red inked D, even an F at one point, along the top under her name. It gave her the impression he was marking her identity, her personal worth rather than her work.
They had all watched for years as Harry had received the same treatment, his perfectly standard work being mercilessly mauled and failed, the detentions, the intense and public physical and emotional abuse he had constantly subjected to. But Hogwarts was free of them both and no one had stepped in to fill the void, thank god.