Written for QLFC Season 5, Finals

Team: Wigtown Wanderers

Position: Seeker

Position Prompt: Write a story set directly before (1990–1991 school year) OR after (1998–1999 school year onwards) Harry Potter's seventh year. Please note, this story must be in the perspective of a student attending Hogwarts in one of those years.

Word Count:

Beta(s): DinoDina, silently-at-night, CUtopia

Chapter 18: Changing

The steady thu-thunk, thu-thunk of the train dwindled into the squeak of tires on rails and the heavy breathing of the engine as it sighed out its final pants. Throughout the Hogwarts Express, a lull fell over the students, a suspended breathlessness that infected each and every passenger with the nervousness of first years. If anything, the First Years of that year were the least nervous of their troupe – or at least their nerves danced to a tune of a different kind.

In one cabin, the back cabin, and silent as it had been for the entire trip, they sat in stillness and persisting muteness. The rustle of a magazine in hand, the crunch of a chocolate bar of the crackle of a wrapper, were all that had accompanied them on the long, long trip from Kings Cross. Long and lonely. Ginny had never felt that kind of loneliness before.

Staring out of the window at the darkening platform, she drew a deep breath of her own. It did little to alleviate the heaviness in her chest, the weight that had settled upon her shoulders. It didn't erase the gaping emptiness of the seats alongside her, the seats that should have been filled with friends, but who would never sit in them again. Some simply wouldn't return, but others…

"It looks just the same, doesn't it?"

Dragging her gaze from the platform, from the iron filigree fence lining the wide expanse of concrete, the conductor's box seated like a squat little hut at the far end, Ginny stared at Luna. Her friend, her only returning friend, still had her magazine raised before her face, the upside-down cover flitting with animated pictures in bright colours, but for the first time in hours, Luna no longer poured over its contents. Her own gaze was turned out the darkening window, her usually vague, wistful expression touched by uncharacteristic solemnity.

Nodding slowly, Ginny returned her own gaze to the platform. "It really does," she murmured.

Somehow, she'd expected it to be different. Somehow, even though the effects of the previous year had taken place up at the distant castle atop its hill, Ginny expected evidence to smear the platform like a bloody stain. But there was nothing. The lamp posts still flickered to life as the train sank into its stagnancy. The murmur of students still gradually rose as they made an unanimous decision to alight. If she squinted, Ginny could even discern the distant swirls of smoke coiling from the chimneys of Hogsmeade residences, reminiscent of each and every other year that it had been exactly the same.

The same. Unchanging. It didn't feel right that everything should be the same. Not with everything that had happened.

Drawing another deep breath, Ginny straightened in her seat. She clapped her hands upon her thighs and turned resolutely towards where Luna still gazed wistfully, unblinkingly, out the window. Plucking the magazine from her lax fingers, Ginny tucked it under her arm and rose to her feet.

"Come on," she said with more enthusiasm than she felt. "Let's go. We can make sure to get the carriages at the front and make it to school first."

Luna turned her gaze slowly up towards Ginny. Had she always held such depth, such wisdom and heartache? Ginny didn't think so. She, ashamedly, realised that she hadn't thought Luna capable of it. Luna was bright, light-hearted, and carefree. She smiled at bullies and hummed to herself as she skipped down corridors.

Ginny realised that she hadn't heard Luna hum in a long time. She would know. They'd spent the holidays all but sleeping in the same bed.

Swallowing the lump that rose in her throat, Ginny held out a hand. "Seriously," she said, flicking her fingers. "Let's go. We can set a good example for the First Years. We're their role models now, after all."

Slowly, almost tentatively, Luna smiled. It wasn't a wide smile, not like those she used to wear, and it held none of the carefree innocence that she'd once possessed. But it was a smile, and that meant something. It meant more that Luna grasped Ginny's fingers and squeezed as though she would never let go.

Despite the voices murmuring through the train, Ginny found herself as one of the first people onto the platform. Alongside her, a cluster of students – Sixth Years, she thought – huddled and glanced around themselves with a wide-eyed, slightly haunted cast to their expressions that Ginny knew only too well. She could feel it herself.

Somehow, the sight of them – and more than that, that they turned towards Ginny and stared as though they needed her – hardened something within her. Squeezing Luna's hand back just as tightly, she nodded to their watchful group and turned along the platform. When she tugged Luna in her wake, she pretended she didn't hear the scurrying footsteps that shadowed her.

Hagrid's looming form was the same. The same as it always was. His smile wasn't, but Ginny could pretend otherwise. When he turned towards her, it still arose, a merry slice through his tangled beard that bespoke welcome and commiseration as much as it did sadness.

"Hi, Hagrid," Ginny said, pausing alongside him.

Hagrid's smile widened slightly. "Hello, Ginny. Luna. Nice ter see yer."

"And you. You had a good summer?"

"As good as can be expected, I 'spose." Hagrid's smile wavered slightly, and Ginny pretended she didn't see when the muscles in his cheeks stiffened, setting in denial of fading lightness. "Argh, but it's a new year, and we'll all be putting the past behind us, righ'?"

The lump swelled in Ginny's throat, and she could only nod in reply. At her side, Luna murmured something indecipherable and squeezed her hand. Ginny clung back just as tightly.

When Hagrid stepped past them, bellowing with the familiar cry, "First Years, this way!" she pretended it sounded the same as it always did. That the waver in Hagrid's voice was just her imagination. Steeling herself, resisting the urge to glance over her shoulder at the growing cluster of students waiting behind her as though expecting her to lead them, Ginny started towards the carriages.

She stepped off the platform.

And then she stopped.

For a moment, Ginny could only close her eyes. Oh. She'd forgotten about that. How could she forget? Clenching her jaw, it took a physical effort to peel her eyes open. In the months of the war and those afterwards, she'd wanted to turn aside so, so many times, but this… this was a challenge she hadn't anticipated. She wasn't ready for this.

"Maybe," Luna murmured at her side, "I could sit at the Gryffindor table for the feast?"

It wasn't how it was supposed to be. It wasn't how it had always been. But even if it wasn't allowed, wasn't expected, wasn't traditional, Ginny knew she needed it. Staring at the thestrals as they counted with stamps of their hoofs, hitched between the carriages, she knew she needed it. How many students would be able to see them now? It was horrifying to even consider.

"I think," she said slowly, "that would be a wonderful idea." Then, clutching Luna's hand like a lifeline, Ginny led the students of Hogwarts to their school.

It wasn't the same. It would never be the same. But then, she hadn't really expected it to be.