A/N: I think this story is going to focus on Hermione's interactions with Fred, as well as her marriage to Draco, and Ginny's relationships with Harry and Luna, more than it will focus on the other pairings. I'll do segments on them from time to time but honestly, I'm not sure how well I'll be able to portray every person's POV and all the little details of their lives in this plotline and I don't know, man, fanfic gets tough sometimes.

Let me know if you have any suggestions, comments, concrit, etc. I'm always open to recommendations or requests, either for this current fic or for a one-shot, if you want me to try to write you one on the side when I have time.

Enjoy!

Cho's POV

"No, we had a little door knocker that would ask a different riddle every time you wanted to get in," I tell Katie, who quirks a dark eyebrow.

"What if you couldn't answer it?" she wonders aloud as she piles her dark hair on top of her head messily. Her face is nice, albeit a bit plain, but her skin is clear and a smooth tannish colour, much more flattering than my pasty sort of paleness. She's the type of pretty that could turn into beautiful with a little work. I remember thinking the same thing when I saw Hermione Granger in DA meetings. I often wondered why she hadn't been sorted into Ravenclaw, or at least chose to be placed there.

I shrug. "Then you try to sort it out, or you wait for someone else to come along and get it right. That's how you learn, after all," I explain. Katie smiles, obviously amused, and starts to change out of her pyjamas and into a pair of jeans. Surprised, I look away out of instinctive politeness. At Hogwarts, Houses tend to hear a lot of rumours about other Houses and their respective members. I've always heard Gryffindors tend to be less self-conscious, less modest, more open. I can only remember changing clothes in the Quidditch locker rooms and in my dormitory, around a small group of people I had grown up with. Even losing my virginity in fifth year had been a modest, unlit affair. This simple gesture shocks me slightly, but Katie doesn't seem to notice as she pulls a pair of dark blue jeans over her leanly muscular legs.

"I heard you had to tap barrels to get into the Hufflepuff common room," she says idly, pulling her oversized t-shirt over her head. Vaguely, I wonder if the shirt is George's, but I doubt they would have consummated so soon, even if they are friends, and former teammates to boot.

My heart thuds with a dull shock of pain. Cedric told me that once. We were sitting outside the Great Lake, wrapped in layers of winter robes. I was wearing a jumper my mother had given me under my school robe, and occasionally I would catch snowflakes on my tongue. I knew I must have looked childish for a fifteen-year-old Ravenclaw, but I felt close enough to Cedric; I didn't think he would judge me for it. He looked on and smiled fondly at me, and I was grateful for the cold; he wouldn't be able to tell if I was blushing because I fancied him or because my face was freezing off.

"Yeah," I say, my voice sounding numb and off. "You have to tap the barrels in a certain order."

Katie turns abruptly and looks at me, eyes narrowed, scrutinising but not accusing. Her eyes widen noticeably as she seems to realise her mistake. You've had more than enough time to get over this, I tell myself sternly. You have to let it go.

"I—I'm sorry, Cho," she says, her voice heartbreakingly soft. "I should have thought before I—"

"It's okay, I'm fine," I lie, sniffling slightly. How can you get upset about this now?! You already betrayed his memory; what possible purpose could all this have anymore?

Harry's kiss had been so endearingly awkward, so virginal that I felt impure being the one to kiss him first when Cedric still lingered in my mind. In that moment he didn't seem like the Boy Who Lived, or the undefeated wizard who faced the Dark Lord, or any of the confident, swaggering hero archetypes the magazines had made him out to be. He was just Harry Potter, awkward but well-meaning fourteen-year-old boy with a crush on a girl who wasn't half as good a person as he made her out to be. Within a few minutes he had gone from being an idol to being a person, a teenager, a normal human being; it was such a shock when we broke apart from each other and I realised that, for me at least, there would no longer be an idolising "The" in front of his name. It's strange to think that heroes are humans, too.

Harry's POV

"I don't suppose you can come over, Hermione?" Ron asks, his pointy elbow accidently poking me in the ribs. He's far too lanky to be crouching in front of the fireplace with me, Luna, and Ginny, but he insisted, so we let him attempt. I can't help but have a coughing fit every few sentences; the swirling soot makes my eyes water and chokes up my throat. I want to clean my glasses but at the same time, I'm afraid if I take them off my eyes will be bombarded with smoke.

"It's not a hostage situation, Harry," she says disapprovingly. "I could come over. I'm just not sure it's entirely wise."

"You literally just said it's not a hostage situation," Ron says, mild irritation in his voice. "Just come over and have breakfast with us, for Merlin's sake."

She rolls her eyes and her face seems to revert to the way it was years ago, before the war when her teeth were too big for her mouth. It's hard to imagine such innocence anymore. She extends her hand to me and I take it, envelop it, pulling her through the emerald fire and thoroughly coating her clothes in a thick layer of ash. Muggle attire, a long sleeve and faded blue jeans, everything modest but pretty, casual but somehow professional and adult-like, very Hermione. A cloud of soot seems to follow her, but she sits down at the table, which is far too large and far too empty for a group of four, and laden with food made with the knowledge no one would be fully able to stomach it. We've been worried sick about her; at around 4 AM, Ron and I gave up on trying to sleep and simply resigned ourselves to sitting in the living room, eyeing the fire and debating Floo calling her.

"He hasn't been—" Ginny starts, her voice that harsh kind of caring I remember hearing on Molly sometimes.

Hermione's eyes widen. "No! No, Merlin, no. He won't even let me in the same room as him…it's degrading but it's still better than the alternative."

"But you'll have to eventually," Ron says, frowning slightly. I see that spark of protectiveness flicker in his bright blue eyes, that lingering hint of envy, of fancy.

"I'd prefer not to think about it," Hermione says in a soft voice. She folds her hands awkwardly by her plate, not touching any of the food nearby, occasionally pulling at the silver bracelet slowly, slowly releasing drops of diluted Amortentia into her veins. I wonder if it's working at all. I don't know if she noticed, but she's sitting in the space Tonks often sat in. "It's an unpleasant thing."

"Close your eyes and think of England?" Luna offers oddly, her misty eyes flickering around the room, as though straining to make out manifestations of her own vivid imagination. The corners of Hermione's mouth flicker upwards. The silence settles like the dust on the scratched wooden table. Ron absentmindedly runs a fingernail over the deep groove the twins made when they attempted to carry dinner by levitating the trays magically, accidentally sending a meat knife soaring through the air to land right between Sirius's fingers. Nearly three years ago, my godfather's palm rested on the very space where Ron's is now, and I think of how we never got to be a proper family, like he promised me.