It was Hermione who saw him first.
She saw him before Ron did, before Ron pointed him out to Harry and they all turned to stare. In the deepest part of her heart, she had to admit that she had looked for him—she knew how old Scorpius was, and she had known that he would be there.
He was standing with his wife and child, speaking quietly and looking very serious, his coat buttoned tightly up to his throat. She had not seen him in years, and she was surprised at how weary he looked, as though life had worn him down. His features still bore a certain aristocratic dignity, but the youthful vibrance she remembered so well had faded.
Hermione could not explain the sudden twinge of melancholy she felt upon seeing him. It had been years. She and Ron had been more than happy ever since their reconciliation—Draco had been no more than a forgotten mistake. And yet there was something about seeing him again after all those years, knowing there was still so much about him she would never know. He had always been a mystery; and even now she could not help but wonder what was hidden beneath the surface, what secrets he kept buttoned up beneath his thick black coat.
For her part, she would never reveal how much she still thought of him—how her eyes still lingered on his name when she spotted it in the paper, how she eavesdropped on conversations when she heard him mentioned. She would never admit how his confession in the conference room had haunted her for months afterwards; how she had secretly hoped they would run into each other again before he left, so that she could ask him all sorts of questions to which she had since accepted that she would never know the answers.
When Draco turned to look in her direction, their eyes met for only a brief instant before he nodded at Harry and Ron and turned back. Ron made a joke about Rose beating Scorpius in school, and Hermione admonished him half-heartedly. Laughing, he put an arm around her, and she suddenly felt very warm.
As the train departed, she thought of everything that their children would never know about their parents. She reflected on how much Ron and Astoria would never know about their own spouses—and conversely, how much she and Draco would never know about them.
He turned to look at her one last time, his eyes grey and expressionless, before leaving with his wife. And just like that, before she had even left the platform, Hermione was already looking forward to seeing him again at the end of the year. To her chagrin, she knew that she would spend the next nine months waiting.
And then the day would come, and they would stand on the same platform, sweating under the heat of the early summer sun, sneaking glances as they waited for their children. They would ignore each other as they spoke to their respective spouses. And they would go on living their separate lives, no closer than before, buttoning away their thoughts and carrying the weight of things unspoken.
"What are you thinking?" asked Ron.
"Nothing." Hermione gave him a kiss and reached up to smooth out his hair. "Let's go home."
the end
Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading along! I've absolutely loved reading your wonderful reviews, and of course, I'm very interested in what you all have to say about this ending. Any thoughts/comments would be most appreciated.
I also know that quite a few of you were hoping that this story would be longer, and I'm sorry that it had to end here. If you're interested, however, I've just begun posting another story that's considerably longer than this one (Different Names for the Same Place), and I would love for all of you to check it out!