Pressure the Hinges

In the last compartment of the Hogwarts Express, Harry found Ron and Hermione. They were holding hands. Strangely, they broke apart when the saw Harry standing in the doorway. He greeted them and sat down next to the window. The train rumbled as it started to move, slowly at first, gathering speed as the station grew distant, soon to be replaced by fields of green.

Several silent minutes had passed when Hermione finally broke it, asking gently how Harry was.

Harry took a deep breath. "I… I think I'm alright, Hermione" he replied, attempting a smile. She grinned back. A few more seconds of silence passed. "How was your week with your parents?" he asked her. She had spent the first month after the Battle grieving, as Harry had, before returning to her parents' house and restoring their memories. At that stage Hermione had still not told them about what had happened in the wizarding world regarding Voldemort.

One week before term commenced, she had come to see Harry alone and informed him that she would be revealing the truth to them.

"It went well, I suppose. Mum was livid… She couldn't believe I'd concealed the truth from her and placed myself in so much danger without her knowledge" Hermione told him. Ron appeared to have already heard the story. He was looking down at his hands, now folded in his lap. "Dad just went really quiet. After a while he asked me for details. And I told him" she continued.

"Did you tell them you wiped their memories?" Harry asked.

"Goodness, no! They would never trust me again. They are already quite suspicious of magic as it is. I didn't want to leave on a bad note"

"Do you plan to? Tell them, I mean"

"I doubt that very much, Harry" Hermione said, her voice faltering slightly. She lost herself in thought for a moment.

Harry stared out of the window. It was a little bit overcast outside, but occasionally the sunshine would penetrate the white sky. It felt odd to be on the train, in such a familiar setting with his closest friends, feeling closer to them than he had in a long time, and yet so very far away.

Ron's quietness was unsettling to Harry, but he did not wish to start a conversation, for fear of the topic of Ginny arising. He burned to know where she was, who she was with, what she was doing. He wanted to see her face – see her smile – but couldn't bear the thought of seeing all the hurt reflected in her eyes. Hurt that he had caused.

The silence eventually settled into a comfortable one as Harry allowed himself to feel, as he put it, alright for a while, in the company of his best friends. It was only broken now and again with some light conversation.

The trio changed into their robes as the sky darkened, and the train rolled to a stop at Hogsmeade Station. Suddenly Harry felt as if he was suffocating. With the castle looming not too far in the distance and the familiar sound of Hagrid's voice calling out to the first years, he felt as if he might implode. His senses ignited. The image of Hogwarts burning flashed before his eyes, the sound of screaming and the smell of singed hair filling his ears and nostrils. And just as suddenly as it came it had gone away. Voices of excited eleven year olds permeated the air as they fumbled towards Hagrid's hulking form.

Harry moved towards him, catching his eye as he waved the first-years towards the boats with his dinner plate sized hands. When they reached each other, they stared at one another for a moment before Harry embraced the gigantic man, his oldest magical acquaintance and friend.

"It's so good ter see yer, 'Arry" he breathed.

Harry remained silent, drawing some comfort from Hagrid's warmth, before making his way to the carriages. The thestrals pulled them up to the castle. Harry noticed for the first time that he, Ron and Hermione were not the only people from his year that had returned to Hogwarts. There were at least four others that had not attended school during the year when Voldemort was at the height of his reign.

At the feast, Harry sat down at the Gryffindor table. He watched the tiny, frightened first years as they were sorted into one of the four houses and listened half-heartedly to Professor McGonagall's welcome speech. He picked at the food, hungry enough to sample some of his favourite pudding, but not hungry enough to finish anything on his plate. He had lost a lot of weight over the summer, despite having so little excess to spare to begin with. Nearly Headless Nick as well as a few of his old classmates greeted him as they walked past on their way to their dormitories.

Harry lingered behind a little, not wishing to be caught by anyone wanting to know details of his role in the Battle. Ron headed up ahead of him and Hermione, who stayed with Harry as he toyed with a piece of pudding that remained on his plate, despite the table having cleared of food.

They headed up to Gryffindor tower together. It was in the common room that Harry caught his first glimpse of Ginny. He had a sneaking suspicion that she had skipped the feast altogether, as he hadn't seen her at the table. He'd been keeping an eye out for her surreptitiously.

Her back was turned to him and so she didn't see him walk quietly up to the boys' staircase and disappear. Hermione refrained from calling out goodnight, sensing that he did not want to draw attention to himself.

The dormitory felt odd without Neville, who had spent part of his seventh year hiding in the Room of Requirement but had still graduated, and Dean, who had elected not to return. Harry had been hunting for Horcruxes. Aside from Harry and Ron, it was only Seamus who remained of the original group, who had been in the same position as Neville. Harry didn't know whether to be relieved or not that there didn't seem to be other students taking the empty beds.

"Hiya Harry" Seamus greeted.

"Hey" he replied with a lazy gesture of his hand. "Er… Good summer?" he regretted the words the second they left his lips. Seamus stared at Harry.

Harry was too tired from his first day out of his self-imposed exile to unpack his trunk, and simply fell into bed with his shoes and glasses still on. He drew the curtains around his four-poster with a flick of his wand. Ron grunted from beyond.

x

It was just had it had always been. Stares and whispers followed Harry everywhere he went. Conversations suddenly ceased as he drew nearer and resumed as he walked away. He made no effort to engage in conversation with anyone other than Hermione. Ron had mentioned something about Quidditch at breakfast on their first day of term, breaking his silence for the first time.

Harry wasn't sure yet if he wanted to play Quidditch this year. He had been Captain of the Gryffindor team in his sixth year. The letter he'd received mentioned nothing about it. He supposed he'd wait and see.

His first class was Transfiguration. He took a seat between Ron and Hermione and had just taken out his textbook (which he'd ordered by mail along with all his other books and equipment, not wanting to venture to Diagon Alley) when he noticed that Ginny was sitting just two rows in front of him. It hasn't occurred to him that they would be sharing classes, although it made sense when he realised they were both in seventh year now.

He tried to put her out of his mind as Professor McGonagall welcomed them before launching straight into teaching them some of the most advanced spellwork he had ever encountered. He found that it had been easier not to think about her when he was holed up in Grimmauld Place, in his place of sadness. Here, at Hogwarts, she would be much harder to avoid, both physically and mentally.

The class resulted in a series of minor injuries as they were doing human Transfiguration, attempting to transform themselves into chairs. Harry managed to make his lap into a cushioned seat. Hermione had done the same but with her arms turning into arms of a soft armchair. Ron had only managed to turn one of his legs into a wooden stand.

Ginny had gotten rid of her legs altogether and appeared to be a torso sticking out the bottom of a pink recliner. Seamus had only managed to give his skin a tartan pattern.

After Professor McGonagall turned them all back into themselves, they left the class. Harry was about to drop his book, giving him an excuse to duck under the table to avoid running into Ginny, but was spared the necessity as she sped out of the class before he'd managed to pack a single thing away.

x

Many of Harry's classes passed in much the same manner; the students learned increasingly advanced spells or were taught complex concepts as Harry tried to avoid Ginny as much as possible. The latter turned out not to be difficult… Ginny was avoiding him with equal vigour.

Before coming back to Hogwarts, he had imagined and played out various scenarios in his head in which he had found himself alone with Ginny. All began awkwardly. Most of them ended with some sort of feeble apology from Harry, with Ginny reacting in a multitude of manners ranging from sadness to anger to jubilation. In some, they would even reconcile and things would be alright between them. Sometimes they were friends, sometimes they were lovers, and sometimes they were enemies.

It had not once occurred to Harry that he would not find himself anything close to alone with her for the first several weeks of term, and it didn't occur to him that at all times, not just sometimes, they were strangers.