Chapter Three

"Come on, hurry up or you are going to miss the train!" Molly Weasley's voice rang through the entire King's Cross Station. A lot of things has changed over the past few years, but there were some things that would never change.

Hermione felt a bit silly to still be escorted to the Hogwarts express by the Weasley matriarch. She was now technically an adult, she had survived a war, been tortured by a mad woman and had a throw down with an enormous Basilisk, yet they still didn't trust her to make it to the train to school on time. According to her watch it was five to eleven and they had yet to make it onto the platform. Had she gone on her own Hermione was sure she would already be on the train, holding a compartment for her late-arriving friends.

The morning of the first day of school has always been a chaotic event at the Burrow. Every single year the clan managed to be late and just make it in time to jump on the train before it started to roll down the platform. This year Hermione thought that it would be different considering they were now all adults and not as many of them, but she had been sadly mistaken. This morning when she came downstairs things were a mess. People had overslept, things had yet to be packed into trunks and familiar where running, flying all over the place. It had been the definition of chaos and that is why they were now all running like they were escaping Snatchers to make the train.

When they reached the barrier between platforms nine and ten, they all rushed through one by one. First Harry then Ron, Hermione and Ginny. On the platform, they had to struggle to get through the crowd of parents who were there to wave goodbye to their children.

Over the course of the last year Harry and Ron had both built up, they were no longer the scrawny little boys they had once been, and used their combined strength to quickly carry all of their luggage onto the train. All that was left for Hermione and Ginny to do was to jump onto the train. And just in time too.

The second they all stood with their two feet on the train the doors closed behind them and then the train started to slowly roll down the platform. They had made it just in time.

Hermione leaned against the wall as she tried to catch her breath. The run had taken a lot of her energy, but she supposed that she had no one but herself to blame. It had been a while since she had properly worked out. Ron and Ginny seemed to be just fine, so the two of them disappeared down the corridor in search for a compartment for the four of them. Harry stayed behind and looked her at with a big smirk on his face.

"Are you coming or what?"

"You go ahead, I'll catch up." she wheezed out between breaths.

"You're sure you'll make it?" he laughed.

"Just go!" Harry picked up his trunk and ran after Ginny and Ron with a laugh that echoed back to where she stood.

It took a few more minutes for Hermione to collect herself before she could pick up her trunk and go off to find her friends. As she walked further down the train she looked into every compartment window, only to come up empty every time. After a whole fifteen minutes of fruitless search, Hermione gave up and dropped her trunk to the floor. Where could they have possibly disappeared to?

She stood out in the corridor and contemplated what to do. If she should just stay out here or try to find a less crowded compartment and take her chances.

"Granger?" turning around at the familiar voice Hermione came face to face, once again, with Blaise Zabini. "We keep meeting like this with you lost in your thoughts. What are you doing standing out here?"

"I can't seem to find Harry and the others."

"Why don't you come and sit with me? It's just Draco and I." Blaise smiled at her with that friendly smile that totally disarmed her.

"Oh, I don't think that's such a good idea!" Hermione laughed nervously. "Malfoy and I have never quite gotten along if you haven't noticed. I doubt a war will change that."

"You'd be surprised. Come on."

Blaise picked up her trunk and put a hand on her lower back to steer her in the right direction. She reluctantly let him lead her two doors down where she could indeed see Draco Malfoy sitting next to the window. The door slid open and Blaise gave her nudge to move before entering behind her.

"Look who I found mate!" Blaise said and caught his attention. He quickly looked up from his book and turned towards their new company.

"Granger." he nodded. "Everything alright?"

"Malfoy."

Hermione walked hesitantly over to the seat opposite Malfoy as Blaise placed her trunk on the rack above their heads before taking the seat next to her. Malfoy marked his place in the book he was reading and started to chit chat with Blaise.

Neither of the boys forced her to join in on the conversation, something she appreciated greatly since it would be very awkward considering that she had no idea how to act around the two boys. Not once in a million years had she imagined her sitting on the Hogwarts Express with two Slytherins. Yet here she was.

To her surprise Malfoy was actually cordial. There were no snide remarks or taunts, but there were no empty promises of starting over and forgetting all the bad blood between them. It would be impossible for them to ever start over, they had way too much history for that, but there was a new sense of respect for one and other and a silent promise of truce. And that was something Hermione held in higher regard than starting over, they were moving on and they were both acting like bigger persons.

Hermione tucked up her legs under her on the seat and made herself comfortable as she watched the two boys interact. They were so at ease and relaxed, even Malfoy. It was completely different from how she was used to see them behave, it was like they could finally be themselves behind closed doors where they didn't have to live up to any expectations, good or bad. It was nice, different.

And that is how she spent the rest of the trip, just watching and listening to boys as they talked, laughing every now and again when one of them said something funny.

"So… what are you doing these days Granger?" Hermione looked at Malfoy but she couldn't find a single trace of malice on his face, he looked just as relaxed as he had a minute ago as he spoke to Blaise. And while she might have been happy to not be directly involved in the conversation in the beginning, she wasn't about to throw this back in his face.

"I stay at the Burrow with everyone else, just taking it day by day I guess. We don't really do much."

"You live at the Burrow now?" Blaise asked. "What about your parents?" his eyebrows were raised and a dark emotion that Hermione couldn't name fluttered across his face.

"They-th… They are not.." she struggled to find the right words. How was she supposed to explain something she didn't fully understand herself yet?

"Merlin Granger, they are not dead right?!" Malfoy exclaimed and she could feel how Blaise went stiff next to her, obviously afraid he had put his foot in it.

"No but they are as good as."

"What do you mean, as good as?"

"At the beginning of the war, right before I took off with Harry and Ron, I modified their memories. I made them forget about who they were and I made them forget that they ever had a daughter, that they ever had me." she didn't know why she was telling the two boys this. They weren't friends and she barley spoken more than two kind words to them, but something about them just made her want to spill their guts. Maybe it was their confident, secure demeanour or maybe she longed to talk to someone about this besides herself. "They left for Australia and when I went to find them a couple of months ago it was too late. It proved to be too risky to reverse the magic, it would create too much damage. So, I let them be and left Australia on my own."

Something wet and warm was slowly making its way down her cheek and Hermione tried to discreetly wipe it away, but both Blaise and Malfoy saw it. For a second it looked like Blaise might try to embrace her but something seemed to stop him and Draco looked to be struggling with something before he chose to speak.

"I'm so sorry Hermione!"

She couldn't for the life of her understand why the two boys would try to comfort her, but this was the first time that Draco Malfoy had ever spoken her first name so maybe what Blaise had said earlier was true. Perhaps the war had changed everything and that things aren't always as clear cut as they seem.

It couldn't have been easy to live among mad men and the Dark Lord himself and have relatives like Bellatrix Lestrange. And when she thought about it all of the Malfoys had proven them all wrong and done what they could to help without getting caught and killed themselves. Narcissa helped to cover for Harry. Draco had helped them escape the Malfoy manor by throwing them their wands. And Lucius Malfoy had taken down several Death Eaters from behind the enemy line and saving all of their lives.

After the war many people had questioned their motives, saying that they had only done it to save their own skins. But both Snape's memories, that he had given Harry on what he thought was his death bed, and Minerva's that the Malfoy's had always been helping out in the backgrounds. They had kept up their appearances for the world but apparently there was a secret reason for why they were willing to play the dark side and help the light. But that secret had yet to be discovered.

However, this was the first time Hermione got to see it with her own two eyes. Draco Malfoy wasn't the horrible person he had been made out to be.

She smiled at the two wizards and quickly changed the subject to something else. And for the rest of the trip they kept the conversation light and avoided possible awkward subjects. Before they knew it they could see the castle rise above the trees through the window and the train was slowing down.

At the sight, Hermione smiled to herself. She was finally home.