Hermione wondered if it was bad for her neck muscles if she kept shaking her head in bewilderment like this.

After all, the melancholy of the first day of school had already been forgotten. She didn't even have enough time to worry about her own future when everyone around her was going crazy.

What she herself hadn't expected: there were actually apps for witches and wizards. After all, Harry, Ron and most of the others who couldn't help themselves had just downloaded such a magical dating app called "Amortentia" and kept their hands off Tinder, Lovoo and so on.

That calmed her down at least a little bit.

What had become worse since her lecture, however, were the questions from her classmates. The Gryffindors now seemed to regard her even more as an expert.

It wasn't that Hermione didn't always like to be on hand with advice - here, in fact, she was simply out of her depth.

Apart from the occasional help with telling if something was spam or changing ringtones, most of the questions revolved around the same old topic.

"Look at this. That's a real profile, isn't it?" asked Lavender, holding her phone under Hermione's nose on a rainy Thursday evening.

Hermione rolled her eyes and skimmed the profile, which showed a young wizard who supposedly lived in Hogsmeade and worked as a waiter.

"No, this is definitely fake." Hermione handed the phone back to her and looked at a disappointed face.

"You sure? But he's really nice," Lavender replied doubtfully.

"He only uploaded a single photo of himself, with something in the corner very badly retouched." Hermione pointed to a blurred line in the left corner of the picture.

"I'm sure that used to be a watermark or something and he stole it off the internet somewhere. Besides, we know most people from Hogsmeade. Especially if he works as a waiter, we should have seen him before and he doesn't look familiar to me at all."

"He wrote that he just moved here," Lavender protested, looking dreamily at the boys deep brown eyes. "I think I'll just pay him a visit at work on our next trip to the village."

Hermione took a deep breath.

"Believe me, or don't. But please don't meet with him alone. Worst case, he'll end up being an old local wizard who preys on naive schoolgirls."

Lavender snorted in offence and Hermione immediately regretted not having stifled the word 'naïve'. She knew Lavender well enough to know that this had just caused defiance now.

She returned her attention to her book until, a few minutes later, someone plopped down next to her on the couch.

"Look on the bright side," she heard Harry's voice. "You're sort of practicing for later, here. It's just like raising teenagers."

Hermione looked up from the heavy book on her lap with raised eyebrows and caught sight of Harry's amused face.

"I have no intention of bringing a horde of children into this world. And if I do have any, I hope they won't be as stubborn and... reckless as this love-struck pack here at the moment."

"You could just let them learn from their mistakes themselves," Harry shrugged.

"But that's no small thing!" protested Hermione. "This isn't about 'Oh, you copied your homework, it's blown up and now you have detention?' Well, tough luck." Here, when classmates of mine meet up with complete strangers from some app, who are then twenty years older than they say they are and lure them into a dark alley, it's not a fun 'oops', it's bloody dangerous!"

Harry sighed softly. Hermione knew she was right. And she was offended. Everyone kept asking her opinion, but in the end no one listened to her anyway.

Ron had been disappearing earlier and earlier into his dormitory for days to chat undisturbed with witches from distant schools and there seemed to be no other topic in the common room.

"Can't you even understand why everyone finds this so exciting?", Harry asked after a moment of silence.

"Yes, I do," Hermione admitted, heaving the book onto the coffee table in front of them and leaning back with her arms crossed.

"But that doesn't make it any less dangerous."

"Can I show you something funny anyway?" Harry pulled out his phone and opened Amortentia.

Hermione just grumbled and leaned over to him.

"Don't worry, I'm incognito," Harry whispered and Hermione realised that his little profile picture in the top right corner didn't show himself. She gave him an angry look.

"Not in the way you think!" retorted Harry hastily. "I'm just looking at everyone else's profiles here, I'm not texting anyone."

Hermione still pursed her mouth in displeasure and leaned her shoulder against his to get more comfortable.

"Here, this is one of my favourites." Harry opened a list of saved profiles and a picture of a vaguely familiar face appeared on the screen. A student from Durmstrang who had attended Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament in their fourth year.

"Is that... what was his name again?" Hermione frowned and looked at the picture more closely. The young man could be seen sitting on a stone in a confident pose. He held a walking stick in his hand on which he was leaning sideways and behind him was a wide, bare field.

"I don't know," Harry replied. "All I remember is that he was always glued to his teacher's side. But look." Harry scrolled down a little further and the profile text came up.

The colder it gets in Scandinavia, the warmer my heart is glowing.

Are you my loving fairy who can tame my inner Graphorn?

"Oh Merlin, what - Ew!" Hermione cringed and buried her face in Harrys sweater in disgust.

"Delightfully poetic, isn't it?" joked Harry, switching to the next profile.

A far too edited picture appeared on the screen. Hermione had to look twice to notice who it was. Hannah Abbott.

I can be sweeter than any sugar quill and hotter than any incendio you'll ever create.

#Hufflepuff #love #hot #sweet #cute #herbalwitch.

#Blonde #Girly #Sweet #Model #Fire #Hogwarts

"What the...?" Hermione couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Hannah isn't like that at all! Is that really her or did someone steal her pictures?"

"I don't know," Harry replied, skipping through the pictures. Each one was a selfie and had been edited with some kind of filters.

"Don't think anyone would get her pictures like that unless she uploaded them herself."

"That's what I meant!" Hermione nibbled agitatedly at her jumper.

"She probably doesn't even realise how she's coming across and has been using other profiles as inspiration. Then she ends up on a date with someone and she's standing there as the sweet and shy Hannah in front of a guy who imagined something completely different!"

"Hermione, I was trying to entertain you with that, not upset you more," Harry sighed.

"That's not my fault!"

"Okay, last try. This one's really funny, look." Harry changed the profile again and Hermione immediately recognised the arrogant look of Gergory Goyle.

The first picture showed him on a broom in full quidditch gear, then there was one with a large catfish in his hand and last but not least a topless mirror selfie.

"Oh please no, I don't want to see that." Hermione pushed Harry's hand aside and covered her eyes.

"I'm more about the words," Harry chuckled and cleared his throat as if he was about to recite a poem.

I'm the kind of Slytherin Salazar would have dreamed of. If you don't get that, don't even match me.

For fun, match me as long as you're pretty.

If you want something serious, you should definitely be pureblood - sorry I don't make the rules.

Hermione shivered and made an annoyed sound, but Harry was far from finished.

Other requirements for something serious:

- No ginger

- Willing to move to England

- Not over 1.70 m tall

- Not over 65 kg

- No fear of snakes :-P

- No more than 2 siblings

- Appreciates traditions

- Not older than 20 years

- No relationship before me

"What? What?!" Hermione slapped her hand against her forehead.

"Just what I expected from a deluded Slytherin," Harry said, giving up on his attempt to make Hermione laugh with these absurdities.

"I'm going to bed before I get sick," she muttered and made her way to the dormitories.

On the steps she encountered Dean and Seamus.

"That's it, I give up," she called out to Dean. "Everyone's insane here, I'm going to lock my phone away now and never look at it again."

Dean grinned widely. "What happened now?"

"Unbearable vicarious embarrassment. If Harry had shown me one more dating profile of any classmate, I probably would have ended up in the hospital wing."

Seamus laughed spitefully and pushed past her downstairs.

"So..." Dean made his way past her as well, but stopped a step below her so they were almost eye-to-eye.

"I get that you want to take care of everyone, but if they don't want to listen, why don't you just let them make their own mistakes?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

"Harry just said the exact same thing, but it's no fun and games. Hannah presents herself as an easy lay on Amortentia without even realising it and Lavender ends up meeting up with some old man in the far corners of Hogsmeade! And in the end they'll all say I should have been clearer and warned them."

She didn't wait for an answer, but angrily stomped up the last steps and slammed the dormitory door behind her. Even Harry and Dean didn't take her seriously.

As usual. She was the killjoy, the know-it-all, the buzzkill and still - in the end the phrase "I told you so" would echo through the corridors of the castle as someone sat crying in the corner.

Hermione's phone vibrated in her pocket. She was expecting a message from her parents, who had been texting her every other day so far, but the screen said Dean's name.

What was that all about?

You shouldn't go to sleep angry.

Want some hot chocolate?

Hermione took a deep breath. She was tired. Worn out. All she really wanted her warm and cozy bed. But hot chocolate?

Okay

She put her phone in her bedside drawer and went back to the door. As she closed it – much quieter than just moment ago – Dean was already coming up the stairs with two steaming mugs. He passed her one of them and sat down wordlessly on the top step.

Hermione followed him and pulled the sleeve of her jumper forward so as not to burn her fingers on the hot cup.

From here, a small part of the common room could be watched. Just then Hermione saw a couple of first years apparently playing their first round of wizard chess, backing away from the table a little with wide eyes every time a figure was smashed. One oft he boys had brown hair, the other had wild red curls down to his shoulders.

Behind the two boys, a girl with thick glasses sat in a big wing chair, apparently trying to make a feather fly.

"By the looks of them, you'd think that was Harry, Ron and you sitting there," Dean remarked, licking cream from the corner of his mouth. Hermione tilted her head.

"Well...only because they have the same hair colours."

"Two boys playing chess and a girl eagerly practicing spells...", Dean pondered.

Hermione shook her head slowly, lost in thoughts, and drank a large gulp of cocoa to wash down the sudden lump in her throat.

"My feather flew on the first try," she stated baldly, but didn't take her eyes off the girl in the armchair as her feather remained motionless on her leg.

"True." said Dean and then fell silent. Neither said anything until Hermione's cup was half empty and she felt as if the had her voice under control again.

"Do you think it's all as exciting for the new students as it was for us back then? Even if they can make phone calls and take pictures every day?"

"I'm sure it is. I think it's even better for the first years," Dean replied. "For those from Muggle families, at least."

"Possibly." Hermione clasped her hands even tighter around the cup.

"I found it all super exciting at the time, but also insanely scarry, if I'm honest," Dean admitted. "Alone in such a large castle, with no parents, no siblings, and no familiar face of any kind. Plus then there's things like moving armour in the corners, all the pictures commenting on your every move, ghosts flying over your head, people having photos that move..."

Hermione smiled into her cocoa.

"And owls and rats as pets," she added.

"Kids suddenly throwing up snails on the quidditch court."

Hermione smirked at the memory of poor Ron, but at the same time she felt her heart grow even heavier. There it was again, that nostalgic yet warm feeling.

The school year had just started and there were many days, many weeks to go.

Still, at the thought of her first day of school here, she felt as if it had only been a few days that she had climbed through the portrait into the warm common room for the first time. She could even remember the password from back then.

And she clearly remembered her first night in the dormitory with three new roommates, during which she had tried to cry as silently as possible so as not to draw anyone's attention to herself.

Yes, she would have loved to talk to her parents on the phone and not have to wait for a letter. Maybe then the contact would have remained as close over the years as it had been in the beginning?

She looked at Dean. "Must have been hard not seeing your siblings every day at a moment's notice."

It looked like Dean blinked away a thought before answering.

"Yeah." He sighed. "I was the half-brother anyway, and now I'm only there for the holidays too, so you can tell there are some differences."

Hermione didn't know what to say to that, but Dean didn't seem to expect an answer.

They fell silent again. This time, until the cocoa was empty.

The cups were cold.

A white feather floated above the wing chair.

"Good night, Hermione."

"Good night."