Chapter Text
Chapter 1
The eighth year common room smelled like apples, and Hermione lingered in the doorway a moment longer than she meant to, breathing it in. Sharp, like someone had taken the heart of an apple and sliced straight through it, letting the clean green scent spill out into the air. She couldn’t remember ever liking apples enough for it to matter. Perhaps it was simply the comfort of something other than ash and ruin.
She paused with one hand still on the brass knob of her new dorm room.
The common room created purposefully to house the returning eighth years was unlike any other part of Hogwarts. This was a space for adults, not any of the four houses, not children. This had been designed for nine survivors who deserved another go at education, yet there had been nowhere adequate to put them.
The result was a semi-circle chamber set high in one of the quieter parts of the castle, with individual dorm doors branching from the curved walls like rays of sunlight. Nine private rooms. One girls’ bathroom. One boys’. A dining area at the centre, where the room widened and softened into something almost civilised, if one ignored the fact that everyone living here had, in one way or another, seen this castle at war.
Hermione stepped fully into the common room and smoothed down the front of her skirt, more from habit than nerves.
Her uniform was different this year.
She had allowed herself that much.
At eighteen, she no longer fit the stock school sizes Madam Malkin kept for girls who still looked like children, and Hermione had not wanted to spend another year in stiff, badly altered robes that scratched at the skin and made her feel twelve. So she made practical decisions. An ivory blouse instead of white, because she had always hated the upkeep charms necessary to keep school shirts bright enough to satisfy tradition. A pleated skirt properly fitted at the waist. A soft grey jumper that wasn’t itchy like the Hogwarts issue ones. A Gryffindor tie done neatly at the throat. A small lion pin at her lapel, subtle enough not to feel childish. Black tights. Black ankle boots. Tailored robes over the top.
Once upon a time she had wanted to study at Oxford, or Cambridge; she had imagined something similar to this.
It looked like her.
Or at least, the version of herself she was trying to become.
Adult, perhaps.
Or something close enough to fake it.
Her eyes lifted.
At one end of the dining table, Draco Malfoy and Theo Nott sat over tea, speaking quietly enough that their words didn’t carry. Their end of the table looked faintly aristocratic without seeming to try. Two pale heads bent in conversation. China teacups, not the thick mismatched mugs Hogwarts had supplied for the rest of them. Draco’s posture was elegant even seated, as though his spine refused to slouch, even at ease.
Theo lounged more than sat, one ankle crossed over the other, dark hair falling into his face in a way that looked careless but probably took him an hour of meticulous charms in the mirror.
Then Hermione looked to the other end of the table and warmth returned to the room.
Harry, Ginny and Ron were already there, all three waving her over.
Ron had toast crumbs all over the front of his uniform. His old Hogwarts robes had clearly been charmed to fit him now he’d broadened through the shoulders, and Hermione could see the faint sparkles near the seams where the adjustment magic was still settling. Harry looked half-awake and wholly smitten, finishing his breakfast before sliding the remains of his bacon and sausage onto Ginny’s plate as she patted the empty seat beside her.
“There she is,” Ginny said. Her eyes dropped at once to Hermione’s skirt. “That looks brilliant, by the way. Very grown up. Though if we’re committing to adulthood, would it kill you to show a bit of leg?”
Hermione snorted as she took the empty seat. “Some of us prefer circulation in winter.”
“You’re wearing tights,” Ginny pointed out.
“Exactly.”
Harry grinned into his tea. Ron was already buttering more toast.
Hermione had just reached for the marmalade when the door to the rest of the school opened and Luna and Padma came in together, both flushed from the walk downstairs.
They joined the table, and Ginny looked up at once.
“Where’ve you two been?”
“Breakfast with the first years,” said Padma, reaching for the teapot.
Ginny blinked. “You went down to the Great Hall?”
Luna nodded serenely. “They looked very small. A little frightened too. I thought it might be nice to sit with them while they still think Hogwarts is the safest place in Wizarding Britain.”
Ron squinted as he stared at the dreamy blonde.
“And we won’t get to do it again after this year,” Padma added. “I don’t see why McGonagall would mind.”
Ginny frowned. “She didn’t say anything?”
Padma shrugged. “Pansy Parkinson was down there too.”
Hermione looked up sharply.
“Pansy came back?”
She hadn’t seen Parkinson at all the day before while they’d all been arriving and settling into their new arrangement. To be fair, there had been enough trunks and awkward silences and changed faces to distract even her, but still. She would have thought Pansy’s presence impossible to miss.
Luna stirred honey into her tea with delicate precision. “She hasn’t any friends here, not really. Her parents won’t let her associate with Malfoy or Nott, which seems a little inconvenient, seeing as they’re the only people she’d once have chosen to sit with on purpose.”
Theo’s mouth twitched faintly at the end of the table, though he did not look up.
“She’s only here to finish the year while her wedding is arranged,” Luna went on airily.
Hermione stared. “Her what?”
“Betrothal,” said Padma. “To the heir of the Nimbus fortune.”
“The broom people?” Ron said through toast.
“The broom people,” Ginny repeated, delighted. “Only pug-face Parkinson could come out sparkly on the other side of a war.”
Harry, without missing a beat, said, “Yeah, but you’re betrothed to the Chosen One.”
Hermione made an exaggerated noise of disgust just as Harry flicked a drop of orange juice at her from the rim of his glass.
“Vile,” she said, wiping her sleeve.
“Jealous,” Ginny corrected.
Padma turned to Hermione. “What does your timetable look like?”
That sobered the table somewhat. Their eighth year was strange by design. An institutional attempt by the Ministry to create something respectable out of what had happened to them all. The general consensus was that everyone was grateful for a chance to take the exams they missed during the war.
Not everyone had come back for the same reasons.
It had become common knowledge over the summer that Draco Malfoy’s return to school would be court mandated, less a kindness than a condition. He was not permitted to leave the grounds. No Hogsmeade weekends. No owl post in or out. A controlled return to society, overseen at a distance.
The core subjects were compulsory for every returning eighth year: Transfiguration, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Potions. Beyond that, they could choose.
Hermione had, naturally, chosen as many as she was permitted.
“Core subjects,” she said, counting them off in her head, “and Astronomy, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes.”
Ron groaned at once.
“Oh, ’Mione, you didn’t.”
Hermione reached for her tea. “It’s academia, Ronald, not a blood oath.”
“It’s completely mental,” Ron said. “We’ve already done seven years of this place.”
“You did six and a half of the academic bit,” Ginny corrected. “The rest was camping.”
Harry laughed into his cup.
Ron ignored her. “Harry and I only need the core subjects anyway. Auror programme requirements.”
Harry nodded. “McGonagall said if we finish properly this year it’ll strengthen the application.”
Ginny leaned back in her seat. “And I’ve got core plus flying.”
Ron looked immediately mutinous.
Hermione hid a smile.
Ginny had been promised a tryout with a professional Quidditch team once she turned eighteen in August, and Madam Hooch, in what was perhaps the least surprising decision of the decade, had agreed to give her private flying tuition. No one else in eighth year had been offered the class. No one else could have argued their way into it either, not with any real hope of success.
Ron looked as though life had wronged him personally.
“That’s because people actually want to watch Ginny fly,” Harry said helpfully.
Ron scowled. “I can fly.”
“No one’s stopping you,” Ginny said. “Take your broom out on the grounds in your free time.”
That seemed to offend him more, perhaps because she was right.
At the opposite end of the table, Theo glanced over properly for the first time.
“Granger,” he called, one arm draped over the back of his chair, “you took Ancient Runes?”
Hermione turned. “I did.”
“So did I.” His smile was easy. “Would you like to study together at some point, or is that too reckless for the first week?”
Before Hermione could answer, she became aware of Draco beside him going very still.
He hadn’t said a word since she entered.
Hadn’t looked at anyone directly either. Not Harry, not Ron, not Ginny. Certainly not her.
He sat with one hand curved around his teacup, eyes lowered, profile fine and pale in the morning light. If Theo was made for conversation, Draco seemed to be enduring the existence of other people as some private penance.
Hermione looked back at Theo.
“That would be helpful, actually. I don’t know anyone else taking it.”
“Excellent,” Theo said. “We’ll be terrifyingly clever.”
Ron leaned closer at once, voice dropping.
“Why did you agree to that?”
Hermione turned her head. “Because I’d like to do well in the class.”
“With Nott?”
“With someone taking the same subject as me, yes.”
Ron looked irritated already, which was absurd, given that the day had barely started. “He’s a Slytherin.”
“So is Slughorn,” Ginny said. “Try not to faint.”
Ron muttered something into his breakfast that Hermione chose not to hear.
Beside her, Padma leaned in slightly and said under her breath, “Theo was in one of my study groups sixth year. He’s really smart.”
That, more than anything, settled Hermione.
Not because she cared whether Theo Nott was smart. She already assumed he was. Children raised in those old houses were usually taught like they were being prepared for office, inheritance, or war. Sometimes all three. But Padma was not generous with praise where scholarship was concerned, and if she vouched for him, Hermione trusted the assessment.
She reached for the marmalade again and became newly aware of the apple scent.
It was stronger here at the table.
Stronger, too, each time her attention slid unwillingly toward the Slytherin end of it.
She frowned faintly.
Perhaps it was a tea blend, or some ridiculous expensive shampoo Malfoy had brought from home in a crystal bottle, because of course he would.
She lifted her eyes without meaning to.
Draco still hadn’t looked at her.
Or anyone.
Not once.
And yet there was something about him this morning that snagged her attention in spite of herself. Not just the silence. Not just the rigid line of his shoulders. Something was straining beneath the polished stillness of him, something too tight and too tired. His skin looked almost translucent in the morning light. His cheekbones a little sharper than she remembered. There were faint shadows beneath his eyes, as though sleep had abandoned him somewhere over the course of the war and not bothered to return.
Theo said something low to him.
Draco answered just as quietly.
Hermione couldn’t hear the words, only the shape of them. His voice had deepened since the war. That was disconcerting in its own right.
She told herself not to look again.
Then looked anyway.
His robes were immaculate, naturally. Tie perfectly knotted at his throat. Hair pale as old silver, just slightly too long in the front. He looked every inch the old pureblood prince of Hogwarts, only dimmed somehow. As though the arrogance had been scraped from his bones, leaving something raw behind.
Or perhaps she was being fanciful before first period.
War did strange things to memory and perspective, to what a person thought they saw.
Across the table, Ron was still sulking into his toast.
Padma had begun mentally sorting everyone’s timetables aloud, which sounded suspiciously like the start of an unofficial revision rota.
The first morning of classes at Hogwarts was almost the same as it always had been.