章節 2: Back Home!
{Hermione's POV}
Hermione was smart. She had known that her whole life. She grew up in a family where both her parents were well-accomplished in their field. She would have gone to a good college; she had applied to Oxford and Cambridge before the letter arrived and maybe followed her mom and dad's path to medical school. But the world had something different in store for her.
Magic was a breath of fresh air that she enjoyed. A whole new area that she never knew about for her to learn and explore, so maybe she might have been excluded from some of the initial social groups when she arrived, but that all changed on that first Halloween.
Looking back on it, the whole thing was silly; she was a big girl, and crying in the bathroom was just not her thing; she had outgrown that phase of her life years ago. Homesickness was to blame as she moved on. She got two pretty good friends out of it. Well, Ron was a prat most of the time...
Still, she had spent almost two years with the boys now, and although Ron wasn't incredibly complex to understand when she looked at Harry, it was pretty clear to her that something wasn't quite right.
'Ever since those dreadful creatures did something to him, he seems a bit off...' She thought. It was subtle yet glaring at the same time. Harry wasn't himself. It was in the way he held himself. He wasn't slouching like usual, and his eyes had a spark of interest in almost everything as if he were looking at everything for the first time.
"We'll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes," said Professor Lupin. "Are you all right, Harry?"
"I'm okay, Professor." He spoke in the same voice, yet his confident answer was so unlike him. If it was just a day, hell even some hours ago, she was pretty sure he would have said something like "fine" and then looked away.
'Not that I blame him, having to live for 17 years with those dreadful people...' She suppressed a shudder as their eyes met. She smiled at him, hoping her face looked a bit more comforting than she felt. He nodded at her and smiled back before his eyes dipped down briefly before looking away.
There it was again. Unless he went through a second puberty after a traumatic incident, which just sounds absurd... something was definitely up. Harry doesn't check her out; she isn't self-conscious about her looks anymore, but it is simply what it is. He was her best friend, and this was the first time she had seen him do that.
'Then there was that incident with Ginny,' She thought. 'He comforted her quite quickly, recognizing that the trauma she must have been through would have resurfaced.'
Harry was kind, but normally, she would have to point something like that to him. If he hadn't been in front of her the whole time, she would even think that someone else was sitting with them while drinking a polyjuice potion. The rest of the journey went by quickly. She rubbed Ginny's shoulder as the younger girl still looked a bit out of it.
Not long after, they were disembarking on the freezing platform. She had to use her hands to shield herself from the slight drizzle of rain as she waited for the rest of her group to come down as well.
"Firs' years this way!" called out a familiar voice in the distance. When Hermione turned to look at Hagrid, the half-giant was waving his lantern in their direction. She turned to look back and noticed Harry's gaze locked onto Hagrid's figure. There was a sense of wonder in there.
"All right, you three?" Hagrid yelled over the heads of the crowd, she waved at the giant as did the others but the pressing concern right now was the rain. It was starting to go faster again.
"Come on, the carriages are this way." Hermione urged. She was used to taking charge, so dragging the boys along wasn't that hard for her. They shuffled through the wet platform, the water frozen in some corners, which screamed unnatural to her.
'The cold, it was the same on the train. But it only happened when those creatures came.' She suppressed another shudder at the thought of the floating cloak-like beings. She knew she would have to research them tomorrow before classes, but seeing the carriages parked just off the platform's edge was a welcome change.
"Thank Merlin, come on, hurry up," she said as she chose an empty one. Harry and Ron followed her, but Neville and Ginny looked at each other. There was only space for one more, and Harry quickly extended his hand to Ginny.
"Come on, Ginny, it's cold. Neville mate, you mind taking the next one?" He spoke. Once again, she couldn't suppress her suspicions, but her attention quickly shifted to Ginny, who smiled gratefully at Harry before she settled down beside her.
The ride remained in silence for a bit before Harry turned toward Ron and whispered, "Don't the first years kind of look tall?"
'What? Do they look tall?' Hermione thought as she looked outside at the line of first years led by Hagrid.
"Well, of course, when you compare them to Hagrid," Ron chuckled.
"You remember your first time meeting Hagrid?" He asked, and the conversation delved into the topic of their first night. The ride to the school gate was short, and they had to run again through the main doors to avoid the rain.
'I should look into a spell that protects us from rain, coincidently though it hasn't rained that much in Hogwarts for the past two years.' Hermione thought as they dusted themselves and walked into the Great Hall. The change in temperature was obvious, and while she could appreciate the warming charms that must have been cast by one of the staff, her eyes once again gravitated toward Harry.
'There it is again, he is looking up at the ceiling with wonder in his eye and amazement plastered on his face...'
Something was definitely wrong with Harry. Now, she just needed to find out what happened.
...
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AN: Only Hermione will notice these changes as Ron is kind, not that socially intellectual, and the golden trio has always been an isolated group. The next chapter goes back to Harry's POV.
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