#post-hinny

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It's their last year at Hogwarts.

Harry looks along the platform, a chill running down his spine. Will King's Cross always remind him of death, now? Ron waves for him to follow, and Harry takes a deep breath and strides through the masses, trying to ignore the eyes following him wherever he goes.

Their last year... He'll try to make the best of it.

Technically, it's an additional year - everyone who had been unable to attend their seventh year at Hogwarts the year before, or didn't feel like participating in the NEWT exams directly after everything that had happened was welcomed back by Professor McGonnagall.

It feels weird, going there again another time- oddly final, in a way.

Before, Harry had thought that his sixth year would be the last he ever spent at the castle- but during the year, he hadn't thought much of it, none of the others were expecting it to be the start of the war quite as much as he already had, and so there was no feeling of goodbye and nostalgia in the air the way it is in a planned last year- although, Harry thinks now, perhaps the nostalgia everyone seems to feel now has more to do with how things were before the war than with how things will change after school.

He hadn't planned to go back to Hogwarts, to be honest. Not after everything that happened, everyone who lost their lives in the castle...

But Hermione as well as Mrs. Weasley had insisted they take their NEWTs, and having missed the seventh year entirely there was no way they would pass the exams without going back. Except for Hermione, perhaps... she had her nose buried in a book more often than not, but these days Harry often felt as if it was a gesture of hiding instead of a real passion for studying, and over the summer he and Ron tried to drag her away and to other distractions as often as they could. And Ron himself is carrying his own burdens, the heaviest being the grief for Fred...

Harry hopes it won't be even worse, once they're back at the castle. Not just for his friends, but for himself as well: He's been having nightmares, silent but shaking him to the core, and sometimes after a particularily gruesome one featuring red eyes and green light, he jumps put of bed to alert someone that he's dreamt of Voldemort again before remembering that that is in the past, if anything there are memories in his mind, no prophecy or horcrux-linked dreams.

The Weasleys are standing huddled together in front of the train, both Arthur and Molly having come to accompany their children, Molly smiling at him and pressing a parcel of sandwiches into his hands, chattering away.

Harry is glad that they all stayed friendly with him, after he and Ginny had broken up. Sure, it's been a mutual agreement that they didn't work out as a couple, and they've stayed friends, but still- he wouldn't have held it against any of them if it had been too awkward to keep including him into their family gatherings.

He'd said as much to Mrs. Weasley, shortly after he and Ginny had broken the News to everybody- that he could at least move into Grimmauld Place for the reminder of the holidays, if it would make it easier. Now he smiles as he remembers what she had said.

"Nonsense!" Molly wiped her hands on a towel, leaving the rest of the dishes to magically scrub themselves in the sink. "If Ginny is alright with it, then so am I. You're family, Harry- don't interrupt me, young man, you're Ron's friend first and you'll better let me mother you whether you're my son-in-law or not! You're a good man, and I'm sure you haven't hurt my daughter, at least not on purpose, so as far as I'm concerned, it's alright. Come here-"

Harry had blushed terribly at that, stammering an apology and letting Molly drag him into a hug.

Now the memory makes him feel warm. No matter what happens, he'll always have a family.

The Hogwarts express toots, startling Harry out og his thoughts.

Deep breaths, he forces himself to inhale. It's just the train. That was a thing Hermione taught them all, to better deal with the demons still following them all in their minds.

She's convinced they all need therapy, except she started reading books on it instead of going to see a muggle therapist or a mind-healer herself. That made Ron be sure that she's extragerrating, but while Harry didn't say anything on the matter and didn't go look for help during the summer, yet, he personally thinks she might be right.

They've all seen terrible things in the war. Lost people, too. Been ripped from their childhood- although Harry doesn't quite remember ever feeling like a true child at all.

He's jumping at everything now, shadow and noise, and the worst are city neon lights, or noises like muggle cars backfiring which sound too much like someone apparating... Harry has stayed away from London all summer, holed up in the Burrow and only visiting Grimmauld Place once to make sure that everything was alright there and Kreacher was getting along.

The others think it's the memories of the house itself keeping him away, perhaps still the thought of his godfather, and they understand- but in reality, as mean as it may sound, that's the least of his problems right now.

Hugging the Weasley's goodbye, Harry follows Ron and Hermione through the crowd, the other two creating a blockade no-one can pass through. He thinks he sees a sliver of pale white hair in the crowd, and something like hope tugs inside him- that maybe something stayed the same, that Malfoy will still be there with them at the castle. That maybe they can go back to meaningless snide remarks and house rivalry. Like the kids they once were. But he doesn't even know whether the other is even coming back to Hogwarts- whether he'd been allowed, as a former quasi-deatheater. Harry'd spoken at his hearing, at Narcissa Malfoy's as well and at some others, and he only spoke the truth at all of them but he knows the Malfoys are the only ones he really spoke positively off, especially Draco.

They were just kids, he thinks again. Fighting a war of adults.

Ron helps him and Hermione drag their belongings into the train, they’re among the last to jump on, the doors closing behind them.

As the train starts moving, the three of them stay by the door, looking out of the window at the platform shrinking in the distance until they can't see it anymore.

"Come on." Harry feels Hermione's hand on his shoulder as she drags him and Ron around.

"We've got a school-year to pass."

~