It All Started At a Lake

Chapter 1

Sunday, September 1st, 1998

Hermione was reluctant to return to Hogwarts to finish her seventh year. Just getting on the Hogwarts Express gave her a headache and brought back so many memories. Some painful, some happy.

She didn't have a choice to return this year. All students were to come back to school or else they wouldn't be able to pass their N.E.W.T's. 

She believed that nobody should have to come back and that the Ministry didn't make a good decision, but she couldn't say anything about it. 

The thing that bothered Hermione the most was that everybody seemed so happy. They looked as if a war had never happened and lots of people they knew hadn't died mere months ago. 

Even Harry and Ron seemed well enough to go back to the school. They had been through the worst at the school, but they were still happy to go back.

Hermione felt as if she were in a dream. Maybe the war had never happened and that was just a really bad nightmare, but no she remembered the war happening. 

Ginny was sitting with the three of them on the train this year. Ginny and Harry had started dating a few weeks ago after they broke up before the war. Ron was just now accepting that his sister was old enough to date. He was still accepting the fact that she was dating his best friend.

Hermione looked out the window at their surroundings. There was a few more hours until they got to Hogwarts. Ron, Harry and Ginny were deep in conversation about Quidditch and completely forgot that Hermione was there.

She didn't mind. It gave her time to be left alone with her own thought.

She wondered if the other houses were as normal as Gryffindor was. She was only able to see a few students from the other house before having to get on the train. Were the other houses as happy as the Gryffindor's seemed to be? 

She wondered how the Slytherin's were doing. She never liked the lot of them but some of them had Death Eaters as parents and their reputation has been terrible since then.

Most of the Slytherin's parents were in Azkaban while their children were having to come back to school. 

"Hermione, sorry our conversation on Quidditch bored you out. Your looking really pale, are you alright?" asked Ginny

Hermione turned to her red-headed friend and smiled. "I'm fine, just nervous to get back to school."

Truthfully, she was nervous to be back. A whole war had been fought there and she almost died multiple times. She had a right to be scared to return.

She looked down at the book in her hands once she knew the conversation was done.

Hogwarts; A History

Ron had gotten it for her shortly after the war. He said it was in case she wanted to compare the most recent war to other magical wars.

That was the last thing she wanted to do. She wanted to forget about the war.

That was shortly before Ron and her broke up. She was the one to end things because neither of them liked the same things and it was more of a convenient relationship. Molly was the most deviated that Hermione wasn't going to become her daughter-in-law, but she still considered Hermione family.

Before she could open the book, Crookshanks hopped into her lap. Of course the cat wanted attention as soon as she was going to do something. He was such an attention seeker. 

Hermione sighed and pet the cat. The orange fur ball curled into Hermione and purred. 

Hermione let the cat sleep in her lap until the train came to a stop. She looked outside and saw Hogwarts in the distance.