after the war [hp]

the trainn

I wake up a couple days later, realizing that today is the day we go to Hogwarts.

I quickly grab my trunk, throwing on a sweater and slacks. I grab my owl and run down the stairs. As usual, I'm the last one down.

I grab Luna's hand, taking her owl in my free hand. She looks up at me and smiles.

I see Harry holding my sister's hand, and Ron holding Hermione's. I mean, I am protective of Ginny, but I trust Harry. I don't think he'll be irational with her.

We floo to the station, and fly through the wall. We get to Platform 9 3/4, and Mum starts crying.

"I got used to my boys and girls being home all the time, and now they're leaving me again!" she sobs harder, and Ron and Ginny run to hug her. I kinda hang back.

"Why aren't you over there conforting Mum?" I hear a small whisper in my ear. Luna.

"Because. I was the one who left for the business, I stayed home with her. Different. I was the one who held her when Harry, Ron, and Hermione basically dissapeared. I don't need to hold her."

"But Geo, you do. She knows you would help her unhesitantly, and more willing than the others who dissapeared."

"Alright, I'm not going to win this fight, so I'll go." Luna always finds a way to win a fight.

I hug Mum, and she turns around in my light grip, letting go off Ginny and Ron.

"George, honey." she breathes. "I didn't think you would-"

"Sshhh, Mum. Let the silence be."

We stand there for a couple minutes, hugging.

A minute later, I whisper something in her ear.

She lets go and kisses my cheek, too short to kiss my forehead. I grab my dropped trunk and owl and run to catch up with the others, who are already getting on the train.

Luna stands close to the entrance, trying to find my bright red hair. She sees and mouths a compartment to me, and I nod.

I don't have any friends here.

Don't get me wrong, I have Ron, Harry, Hermione, Ginny, and lastly Luna. But they're basically siblings to me. All of my friends in my year graduated before the war. It would be me and Fred, but...

Fred's dead.

I shrug off the thought, thinking I have Luna. There's really no one to impress here anymore, so I don't care if my ego lowers because of Luna. Also, I am at least two years older than Harry's year, so I have the older kid advantage.

Plus I am like three feet taller than most people here, excluding Harry, Hermione, and Ron.

I walk furthur into the train. I see familiar, strange, new, young, and fresher faces than from when I was a first year. As I walk by the compartments, I remember the memories formed in these compartments. But the person who I formed them with was no longer here.

Fred's dead.

I finally find Luna in the compartment she mouthed to me earlier. I slide into the compartment seeing Luna with her crazy glasses on, her head in a book.

"Harry and Ginny are in the compartment next to us, snogging their life away, and Hermione and Ronald are across the hallway, having a heated discussion about a topic I do not care to admit." she says without even looking up from her book.

I slide a privacy screen across the door, sitting down across from Luna. I pull her book and put it on the vacant seat next to me. I smile as she huffs, grabbing another from her bag.