Hermione Granger and The Year of Stolen Time

The New Year

Hermione walked slowly through Kings Cross Station, trying her best to muster up her usual enthusiasm for the school year to come.
But try as she might, she couldn't summon the girl who had come to this very platform just a handful of months before, grinning and rattling off facts and spells and reminders to Harry and Ron, all three of them pretending the latter two were listening.
Now, she stood on the same platform, alone.
But she needed this, she told herself. She needed this chance to be normal for once. To go to school and worry about her OWLs and her house points and her future, wherever it may take her.
Of course, she was completely capable of doing as Harry and Ron and many others had done, and just forgoing her seventh Hogwarts year and accepting a job at the ministry that they offered to all who had fought in the Battle of Hogwarts last winter.
Her friends were all trying their best to cope. She and Ron had been in such a confusing place that she hadn't even spoken to him in ages. After the war, their relationship was in an oddly grey area, both too afraid or too distracted to address the subject. And so they kept on keeping the charade of friendship where they did not know what feelings they actually held. Hermione still didn't know what it was she felt for Ron. She was only 17, and they'd only shared a kiss. Sure, he had been her friend, but Hermione had always been closer to Harry, emotionally. So if Ron wasn't ready to talk to her, that was fine.
She needed the time on her own, anyway.
So she had gone to Hogwarts, the place where she had discovered herself all those years ago, in the hopes of maybe finding herself again. Although, both Hogwarts and Hermione had changed much since then. But maybe that was for the best.
And so, Hermione Granger took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and vanished through the wall between platforms 9 and 10.
And slammed face first into none other than Draco Malfoy.