It's time you pick your battle and I promise you this is mine

Back to Hogwarts

TheWeasley's and Harry met Hermione at King's Cross. The others wentabout their business as usual but Harry could not but rest a few feetbehind them and take everything in. The last time he had been atKing's Cross, he had been talking to the Albus Dumbledore. There hadbeen no trains, no people. He shivered at the thought.

"Youcoming?", Ron shouted and awoke Harry from his thoughts.

"Yeah."

Onlynow did he realise that people were staring again. He sighed. Youwould think they had stared at him enough for a lifetime already, hethought and hoped that this would be the last time people stared athim.

"Wewill join you two in your compartment later", Hermione calledout as she dragged Ron away towards the prefect compartment. Hefollowed them with his eyes until Ginny tapped his arm to get hisattention.

"Let'ssearch for Luna and Neville." He agreed and, after having saidgoodbye to Mrs Weasley, followed her into the train and through thecroud of children and teenagers.

"Ithink I saw Luna's hair passing into that compartment", shepointed out and soon they found themselves in the company of her andNeville.

Nevilletalked a lot during the train ride and Harry remarked how hisleadership position during the last year had really done him somegood. Ginny and Luna chimed in from time to time with their ownsummer stories and remarks to what Neville was talking about whileHarry contented himself with listening to his friends talk,sporadically nodding or saying "yes" when needed, otherwiseadmiring the dynamic they had apparently grown while him, Hermioneand Ron were out hunting horcruxes. War changed people. He knew thatnow.

"Theyare staring at you again", Luna remarked with a small nodtowards the younger students that were gatherin in front of theircompartment door and dissipating as soon as four pairs of eyes lockedonto them.

"Igot used to it", Harry shrugged, "you will get accustomedto it too."

"Us?",Neville asked incredulously.

"Youkilled Nagini, Voldemort's snake, of course they are staring",Harry mentioned as if counting down what he had eaten for breakfast,"and the three of you led the resistance at Hogwarts, soo... youare definitely legends in your own right." And with these wordsHarry retreated from the conversation again.

Hermioneand Ron joined them some time after, before leaving again to join theother prefects in bringing the new first years to the castle.

"It'sweird to do this year again", Ginny contemplates in thethestral-drawn carriage. Harry turns his head towards her.

Nevilleadds "I don't think this year's and last year's curriculae willbe in any way similar tho. And I, for one would very much like tohave my NEWTS before leaving school, so I have no problem retakinglast year's classes." Harry loves them very much in this moment.He could not have survived another minute of observation of how manystudents are staring at the thestrals right now.

SeeingMcGonagall at the headmaster's place of the teacher table put a smileon Harry's face that could not be wiped away. He sat down at theGryffindor table next to Neville and Ginny and looked around theroom. Ron and Hermione were looking over the new first years waitingto be sorted. Harry looked around to see who came back this year andwho didn't. He was glad to see that most of his class mates werestill sitting at their respective tables, even though more thanenough were missing. Some, he hoped, had been kept at home by theirparents to be homeschooled, but others, like Colin Creevey or Crabbe,he knew they would be never sitting anywhere again.

Thinkingof Crabbe, Harry's eyes drifted along the Slytherin table to look forMalfoy and Goyle. He found Goyle first and was surprised not to seehis friend next to him. On the other hand, Harry never believed thatwhat they had could have been called friendship, but it was theclosest thing to friendship they had.

Hefound Draco sitting at the other side of the table, next to PansyParkinson who obviously tried to talk to him but turned awayfrustrated towards Blaise Zabini, sitting at her other side. SeeingDraco there, at the Slytherin table, hunched into himself, painted apicture Harry was never expecting to see. Only the song of thesorting hat got his attention back to the event.

Aftera year away, getting back into school routine was weird, to say theleast. Ron and Hermione were twitchy, a consequence of theirconsistent moving to keep the Death Eaters away, Harry supposed. Andby spending most of their summer traveling to Australia in search ofHermione's parents, they did not get the readjustment period Harryhad spent at the burrow.

"Man",exclaimed Ron after the first day of classes, "why do we have todo our NEWTS anyway? We killed the D⸺Voldemort. I don't think we have to prove that we are capable to beaurors anymore!" Harry expected Hermione to disagree but sheremained silent. Her frustrated turning of the pages of her book(Arithmancy, Harry believed) led him to the conclusion that eventhough she loved learning, she agreed with Ron.

Sheshuffled through her book and papers for a few more minutes beforeputting her pen down and proclaiming: "I do not want to becomean auror though and therefore Ido need to stay in school."

Theboys did not know what to say to that and started to work on theirown homework.

Thenext morning they had Potions class. Reluctantly, Slughorn had staidto teach another year and so they were not necessarily runninglate... but they weren't as early as they had been to dodge Snape'swrath either. So when Hermione, Ron and Harry were arriving in class,only three exact places were left.

"Great",Ron groaned, "we'll have to sit with Malfoy."

"It'syour fault we're that late", Hermione reminded him, "sostop complaining."

Dracolooked at them as if he heard them but his death glare lacked theforce it used to have.

Thethree of them made their way over and unpacked their books andingredients. Harry sat down next to Draco, so that his friends wouldbe able to sit next to each other. The moment Harry got the firstvial out of his bag, Draco pulled his own things closer to him, as iftrying to take up as little space as possible. It's the samebehaviour he had noticed at the Great Feast.

"Whyare you not sitting with your friends anyway?", poked Ron.

"Thatis none of your business, Weasley", sneered Draco.

Slughornstarted the class and Harry actually enjoyed it. Sure, he did notlive up to Slughorn's expectations he built up with the help ofSnape's Potion book two years ago, but Slughorn had been a muchcalmer teacher even then and Draco did not try to pick a fight oncewhich meant he arrived to learn something in this class even thoughhe could never live up to Hermione, and to his disdain also Draco.