Year 5 - Stockholm

Chapter 17

Homecoming

The last few weeks of the term had her numb. She was blank. Her mind reeling and searching for explanation where there was none. Harry and Ron paid close attention in her new mood. They treated her like a piece of glass. Her time in the DA was the best part of it. She found the energy to focus on her skills then. It gave the small spark of happiness.

Then came a depressing day. Harry and the Weasleys, gone from their beds. No one had thought to wake her. She was worried sick. The breakfast table was empty. She stared at the open seats in front of her with a hole widening in her heart.

It was like she'd awoke in a nightmare. Not a soul to belong to in the entire school.

McGonagall was kind enough to explain what happened. It hurt to be left behind.

Her mind was with Harry. What happened in his dream, it sounded awful. More so, she knew her best friend would need her more than anything. Everyone else would be too worried about Arthur Weasley to realize how traumatizing it would be for Harry to have endured such a vision. It'd become a struggle for him after Cedric. He tossed and turned most nights. He was tortured by the death of Cedric and the weight of survival. Survivors guilt, they called it.

Hermione walked the corridors of the castle with no place in mind. Her feet felt restless. Her mind hated stagnation. She wanted something else to think of other than the growing threat on her friend's life and the agonizing heartbreak of almost killing and thus losing Draco as a part of her life.

She, somehow, was drawn back to the dreary old clock tower to relive her sadness. This time, her jumper stayed on. Another was wrapped around her shoulders as she crossed her legs on the floor and just thought through it all.

The frosted white tops of the Haunted Wood showed in the distance through the blistery cold. Branches overstuffed with crisp white snow dipped low. The bark was a dark slice up through the solid white. She squinted to make out the individual bodies. Most were blended together, a mass of snowy branches of evergreen trees.

Creaks of the lonely clock tower groaned through the winter air. The cold wind shifted and bended and prodded the metal structure. Hermione listened to their pace for a while. It was a steady rhythm to anchor her mind to.

Then, something else was joined in the noise. Shuffling. It sounded below the open air of the tower.

Hermione ventured close to the railing edge and leaned over until only the tips of her shoes touched the floor to peer inside the pendulum space where two mounds stood, bundled beneath layers of fur and coats. They were solid black. Neither had a face since their scarves wrapped around the bottom half of their faces.

Silver and green striped scarves. Slytherin.

She gasped. They hadn't followed her for weeks. Draco kept a farther distance than them, but they did not follow anymore.

Crabbe and Goyle. What was there to gain?

Hermione decided to cease the shivering and head back inside. Soon enough it would be time to depart to London. King's Cross Station. She descended down the stairs, surprised that Crabbe and Goyle were absent when she reached the bottom and intended to walk back inside when the fluttering of an owl caught her attention. The call split the calm air. It dipped down suddenly, narrowly missing the snow-covered cobblestones of the courtyard and flew with a mad panic.

She pulled out her wand and stopped the creature with a simple "Embolus" spell. It was Errol: the Weasley family owl. In his pause, he was able to regain the limited sense he had. The creature dropped down to the ground. He shook out a single wing. His long brown feathers ruffled in the gust of Scottish wind as it pushed through their rung of dense plume to hefty single feathers stretched beneath pale grey flesh.