The Buddy System. *Updating In Process*

1. Return to Hogwarts

As I stood on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, I let my eyes sweep over the chaos of students and parents rushing through their last goodbyes before the clock struck eleven. It felt surreal to be returning to Hogwarts at all—after everything that had happened last year. The castle might have been rebuilt, and last year's seventh-years ordered back to finish their schooling, but excitement was the last thing I felt. I hadn't looked forward to school since fourth year. Since the year my brother was ripped away from me—killed simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Killed because, to Voldemort, he was nothing more than a spare.

Cedric Diggory—my brother, my anchor—had always been the best part of my life. Mum was wonderful, truly, but Cedric... Cedric was everything. The kind of big brother any girl would dream of having.

After he died, our whole world collapsed. Mum refused to join the Death Eaters during the Ministry takeover, and they murdered her for it. Dad, shattered by grief, became obsessed with Time-Turners—convinced he could rewrite the past if he just tried hard enough. He quit his job, locked himself away in our basement, buried himself in blueprints and broken bottles. When he wasn't plotting impossible fixes, he was drinking.

I hadn't seen him properly in weeks. I doubted he even realized I was leaving today.

He wasn't my father anymore. He was a stranger wearing his face. I tried, over the last year, to pull him back from the edge, but he was too far gone. And I couldn't stand by and watch him crumble any longer.

So I told him—back at the start of summer—that when school ended, I would be leaving for good. Just to test the waters. His only response was that with me gone, he'd finally have no more distractions.

That was when I decided I meant what I said. I moved the date forward. I packed my things. And I left.

Mum had set aside money for me in her will, so I went to the Ministry to claim it. What I didn't expect was to learn I was also inheriting a sizable estate from her side of the family. It had been meant for Cedric, of course. But with him... gone, it fell to me instead. I turned seventeen a few months ago, and with that came full access to the trust—and every single Galleon.

The will specified that everything went to her surviving children, and that left me with more than enough to live on. More than enough to buy a home. To start over. To build the kind of life I used to imagine Cedric and I would each grow into someday.

But as I stood on the platform, surrounded by laughing families and tearful goodbyes, the truth settled over me with a heaviness I hadn't expected. I had never felt more alone. All around me were arms wrapping around shoulders, parents fussing over scarves, siblings arguing over last-minute reminders. And in every pair of clasped hands I saw Cedric. In every tight hug I saw what I had lost. And in every smile, I felt the absence of my friends—the ones who hadn't survived, and the ones who had drifted away after the war fractured us all.

A familiar burning rose behind my eyes. Before the feeling could swell into something noticeable, something humiliating, I turned and climbed onto the train. If I stayed out there any longer, watching everyone else hold on to the people they still had, I was certain I'd fall apart.

The interior of the Hogwarts Express felt both comfortingly familiar and painfully foreign. I placed my trunk in the storage section, double-checking the latch before patting the small lump in my pocket—Bleu, my tiny blue puffskein, nestled inside the enchanted pouch I'd sewn for him. His soft, rhythmic breathing brushed warm against my fingertips, grounding me. At least I wasn't completely alone.

I walked down the corridor, past compartment after compartment filled with boisterous chatter. I wasn't ready for that—not yet. When I found an empty one near the back, I slid the door open and stepped inside, closing it gently behind me as if afraid of disturbing the fragile quiet. The seat was cool beneath me as I settled in, pulling my knees up slightly, arms wrapped loosely around myself.