Draco
I went with Eve to Kings Cross Station that next morning, dragging the trunk for her through the brick wall entrance onto the platform. We made our way quickly through the crowds of students and parents, and I kept my head ducked low to avoid unwanted attention. I was sure there were quite a few people here who didn't have any intention of being in the same room as me, so I tried to keep my face hidden as I helped Eve lift her trunk onto the train.
Her trunk was loaded all too soon, and then the two of us were standing just a few feet from the train as students parted from their parents around us. Eve was watching a first year kiss his mother goodbye before hurrying onto the train, and her voice was soft as she said to me, "I feel like I should be warning people. You know, telling them not to get on the train. They've got no idea what Hogwarts is going to be like."
I bit my lip, looking around as well and seeing all the younger students with bright smiles on their faces as they left their parents. Most of them were probably thinking that Hogwarts would be safer than staying at home—and right now, I had no idea if that was true or not. I told her after a moment, "I know. But...I mean, we don't know what it's going to be like either. Maybe it won't be so bad."
It was a lie, but Eve nodded anyway. She looked down at the ground as she said quietly, "Yeah. Maybe."
Someone bumped past my shoulder, and I turned to see a seventh year Hufflepuff who had been in my Transfiguration class last year. She sent me a withering glare before boarding the train, making my stomach turn to water and my head automatically turn back towards Eve. I was almost scared to look around, knowing that there were probably more parents and students around us that were glaring in my direction. Pushing away the sick feeling in my gut, I tried to ignore the eyes on me; I couldn't be worrying about something like that when this was the last time I would see Eve for a very long time.
She was looking down at my shoes instead of at me, the minute hand on the clock above our heads slowly drawing closer to the twelve. Her hands were clasped in front of her, the side of her thumb twisting the gold band on her ring finger anxiously. I opened my mouth to say something, but I had to clear my throat quickly to get my voice to work again. "I guess...I guess this is it."
"Yeah," Eve said softly, finally looking back up at me and letting me see that her eyes were cloudy. "This is it."
And then I couldn't hold myself back anymore and I was pulling her to my chest, my arms tight around her as though we couldn't possibly be close enough. Eve's face was buried in my shoulder, and I breathed in the scent of lilacs in her hair—because I was terrified I was going to forget every tiny detail of her the second she walked away from me.
"Write to me tonight, okay?" I told her seriously, my voice muffled slightly from all her hair. "I want to know everything. And Owl me tomorrow, too, and—"
"I will," Eve mumbled quickly, "you know I will. You have to write as often as you can, I mean it."
"Of course, I promise I will—"
But the train was letting out a loud whistle, and Eve was pulling away slightly to see the clock—it was leaving in less than two minutes. My heart was pounding so rapidly that it felt like I was about to panic, and Eve was choking out to me, "I have to go. I love you, I've got to get on—"
"I love you," I told her frantically, my hands slipping away from her shoulders as she started for the train. It suddenly felt like the world was ending, and it was like the train station walls were closing in on me as Eve reached the steps. Her hand was on the railing as I called after her desperately, "I'll be standing right here when you come back for Christmas. Okay? I swear, I'll be right here."
"I know, I'll find you—" Eve said to me, her quiet voice almost lost among the noise of the train station. Nearly everyone else had already boarded, so she whispered one last frantic "I love you", before disappearing onto the train.
I couldn't breathe around the lump in my throat, surrounded by parents all around me as the train whistled one final time and prepared to leave the station. Eve's face appeared in one of the windows a little farther down, and I wanted to call out to her but I knew she wouldn't be able to hear me.
Eve waved to me through the cloudy glass, and I was lifting a shaky hand to her when the train slowly lurched into motion. It was pulling away from the station as Eve mouthed a goodbye to me, but all I could do was bite my lip and refuse to let her see me cry. I thought that she would lose sight of me among all these people as the train moved farther out, but her eyes stayed locked with mine as long as she possibly could.
And then the train was rounding the corner, and she was gone.
~*~
Eve
I stood in the train's window long after the station had disappeared from sight, students passing through the compartment hallway behind me.
I'd promised myself that I wouldn't cry when I left for Hogwarts, but my eyes were filling up with tears that I couldn't seem to force back. All I could see out the window now was a blurry view of grassy hills, but Draco's grey eyes were still imprinted in my mind; even though it was only making the lump in my throat grow bigger, I hoped that the image would never fade.
"Hawkings? Hey, Eve—"
Turning away from the window reluctantly, I saw Marcus Flint pushing his way past a small group of second years towards me. He was grinning broadly as he reached me, so I forced a small smile onto my face before he could see my expression. I wiped under my eyes hastily, choking out with a smile, "Hi—"
Flint had pulled me into a hug before I could say anything else, and I froze against him as he wrapped his arms around me. I blinked and hesitantly lifted my arms to rest my palms on his back, wondering why he was hugging me when he and I had never been very close. When he pulled away, Flint was still grinning. "Nice to see you, Hawkings. It's been a while."
"You too," I said quickly, hoping he couldn't see how upset I was. "I, um, I hope you had a good summer?"
It came out as a question, but Flint nodded anyway. "Yeah, it was alright. You?"
I thought about how Draco and I had basically done nothing this summer, and how we had only really spent the days alone together. There was a small smile on my face as I told him honestly, "Yeah. The best summer, actually."
"Nice," he said easily, and then he bent his head lower to look at me more closely. His voice was a little quieter as he asked kindly, "Doing okay?"
I blinked, wondering if Flint had just assumed that Draco wasn't coming back to school since he wasn't with me like he usually was. Much too quickly, I replied, "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine."
The pity in his expression suggested that he didn't believe me even a little, but he must have decided not to call me out on it. Flint sent me a small grin and gestured down the hallway of the train, saying, "Let's go sit, yeah? Pansy's already got a compartment."
I followed him down the hallway, the rocking motion of the train making it difficult to walk in a straight line. I wrung my hands nervously in front of me every time we passed another student, since I was dreading the moment I would see Ginny again—or any other Gryffindor, for that matter. I still remembered the betrayed look she'd sent me the night Dumbledore had died, and I didn't think I could handle seeing that again right now.
Pansy wore the same pitied expression the moment I entered the compartment. She had been sitting alone in the compartment, and Flint took a seat next to her while I sat across from them a bit awkwardly. Pansy gave me a smile and said, "Hi, Eve. Are you doing alright?"
I blinked, saying, "Um, yeah. Nice to see you again."
She nodded and told me she'd missed me over the summer, but I was too busy wondering why they were both being even nicer to me than usual to listen closely. And I noticed that the two of them were sitting very close together on the compartment seat; hadn't they been snapping at each other in annoyance the last time I was with them? I'd thought Flint and Pansy couldn't stand each other.
"Have you heard who the new headmaster is?" I asked them, using anything I could to distract myself. Maybe they would know more than I did about what things were going to be like at Hogwarts.
"Yeah, isn't it mad?" Pansy said, shaking her head with wide eyes. "And the Carrows will be there as well. It won't even be a school anymore."
"Slytherins will have it easier, though," Flint added. "Snape's always favored us. I feel sorry for the Gryffindors."
But if that was supposed to make me feel better, it hadn't worked. I felt sick to my stomach as I glanced out the window, Pansy continuing to say something to Flint. The trees passed by in a blur, their leaves turning to a greyish green as the sunlight faded from the sky. We couldn't be far from the castle now, but I found myself praying that the train's engine would break down and we would never make it.
I didn't want to arrive at Hogwarts and see what I'd been dreading for months now.
I turned my gaze away from the window, wanting to say something to Flint and Pansy before I could get upset again. But my mouth closed abruptly as I realized that his hand was on her knee, his gaze intent on her eyes as she spoke to him softly.
The words died in my throat, and I suddenly felt as though I would have been interrupting. Something must have changed over the summer between them—or maybe it had been like this all along. I wanted to say something to them both, maybe to say I was happy for them, but I decided against it. It wouldn't have been sincere, not with the way I was feeling right now.
So I turned my head back towards the window, because there was nowhere else to look and there was nothing else to say.
The loneliness set up inside my chest, heavy on my heart so soon after leaving Draco. If I was already feeling this alone, I couldn't imagine what things would be like a month from now.
I watched the trees blend together through the glass window as the train brought me closer to Hogwarts, trying not to think about what things would be like in a school run by Death Eaters and Draco this far away from me.