Julie Stone was a regular girl; she lived in an orphanage, had some friends, and every now and then would bang her head against the wall due to stress. . . . Normal!
Anyway, all her life Julie never seemed to quite fit in. She loved it, but her life...
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𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏. . . .𝒕𝒐𝒂𝒅
────── *•. ⚡︎ .•*──────
Twenty minutes was the time it took them to get to King's Cross station (by foot.). Hermione had let her thoughts stray away and drown in total randomness, in order to not notice the fact that she was actually walking and not get tired. This technic worked wonders, especially because after a few minutes she had bargained with Ron for a ride on his back, in exchange for three chocolate frogs. She, Mr. Weasley, and Ron arrived at the station and discreetly let themselves fall from the passage on the wall in Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. The Hogwarts Express was stood on its track, belching sooty steam over the packed platform, full of departing students and their families.
Hermione couldn't help but feel excited at the sight of the train but in all honesty, she could be more excited to go. That morning it had taken Ginny half an hour to coerce her out of the warmth of her bed—and she only had true results after blackmailing Hermione with chocolate cake. A part of Hermione wanted to stay in Grimmauld Place with her father and do nothing all day, pretending the world around her didn't exist. It had worked pretty well over the summer—even with cleaning, and talk of the Order. Hermione didn't want to deal with pink toads or crappy Ministry stuff. But she had to.
Before the summer, Hermione had finally let reality dawn on her after seeing Voldemort rise. And to say she wasn't wearier now wasn't true. Hermione finally realized how real this all was, and though she wanted to ignore everything, she knew they needed her at Hogwarts. She would have loved to be selfish and just sprawl around Grimmauld Place all year but she couldn't. So she decided to be selfish at Hogwarts. She would do whatever she needed to—more specifically try to keep up with a plotline so it wouldn't stray too far, and out of the barrier of her knowledge—and then steal selfish moments for herself—like flying around or hanging out with her friends or Fred. . . .
Without even noticing Mr. Weasley, she and Ron had reached Mrs. Weasley and Harry—along with a "stray black dog"—, who were already on the platform. Soon enough everyone had arrived and they were reunited in a large group.
"No trouble?" growled Moody.
"Nothing," said Lupin.
"I'll still be reporting Sturgis to Dumbledore," said Moody. "That's the second time he's not turned up in a week. Getting as unreliable as Mundungus."
"Well, look after yourselves," said Lupin, shaking hands all around. He reached Harry and gave him a clap on the shoulder. "You too, Harry. Be careful." He then turned to Hermione and gave her a hug, Hermione took that opportunity to slip into his pocket the letter her mother wrote Sirius—Annora had given it to her the night before (all dozens of pages of it).
