The Last Train To Hogwarts

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but just the plot in this one-shot.

Rating: PG

Summary: After they see the train to Hogwarts depart, Harry and Hermione have to remember their past. They have to remember who they were. HHr.

The Last Train to Hogwarts

“He loves you.”

Ginny Potter exhaled. She was doing it again, telling the woman in the mirror that Harry loved her. She was Mrs. Potter. Still is Mrs. Potter.

“He loves you.”

She put the diamond cut earrings on. She added the mascara and placed final touches of makeup on her face. Staring intently at the brown eyes in the mirror she had to wonder if they really where hers. Today, it looked a tone different, darker.

The mirror had to be magical. Well, it was magical; she had ordered it from Russia's finest wizardry store. The mirror could not lie. It would speak only the truth.

“He - ”

She stopped short. It had been a long while now, that Ginny had not seen herself reflected in the mirror. Ginerva still remembers the different shade of brown eyes. She can't see herself.

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She gripped her daughter's hand. She patted her pocket and was relieved to find the shrunken trunk still there. She made sure to have everything packed and shrunken before they left. God knows Ron would've forgotten. Ron always forgets.

Hermione Weasley retrieved the broken wristwatch from her back pocket that would serve as their portkey to King's Cross. It would activate any minute now and her patience was wearing thin. Hugo and Ron still hadn't gotten back yet.

They had gone to buy a bag of treats for Rose's owl, Pumkin. Hermione recalled the memory. Rose had begged her mother to allow her to call the owl Harmony but Hermione refused.

She had never refused her children anything without an explanation.

In the distance she spotted Ron and Hugo running towards them with the treats in hand. But then she caught sight of the box Hugo was holding and the half eaten Chocolate Frog in his hand.

“Ron, how many times must I remind you not to give them sweets before noon?” Hermione chastised him.

“Oh, c'mon, luv, it's just one Chocolate Frog.”

“And next time it will be two.”

“Hermione, not now. The kids are here,” he gave her that look again. It said that they would talk about it later; that they would wait. That always worked, bringing up the kids. And Ron knew damn well that they would never discuss it later. They never did.

“Mummy, please,” Rose tugged her arm.

Her daughter had once asked her if they were going to get a divorce like Robbie Finnegan's parents. Hermione had always known her daughter to be bright, too bright at times. The look on her daughter's face and the emotion in her eyes made Hermione rethink the whole situation. And that maybe, just maybe, they would work it out; for the children's sake. That night, after she tucked in Rose to sleep, Hermione burned the divorce paperwork that she had already signed.

“Ready?”

She nods and suddenly that all too familiar tug on her belly button envelopes her. And it felt like everything inside of her was contracting and closing in. But maybe it was her heart. She could not remember a time when she felt that way. Felt that tug on her heart. She had to think back long and hard because she didn't feel like she was apparating. No, it felt like something unknown. It felt like love.

But, no, Hermione Weasley does not feel love. She is incapable of feeling love, she reasons with herself as she always does. For she has forgotten how to love.

She only remembers it as a distant thought.

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Harry still remembers.

He still remembers when Hermione would talk his ear off about anything and everything. Well, mostly everything. He remembers the long silent conversations where only their eyes communicated. He remembers those deep chocolate brown eyes glazed over with passion that used to possess her so fully and then disappear whenever she would smile brightly.

But he realized that that look was reserved only for her children now. And he would find himself longing to be in their shoes. Then he would scold himself for being jealous of a child who knew nothing of what was going on. He can't help but remember the time when that smile was reserved for him, Harry. Just Harry. Harry Potter did no exist between the two of them.

Yet, the time he can recall the most was when they used to be the best of friends.

He notices her cold and distant demeanor whenever he is around. She barely greets him anymore. He's lucky if he even gets a `hello' or a `how are you'. And those are saved only for big Weasley Family Meetings. Hermione, his best friend, has become the only thing he feared she would become the moment she said `I do': His best mate's wife.

The Hermione Granger he knew would have never let that happen. But he has to remind himself that she is no longer Hermione Granger. She is a Weasley now. Heck, he should know, because he is one of them too.

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Ron wished he could say that he was happy and that he had everything he wanted. Just like what he saw in the Mirror of Erised. But Ginny had become Head Girl (and went on to marry the Boy-Who-Lived), while he was still Ron, manager of the Cannon and married. So he wasn't alone. At least not according to the physical aspect of being along, for he was surrounded by people. And yet emotionally alone is a different story.

He looked down at his daughter Rose and could only imagine Hermione at that age, excited to take her very first train ride to Hogwarts. But the Hermione back then and the Hermione now where two completely different people. He had wondered if he even loved the Hermione now more than the bickering Hermione.

There were times he would find here stowed away in her stuffy studio. All alone because no one dared to enter and feel the wrath of an angry Hermione. Ever since that one time their first year as husband and wife he has avoided her studio like a plague. It reminded him too much of who Hermione had become. Who she wasn't. In her studio she was able to be a Granger, not a Weasley, and especially not Ron's wife.

He had everything, everything he could have ever asked for. He had Hermione Weasley. But not Hermione Granger. Not the one stuck in the Mirror of Erised. Trapped by the illusions of having a big, happy Weasley family. No; he had everything but that.

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They waved back at their children, the train already hard to see.

“Mum, can Hugo come home with us?” Little Lily asked, already squeezing Hugo's hand in hers.

“Good idea, Lily. Would you guys like to come with, it is a weekend after all,” Ginny smiled over at her brother and sister in law.

Hermione nodded, looking back on the train tracks, longing for something already out of her reach. Harry looked in the same direction and had to wonder (and hoped, God, he hoped) if they were thinking the same thing; if they both wanted a last train ride to Hogwarts, another chance to get the old them back.

They all squeezed into the car; Ron and Harry in the front seats. It smelled like Harry, like Godric's Hollow, like the tent, and -

“Kent, you're being sent there? For how long?”

Hermione looked up, surprised to hear that place. Harry was looking at her through the rear view mirror, still talking to Ron. He held her gaze and she had to look away for fear of something happening. She looked at Ginny, who quickly covered her look of surprise and something else with a small - and forced - smile. Hermione really couldn't recognize the look because they had stopped being friends long ago and became in-laws instead.

It wasn't long until they arrived at the house. Harry had never wanted to move to Godric's Hollow. She wondered if the memories were too much for him to bear or they decided otherwise because of Ginny's reaction when she had first seen the town. She refused, however, to acknowledge that she felt relieved when she found out they were going to stay in London.

She wonders if she has been programmed by a computer to walk into Harry's house and feel nothing. Hermione had gotten used to the tug at her heart strings and the closing of her lungs.

“Baby, take Hugo with you upstairs,” Harry smiled at his little girl and turned back to them.

The four of them sat in the table with tea cups and cakes. It was an unspoken tradition. They would all sit and wonder.

“Ron, I hear that you-”

Hermione would nod when needed and make comments when she thought necessary. The computer forgot to add the program that would prevent her from looking at the memories hidden in the past. It was the way his lips parted just lightly before taking a sip of his tea that would take her back to the tent, Godric's Hollow, and those months. She wondered if he had forgotten about it.

It was Ginny's voice that brought her mind to the present.

“Won't you help me clean these dishes?”

Hermione knew that Ginny could use magic (she always did and hated watching the dishes the muggle way) but nodded nonetheless. Anything to forget about the memories.

“What have you been up to, Hermione?” Ginny asked as she placed the dishes in the sink and waved her wand.

“The usual.”

“Yes, that's what Ron says. How is the novel coming? I hear this time it will be a romance novel.” Ginny tugged her hair back. She always hated how the woman's hair could stay tame.

“It is.” Looking at Ginny's smile made her talk more about her project even though she did not want to. “It's about the irrationality of love and a young man's journey of his first taste of infidelity. He never cheats on his wife though; it's more about the emotional level.”

There was something in the way Ginny's eyes flashed again. She had the same look from the car.

“I never thought it would end this way.” Her voice had been so low that made her wonder if she had imagined it. “I mean, Harry was perfect, wasn't he? He was everything I wanted.”

“Ginny, what are you-”

“He still is perfect, a great father and husband. I could not ask for a better man. He is just…not perfect for me. Never was, really. In our first years married, I wonder why he wasn't like he used to be at Hogwarts. I thought it was because we were newlyweds and young. We were so young. But, he hasn't change. He is the man I married, but not the man I thought he would be.

“Harry is not Harry. Do I make any sense? He is not my Harry; he never was my Harry. But yours. Harry was always yours even before you met. Even before-”

Ginny looked up. She couldn't take it anymore. The same brown eyes from her mirror were staring at her.

“He loves you.”

She walked out of her kitchen.

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They were taking too long. She was taking too long. He knew that Ginny did not need help with the dishes because she always used magic.

Ron was talking about quidditch (when does he not?) and the new player they bought for the team. He was happy for Ron, really, but could not help being jealous of him. He had everything he ever wanted.

“Harry, an owl is waiting for you in the kitchen. It looks like one of the Auror owls,” Ginny said as she walked in.

“Thanks. I'll be back, Ron.”

He found her facing the windows with her back to him. It was the first time in years that he had been in a room with her alone. It still hurt to breathe.

In. Out. In. Out.

His heart was still there, he was looking right at her.

“Where did the owl go?” He asked.

“What owl?” She served herself water and he saw her hand trembling.

In. Out. In. Out.

“Ginny - nothing. Can I sit next to you?”

“It's your house, Harry. You can do whatever you want.”

He was ready to respond but did not know what to say. He chose to sit next to her. How did it go again? In. Out. In. Out. “Nice weather.”

“We've known each other for more than almost thirty years and all we can talk about is the weather?” She turned to look at him and he cursed the day Hermione Granger walked out of his life. What has he been missing all this time?

“I don't know what to talk to you about anymore. Everything is so hard. Hermione, we are not ourselves anymore and I miss that. I miss being us.”

“There was never an `us', Harry.” Her words did more than break his heart; they shattered every dream he ever had.

“Don't you remember anymore? Were we so easy to leave behind?”

“Stop it Harry.”

“Do you remember Godric's Hollow, those nights?”

“Harry.” She was pleading now. But he wanted her to remember. She needed to remember them.

“And the nights in the tent, the ring I gave you, the - ”

“I said stop! Of course I remember. I remember everything. I still have that ring, those nights. I still have everything. I just- I just don't have our baby. Our baby…”

This time, she did not try to hide her tears and he loved her then. He always would.

He doesn't question himself when he finds his arms around her shaking body. He is shaking too and it hurts more than he thought it would. Of course he misses the baby. He missed the baby when James was born (he cried the whole night). He missed the baby when Lily smiled, when Albus laughed. But he missed it the most when he sees Hermione.

Harry Potter was not one to cry, but Harry cried in her arms. “I miss the baby too Hermione. I miss us, the three of us. I still go to the cemetery and put flowers there. I talk to her because I know it was going to be a girl. I always knew it was going to be a girl, just as beautiful and smart as you.

“God, I talk to her about you and how much I miss you, how much I still love you.” He pulled her from his arms and looked at her. “Hermione, I love you.”

“And I love you. I love you. I love you...”

There was no kiss this time, not like the one they shared at Godric's Hollow, not like the one they lived when he proposed.

But they closed their eyes and they smiled and remembered the tent, Godric's Hollow, and the little bump in Hermione's stomach. They smiled and let their souls touch and live, like they used to live when they were young.

“We missed the train to Hogwarts today,” he whispered.

Hermione touched his cheek and he leaned into it. “No, silly, there is always a train to Hogwarts.”

They remember.

They remember.

- love -

I hope you guys enjoyed the ending. I think it is pretty obvious that they will end up together, just not yet.

If some of you are disappointed in the no-kiss factor, I'm sorry. I just felt the story was better this way because it dealt more about the emotions than any physical attraction.

Hermione lost the baby before it was born. They had problems after that and hence ended up with the people they are with right now. This is the part Rowling forgot to mention. : ]

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