Hermione Granger still couldn’t quite believe how far she had come in only a few hundred miles.
One moment she had been pressed against the window of the Hogwarts Express, watching the English countryside slide past in a blur of green and grey, convinced she was heading toward another lonely chapter of her life.
The next, she was being hugged by the most famous boy in the wizarding world—the boy everyone else was searching for.
The same boy who now sat opposite her, one ankle resting on his knee, quietly watching the darkening hills as though he hadn’t just turned her entire world upside down.
She had gone from nursing a ridiculous crush on a stranger to having a best friend in the space of a single train journey.
It felt ridiculous.
It felt wonderful.
And it terrified her a little, because she now understood exactly what Harry had already survived.
Her father had once stormed into her primary school when the bullying got bad enough.
Harry’s adoptive father had risked his life—twice—to protect his son.
Harry had already lost his real parents and lived every single day knowing the man raising him was out there somewhere, dueling to the death just to keep him safe.
Right there on the train, Hermione had made herself a promise.
She was going to be the best friend Harry Crow had ever had.
The first boy who had ever hugged her was not going to face whatever waited at Hogwarts alone.
They talked for hours.
The train rocked and rattled north.
The air grew colder.
Harry told her carefully chosen stories about his life before Hogwarts; she told him about the books that had been her only real friends and the way she sometimes practiced spells in secret under her blankets at night.
Every shared laugh loosened something tight inside her chest.
Every quiet moment where he simply listened made her feel seen in a way she never had before.
When the train finally began to slow, they took turns standing guard outside the compartment while the other changed into their new black robes.
The heavy fabric felt strange against her skin, but also oddly right.
Harry’s expression had grown serious as he straightened his tie.
“Hermione, I’m half expecting trouble when we get to Hogwarts.
Maybe it would be better if—”
“No.” She hadn’t even let him finish.
“Whatever you were about to say, there is no chance I’m going back to the way I was before I stepped onto this train.
You’re my friend.
That’s more important than any school.”
The smile he gave her did something complicated and fluttery to her stomach.
Then he offered his arm with a small, formal bow that made her laugh despite everything.
“Shall we, Miss Granger?”
She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, lifted her chin, and answered in the same posh tone.
“Delighted, Mr.
Crow.”
It was time for their public faces.
Hogsmeade station was little more than a platform and a few flickering lamps fighting a losing battle against the Scottish night.
Older students were already climbing into the waiting carriages, pulling their robes tighter against the sudden cold.
Harry and Hermione had barely taken two steps when a deep voice boomed across the platform.
“Firs’ years!
Firs’ years over here!”
The man was enormous—easily twice the size of any adult Hermione had ever seen—yet his face was kind beneath the wild tangle of hair and beard.
He held a lantern high, scanning the gathering first years with obvious disappointment.
“C’mon, follow me—any more firs’ years?
Mind yer step now!”
They stumbled down a steep, muddy path in near-total darkness.
Hermione muttered under her breath, “Have they never heard of Health and Safety?” Harry’s quiet chuckle was the only answer she got.
The ground eventually leveled out.
The trees parted.
And there, across a vast, black expanse of water, rose Hogwarts.
It looked like something torn straight from the pages of a storybook.
Towers and turrets climbed the mountainside, every window blazing with warm golden light that rippled across the lake like scattered stars.
Hermione’s breath caught.
Even Harry seemed momentarily stunned into silence.
“Four to a boat!” the giant—Hagrid, someone had called him—shouted.
“No more’n four!”
Harry helped Hermione into one of the small, round boats that bobbed gently at the water’s edge, then offered his hand to the two Indian girls who had hurried over hoping to share.
They introduced themselves quickly—Parvati and Padma Patil—before the boats began to glide forward at Hagrid’s command.
Parvati, it turned out, talked.
A lot.
“What house do you think you’ll be in?
I don’t really mind since we’re the first in our family to come to a British school.
Do you know how the sorting works?
I heard it was some kind of test, though this boy on the train said we might have to wrestle a troll—”
Hermione felt her stomach tighten.
She didn’t have answers to any of those questions, and the more Parvati spoke, the more obvious that became.
Harry must have felt her tension, because he shifted slightly and rested a warm, steady hand on her knee beneath the folds of her robe.
The simple touch grounded her instantly.
“My father told me it’s an ancient magical artefact that decides,” he said calmly.
“No tests.
Definitely no trolls.”
Parvati’s eyes dropped to the hand on Hermione’s knee.
Her next questions came faster and far more personal.
“Are you two together?
How did you meet?
What’s your family like, Harry?
Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Where did you grow up?”
Harry answered what he could without lying outright and deflected the rest with polite smiles.
Hermione kept her own answers short and vague.
Padma sat quietly beside her sister, clearly long accustomed to the verbal onslaught.
The boats slipped into a dark tunnel.
The sudden absence of starlight made everything feel closer, more intimate.
When they emerged onto a shingle beach, Harry was the first to stand, offering his hand to all three girls as they climbed out.
Hermione noticed he helped Padma with the same careful courtesy he’d shown her.
A long flight of stone steps led up to an enormous oak door.
Hagrid pounded on it with a fist that could have splintered lesser wood.
The door swung open to reveal a tall witch in dark green robes, her black hair pulled into a severe bun and her expression suggesting she had very little patience for nonsense.
“The firs’ years, Professor McGonagall,” Hagrid said, then added in a rush, “and he ain’ amongst ’em!”
McGonagall’s sharp gaze flicked over the group.
She pulled Hagrid aside, though their voices still carried.
“Pull yourself together, Hagrid.
Did you count them?”
“‘Course I did!
All present an’ accounted fer, Professor.”
It was only then that understanding dawned on Hagrid’s face.
If every first year was here, then the person he had been looking for must already be among them.
“We’ll just let the sorting ceremony answer that question,” McGonagall said crisply.
Hagrid wandered off looking oddly relieved.
McGonagall turned back to the first years and began a brisk explanation of the four Hogwarts houses and what they valued.
Harry and Hermione barely heard a word.
They both knew exactly who the staff had been searching for.
While McGonagall stepped away to check on arrangements inside, Harry leaned close.
“Just remember,” he whispered, “I can look after myself.”
He didn’t get to say anything else.
A pale blond boy—the same one who had been loudly asking about Harry Potter on the train—had gathered a small audience near the back of the group.
His voice carried easily in the stone corridor.
“Harry Potter doesn’t come to Hogwarts and they’re all losing their minds.
Pathetic.
Do you know why he’s not here?
Because he’s dead.
Honestly, do any of you really believe a toddler could have defeated the Dark Lord?”
A couple of the younger girls looked close to tears.
Others exchanged frightened glances.
Hermione’s nails bit into her palms.
She wanted—desperately—to say something, anything, to stop the poison spreading.
But this wasn’t her secret to tell.
So she stayed silent, teeth sinking into her lower lip until she tasted copper.
Whatever came next—sorting, houses, the rest of their lives at Hogwarts—she had already made her choice on the train.
She was Harry’s friend.
And she wasn’t going anywhere.