by Cali
 
 
 

The letter is just like it was 13 years ago, when I first got one.
Yellow-white parchment, green ink writing.
My name, and the Hogwarts coat of arms.
Only this time, it says
 

Eliot House C-43
Harvard University
 

It's the fifth one only today.
I don’t see why they keep sending me them.
They knew I stopped it five years ago.
An owl fly through my window, carrying another letter.
I refuse to take it, and shoo the owl away.
What do they want?
Can’t they just leave me alone?
Don’t they get that just thinking about it brings tears in my eyes?
Don't they know that I still have nightmares about it?
Like they would care.
The people who used to care about me are gone now.

Another owl.
And a knock on the door.
"Carmine, I said I’d like some privacy!" I yell, but the door open anyway.
I turn around, about to yell at her from entering my room, but it’s not her.
It’s someone else.
He haven’t changed a bit since I last saw him, five years ago, at my graduation.
A graduation I only have a blurred memory of.
He's just like I remember him.
Still thin and rather small.
Still silvery-blonde bangs of hair falling down in front those steely eyes.
"You."
He nod, and close the door.
No reply.
No smirk.
Nothing.
"In case you didn’t know, this is a girl’s dormitory."
"In case you didn’t know, you’re a witch."
"Not anymore," I say, and look out the window.
A lightning strike only a mile away.
How ironic.
"Once a witch, always a witch."
I turn, and stand up.
"You’re wrong, Malfoy! I gave that up, okay? Just go away."
He ignore me.
I hate it when people ignore me.
Ron used to do that.

"You haven’t even bothered to read your letters," he say, and pick them up.
"No, but they’re still mine, and reading other people’s letters is considered a crime," I say, and rip them out of his hands.
"Hey, it’s not like they have some big secret inside. I should know that, I send them."
"What?" I splutter. "Do you work at Hogwarts?"
"Yes."
And far away, a voice I know...
"Guess what? Professor Sprout is retiring, and they want me to take over!"
"Oh, Neville, that’s great!"
"What position?" I ask mechanically.
"Potions."
"Well, that would mean a new generation of Gryffindors getting harassed by a Slytherin. I trust Snape gave you a great
lecture in cruelty before he resigned."
Then I remember.
Snape is dead, just like Lupin and Dumbledore.
"Who teaches Defence against Dark arts?"
"Black. He’s Head of Gryffindor, too."
I stand up quickly.
"What about professor McGonnogall? Is she-"
He snorts.
"Please, you’d have to kill her three times, eat and bury her before she would’ve snuffed it. She’s Headmistress,
remember?"
Now, it’s my time to nod, and a bad memories well over me like a wave of cold water.
"She wants you as Transfiguration Teacher. That’s what the letters say."
I look at the letters, then throw them out of the window.
"Tell her I say no."

~~*~~

And still, about a month later, when the students settled in the hall, McGonnogall could present her as the new teacher.
"Hermione Granger," she said, and even though most of them knew her name, none of them knew her. A few seventh
and sixth-years recognised her face, but that was it.
But they liked her.
How could they not?
She just sat there, smiling at everyone, tears silently running down her cheeks.
They all knew why.
Everyone had heard the tale of the brave girl who survived when the boy who lived and his other friends didn’t.
And everyone had heard of the three graves on the Hogwarts grounds, which only the teachers knew where lay.
It was said nobody visited them anymore.
But after that day, if a lost student stumbled upon the place the three boys were buried, he would see a single flower on
each of the graves that read Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Neville Longbottom.
A new flower for each dawn they didn't get to see.