Back to Hogwarts || Dean & Ginny
September the 1st, 1998 - Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Dean took a deep breath, closing his eyes a moment to let his nerves settle down. In truth, he didn't know why he was so anxious; there was nothing to worry about, not anymore--or at least, nothing of comparable weight to what he had been worrying about last year.
Last year, when he'd been on the run, alone and Muggle-born, hiding from people who wanted to catch and kill him...
This year, he just had to go to school without most of his friends. Of course, the fact that when he opened his eyes, he was half-expecting to see a burning castle half-in-ruins with bodies littering the ground might have explained some of why he was so unsettled today; Dean had helped with some of the initial repairs to the school, after the battle, but then Kingsley Shacklebolt had asked for volunteers to help the remaining Aurors track down the Death Eaters who had escaped, and Dean's hand had gone up as fast as Seamus's, Harry's, and Neville's.
He'd thought about staying--continuing on as an Auror, at least until the search for the villains in hiding was over, like the others were--but it was important to Dean that he graduate Hogwarts properly; that he prove to the world that being Muggle-born wouldn't mean anything when he sat his N.E.W.T.s at last. Dean knew he didn't have anything to prove, and even if he had, there was a much smarter Muggle-born witch who would prove it much better than he could...but he'd come back anyway, maybe to prove it to himself, rather than anyone else.
Dean stepped out of the carriage (trying to ignore the unsettling sight of the creature pulling it; Harry had pulled most of the returning members of the D.A. aside before they left for the Hogwarts Express, and warned them about the thestrals, thankfully!) and looked up at the castle at the end of the walk. It looked...different, somehow, from the last time he had been here. Smaller, diminished. Maybe that was because of what they'd all been through; maybe it was just because of what it had looked like the last time he had seen it. Or maybe it was just because Seamus and most of his other friends weren't here with him.
A bright flash of red up ahead caught Dean's eye, and he hurried forward, eager for a familiar face. "Ginny! Hey!" he called, not wanting to sneak up on the girl (they all knew better than to sneak up on one another these days, after what they'd been through). "So...I guess we're classmates now, huh?" he asked, his cheerful smile hopefully masking his dour thoughts.
