A Hogwarts Reunion

Dear Hogwarts Alumni:

You are hereby invited to attend a Reunion party at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on the 31^st of October. Please wear a disguise, as it will be a costume party. The festivities, which include dancing, bobbing for apples, and a contest for the best costume, will begin promptly at 8:00 p.m. in the Great Hall. You may bring one guest with you.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

Headmaster

Hermione stared at the letter as though it were a snake about to strike. The owl had just dropped it onto her desk, and she'd opened it without checking to see who'd sent it. She picked it up and reread it, just to be sure that her eyes hadn't deceived her. No, there it was, in black and white, and as plain as the nose on her face. A reunion dance. Everyone that had left Hogwarts the same year as she had would be coming back to the school for one night, ready to regale their former fellow students with fantastic tales of what they'd done with their lives. She sighed and went to the window of her small quarters, looking out across the peaceful, frost-covered grounds.

The Halloween Feast would surely be different this year, with all of the returning people. Current Hogwarts students would be forced from the Great Hall because of the Reunion. Hermione didn't like large groups of people; she found it difficult to speak to anything larger than one of her classes, which usually consisted of no more than twenty students at a time. The mere thought of seeing her classmates again, and in such a large group, made her stomach lurch unpleasantly.

How could she face all of their wonderful stories when all she had to tell them was that she'd become the Muggle Studies Professor at Hogwarts four years ago? Her chin dropped to her chest, and she began to chew on her bottom lip. She was so far away from where she'd imagined herself at 22. She was sure she'd been destined for greatness - especially being the best friend of the famous Harry Potter.

Her heart leapt at the thought of Harry.

He'd left for Auror training immediately after he'd finished his last year at Hogwarts, promising to write to she and Ron every day as he'd ridden off into the sunset. Hermione shook her head sadly, then sat down at the dressing table and began to pull her brush through her tangled hair. She hadn't heard from him since that day, and she seriously doubted that anyone else had, either. He was probably too busy trying to round up the last of the Death Eaters. She wondered vaguely if he would find the time to make it to the Reunion.

She and Ron had remained fairly close. They owled frequently, and on occasion he would be able to coerce her into leaving Hogwarts grounds and meeting him for a movie or dinner. She really had to put an effort forth, though, to leave the castle. She had no other friends besides Ron, and she liked it that way. After Harry's defeat of Voldemort, the only people who'd wanted to get close to any of the Trio had been members of the press, or people who wanted their pictures on the front page of the Daily Prophet.

She sighed and rose from her seat, dressing quickly in her black robes. She flicked her wand and muttered a charm that made her hair twist into a very tight bun at the nape of her neck, then left her private quarters. All the way to the Great Hall, visions of her falling flat on her face on the dance floor flashed through her head.