Thanks for visiting my story! Hope you like it :) It's an idea that interested me, so I thought I'd run with it! Review please, let me know what you think! And by the way, I'm throwing this out as a blanket disclaimer for everything in this story... I don't own it. Don't own Harry Potter, or anything that obviously I don't own. Everything else, I guess that's mine.

-eedie

"Hermione, are you glad we're going back to Hogwarts? I mean, it's a little weird isn't it?"

Ron Weasley sat on the edge of the shabby hotel bed, pulling his shirt over his disheveled red hair. He looked back at Hermione Granger, who leaned forward, letting her messy golden curls fall across her still naked body. She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of Ron's pocket, lit one, and took a long drag before answering.

"I guess it's weird. I don't honestly know what they can teach us now that we haven't already learned. How to fight the Dark Lord? Killed him. How to survive in questionable circumstances? Still alive. How to learn charms that have no value in the real world? I guess that's the one. I think it's pointless to go back, but I also don't want the jobs being offered to me right now. Maybe we will 'rediscover' the youth we lost over the past year."

Ron lay on his stomach, facing Hermione. He took the cigarette from her lips and inhaled. He let it out with a low, lazy laugh.

"No one's going to recognize you, Mione."

She frowned. "I look exactly the same, Ronald."

"That's not what I meant," Ron sighed. "You're much harder now. You're tough, sharp. You don't give a shit about anyone else's opinion. You want nothing to do with anything happy anymore. I'm not so sure what happened, honestly. Harry and I didn't come back like that, not really anyway."

Hermione thought for a minute. She was different. The war had changed her. She didn't care about the things she did before. Sure, she still loved reading, but she wasn't the bookish nerd she was before the war. She was hardened, like Ron said. She saw the world in a different light. Selfish people, all fighting to be the best at this, the most powerful at that. The smartest, the prettiest, the hippest. No one in the world cared about anyone else. The only thing that mattered what themselves, and Hermione was sick of it. The Golden Trio had sacrificed a year of their lives to save these people, and for what? Fame? Eternal glory? That's not why they did it, but that's how the world sees them. Hermione gave herself an internal shake. You think you're better than them. You fought for the world, and they fight for themselves. You think you're better. Hermione shook her head slightly. She didn't think she was better, not really. She just figured she should join the real world and act like everyone else. So now she didn't give two shits about the world. She acted with lewd behavior, she used "unbecoming" words. She was a regular 18 year old girl. Kind of.

Frowning, Hermione shook her head. "I don't know, Ron," she muttered. "I just have no patience for the same things anymore. Maybe going back will be good for me." She snorted. "Or not."

Hermione got out of bed and dragged her sundress over her head, giving no notice to the matted curls on top of her head.

"Let's go, Ron. Harry and Ginny will be wondering where we are."

Ron snorted, ran his fingers through Hermione's hair a few times to make it look somewhat normal, kissed her temple, and apparated them back to the Burrow.