smartestone | Hogwarts, Monday all day, June 1996

It had technically been a year since Hermione last saw Hogwarts, since school let out after the disastrous Triwizard Championship that ended in Cedric Diggory's death and no one sure what to believe. Thanks to crazy timelines, though, it's been longer than that for her. She didn't know until she stepped inside how much she missed it. Which is to say, she knew she had missed it, but being back just felt like home.

She couldn't go up to the dorms, so she had a nice little chat with Nearly Headless Nick while waiting for Ron and Harry to meet her. "Is it weird being back?" Harry wondered as they started towards the first exam.

"It's nice," Hermione said, smiling. She seemed to be unable to stop.

The fifth and seventh years waited in the entrance hall while the others went to classes, thus giving people plenty of time to mostly whisper about the fact that she'd actually come back. Not many actually spoke to her, though.

Hermione just rolled her eyes. "Honestly. You'd think they'd never seen me before."

"A few people left this year," said Ron. "You're the only one to come back. For exams."

"I appreciate you taking all the attention away from me," Harry told her.

They were finally allowed in, taking their seats and waiting for Professor McGonagall to tell them to begin. Once she did, any worried Hermione had over her test quickly disappeared, forgotten thanks to all the answers she knew by heart, despite not having taken the class this year.

The practical was another story altogether, as Hermione was shaking as she went to test with the examiners, but once she got going, she did very well. She had to wait for Harry and Ron, since they were called alphabetically, and she proceeded to talk the ears off of everyone around her about how she did. Poor Anthony Goldstein looked like he wanted to flee and wasn't sure when the right moment to do so was.

Harry was finished first, and Hermione practically pounced on him. "Well?" she asked.

"I did okay," he said.

"Really? I thought I did fairly well on the incantations, though I'm afraid I may be a bit rusty," she said, unable not to babble. "My examiner was very good about it, though. Are you sure you did okay?"

He didn't, but Hermione didn't know that, nor was she going to find out. "Yeah, no problems at all," Harry told her.

Yeah, Hermione didn't believe him, but tried not to push too hard, especially since by the time she was getting on a roll, Ron was finished.

"Oh, bloody hell, Hermione, I haven't missed this part," Ron sighed when she began chattering excitedly about the test.

She blinked, taken aback, but said, "Fine. I'm already thinking about Transfiguration anyway."

She probably shouldn't have been as stung as she was, but while she was allowed to have dinner in the Great Hall that night, she kept her nose in her Transfiguration book when she wasn't actively eating and left for Hogsmeade as soon as she could.