Time is like fine sand cupped in the palm slipping through the fingers before one even notices, leaving only a faint coolness and the silent sense of something lost.
September 1, 1995.
The Hogwarts term had come around again. The air was laced with the faint chill of early autumn and the particular dampness that clung to London like a second skin.
Ever since the public inquest into Pettigrew—it had become a kind of ritual: every year at this time, Sirius would collect Harry from Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, meet up with the Holmes family, and together they would make for King's Cross Station.
This year was no different.
The wheels of their luggage trolleys rumbled dully over the pavement along King's Road.
"Hey, mate—what's wrong?"
Mr. Holmes noticed Sirius's expression and asked, with some surprise, "You look absolutely miserable."
In answer to Mr. Holmes's concern, Sirius managed a smile. The corners of his mouth lifted into a stiff, mechanical arc while his eyes drifted somewhere hollow and distant, as though an invisible weight had bowed his shoulders inward.
He raised a hand and pressed his fingers to his brow, knuckles whitening slightly with the pressure.
"Probably just didn't sleep well last night,"
His voice was low and rough—not quite like itself.
"Come to think of it, Violet and I are in the same boat," Mr. Holmes said with a sigh, his gaze was drifting instinctively to his wife. "Once the little ones are gone, it's another half a year before we see them again."
Beside him, Mrs. Holmes was murmuring final instructions to Sherlock, Harry, and Hermione, her hands clasped tightly at her chest, her eyes bright with a sheen of unshed tears. "If there's no ball this Christmas like last year, you must come home—all three of you, do you hear me?"
All three of them nodded and agreed.
But they all understood, privately, that while Sirius was certainly reluctant to part with Harry, that was not the source of his low spirits.
R.A.B.
Regulus Arcturus Black—that was where the wound lay.
Even a week after learning the truth of his brother's death, Sirius had not found his way out of it. In the days since, his eyes had gone sometimes glassy, sometimes still—always snagged on the thorns of memory. No one could help him through something like this.
Some things, a person has to survive alone.
They travelled the rest of the way in silence.
At King's Cross, through the barrier, onto Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters.
The scarlet locomotive filled the air with a deafening roar; smoke and coal-dust and the bright, electric noise of students flooded every corner. White steam drifted in soft vapours through which the silhouettes of parents stretched long across the platform.
The Grangers had arrived early. Mr. Granger stood beside a pillar, checking his watch at intervals while Mrs. Granger waited at his side. It wasn't as though Hermione had been a stranger to them lately—both Grimmauld Place and the Holmes household had been connected to the Floo Network for some time now, so visits back and forth had been easy enough.
There was no tearful reunion between them; still, the reluctance to let go was plainly on Mrs. Granger's face. She drew Hermione close and murmured something in her ear, her gaze slipping toward Sherlock more than once.
Under her mother's questioning look, Hermione's cheeks flushed a soft pink, and she shook her head firmly, repeatedly.
Mrs. Granger eventually relented, releasing her daughter and turning instead to strike up a conversation with Mrs. Holmes.
A little while later, the sound of rapid, uneven footsteps announced the Weasleys, arriving in their usual breathless fashion.
"Phew—made it!" Mr. Weasley wiped a hand across his damp temple, his cheeks flushed, his breathing was quick, the collar of his coat were askew.
"It's because Mum kept waiting for Percy," Ron muttered under his breath, glancing toward his mother to make sure she wasn't listening.
She wasn't. Mrs. Weasley was craning toward the station entrance, her hands were twisting anxiously at her scarf.
"He said he'd make time to come to the station with us—but in the end, he didn't. And apparently, he and Penelope have had some kind of falling-out…"
Ron's whisper fell into the group like a stone into still water, sending quiet ripples through all of them. Sherlock and Hermione exchanged a brief, precise glance——eyes meeting and parting in an instant. Sherlock raised one eyebrow; Hermione caught her lower lip between her teeth.
They both knew more about Percy's situation than the others did. That was Gemma's doing.
Gemma had been assigned Wizarding Order work by Dumbledore today and couldn't come to see Sherlock off—but over the past few weeks she had kept both Sherlock and Hermione informed about what was happening with Percy and Penelope.
Last year at this time, Gemma had swept back from Romania in spectacular fashion for the first task of the Triwizard Tournament. As one of the more significant—if complicated—figures in Penelope's social landscape, she had naturally sought her out. What she'd found had left her quietly dismayed.
Penelope was struggling.
After graduating, Percy had joined the Ministry of Magic with outstanding marks, fulfilling his long-cherished ambition.
Penelope had done the same—and a significant part of her reason for choosing the Ministry had been Percy himself. In her mind, they would deepen their relationship there, the way so many school couples did, and before long they would be taking the natural next step together.
In that sense, Penelope was every inch the devoted partner. She had gone into this relationship thinking of forever.
What she had not foreseen was that once Percy settled into the Ministry; he would begin to pull away from her.
Not because there was someone else. Rather, it seemed as though he had discovered the meaning of his existence the moment he stepped through those Ministry doors and that meaning was ambition, not love.
Whenever Penelope sought him out, she was met with the same tired, formulaic responses:
"Ministry work is busy, darling. I really can't talk about this right now."
"Sorry—this report has to be finished tonight."
"Mr. Crouch may call for me at any moment."
Every excuse sounded totally reasonable. None of them could be argued with. And yet, one by one, they built a wall of cold stone between them, turning away each warm attempt Penelope made to draw near.
At first, she had tried to understand. She had told herself his ambition was admirable and worth respecting.
But Percy had grown too stingy even for a shared meal.
He never denied, outright, that he still cared for her. Yet when I'm busy becomes the rhythm of a relationship, affection cools and stagnates all on its own.
It is, after all, a simple truth: Steadfast love can survive the test of time—but steadfast love requires two people's effort, not one person's endless waiting.
Time does not pause for anyone.
And so, at last, Penelope's patience gave out.
It was hard to imagine: a girl as clever, confident, and resilient as Penelope who had emerged from school and stepped into the world without being broken by it—was brought low not by circumstance but by heartache. And by Percy, who should have been standing beside her.
Perhaps Percy hadn't changed at all. Perhaps it was only the setting that had changed.
Even at Hogwarts, there had been signs. He had always placed far too much importance on the authority that came with being Prefect and then Head Boy.
The Ministry environment hadn't given him a new obsession—it had simply amplified what was already there, pushing personal ambition to the forefront and sentiment to the outermost margins. From what Ron had described, even the fall of his old superior Bartemius Crouch hadn't loosened that grip in the slightest.
"How could he do that to Penelope?"
Hermione's voice dropped low tight with indignation; her cheeks flushed. In her mind she could picture clearly the girl from Ravenclaw Tower—who had once moved through the world with such energy, and who so often lately wore a quietly bereft expression.
"Penelope is exceptional. She deserves to be treated well—not shelved like this—set aside—"
Harry and Ron both glanced at her.
Harry's expression shifted with a flicker of something unspoken. Ron raised one eyebrow and pressed his lips together.
Something about that—set aside—felt pointed. As if she wasn't only talking about Penelope.
Just then, the locomotive's whistle screamed again, cutting through the air.
The heavy subject of Percy and Penelope had to be set down, for now.
The children grabbed their luggage and pet carriers in a rush—Crookshanks inside his, scratching at the door and meowing with urgency, as though he too had sensed the weight of the conversation just past—and boarded the Hogwarts Express.
The carriage door swung shut with a metallic clang, its sound cut through the ruckus.
They pressed themselves to the windows to wave goodbye, arms raised high, fingertips flickering in and out of the steam.
On the platform below, Sirius stood alone, motionless with hands in his pockets, shoulders slightly fallen, the wind pulling at his dark hair.
Mr. and Mrs. Holmes wore their reluctance; Mrs. Holmes lifted a hand to dab at the corner of her eye, and Mrs. Granger leaned into her husband's side.
The Weasleys' expressions were more layered—the worry over Percy's absence and the sadness of parting twisting together into something harder to read.
Mr. Weasley shook his head and sighed; Mrs. Weasley pressed her scarf to her cheek.
All of it blurred and receded as the train pulled away, swallowed by motion and white steam.
The rhythm of the wheels over the tracks quickened—slow to fast, a steady clack-clack-clack.
The platform curved, and then, around a bend, every figure was gone. Only the open platform remained, and the fading echo of departure.
"Right then—shall we find a compartment?"
Ron turned from the window and looked down the corridor. "Let's go."
"Let Ginny come with you lot!" Fred announced, clapping his hands together and shooting Harry an exaggerated wink, the corners of his mouth were curling with mischief. "George and I have some things to sort out with Lee—we'll catch up later."
He and George vanished down the right-hand passage.
Fred's remark sent a faint colour into Ginny's cheeks. She lowered her head slightly, one hand drifting to a strand of hair, twisting it without thinking.
She was in her fourth year now. Whatever she had felt for Harry had not softened with time—it had deepened, year by year, into something she couldn't quite name. The existence of Cho Chang hadn't changed that.
The train had gathered full speed by then. The houses outside the windows-streaked past in a blur. Those still standing in the corridor had to grip the seat-backs to keep their footing.
"We really need to find a compartment," Hermione said and reached out, quite naturally for Sherlock's hand. Her fingers closed around his palm, steady and warm. "I think I saw an empty one further along."
Harry watched Hermione lead Sherlock away ahead of them. A moment later, Ron and Ginny fell in on either side of him.
"Oi—what exactly is going on with those two?"
Ron nudged Harry with his elbow; his eyes were lit with the particular gleam desperate for gossip.
Ginny, still pink, asked in a hushed voice: "They're not already together, are they?"
"Er—no—I don't think so—probably not yet—"
"Then what would you call that?" Ron jutted his chin toward their joined hands, dropping his voice lower. "Mate, this isn't their living room. This is a train—in front of all of us—just taking his hand and walking off—that's definitely—"
He let the sentence trail off meaningfully.
"What are you lot doing?" Hermione's voice rang back from ahead of them, clear and slightly impatient. "We've found an empty compartment!"
"Coming!" Harry called back, then turned to Ron and Ginny. "We'll talk about it inside."
Ron gave a casual shrug.
Ginny said nothing at all—just stepped up neatly beside Harry, her pace was light, and followed.
When the three of them reached the compartment and stepped inside, they found that empty was only approximately true.
Luna Lovegood was already there, sitting alone by the window, a copy of The Quibbler held upside-down in her hands, her gaze was drifting over the rushing scenery outside with a soft, blurred expression—as though she were gazing at an entirely different world.
This was, on reflection, not surprising at all.
By now, everyone at Hogwarts knew that the Lion King and the Chosen One had somehow befriended the notorious Loony Lovegood—and most of them continued to keep a respectful distance from her regardless. The most they offered was a murmured acknowledgment: Well, it's them, isn't it—they'd get on with anyone.
But in a practical sense, Luna's reputation had its uses: whenever they needed a compartment, they never had to fight for one.
"Which is exactly why I told you there was no need to rush," Sherlock said, without the slightest delicacy, settling into the seat opposite Luna and glancing around the compartment with calm eyes. "No one wants to sit with Luna. We could have strolled over whenever we liked."
'Excuse me—!'
Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny all stared at him with a mixture of disbelief and alarm.
'Can you even say that? Right in front of her?'
"Hermione, Sherlock is absolutely right—you needn't have rushed." Luna's voice came softly, distant as always.
She turned from the window with a dream-like smile, fingers resting lightly on the upside-down pages as though they were perfectly ordinary. "There's never anyone else who wants to share a compartment with me. Besides you."
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