After Draco left, Qiu returned to her own compartment. Just before the door closed, Harry heard a burst of cheerful laughter from inside. He guessed Qiu's friends were saying something; he vaguely caught something about "your Harry."
Yes, Qiu's friends were all good people.
That was what Harry thought.
"All right, all right, she's gone. Stop staring." Hermione looked at Harry, who was gazing blankly at Qiu's compartment with a silly grin on his face, and spoke with considerable disdain.
Harry snapped out of it and sat back down beside Ron, a little embarrassed.
Hermione sat beside Luna, but she seemed not to have liked her very much from the outset, so she said little to her beyond a simple greeting. Luna's attention was on her magazine, and she paid no mind at all to Hermione's attitude.
They chatted on and off, and Neville came up again. They all sincerely hoped his parents would recover soon.
This was not just for Neville's sake. There was another reason that was somewhat difficult to admit-the Order of the Phoenix was actually rather short-handed at present.
Nothing else particularly unusual happened on the journey. Cedric, the newly appointed Head Boy, merely stopped by to greet them while making his rounds through the carriages.
Cedric told Harry very earnestly that he and his father completely believed what Harry and Dumbledore had said.
Although Harry was touched, he did not want the topic to make the atmosphere somber, so he asked Cedric about Yi Qianqian, his pen pal and the champion from Nanyang Magic School.
Cedric beat a hasty retreat, and the compartment filled with laughter.
The sky gradually darkened. Seeing that they were nearly there, Hermione reminded them to change into their Hogwarts robes, then went with Ron to the prefects' compartment at the