Going home in winter

Wow, i started just with the first line and the wintery light fog, i had no idea that it would end like that!

It is obviously, at least for me, that the person going home is Hermione Granger. So here we go:

Going home in winter

No copyright infringement intended.

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Maybe it was all the cold young wizards experienced during theirs Hogwarts years or just that subtle laziness undertone that magic had, anyway, most of the purebloods, especially in winter, didn't set foot outside for weeks, if not months. They just apparated, flooed or portkeyed to work, to Diagon Alley (the only place in Britain with a wide area warming charm in place) to friends and back whenever they could. The only thing that would make them stay outside was Quidditch. Ah, surely a worthy cause of discomfort.

Sure, wizarding means of transportation were great and it was nice to sleep that extra half an hour in the morning, but sometimes she also needed the extra time while going home to quiet her mind, to change her mindset from work mode to home mode.
And the winter evenings were quite good at it, with their darkness, their decreasing number of people and cars and the silence.

In the main Ministry hall she would still be surrounded by the end of the day rush and would have to greet and make small talk with some colleagues and friends reaching for the floo, but just in a few strides she would be surrounded mostly by muggles and a few halfbloods and muggleborns reaching for public transports, mainly going, like her, to the tube station. The silence would came after, when she would exit the tube, but even the subway noise was good, it provided a rhythm to follow in alternative to the work thoughts.

The landscape, then, would be completely different, the streets would be narrower, the buildings less imposing and a lot less lights and advertising would distract her. In winter there would be often a little fog, not enough to be an issue but enough to make you wonder if the rumbling noise you heard were the sea instead of the nearby motorway.

At this point she was usually ready to think about the approaching evening at home and would recap their plans for it, but this last days were different and another thought would abruptly jump in the foreground, a thought she carefully constrained all day long to be able to properly work. In just a few months it wouldn't be just the two of them anymore, they were expecting.