A/N: Happy Halloween! I'm sorry in advance. This was a very emotional piece to write, as I was in a pretty rough place when I started writing. This is part 1 of 2, and I have already started writing part 2. Please let me know what you think. I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it was cathartic, so I hope you enjoy it. Endless gratitude to TheOtterAndTheDrago for her beta work on this piece; she is an absolute joy to work with, and this fic would not be what it is without her insight. This fic is 4 chapters and all will be posted today in 2-hour increments. Written for Strictly Dramione's Halloween Fest (10k word limit).

*Blanket content warning for self-harm, referenced character death, and trauma. If these situations or actions are triggering for you, please do not read this*

oOoOoOoOo


May 10th, 1998

Hermione Granger was a ghost. It hadn't seemed all that horrifying to her until she realized that she was doomed to roam the earth for the rest of her days without ever coming into contact with anyone again.

She wasn't the kind of ghost that got to float amongst the halls of Hogwarts. No, she was the kind of ghost that was destined to follow the same path day after day, year after year, enacting the same series of events. It was, she presumed, only apt that she would be punished to repetition when she very much hated it in her mortal life. What frustrated her about her existence was that she remembered so little of her life Before, as she'd started calling it.

Each morning began the same. She would emerge from the haze that she seemed to float suspended in every night and begin the routine over again. She would roam the now-familiar path between the tattered tent that still lay in ruins among the trees and the river that trickled or gushed or crawled through the valley at the bottom of the hill depending on the season. She walked into the edge of the river, unfeeling toes hovering over the spot where her toes had once sunk into the soft mud that lined the banks. Then she would stare into the distance expectantly. The cursed routine allowed her with little else to do but press into the past that remained elusively, tauntingly, behind that dark haze she existed in every evening.

She was doomed to repeat her last day for eternity, frustratingly disconnected from herself, her memories, her life. Still dressed in the soft nightgown she had worn on the night of her death, she roamed forlornly through the motions. She'd long since given up shouting into the surrounding hillside in the hopes that someone would hear her. No, she'd screamed and screamed until she would have been hoarse had she been living but no one heard her. No one would ever hear her again. The brightest witch of her age reduced to a colourless wisp of a soul.

It was fitting, she supposed. She'd spent so long sprinting through one thing and onto the next, chasing knowledge, that she supposed her karmic retribution was to endlessly repeat the same situation over and over again with little memory of the beloved information she had collected about the wizarding world. She no longer was appalled at the ghostly water that seeped into her gown—she had long since given up trying to feel anything physically, too.

Given that her eternity was to be spent isolated in the woods of northern Scotland, she had plenty of time to think about what went wrong. Since she could only remember brief memories of approximately two months of their time on the run, she racked her brains for what could have gone wrong.

Why hadn't they thought to take the horcrux off sooner? Why had she allowed Ron and Harry to scream at each other, with only the eventual shout of Voldemort's name finally bringing her to her senses? By then, of course, it was already too late. Their wards had been broken, and Snatchers had appeared out of nowhere. She'd been standing in the edge of the river bed, trying to use the frigid water to clear her senses and ignore the arguing behind her. She remembered thinking that if she had just stared hard enough, she might be able to imagine Hogwarts just over one of the ridges of hills in the distance. She was pulled out of her reverie by Ron's broken shout, the pop of apparition, and the sudden shouting of Snatchers and crackling of wand fire. She had enough time to whip her head around in the direction of the boys when everything went blissfully blank.

She'd woken in the tent again, trying fruitlessly to whip her head side to side to place herself. Foolishly, she thought she'd been dreaming—she'd initially thought it was a product of her stress. She'd wanted to stand, to exit the tent and find Harry and Ron, but she hadn't been able to move, instead staring up at the ceiling of the tent, her brows knit together in frustration. After a few moments, she'd heaved a sigh and slid from the bed, not recognizing that her movement didn't disturb the already thrown sheets or that her feet touched a ground she didn't feel. Her body moved as if on autopilot and lifted the entrance of the tent and stopped abruptly. Curiously, she felt a flash of irritation, at what she didn't know at the time, and rolled her eyes. Again, as if on autopilot, she had moved out of the tent and down the hill. She tried to stop herself, but she moved determinedly through the hillside, curiously now covered in a soft dew and small flowered buds.

The flower buds were her first clue that something was wrong. She'd gone to bed to a frosty hillside, her breath coming in puffs of visible air. The season couldn't have shifted that much in such a short amount of time. When she'd finally reached the water's edge and dipped her toes in, she started when she couldn't feel the water. With a sinking feeling, she stared at her toes and watched, horrified, at the water moving swiftly through her form.

All rational thought had left her mind at that. She desperately pleaded with whatever being might be listening to let it be a dream. She tried to pinch herself, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't force her hand to move. She stood stoically watching the horizon in the distance before her body whipped around at a sound that wasn't there and everything went blank again.

And so, the days continued, Hermione a silent prisoner in her own mind as the world went on around her. She didn't know if Harry or Ron were alive. She didn't know what year it was, whether or not the war was over, or who had won if it was over. She couldn't remember what had caused the aching pain in her chest whenever she wondered at her parents' safety, nor could she recall the persistent feeling that she was forgetting something important regarding Hogwarts. However, her only reality was the hundred yards between the rapidly deteriorating tent and the ever-changing river.

So, she was a ghost. She supposed it could be worse. She could have just died and that have been it. She'd always feared what would happen after death—would it be an endless blackness that she was cognizant of, would she go to the heaven that her parents insisted was real, or would she be forced to relive the worst moments of her life day after day? She wasn't sure either of those options was preferable, but she decided that she was glad to at least be aware of what was going on, even if she wasn't sure that she wanted this existence.

With her time, Hermione tried to fight the cycle and regain her memory. Each morning, she resisted the compulsive need to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling sightlessly. It was an incremental change. One morning, she managed to blink when she was sure she hadn't been able to before. One week later, she could twitch her finger a quarter of an inch, and she suddenly remembered the stupid argument that Harry and Ron had that led to him storming from the tent. After a few days that felt like an eternity, she could move her head of her own volition. She nearly wept in relief when she had managed to sit up abruptly upon waking two weeks after she discovered that she could move her head, though it still took entirely too much concentration to maintain control over her own movements.

Much to Hermione's surprise, after she managed to assert her control on her body—was it three weeks? Six? Time seemed to pass differently when you're only semi-tethered to the waking realm—she was again trying to track down the source of the persistent ache of her heart when she heard the crack of apparition somewhere beyond the valley that was her permanent home now. She was in the part of the morning that required the most concentration, her toes in the mud just before the world went black around her. She couldn't afford the distraction if she wanted to figure out who had disturbed her rest, and she had already spared as much as she dared to try to raid her memory.

Leaves crunched behind her, and she fought both the ghostly instinct to whip her head around and her insatiable curiosity at who had finally joined her solitude. Only a few minutes to push back the darkness and she'd be able to see. She'd only get about two hours of consciousness, but it would be enough to puzzle out why this person had shown up in her haven.

As she pushed back against the darkness, eyes closed in desperate concentration, she felt a presence sidle up near her place at the edge of the river. She could hear their steady breathing slowly covering up the sounds of the wildlife that had been her only companion for months. She assumed they were close enough that she might have felt the warmth radiating off them had she been alive. She soon found herself focusing on their steady breathing, the slight hitch that indicated something wasn't quite right with them, and the familiar ache in her chest deepened to a painful throb; her subconscious and the memories tucked deep within it recognized this person as the source of her worry. As suddenly as it threatened, the darkness drained away from her, pulling its fingers from her soul and returning from whence it came.

She slowly opened her eyes and faced the world again. The sun was still at the same angle it had been at moments before. She still stood at the river. The mysterious person was still next to her, oblivious to her presence. She thanked Merlin that she was able to push through the darkness again and turned to face the person next to her.

Had she been alive, she was sure she would have uttered a ghastly shock of surprise, maybe even choked on an unbelieving laugh. As it were, she cursed the Merlin she had just praised as a deluge of memories flashed through her at the familiar face.

To her everlasting shock, a tattered Draco Malfoy stood at her side, tears rolling down his face.