Insides and Outsides
It occurred to her on a Wednesday morning.
The cramped apartment she and Ron shared with Ginny and Harry was completely empty, everybody but her at work. She'd also gone to work, left first, in fact, only to realize she had forgotten an important document on her desk and immediately turn around. She was searching through the tall piles of paper on her desk, but when she tried to move one of the stacks, two of them fell on the floor. She made to take her wand out of the compartment in her sleeve, and as she did so, she caught a glimpse of an old scar.
Mudblood.
It had been almost three years, but right then, she could still feel Bellatrix's breath on her neck, hear her voice, feel the blood pooling and dripping down her arm. it had been three years. In the beginning, the first few months after the Battle of Hogwarts, she would wake up every night, shivering and clutching her left arm. It had slowed down, and now it had been months since she'd even thought of Bellatrix. The scar was a part of her. They all had scars. Ron had once told her, in hushed whispers in the middle of the night, that he saw them as marks of victory.
I survived, he said. We survived. These scars are proof.
She looked, then, at his brain-marks, and tried to compare them to her own, tried to make sense of his words. She understood their meaning, on a basic level. But -
But Ron couldn't still hear the laughter, knowing Bellatrix had enjoyed it, had delighted in it.
It wasn't a badge of honor, not for her. It was cowardice - letting an enemy keep a piece of you that wasn't theirs to have.
She'd talked it over with Harry, later. She'd went to his office and asked if he'd like to go out for lunch with her.
Sure, he'd said.
And then they talked.
Harry, she found, understood.
Not all scars, he said, need to be displayed.
Not all scars, she said, were given in a fair fight.
We did survive, he said, but we can also move on.
Together, he promised. He'd be there with her every step of the way.
She told Ron and Ginny what they were doing, but she didn't want them to come with. I love you both, truly, with all my heart. But Harry and I need to do this alone.
Mudblood, her arm said.
I must not tell lies, his hand said.
The doctor did not ask questions. Hermione had chosen that they go to a Muggle doctor - It's an affront to everything we stood for.
A blatant FUCK YOU, if you will, Harry said, and Hermione couldn't help but smile.
Later on the four of them were sitting in their small living room, drinking glasses of wine, and Ginny said, I think it's good you got rid of the scars.
Yeah, Ron said. Your outsides match your insides.
We're getting better, Harry murmured. Slowly, but we are.
We're getting better, Hermione agreed.
On her arm, a blank slate.
Only her memories remain.
She went to sleep and dreamed of a better tomorrow.
A/N: I received an ask from anonymous: "Hermione going to a muggle dermatologist to get the mudblood scar removed. She knows it /can/ be fixed by magic, but it would piss off Bellatrix way more to do it this way". I'm always taking prompts at .com :D