Disclaimer: Not mine, I just take them out to play.
Summary: After the death of her fiancé, Hermione is left to pick up the pieces. Draco has a problem; Severus Snape has a proposition. How does this unlikely team work?
Rating: Higher rating for later chapters, though the first couple are safe.
Timeline: I did actually begin this before DH, then it took the backseat for a while. HBP Spoilers, and it's post-Voldemort.
Thank you to my lovely beta, SouthernWitch69, who has had to put up with my incessant nagging. : It's much appreciated. I hope to post about once a week but I'll have to see how things go.
Chapter I
Foolish
'Hermione! 'Mione, hurry!'
She stumbled and fell as they dodged a vicious streak of purple light. Strong arms hoisted her back up, and together, Ron and Hermione scrambled over the fields and towards the edge to the shelter with Ginny close behind, covering the pair by blocking attacks. At the insistence of Remus, who, together with Tonks and Kingsley, were covering Harry, they had fled from the battlefield to cure Hermione's injury. A large, ugly gash ran across her torso, courtesy of Bellatrix Lestrange, and she was a ghostly white with one hand clutching the torn and bloodied shirt, which covered the wound. Ginny, an apprenticing mediwitch, had managed to staunch the blood flow, but they needed to get her to Madam Pomfrey, who was hidden in a safe house at the edge of the field.
The small wooden shack, seemingly abandoned, was almost in sight. Finally out of sight of the fighters, they stumbled into the shelter. Hermione cried out in pain and hit the wooden floor as Ginny sealed the door shut and warded the little hut. Madam Pomfrey rushed over and attended to the injured girl.
Ron held her hand tightly, their identical metal rings clinking. 'Promise rings, 'til this ruddy war's over,' he'd said as he'd slipped it on Hermione's finger with a smile. Even then, on his Auror's salary, it had taken him weeks to save up for the two rings made of imitation silver, and he'd promised that the next one would be the most beautiful ring money could buy.
The injury was quickly healed, and Hermione was given a square of chocolate to eat. Madam Pomfrey gazed disapprovingly at them: at the small scratches running along Ginny's right cheek and at Ron's bruised shoulder. 'I wouldn't normally let you back out,' she said, her mouth set in a grim line, 'but under the circumstances…' She trailed off. She didn't need to continue the sentence. The children—no, they weren't children; they hadn't been, even before they'd graduated from Hogwarts, even before they'd begun their lives as soldiers in a war. They were adults that had grown up too fast, that had had their childhood ripped from them. She sighed sadly, watching Ron tangle his hands in Hermione's hair, and turned back to her makeshift infirmary.
Hermione, now fully healed, picked up her wand, ready to exit, when a distinctcrack sound filled the silence. Three figures, clad in the long, black Death Eater robes with their faces masked and hooded, appeared in the room. A flurry of spells surged forward from the four wands of Ron, Ginny, Hermione and Madam Pomfrey. Two of the figures removed their hoods quickly, revealing the faces of Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape, and Snape pointed his wand at the third, who began backing away into the corner of the room, muttering pleadingly while Snape sneered.
'S-S-Severus… you don't know w-what you're d-d-doing—'
'Shut up, Wormtail,' Snape spat, cutting him off as he towered over the shorter man, backing him closer and closer into the wall.
Wormtail cast his eyes around the room wildly, searching for some way to live, and his eyes landed on Ron. 'You! Boy! I r-remember you! I was y-y-your rat! I d-d-don't deserve t—'
'I SAID SHUT UP!' Snape snarled. Ron averted his eyes, and Hermione moved to hold his hand, their rings glinting in the dim light cast by the lamp overhead; this didn't escape Wormtail's notice, and his piggy little eyes narrowed.
'Youdon't deserve to die?' Snape growled, an almost manic gleam in his eye as he let out an incredulous laugh that had nothing to do with amusement. 'You? Wormtail, I've never met anyone who deserved death more than you do.'
Wormtail was backed up against the wall, finally cornered, and Snape muttered, 'Good riddance. Avada Kedavra!'
The next moment happened in a blinding flash of green; Snape fired a blast of green light at the short, squat man, and he, in turn, fired the same one at Hermione. She was pushed roughly out of the way as the dead man fell, his mask slipping off to reveal the pitiful face of Peter Pettigrew, alias Wormtail, a demented grin on his silent lips as his blank eyes watched the curse hit Ron Weasley squarely in the chest.
'RON!' It all happened in the blink of an eye, and Hermione fell to her knees, disbelief, horror and grief etched across her pretty face as she cradled her lover's head in her hands. 'Ron! Ron, no, no, Ron, wake up, get up, Ron, RON!' Hermione screamed as Ginny backed away in horror, tears streaming down her face. 'Ron!' she sobbed, again and again and again, hands grabbing at the red hair and brown curls framing her face as the salt trailed down her cheeks.
'RON!'
& & &
'RON!' Hermione screamed, sweat pouring down her face, her breath hitching with sobs as she sat bolt upright in her bed, the white sheets tangled around her legs. She buried her face in her hands and cried, again, as she had done for countless nights for the past year. A year ago, her fiancé, her lover, her Ron, had taken a Killing Curse meant for her. A year ago, Ron had died at the hands of Peter Pettigrew, alias Wormtail. A year ago, she should have died in that little wooden shack, and she hadn't, all because the man she'd loved had been foolish enough to tell her he'd die for her and then had gone and done exactly that.
A year ago, she should have died.
Angrily, she wiped away her tears and pushed back the sheets of her bead, refusing to look at the photograph on her bedside table of the day she, Ron and Harry, then nineteen, had become Aurors. She knew what it looked like; she, Ron and Harry were grouped together tightly, and Ron and Hermione were holding hands and laughing, their matching rings glinting in the flash. She didn't have to look to know that the same ring sat next to the photo, untouched since that day.
Instead, she lay back in bed, holding a hand against her forehead and squeezing her eyes shut in a clear gesture of denial. This was no time to be awake; judging from the purplish glow sneaking past her curtains, it was just hitting dawn. With a sigh, she reached over to the other side of the bed where her alarm clock sat on the bedside table. Half-heartedly, she reached over and slapped it, causing the numerals to flash a fluorescent blue in the darkness. 5:30 AM. She groaned, but still pushed herself out of bed, knowing that sleep was a lost cause, and stumbled into the bathroom.
Despite any contrary appearances, Hermione Granger was not a morning person.
She shut the door closed with her foot and placed both hands on the porcelain sink, steadily staring herself down in the large, plain mirror. At twenty-one years of age, she still looked the same… except she didn't. Her honey-coloured eyes were dull, sad, and most of all, they looked many, many years older, like an anachronism in her young face. There were bags under her eyes, betraying exactly what went on during the night, despite her best attempts to prevent against her nightmares. Her skin was pale and smooth with only the smallest scratch on her left cheek betraying the battle a year ago. And her hair, where there had once been long, bushy brown fizz, had been replaced with a crop of curls that just grazed past her ears.
Without realising it, Hermione's fingers stole into her hair, tugging at a stray curl. Feeling her resolve slipping, she let her eyes flit over to another photograph stuck to the mirror where she and Ron were slow dancing and lingered over the Hermione that seemed to have a lived a long, long time ago. There was a small, secretive smile on the photo-Hermione's face as she and photo-Ron gazed into each other's eyes, and it sent a painful burn through her chest every time she dared to look. There were days when it wandered into her mind, or when friends fussed over the new hairstyle, that she remembered that all it took was a little swish and flick of her wand and her hair would be back. She would swallow back the first three retorts that came to mind and put on a smile didn't reach her eyes.
Turning away from the mirror, she mechanically brushed her teeth, showered and dressed without really looking any fresher that she had when she'd walked into the bathroom. For a moment, Hermione sat on the squashy red armchair in her room, staring at the wall so that she didn't have to look at all the memories that surrounded her. When she'd first moved in, the flat had been so desperately impersonal that Harry had tried undoing any charms that he was sure concealed her things. The whitewashed walls, the boxes full of items she'd yet to unpack even after three months, the barest minimum of furniture and the complete lack of any personal items like photos had broken his heart.
She'd given him the spare key and come home one day to find photos everywhere, and her furniture had been changed to Gryffindor colours. He'd asked around to receive as many pictures of the three or of Hermione and Ron together and had crammed her apartment with them.
His hopeful smile as she came back home had vanished as she took one look at the picture of the three first years coming back home for the summer and had burst into tears. 'I'm sorry, Hermione. I'll take them down. I just wanted to make you happy,' he'd whispered into her hair as she shook in his arms, sobs wracking painfully against her chest. 'I just wanted my Hermione back.'
She'd shaken her head and hugged him tightly. 'No, it's perfect. I needed it. Thank you, Harry,'
Hermione's eyes focused back to reality, and she glanced at the photo again before looking away with a feeling she couldn't describe; it felt something like shame. She tugged at her clothes for a moment, then snatched a bagel from the kitchen counter and left her flat.
Someday, she'd learn to live in a house full of memories of her past.
But not just yet.
& & &
Next chapter: What has Snape been doing these days? And where does Draco fit into all of this?
Lastly, please leave reviews. They're good for the soul. :