Chapter One
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the Harry Potter characters
A/N: sic transit gloria mundiis a Latin saying used during Papal coronations, used to remind the Pope that although he now has all power, he is still a mortal man. The correct translation is thus passes the glory of the world
Hermione Granger stared with such fixed determination at her peas, if she blinked even once she would cry. So she stared until her eyes began to dry and sting; until she was sure her tears had left her. Then she blinked once, stood from her seat and retreated to her room.
As she walked down the cool antiseptic hallways her stomach turned at the familiar plastic smell she had associated with the hospice. She had been here for near two months but they would not let her leave. Harry and Ron had come and gone and both had been declared fit to go on. But not Hermione Granger, for there was something defiantly wrong with her.
She was mentally unfit. She couldn't see how she was supposed to be completely right in her mind, after the last year few people were in their right minds. But the healers said she was repressing memories, they told her she was hiding what happened from herself and that it was unhealthy.
Hermione was not hiding anything from herself; she was hiding it from the healers. Nobody needed to know everything.
She opened the door to her private quarters and slammed it angrily after her. She wanted to cry again. She was so frustrated with the damn healers. Why couldn't they leave her be? They didn't ask Harry or Ron to recreate what had happened during the final battle. So why were they asking her?
Oh, but laughable. Hermione knew of course, she was the smartest witch of her year.
She was a woman, hence weak and hence utterly breakable. She knew deep down all the healers wanted was a story they could sell. What was the golden trio doing last year? What happened during the final battle? Hermione Granger tells all!
But she wasn't letting on. She was better than to simply tell everyone. They had made a pact, what happened last year stayed between them, all of it.
Sometimes Hermione wished she could tell someone, she wished she could have told her parents what had happened to her…but she kept it inside, because it was better to have it rot her away slowly than to let the whole world know.
But they refused to let her leave, they claimed another two weeks was in order and Hermione would give them those two weeks. But afterwards, if they didn't release her she was owling Harry and telling him to get her out of there.
The only good thing about being in the hospice was the lack of reporters. They were not allowed within the grounds. Hermione had received owls from Ron and Harry where they told her they were being relentlessly tormented by reporters. She would reply wising them the best, and promising once she was out they would get together like old times.
She dropped softly onto her bed. Like old times…
Old times were gone, as much as they all wished they could get together and run about wildly, it was too late. They had all seen so much that…innocence was impossible. She could see Harry's eyes clearly in her mind, the hurt behind them was so clear last time she met with him. He was damaged severely. Hermione knew Ginny could never help him, not to be the way he was before.
Harry's eyes and her scars. Although most had faded she could feel them. Sometimes she would just ache everywhere, her body felt as though it were on fire. Burning her, and there was nothing she could do, no one to call. She didn't need to give the healers more reason to keep her here.
She lay back soundlessly, two more weeks and she would be free. Only two more weeks of this antagonizing hell and she would be back with her family and friends. If she kept reminding herself, it would go faster.
Draco Malfoy's nose scrunched in disgust as he entered the establishment. He couldn't believe he was here. "Why am I here again?" he asked the pretty healer at his side with disdain.
"Because Minister Shacklebolt said you have to be. You need proper assessment, if you are healthy and well, you will be out in two weeks" she explained as rehearsed. "So why wasn't I asked to come earlier?" he asked.
The healer rolled her eyes, "Well, we know you well Mr. Malfoy and since we only had a few suites we decided to wait for an open one before inviting you here, we know you would expect nothing less" she said coolly, her dislike for him clear. Malfoy just shrugged, he could have cared less about a suite.
He had slept on dirt and had eaten all kinds of things for the past year, there was little left to faze him. But he let the healer lead him on. He decided this might be kind of nice, a rest from the tirade of idiots at his door with pens and papers. He needed a little break.
After all, he was more than sane.
After last year much had changed for Malfoy, his father had been killed by Granger, his mother was now six feet under too and he had told all the death eaters to screw off and had left them. It was possibly the weirdest moment of his life. Leaving his parents, what he knew, what he had been raised to become; only to go to the other side. To run to Potter and Weasley and openly tell them everything was something he had never expected himself to do. And they had accepted him with open arms.
But that was where things went downhill. Granger disappeared suddenly while on guard. They spent months looking for her but to no avail. Then by pure luck Fred Weasley saw a red flare from a wand in Sherwood Forest where he had been searching for wounded. Granger was there and barely alive.
He didn't know what had happened to her, only Potter and Weasley knew that, but he knew whatever happened was because of him. It was too perfectly tied to not be connected. She was taken because he switched sides. And she was lucky to have gotten out alive.
He was guilty; it was a new sensation, but something he was coping with. His mother turned out to be right in the end anyway. She had always told him that he wasn't meant to be a death eater. She told him that there was too much of her good blood in him for him to be really evil.
Despite it all Draco still felt vile, because here he was, completely alone. His parents were dead, the people he had considered friends were dead or in jail, and the people he had been cruel to for years he could never expect them to be his friends. They had accepted him, but he didn't feel it was right to take Potters friendship after all he had done to him.
The healer led him to his door, pointed at it and silently walked away. He opened the door and was greeted with a lavish sight; he sighed deeply and entered the suite. Only two weeks, not that it mattered, there wasn't much to do when he left anyway.