Hermione sat unnervingly still, her back ramrod straight and her eyes staring directly in front of her. She felt broken, as though someone had shattered her very soul. That everything that made her who she was, was laying completely obliterated in the pit of her stomach. Her arm ached, no, more than that: it burned. She could feel every letter that Bellatrix had engraved into her soft skin, each agonizing tear; Mudblood.
She could hear faint voices coming from over the hill. She sat alone, out in the cold looking at the waves that crashed thunderously onto the beach in front of Bill and Fleur's small cottage, the water was powerful, dark and bitter. The sun struggled to shine through the thick clouds and the wind howled eerily around her.
"She 'as been very quiet since ze Malfoy's" Fleur's voice drifted over the wind. "Ze boys 'ave started planning...but she just...sits out zere. Watching ze waves. It worries me."
She blocked it out, she didn't want their pity. What she was feeling...the rejection she had gone through, they knew nothing of it. Purebloods and Halfbloods the lot of them; maybe Harry understood her a little bit more. But then, he was Harry Potter the one who survived He Who Shall Not Be Named. Hermione put shaky hands over her eyes, tears wouldn't come...perhaps she'd cried them all. She felt ashamed, she loved her friends but she didn't know what was wrong with her.
"Aren't you cold?" She jumped up and fell right back down from lack of sleep. "Whoa there, Hermione." She felt heat rush to her cheeks, she struggled to stand up. A hand coming to help her, in the last place she wanted it; Fred's large hand wrapped around the inflamed wound. She closed her eyes trying to brace herself; she felt searing pressure and tears leaked from under her eyelids.
"Don't touch me," she whimpered. But she did nothing to pull herself away from him, her body was limp. She couldn't fight anymore.
"Hermione?" Fred's voice was concerned, he released her arm immediately and Hermione fell exhausted back onto the sand. She didn't want to cry, she had fought it so hard. She had tried so hard to be strong through all of it. In that moment, she couldn't fight it any longer. Grief just poured out of her, her body shook with a culmination of fatigue, sadness and defeat. They had broke her.
Fred knelt beside her, he didn't know what to do for her pain. Hermione's body quivered, her hair was tangled and falling into her face. Her knees pulled up to her chest, one arm covering her eyes and one laying beside her; the sweater sleeve awkwardly bunched up from when he grabbed her. And that is when he saw it, one little word that both infuriated and destroyed him, carved into the tender skin on Hermione's arm. Mudblood.
He sat beside her then, lifting up her arm he stared at it. Almost in shock, the wound was ragged and inflamed done carelessly, with the intention of causing her as much pain as possible. He ran a light thumb over the wound, he heard Hermione's hiss of pain. He looked at her then, his hand gently holding her arm; waiting for her to look up...and very slowly she did. He watched a few perfect crystals make their way down her cheeks. The strength and intelligence that he had always admired in her was hidden, it barely managed to gleam through the cracks in her eyes. He could almost hear her silent agonized scream.
Hermione stared at Fred through blurred eyes, he sat there beside her...merely holding her arm. But she could feel his sympathy. It wasn't pity, just a desire to share her pain...to take it away from her if he could. But she felt separated from him, as though the physical evidence of what she was had put a mental barrier between the two of them.
"It doesn't matter." Fred's voice was calm almost indiscernible above the crash of the waves. She raised her eyebrows at him, confused but not wanting to speak. "This," he pointed to the word branded into her skin. "This means nothing. Nothing. They might mean it as a slur, Hermione. As something with which to beat you down with. But it's just a word and words are merely letters strung together in a random order. You are so much more than this word." Fred's eyes were eager, passionate and so were his words. His fingers gently caressed the warm, damaged flesh, it didn't feel as blistering as it once had.
Suddenly a little bit of sunlight peeked through the clouds, illuminating Fred in a strange kind of glow. "When people try to threaten you through words, always remember that...they are merely letters and you are so much more than that." He stood, grabbing Hermione by the elbows and pulling her up. Then he wrapped her in a hug -she hadn't expected it...but she welcomed it-.
Then as he pressed a kiss to her forehead he whispered, "So much more than words."