Author's Notes: I have long been an avid reader, but this is my first attempt at sharing my writing. I welcome constructive criticism, but ask that you maintain civility. Please remember that this is something that I am doing for my own enjoyment and I am not seeking to professionally publish anything. Know that no review is too small to make a difference to a writer, even a simple 'I liked it' will make my day. I have no official Beta, so if you would like to take up the mantle drop me a line. I am an American writer and natively speak American English, I have tried my best to use proper English phrases and words but I may have failed in certain areas. Please bear this in mind as you read. I hope that you enjoy reading my work as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
Disclaimer: This work of fiction is mine, however the characters and all recognizable features belong to Jo Rowling. This is published for recreation and no profits are being made.
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The war was over. No longer were endless nights and terror filled days spent running through the forest to evade capture. No longer were there monstrous beasts to battle. There were no more artifacts of evil to destroy. No more crazed madmen to battle. No more wondering where their next meal was going to come from. Their friends were safe, the ones that had survived at least, and there was little worry that they would be found in their lair of resistance, hauled out, tortured and killed. There was no family to worry about being involved in battle. None to be punished for the 'sins' of their kin. It was over.
So why did Hermione still feel so haunted?
Life had resumed a modicum of normalcy for the rest of the wizarding world, most people slowly returning to their day to day lives and rebuilding what they lost. True, some lost more than others. Some would never recover fully – George Weasley still paused sentences awkwardly, as though waiting for someone to finish them. By and large, however, the world moved on. The world moved on, but for Hermione Granger things never truly progressed. Anxiety filled her days. Ever vigilant honey eyes watched the people that passed her on the street and in the halls of the Ministry. She wondered where the next attack would come from. Non-perishable food filled her cabinets to bursting, more than a family of four could eat in a month and far more than she needed on her own. She knew she really should donate some of it to charitable organizations, but the thought of going hungry again as she had so often while on the run always made her close the cupboard after looking it over. Her little beaded bag, tatty and worn now, was kept stocked and always within arms reach. Wards were always set around her little flat – so solidly restrictive that only Ron and Harry were able to enter freely without her presence. Even the poor post owls had to wait for her to permit them access to the balcony off the back door. The days were filled with stress and worry, anxiety gnawing at her patience and fraying her nerves as she buried herself in her work.
The days, though bad, did not compare to each night.
When darkness stole over the country leaving streetlights to flicker into luminescence and people returned to their homes she settled into her nightly routine. Hermione Granger was a war heroine. Hermione Granger was the brightest witch of the age. Hermione Granger held an Order of Merlin First Class; one of the youngest ever to do so. Hermione Granger was a torn and scarred young woman who had witnessed so many horrors that she felt she would never be normal again. Hermione Granger hid in her bedroom after checking and rechecking the wards that she held over both her flat and over the individual sleeping area. She tucked herself away in the room that she kept brilliantly lit at all hours. Bright light that was a constant no matter how late it grew in hopes of chasing away the haunting memories of the last few years. She curled up at the headboard of her bed with her knees drawn to her chest and back to the flat oak panel that kept her pillows from wedging between the mattress and the wall. She dozed fitfully each night. An hour or two at most of calm before she jolted awake with her heart feverently trying to beat its way out of her chest. Sometimes she could recall the dreams that awoke her. More often, the witch found herself with an unsettling sense of wrongness and unease that she could not exactly place. Sleep was elusive and troubled many nights even with the potions that she took to help smooth her way into slumber. Frequently she would find herself bolting up with her hand grasping the wand she kept beneath her pillow and searching for a nonexistent threat. More often she curled up with some heavy book filled with meandering words, nodding and snapping awake only to nod again when exhaustion finally claimed her, always waking with a stiff neck and a back that pinched uncomfortably when she tried to sit up and straighten herself.
She knew she should probably seek help. She should attend some sort of therapy, talk to someone about the things she was feeling and doing. Find some little bit of peace. However, every time she would decide that it was time for her to move on and find that bit of resolution, as her hand grasped the now worn business card that Harry had given her for the therapist that he himself used, she balked. It wasn't that she didn't want to move on with her life; she did more than anything else. It was that she felt she didn't deserve it when so many others had been left so much worse. She felt as though she was to blame for things having taken so long to finally achieve a resolution, and thus, did not deserve that peaceful end. She felt that she should have been smarter and figured out where and what all the horcruxes were sooner. She couldn't keep her friends safe from the terrible things that had happened and so she felt she was only receiving the punishment due for her shortcomings. Above all else, she didn't want anyone to know that she, Hermione Granger of the Golden Trio, was struggling. She had to be the strong one, composed and prepared for everything that life threw at her. The rock that held steadfast and supported her friends. She had to be better than those who had fought so hard to eject her from this life, to show that nothing they had done to her had any effect. She had to keep her head high and her cards close to her chest so neither her allies nor her enemies could find fault. To the rest of the world she could never show that Hermione Jean Granger was anything but unphased at her past and flawlessly prepared for the future. Never.
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One hundred and eighty seven days had passed, not that she was counting, since Hermione had entered the pool of singles once more. They had tried to make it work, she and Ron, but somehow things had simply just not come together. Their work drive was too different; she was always on the go while Ronald moved slow and steady toward his goals. Their hobbies didn't mesh even slightly. Quidditch stands and locker rooms were no place to be doing research on the latest mending charms or ancient counter curses, or Pictish fertility rituals (which were not usually for human fertility but primarily for land and livestock, thank you very much). He wanted the kind of household he had grown up in - a home cooked meal on the table each night, the woman of the house maintaining all the cleaning and housework while the man went off to work, evenings sitting by the fire while he relaxed and she did something domestic like knitting or darning socks. The kind of household that she steadfastly declined to run. Two people lived in the house, both could contribute to the day to day cleaning. She wanted a career and keeping a house in that fashion was something she simply would not have time for. Besides, she had never really learned to cook and had no interest in learning to do so at this point, so the best she could manage was simple soups, boxed meals and take away.
It wasn't that they disliked each other, they just wanted such different things out of life and lived so differently that residing together was just not an option if both were to remain content. They had simply fallen out of love and into a more comfortable friendship. Funny how hormones did such strange things to a body in times of stress, drawing two people together in an instinctual drive to create progeny when death seemed imminent. Not to mention the lasting effects of trauma that both carried with them that caused an occasional issue. On more than one occasion while living together they had accidentally spooked each other and drawn their wands in defence with spells half-forming in their mouths. It was only a matter of time before someone got hurt.
It had been six months and four days since they had gone their separate ways, her packing up and moving to a flat closer to the heart of London so that she could simply walk to the Ministry's hidden entrance if the weather was nice. Needless to say she'd chosen to live on the muggle side, having grown up in the muggle fashion she found herself able to reacquire the comfort of technology quite nicely, and she found the little bit of anonymity amidst the throngs of muggles comforting. It was nice to be away from where she was likely to see her ex every day.
She was uncomfortable with the fame her position in the war had afforded her amongst the magical, and often found herself wondering if this was how Harry felt as he was growing up. People she had never met often stopped her for a photo or a handshake or simply to talk and ask prying questions that she didn't want to bother responding to. It was not any business of the public how much romance there was between the three of them, how many Death Eaters she had fought, how she felt when facing them, how many she had hurt, how she figured things out. How many she had killed. It wasn't anyone's business, but they acted as though it was their right to know these things. These all too friendly strangers seemed to feel that they deserved to live vicariously through her ability, to get a piece of victory and satisfaction from the child that had fought and suffered while they had holed up in their homes and acted as though nothing was wrong. Of course, after the fact, they deluded themselves into believing they had been with her ideals all along, but simply didn't know what to do. They didn't understand how serious things were. They didn't know that children were suffering. They didn't understand that a part of her hated them more than she did those who had attacked and hunted the Light. They didn't.
These people were cowards; parasites, spineless and mewling, unwilling to stand up and say what was right - to do what was and still is right. Instead they caved at the first sign of pressure or simply turned a blind eye to the Death Eaters rising back into power, as though pretending nothing was happening made it truth. As though this time it would be different. Had even half of the people who claimed solidarity actually been there, given even a token show of resistance, things would have never been so bad. Things would have ended sooner. Things would have been better. Children would not have been tortured in their school. They would not have been forced to commit unforgivable spells to their wands and memories, using hexes on their peers. Children should not have had to grow up so quickly and learn to fight - for some, to kill. They should have been learning to turn pins into porcupines and teacups into treacle. Children should never have had to fight this war with so many adults claiming that they had been supporting the Light the whole time and, oh, how they always knew that Harry Potter was telling the truth. Children shouldn't have, but they were forced to through the inaction of the adults that should have been protecting them, and they died so that these simpering masses could collectively pat themselves on the back and say 'job well done.' It was never the children's war, but they were the ones who had paid the piper anyway.
She really did dislike them, these people who never dirtied their hands.
She did, however, like her little flat with its light red brickwork and peeling white paint and solid wood flooring that was so worn in certain spots from previous tenants that it was a different color. She liked the white walls that she left intentionally bare and the large windows with the thick, faded curtains. The kitchen that she didn't keep nearly as clean as she should and the little table she didn't actually eat at but kept covered in books and paperwork had a way of soothing her the moment she walked in. She liked her old, shabby, orange cat, always curled up on her equally shabby chair or in a sunbeam waiting patiently for his human to come home to feed him, then provide a proper lap to lounge in. She liked the warmth it had held through the final burst of winter and chill of the early Spring thaw. She liked, when windows were thrown open, the cross breeze that cooled it as Spring gave way to Summer. Everything about this place was home, save the creeping loneliness which appeared when she realized how empty it felt.
She would still look up even now after all these months to ask Ron a question or to finish the dissertation she'd been giving over whatever latest text she was reading, only to be reminded that she was talking with only the cat to hear. Much as she loved him, Crookshanks was not the best at conversation, and though he was usually available for a good snuggle it simply was not the same as human contact. She loved Ron and always would, but she was no longer in love with him. She would sometimes idle away a few minutes thinking about someone filling that void in her life. A man who could meet her intellectually, who wouldn't roll his eyes or sigh when she spoke on the intricacies of arithmancy. This mystery wizard could stand with her on equal ground as she battled through law and politics. That same would care about things beyond quidditch, and view her as someone special and deserving. It would be nice to have someone to talk to beyond coworkers. It would be even nicer to be held.