The blast of light hit him in the chest. He was still laughing, his eyes bright with excitement and malicious humor. The smile lingered on his face as he flew backwards threw the vail. The black shroud fluttered as if it was being clutched at by an invisible breeze. Sirius Black knew no more. He didn't hear Harry's cries, didn't see the tear stained face. He didn't see the light leaving Remus's eyes, as he restrained the boy-who-lived and the look of shattered innocence a shellshocked Hermione was wearing. He ceased to be. Sirius Orion* Black III was no longer.
Five years later
"it's not that I don't think you can protect yourself, I just wish you'd move somewhere safer." he ran his hands through his hair, raising his head to fix her with a pained stare.
"you mean somewhere where you can watch me, just to check I'm not cracking up?" she murmured, her apparent apathy in direct conflict with her words.
"hermione it's not like that. You know that. I know you're not cracking up, I do, I just worry about you." he knew he was pleading, but he had to try, just like he did every time.
"don't Harry." Hermione payed for her coffee and pushed her chair back. The fog had returned, settling around her brain. She ignored Harry and left the Starbucks. "don't worry bout me Harry, even I don't anymore" she muttered.
Her new apartment was five blocks away, not that harry knew she was living so close by. They worried about her, and she abstractly understood why. Not that her understanding negated her annoyance at being treated like a rambunctious first year.
She wasn't the same girl anymore. Hermione granger, the brightest witch of her year had ceased to exist. They didn't understand what had happened, would never quiet comprehend. So to them, this was all very odd. Someone had stolen away their lively friend and returned a sullen changeling. The husk of hermione granger was a volunteer librarian who worked as an editor from home. She immersed herself in the fictional, it helped. She would wake up, have her coffee, read, edit, notate and then sleep. Normally she remembered to eat something. At first, she had gotten an office job, and failed. It was too much, the crowded subway, the people, the coworkers, the tiny cubical that shrank with each passing day. The noises of the city made her jumpy. The whosh of passing cars was too much like an impending curse. She did know what was wrong, she had PTSD, she thought. But, like so many things, that couldn't be helped. No muggle phycologist would help a woman claiming to be a witch without first having her incarcerated in the nearest sanatarium.
So she had chosen to work from home. Home was a tiny walk up apartment. It was cheap and clean and she liked it. it was nothing like hogwarts, or her old room. The walls were cream and pale celery, the kitchen was all polished wood and stainless steel. She had moved most of her parents appliances into the house, seeing as they would no longer need them. she had their old leather living-room set, and a narrow, anemic bed that she rarely slept in.
As she walked along, she turned and caught the gaze of the woman next to her, peering out from the window. She was twenty years old but it felt like forty. She wore a grey pencil skirt and a coral cardigan. Instead of taming her hair, she had given up the war of attrition and kept it an an austere librarian bun. She tried to read the reflections expression. Was she happy? Did she know what she was doing? She raised a hand, pressing it against the glass, she leaned forward as if she could slip through the looking glass. The window remained unyielding. Maybe here was a charm that would let her vanish, or a potion that would make her obsolete. Her wand was in her jewelry box, at home. Here magic was behind her. This hermione granger didn't do magic, ever. To do magic was to acknowledge all she has left behind. To validate that old life.
She walked down the cracked pavement, reflecting. Maybe Harry was right. Her neighborhood was dangerous. But then again, it was nothing compared with the wizarding world she had left behind. Hermione had done the right thing, she had lasted till the end, fought in the final battle, buried the dead. Then she had left. Her parents were interred, down below. She had no ties to hold her. So she left, in the middle of the night. She moved out of Grimald place, left Diagon alley forever. She had prepared letters for Harry and molly, telling them she was ok, and that she needed time. That had been five years ago. Three years ago, she had sent Harry a letter, and agreed to meet him for coffee. They met every other Sunday, Harry told hermione about her old friends, not that she wanted to know, and she drank expensive black coffee and tried not to look crazy. She knew she wasn't crazy, not that she hadn't thought to consider it. She was happy, not deliriously so, not wildly so, but she did have a simple feeling of contentment. She missed crookshanks terribly, but she would never have another cat. The half kneasle had been just another victim, someone who got too close to hermione granger the witch. The war had taught her one thing, reliance is overrated, and self sufficiency is equivalent to survival. She didn't want Harry and god forbid Ron swarming down on her. She could take care of herself.
Lost in thought Hermione didn't see the heaving cracked pavement, and sprawled, he over heals. Grimacing she picked her self up and squared her shoulders. She wished she could go back, go back to when magic was magic, when every room didn't have a ghost, where everyone got what they deserved, good and bad.