A/N: The rules of the game are simple: if you read it, REVIEW it! Yay! Haha. Thanks in advance for reviewing! –cough-
-Aly
Disclaimer: Not JK. ...Don't look so surprised. –smile&wink-
Burn Away the Scars
Chapter 1: How it is
Hermione was broken, in heart and spirit, a mere shadow of the once illustrious Gryffindor of prior years. She was 19 now, just a year after the war. She hadn't gone back to Hogwarts since the day of the Last Battle, where too many friends and acquaintances had fallen. Lavender Brown; Seamus Finnagin; Dean Thomas; Parvati's sister Padma Patil; Lee Jordan; Hannah Abbot; Alicia Spinnet; Cormac McLaggen; Cho Chang; Professors Trelawney and Sprout; Filch; among others of the Order of the Phoenix and even some Slytherins, that, as it turns out, weren't Death Eaters after all.
The Weasley family lived on, although devoid of two of their numbers. Worse, one of the dead Weasleys was none other than Hermione's girl friends, in some ways closer than either Ron or Harry—Ginny. This struck the Weasleys harder than the death of Percy, the-family-disowning-prat , although, granted, the death of one's son/brother is never a painless experience. Ginny was the "baby" of the family, the innocent little sister, the one her over-protective brothers would do just about anything for, and the only Weasley daughter in a hundred or so years. Now she was gone and her family and friends were finding it hard to cope.
Harry was heartbroken and refused to see either Ron or Hermione anymore, as they were too much of a reminder of what he had lost. Ron and Hermione, even though it had once seemed as though they were in love, had broken it off, too hurt by the war to continue.
Ron was prone to anger—Ginny had been his closest sibling—and his friendship with Harry and Hermione had been his stabilizer. With Harry's refusal to speak with either of them, the "Golden Trio" ceased existing (A/N: for now!) and with it, Hermione and Ron's relationship ended. Memories once drawing them together now kept them apart—they didn't want to remember the fun times when in so much pain, and reminders of the constant struggle against Voldemort did nothing to lessen the pain.
The war had changed everybody, and the Golden Trio did not escape that. In fact, they probably suffered more than anybody else because of it. Ron was no longer the goofy schoolboy that Hermione had believed herself in love with. Harry suffered nightmares that had escalated to such a terrifying frequency and intensity that it was impossible for him to sleep at night without the aid of a Drought of Dreamless Sleep, but that didn't keep all the monsters away. As a result, he was drawn and moody in the days, jumping at the slightest sound and reacting violently to threats.
Hermione had seen these dramatic changes in her closest friends, and slowly she crumbled without their friendship. She couldn't bring herself to face the world that had so cruelly taken her best friends from her. So she sat in Ginny's room at the Burrow, crying into a pillow and sleeping on the bed that had been hers in summers past when Ginny was still alive, and Ginny's remained empty, dust collecting on its worn comforter.
The rest of the Weasley family trailed into the room from time to time, sometimes sitting by her and letting their grief overcome them, sometimes laying on Ginny's unoccupied bed and crying softly into the mound of pillows that still held her scent. Nobody had the heart to kick her out—not that they would, as she was like an adopted daughter, and now a girly presence to reside in the room of the only Weasley daughter. Mrs. Weasley sent up food with whoever had the willpower to approach the broken girl—often they couldn't get past the doorway without breaking down and joining Hermione in her misery, so they ended up levitating it through the always open door to the nightstand by Hermione's bed.
She slept in clothes that were reminders of her friend—a pair of Harry's green laid pajama pants, and one of Ron's Chudley Cannons t-shirts. During the day she changed into an old pair of Harry's jeans, shrunk to fit her and another t-shirt of Ron's that her and Harry had gotten for Ron's birthday one year, saying "Bloody Hell--Flying Hippogriffs!" which was an inside joke between the three. A quick laundry spell kept the clothes clean (and no fading—the wonders of magic) and her five minute scalding hot showers in the early morning before the Weasleys awoke were habitual.
As days and weeks passed slowly by, her tears came less and less frequently, to be replaced with anger that Ginny, Harry, and Ron had left her, one permanently, and anger and disappointment at herself for not living.
She was impatient to leave, but not ready to; reluctant to leave, scared of losing the last connection she had to Ginny. In a way, she was scared of losing her grief, because it would finalize Ginny's death and she didn't want the acceptance.
Eventually, she supposed she would face those fears --she WAS a Gryffindor, after all-- but for now, that reality seemed too far away to consider and no matter how aggravated she was with her same routine and the monotony of post-war life, the empty feeling she had at the loss of the three people closest to her kept her hidden away in the room so devoid of true life.
A/N: I'd like to take this opportunity to mention that the game is still in motion, and you must abide by the rules of the game, which means you must REVIEW!
Also, thanks infinity bunches to my beta, marchingkatluvsmusic, who is the bestest buddy ever! Haha.
-Aly