Full summary: For years, things had already been confusing enough between Hermione and her parents, what with her spending most of her time at Hogwarts and the wizarding world. But after the war, once she and Ron retrieve their memories and bring them back from Australia, their relationship is decidedly damaged. And why are they insisting that there's something wrong with her? Could they be right? After all, parents know best.

Warnings: Angst, various symptoms of anxiety and PTSD, blood, needles, implicit suicide attempt, mentions of self-harm

Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended. Any recognizable names are not based on real institutions or persons.

A/N: I recently took part in the 2015 Harry Potter Horror Fest hosted by the hp_darkarts community at LJ, and this was my first submission.

A million thanks to aloemilk for the valuable information about mental illnesses and for patiently answering my questions as I fleshed out the plot! I couldn't have done this (or would have done a really poor job) without your help. Any mistakes on this topic are mine. Thanks to theweightofmywords as well for beta-reading this. There's a scene heavily inspired by a popular book and now TV show series. Fans might recognize it, but since the author is explicitly against fanfiction, it shall go uncredited.

I really loved writing this and I like how it turned out. I'm also excited because it's got the first more or less explicit smut scene I've posted so far. Please mind the warnings, as it's a horror fest and there might be triggering content, but let me know what you thought of it if you read it!

Inspired by the prompt: After the war, she is feeling perfectly well, thank you very much. No mental illness, nothing. However, everyone around her seems convinced that she is very ill, enough to lock her up in a mental hospital and run batteries of tests on her every day, despite her claims that all is fine...

Prologue

The searing pain in her body and the numbness of her brain awakened a memory in her. A shout, followed by a rushing sound before the invisible force hit her. The questioning. The taunts. The distant, muffled yells that somehow brought her back when her mind seemed to slip away. Her life flashing before her eyes. She wasn't breathing anymore...

She woke up with a gasp, her heart thumping against her sore heaving chest. Something wasn't right. She was not in the dark, aristocratic manor that haunted her nightmares. The light above her was bright, her surroundings painfully white. She tried to shield her eyes, but her hand was tugged back: they were tied down. She moved her feet. Tied as well.

Her eyes watering, she took in the sounds around her, none of which made sense. Whispers, the rustling of clothes. The sound of something rubbery being pulled and released. Artificial beeping.

A hand pulled her eyelids wide open as a closer, brighter light blinded her.

What is going on?

'Your daughter is all right, only confused at the moment. We're going to take good care of her,' a man close to her said.

Daughter. She was someone's daughter. She had parents. And her parents...

They were the ones who had put her there.

I.

'Where are you going?' her mother asked her as Hermione made for the door. She was startled at first: the living room looked empty and she hadn't expected anyone to be up yet.

'To the Ministry of Magic,' she replied. 'I'm meeting Ron and Harry there, we're helping out with some things...'

Hermione trailed off. She never knew how much to tell her parents. Before, it was partly because she knew that it might put them in danger one day. But it had always been more than that. She just didn't know how much her parents understood, how much they could grasp within the ever logical brains they had bequeathed her. She didn't know how much they really cared about the life of their estranged only daughter whose world had at some point become different than theirs, so much more different, a world they would never fully see. Things had only become worse after what she'd done to them.

'I don't think you should go out, sweetheart,' her mother said quietly.

Hermione frowned.

'What? Why not?'

'We've heard you,' her dad said, making her jump again as he, too, spoke from the shadows of the room. 'You scream in your sleep. You cry when you lock yourself up in the bathroom. You are jumpy most of the time. You continue with this...'

Her dad pursed his lips. Hermione didn't know what he'd been about to say.

'We just don't think you should go out on your own at the moment, where we can't see you, if you're not telling us where you're really going,'

'What do you mean by that?' Hermione said. An ugly feeling was spreading from her stomach to her throat. 'I just told you I'm going to the Ministry of Magic. I don't even have to walk; I can Apparate straight there. And Ron will be there, with Harry; I won't be alone.'

Her parents exchanged a look, but she ignored it.

'As for the other part...' She took a deep breath. 'I've told you part of what happened this past year. There are a lot of things that I haven't... that I can't... I can't tell you yet. It hasn't been easy. But it's nothing. I've got Ron. We're helping each other.'

'Hermione, your father and I think you need help. Professional help,' her mum clarified.

Something relaxed inside of her. They were only worried about her. She couldn't blame them; she was worried about herself, too. Her sleep was interrupted several times every night when she woke up gasping after feeling as if she had stopped breathing, as if her heart had given up. Looking at her still bruised, burnt, cut cut cut everywhere body when she went to take a bath made her cry. She would jump up, heart on her throat, whenever the lady next door laughed with her booming voice, or when the kids in the neighbourhood shrieked in their games. There was nothing Ron could do to make those things go away.

'I think that would be great, but the problem is that I can't go to a Muggle therapist or something. It really wouldn't help if I've got to lie about everything, and I can't risk breaking the Statute of Secrecy. I don't know if St. Mungo's is equipped with mental health professionals, I mean, they've got the Janus Thickey Ward, but that's for spell damage...'

Another exchanged look. Then, her mother said, 'Richard, we've got to talk to her, this is getting out of our control.'

The ugly feeling was back, threatening to choke her.

'What is it? Dad, what are you not telling me?'

Her father sighed and grimaced, as if he were about to take a spoonful of some horrible medicine.

'Hermione, your mother and I have been talking, and we've decided that this has gone on for too long. You're going to be nineteen this year, you can't keep up with this delusion of yours... It's partly our fault, we should have done something sooner, before it got worse... we've let this settle and grow within you, while we thought it was just a phase. We thought it was going to go away on its own, but we've been so wrong—'

'What are you talking about? What delusion?' Hermione felt a shiver run down her spine. It was exactly like one of her recurring dreams. Next thing they were going to say that Ron was d—

No. It couldn't be. 'Dad, you're scaring me. Please just tell me—'

'You can't keep talking about witches, wizards and magic,' her mum said suddenly, looking pleadingly at her. 'You can't keep talking about a war and Hogwarts...'

'Mum,' Hermione said, 'what? I still don't—'

'Stay with us for a while. Just the three of us. Pretend,' her dad said, holding up a hand to her wife and putting an odd sort of emphasis into the word, 'that you are... like us. Don't talk about magic. Could you do that? We've been through so much, sweetheart... We deserve this.'

There it was, the guilt. Hermione knew that it might come up at some point, but she kept hoping her parents wouldn't resort to that. She'd wronged them, now she couldn't say no to whatever they asked from her: that was the implicit drill. Still, Hermione reckoned she owed them to at least make an effort.

'Fine,' she said. 'I can do that.'

The ominous feeling in her gut hadn't gone away, though. There was something she'd missed, something that didn't make sense. But her mother was smiling at her, her father looked pleased, and Hermione thought it was a sign of hope. Things would get better, for all of them.

Things did not get better.

That first day, Hermione went up to her bedroom to put her wand away. If her parents didn't want her to talk about magic, she reckoned doing magic was out of the question, too.

There wasn't much else to hide: she had left most of her magical belongings in her school trunk the year before, and hadn't brought it back from The Burrow yet. Hermione felt safe knowing that part of her was there when she wasn't, that she could leave her things there and it wouldn't matter because she would always come back. She did have her enchanted beaded bag close by, although now it contained half of the stuff she'd taken to the hunt for Voldemort's Horcruxes.

Hermione put both things, wand and bag, inside her chest of drawers. She regretted not having an owl, but not for long: Pigwidgeon flew into her bedroom that day after dinner carrying Ron's worried letter, asking why she hadn't showed up at the Ministry. He would have Apparated straight to her house if it wasn't for her parents: they hadn't been very welcoming to him so far. She wasted no time in writing a reply:

Ron,
I'm sorry I couldn't make it. It's my parents. They want me to... act Muggle for a while, for their benefit. I know, it sounds mental, but I really want to fix things with them. It's awful to think that your family fears you, or even hates you. I want to show them I'm the same as always.
Please don't worry about me. It might take a couple of weeks, but I'll be all right. If you send Pig, do it at night so they don't see him.
Love,
Hermione

Ron's second letter, telling her that she was mental but he loved her anyways, came later the following day. She knew Ron had meant well, but Pig had been unfortunate enough to come through the kitchen's window while she was playing Scrabble with her parents. There came the tearful pleads for Hermione to stop communicating with 'that boy and his trained birds'. Hermione had to send Pig back without a reply.

Several days passed. Her parents would take her to a myriad of events in the Muggle world, play all the old board games from her childhood and a couple of new ones they bought, set books they were all to read and discuss. It felt nice, Hermione thought. Like the old times, before the letter revealing what she was and where she really belonged came.

But now was not before. Now she'd seen the wizarding world. She'd lived like a witch. She'd fallen in love with someone like her. At the end of the first week, Hermione ached for her world, and for the people in it. She missed Ron most of all: she missed seeing him laugh, hearing his jokes, laying next to him and feeling him there when she woke up.

She got up that Sunday with visions of a bright, long day at The Burrow. She needed it. She needed him.

Hermione thought it was only right to let her parents know she was going. They had to understand.

They hadn't.

Like a déjà vu, Hermione heard the same things they had told her on that first day: 'it's a delusion', 'you are a grown up now', 'stop talking about magic', 'stop seeing that boy!'

Her head began to spin; the ugly, terrible feeling was back.

What do you mean? What do you mean?

'You are not a witch!' her mother shrieked. 'There's no magic school, there's no Dark Lord, there's no Ministry of Magic! You have always deluded yourself thinking that you were special, and we let it happen, but it needs to stop!'

A cold weight dropped onto the pit of Hermione's stomach. She would have laughed, thinking it was some bizarre April Fool's joke that her parents somehow found funny, but amusement was the last thing she felt.

'Mum,' she said, making an effort to sound calm and rational. 'It's not... it's not a delusion. You were with me when Professor McGonagall visited us and brought my first Hogwarts letter. You went with me to Diagon Alley for the first two years. You saw the goblins... remember the goblins, Mum? Dad?'

They were both shaking their heads silently.

'What do you mean, "no"?' Hermione asked, suddenly feeling angry. 'Yes, you saw them! And the Weasleys! Where did you think I went to every year if not to Hogwarts?'

'Hallford. You were full board at Hallford School, not Hogwarts. It's a school for special cases. Like yours.'

Hermione couldn't contain her voice from trembling in outrage and hurt. That was not the story they had agreed on, so many years ago.

'Special cases? That's what you've really been telling people about me, that I'm a "special case"?'

'No, sweetheart,' her mum said. The word, yet lovingly said, sounded bitter to Hermione, a lie. 'You have been going to Hallford. You were a gifted child, we thought it was your best chance. But then you started with this delusion... We thought it only happened when you were at home, so we let you stay there for the holidays whenever you wanted to, have an early start, too. Then you escaped and you showed up in the middle of our holidays in Australia with that boy, talking about this... this nonsense again, about a war, about how you had sent us there, and we knew it'd never left you. You didn't get better, you got worse. And we don't know what to do! We can't keep pretending that we know what we're doing, that you'll just get better, because now you're screaming and crying at night, and you're hurt; you're hiding something, and you won't tell us. We need to get you help. We love you, Hermione, but we don't know—'

Her mum broke down in sobs. Hermione felt immobilized, frozen on the spot. She looked to her dad. Why wasn't anyone shouting, "Just kidding, can't believe you fell for that!", like she kept wishing they did? She wanted to speak, but her mouth was bone-dry.

'I think it's best if we leave now. We've found an adequate facility, they will be able to tell us what we can do to help and to take care of you in the meantime,' her dad said in turn.

Hermione managed to shake her head. It felt oddly heavy.

'A facility? You mean a mental hospital? You think I'm insane?'

Her father began to say that no, they weren't saying she was crazy, but she obviously had trouble separating reality from imagination, placing a hand on her arm as he spoke. Something overcame Hermione in that moment. A red, angry feeling, mixed with fear. They were taking her away, again. They were going to hurt her.

'NO!' she yelled, wrenching her arm back. The three light bulbs over the kitchen's counter shattered. Hermione could hear her heart thumping, the blood pulsing in her ears. She knew she'd done that; her magic was getting out of control. But she couldn't calm down.

'Hermione, please, don't make this any harder,' her mum begged her. 'It's for the best—'

She made to lay both hands on Hermione's shoulder; again, it made Hermione feel trapped. She closed her eyes and pushed her off: there was a loud sound of something hitting against the wooden table, of chairs being jostled about, and her mum was whimpering. Scared, Hermione opened her eyes. Her mum was what had hit the table. She was clutching her head, her eyes wide in terror. Hermione hadn't meant to shove her.

What did I do?

Without looking at neither of her parents, she ran upstairs and into her bedroom, collapsing in tears on the floor at the foot of her bed.

She didn't understand, but there was no time to understand. She needed to get away from there. Her house, most unfortunately, had been enchanted to make it impossible for anyone to Apparate or Disapparate inside; she would have to go out and find a safe spot. But aside from the fact that she would have to face her parents if she went downstairs, Hermione didn't think she'd be able to Disapparate without seriously splinching herself, in her state. Her house was not connected to the Floo Network. She didn't know how to make a Portkey. She needed help to leave, but how was she supposed to get it? She didn't have an owl, and it would have taken too long, in any case.

Hermione considered her only choice. She lunged for her chest of drawers: her wand was nestled between piles of socks and underwear. Taking a deep breath and urging herself to calm down, Hermione thought of Ron.

'Expecto Patronum!'

A wavering light sprouted from the end of her wand and vanished as soon as it came. She wasn't trying hard enough.

Hermione thought of Ron again, but this time she tried to recall specific things about him: the way it had felt when he'd kissed her back that first time, the sheepish grin he'd given her after he'd kissed her the second time, his arms around her when he hugged her, the first time they slept together. Her chest felt warm with the happiness that thinking about Ron gave her, and she tried again.

'Expecto Pat—'

There were the sounds of someone coming up the stairs; a second later, her dad was knocking at her door.

'Hermione!'

Hermione flinched and threw her wand under the bed, remembering what her magic had done. I didn't mean it. I wasn't doing magic on purpose.

The knocking became more insistent; she could tell her mum was adding up to the noise now, two pairs of hands banging at her door.

'Hermione, we need to talk! You need to tell us what happened to you! Why did you go to Australia? Why do you look as if you've been beaten? Did Ron do it? Did he make you do something bad?'

What are they talking about? Hermione thought desperately. I already told them!

'HERMIONE!'

'Tell us the truth!'

The banging didn't stop. The lights in her room were off, but the daylight itself seemed to dim. Her room seemed to rock like a boat; she slid to the floor again, pressing her palms down against the cool wood boards. The air felt chilly, settling into her bones.

'Tell the truth!'

'HERMIONE! HERMIONE!'

She could hear him. She could hear him, clear as a bell, when Bellatrix lifted her wand and left her writhing: his yells and her sobs. She remembered how he offered to take her place before, and all she could think of now was how glad she was he hadn't. No one should have to feel this pain.

Hermione thought she ought to be concentrating on her story right now, lest she let something slip, but she knew she wouldn't. She'd die first.

Bang bang bang.

'HERMIONE!'

'Tell the truth, girl!'

'NOOOOO!' Hermione wailed, curling into a ball. She felt a sharp pain on her shoulder: Bellatrix had kicked her now.

'I already told you!' she sobbed, her voice small. 'I've told you everything I know! Please, let me go!'

Bellatrix laughed; Hermione could hear her coming close to her, the smell of sweat and rot filling her nostrils.

'You're good as dead, girl,' Bellatrix whispered in her ear, laughing again as a pair of strong arms grabbed Hermione and everything went black.