AN: I don´t own Harry Potter and don´t make any profit.
Hermione was staring at the wall. There were people standing behind her whispering. The voices sounded vaguely familiar but the words didn´t make it all the way to her. She could feel somebody was smoothing out the blankets on her bed and a warm hand stroked over her cheek. The voices died and footsteps told her she was alone again. She didn´t care. Tiredness overpowered her and sleep came instantly.
Harry, Ron and Ginny were standing in the hallways of St. Mungo´s talking to each other.
„Did you see how thin she is. I guess they aren´t successful in getting her to eat." Ron was looking tired.
„Apparently not, I talked to one of the nurses earlier on and she told me, Hermione hasn´t eaten anything nor has she spoken to anyone." Ginny wiped away a tear.
It all came back to her. How she was worried sick about Hermione when she didn´t hear about her since the battle. She just vanished. Two weeks had passed since Voldemort was defeated, when Ginny realized she didn´t know where Hermione was. She missed Fred´s funeral and Remus´and Tonks´ funeral. That wasn´t at all like Hermione. But everyone was so distracted with their own things. Nobody noticed Hermione was gone. Harry was mourning over Remus, the last one of the Marauders, who died. At the same time he was getting to know Teddy, his godson. And Ron was there with George helping him in his hard time. So Ginny decided to go searching for Hermione. It didn´t take her long. She found her at her parent´s old place. She was relieved to see everything was still like she remembered it from the one time she visited. So nobody tried to harm Hermione´s parents. So maybe it was possible to find them in Australia and restore their memories. But first of all she had to find Hermione. She went upstairs to her room. And there she found Hermione lying on the bed staring at the ceiling. She was nearly as pale as a ghost. She had lost weight, hunting for Horcruxes and the battle, left her shattered.
Ginny let out a gasp at the sight of her friend, she hurried over to her, tears pouring down her face, she sat on the bed and scooped her friend into her arms.
„Hermione, what happened!"
There was no answer. Hermione had just passed out. And then suddenly Ginny saw that Hermione´s wounds from the battle hadn´t been treated. They were infected. She knew she had to get Hermione to St. Mungo´s as soon as possible.
That was two weeks ago. They had treated her wounds and saved her life. But if they wouldn´t get her to eat, it didn´t look good.
Harry gently hugged Ginny, not knowing what else to do. "I don´t know what else we could do. We tried everything, didn´t we?" Harry said releasing Ginny. Still discussing what else to try they left the hospital, without noticing someone overheard their conversation.
A dark-haired wizard sitting in the corner was lowering the Daily Prophet he was reading in.
Severus Snape was curious and bored at the same time. He had been here for four weeks after McGonagall found him in the Shrieking Shack and brought him to St. Mungos. He recovered only slowly, too slowly in his opinion. And he didn´t have any visitors. Severus huffed, who should come and pay him a visit? He was alone. You might even say he was lonely. Nobody even bothered to tell him, that he was cleared of all charges. He read it on the newspaper a couple of days ago. He was relieved not having to go to Azkaban. He needed to get out of that hospital, he felt more alone than ever, with everyone around getting visits and being cheerful, because the war was finally over. But apparently not everyone was in a good mood. He slowly got up, growling with pain and slowly making his way back to his room. When he passed by Miss Granger´s room his curiousness came back. The door wasn´t closed so he dared to look inside. There was only one bed inside. Sure she was part of the Golden Trio, as they were called now. That´s why she had a room to herself. He huffed. He himself wasn´t important enough, he just spend half his life under Voldemort´s life-threatening treat, to try to safe people but nobody cared. He moved closer to her bed and sharply took in his breath, pushing all his former thoughts aside. He hadn´t expected that. The woman, she wasn´t a girl anymore, lying on the bed hadn´t anything to do with the girl he once knew. Her skin was pale, her cheeks were hollow. She looked like a ghost. She must´ve lost a lot of weight and her hair wasn´t shiny anymore but still very bushy. A smile curled around his lips. He was thinking of her as a student. She was one of his favourites although he would never admit that. Since the incident with Lily he was drawn to muggle-borns, he cared for them a great deal. Maybe this was his atonement for what had happened.
The Gryffindor girl always reminded Severus of himself a bit. A little bookworm, a little know-it-all. She was always walking around with a pile of books. She was so smart and very talented at potions. There was only one difference, she had a bunch of friends, who cared for her. But obviously they didn´t make a very good job. He looked around the room, it was bursting with flowers, sweets and "Get well soon!"-cards. But there wasn´t a single book in the room. How could that be? Didn´t they know her at all. Slowly he turned to make his way to his own room. His thoughts kept him awake half the night. When the dawn was nearing he had made a decision and finally fell asleep.