It's been a loooong time since I've written a fic, and even longer since I've published one—this will come in short bites, but it's finished, so never fear.

Thanks to everyone out there writing Dramione fics; you sustained me through a really exhausting summer and renewed my love for fanfiction.

Disclaimer: I totally don't own Harry Potter.

Thanks for reading!

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"Granger."

When Draco entered their shared common room, Hermione jumped, nearly spilling the jug she was pouring out of. She looked sharply in his direction and pulled the jug and her glass toward her body and out of his view. It felt like an awkward move, and she was sure it was by his reaction.

"What do you have there?" Draco raised an eyebrow. It was the least neutral she'd seen his face in their entire first month as prefects. Also the most words she'd heard out of him at one time.

"It's my business," she bristled, carrying the empty jug and glass off to her room. She'd dispose of the jug later, wash the glass out with a spell. She should've known better to think she could relax in the common room during daylight hours, to rely on what seemed to be Draco's daily schedule. She'd have to be more careful.

.

By 2 a.m. Hermione had determined that it was safe to go back into the common room. She crept down her stairs and settled onto the long couch, not bothering to light a lamp or even her wand. It was quickly becoming her new nightly routine, now that she'd grown bored of her room.

If she slept nowadays, it was some afternoons. Some morning hours. But even though sleep was supposed to restore her body, all it did was break her. She'd cast a silencing charm on her room to keep Draco or anyone else from hearing her screams. Some days she'd return to her bedroom shaking; they'd done an exceptional job renovating the parts of the castle where they'd had the final battle, to the point that those staircases, those halls, were unrecognizable—and yet now and then she'd be hit with the sensation, descending a staircase or moving through a doorway, that she'd been there before, that she'd watched someone die, that she'd only slightly dodged the green bolt of another killing curse.

She'd run out of homework already, or everything she knew was assigned. She'd gotten tired of reading when her mind wouldn't focus, when she didn't have to focus. She'd thought that throwing herself back at her schoolwork full-force would be the solution to this, but in the month she'd been back at Hogwarts she hadn't really felt much better.

The other eighth-years were the same way—the ones she saw, anyway. Someone with knowledge of muggle psychiatric medicine had started a group, open to anyone who fought in the War, for just spending time together in the presence of others who understood. She'd been invited a few times, reassured that she was always welcome. She'd promised to consider it, but unless it was meeting at 2 a.m. she didn't want to go.

Hermione slipped down the couch, let one arm dangle off the edge, but pulled it back up, quickly. Just the small gesture reminded her of so many nights of sleeping in uncomfortable places, reaching for Ron for comfort—or Harry when Ron had taken off.

Ron taking off. That seemed to be a theme.

She wrapped her arms around her chest even though she wasn't cold and stared at the ceiling she couldn't see. He'd called her too stubborn. He'd given her a maybe. And maybe if "maybe" was all he was good for, that was for the best, but he'd scarcely given himself enough time to work through it. She hadn't either, really. Some of them hadn't even started working through it.

Hermione swung her legs off the couch and stepped out the portrait hole to their common room before she could think anymore. There was no curfew for the 8th years and no restriction on when they could leave castle grounds, so Hermione wasn't afraid of being caught out of bed. The corridors were quiet, and walking them in the semi-dark, lit only occasionally by moonlight, she thought back to all the nights she, Harry, and Ron had been out of bed illegally.

We worked so hard to bring peace to the wizarding world, she thought, standing at the foot of the Gryffindor stairs. It was as if she was urging herself toward something, but she didn't know what. Her days were dull and her nights sleepless and she felt so disconnected from everything. Harry and Ron seemed to be getting on fine, keeping busy with Auror things. But school had never been so much the challenge for her as the work she did when she wasn't helping them, and now she felt left out.

She climbed the Gryffindor stairs with slow, deliberate steps, imagining the common room as she got closer and closer.

She'd seen Harry and Ron a few weeks ago in the Three Broomsticks—just after school started. She'd given the appearance of being chipper. They'd all had butterbeer, abstaining carefully from anything pumpkin. Harry and Ron had looked great—of course Ron was still kind of awkward, but they were enjoying their new roles, happy that they got to be done with school once and for all. They'd congratulated her on going back for her last year, teased her even—"All the school in the world wouldn't be enough for Hermione!" For all the potions and tablets Hermione knew they had been prescribed daily—all the same ones that she'd been given; they'd gone through a litany of them weeks before—they seemed to be functioning in society just fine.

Hermione stopped on the stairs just out of view of the portrait that led to the common room. She wouldn't be able to get in—she wasn't a Gryffindor anymore and didn't have a password anyway. McGonagall's no-house system for eighth-years worked sometimes—Hermione didn't feel as much school spirit at Quidditch matches now that she didn't have someone she cared about out there, nor did the House Cup mean very much to anymore, so it was a relief to be excused from the expected performance of enthusiasm—but other times it made her bitter. The cherry on top was, of course, being named sole eighth-year prefects with none other than her literal mortal enemy.

McGonagall had sat them down just before the eight-year meeting, a quieter, less fussy affair than the start-of-school banquet all the lower-years attended. (They'd been welcome at the banquet, of course, but just a small handful of people had decided to go.) She'd explained that they were adults now, that this choice was a symbol of unity and moving on for the school. To Hermione's protests she'd answered that Draco had amends to pay, as per the Wizengamot; to Draco's smugness she'd reminded him that he would be sharing a common area with the Brightest Witch of his Era. She requested that the two of them shake hands in her presence and had ushered them off to their quiet dinner with classmates.

Hermione's feet carried her aimlessly up and down the corridors. She found herself heading towards the Potions classroom without even realizing, turning around as soon as she came to and saw where her body, zombie-like, had been taking her. Draco wasn't the only former Death Eater to return to Hogwarts, and while the younger students gave all of them wide berth, the professors and older students very maturely gave off the appearance that nothing was wrong, or out of the ordinary, or particularly surprising about their presence.

As Hermione walked purposefully back up the stairs to her own, new common room, she felt a familiar exhaustion, the one that urged her to sleep in spite of the fear that waited in her dreams. "Cauldron cakes," she whispered, and the portrait-hole opened for her. She stepped just inside, leaned back against it when it had closed. Merlin.

If she would only take the potions, she'd be able to sleep. But the potions also made her dull. They made her feel—less, like her feelings didn't work anymore. Other times they made her feel stupid, like she couldn't make the connections she used to, like she couldn't keep up. She was more about her wits without them—even if it meant she didn't sleep for the trauma of it all.

A few tears came with her exhaustion sometimes, as they did now; she let them fall. She so loved Hogwarts, but lately it seemed that even just one more second in these halls would be all it took to really break her.

Or maybe she'd already been broken—for good.