Eighth year. She rolled the words around in her head, trying to repeat them until they were real, concrete, set in stone. The last year had been anything but predictable as they fought their way through the war.
The only way out had been through.
She had told herself this during the war, during the terrifying night with Bellatrix Lestrange, and during the Battle of Hogwarts. But she hadn't expected to continue to repeat the secret mantra in the present tense after the war. From the moment McGonagall's letter came, she knew she was returning home.
Home had become tents with Harry as Ron left in his fit of insecurity. It was running for their lives, but at least her best friends with her. At the end of the generic acceptance letter, McGonagall had written: Hogwarts will always be here to welcome you home. Her heart surged when the boys decided to return alongside her. "Auror training will still be available next year, Hermione." Harry told her in the lazy sunlight of The Burrow's kitchen.
Ron, however, did not agree but he came anyways. For the wrong reasons, she told herself, but perhaps they could move past the elephant in the room.
Their new headmistress had owled her several times for two weeks, asking if she was sure she could return and accept the Head Girl position. Hermione Granger had not been herself since the end. If anything, she needed the normalcy. She needed to be back inside the castle's walls when they weren't crumbling around her. She needed to find exactly who she was after the the war. It wasn't who Ron fell in love with, he told her in that blasted fit of anger that tore straight through her defenses. Those hadn't been built for him.
She told him to leave again then. That she wouldn't hold him back from what he wanted in life, and she'd still support him. She wished she could just bloody forget Harry breaking up their fight. In seven years, she'd never expected such an outburst from Ron. It was all about her sixth year, and the end of fifth. How she'd gotten drunk at a party and had too much fun.
Hermione apparated on the spot to The Leaky Cauldron, paying for a room until the first day of the term. If she could have, she'd have returned to her childhood home. In that lied the other problem: Wendell and Monica Wilkins still didn't remember their lone daughter.
The scarlet Hogwarts Express made her sigh in relief. Finally. A month inside The Leaky Cauldron would drive anyone crazy. There was only so much to discover in Diagon Alley, which led to her weaving her way through Knockturn and drinking herself halfway
to oblivion the night before. The bartender didn't like her in his bar, but charged her double and let her stay.
"Hermione!" Ginny enveloped her in a tight hug. "It's so good to see you." Hermione smiled despite the fact that the sun was about to split her head open. "The last month with Mum as the only girl in the house was unbearable." Mrs. Weasley sent her daughter a look as she looked over Harry and Ron. "Have you talked to anyone since you left?"
"No, I didn't feel like being friendly." She let go of the handle of her trunk. "I needed the time to myself, you know? After that fight with Ron, I was thinking too much."
"We saw you in The Daily Prophet stumbling out of Knockturn Alley, What were you thinking?" Ginny's eyes were sad. She could have owled her friend at any point. No doubt Mrs. Weasley would have rushed her daughter to apparate.
"I was thinking that even when they charge me double, the fire whiskey is still cheap." Ginny gave a short laugh.
"Have you spoken to Theo? Or Blaise and Pansy?" Hermione shook her head. "Do you have any idea how many letters they sent me?" She jabbed one finger into the other girl's chest. "Ron was throwing the biggest tantrum, I'll have you know."
"I'm aware. At some point all of them have shown up at my door. Ron was the worst."
"I didn't know he came looking for you."
"Oh, yes. First he groveled at my door and then when I didn't answer he called me a whore. And told me how none of this wouldn't have happened if I wasn't being a prude." Ginny clenched her fists at her side. "Don't. He's your brother."
"The fact that his last name is Weasley gives me even more of a right to beat him to a bloody pulp. I'll bet I can swing my trunk at him." Hermione laughs, the first genuine laugh in Godric knows how long.
"Don't, Ginny. It's not going to solve anything and I'm sure you've used violence since I've been gone."
"Malfoy looks awful." She gasps and Hermione whips her head around.
There on the platform he is standing with his mother, looking like she did when she stumbled out of the pub. Narcissa waves to her with a smile. She forces a smile, but waves back. "He looks how I feel." Hermione whispers.
"He went to trial, and at the end-I'm sure he's got a lot in common with you right now. Has he talked to you since he was released?" She shook her head. A half lie, she admonished. He hadn't reached out to her personally, rather they ran smack dab into each other in a pub last week and she fucking ran, mumbling a quick, "Fuck, I'm so sorry."
"I hope he's alright." She means it, but that's just something everyone says. Draco Malfoy clearly was not okay and seeing him in Knockturn proved as much. Mr. Weasley waved the girls over, but Hermione couldn't quite tear her eyes from Malfoy. He looked so much paler, and like sleep was eluding him just as well.
"It's good to see you." Arthur pulled her in for a hug. "Molly and I were worried when we saw that article." Ron didn't hide how he was staring.
"I'm sorry for worrying you both" She replied, wrapping her arms around him for a hug. "I'm feeling more like myself now that we're returning to Hogwarts."
"Time to go." Molly ushers them to the platform.
"Wait, I'm sorry." Hermione says as Narcissa waves for her to come to her. "I'll meet you on the train." She says to Ginny alone, who nods.
"Write us when you can, dear. We'd love to hear from you." Molly says. "Especially if you need anything." She nods, knowing Molly had worried as her own mother would have.
"I promise." She drags her trunk behind her quickly. The younger Malfoy glanced at her and then to his mother before boarding the train. "Mrs. Malfoy." She greets.
"Would you please call me Narcissa, Miss Granger. I'd like to distance myself from Lucius's infamy."
Hermione sucked in a breath. That was not what she expected. "I can do that, if you wouldn't mind calling me Hermione instead." She gave her a warm smile. "Have you been well?"
"Not particularly, but I'm grateful my son and I have been safe." She replies, her hands clasped in front of her. "I never properly thanked you for serving as a witness in his trial, Hermione."
"There's no need. I would have never left him. Not after, not after he saved my life. He didn't deserve to be thrown into Azkaban. Malfoy did what he had to in order to survive."
Narcissa smiled then, tucking a stray piece of hair behind Hermione's ear. "I know he didn't deserve to meet such a cruel punishment. Draco is punishing himself, as are you. He told me you were in a pub."
"I was." She admitted.
"He told me you ran away, and he thought you might have been afraid of him."
"Afraid of him?" Hermione echoed. "I would never be afraid of him. I haven't exactly been myself. I couldn't let him see me like that. I couldn't let anyone see me like that." She said quickly.
"That's what I told him, and I apologize for my presumptions. I rather wanted to hear you say it as well." Hermione nods. "If it comes up, please tell him you weren't scared of him. He will never admit this, but I'm certain he feels saving you from Lucius is the only thing he did right in that war."
"If it comes up, I promise." Hermione knew she would be the one to bring it up. "As fellow Heads', we can hardly avoid each other forever."
"Have a good term, Hermione."
"Have a good year, Narcissa." She says quietly. "Thank you for telling me." The blonde woman was already gone with a distinct crack.
Hermione boarded the train, dragging her trunk down the hallway to the Heads' compartment. She had passed the compartment that housed so many of her friends, and friend turned boyfriend turned ex boyfriend. Ron called her name, but the slamming of the door behind her answered that.
"Do you have to be so bloody loud?" Malfoy snapped. He was laying on his back on the bench. His legs were much too long. He'd drawn the curtains, immersing the room in the pitch black darkness.
"Still as infuriating as ever, aren't you, Malfoy?"
"Granger?"
"Obviously. Lumos." She laid her wand on the table, using the light to shove her trunk into the corner. She sat opposite of him. "Nox."
"Afraid of the dark, Granger?" He asked, and she just knew that same cocky smirk was plastered on his face. She remained silent. "What did she talk to you about?"
"I'm sure you'd prefer to not know." She replied. Fuck her Gryffindor bravery, she wasn't about to bring up something he probably regretted telling his mother. "It's nothing of importance, Malfoy."
"She mentioned the pub, didn't she?" He took her silence as an answer. "Look,"
She cut him off. He already knew, so might as well. As if he could be any worse than he had been in the past. "No, you look, I believe I gave you the wrong impression. I wasn't afraid of you, Malfoy. As someone nearly as intelligent as myself, you should know that. I didn't want you to see me so fucking broken."
He said nothing at first. She could hear the sound of his shallow breathing. She loathed admitting anything. It felt like her life was spilling out, on display for everyone. Poor Hermione Granger.
"What do you mean nearly as intelligent as you?" He asked. She laughed nervously, glad he'd decided to not respond to her truths.
"As I remember, you were always behind me in marks. Not the other way around. I know I've been gone for a year, but surely you haven't forgotten." She'd spent the summer drunk if she had to be in the dark. It reminded her of the moment the wind changed and the snatchers were coming. Right this second, she was grateful for it.
Her face would have given her way. The way her eyes still watered if she thought too much about things. Malfoy had seen her fall in the pub, and she wasn't about to slip up again. "That sounds like a challenge."
"I've always loved challenges." She replies. If only McGonagall hadn't confiscated that time turner. She would have doubled up on classes if only to distract herself.
"Go to sleep." He says. "Don't argue. I saw you on the platform. You've only just sobered up. Sleep until we need to get the first years ready." She doesn't argue. Hermione bundles her hoodie underneath her head as a pillow on the bench and lets the emptiness of sleep take hold.
She still had nightmares. They felt too real. It made her skin crawl as she returned to the moment where Bellatrix utters a sentence that makes her heart stop beating. "Leave the mudblood."
Greyback dragged her two closest confidantes into the Malfoy Dungeons, as Ron cried desperately, "Leave her! You can have me!" Bellatrix howled with laughter, a sound that would haunt her for rest of her miserable life, however long she would live now. It could be minutes. Perhaps hours, if Bellatrix was in need of a play thing.
If she were in need a bloody, helpless doll, Hermione found she would fit the bill. She tried not to fucking scream. She bit her lip until she drew blood, but she would not give her the satisfaction of breaking her. The privilege did not belong to a bloody person in the world. Hermione tried to think of anything else, but there aren't many ways to escape the sensation of our skin being carved into.
She cried harder than she thought possible and all the while Bellatrix laughed. As Hermione's head lolled to the side, she caught the sight of Draco. He looked as if he'd be sick. She saw him realize this was what the Death Eaters meant, that it was what being one of them meant and she saw how he was not on board with it at all.
She wasn't begging him for help, not really, just anyone. Begging for some kind of miracle.
Someone was shaking her shoulder, but she was locked in a nightmare, where Hogwarts was falling and Lucius Malfoy was on the verge of insanity. Someone was screaming, it sounded like her screaming in protest as someone-he, definitely a he-grabbed her and side apparated her into the ruins of the castle.
"Granger!" He jerked her suddenly, and found her wand poised at his throat. She hissed his last name with such venom, he almost staggered away. "Granger, wrong Malfoy. I'm never going to hurt you." Slowly she came into her sense and dropped her wand. He let her frail wrist drop from his hand.
His soft demeanor vanished, and she was content to pretend it never appeared. "Change into your robes, and then meet me at the front." The lights were back on, and he'd seen her tear streaked face. Returning home brought about as many nightmares as she was escaping she realized.
A/N: It's been so long!