Aftermath
She woke up in the middle of the night, panting, feeling the walls closing in on her, fists clenched, stomach churning, lungs failing, tears flowing.
Her eyes darted around to find herself alone in her bed. Safe as can be in her Hogwarts dormitory.
This wasn't an unusual thing for Hermione to experience. Her panic attacks at this point had become a reassuring comfort in a way, actually. It was a constant.
She rose to draw her curtains fully so no one in the dormitory would see her collapse. (They all had at some point or another. They never talked about it. To her face.)
Hermione had always suffered from anxiety. Mostly about exams. Things had changed.
In her dreams, she relived all of it. She felt acute pains in her wrist. All over her body. She saw Bellatrix Lestrange in every person she walked past. In every person she walked past, she feared it being hurled at her.
Mudblood.
She reacted to every noise, every bump in the night. Her instinct was to grab her wand and think of protection spells. She needed to remember them at a moment's notice. They needed her. They needed her to keep them alive. She needed to have a plan ready. If she didn't, their lives would be hanging on a thread and she was more aware of it than they were.
Another girl's sigh in her sleep sounded like movement in the forest. They had to run. They weren't safe. She wasn't safe. Dirty blood.
Hermione feared sleep and the uncertainty of the next morning. It had become a habit.
Even in a dorm full of teenage girls, she was still out in the unknown, still at war, still a Mudblood. An Undesirable.
But still she fought each drop of sweat that trickled down her forehead, every memory of the corpses lying in the Great Hall, every memory of every curse that had been flung at her body, lying tired and defiant.
Hermione was tired.
And that night, like every night, she drowned her thoughts by picking up more parchment or another book. Different tasks were at hand now.