She's pale, bloody and battered; smelling lightly of urine, vomit and God knows what else. She's not yet unconscious, but I can tell she wishes she were. She refuses to speak, not even to me, and everything I have to say is hitched in my throat. She's not the Hermione I know, she's frail and broken looking. Her clothes are torn in all the wrong places, and her skin is covered in welts and fine slits have been made along the same path.
"Ronald," says Fleur, walking towards us. "I will attend to 'er, she is not decent." I don't care, I don't care. "No," I say, and my voice cracks. "I'll do it." She doesn't press on, and it's quiet. I don't look up; I assume she's gone off with Harry. I pull off her sweater, gently as possible, and the smell of sweat and blood becomes overwhelming. I'm looking her over, and back up again. It's not Hermione, it's not, it's not. She's so fragile and wrecked and pale and lifeless.
I look her up and over again. There's blood. There's blood on her pants, there's blood, and it takes me all this time her pants are barely still on her. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck no. Her shirt's ripped up, in all the wrong places. Why did it take me this long to put it all together?
"Ron," she breathes, I barely catch it. The sick rises up in my throat, burning and burning. "Ron, you're crying," Her voice is so brittle and quiet; it could've easily been mixed up with the wind outside the window. I lean over slightly, the smell is still so overwhelming but it doesn't matter now. She's not well, Hermione's not okay. Hermione was always okay, always strong even when he couldn't be.
"Ron," she says my name again. She's clammy, her forehead sticky with sweat so her hair is sticking to her forehead. Her hair, that hair, matted with blood. Blood, everywhere. I can't think, I can't breathe. "It's okay," she says, even though it bloody well isn't, even though it can't be okay, it wouldn't make sense if it were.
"It's not," I finally manage; my voice is nothing but a croak. "Look what they – those monsters have done to you." Her breath is laced with sick. I'm going to puke, I'm going to puke.
"Help," she says faintly, and it's finally then I realize she wants to sit up. I'm about to shake my head when she feebly shushes me, telling me she needs to wash, she needs me to help.
It's sickeningly funny how maybe, just months ago, I could've found this thoroughly exciting, soaping up Hermione Granger. It's sickeningly funny how twisted everything becomes through time. I place an arm underneath her legs, and pick her up. She feels light and inelastic, like a twig that could be snapped under the most insubstantial amount of pressure.
I help slide her shirt off, along with her dirty jeans. She's sitting there before me on the edge of the tub, looking weak and scared, and I find myself feeling weak and scared. There are bruises and scratches everywhere, my eyes follow a trail in antipathy and she catches me. "He hurt me," she says quietly, as if she didn't want me to hear.
"Greyback." I need to puke, I need to puke. Hate swells up in my chest, but I haven't got any business, raging and storming around. Not when Hermione, my Hermione, is so rickety and afraid. "I wasn't there," I say simply, because it's the only thing I can focus on in my hysterics.
"You didn't have a choice." I come a little closer to her, and I use a wet cloth to wipe up the dirt and blood. Gentlegentlegentlebegentle. My hands are shaking, they won't stop shaking.
"Bella – Bellatrix threw me aside … then Greyback t-tou…" she began to cry, her shoulders heaving almost painfully. "I… I… h-hit him… and he b-beat me," she manages to get out through her sobs, looking at the blood smeared all over. God, I hate myself, I wasn't there, I didn't save her, I didn't do anything. I couldn't do anything.
"Hermione," I manage. Speaking is getting harder by the second.
"I'm dirty, Ron," she says, looking me in the eyes. Her eyes are red and puffy and her cheeks are scratched up, her hair is a tangled mess. She looks pitiful, almost, and I love her. "I'm damaged goods, I'm a Mudblood." She skates over the word excruciatingly, holding out her arm. M-U-D-B-L-O-O-D. I hate that word.
She turns her back to me. "You're not, Hermione," I say.
She doesn't answer me. She's cold and shaking. I'm shaking, but not from cold or trauma. It's because she's here right in front of me, but it's not the Hermione I know.
"Stop it, Hermione. Stop." It's a little forceful now, something I regret, but anything to tear her eyes away from that filthy word carved into her arm. But she turns around, and both of our eyes are stinging with tears. I pick her up again; she's in no condition to walk. She's in no condition for anything.
When I place her on the bed, I almost have to kneel for fear of dropping her too roughly. She looks like she could shatter at the slip of the finger. I'm about to stand when she says "Don't leave me tonight, please."
"I wouldn't, not for anything in the world." Because I am afraid, afraid for myself, and above all, you.