A/N: In response to Mi High Lover's "Sincerely, Hermione Granger" Challenge. I was given the characters Dolores Ubridge, Harry Potter, Viktor Krum, Bill Weasley, and The Grey Lady and the challenge was to write a letter from Hermione, to the character(s), signing off with the words "Sincerely, Hermione Granger."

This is just a prologue of sorts, and the letters start after this :)

The war was over, and the living casualties remained. All days were difficult, but some were more so than others, seeming to stretch darkly into eternity. The "survivors"—both the "heroes" and those from the other side—all seemed to be characterised by a lacklustre enthusiasm for life. The worst of them—the trio in particular—were floating, uninhibited, through each day, clinging to whatever purpose they could find. Harry and Ron had become Aurors, unable to let go of their mission and to find a new one. With Hermione, they had initially aimed ruthlessly to restore the Ministry to some semblance of respectability, and with that accomplished they fell into a sort of routine. Go out, catch the bad guys, come home, get drunk, wake up, and do it all again.

Ginny, with her fiery temperament, seemed to be recovering the best. After completing her education, she'd thrown herself ruthlessly into Quidditch, and through it had begun to heal. Hermione watched gratefully as she dragged Harry along, however far behind her, strong in a way Hermione couldn't now be.

This brings us to the state of one Hermione Granger—a state that surprised much of the Wizarding World, who had expected her to bounce back easily, armed with her logic and her intelligence and her habit of researching anything she didn't understand. After the war she'd drifted, unable to process everything properly. She felt… less than whole, and it wasn't until months later that she had forced herself to return to Australia, unsure of whether she was really ready to face them yet. But she found, to her deep and enduring pain, that her parents were gone. Monica and Wendell Wilkins had died in a car crash about a month prior—the realisation that she could have saved them if she'd only managed to pull herself together faster…

"So you feel responsible for their deaths."

Hermione stared at this stranger before her, cursing Ginny for consigning her to this torture. "Yes."

"That must really hurt," the woman said sympathetically, calling tears to Hermione's eyes because Merlin, she was right. "I'd like for you to do something—a task of sorts. Are you willing to consider it?"

A sigh. "What is it?"

"I'd like for you to write some letters." Hermione opened her mouth to interrupt, but the woman went on anyway. "You never have to show them to anyone, you don't have to deliver them, you don't have to write eloquently. I just want you to write an honest letter to everyone to whom you have something to say, but are keeping inside, whether because you can't tell them, or because you don't want to tell them."

So here she was. At the Healer's suggestion she had bought herself some nice parchment, ink, and quills. She was settled before the fire of Grimmauld—Harry and Ron had a flat, so the place was uninhabited, save for Kreacher who came often to clean, and it had become sort of a haven for her when she needed solitude. Kreacher was operating on her request to let no one bother her—including himself—and so she was safely alone, without the risk of interruption. This precaution, she supposed, was to save her from worrying about someone walking in on her crying, thus allowing her to write uninhibited.

She took a deep breath, dipped her quill in the inkpot, and began to write.