Sometimes, Hermione still had nightmares. That was why she never liked sleeping alone- always with the light on or with Ron beside her, encasing her in his arms, making her feel ohsosafe. Of course, she knew she was being silly- light didn't stop Voldemort from killing all those innocent people, did it?
Still, she would scream awake, digging her nails into her own palm, bleeding slightly as she did so. It was always the same nightmares, and she hated feeling so so scared. The nightmares never had a pattern- it could occur two days in a row, and then only reappear like some ghost from the past a month later; she could be reading and then suddenly, dozing off, the nightmare would terrify her again. It didn't matter that Voldemort had died now, it didn't matter that her family- Ron and Hugo and Rose- were safe; somewhere in her subconscious she still was so so terrified.
It would start out harmless enough, these nightmares of hers- she'd be doing something perfectly ordinarily like going to the shops with Rose, and then suddenly something would pull her back, back back back all the way to this graveyard, where she was pinned by a statue's embrace.
A row of Death Eaters would line up, holding daggers with the tip dipped in poison, and they would come forward, one by one, to slash at her- her face, her body, her hands, it didn't matter. And the dreadful thing was, they would lift up their hoods and it wouldn't be Death Eaters anymore, it could be any one of her dead friends. "You killed me," Fred Weasley would say.
'You killed me," Remus Lupin would echo.
"You killed me," Alastor Moody would scream.
And the terrifying thing was, it was true. She knew in the end, if they hadn't fought it would have been worse, but somehow, her actions caused them, these wonderful, wonderful people to die. This fact was more excruciating than the poison that ran through her veins, swimming in her blood, stabbing, sharp pains racking her entire body. She would end up awake, her mouth open in a perfect 'O', devoid of any sound but silent terror, perspiration sticking to her like glue.
And that was why she loved fairytales. Once, when Ron was joking, he had whispered to her in the dead of the night, 'Do you want me to read you a fairytale?"
And she had agreed, of course, without realizing he had been joking.
Ron had then, bless him, hunted through their little library, taken down all the muggle and wizard fairytales, and memorized them by heart so he could play storyteller.
She awoke again now, her breathing laboured, and Ron shifted awake next to her. He opened those beautiful turquoise eyes of him then whispered to her,
"Once upon a timeā¦"
