Hermione cried, slumped on the floor lacking the energy or emotional strength to move, the photo face down beside her. She wondered some days if she would ever be alright again. After all the effort that had gone into staying alive, she sometimes wished she hadn't survived. If she'd died during the war, along with virtually everyone else she knew, then she wouldn't be left here to face the shattered remains of her life and her world. The dead were laid to rest, the living faced the task of picking up the pieces and somehow continuing. The fact that the bodies were lost, buried in the collapsed confines of Hogwarts, swallowed down leaving nothing but desolate Scottish scenery with no hint of what had happened prevented any true knowledge of how many people had died, no funerals or direct opportunities for grieving. Yet at the same time, it was neater. There was nothing left to deal with, no need to care for the dead. They were merely gone. Forever.

The same had happened at the Ministry, at every house or building that was held together with magic. Without magic, they'd all been consumed, wiped out of existence as if they'd never been there. If they'd never been there to start with, Hermione's life would have been easier. Magic had been amazing when she'd first received her Hogwarts letter, when she'd stepped off the train straight into a magical castle. She had thought it would solve everything, as long as she studied hard and learnt as much as she could. She had never thought that everything would fall to pieces and she'd be left with knowledge and qualifications that were ultimately useless. That after having been the star student all her life she would find herself an adult with no qualifications, no education to speak of, no future.

She looked once more at the photo, one of many that she'd strewn across the floor of the basic studio flat, and once more was overwhelmed with grief. It was one of the few remaining photographs of her with her parents. They weren't dead, unlike the majority of the people in the other photos on the floor, but to her they were as good as. What had seemed at the time to be a stroke of genius was now a decision she would have to live with for the rest of her life. Removing their memory of her and sending them to the other side of the planet had protected them for the duration of the worst of the war, had meant that they were safe and no one could use them against her as she fought. Now, with no magic left, there was no way for her to undo her spells and return their memories of her. Without magic there was nothing to offer as proof if she approached them, nothing but a mad girl making a wild claim. She'd lost her parents, forever. Her whole family, every single one of them, knew nothing of her existence. She had disappeared from their lives and their minds, by her own choice and now there was no way for her to return.

Minerva padded over to her, nuzzling her gently. Hermione stroked the tabby cat, a fresh wave of tears welling up. She had stopped thinking of the cat as Professor McGonagall and started calling her Minerva. It felt disrespectful yet the title hurt her. She had no idea if the woman she'd once known was still there. She didn't know which was better. It still grated with her, the way that Snape had so casually left her to be responsible for the cat. The way he'd coldly stated that hopefully she was just a cat and that any traces of the woman she had been had been extinguished, that had shocked Hermione to her core. Another proof that he had no human feelings. As she looked into the tabby cat's eyes, she accepted that she was starting to understand what he had meant, even if the harshness still jarred. Minerva was stuck as a cat, with no way to change back. Maybe being unaware that she had once been human would be kinder. Just as it was probably kinder for her parents to never know that they'd once had a daughter. Just as she wished she was ignorant of so many things. That she was just a normal muggle.

A flat was no place for a cat, she thought bitterly, still resentful of the way in which Snape and Ginevra had disappeared away to some house in the middle of the Lakes. She knew, logically, that it would have been impractical for them to take Minerva with them and more importantly she would have resented it had they tried. Maybe she'd forgive them one day. Maybe she'd never see them again. She didn't care anymore.

Of those left, she found Draco the easiest. She just pitied him. His hesitation had saved her life. By association, that had ensured Harry had survived too. And in a way, that had ensured that his friends and family had died instead, along with the ideology and world he'd been raised in. It was strange, in a way. Hermione wondered if it was connected to the privilege he'd been accustomed to, that meant that he had lacked the conviction to kill. Strange, given that it was the belief system that had permeated his entire life, yet it was Ginevra and Headmaster Snape who had proved to be far more effective executors. It was Ginevra, with her steely determination who had been a Death Eater to be feared, carrying out Snape's orders with an air of complete calm. Even now, Hermione couldn't face either of them, even knowing that they'd allegedly been on her side the whole time. Ginevra had been by Snape's side, who'd been on Harry's side. Hermione, to them, was just a person who's life was perfectly expendable. Harry had always told her they were on their side, but Hermione knew it wasn't that simple.

Harry had never been rational or capable of sound judgement when it came to Snape. He'd always let his emotions and assumptions take control. Initially this had taken the form of an obsessive hatred, which Hermione had struggled hard to contain and balance. When that had changed, still obsessive but no longer hateful Hermione had found it harder and harder to understand him. Snape had scared her just as he'd scared everyone the first time she'd seen him. It had been her first explicit understanding of magic, sitting in her first year Potions class as he spoke quietly, as the bats fluttered around them. Watching them crawl over his skin, clinging to his hair and clothes, had always revolted her somewhat. There was always a sense that it was in a way unnatural, so very far from her understanding of the way the world should be.

Hermione had been a wide-eyed, innocent girl when she first started Hogwarts, but she'd always done her best to believe the best of everyone. It felt now like she'd spent her whole life disagreeing with Harry over Snape. The first few years she had been determined to respect and think well of their teacher, once her trust and good opinion had disappeared it felt like Harry and her had changed in their stance on him. She had always thought her opinion was logical and well thought-out in comparison to his which seemed to come from a deep, twisted emotional reaction. Even more than Draco or even Voldemort, Snape had seemed to inspire an intense reaction from Harry.

Harry had disappeared, just gone away somewhere and she had no idea where that was. A part of her felt guilty for her part in that, for the way she had screamed at him that it was all his fault. A part of her was relieved, that she no longer had to face him and those feelings. That she had time to forgive him, so that she could apologise eventually. The logical part of her, buried deep, knew it wasn't really Harry's fault, even though he had been the instigator of so much. He had merely been the tool with which it ended. Voldemort and Dumbledore were the ones who had set it up, had started everything. No matter what the price, Hermione accepted that it had to end. Endless war destroyed everything eventually. Maybe there had been a better way, but what was done was done.

She would never stop loving Harry, she knew that. She'd loved him for too long. Given up too much for his sake. To stop now, to give up on their friendship would make all of the sacrifices of her life were worthless. But now a part of her hated him as well. Wished that he had died, so she could have mourned him and moved on. It would have been easier to forgive him then. If it had been a heroic work of fiction he would have died to save them all. But it wasn't, he lived and it felt sometimes like everyone else had died. Ron had been the glue that held them together so now that he, along with his entire family, was gone, Hermione and Harry had fallen apart and Hermione was falling to pieces. Disintegrating in the face of grief from which she could have no respite. She knew, technically, that Ginevra had survived. The sole living Weasley, but she no longer counted her as one. She hadn't for years now. She doubted if Ginevra considered herself to be a Weasley in anything but name, and even that was a name she rarely ever used.

But Draco, who she'd hated so much for so long, she could hold a conversation with. He still disgusted her to an extent, and she was still afraid of everything he had stood for, but she found comfort in talking to him. There was no need for games with him. They had been on opposing sides and now everything was over. Just as she was realising how much she had been brainwashed into an obedient soldier, he was facing that too. They were doing so from opposite points of view, but in a way that helped. When she lashed out about Dumbledore, the Order, any of those people she had known, there was no way in which Draco would defend them. Likewise, she felt no obligation to have anything nice to say about Voldemort and his Death Eaters. They both felt betrayed by Snape and Ginevra. Betrayed, angry and afraid. They both felt abandoned by Harry, who had ended everything and left them with nothing.

Maybe it was unfair of them to expect anything from Harry. It wasn't like there was anything he could do to change things. There was nothing he could do to ease Hermione's or Draco's pain. He was as powerless and human as they were. Reduced, brought firmly back down to Earth, normal. They were all so ordinary in their mundanity now. Muggles, just like she had believed herself to be as a child. A memory she barely remembered, overwritten with the glory of magic. And now magic had been carved out of her, torn away never to return. Draco would never understand what it was like to have been consumed by the magical world only to be spat back out, back into the dullness of the muggle world. To him everything was new, even if it was everything he had been raised to fear and despise. It was odd that his family had still had money stored away in muggle banks, and yet it was also in character for the Malfoys to have a financial safety net, just in case. She hated him but still used his money. All of hers had been consumed when Gringotts collapsed. Ridiculous, that the pureblood family had thought to split their finances but the muggleborn hadn't.

What did she know, she grieved to herself, stroking Minerva's head softly. She had had grand dreams of learning and understanding. Yet all she found herself to have truly learnt was the art of warfare. She knew how to deal with explosions, how to cover her face from shrapnel. Keep your eyes closed and your ears covered. Nothing could save you from a direct hit, but if you were far enough away you had a chance of survival. She'd learnt not to underestimate the amount of damage the noise of an explosion could cause. What kind of buildings were most likely to withstand the blast and what structures were safest for shelter had become second nature to her at an age she should have been innocently exploring what kind of woman she was growing into. How could this knowledge ever be useful again? She hoped that it never would. But there was a heartbreaking realisation that she had, unknowingly, been raised as a child soldier. That her teenage years and early adulthood had been devoted to survival and military tactics. To fighting a war that she now didn't understand. At the time it had all seemed so clear. Dumbledore had convinced her as he had convinced Harry. As he had convinced them all. But as time had worn on she had started to question why it had begun, why there was no hope for peace, why the word of magic she had been so enchanted with was determined to tear itself to pieces, to leave nothing but death.

She knew what it was that she was fighting against, that much was easy. Even now she regarded Voldemort as truly evil, just as she had when she'd first become aware of him as a child. She had resisted him, as he had wished to exterminate people like her. But to resist something, to fight against something was not the same as to fight for something. She fought against Voldemort. By association she had believed that that meant she fought for Dumbledore. Then she had believed she fought for Harry. The final battle she had fought for herself, against anyone who would do her harm. By then she had started to lose faith. The faith she'd had in Dumbledore's lofty ideals had been shattered by Harry, and her faith in Harry had been shattered by his resolve to end things by any means necessary. She had helped him, willingly but uncertain. The guilt haunted her every waking thought and lurked in the dark recesses of her nightmares. Some of the guilt was for not having helped enough, maybe had she fully committed the end result would have been better. Some of the guilt was for having helped at all, maybe had she refused or fought against Harry the outcome would have been better. But no matter what she thought there was nothing she could do but live with what had happened. She should probably be grateful that she was alive and well. She had survived, unlike most. She was unharmed compared to Draco or Luna. But so often she found the wish that she had died, that she was dead, drifting into her head as if thought by someone else.

As a child she'd listened to her mother's tapes of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds over and over again. She'd loved the whole concept album, though she'd never found the time to read the original book. She'd been too young then, and then her life had been consumed with war. The only reading she'd done for years had been about dark magic, defensive strategies and military tactics. Research for the most effective manner of defeating enemies. Effective methods of torture and obtaining reliable information. There had been no pleasure in books. Now there was time to read and lose herself in fantasy worlds as much as her heart desired, but she had no desire to do anything. Even reading was too much effort. There was a line from the album that she'd always thought to be so overdramatic, that as a child she'd never been able to comprehend how anyone could ever feel that way, but now it echoed through her consciousness on repeat. The survivors will envy the dead.

And now, now as the words repeated over and over in her mind she could understand. It would be easier to be dead. If she was dead it would all be over. But she was alive and there was nothing she could do but try to continue surviving even though her life had lost all meaning. And with every repetition, she remembered the way her mother would smile, the way they'd talk about books for hours when she was still young, the way that she'd never have that relationship back no matter what she did.

Minerva purred, utterly oblivious to the thoughts running through Hermione's head. It had been Minerva, the professor, the woman, who had taught Hermione a lot of battle techniques. From the first lessons in how to take evasive action, ducking and running, back in the first few years of her magical education, to the more advanced spells and strategies of her final years preparing to serve on the frontline. She had admired the woman. Now she fed her from a tin and emptied her litter tray.

"Why?" she asked hopelessly, neither expecting nor receiving an answer. Draco was the only one she could contact who might answer her, even if his answers were as grief-stricken and clueless as her own. For all that they were in reach, Hermione would not reach out to Ginevra and Snape for anything.

Ginevra had been a sweet child when Hermione first met her. Ron's little sister. Everyone had called her Ginny then. But sweet little Ginny had been abducted by Voldemort under his original name of Tom Riddle, and as he had promised, Hermione now knew that Ginny had died in the Chamber of Secrets. The girl who had returned had still used the name of Ginny for a while but she'd been changed, even if it took them far too long to notice it. Ginevra had claimed to be a spy, working against Voldemort with Snape. Gathering information and saving lives. Harry had accepted that, seemed to have known all along, had shown no objection. His trust had never been shaken. But if they had been saving lives and passing along information then shouldn't they have known what Harry was planning, and been able to save more people? That thought haunted her and she found it hard to forgive. At the very least one of them could have warned her of the outcome. She refused to believe everyone was ignorant of what would happen.

But more than anything she couldn't believe that they were unaware of what had happened to Luna, the girl who had been Ginny's friend. Hermione had naively believed that even Ginevra had cared for the odd girl, but no one would leave their friend locked away in a basement to be raped repeatedly without batting an eyelid. No one who had a heart. No one capable of empathy. Hermione hated visiting Luna in hospital, so in a way it was good how often she was restrained and barred from having outside visitors. Seeing the feeding tube made her feel sick and Luna had so far refused to speak a single word to her. The fact that Ginevra had chosen to disappear away into the countryside seemed to speak volumes about how little she really cared. Except for Snape, maybe. They seemed to care for each other in some twisted, dependant manner, if two people utterly bereft of human feelings could care. She hadn't believed the rumours about them when they'd first begun, as Ginevra had been so young then. They had all still believed her to be the same innocent Ginny, saved from the Chamber of Secrets. Now, however, she wondered if there wasn't some truth in them. Ginevra had definitely spent far too much time with Snape late at night even then, sneaking around, even before she was his Head Girl. A combination of the young Tom Riddle's lingering hold on her and Snape's constant seduction would explain why she had grown into such a cold and cruel woman.

In comparison, Hermione felt like on the inside she was still the same person she had always been. She hoped she was. She wasn't on the outside. She had recently shaved all of her hair off. She didn't quite know why, except that she had wanted to be new. To be someone different. Removing all her hair had felt within her limited power, seeing as she now had no power to speak of. As they camped out on the run from Voldemort, searching down his Horcruxes and killing his followers, she had kept her hair short from practicality. Now, she had no reason to care for it so she'd let it grow into a tangled mess.

It had felt good, sitting on the floor in the shower, the water washing away her tears as she let herself go numb. She had started with her feet and legs. She'd never shaved her feet before, but she had decided to shave fully and from the tip of her toes to the top of her head seemed the best way to do it. Her legs were simple, a body part she was familiar with shaving. She'd worked her way up, slowly removing every hair she could find. Her head had taken the longest. The only moment she'd hesitated in her steady, methodical shaving was when she came finally to her eyebrows. Removing them would be visible, in a way even more odd and visible than having shaved her head. But she felt committed to the act, as if it was vitally important that she finish. So they were carefully shaved off as well. They were only made of hair, they would grow back. Her eyelashes were the only hairs remaining when she dried herself off. Maybe once the stubble pricking and itching its way through her skin had regrown to proper hair she would be a new Hermione, able to cope and deal with her new life. Maybe this made her as mad as Luna.

She wondered how Draco would react when she next visited him. Would he insult her, would he laugh at her, or would he understand her. Maybe he wouldn't even notice, so wrapped up in his own suffering. Maybe she meant nothing to him, simply his sole, occasional visitor. Maybe once he was released from hospital he would disappear like Harry. She wondered if she cared. He could go be obnoxious far away from her. His face reminded her of too much. Maybe it would be better for her to stop visiting him, to start her life anew. But she didn't know where to start, so for now she was wasting hours of her life sitting by his bedside. It wasn't like she had much else that she did, except crying on her floor and talking to Minerva. Buying food and eating it. She rarely felt inspired to cook, and she didn't have much in the way of cooking utensils anyway. Harry's aunt and uncle had done their best to help her, giving her some basics to set up her new little home, but she hadn't been able to be grateful. It had been a kindness they didn't need to show her, but they had done it anyway. They had helped her with the flat too. She hadn't seen them since, hadn't contacted them, hadn't made any effort. She was barely alive, living off discounted sandwiches and cheap alcohol from the nearby supermarkets. Maybe she should visit Draco more, for lack of anything better to do. Maybe one day she would find the strength to start looking through the information Dudley had given her about adult education, which lay in a pile on the floor.

She wondered what normal, muggle children learnt. She had not thought it odd how much of the Hogwarts curriculum was dedicated to the art of war. How she had spent her teenage years learning how to fight and kill. Somehow it had crept in slowly as she grew up, the need to learn defence against an unknown, mysterious enemy. The Dark Arts and all who practised them were evil, that was a stated fact that she had been taught week in week out since she was eleven. It was in all the permitted textbooks of Hogwarts. Even in her first year they had had drills, where the alarms sounded and they took protective action, normally in the form of cowering face down, their protective hoods up, eyes closed and hands over their ears. Planned drills had only been occasional then, no more than once a month, but after that year they had increased in frequency. Plus they had had the real alarms, even if some of them turned out to be false. Dumbledore had started performing drills no longer planned and warned for in advance, where they would know it was coming and be prepared for the sirens in class. Then they would crouch, eyes and ears covered, under their desks as they waited for the all clear sign. But the drills without warning, where they had no way of knowing if they were drills or a real attack, those came at any time of day or night, and each time brought a deep fear and uncertainty. The alarm cut right to the bone, piercing her heart like shattered glass. She still heard it echoing in her dreams.

But she'd loved it anyway. Even now she longed for the simplicity of her life in the castle, always watched over by Dumbledore. They had all loved Hogwarts, even Voldemort in his strange, twisted way. He had defined himself by his love and hate for Hogwarts, staked his whole identity in opposition to Dumbledore. She had been heartbroken when muggleborns had been banned, no longer accepted as first years. Ironically, that decision had no doubt saved those children's lives though they wouldn't know it. She had no longer been a student but a solider then, heading off to fight in the never-ending war. Only it hadn't been never-ending, because it had ended. She'd served as as soldier for the cause only for a few years before everything had ended. She had been fighting for victory, for survival and for an ending. But she hadn't been fighting for the ending she got. Voldemort didn't win. Neither did Dumbledore. Not even Harry had won. No one won. Everyone lost.