Hello everyone. It's gonna be a real suffer for me, but I decided to write a text in English. It's not a translation this time, because it is harder than what I'm doing right now.

Be gentle and note that I'm not native. Just give me some reviews to tell me where I made most terrible mistakes. I will find beta reader some time, but now I have no head for this.

I promise I tried as hard as I could to write with no mistakes, but I know that you, professionals will see them.

Declaimer: I do not own anything from the books and movies about Harry Potter.

Rated M just in case, because it's gonna be a little dark. More specific warnings before every chapter.

Enjoy!

Deep Bruises of War

Prologue

She has been killing.

She's used The Curse, as she tended to call it, so many times, that she lost the count. Sometimes she felt like she has become The Curse herself.

The war is cruel, they say. War needs sacrifices. Fair enough, she thought. To win, everyone had to make a sacrifice, a holy communion with the gods and goddesses of war. She even started to think that it was a kind of dark art. Like painting but more intense, or writing but way more alive. That was the paradox of it all: the moment of killing made her feel more alive than ever. She felt like she was dancing or singing out loud. But it was far more than just responding to the music of life. It was like composing it deep in yourself and then blowing it into somebody's heart with a single flash of green light.

And a few minutes later, when all emotions collapsed into weeping ─ and they always did ─ she felt like she has been dying already. For a long time. From the first killing curse that she had cast.

It was cruel, the war. And yet it was also strangely beautiful. Intoxicating addictive and ripping her soul apart into small pieces.

Her parents were still in Australia and Hermione have decided already that she would leave them be. It was a hard decision, probably the worst moment in her life. But it was wise and just. They didn't have to see the wreck she had become. They didn't have to live her twisted life in the country still twisted by war. She wanted them safe and happy. And so they were, she checked out.

Harry was always too busy. Always visiting and meeting important people of the United Kingdom and all around the world. He travelled. And when he didn't do that important hero stuff he wanted to finally find some happiness with Ginny. So most of the time she was busy too: accompanying Harry when he met, visited and travelled and when they came back, she was planning the wedding.

Her former friend and first true love Ronald Weasley have been busy lately shagging her beloved girlfriend Lavender. They got together for the first time on their 6th year at Hogwarts and then quickly split up because Ron would think he could try and build a relationship with Hermione. She and Ron have been together for a year or so when she caught them in his bedroom at the Burrow, kissing fiercely, halfway undressed. She cried for some time, mostly because she couldn't figure out why Ron did what he did. And then she met them accidentally and she realised why. Hermione loved Ron, always respected him and by the years got to know him as anyone else did besides Harry. But what he truly needed was worship. And Hermione never worshipped him. She seldom felt such a filling to anyone. There was a time when she developed a girly crush on Lockheart. She worshipped him a childish stupid way. then she worshipped her professors. Not all but most of them to be honest. And then the war happened. And she worshipped no more. She had a hard filling in her chest that told her she wouldn't do it any more. Nevermore will she fell a deep admiration to a living person.

And Lavender Brown loved Ron. Liked him just the way he was. But most of all she worshipped him. That was how she finally got the boys heart for good.

So Hermione was alone and broken without her family or friends to seek help from. More distant colleagues avoided her in such an obvious way that she began to avoid them too. She didn't want to be a burden for anyone.

Harry has been protected by everyone during the war and final battle. Ron has been kept safe by his family. No one would bother himself to protect Hermione. Not that Harry didn't care. He loved Hermione in a way, as she loved him and Ginny. But when these two got together, she wasn't so important any more. The only thing that has been left to her was to make her best and survive. Hermione took it as a matter of honour.

So she hexed, cursed and hide as well as she could, as long as she lived. Until the end.

Snape looked at the mirror hanged over the stone wall of his bathroom in dungeons of Hogwart. He grimaced as his eyes settled for a while at a deep, terrible scar disfiguring his pale neck. A pink, ragged piece of meat, it was what he became after the last battle of the last war. He really hoped now it would be last, at least his last fight. He was tired to the bones, sleepless for most of his life. Now what he wanted was only to rest. Lay down and sleep for a thousand years.

He has finished his duty damn well. He didn't let The Boy die and didn't let him scratch his precious green-eyed soul by using the killing curse.

The memory of the last hour of the Battle of Hogwarts still hunted his dreams. Severus Snape has always been a tough man. The one not easily broken. He didn't fear death or pain. He was used to them as well as to horrors of war and torture. But the sensation of nearly dying and the scare that he may not manage to safe Potter wouldn't leave his mind.

He had been beaten by Nagini because The Dark Lord wanted to gain full control over the Black Wand. then the sorcerer left him to certain death and was gone to kill Harry. Snape, bleeding like a stuck pig, crawled after him. It was blind luck, that they were not far from him and when Voldemort cast the killing curse on Harry, Snape didn't wait and cast his too. That one hit the Dark Lord himself sending his life into oblivion. Then he blacked out.

Snape smirked. Before this war, he was already a wreck of a man. Now he was something even lesser than that. He had nothing, felt nothing, like if saving Lily's child made him finally peaceful. In the past, he had his pain and sorrow and unrequited love for women long gone. He was sad and angry, fearless and determined. Now that the sense of his life was gone, the duty has been fulfilled, he felt strangely and unbearably empty.

He overlooked his neck again.

He lost his voice completely. He would be mute for the rest of his life.