Hermione sat on the sofa next to Lucius, wondering how she was supposed to endure this. Spring had come. She tried to get out and enjoy it, but truth be told she was overwhelmed by everything that was going on. Some days were okay. She would go to work for a few hours and get things done and feel a little more relaxed. Other days were horrible. She would hardly be able to get out of bed. Some days she went out to run, and spoke to Ginny, and managed to read. Other days, she cried the whole day, wondering whether there would ever be an end to all this.

But no matter what kind of day it was, she had come to realize that from the moment those memories came back, something had changed within her. She was still the same person. She could still feel all the emotions from before. She had the same interests, the same personality, the same goals. But still. She was now Hermione Granger after the fact.

It wasn't just the panic attacks. Not just about handling the sheer weight of her anxiety, fear, sadness, anger... It was more as if her brain had been rewired. Whatever happened to her during the day or what people she met, it was as if her thoughts somehow had to take a detour into the trauma. Sometimes the memories. Sometimes the feelings attached to it. Maybe it would get better, maybe not. She didn't know.

And though she was the same person, she couldn't look at herself the same way. How could she? How could she even trust herself again, when she had withheld those memories from herself? It was impossible to put into words, but she just knew that things had changed inside her for good. She just needed figure out a way to accept that, and work with it.

She had good help from the therapist she had began to see at St Mungo's. She'd been there repeatedly to speak to an elderly witch who seemed to be kindness itself but had the ability to ask the most penetrating questions. They had talked about what had happened - the trauma itself - but also about her reactions to her memories, how to handle the panic, the dissociation, the exhaustion, when it crashed over her.

And they had talked about Lucius. About what it was like to have a severe anxiety attack with him present, but unable to help her. She hadn't liked to admit it, but a part of her felt betrayed that he didn't find it important enough to make him snap out of his trance. But once she had allowed herself to recognize that feeling and allowed herself to be angry with him, she had also been able to accept that while he wasn't exactly in a coma, he had as little power over his condition as if he had been.

She missed him. Hermione could watch him for hours, spying for evidence that something was going on inside of him, but beyond a rare twitch in his eye or clenching of his jaw, he remained unmoving. Oh, and he blinked now and then. But that was it. Night would come and things wouldn't change. Morning came, and he sat just as before.

There must have been some truth to what Luna had said about Lucius being in a kind of hibernation. It had been weeks now, and though she could tell that he had lost some weight and muscle, he wasn't dead and not even close to looking like the skeleton he should.

Each time she went out, Hermione charged Crookshanks to look after him. And she was fairly sure the cat took his mission seriously, because when she got home he would be sitting next to Lucius and then come running to her, proudly prancing about until she had petted him and offered him some extra food as a reward. If this continued for long, he was going to get too fat for his own good.

She knew that given the circumstances, Lucius was all right. But part of her mind – the part that wasn't busy just getting her through each day – was always at home with him. It had been weeks, and she kept waiting for him to wake up so that she could argue with him, or tease him into kissing her. Or at least feel his arms wrap around her. She wanted him to wake up so she could ask him what it was in his past that troubled him so much he couldn't handle the idea of his being changed for the better.

She just wanted him to wake up.

Draco was true to his word and stopped by regularly. Hermione didn't have much to talk to him about, since Lucius's condition didn't change and the other things that occupied her mind weren't really something she was comfortable discussing with him. Still, Draco had once or twice told her a story about what Lucius had been like as a father. A lot of it was rather depressing - it seemed Lucius had mostly been either physicallt or mentally absent, giving his son little chance of impressing his father, as he had always hoped to do. But sometimes, what Draco told her would make her laugh - like his retelling of their wild hunt for a peacock that had escaped and was, after weeks of searching, found strutting around in the botanical gardens of Gothenburg.

"What do you think he will be like when he comes back?" Draco once asked. "Do you think he'll change much? I mean, there's got to be a point to all of this thinking he's supposedly doing."

"I don't know", Hermione sighed. "I hope he'll be different – but the same."

Sometimes Draco would just come in and check everything was all right. He would ask it there was anything he could do to help, or complain about Tilly the house elf, who had taken it upon herself to serve him now that her proper master was sick. He had been forced to eat more busciuts than he would have thought possibe, and though she had cleaned his entire home at least ten times over, he would still find her in the most unlikely places. Organising his underwear according to colour, for example. While there was nothing wrong with that in itself, it was an inconvenience to never know when or where she'd show up.

Other days, he would sit and talk a little to Lucius in that awkward way one speaks to a sick relative who's supposed to be able to hear you but to whom you have no idea what to say. Still, Draco would tell him news about his mother, or the business, or of some of the family friends. Normally, it was nothing very personal, and he only sat a few minutes before he said goodbye.

But one day he seemed to be mulling something over in his mind. Hermione was seated by the dining table leafing through Witch Weekly and couldn't help but to listen in, figuring Draco would ask for privacy if he wanted it.

"Do you remember that time when we were travelling on the continent and I strayed into a muggle church?" Draco asked Lucius. "You and mother were talking to some people you knew, and I snuck out from the hotel. I didn't mean to go there specifically, but I thought the building looked funny and chanced to walk by right when a tour guide was telling a group of tourists about the place.

"They didn't seem to belong to the same religion, so the guide had to explain stuff. He told them about this person who was supposed to be the son of their God, and showed them the paintings and statues of him dying on a cross. I thought it seemed completely idiotic. This guy was said to have done things that were obviously the result of magic, and was supposed to be some sort of god, and still he was executed as a punishment for other people's crimes. I thought it was really stupid. I mean, what's the point of having a God at all if he was that weak? That's what you said as well, after you found me and dragged me home."

Draco frowned. His eyes were on Lucius, but he seemed lost in his thoughts.

"But after the war – I've thought a lot about that. At first, I guess I just identified with that bloke. He was the son of someone who was supposed to be really powerful, but that didn't help him, did it? He was still sacrificed. I wondered if he was as angry as I was. But then came the trials, and you and I were both acquitted of guilt, and set free to go on with our lives. And I couldn't handle that. Perhaps I didn't kill professor Dumbledore, but I still hurt people, and caused others to be hurt. Because of you, but also because of my own choices. But I wasn't punished, neither were you.

"That ate at me", Draco continued. "We were pardoned for no valid reason. Circumstances. But then, I thought about that son-of-God person and what they'd said about him. That he did it willingly, the dying and suffering. That he took the punishment of others. And I thought that maybe he took my punishment too. That that was why I was set free. And in a way, that felt really horrible because it should have been my burden. But at the same time, at least it means there is some kind of justice. At least there was a punishment. I think I needed that thought to move on. It's the only thing that helps me make some sense of everything."

Draco fell silent and remained seated by Lucius's side for several minutes. Then he roused himself, looking a little sheepish at having talked so much without Lucius as much as blinking.

"So –" he said self-consciously. "I was just thinking that while you're busy rearranging your thoughts, you might want to consider your prejudices with regard to religion as well."

Draco got up and nodded to Hermione without really looking her in the eye. "Call me if there's any change."

"Of course".

Another evening, Harry and Ginny came to see her. They came the muggle way this time, through the front door. They had both been to see her a few times, but she could tell they were still a little spooked out by his stillness. She couldn't blame then. She had mostly gotten used to it, but now and then she too would be struck anew with the shock of that first morning.

Hermione offered her friends some tea, and they sat down by the table where Lucius might see and hear them – if he could. After some small talk, Ginny nudged Harry, who cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Listen", he said, scratching his head. "I, uh, found something in the Ministry archives. About, you know, what happened to you. I promised Malfoy I'd tell him too, but I guess what's most important is that you find out, right?"

Hermione nodded slowly, and Harry handed her a file. It looked just like the ones she used at work, and seemed oddly crisp and new, as if it had barely been opened.

Hermione opened it, and found a couple of documents with official Ministry stamps on it. But she couldn't make sense of what they said. She recognized the signs of tunnel vision setting in and closed the file, trembling. Ginny moved over to sit next to her, rubbing her hand gently.

"What does it say?" Hermione asked, taking a deep steadying breath.

Harry adjusted his glasses uncomfortably. "The second time your uncle tried to – you know – you did use magic on him. Definitely wandless and probably unintentional. The Ministry was alerted through the trace on under age wizards and witches. Normally, they just send a letter like they did to me, but for some reason they sent a witch over to investigate. Perhaps they could see there was something special about the magic you used. Mrs Watts was there within half an hour.

"Your parents were still away, and your uncle was gone. You had hid yourself in a closet, huddled up in a corner and repeating the words 'Go away, go away'. She tried to analyze the magical remnants to find out what happened, but it was hard since you didn't use your wand. But together with what you were able to tell her, she concluded you hadn't meant to break the regulations and that it was only that guy that was exposed to it. And let's just say Mrs Watts wasn't very concerned with his well being at that point. They searched for him, hoping to determine whether further action needed to be taken and to make sure he couldn't expose our world, but they never found him."

"So nobody knows what happened to him? Or where he is now?" Hermione clarified, feeling a little nauseous. It was bad enough that she didn't know where he was, but for some reason it was even more unsettling that nobody knew.

"I'm really sorry, Mione," Harry said with a regretful grimace.

"What did the magic do to him? Did they ever find out?" she asked.

"Mrs Watts had a theory that the phrase 'Go away' was somehow key to it. The idea was that you somehow magically pushed him away and unwittingly forced him to get away from you. He would have been pushed away, from the house, probably from town and possibly as far as he could go."

She made him go away? There was some sense in that explanation.

"They also noticed that you began to push the memories away very quickly as well," Ginny broke in when Harry fell silent. "It's not uncommon for people, whether muggles or witches, to do the same thing, but usually it occurs when the victims are younger."

Harry nodded. "Mrs Watts was worried that the magic you used to push that man away also worked on your memories, allowing you to compartmentalize them and pretend it didn't happen. It may not have been only a matter of normal repression mechanisms, but magically enforced repression."

Hermione thought about that for a few moments. A trickle of fear ran through her almost before she could determine why. Slowly, she realised what this could mean.

"If that's true", she said, "if my magic pushed away both him and the memories, then perhaps –" She swallowed and forced herself to continue. "What if the fact that my memories are back means I have somehow broken the spell – or reversed it? What if he comes back too?"

At first, Hermione had been sure it was just her imagination. That feeling of being watched that had begun to creep up on her. After the conversation she'd had with Harry and Ginny it wouldn't be strange if her fear made her see and hear things. She was afraid of the past repeating itself – of being cornered by him again, defenceless and violated.

It was hard to keep that fear at bay, no matter how hard she tried to be rational about it. Still, she told herself it was nearly impossible for him to find her. First of all, she lived in a distinctly magical part of town that was unknown as well as inaccessible to muggles. Even if he was right outside her door, he would fancy himself in a completely different part of town, neither seeing her house or having any way of detecting her presence.

Secondly: when she wasn't at home, she was at work – at the Ministry which was even more heavily protected against muggle notice. Besides, he wouldn't even know there was such a place to look for! He didn't know about magic. Sure, she went out running now and then, and sometimes ventured into muggle areas – but that ominous feeling always seemed to creep up on her when she was close to home. That didn't make sense.

So she tried to stay rational. It was probably just her mind playing tricks on her. She had even tried the hominem revelio spell with no result. He wasn't there. But still, the feeling didn't go away. If anything, it was getting worse. Maybe it was just like the flashbacks – maybe it was another round of symptoms of PTSD?

So while she admitted to Harry that she was a little skittish, she was careful to tell him there wasn't actually anything to suggest that she was in danger. Still, he had called in a favour from one of the aurors, who had done a thorough examination of the area outside her house. It was clean. No sign of muggle presence.

But then she started getting messages.

At first, it was a mere nothing. A few stone pebbles placed irregularly on her doorstep. She had read about muggle burglars doing something similar when staking out houses to target, so she swept them away with her foot, hoping to deter whoever had put them there.

Then, it was a single red rose – beautiful in itself, but the stem had been broken. She trew it away, but couldn't ignore the idea that it had been a message for her.

Next – and worst – was a picture. A muggle photograph of herself as a child together with her uncle Ed. She was sitting on his lap, looking happy, while he stared into the camera with a bored expression. She burned it, and threw up, she couldn't remember in which order. That night she slept curled up on the little space available next to Lucius.

That was when she should have told Harry. And she was going to. Really.

But the thing was, that while every instinct she had begged her to do anything to keep away from the man threatening her, to do anything to protect herself, there was also a nagging and completely unreasonable voice inside her head that didn't want to hide. And while Hermione was generally all for taking the rational course of action, the two sides were at odds with each other. Because while she was terrified, she was also angry. Angry at what that man had done to her. Angry that Lucius was trapped in his own mind. Angry that she didn't know what was going to happen. Angry that she was so afraid she threw up every day and was so tense her shoulders and neck hurt constantly.

Hermione was angry that she felt so powerless. She wasn't a defenseless fourteen year old girl anymore. She was a warrior. She had magic. She had been through fear and torture. And compared to Voldemort and the Death Eaters, Ed was nothing.

She wasn't stupid, though. She knew she'd have to tell Harry. She had no idea when Ed would strike, only that he would, and she would need backup. But if she told Harry without a clear plan, she knew he was going to do everything he could to shield her from him. And she was too angry to let that happen. She didn't want to face Ed - but she did want to defeat him. So she was going to tell Harry. Just not yet.